Wow. Just, Wow. . . .

This story broke yesterday (actually, probably Friday, but I saw it late yesterday):

American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter. . . .

The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.

(Via Towleroad, where you can year Rachel Maddow's commentary.)

The reaction has not been positive. A small sample:

NOTE TO AMERICA'S TROOPS:

Donald only protects troops who are made of metal or stone -- and fought for the other side. #TraitorTrump https://t.co/Z58SrAbtcC

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) June 27, 2020

A white supremacist, a sex offender, and a traitor walk into a bar. The bartender says "What'll it be, President Trump?"#TraitorTrump

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) June 27, 2020

There's lots more at the link.

It's indicative of the way Trump's mind works that he accused Obama of treason for "spying" on the Trump campaign. (L'Etat, c' est moi) There is some speculation that this was a combination of projection and deflection, since he reportedly knew about the Russian bounties at the time.

I think with any other president, this would be unbelievable. But it is believable. Here's an interesting take on that issue:

Whether Trump has actually committed treason is arguable. Treason is defined as:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 3.

Although there's been no format declaration of war against Russia, Putin's certainly not a friend of the U.S. And the Taliban is an enemy.

The White House, of course, is denying that Trump knew anything about it:

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement Saturday that the President and Vice President Mike Pence were not briefed “on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.” McEnany said her statement “does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of the New York Times story,” which said Trump had been briefed.

We're back at the believeability thing. Who are you going to believe, a serial liar or the New York Times?

At this point, it's almost a toss-up, but NYT still has more credibility than Trump.

Today's Must-Read: He's Lost It

This is downright scary -- it's somewhat more serious than Trump's usual twitter tantrum, and it behooves us all to read the entire thread. Here's the crux:

His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 29, 2019

Given the emotional maturity of his base, he's just painted a big target on Schiff's back: his followers will take this as licence to go gunning for, not only Schiff, but anyone who participates in the impeachment hearings.

I've already seen comments to the effect of "Oh, it's just Trump having a tantrum." No -- he's calling for the trial and execution of a sitting member of Congress for doing his constitutional duty.

Oh, and notice the phrasing: I want him tried. All that's missing is the royal "we".

Read the whole thing.

(The comments at Trump's Twitter account are not sympathetic.)

Today's Must-Read: Pelosi Weighs In

Cheryl Rofer at Balloon Juice has a detailed analysis of Speaker Pelosi's statement on the arrest of Roger Stone by the FBI. Here's the statement:

The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. It is staggering that the President has chosen to surround himself with people who violated the integrity of our democracy and lied to the FBI and Congress about it.

In the face of 37 indictments, the President’s continued actions to undermine the Special Counsel investigation raise the questions: what does Putin have on the President, politically, personally or financially? Why has the Trump Administration continued to discuss pulling the U.S. out of NATO, which would be a massive victory for Putin?

Lying to Congress and witness tampering constitute grave crimes. All who commit these illegal acts should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. We cannot allow any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from appearing before Congress.

The Special Counsel investigation is working, and the House will continue to exercise our constitutional oversight responsibility and ensure that the Special Counsel investigation can continue free from interference from the White House.

Rofer points out that Pelosi is a strategic thinker, and that this is part of a strategy. I don't doubt it a bit -- look at the way she handled the shut down.

It's difficult to excerpt, and I'm still digesting it. Read it.

Today's Must-Read: "This Challenges Benedict Arnold"

I'm sure you've seen the reports on the story in NYT about the FBI opening a counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump after he fired James Comey. This is major:

On Saturday, former Naval intelligence offer Malcolm Nance explained the potential gravity of the situation to MSNBC’s Richard Lui.

“This is the single greatest scandal in the history of the United States,” he said. “I personally think that this challenges Benedict Arnold’s treason in the American revolution. If this is true, if Donald Trump was working for either money, influence, his own personal ego or being co-opted by Vladimir Putin, the ex-former director of Russian intelligence, and he went in there and he was doing this and that his favor is toward Russia and not the United States, well, it should take years.”

“This is a serious — as serious as it gets,” Nance said.

