Guess what: A Russian spy has been spreading lies about the Democratic candidate for president through his connections with senior Republican officials.
When I think of how seriously the American Intelligence community used to take the threat of Soviet penetration and compare it with the behavior of Trump and his people, I can only wonder what the hell has happened. All these useful idiots should be sentenced to the Marshall Islands for life.
I lost my Top Secret-Extremely Sensitive Information (TS-ESI) in 1968 because my new wife, a Swedish citizen, had relatives in the DDR (East Germany; communist Germany). She had only met them a few times, while I had never met them. And now we have Congressmen and GOP operatives dealing with Russian agents face to face without punishment, like it means nothing. My mind boggles at this.
The far right wing of the GOP is so obsessed with “libs” and “elites” and abortion and immigrants that they have taken up with the enemy to anger the left. Nothing matters to them but infuriating and obstructing the sane, sensible people in this country.
Yes, and who is feeding them this fear of the libs and elites? Right wing media. The easiest people to corrupt and control are the one's who think they know everything because then they never bother to look elsewhere for the truth.
Trump disses anyone and everyone who has actually accomplished something in life, particularly men and women who have shown actual courage and have put their lives in danger. You only have to go back a bit to recall his petulant, childish jealousy (bc that’s what it was) of John McCain. He puts his fear and cowardice on display day after day.
He hated John McCain because the senator was a man of honor and demonstrable courage two traits of character that he on his best day couldn’t approach for a second much less spend a lifetime living.
Insiders at the White House said he never took the morning Intel Briefing, upstairs watching Fox and Friends to check out how he was doing. Bannon, et al, running the show...sacry!
(1) Am ashamed of those who yanked your SC w/o cause. Under that flimsy guise, TS-ES should only be bestowed on single straight wo/men who do not date, swear an Oath never to marry, have acquaintances or relatives with <6 Degrees of Separation from "Iron Curtain" nations, or happened to walk by Karl Marx's word product in a college or university library. That said, had you flashed a card demonstrating full membership in the John Birch Society your SC would stay w/you for life, if not beyond.
(2) Am not aware of a better example of volte-face than the USSR to Putin's Ru. The USSR was on the farthest left reaches of the linear ideological scale whereas Putin's Ru is clearly near the farthest right.
(3) Republicans then viewed anyone and anything not aligned with the center-right as commies and/or commie-leaning and anyone and anything to the ideological right of themselves as worth supporting. And overtly and covertly worked to subvert or overthrow left-leaning leaders and governments around the Blue Marble.
(4) Many mistook Putin's proclamation of the fall of the USSR as the worst occurrence in the 20th-C as an endorsement of communism rather than what it was, the loss of an empire. He made that very point in other long-winded speeches regarding the Russian Empire and the power of its Tsars.
(5) So, it comes as no surprise to me that so many so-called mainstream Republicans scratch their noggin' as to Trump's, and the majority of conservative Republicans in Congress find common cause w/Putin. Same with those in the media who ignore the long history of the GOP and conservatives' open embrace of right-wing figures, leaders, and governments. As a reminder of one of the first signs Republicans and conservatives had aligned with Putin can with the emergence of The Pussy Riot (gurl band). Rs/cons condemned The Pussy Riot for their choice of venues and attire/appearance while ignoring their biting criticism of Putin. Once again history teaches it is the poets in front of just movements, usually by years if not decades.
(6) It came as no surprise Trump covertly invited the Ru Ambassador and FM into the Oval and no surprise he chose the Kingdom as his first overseas trip. And not a single one of Lucian's examples is inconsistent with decades of the GOP and conservatives' love affair with autocrats and right-wing governments. President Obama said it best when he schooled and scolded Romney that this wasn't the Cold War era any longer. USSR and Putin's RU, "Never the twain shall meet".
(7) 'Tis the reason my take on the Ukraine-Ru war, Zelensky* etc. so differs from so many. And the reason I cringe when the lazy thinking is reflected in the expression, this is not your Father's GOP, Au contraire.
