AMA (YYW)

In addition to what I wrote above, who is most likely to supplant Biden as the Democratic frontrunner (should he choose to run), or at least give him a run for his money? (Even if any semblance of the "likelihood" is very meager.) What do some of these runner-up candidates have to do to get within striking distance of Biden?

>Are you still fond of Kamala Harris? I myself think she is a disingenuous, deplorable dirt bag, and by a far stretch the worst of the Democratic bunch given what's come up about her recently.

I didn't forget about what you wrote.  I just like a bank of ongoing questions to keep the thread moving forward.

I still support Kamala Harris.  The reasons primarily are because of the fact that she has consistently and without notable exception represented the kind of leadership I think the Democratic party is most in need of, and she is inoculated against the more acrimonious absurdity of the progressive left because of the fact that she is a non-white woman.  

There are three groups whose activities are at this moment oriented towards portraying Harris as being, more or less, a black Hillary Clinton. 

The first and most active group are the Russian influence operations that have converged upon her to try to drive a wedge between millenials and Harris on more or less fraudulent bases.  The first and most obvious fraud is how people are being misled to think that she was unfair as a prosecutor.  This is profoundly wrong.  Unlike Clinton, however, who was inclined to defer and dodge the significance of past accomplishments and thereby gave the impression of weakness on those issues (which Trump poignantly exploited at all relevant times during and before the 2016 election), Harris is less likely to back down.  The second and nearly as obvious fraud is how she is being portrayed as some kind of shill to Israel or Wall street.  This is so absurd and lacking in anything vaguely resembling a factual basis that it requires essentially no response.  The third and more subtle way that she is being misportrayed is that she is some kind of a race traitor.  The Russian influence groups don't really yet seem to understand how to drive a wedge between her and black voters, but they've proven capable of learning from past mistakes so this could become something more threatening.

The second group against Harris are the progressives who, no matter what, seem to hate everyone who differs even the slightest from their perspective.  This is the same group who believes that political truth is created through narrative rather than fact; and communicated through meme and seemingly moral indignity.  This is the same group that would have opposed Kevin Hart hosting the Oscars, who blamed the Covington Catholic school boys for inciting racial conflict in Washington, and who likely were mislead by propaganda (from Russian influence operations) to believe such lies and idiocy as the notion that Hillary Clinton was a racist because of the 94 crime bill.  Now, that is not to say that I support the 94 crime bill or any other aspect of Bill Clinton's supposed legislative accomplishments.  I generally dislike Bill Clinton, though there were some things -- but not many -- which could have gone worse if someone else was in charge under his presidential tenure.  In any case, though, this second group is the most vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation operations because they are the least capable of distinguishing between fact and the fiction that is their particular narrative-based theory of how the world works (i.e., that the world is nothing more than a power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed).  These people are the most dangerous to the Democratic Party and the most likely to get Trump re-elected through their stupidity and intransigence.  They include, for example, the likes of Keith Ellison and Kirsten Gillibrand.  

The third group against Harris are the Republicans who correctly interpret her as the most viable threat to Trump's re-election.  They include Bannon, and likely Trump himself.  These people know that to the extent that they can drive a wedge between progressives and minority voters, and between middle america and the democratic nominee, Trump will be re-elected.  They will do this by exploiting the progressives like Gillibrand and Ellison, and their rhetoric.  Many "independents" and many others will fall for this manipulation.  

>Shutdown

Trump signed a bill to avoid the shutdown.  What astonishes me is how stupid he is, and how weak his political instinct has become.  The man has absolutely no sense of tact.  He brandished his way into the White House calling names and accusing everyone of being incompetent, yet he has without exception proven himself to be the most incompetent person ever to hold the title.  The damage he has proximately caused has not yet outscaled that of Jimmy Carter, at least not provably so, but he is within that range.

Trump's basic problem is that he is too stupid to distinguish between Fox and talk radio's interests, and his own.  Their objective is to boost ratings, and the way they do that is by creating conflict and controversy.  Shutdowns are great controversy because they force people to take sides.  The last shutdown was caused wholly by the so called president's fear of being called a little bitch by Anne Coulter and Sean Hannity on Fox.  He's a pathetic coward.  They knew that if he shut the government down, he would lose.  They knew that this crisis would hurt hundreds of thousands of people; and help only themselves.  They baited him into doing this, with the full knowledge that he would lose, and he took the bait.

This is important because it represents a change in who holds the power as between Trump and the media.  Before this, he did.  Recall his conversations with Ailes where he basically told Ailes to eat shit and die if Ailes didn't get rid of Megan Kelly.  Now, all Fox has to do is insult him and he'll roll over and take it like a two dollar whore -- which, it turns out, is exactly what he did.  And he lost the shutdown and he will lose this idiotic state of emergency -- not even perhaps in the courts of law, but in the court of public opinion.  

