Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Trump

It looks like General Flynn is talking.  As we've heard from his lawyer since the beginning of the Trump/Russia/etc. investigation, the general "has a lot to say"--enough to cut a deal with prosecutors.  The only reason for the investigation to cut a deal with him is that he has information that incriminates someone with an even higher status.  There aren't a lot of people with an equal or higher status than the National Security Advisor:  Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon (perhaps), Melania Trump, Reince Priebus, Mike Pence, John Kelly, Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway (maybe), Steven Miller, Paul Manafort (maybe), Donald McGahn, Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie, Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Rebekah Mercer, Steve Mnuchin, Anthony Scaramucci, Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Dan Coats, Mike Pompeo, Sean Spicer, Donald J. Trump.  Manafort is already under indictment, without Flynn's testimony.  Mattis and Tillerson didn't have enough overlap with Flynn to make either of  them them the object of a deal.

If we are focusing on the campaign and/or Trump business dealings, the names to look for are Jared Kushner, Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump. Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, and Donald J. Trump.  I'd exclude Pence, since he was such a late addition to the campaign (although he did have a role in the transition).  That leaves Kushner, Sessions, and five Trumps.

One person only has value as an "ultimate" target: the president.  All he has to offer Robert Mueller is a relatively painless resignation, and a complete debriefing to investigators for counterintelligence and financial crimes.  Everyone else has to be talking to their legal teams, asking for options.  I wonder how many other senior defense teams have cut ties with the DJT defense?

 

A Split From Trump Indicates That Flynn Is Moving to Cooperate With Mueller - The New York Times

The FBI: Bringing more and bigger terrorism to you

The New York Times estimates that of the "22 most frightening plans for attacks since 9/11 on American soil, 14 were developed in sting operations."  This may be conservative--but we can use it as a minimum standard for analysis.  And what do these stings look like?

THE informer, Shahed Hussain, had been charged with fraud, but avoided prison and deportation by working undercover in another investigation. He was being paid by the F.B.I. to pose as a wealthy Pakistani with ties to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist group that Mr. Cromitie apparently had never heard of before they met by chance in the parking lot of a mosque. 

“Brother, did you ever try to do anything for the cause of Islam?” Mr. Hussain asked at one point.“O.K., brother,” Mr. Cromitie replied warily, “where you going with this, brother?” 

Two days later, the informer told him, “Allah has more work for you to do,” and added, “Revelation is going to come in your dreams that you have to do this thing, O.K.?” About 15 minutes later, Mr. Hussain proposed the idea of using missiles, saying he could get them in a container from China. Mr. Cromitie laughed. 

Reading hundreds of pages of transcripts of the recorded conversations is like looking at the inkblots of a Rorschach test. Patterns of willingness and hesitation overlap and merge. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Mr. Cromitie said, and then explained that he meant women and children. “I don’t care if it’s a whole synagogue of men.” It took 11 months of meandering discussion and a promise of $250,000 to lead him, with three co-conspirators he recruited, to plant fake bombs at two Riverdale synagogues. 

“Only the government could have made a ‘terrorist’ out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope,” said Judge Colleen McMahon, sentencing him to 25 years. She branded it a “fantasy terror operation” but called his attempt “beyond despicable” and rejected his claim of entrapment.

There are real terrorists, but not enough to justify the expense and systematic loss of liberty associated with the "war on terror."*  How many "terrorists" are incompetent losers looking for a cause to latch on to, pushed by government agents to commit acts which will, when "uncovered," build budgets and careers?  

Related articles

• Documents provide rare insight into FBI's terrorism stings (promoteliberty.wordpress.com)
• The FBI: Making Sure We Don't Need to Import Terror From Overseas (reason.com)
• NYTimes Realizes That The FBI Keeps Celebrating Breaking Up Its Own Terrorist Plots (blacklistednews.com)
• Muslim Converts Get 25 Years in 2009 Jihad Plot against Synagogues, Shooting Down Military planes With Stinger Missiles (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)

*It's bad enough that a "war on terror" is conceptually absurd.  It's like declaring a "war on airplanes" in response to Pearl Harbor.  Then again, we've already declared "war" on crime, drugs, poverty, obesity, war...

It seems the only thing we don't dare call a war are our real wars.  We haven't done that, officially, since World War II.