*Zelensky is 2clever by hallf. He sat in the press area of the UN and was asked if Trump's "perfect call" was a quid pro quo, a threat, extortion, etc. and denied it was. It is captured on video and is available on YOUTUBE. Many Americans missed and the US media forgot about it. One guess who did watch it and watched it many times, Putin. He saw weakness. Not just weakness, a cowering dog to a weak man. A man he humiliated in Helsinki and got Trump to say he trusts Putin more than the US Intelligence Agencies.
Putin tested that weakness by the deployment of a major force along the Uk-Ru border. Zelensky did as he expected. dismissed it. Then Putin complimented that force with materials, equipment, special forces, redeployment of air assets, and a full medical corps. Western and US Intel forewarned Zelensky for weeks, then took the unprecedented step to publicly release the intel summary of an imminent invasion. Zelensky spat at the West including the US and worst of all didn't take the step any leader would. protect his people by mobilizing his forces. Nor took the cautionary step of evacuating villages, towns, and cities within Ru artillery range.
Yes, the Ru mil engaged in the cardinal sin of outrunning their supply line. What is lost in the that was 1000s of troops w/nothing to do. and no enemy to fight. You served. You know how quickly a force with nothing can do will turn on civs. Add in the fact the Ru is far from professional and it was predictable atrocities would occur. As predictable was the Ru mil targeting of civ infrastructure as happened in both Chechen Wars.
So, Zelensky is no Churchill nor a competent wartime CinC. His continuous spitting at NATO for not doing enough is that of an ingrate. Even after fully supplying and arming Uk the so-called counteroffensive never happened even after delaying it for months allowing Ru to build layers of fortifications. And finally, Uk is NOT a nation at war because it exempts 18-26-year-old males from conscription yet takes 50+-year-olds. At the same time, Zelensky claims not to have enough fighters and claims to be outnumbered 7:1. Most of all Zelensky gambled on his personal persuasion that NATO would allow Uk in and/or send soldiers/pilots. I say that because it was Zelensky's wishful thinking that he could dodge questions at the UN about Trump, and dodge an invasion by Putin. , then simply announce an impending counteroffensive that would send Ru running back to the border. He ain't cut out to be a wartime CinC.
Those were the rules, so I wasn't surprised. I didn't miss it either, as it was for nuke mission planning against USSR and/or Communist China. So, I got the exact assignment I had asked for: Army Advisory Team on the Cambodian border, which required only a Secret clearance, though I could generate stuff which would be classified by superior officers as Top Secret. Ha!.
Why the hell is it easier for Russians,flush with foreign cash and bent on espionage and attacks on our democracy, to get into this country than penurious immigrants seeking asylum on the southern border. Which one would you rather admit? Our priorities are wildly out of whack...
Seems to me that the Republican Congress critters are in this up to their eyeballs. Treason, anybody? Where the hell is the DOJ? I don't want to hear that these clowns are protected by the Speech and Debate Clause. Arrest the lot of them.
I'm afraid we will need a different Attorney General. These guys will all be dead before Merrick Garland decides to investigate, much less arrest and prosecute.
I’m afraid you’re right. He’s a fine, eminent and deliberative legal mind who would have been perfect on the SC bench, but McConnell nixed that one, for which I hope he burns in hell. We need an aggressive go-getter like Jack Smith as AG. Are you listening, Joe?
Lucian, your first paragraph had me laughing out loud. Smirnov sold himself as THE agent of the decade and look who bought into his bullshit lies? None other than Dweedle Dumb and Dweedle Dumber! Tonight, Jordan ( take your pick on which “tweedle” he is) looked a little unnerved while his tie was melting on his shirt but then, he gained some traction and said “It is what it is.” That’s right, Jimmy Boy…it is the confirmation we all have needed that Hunter and Joe did NOTHING WRONG! In fact, you two JimBobs better sit yo’ asses down cause you ain’t got nothin’.
according to Glenn Kirschner, they could be indicted for conspiring with a foreign government and I hope they are if Merrick Garland would get off his ass and do something!!
Garland will not get off his ass. He is there at the behest of the Federalist Society to do as much damage as possible. If Biden had any guts he'd fire Garland now and give us a real AG.
