Introducing The Great Russia Caper. There’s no way for Americans to really appreciate what the Russia story means without going back to the domestic spying programs first exposed in the mid-seventies.
Just shared Untitled Gate with a fund manager whose job is to analyze trends, especially social trends that effect the market. Looking forward to his reaction. My reaction is that Taibbi's writing is clean, on point and incisive. Regardless of one's position on these issues , Matt's analysis has to be addressed by any historian who reviews these issues. Kudos Matt.
Regular people are waking up! At our family Christmas gathering this year my boomer dad exclaimed how he didn't trust the news anymore as each outlet gave wildly different interpretations of events, depending on the owner's political bias. I gave him some good alternative sources and he was really interested in reading your book, Hate Inc. - he even wrote the name down so he could remember buy it later. Slowly but surely the cable outlets are being hoist on their own petard, helped along by truth tellers such as yourself. Looking forward to the new year when, hopefully, these self-appointed gatekeepers will be thrust aside in the search for the truth and nothing but the truth.
Looking forward to this. From a marketing perspective I never understood how Russia could interfere in our elections through social media in a meaningful way. I still don't.
They can't, really. If their biggest attack was placing stupid re-post-bait like "Click like = 1 prayer; Share =5 prayers!!" BS, then it failed.
Honestly... they are the boogeyman the intel goons want everyone fixate don as they continue their global imperial masters' work removing governments they don't like... including our own.
Thank you for all your work and effort. I enjoy and am informed by your writing, and entertained by your writing style. You are appreciated! Wishing you all the best in 2020.
Just had a couple stay, one worked for Google, one for Amazon, as they left I asked if they had heard of Matt Taibbi... blank looks... I wrote your name down and said "Read"... I helping as best as I can; Happy New Year !!
Looking forward to your new series. To finally hear from someone from the other side of the issue in a rational, calm, and honest way is long overdue.
Taibbi wrote: "The idea of a Deep State plot to undermine Donald Trump is popular in Republican circles, but all this lunacy at least somewhat undermines that analysis."
How does the behavior of Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Strozk, Lisa Page, Rosenstein, etc., undermine the "idea" of a plot, a conspiracy, to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump, no matter what label is used? Instead, Taibbi chalks it up "...element[s] of sincere, if misguided or insane, belief.." that Trump was a Russian asset. That's quite a benefit of the doubt.
The Iraq war, according to Taibbi, was about oil, not WMD, not that Hussein was sponsoring PLO terrorism, not that the Sunni minority was persecuting the Shite majority, and certainly not that Bush really believed he could re-make the middle east if only Iraq was turned into a western-style Democracy.
So, Taibbi gives those who despise Trump the benefit of the doubt that their hearts were in the right place, but, then takes the most cynical view towards the disaster in Iraq.
There is so much wrong with these positions That ZI wonder if you've read the full series by Matt. Or read anything but MSM blather in the last 20 years. A few points-Russia-gate appears more of an IC action, not some vast bureaucracy-wide conspiracy to which you appear to allude. Certainly there is no proof of such a "deep state", unless you limit the appellation soley to the IC. Except that it is not the full Intelligence Community, but appears to be just a few perhaps Democrat inclined knobs like Brennan and Clapper. That some Progressive might assuage his grief with the notion that they were correct in hating Trump really does nothing to blunt Taibbi's point. 2- The Iraq frigging war was about Democracy Now? I'll not respond. My head will explode.
Sean, the last thing I want to do is argue, especially on the last night of the year/ decade. So, let's stick to the facts without resorting to "conspiracy theories" and such. I assume you know as much as me, but, perhaps you give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt that is not given to President Trump.
