Andrea Mitchell's interview with Coats is downright chummy. It's all very polite and non-confrontational, with Mitchell hinting we all should be very concerned and nervous about Trump negotiating alone with Putin.

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By William J. Astore

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

The supposed big news here is that Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence,didn't know about President Trump's invitation to Vladimir Putin to visit the White House this fall.

The real story is in plain sight: all the corporate sponsors of the Aspen Security Forum, including Lockheed Martin, the nation's leading weapons maker. I like the way the logo for Lockheed Martin hovers just above Dan Coats's head. Who works for whom here?

(Other military contractors with prominent logos included Symantec, which specializes in cybersecurity, and MITRE, which technically is a not-for-profit corporation that works mainly with the Department of Defense; I worked with MITRE engineers when I was in the Air Force.)

The other obvious story: the mainstream media's cozy relationship to those in power. Andrea Mitchell's interview with Coats is downright chummy. It's all very polite and non-confrontational, with Mitchell hinting we all should be very concerned and nervous about Trump negotiating alone with Putin.

Perhaps so, perhaps not. But I am concerned about all those cozy relationships within and across the national security state, and the way our media eagerly joins in on the fun. Collusion takes many forms; let's not focus so tightly on alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia that we miss what's in clear sight in photos and videos such as this.

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The LA Progressive openly and unapologetically supports and employs advocacy journalism. They are committed to advocating for the public interest as opposed to the corporate agenda. The LA Progressive covers the gamut of progressive issues both on the domestic as well as international stages with a particular focus on local issues in Los Angeles, the home of the LA Progressive. The LA Progressive exists to provide a means of expressing progressive viewpoints and to champion the causes that promote the betterment of society with a particular focus on marginalized communities.