The Digger

I've been hanging out on Twitter a bit where the narcissist Joshua Frank, co-editor at Counterpunch, has been sounding off quasi-centrist fumes while Russiavapping. Link:   To Celebrate or to Not? The Mueller Question Finally, it’s over. Well, sort of, anyway. Late Sunday afternoon, Attorney General Bill Barr released his much-anticipated  summary  of Bob Mueller’s Russia investigation. The big news, of course, was that nobody in Trump’s orbit “knowingly” coordinated with Russian efforts to disrupt the 2016 election. Trump won’t be charged with obstruction of justice and not a single American was indicted for conspiracy. To the delight of Russiagate skeptics, it was a complete vindication. To the dismay of the liberal establishment and MSDNC — who all cashed in on the chaos — it was an enormous letdown. Much of the celebration, however, took on a twisted form. Matt Taibbi was the most contorted, writing in a  column  that, “WMD was a pimple compared t...

Link:   Mueller’s Investigation is Missing One Thing: A Crime | The American Conservative Excerpt: "A baby born when Robert Mueller started his investigation would be talking by now. But would she have anything to say? We last looked at what Mueller had publicly—and what he didn’t have—some 10 months ago, and I remained skeptical that the Trump campaign had in any way colluded with Russia. It’s worth another look now, but first let’s give away the ending (spoiler alert!): there is still no real evidence of, well, much of anything significant about Russiagate. One thing that is clear is that the investigation seems to be ending. Mueller’s office has reportedly even told various defense lawyers that it is “tying up loose ends.” The moment to wrap things up is politically right as well: the Democrats will soon take control of the House; time to hand this all off to them. Ten months ago the big news was Paul Manafort flipped; that seems to have turned out to be mostly a b...

Link:  War With Russia?   by Stephen Cohen. Excerpt: " The New Cold War is more dangerous than the one the world survived. To restate that theme: The new US-Russian Cold War is more dangerous than was its 40-year predecessor that the world survived. The chances are even greater that this one could result, inadvertently or intentionally, in actual war between the two nuclear superpowers. Herein lies another ominous indication. During the preceding Cold War, the possibility of nuclear catastrophe was in the forefront of American mainstream political and media discussion, and of policy-making. During the new one, it rarely seems to be even a concern. In the latter months of 2018, the facts and the mounting crises they document grow worse, especially in the US political-media establishment, where, as I have argued, the new Cold War originated and has been repeatedly escalated. Consider a few examples, some of them not unlike political and media developments during th...