Anyway, the facts of the issue cannot be refuted. And, based on information available in the public sphere, the most likely conclusion a thoughtful person can arrive at is there was/ is a concerted effort, at the highest level of the FBI, CIA, DNI, State Department, various leftist journalists/ news organizations, the vast bureaucracy, and the Obama White House, to prevent Donald Trump from winning the November 2016. When that smear didn't work and Donald Trump became President Elect Trump, and then President Trump, the scheming cabal went into high gear
We learned the cabal was/ is bipartisan when it was discovered that the late and former Senator from Arizona, John McCain (R-AZ) played a role in the scandal by delivering the fake dossier to the FBI/ DOJ in December 2016.
You ignore evidence that doesn't support your narrative. The stories in the dossier were known to be crap as soon as January 2017 when the FBI interviewed Steele's primary source, who debunked what Steele included in his opposition research (dossier) report.
Remember it was the Hillary for President campaign and the DNC that paid Steele, a former intelligence agent from a "friendly" foreign government, for opposition research. Without alerting the FISA court that the data used in the FISA application came from a sketchy source, who who hated Trump, and, was being paid to dig up dirt by Trump's political opponents.
We have thousands of text messages between Peter Strozk and Lisa Page who were high-ranking members of the FBI and DOJ, respectively, both vehemently anti-Trump, and provided an outline of the scheme during their tenure. Peter Strozk played a primary role in the fake Clinton email investigation, you know the one, where James Comey wrote the exoneration letter months before Hillary Clinton and her primary aides were even interviewed: Clinton was never put under oath, the so-called interview wasn't electronically recorded, nor were notes made available. Plus, her aides received highly unusual immunity deals from the DOJ.
Within minutes of President Trump's (first inauguration) in January 2017, that was boycotted by several members of the House of Representatives, count-downs to impeachment were announced by partisan members of the press and members of the Democratic Party.
Sean, those aren't my positions, they are facts based on what's available in the public sphere. It doesn't matter that you reject the existence of the "deep state," that's just a label used to describe the cabal behind the events we're discussing now. The fact the story continues to attract vast amounts of attention by the public, the media and forms the foundation for the Democratic led House of Representatives, this entire episode is best described as the biggest political conspiracy American history.
The end of the decade is near - Let's Resolve to Put Truth Before Lies, Country Before Party, and Facts Before Narrative. Have a Happy New Year!
Sam- I don't disagree with much of what you say, but it is necessary to distinguish between facts, inferences, suppositions and flat out crazy talk. What is lacking in your analysis is a smoking gun. While I tend to agree with your conclusions, I think Matt is held to a higher standard as a journalist. No smoking gun requires he make no claims that can't be substantiated.
He raises a further interesting point when he notes the lunacy surrounding the actions of the accusers. If this is a DEEP STATE conspiracy, then rest assured it will come to light because these clowns are dopes. I suspect Matt is onto something when he infers that there were some bad actors and then a larger group of incompetent wannabees who gleefully jumped at the chance to beat up on Trump who's capacity as a politician they woefully misjudged.
Truly we're arguing over the placement of tableware. Whether it's a broad DEEP STATE attempt at a coup or a more finely directed, less complicated Intelligence Community effort, the result is a damning indictment of this so-called Democratic state we live in.
Sean - I didn't look at that way at all and it makes perfect sense. Thank you for the response - I hope the New Year brings you peace, prosperity, and good health my friend.
The FBI conspiracy to keep Trump from the presidency. Did that include announcing to all the major news media about 2 weeks before the election that Clinton was under further investigation?
Hillary Clinton used a clandestine email server to conduct official State Department business, which often requires transmitting, receiving, and forwarding of classified information.
The law requires members of the President's cabinet to save and secure communications and other records to satisfy FOIA requests and for future historians. All of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails were under subpoena.
The presence of the server wasn't known for several years when FOIA requests pertaining to the 9/11/2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans including an ambassador were finally answered by the State Department.
Furthermore, rather than turning over the entire contents of her illegal server to the State Department Hillary Clinton deleted over 33,000 subpoenaed emails and then destroyed the servers and other devices used by her and members of her staff.