And remember James Comey who didn't tell Americans about this Trump-Manafort-Russia connection, but made front-page headlines falsely suggesting Hillary Clinton was breaking the law. Maybe he's working for the Kushners now.
I majored in Russian & International Relations 30 years ago — and fended off lots of stupid comments from my conservative family about me being a “pinko-commie-lover”. It is blowing my mind that this same crowd have been flipped — a mass compromising if you will. Was the NRA infiltration the first entry point? Were any Republicans “entertaining” Russians operatives before Drumpf came on the scene?
Corruption. Lots of looted petrodollars. There are many examples like trump properties being bought. Aluminum factory investment in Kentucky and all sorts of laundered campaign contributions. Let’s face how corrupt the MAGA GOP is.
I need a GD Venn diagram to follow this…where does this all start? Is J6 part of this scheme? no matter where it starts or who’s at the top, every person who’s part of cabal needs to be investigated…Bottom line…the GOP hierarchy has been compromised and it has to come down… traitors, un-American POS
I forgot to mention our new American Navalny - Donald Trump. Of course he fails to mention that had Navalny gone on Russian Television and accused Putin of persecuting him or of Taking bribes he wouldn't have left the TV station alive. Of course he never would have even been allowed to go on TV in the first place. But he couldn't even have held a rally and bad mouthed Putin. . Free speech is not something the Russian people have ever experienced. They even got arrested for quietly laying flowers in memory of Navaldy.
Yes, at MOST there were sporadic periods lasting only months between 1918 - 1922 and it was never close to encompassing the entirety of Mother Russia, especially as the post- Bolshevik coup civil war raged on, and with some twenty-one other nations (including the USA) intervening to one extent or another.
So true, Arthur, imagine, knowing you will be arrested and fined but bringing flowers anyway. You have to wonder what makes a man like Putin be what he is? He has untold wealth, several luxury homes. absolute power. and has no hesitation over killing anyone he perceives as a political threat. If he manages to stay in power until old age gets him and eventually death, what has he really gained? He can't be a happy man knowing any loyalty to him is either out of fear or they are greatly rewarded financially. He has to know he is universally hated. ,
It’s virtually impossible to understand a psychopath. Their minds are very different from yours or mine. Putin lives in the here and now and only answers to his inner lust for power and control. Other people mean nothing to them. Trump is a psychopath (and a malignant narcissist—- a really toxic combination). Stalin was a psychopath. They often rise to power. Many CEOs are psychopaths. They’re often successful. They can be charming and persuasive. They are often very dangerous people. They have no conscience and have trouble relating to other human beings. Many live among us (about 1 in 25), according to Martha Stout in her excellent book, “The Sociopath Next Door.” Only a very tiny fraction of 1% is a serial killer… but when one rises to power, watch out. This is where we are with Putin. He’s a serial murderer and a head of state.
Wow, very r enlightening, Arthur, so well explained. I hadn't heard of that book. Now for a big question: Do you think there o are more of these types (albeit to a lesser degree) in the Republican party than in the general population? In other words more of them are more likely to vote republican' or is there no way to tell without a mass psychological test :)
Just to day for example the chief Justice of the Superior Court in Alabama (as I'm sure everyone knows by now) has ruled that a frozen fertilized egg is a baby. So now all the clinics have paused treatments for fear of being prosecuted forcing prospective parents to essentially make lifetime payments to the clinics to keep all fertilized eggs alive for fear of being charged with causing the death of a baby. The Chief Justice based his decision on his religious beliefs that to destroy an embryo would anger God. (so much for separation of Church and state. https://www.yahoo.com/news/alabama-chief-justice-invoked-god-182002024.html
Since the 1930s, the Republican Party has hsd only a passing acquaintanceship with hard numbers and factual accuracy in anything resembling politics, public accounts, and foreign relations. Since the old-style southern racists and demigogues took over the party after the 2000 election, Republicans' racial anxieties have gotten the better of them. They can't help themselves. They do it because they've convinced voters in mostly interior Republican-strong states that our country is on the verge of being overrun by destitute refugees from south of the border. Their home states have been losing population for decades. What remains are cities and towns that live in a mythic past, when their residents were young and vital, and the world was their oyster.
