Category: politics

Building a New Conservative Party

About the time Trump won the 2016 election, I suggested that principled and patriotic Republicans leave the GOP to start a new conservative party. I saw a tweet that made me think of this topic again, and I wanted to write about the benefits and drawbacks for doing this, and what this new conservative party could look like. But first here’s the thread:

Continue reading “Building a New Conservative Party”

International Money Laundering Deserves More Attention

In the past, when I heard money laundering, I’d think of organized criminals taking elicit money and finding ways to secure it and make it usable. But money laundering on the international level, involving authoritarian regimes, and the oligarchs and organized criminals within those regimes finding people in liberal democratic countries to help them launder their money has a national security component as well–at least if my understanding is accurate. The people in Western countries helping these people are doing something wrong, if not illegal. This can be used as leverage against them to not only continue the money laundering, but maybe do other things to help the authoritarian regimes. This is obvious if the people assisting with money laundering have political positions, but if they have any position of influence in the society–e.g., legal, media, academic, business, technology, etc.–bad actors can use the leverage with these people to harm national security and national interests. At least that’s what it seems like to me. Anyway, I started to this thread because I couldn’t find the other threads or posts that discussed this, and I wanted to post an article on this topic. The article is from Just Security and it’s called, Global Kleptocracy as an American Problem

One Possible Way of Solving the Information Crisis

Those who are really interested in politics can have very different views about basic facts–and if those numbers are large enough, that can be a big threat to our democracy. I saw the tweet below and I thought of this topic, as well as one way we could solve this. It’s something I’ve talked about before, but I feel compelled to talk about it again, as I think it would be effective. At the same time, a part of me feels like my proposal is flawed in some significant way–or at least someone would have done it already. But I can’t see what the flaw(s) is. If anyone knows the reason my idea won’t work, I really would like to hear it. After the quote, I’ll explain my idea.

Journal During the Trump Regime (11)–Interregnum

Journal (9) is getting too congested. This thread will cover the period from the election. (Note: Some events that occurred after Election Day may be in previous journal threads, as it might be a more appropriate location.)

Journal During the Trump Regime (1)
Journal During the Trump Regime (2)
Journal During the Trump Regime (3)
Journal During the Trump Regime (4)
Journal During the Trump Regime (5)
Journal During the Trump Regime (6)
Journal During the Trump Regime (7)
Journal During the Trump Regime (8)
Journal During the Trump Regime (9)
Journal During the Trump Regime (10)

Information Warfare in 2020 Presidential Election

The thread below by Senator Chris Murphy is the impetus behind this post.

Joe Biden – and all of us – SHOULD be furious that media outlets are spreading what is very likely Russian propaganda. 1/ I’ve seen the intel. The mainstreaming of misinformation is Russia’s 2020 goal. Here’s what we know, and why we can’t take it lying down. 2/ Russia knew it had to play a different game than 2016. So it built an operation to cull virulently pro-Trump Americans as pseudo-assets, so blind in their allegiance to Trump that they’ll willingly launder Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda. Guiliani was a key target. 3/ Andriy Derkach was a top Russian agent. He was unmasked by the Treasury Dept this summer. Derkach and his team recruited Guiliani and have been feeding him info all year. The White House knew this. The White House was warned that Giuliani was target of a Russian intelligence operation to feed misinformation to Trump from WaPo 4/ Whether he knows it or not, Giuliani is effectively a Russian asset now. It’s almost certain that any anti-Biden info he has is fed to him by Derkach and Russian intel.This should be patently obvious to any reporter worth his or her salt. Vowing crackdown on Russian meddling, US sanctions Ukrainian lawmaker who worked with Giuliani to smear Biden. from CNN 5/ And you don’t have to believe me. Believe the Department or Justice – Trump’s own FBI is investigating the “leaked” Hunter Biden emails as Russian spycraft.US authorities investigating if recently published emails are tied to Russian disinformation effort targeting Biden from CNN. 6/ Further, media don’t need a Pulitzer to see the whole story as super fishy. A pro-Trump computer repairman mysteriously comes across Hunter Biden’s laptop, copies the files, and guess who gets them? Russia’s top American asset – Rudy! Coincidence!! Meet the computer repairman at the center of New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story from Delaware Online 7/ Why is it important for media to not simply pick this story up and amplify it? Why should we be offended that the VP is being asked about it? Because this is Russia’s bet – that America, and its media, is so hungry for salacious stories that no one will vet their lies. 8/ And American media do have major credibility, for good reason. They do amazing work, and get most stories 100% right. Russia wants to use this credibility to their advantage. And that’s why we all have to be vigilant. Democracy depends on it.

I honestly don’t know where you guys stand on this (and based on what I know, Mitchell likely disagrees), but I totally agree with Senator Murphy. I’ll expand on reasons for this in the first comments post.