James Comey, the disgraced former FBI Director exonerated Hillary Clinton months before she was even interviewed by the FBI. The interview wasn't recorded, Hillary Clinton wasn't put under oath, and her staff received immunity from prosecution - James Comey let Hillary Clinton off the hook because he, and everyone else, thought Hillary would win. Boy, were they wrong.
James Comey HAD to reopen the investigation because thousands of State Department emails were found on the laptop of a convicted pedophile who happened to be married to one of Clinton's most trusted aids.
But the FI regs said he wasn't to file a press release about it 2 weeks before the election and by the way nothing you claim here turned out to be true.
Dipshit... all of what Sam just said was true. Worst of all the pedophile Weiner. I suppose you just are unwilling to see that your saviors are drunk on power and completely insane.
They'll start a war with Russia and start rounding up dissidents for the gulags soon enough.
Maybe even spark a civil war that they can use to justify stripping the few remaing rights we have left and again... rounding people up like cattle and the butchery will begin.
I wouldn't put it past the lot of them. They're ruthless and cruel; that much we know. That they have half the population eating out of their greasy palms is known, but I don't really believe that enough people will suddenly "wake up" from this insane fever-dream in time to stop it.
Can't say I could believe that any of the people I've known over the years in any branches of the armed services would support anything but the actual constitution, but hey, here we are... on the verge of losing the only real freedom that serfs have ever truly known on this human timeline.
Well.. there's piracy. That's always a viable option, no matter who is in charge.
Happy Gregorian Turn of the Obligatory Year, everyone. Bahaha
Matt: I'm very intrigue with this story and how it fits into the history for powerful nations/elites to both protect itself and pass that power to the next generations of elites in those nations. Also, I would recommend the working title to NOT be similar to the 'Great Muppet Caper' (silly and fun humor) and maybe find itself leaning towards 'From Russia with Love' (spy narrative).
I have read this article twice and I must confess that I am disappointed in Matt for the first time. The key takeaways appear to be (1) the investigations into trump were a comedy of errors, (2) there was no deep state plot just a few bad apples (3) we can trace all these bad activities of our intelligence agencies to dick cheney and (4) remember the iraq war was about oil. There is almost a willful blindness to assign any blame to the obama administration or, heaven forbid, obama himself - despite the fact the page/strzok text messages implicate him as do the public comments of brennan and clapper. I wonder if Matt's use of the word 'progressive' is instructive here. Saint obama just simply can't be a bad guy to most progressives I know. In all of the coverage of this story there is a lack of curiosity about what did he know and when did he know it. I have found Matt's previous articles to be quite good and a welcome change from most of the nonsense in the left of center press. I would encourage everyone to read the conservative tree house site. The details provided there paint a much stronger picture of deliberate mendacity and not a comedy of errors.
Matt, are you going to consider the Browder hoax - its use of the Magnitsky affair to amplify the anti Russia policies - in your Great Russia Caper? @NakedHedgie ?
Matt is on to something important here, the comedic element. It would be an outrageously funny comedy if it weren't so serious, but it seems it is best understood as 'conspiracy' by a gang which can't shoot straight. To those who have written comments about how "there's no smoking gun", that's right in the sense that nobody intentionally pulled a trigger. But the GroupThink of not just the IC, but the Blob in general, including the Media convinced themselves of the Russian conspiracy, and so, like a bunch of clowns arriving at the scene of a supposed fire, throw buckets of confetti, a few firecrackers, and whatever else, real fire breaks out, the spectators stampede...
Without a real 'enemy' in the post-cold war era, enemies had to be invented. With Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden gone, it had to be the Russians. (It couldn't be the Chinese, because they are commercial partners with the Blob.) It's not 'intentional' in the sense that there is some Leader giving the orders, but it is very Orwellian.
Just shared Untitled Gate with a fund manager whose job is to analyze trends, especially social trends that effect the market. Looking forward to his reaction. My reaction is that Taibbi's writing is clean, on point and incisive. Regardless of one's position on these issues , Matt's analysis has to be addressed by any historian who reviews these issues. Kudos Matt.