Now their world is different, with people who don't look like them, who worship a different diety, whose children show up in local schools who look like they don't really belong there, and who have names local people can't pronounce. Local people react in fear. Imagine, if you will, groups of foreign-born people suddenly showing up in our own neighborhoods, unannounced and unwelcome. What was once 'our' town no longer seems so.
Whatever new businesses come to depressed towns is cut-throat, low-wage, and is typically physically-demanding, slaughter houses and rendering plants.
Many of these facilities are foreign-owned. Hollowed-out, down-sized economies and the corporate plants and businesses that become the mainstay of those economies are often located in states whose better days were half a century ago -- they exist because state governments offered tax breaks that no local firm or business could qualify for. Welcome to economic dependency and the modern version of colonial exploitation.
These companies will fight unionization with every tool at their disposal. Republicans, never labor's friend, support the bosses at the newcomer's company. This isn't about tax rates and economics any more, it's about social status, and keeping the foreign-born in their place. Foreign-born workers can be discriminated against and fired at will, with no recourse.
It's a short step to cheating on elections involving native-born Amrricans. Authoritarian politics are contagious. Donald Trump is simply the most extreme manifestation of the inequities that have been plaguing our country for decades, hollowing out our middle income folks and rewarding get rich quick schemes that find our political culture easy marks for exploitation. Republicans put a premium on 'making their bones', whatever the numbers, figuring they won't be held accountable. They won't own the damage they bring to the table.
Republicans used to be fornational security, and supporting allies. That's no longer true. For them allies are foreigners to be extorted or played. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have dumpster-dived down that path.
Somewhere along the line, some of us lost our vision of a more equitable society. That's why Joe Biden's my guy. He's one of the few people in politics who didn't need a trust fund to get into politics and he likely won't have one when he leaves. His legislative program has been aimed squarely at building out the middle.
No main-stream Republican candidate has raised the standard of national honor in our dealings with others. And that is shameful. They conflate autocratic control with genuine accomplishment. And they are so wrong about that. They deserve no one's vote
The Republicans have been screaming treason since the election of Franklin Roosevelt. They screamed about treason in the 1950s, conducted witch hunts, and destroyed hundred of thousands of lives. They've kept it up ever since. Now it turns out that they are the real traitors. Are they going to pay a price for their treason? What is the DOJ going to do about this?
They commited Treason in 1939 and got busted. US Senators and Congressmen. Working for Hitler. America First. Sound familiar? The isolationists were working to keep the US ut of the war to save Germany.
In the LOL part of your terrific post, if you gave away or can't find your fainting couch, Wayfair's Almous Chaise really looks the part, although it's pricey, at around $2500. Speaking of money, which we must, since it's the only other measurement that means anything to Convicted Sexual Offender and Indicted Defendant Tr**p, Lockheed Martin is producing F-35 fighters a year, at a fly it off the lot price of $177 million each. My phone calculator function, held sideways, says that means USAF operational squadrons with 24 planes cost $4.24 billion just for the original hardware. Replacement parts extra.
Do we think ex-KGB agent Putin has spent $4.24 billion "supporting" (old-fashioned word, "bribing") Make America God Awful Trumpublicans as they silverfish their way through the U.S. Constitution. Some of your readers have mentioned the 1930s. All of your readers should get their hands and put their eyes on Rachel Maddow's "Prequel," which tells the story of the Nazi investment in promoting "America First." It was working then, save for FDR's resolution and ingenuity, Similar tactics are working now. Make that "have been working."
Cast your mind back to August, 2016, a Trump rally in Ohio, where two middle-age friends from the town of Delaware, Ohio (population around 40,000) were photographed wearing "I'd Rather Be Russian Than Democrat" t-shirts. I'd love to know what James Timothy "Tim" Alicie and Richard Birchfield have to say today about Russia, Putin, et cetera.
Even the brilliant Rod Serling couldn't have made all this up in one of his Twilight Zone episodes. The real has become unreal and the unreal, real.
