A nit to pick, though a pervasive one: The next to last paragraph of Point Two refers to Stefan Halper as a spy inserted “into the Trump campaign” by the Obama FBI.
In what way was Prof. Halper inside the Trump campaign?
He spoke with a few members of the campaign: Carter Page who said the meetings seemed to be “just two foreign policy scholars having some discussions”; Sam Clovis who said Prof. Halper “used Carter Page to get to me and he used me to get to George [Papadopoulos]. George was the target. I think George was the target all along.”; and George Papadopoulos, who the Professor paid to write a white paper on oil development in order to have an opportunity to get him drunk and see if he would repeat his earlier performance with Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK.
At no time was Prof. Halper a member of the Trump campaign. I keep seeing references to a spy planted in the campaign, and have assumed they have been based on theories that there was one actually in the campaign. Are all the accusations simply based on Prof. Halper’s involvement in the investigation? If so, that is rather anticlimatic.
Kirk, are you always this oblivious to reality?
Dammit, Jim, Kirk’s a troll, not a commentator!
Eric, two-thirds of the people I know believe that I am oblivious to reality. One third don’t understand how I can’t recognize the signs of an active coup attempt on the part of US federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies while the other third believe that I am ignoring all the obvious signs that the president is a bought-and-paid-for puppet of Vladimir Putin who was elected with the assistance of those same federal agencies.
For my part, my best explanation is that two-thirds of this nation are in the grips of paranoid conspiracy theories, with the opposing sides feeding off each other. Still, I retain an open mind. (Hell, I’ll even occasionally listen to a Flat Earther’s argument, and while I know better than to attempt to convert any such person from their views as they are almost always held for other than logical reasons, I will occasionally ask them to explain particular points in their argument.)
Expertise and trustworthiness in one field do not automatically transfer to unrelated fields, but since I respect the principal and several contributors to this blog when it comes to space related topics, I am more open the political discussions held here than I would be were they to appear in a different forum. I seldom contribute to those political discussions, but do occasionally ask for an explanation, as I did here.
Returning to your question, I am apparently sufficiently oblivious to reality that I don’t know how to interpret your comment. With equal probability, I could understand you suggesting that A) “Of course Stefan Halper qualifies as a spy inserted into the Trump campaign.” B) “Mr. Hanson was conflating Professor Halper with some other, yet-to-be-named spy who actually was inserted into the campaign.” or C) “The description was pure hyperoble.”
Kirk, why are you focused on trivia?
Bad things are happening. We should be talking about fixing the corruption that’s on display everywhere today.
No, let’s instead debate whether the spy was really “inside the campaign” or not.
I find your comments to be reasonable even if I do disagree with them from time to time.
On the question of whether or not Halper was inserted into the campaign as a spy, is this two questions? Was he a spy and was he in the campaign?
Claiming that insertion into the campaign means he was working on the campaign is far too literal an interpretation of inserted. Inserted doesn’t have to mean that the Obama administration sought to have Halper working on the campaign. Inserted can mean infiltrate, which is what happened.
He was used this way as a spy. Spies don’t just gather information, they engage in a variety of activities to support a larger effort. An example would be creating the conditions to give the Obama administration pretext to use the NSA to monitor the Trump campaign. Because of existing rules regarding this type of spying, it allowed the Obama administration to spy on people removed several degrees from the target.
The Obama administration could target Page and Popadopolous but that gives them access to several degrees of separation. This is true for other people like Flynn, who were more senior.
This is all rather nefarious and blows apart much of the Obama administration’s claims about when and how the targeting of Trump began. Considering that the targeting started either before or just after Trump announced his candidacy, when he was a dark horse everyone thought would lose, we also have to wonder what the Obama administration did to spy on the more likely candidates.
Initially, this wasn’t about Trump specifically. This was about rigging the election for Hillary. The DNC rigged the primary and the Obama administration was doing their part to rig the national election. It didn’t become about Trump until he won the nomination and then the Presidency. All signs point to this being far broader than what we are being told.