Regular people are waking up! At our family Christmas gathering this year my boomer dad exclaimed how he didn't trust the news anymore as each outlet gave wildly different interpretations of events, depending on the owner's political bias. I gave him some good alternative sources and he was really interested in reading your book, Hate Inc. - he even wrote the name down so he could remember buy it later. Slowly but surely the cable outlets are being hoist on their own petard, helped along by truth tellers such as yourself. Looking forward to the new year when, hopefully, these self-appointed gatekeepers will be thrust aside in the search for the truth and nothing but the truth.
Looking forward to this. From a marketing perspective I never understood how Russia could interfere in our elections through social media in a meaningful way. I still don't.
They can't, really. If their biggest attack was placing stupid re-post-bait like "Click like = 1 prayer; Share =5 prayers!!" BS, then it failed.
Honestly... they are the boogeyman the intel goons want everyone fixate don as they continue their global imperial masters' work removing governments they don't like... including our own.
Thank you for all your work and effort. I enjoy and am informed by your writing, and entertained by your writing style. You are appreciated! Wishing you all the best in 2020.
Just had a couple stay, one worked for Google, one for Amazon, as they left I asked if they had heard of Matt Taibbi... blank looks... I wrote your name down and said "Read"... I helping as best as I can; Happy New Year !!
Just had a note from the girl and she said" just read a Matt Taibbi article, he's pretty good", ... ding ding, we have a winner!!! Yay
Looking forward to your new series. To finally hear from someone from the other side of the issue in a rational, calm, and honest way is long overdue.
Taibbi wrote: "The idea of a Deep State plot to undermine Donald Trump is popular in Republican circles, but all this lunacy at least somewhat undermines that analysis."
How does the behavior of Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Strozk, Lisa Page, Rosenstein, etc., undermine the "idea" of a plot, a conspiracy, to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump, no matter what label is used? Instead, Taibbi chalks it up "...element[s] of sincere, if misguided or insane, belief.." that Trump was a Russian asset. That's quite a benefit of the doubt.
The Iraq war, according to Taibbi, was about oil, not WMD, not that Hussein was sponsoring PLO terrorism, not that the Sunni minority was persecuting the Shite majority, and certainly not that Bush really believed he could re-make the middle east if only Iraq was turned into a western-style Democracy.
So, Taibbi gives those who despise Trump the benefit of the doubt that their hearts were in the right place, but, then takes the most cynical view towards the disaster in Iraq.
There is so much wrong with these positions That ZI wonder if you've read the full series by Matt. Or read anything but MSM blather in the last 20 years. A few points-Russia-gate appears more of an IC action, not some vast bureaucracy-wide conspiracy to which you appear to allude. Certainly there is no proof of such a "deep state", unless you limit the appellation soley to the IC. Except that it is not the full Intelligence Community, but appears to be just a few perhaps Democrat inclined knobs like Brennan and Clapper. That some Progressive might assuage his grief with the notion that they were correct in hating Trump really does nothing to blunt Taibbi's point. 2- The Iraq frigging war was about Democracy Now? I'll not respond. My head will explode.
Sean, the last thing I want to do is argue, especially on the last night of the year/ decade. So, let's stick to the facts without resorting to "conspiracy theories" and such. I assume you know as much as me, but, perhaps you give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt that is not given to President Trump.
Anyway, the facts of the issue cannot be refuted. And, based on information available in the public sphere, the most likely conclusion a thoughtful person can arrive at is there was/ is a concerted effort, at the highest level of the FBI, CIA, DNI, State Department, various leftist journalists/ news organizations, the vast bureaucracy, and the Obama White House, to prevent Donald Trump from winning the November 2016. When that smear didn't work and Donald Trump became President Elect Trump, and then President Trump, the scheming cabal went into high gear
We learned the cabal was/ is bipartisan when it was discovered that the late and former Senator from Arizona, John McCain (R-AZ) played a role in the scandal by delivering the fake dossier to the FBI/ DOJ in December 2016.