The stench over washington is unbearable right now. Of course V Comey and Jordan playing it down as "we have other evidence, this was just one item" As if to say it wasn't that important, but yet it was very big news when they first announced it with glee.
The GOP was really taken in by the Russians weren't they? They were played for suckers. Doing all f Putin's work for him, holding off on aid for Ukraine, implicating Bisen in wrongdoing, etc., And covering up the early Russian intervention No mention of that private meeting at the White House to discuss "Adoption."
Remember when Putin said Trump was a useful fool? That now includes the entire GOP. as well as the entire right wing media.
Yeah, they were salving at the thought of "getting" Biden..Now they are probably throwing up. :)
May be the acronym "GOP" should be changed to "FOP" ( Friends Of Putin) or maybe "EOP" (Enemies Of Democracy.
When I think of how seriously the American Intelligence community used to take the threat of Soviet penetration and compare it with the behavior of Trump and his people, I can only wonder what the hell has happened. All these useful idiots should be sentenced to the Marshall Islands for life.
I lost my Top Secret-Extremely Sensitive Information (TS-ESI) in 1968 because my new wife, a Swedish citizen, had relatives in the DDR (East Germany; communist Germany). She had only met them a few times, while I had never met them. And now we have Congressmen and GOP operatives dealing with Russian agents face to face without punishment, like it means nothing. My mind boggles at this.
Treason is a severe crime which deserves severe punishments
Treason, the ultimate corruption?
Send them all to Gitmo!
The far right wing of the GOP is so obsessed with “libs” and “elites” and abortion and immigrants that they have taken up with the enemy to anger the left. Nothing matters to them but infuriating and obstructing the sane, sensible people in this country.
Yes, and who is feeding them this fear of the libs and elites? Right wing media. The easiest people to corrupt and control are the one's who think they know everything because then they never bother to look elsewhere for the truth.
OK, but take it easy on the Marshals. I've known some very good people over there.
Remember P01135890 on day one in front of the wall of honor at CIA? He was dissing them from the get-go!
Trump disses anyone and everyone who has actually accomplished something in life, particularly men and women who have shown actual courage and have put their lives in danger. You only have to go back a bit to recall his petulant, childish jealousy (bc that’s what it was) of John McCain. He puts his fear and cowardice on display day after day.
Insecurity on display daily!
He hated John McCain because the senator was a man of honor and demonstrable courage two traits of character that he on his best day couldn’t approach for a second much less spend a lifetime living.
While I had forgotten that insulting speech, I now recall that was received with rather stunned silence by his CIA audience.
They should have gone after him right then and there!
Too bad they weren't armed...
Insiders at the White House said he never took the morning Intel Briefing, upstairs watching Fox and Friends to check out how he was doing. Bannon, et al, running the show...sacry!
(1) Am ashamed of those who yanked your SC w/o cause. Under that flimsy guise, TS-ES should only be bestowed on single straight wo/men who do not date, swear an Oath never to marry, have acquaintances or relatives with <6 Degrees of Separation from "Iron Curtain" nations, or happened to walk by Karl Marx's word product in a college or university library. That said, had you flashed a card demonstrating full membership in the John Birch Society your SC would stay w/you for life, if not beyond.
(2) Am not aware of a better example of volte-face than the USSR to Putin's Ru. The USSR was on the farthest left reaches of the linear ideological scale whereas Putin's Ru is clearly near the farthest right.
(3) Republicans then viewed anyone and anything not aligned with the center-right as commies and/or commie-leaning and anyone and anything to the ideological right of themselves as worth supporting. And overtly and covertly worked to subvert or overthrow left-leaning leaders and governments around the Blue Marble.
(4) Many mistook Putin's proclamation of the fall of the USSR as the worst occurrence in the 20th-C as an endorsement of communism rather than what it was, the loss of an empire. He made that very point in other long-winded speeches regarding the Russian Empire and the power of its Tsars.