A nit to pick, though a pervasive one: The next to last paragraph of Point Two refers to Stefan Halper as a spy inserted “into the Trump campaign” by the Obama FBI.
In what way was Prof. Halper inside the Trump campaign?
He spoke with a few members of the campaign: Carter Page who said the meetings seemed to be “just two foreign policy scholars having some discussions”; Sam Clovis who said Prof. Halper “used Carter Page to get to me and he used me to get to George [Papadopoulos]. George was the target. I think George was the target all along.”; and George Papadopoulos, who the Professor paid to write a white paper on oil development in order to have an opportunity to get him drunk and see if he would repeat his earlier performance with Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK.
At no time was Prof. Halper a member of the Trump campaign. I keep seeing references to a spy planted in the campaign, and have assumed they have been based on theories that there was one actually in the campaign. Are all the accusations simply based on Prof. Halper’s involvement in the investigation? If so, that is rather anticlimatic.
Kirk, are you always this oblivious to reality?
Dammit, Jim, Kirk’s a troll, not a commentator!
Eric, two-thirds of the people I know believe that I am oblivious to reality. One third don’t understand how I can’t recognize the signs of an active coup attempt on the part of US federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies while the other third believe that I am ignoring all the obvious signs that the president is a bought-and-paid-for puppet of Vladimir Putin who was elected with the assistance of those same federal agencies.
For my part, my best explanation is that two-thirds of this nation are in the grips of paranoid conspiracy theories, with the opposing sides feeding off each other. Still, I retain an open mind. (Hell, I’ll even occasionally listen to a Flat Earther’s argument, and while I know better than to attempt to convert any such person from their views as they are almost always held for other than logical reasons, I will occasionally ask them to explain particular points in their argument.)
Expertise and trustworthiness in one field do not automatically transfer to unrelated fields, but since I respect the principal and several contributors to this blog when it comes to space related topics, I am more open the political discussions held here than I would be were they to appear in a different forum. I seldom contribute to those political discussions, but do occasionally ask for an explanation, as I did here.
Returning to your question, I am apparently sufficiently oblivious to reality that I don’t know how to interpret your comment. With equal probability, I could understand you suggesting that A) “Of course Stefan Halper qualifies as a spy inserted into the Trump campaign.” B) “Mr. Hanson was conflating Professor Halper with some other, yet-to-be-named spy who actually was inserted into the campaign.” or C) “The description was pure hyperoble.”
Kirk, why are you focused on trivia?
Bad things are happening. We should be talking about fixing the corruption that’s on display everywhere today.
No, let’s instead debate whether the spy was really “inside the campaign” or not.
I find your comments to be reasonable even if I do disagree with them from time to time.
On the question of whether or not Halper was inserted into the campaign as a spy, is this two questions? Was he a spy and was he in the campaign?
Claiming that insertion into the campaign means he was working on the campaign is far too literal an interpretation of inserted. Inserted doesn’t have to mean that the Obama administration sought to have Halper working on the campaign. Inserted can mean infiltrate, which is what happened.
He was used this way as a spy. Spies don’t just gather information, they engage in a variety of activities to support a larger effort. An example would be creating the conditions to give the Obama administration pretext to use the NSA to monitor the Trump campaign. Because of existing rules regarding this type of spying, it allowed the Obama administration to spy on people removed several degrees from the target.
The Obama administration could target Page and Popadopolous but that gives them access to several degrees of separation. This is true for other people like Flynn, who were more senior.
This is all rather nefarious and blows apart much of the Obama administration’s claims about when and how the targeting of Trump began. Considering that the targeting started either before or just after Trump announced his candidacy, when he was a dark horse everyone thought would lose, we also have to wonder what the Obama administration did to spy on the more likely candidates.
Initially, this wasn’t about Trump specifically. This was about rigging the election for Hillary. The DNC rigged the primary and the Obama administration was doing their part to rig the national election. It didn’t become about Trump until he won the nomination and then the Presidency. All signs point to this being far broader than what we are being told.