The right wing fake news media know this too.  They are at once his pimp and his pied piper. 

 I did not know you were so versed in Russian things.   Where does that come from in your biography? 

So, here's a Russian question:  I think you & agree that Putin has some discernible leverage over Trump so I wonder what you think Putin's endgame might be.  I suspect Putin must anticipate diminishing future returns on all manner of Russian investments suggesting an increased urgency to use what he's got to the best effect.  What he's got is some expensive and aging nukes that might still be wielded to tremendous effect, perhaps even only in threat.  And I would think now is about the best window of opportunity for exploiting multiple frayed alliances to a position of inaction or feckless response.  Is Putin a big risk taker in your estimation?  Am I too pessimistic?

Take your time, I see you're fielding a lot of questions today.  I'd also love to see your answers to my president's day questions forum.

>I did not know you were so versed in Russian things.   Where does that come from in your biography?  

College and grad school.  I focused on Russia, the Middle East, and Central/South Asia.  Since then, I've read a fair amount.  It's an interest I've had for a very long time.  Never knew it would become so relevant in 2016. 

> I think you & [I] agree that Putin has some discernible leverage over Trump so I wonder what you think Putin's endgame might be. 

There are many conflicting accounts of what kompromat Putin holds on Trump.  I have heard many rumors.  The golden shower tape from Christopher Steele is one, but there are more salacious rumors.  The more interesting rumor is that KGB has a video of Trump having sex with an underage prostitute from many years ago.  However, the extent of Trump's business interests make it mutually beneficial for him to remain ignorant of much of what Russia has.  

People underestimate Russia, and Russian intelligence.  Many Americans know that Putin was a relatively low level bureaucrat in Dresden (rather than somewhere that mattered), and while some have fallen for the romance of his storied "legacy" (and I use that word loosely) in the KGB, most are skeptical.  Americans see his antics, generally, as absurd.  No self-respecting man Putin's age stages photo shoots of himself without his shirt on.  But, it is because Americans see Putin as a comic book villain and little more, that they don't see him for the real threat he poses.

There are two questions that matter:

1. What does Putin have?

2. How will Putin play his hand? 

American intelligence access to Putin's inner circle is now mostly limited to signals intelligence, which is a problem because the Russians are about as good at figuring out when their technology has been compromised as Americans are at breaking in.  Moreover, Russians have stopped using electronics for their most sensitive materials, which further complicates things.  It's not like we have an Ogorodnik (Огородник) who could copy them with secret film and leave them in a dead drop now.  Things just don't work that way anymore.  So, there is uncertainty with Putin.  Understanding him is more about understanding his real (not imagined) life's history (by which I mean, the one he lived rather than the one he wishes to induce others to believe he lived), and the psychological profile which results.

I'll say some things about my personal theories on this subject in a subsequent post. 

> I wonder what you think Putin's endgame might be

I don't think Putin has a unidimensional, monolithic "endgame".  What I think he has is a recognition of his vulnerabilities and his strengths and priorities he wishes to advance in light of those so that he remains in power and is not murdered in his sleep, or by other means. 

The strengths exist on various levels.  Internationally, Russia is the natural ally of all enemies of the United States.  Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and the like all come to mind.  This is less because of differences in the people (Russians and Americans are very much alike in nearly every way that matters), but with the political histories and traditions of the two countries.  Russia is an old world country with a history of invasion from the Kievan Rus to the Second World War.  Nationally, Russia is a country that has almost no historical, cultural, or other institutional memory of what it means to live in a democracy.  Top-down rule has always been the rule, and that did not change from the Tsar Nicholas II, to Stalin, to Gorbachev, to Putin.  Yeltsin was the only variation, and that lasted less than a decade.  Putin is a new Tsar, and the people understand that democracy is little more than a rouse to trick the rest of the world into thinking that Russia is more Western than it is.  Historically, insofar as Russia has always been ruled by a monarch or a despot, the people -- regardless of their actual thoughts -- do not rebel, or at least they haven't done so meaningfully since there was almost a color revolution in Moscow in 2014. 