(5) So, it comes as no surprise to me that so many so-called mainstream Republicans scratch their noggin' as to Trump's, and the majority of conservative Republicans in Congress find common cause w/Putin. Same with those in the media who ignore the long history of the GOP and conservatives' open embrace of right-wing figures, leaders, and governments. As a reminder of one of the first signs Republicans and conservatives had aligned with Putin can with the emergence of The Pussy Riot (gurl band). Rs/cons condemned The Pussy Riot for their choice of venues and attire/appearance while ignoring their biting criticism of Putin. Once again history teaches it is the poets in front of just movements, usually by years if not decades.
(6) It came as no surprise Trump covertly invited the Ru Ambassador and FM into the Oval and no surprise he chose the Kingdom as his first overseas trip. And not a single one of Lucian's examples is inconsistent with decades of the GOP and conservatives' love affair with autocrats and right-wing governments. President Obama said it best when he schooled and scolded Romney that this wasn't the Cold War era any longer. USSR and Putin's RU, "Never the twain shall meet".
(7) 'Tis the reason my take on the Ukraine-Ru war, Zelensky* etc. so differs from so many. And the reason I cringe when the lazy thinking is reflected in the expression, this is not your Father's GOP, Au contraire.
*Zelensky is 2clever by hallf. He sat in the press area of the UN and was asked if Trump's "perfect call" was a quid pro quo, a threat, extortion, etc. and denied it was. It is captured on video and is available on YOUTUBE. Many Americans missed and the US media forgot about it. One guess who did watch it and watched it many times, Putin. He saw weakness. Not just weakness, a cowering dog to a weak man. A man he humiliated in Helsinki and got Trump to say he trusts Putin more than the US Intelligence Agencies.
Putin tested that weakness by the deployment of a major force along the Uk-Ru border. Zelensky did as he expected. dismissed it. Then Putin complimented that force with materials, equipment, special forces, redeployment of air assets, and a full medical corps. Western and US Intel forewarned Zelensky for weeks, then took the unprecedented step to publicly release the intel summary of an imminent invasion. Zelensky spat at the West including the US and worst of all didn't take the step any leader would. protect his people by mobilizing his forces. Nor took the cautionary step of evacuating villages, towns, and cities within Ru artillery range.
Yes, the Ru mil engaged in the cardinal sin of outrunning their supply line. What is lost in the that was 1000s of troops w/nothing to do. and no enemy to fight. You served. You know how quickly a force with nothing can do will turn on civs. Add in the fact the Ru is far from professional and it was predictable atrocities would occur. As predictable was the Ru mil targeting of civ infrastructure as happened in both Chechen Wars.
So, Zelensky is no Churchill nor a competent wartime CinC. His continuous spitting at NATO for not doing enough is that of an ingrate. Even after fully supplying and arming Uk the so-called counteroffensive never happened even after delaying it for months allowing Ru to build layers of fortifications. And finally, Uk is NOT a nation at war because it exempts 18-26-year-old males from conscription yet takes 50+-year-olds. At the same time, Zelensky claims not to have enough fighters and claims to be outnumbered 7:1. Most of all Zelensky gambled on his personal persuasion that NATO would allow Uk in and/or send soldiers/pilots. I say that because it was Zelensky's wishful thinking that he could dodge questions at the UN about Trump, and dodge an invasion by Putin. , then simply announce an impending counteroffensive that would send Ru running back to the border. He ain't cut out to be a wartime CinC.
Those were the rules, so I wasn't surprised. I didn't miss it either, as it was for nuke mission planning against USSR and/or Communist China. So, I got the exact assignment I had asked for: Army Advisory Team on the Cambodian border, which required only a Secret clearance, though I could generate stuff which would be classified by superior officers as Top Secret. Ha!.
But, that was when the the Cold War was HOT...amazing what is happening now...and very scary!
Why the hell is it easier for Russians,flush with foreign cash and bent on espionage and attacks on our democracy, to get into this country than penurious immigrants seeking asylum on the southern border. Which one would you rather admit? Our priorities are wildly out of whack...
$$$$
Money? Working for the FBI?
Seems to me that the Republican Congress critters are in this up to their eyeballs. Treason, anybody? Where the hell is the DOJ? I don't want to hear that these clowns are protected by the Speech and Debate Clause. Arrest the lot of them.