You ignore evidence that doesn't support your narrative. The stories in the dossier were known to be crap as soon as January 2017 when the FBI interviewed Steele's primary source, who debunked what Steele included in his opposition research (dossier) report.
Remember it was the Hillary for President campaign and the DNC that paid Steele, a former intelligence agent from a "friendly" foreign government, for opposition research. Without alerting the FISA court that the data used in the FISA application came from a sketchy source, who who hated Trump, and, was being paid to dig up dirt by Trump's political opponents.
We have thousands of text messages between Peter Strozk and Lisa Page who were high-ranking members of the FBI and DOJ, respectively, both vehemently anti-Trump, and provided an outline of the scheme during their tenure. Peter Strozk played a primary role in the fake Clinton email investigation, you know the one, where James Comey wrote the exoneration letter months before Hillary Clinton and her primary aides were even interviewed: Clinton was never put under oath, the so-called interview wasn't electronically recorded, nor were notes made available. Plus, her aides received highly unusual immunity deals from the DOJ.
Within minutes of President Trump's (first inauguration) in January 2017, that was boycotted by several members of the House of Representatives, count-downs to impeachment were announced by partisan members of the press and members of the Democratic Party.
Sean, those aren't my positions, they are facts based on what's available in the public sphere. It doesn't matter that you reject the existence of the "deep state," that's just a label used to describe the cabal behind the events we're discussing now. The fact the story continues to attract vast amounts of attention by the public, the media and forms the foundation for the Democratic led House of Representatives, this entire episode is best described as the biggest political conspiracy American history.
The end of the decade is near - Let's Resolve to Put Truth Before Lies, Country Before Party, and Facts Before Narrative. Have a Happy New Year!
Sam- I don't disagree with much of what you say, but it is necessary to distinguish between facts, inferences, suppositions and flat out crazy talk. What is lacking in your analysis is a smoking gun. While I tend to agree with your conclusions, I think Matt is held to a higher standard as a journalist. No smoking gun requires he make no claims that can't be substantiated.
He raises a further interesting point when he notes the lunacy surrounding the actions of the accusers. If this is a DEEP STATE conspiracy, then rest assured it will come to light because these clowns are dopes. I suspect Matt is onto something when he infers that there were some bad actors and then a larger group of incompetent wannabees who gleefully jumped at the chance to beat up on Trump who's capacity as a politician they woefully misjudged.
Truly we're arguing over the placement of tableware. Whether it's a broad DEEP STATE attempt at a coup or a more finely directed, less complicated Intelligence Community effort, the result is a damning indictment of this so-called Democratic state we live in.
Happy New Year my friend.
Sean - I didn't look at that way at all and it makes perfect sense. Thank you for the response - I hope the New Year brings you peace, prosperity, and good health my friend.
The FBI conspiracy to keep Trump from the presidency. Did that include announcing to all the major news media about 2 weeks before the election that Clinton was under further investigation?
Hillary Clinton used a clandestine email server to conduct official State Department business, which often requires transmitting, receiving, and forwarding of classified information.
The law requires members of the President's cabinet to save and secure communications and other records to satisfy FOIA requests and for future historians. All of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails were under subpoena.
The presence of the server wasn't known for several years when FOIA requests pertaining to the 9/11/2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans including an ambassador were finally answered by the State Department.
Furthermore, rather than turning over the entire contents of her illegal server to the State Department Hillary Clinton deleted over 33,000 subpoenaed emails and then destroyed the servers and other devices used by her and members of her staff.
James Comey, the disgraced former FBI Director exonerated Hillary Clinton months before she was even interviewed by the FBI. The interview wasn't recorded, Hillary Clinton wasn't put under oath, and her staff received immunity from prosecution - James Comey let Hillary Clinton off the hook because he, and everyone else, thought Hillary would win. Boy, were they wrong.