The weaknesses exist on the same levels.  Internationally, Russia's standing in the world has fallen precipitously.  It's allies are falling and its client states (namely, Iran and Syria) are either in ruin or were working towards peace with the United States -- which means the end of alliances with Russia.  Iran has a nuclear deal.  North Korea isn't de-nuclearizing, but they have no value to Putin.  Venezuela is not a diplomatic asset but a liability as civil war resulting from economic instability beckons an American style foreign imposed regime change, or a Gaddafi style uprising against Maduro.  Personally, I'm rooting for the latter.  As Putin knows, if Maduro is out, then Putin is more likely to face a color revolution of his own.  These things do not happen in a vacuum, and Putin knows this.  That is why he has threatened intervention as he has.  The same applies to Assad in Syria.  Nationally, the Russian economy is in crisis; there is a rampant HIV/AIDS epidemic resulting from drug use and shared needles; Russians abuse drugs and alcohol at higher and higher rates; unemployment is at record highs; economic opportunity is almost nonexistent above slave wages.  Indeed, there are many Russians whose material conditions were better under the USSR than under Putin.

Domestically, however, Putin faces the additional challenge of preventing popular uprising while enriching the class of oligarchs his regime has minted.  This presents problems, because consumption is conspicuous and Russia is failing economically for working Russians.  The reason is obvious:  enriching oligarchs, which is only accomplished by stealing from the state, means that the same money leaves Russia and never returns.  It hides in secret bank accounts in Cyprus, the Isle of Mann, Gibraltar, Panama, and other jurisdictions that do not comply with the United States' and EU's reporting requirements.  It is unclear how much longer this can continue.  But, there is also the derivative problem of ensuring that his oligarch's wealth is not frozen from Western financial institutions, as happened under Obama.  Where sanctions of the sort entered by the Obama administration become the new norm, Putin's utility to those same oligarchs diminishes. 

So, this is the "hand" Putin's holding... or a brief preview of it at least. 

I'll say some things about how he'll play it and how he is playing it in a subsequent post. 

Is Belarus about to be annexed by Russia?

>Belarus

That is one of the most interesting developments in Eastern Europe since Putin rose from obscurity (by which I mean, the abyss that was 1990s Russia) to restore order post-Yeltsin.  I've got some other questions to address first, but be sure that I will have a lot to say about this. 

The short answer, though, is that it looks to me like Lukashenko, who is at the point where he would want to retire, is looking for a way to avoid making the same mistakes that Hafez Al-Assad did.  So, yes, I think Russia is going to annex Belarus.  But, this response does not do that issue justice.  I will have more to say later. 

I appreciate the questions that have already been asked and will answer them.

That said, more people should ask me more questions.  So far, these have been pretty good! 

>endgame

There is a lot more I am going to say about this, and I'm going to say it in the context of what is happening with Belarus. 

It's like a Propaganda bot that actually thinks before it types.

I've read all your answers btw.

Cheers.

Ask me more questions if you want more answers.  

I'm enjoying most of these.  

Though, I might add a disclaimer... ask me about anything other than sci fi lol

Not sure if that is a compliment or an insult.... but there is nothing propagandistic about what I've written; in fact, it's probably the least monolithically ideological set of ideas you'll find. 

Favorite movie in the last decade?

Haven't seen you around here.

I'll answer too but it has to be Dunkirk

Lion or shark?

I am still not done with your prior post.  But, by all means ask about Russia as much as you like.  It is among my favorite subjects. 

Most expensive drink you ever had?

A bourbon that was about $450/oz.  

Was it good? 

Thoughts on unpaid internships?

Will there be an America involved war with Venezuela by 2020?

>Putin's Endgame, Belarus 

Putin's endgame is clearly evidenced both by his Eurasian Union, and his imperialistic behavior seen in Crimea (which is a part of Ukraine) and Donbas (which is another part of Ukraine). 

There was never any agreement that NATO would not expand east.  Russia has no "sphere of influence" because no one has a "sphere of influence", as we do not live in the 19th century or fight gentlemanly wars between generals with enigmatic facial hair.  We fight proxy wars with the underlying threat of nuclear conflict if nuclear powers engage one another.  Absolute evidence notwithstanding, Russia has used both the argument that Clinton agreed not to expand NATO West (a lie) and that Russia's "sphere of influence" is being intruded on, as a pretext for a land grab which is materially indistinguishable from Hitler's pursuit of Lebensraum.  

These are, of course, transparent nonsense.  What Putin wants is to create a viable supranational economic bloc that is sufficiently diversified and powerful to at once be internally self-sufficient while resistant to Western sanctions for any reason.  That's his goal.  Annexing Belarus would be wholly consistent with that objective.

Notably, this is not the same thing as reinvigorating the Soviet Union.  Putin has no interest in that because his allies nor himself benefit from the return of communism; but he would very much like the return of control of the geography the USSR held.  After all, geography is destiny.  Putin knows this as well as anyone else. 

Probably Watchmen. 

Lion

>Thoughts on unpaid internships?

Absolutely unethical to offer.  Usually not valuable experiences for students. 

Cool