BREAKING: Trump Campaign's Repeated Contacts with Russian Intelligence Revealed

Trump looking (not terribly) presidential, while everyone else
apparently colludes with Russia? Or is he part of it?
Image from source, New York Times

When drip, drip, drip becomes "kerplunk, SPLASH!" Y'think?

[Excerpt]

Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election. . .

Read more at: New York Times

SNL: Vladimir Putin Addresses America, Kellyanne Conway, and More

I haven't posted a lot since the Trumpenfurher's inauspicious inauguration, but thought I'd better get these very funny Saturday Night Live posts up for Monday. More to say later. I'll be back!

Entire episode below, choice bits are the opening, the monologue,Conway! and Weekend Update.

Even More Evidence of Russia/Trump Collusion

I had no doubt that Paul Manafort was into some shady shit. Did you?
Image from source, NYT

What is it going to take for your average Republican to drop their allegiance to party, and start wondering if there might not be something to this?

[Excerpt]

Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said. . .

Read more at: New York Times

Alec Baldwin's "Donald Trump" Once Again Riles @RealDonaldTrump

Donald Trump is a lot of things, and may actually require the invention of several new negative adjectives (and other parts of speech). But one of his best/worst qualities is his thin-skinnedness. And also, naturally, his predictability, at least in his knee-jerk Twitter responses. In this case, he's having another freakout about Alec Baldwin's Saturday Night Live impression of him, and also in this case, the parody was SPOT ON.

.@NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017

The Resistance with Keith Olbermann Is There a Russian Coup Underway in America?

Keith Olbermann has been largely off of the radar since his most recent departure from ESPN. With a long list of high-profile and bridge-burning departures in his wake, Olbarmann is known for being "difficult to work with." But we don't have to work with him. We should listen to him. The following clip made enough of a splash to trend on Twitter this morning, so maybe more people are.

Russia Admits Continuing Contact with Trump Campaign

Nobody will read this post (or those like it), or watch this video who should. And if you could force them to, they'd play it off like it's no big deal. But if they were being honest, if we all were, we know the answer to Rachel Maddow's hypothetical "Storytime." If the Russians were meddling in the McCain/Palin campaigns affairs, meddling in the outcome of the election, and it was discovered that the Obama campaign was in cahoots? The outrage from the right (and from many other quarters) would be deafening.
 [Story continues below]




I'll go further than that. If the scenario had played out that way, Republicans would have done everything in their power, would have used every tool in their toolbox to prevent the inauguration of Obama. Failing that, they'd have spent the next weeks, months and years investigating the connection, making hay of it in the news, and probably at best attempting to impeach, and it's not too far fetched to imagine them looking toward charges of treason. Does anyone really doubt that? 

Everyone's hair should have been on fire over the near certain Russian involvement in Wikileaks' hacking and distribution of Clinton campaign emails. It was a bigger story than the gossip contained therein. And when the circumstantial ties to Russia and Trump operative Paul Mannafort (and others) are also known, a narrative isn't hard to form. This should have been the focus of the "October surprise."

Here's hoping that more people than Rachel Maddow are staying on top of this story. But as long as she is, maybe she'll have the same success she had getting the Chris Christie Bridgegate story into the mainstream.

Right Wing World's Puzzling Love Affair with Vladimir Putin

We should have known when the Republican Party was willingly branded "Red" America, as opposed to the Democrats' "Blue." You could argue that this was an accident, a happenstance of how the networks colored electoral maps on television. But that would be ignoring that the colors changed from year to year, and network to network, before sticking on our current red/blue dichotomy.

So, the GOP has taken the red identity, something that used to mean communist pinko. But it's starting to make sense with the right's new found love for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ol' Vlad seems to be their guy these days, trying to embarrass President Obama, playing hardball with gay people. He's the rising conservative superstar. I wouldn't be surprised if he endorses a GOP presidential candidate in 2016.
 

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