And it would be entirely in character for Trump, given that he has the moral foundation of a scavenger and no loyalty to anyone or anything but himself. Nance goes on to make an important point about how deep the rot has gone:

What will make the situation bad, Nance said, is that “one-third of this nation will not believe a word we say” about Trump’s possible treason, “because Donald Trump said so and because Russian information operations have corrupted them so that the FBI is considered the enemy.”

This is, in my estimation, the result of years of "dumbing down" in America. Television and radio are pervasive, and the programming, at least for the mainstream sources, is geared to reach the broadest possible audience, which is not necessarily the best-educated or most thoughtful audience. (It's worth noting that PBS was envisioned as a means to bring "quality" programming to a broad audience; the Republicans have been trying to kill it for years.) And the special interest groups can target their audiences, even to the point of having their own networks -- take CBN as an example, the "Christian Broadcasting Network", which bills itself as a "ministry" and brings us such serious thinkers as Pat Robertson, whose specialty is preaching to the choir. Add in the Internet, which is completely censorship free, except for a few sites that do keep an eye on their content: it's the world's best source for disinformation and outright lies. (Yes, I support letting the Internet remain uncensored, but given the fact that most Americans, and probably most people in general, lack critical thinking skills and the impulse to verify information -- well, we're seeing the downside. Another gift from the Republicans, who once again are trying to torpedo public education and secular school curricula.)

But back to Trump and the Russians. The Russians just took advantage of the intellectual laxity in American public discourse and installed their own tool in the White House as part of what is obviously a larger program of destabilizing the West. Don't tell me the newly energized far-right parties in Germany, France, Austria don't have Russian backing. It starts to look more and more that Putin is trying to set up a set of tame dictatorships in Europe, a la Hungary, and maybe even the Middle East -- he's very cozy with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, especially now that Trump has pulled us out of Syria. (Although I have to confess, I can't understand why anyone wants to get involved in the Middle East. Oil? Russia has huge reserves of oil and natural gas. Maybe at this point it's just habit.)

At any rate, read the article -- it's not that long -- and more important, watch the video (which I can't embed because the "share" link is wonky).

Thanks to commenter HZ81 at Joe.My.God.

In Case You Had Any Doubts

that the Republican party has become the anti-American party, here's just a sample of this morning's stories:

HHS Deletes LGBT Resources From Obamacare Site

Feds Seek To Gut 1973 Endangered Species Act

DHS Chief Won’t Say Charlottesville Nazis Were Wrong

More detail:

"I think what’s important about that conversation is, it’s not that one side is right, one side is wrong," Secretary Nielsen told NBC News' Peter Alexander Thursday afternoon, when asked specifically about the August 2017 Charlottesville rally that left one woman, Heather Heyer, dead.

The Secretary of Homeland Security doesn't think Nazis are wrong. That fits.

This one nails it:

Dems React To Fiery Steny Hoyer Speech With “USA!” Chants After Republicans Block Election Security Bill

Putin has the whole damned party in his pocket.

This is just a selection from my first survey of this morning's news.

Oh, and this:

Hillary Clinton: 'Deeply troubling' for White House to consider Putin request to interview Americans

The idea that an American president would even consider allowing a hostile foreign power to "interrogate" a former ambassador is beyond belief.

The Summit

It's all over the blogosphere and the press as well, not the one-on-one, closed door summit itself, because no one knows what Trump gave away there, but the press conference, which in itself is, given the reaction across the board (except for Hannity and perennial contrarian Rand Paul) apocalyptic.* Even Mitch McConnell is running away from it.

Rachel Maddow, who has covered the Russian angle more thoroughly than anyone else, sums it up. It's a full segment, but hunker down and listen: it's worth it.

* Tucker Carlson, who seems to live in a universe of his very own (and I'm sure he's very comfortable there) has his own unique take on election interference:

"I don't think Russia is our close friend or anything like that," said Tucker. "I think of course they try to interfere in our affairs. They have for a long time. Many countries do. Some more successfully than Russia, like Mexico, which is routinely interfering in our elections by packing our electorate."

I'm speechless.