James Comey HAD to reopen the investigation because thousands of State Department emails were found on the laptop of a convicted pedophile who happened to be married to one of Clinton's most trusted aids.
Hillary Clinton is lucky she's not in prison.
But the FI regs said he wasn't to file a press release about it 2 weeks before the election and by the way nothing you claim here turned out to be true.
Dipshit... all of what Sam just said was true. Worst of all the pedophile Weiner. I suppose you just are unwilling to see that your saviors are drunk on power and completely insane.
Yours is a much welcomed voice of reason amid the madness.
They'll start a war with Russia and start rounding up dissidents for the gulags soon enough.
Maybe even spark a civil war that they can use to justify stripping the few remaing rights we have left and again... rounding people up like cattle and the butchery will begin.
I wouldn't put it past the lot of them. They're ruthless and cruel; that much we know. That they have half the population eating out of their greasy palms is known, but I don't really believe that enough people will suddenly "wake up" from this insane fever-dream in time to stop it.
Can't say I could believe that any of the people I've known over the years in any branches of the armed services would support anything but the actual constitution, but hey, here we are... on the verge of losing the only real freedom that serfs have ever truly known on this human timeline.
Well.. there's piracy. That's always a viable option, no matter who is in charge.
Happy Gregorian Turn of the Obligatory Year, everyone. Bahaha
I am so looking forward to what you will uncover, write about, in 2020. Best wishes for a productive new year!
Just subscribed. Psyched for a new year of being a little more informed!
Matt: I'm very intrigue with this story and how it fits into the history for powerful nations/elites to both protect itself and pass that power to the next generations of elites in those nations. Also, I would recommend the working title to NOT be similar to the 'Great Muppet Caper' (silly and fun humor) and maybe find itself leaning towards 'From Russia with Love' (spy narrative).
I have read this article twice and I must confess that I am disappointed in Matt for the first time. The key takeaways appear to be (1) the investigations into trump were a comedy of errors, (2) there was no deep state plot just a few bad apples (3) we can trace all these bad activities of our intelligence agencies to dick cheney and (4) remember the iraq war was about oil. There is almost a willful blindness to assign any blame to the obama administration or, heaven forbid, obama himself - despite the fact the page/strzok text messages implicate him as do the public comments of brennan and clapper. I wonder if Matt's use of the word 'progressive' is instructive here. Saint obama just simply can't be a bad guy to most progressives I know. In all of the coverage of this story there is a lack of curiosity about what did he know and when did he know it. I have found Matt's previous articles to be quite good and a welcome change from most of the nonsense in the left of center press. I would encourage everyone to read the conservative tree house site. The details provided there paint a much stronger picture of deliberate mendacity and not a comedy of errors.
my guess is that mr. taibbi can criticize president obama.
Matt, are you going to consider the Browder hoax - its use of the Magnitsky affair to amplify the anti Russia policies - in your Great Russia Caper? @NakedHedgie ?
Keep writing great stuff in 2020!
Matt is on to something important here, the comedic element. It would be an outrageously funny comedy if it weren't so serious, but it seems it is best understood as 'conspiracy' by a gang which can't shoot straight. To those who have written comments about how "there's no smoking gun", that's right in the sense that nobody intentionally pulled a trigger. But the GroupThink of not just the IC, but the Blob in general, including the Media convinced themselves of the Russian conspiracy, and so, like a bunch of clowns arriving at the scene of a supposed fire, throw buckets of confetti, a few firecrackers, and whatever else, real fire breaks out, the spectators stampede...
Without a real 'enemy' in the post-cold war era, enemies had to be invented. With Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden gone, it had to be the Russians. (It couldn't be the Chinese, because they are commercial partners with the Blob.) It's not 'intentional' in the sense that there is some Leader giving the orders, but it is very Orwellian.
Looking forward to it!
Thanks so much for your work. The public seems to have such limited sources for real journalism these days. Looking forward to The Great Russia Caper