{"id":23454,"date":"2017-04-03T18:47:43","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T23:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23454"},"modified":"2017-04-03T18:47:43","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T23:47:43","slug":"putin-derangement-syndrome-arrives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23454","title":{"rendered":"Putin Derangement Syndrome Arrives"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"content-head site-container article-head\">\n<h3 class=\"content-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/features\/taibbi-putin-derangement-syndrome-arrives-w474771\">Putin Derangement Syndrome Arrives<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"content-description\">Whatever the truth about Trump and Russia, the speculation surrounding it has become a dangerous case of mass hysteria<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"grid content \">\n<section class=\"content-rail\">\n<div class=\"lead-container\">\n<div class=\"lead\">\n<figure class=\"article-body-content-main-photo full-width\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img.wennermedia.com\/article-leads-horizontal\/donald-trump-russia-flynn-full-putin-hysteria-tiabbi-d27b5724-73ae-485b-b2aa-1cbb8d0d8a72.jpg\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) calc(100vw - 20px), (max-width: 1280) 55vw, 700px\" srcset=\"\/\/img.wennermedia.com\/article-leads-horizontal-261\/donald-trump-russia-flynn-full-putin-hysteria-tiabbi-d27b5724-73ae-485b-b2aa-1cbb8d0d8a72.jpg 261w, \/\/img.wennermedia.com\/article-leads-horizontal-437\/donald-trump-russia-flynn-full-putin-hysteria-tiabbi-d27b5724-73ae-485b-b2aa-1cbb8d0d8a72.jpg 437w, \/\/img.wennermedia.com\/article-leads-horizontal-800\/donald-trump-russia-flynn-full-putin-hysteria-tiabbi-d27b5724-73ae-485b-b2aa-1cbb8d0d8a72.jpg 800w, \/\/img.wennermedia.com\/article-leads-horizontal\/donald-trump-russia-flynn-full-putin-hysteria-tiabbi-d27b5724-73ae-485b-b2aa-1cbb8d0d8a72.jpg 700w, \/\/img.wennermedia.com\/article-leads-horizontal-1400\/donald-trump-russia-flynn-full-putin-hysteria-tiabbi-d27b5724-73ae-485b-b2aa-1cbb8d0d8a72.jpg 1400w, \" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption class=\"article-body-content-main-photo-caption\">Michael Flynn and Donald Trump <span class=\"article-body-content-main-photo-caption-credit\">John Locher\/AP <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content-column\">\n<aside class=\"left-rail\"><\/aside>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>So Michael Flynn, who was Donald Trump&#8217;s national security adviser before he got busted talking out of school to Russia&#8217;s ambassador, has reportedly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/blog-briefing-room\/news\/326639-flynn-offers-to-testify-on-russia-ties-in-exchange-for-immunity\" target=\"_blank\">offered to testify<\/a> in exchange for immunity.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module-related card-container\">\n<article class=\"module-related-article\"><\/article>\n<\/aside>\n<p>For seemingly the 100th time, social media is exploding. This is it! The big reveal!<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it will come off just the way people are expecting. Perhaps Flynn will get a deal, walk into the House or the Senate surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers, and unspool the whole sordid conspiracy.<\/p>\n<p>He will explain that Donald Trump, compromised by ancient deals with Russian mobsters, and perhaps even blackmailed by an unspeakable KGB sex tape, made a secret deal. He&#8217;ll say Trump agreed to downplay the obvious benefits of an armed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/global-opinions\/trump-campaign-guts-gops-anti-russia-stance-on-ukraine\/2016\/07\/18\/98adb3b0-4cf3-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html?utm_term=.cca45dffee74\" target=\"_blank\">proxy war in Ukraine with nuclear-armed Russia<\/a> in exchange for Vladimir Putin&#8217;s help in stealing the emails of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and John Podesta.<\/p>\n<p>I personally would be surprised if this turned out to be the narrative, mainly because we haven&#8217;t seen any real evidence of it. But episodes like the Flynn story have even the most careful reporters paralyzed. What if, tomorrow, it all turns out to be true?<\/p>\n<p>What if reality does turn out to be a massive connect-the-dots image of St. Basil&#8217;s Cathedral sitting atop the White House? (This was suddenly legitimate British conspiracist Louise Mensch&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/17\/opinion\/what-to-ask-about-russian-hacking.html\" target=\"_blank\">construction<\/a> in <i>The New York Times <\/i>last week.) What if all the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cloudfront.mediamatters.org\/static\/images\/item\/0922-beckchart1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Glenn<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cloudfront.mediamatters.org\/static\/images\/item\/beckwilliams-20100721-chalkboard.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Beck<\/a>-style\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/KremLINKlan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ffreebeacon.com%2Fpolitics%2Fmaxine-waters-creates-graphic-show-trumps-kremlin-klan%2F\" target=\"_blank\">far-out<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/theweek.com\/speedreads\/688972\/anderson-cooper-breaks-flow-chart-nail-down-some-facts-about-trumps-myriad-russia-ties\" target=\"_blank\">charts<\/a> with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/magazine\/story\/2017\/03\/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868\" target=\"_blank\">circles<\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/theweek.com\/speedreads\/688979\/stephen-colbert-draws-rude-chart-illustrate-devin-nunes-close-ties-president-trump\" target=\"_blank\">arrows<\/a> somehow all make sense?<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the tricks that keeps every good conspiracy theory going. Nobody wants to be the one claiming the emperor has no clothes the day His Highness walks out naked. And this Russia thing has spun out of control into just such an exercise of conspiratorial mass hysteria.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Putin Derangement Syndrome Arrives Whatever the truth about Trump and Russia, the speculation surrounding it has become a dangerous case of mass hysteria Michael Flynn and Donald Trump John Locher\/AP So Michael Flynn, who was Donald Trump&#8217;s national security adviser before he got busted talking out of school to Russia&#8217;s ambassador, has reportedly\u00a0offered to testify [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7844,2855,3733,14807,857],"class_list":["post-23454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-donald-trump","tag-hysteria","tag-matt-taibbi","tag-michael-flynn","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23455,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23454\/revisions\/23455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}