I'm afraid we will need a different Attorney General. These guys will all be dead before Merrick Garland decides to investigate, much less arrest and prosecute.
I'm guessing Merrick won't be around for Biden's 2nd term either way.
I’m afraid you’re right. He’s a fine, eminent and deliberative legal mind who would have been perfect on the SC bench, but McConnell nixed that one, for which I hope he burns in hell. We need an aggressive go-getter like Jack Smith as AG. Are you listening, Joe?
Tell it to Biden.
Remember when they were all in Moscow for the Fourth of July. WTF was that about??
I will never forget that!
I remember. 🤬
Lucian, your first paragraph had me laughing out loud. Smirnov sold himself as THE agent of the decade and look who bought into his bullshit lies? None other than Dweedle Dumb and Dweedle Dumber! Tonight, Jordan ( take your pick on which “tweedle” he is) looked a little unnerved while his tie was melting on his shirt but then, he gained some traction and said “It is what it is.” That’s right, Jimmy Boy…it is the confirmation we all have needed that Hunter and Joe did NOTHING WRONG! In fact, you two JimBobs better sit yo’ asses down cause you ain’t got nothin’.
I look forward to seeing Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber marched off in handcuffs, along with all their pals.
according to Glenn Kirschner, they could be indicted for conspiring with a foreign government and I hope they are if Merrick Garland would get off his ass and do something!!
Yeah, but he won’t. He’s a legal scholar. We need a kick-ass AG next time around. Jack Smith, anyone?
Garland will not get off his ass. He is there at the behest of the Federalist Society to do as much damage as possible. If Biden had any guts he'd fire Garland now and give us a real AG.
I agree - these times call for an attack dog. Preet Ferara (sp?)
Preet Bharara would be a great choice. So would Sally Yates or Doug Jones. Maybe even Glenn Kirschner. Anybody but Garland and his lapdog Lisa Monaco.
I was just about to say GLENN KIRSCHNER!!!
Amen to that.
*or Dweedle!* Toe-may-toe Toe-mah-toe🙄
OK, Marlene, you and Patris are on a roll tonight.
Marlene, glad it was not just me laughing!
Like a James Bond film where the plot is based on the premise that “if they’re Republican they can be corrupted.”
Scene: A keystone cops throwback shot. Cue idiot coming down an escalator with Natasha Badanov.
Wasn't her last name Fatale?
It was Boris who was Badanov.
Must check
You nail it Patris!
And remember James Comey who didn't tell Americans about this Trump-Manafort-Russia connection, but made front-page headlines falsely suggesting Hillary Clinton was breaking the law. Maybe he's working for the Kushners now.
Agreed..James Comey and his self Whitewashing of his Hillary actions..
THIS is how we got here..
Where are the Congressional Democrats? Why aren’t they screaming about these Rethug sell-outs?
Where’s Matt Taibbi and the rest of “leftist Mainstream media”?
Don’t “Russian agents in our government” sell newspapers - oops screen space anymore?
I majored in Russian & International Relations 30 years ago — and fended off lots of stupid comments from my conservative family about me being a “pinko-commie-lover”. It is blowing my mind that this same crowd have been flipped — a mass compromising if you will. Was the NRA infiltration the first entry point? Were any Republicans “entertaining” Russians operatives before Drumpf came on the scene?
Corruption. Lots of looted petrodollars. There are many examples like trump properties being bought. Aluminum factory investment in Kentucky and all sorts of laundered campaign contributions. Let’s face how corrupt the MAGA GOP is.
According to no less than Kevin McCarthy, they were!
I need a GD Venn diagram to follow this…where does this all start? Is J6 part of this scheme? no matter where it starts or who’s at the top, every person who’s part of cabal needs to be investigated…Bottom line…the GOP hierarchy has been compromised and it has to come down… traitors, un-American POS
Yes, J6 is part of this scheme. The part where like Hitler took over the German govt, Trump takes over the US government.
Yeah, J6 was the Munich putsch and Kristallnacht analog.
History does like to echo.....
I forgot to mention our new American Navalny - Donald Trump. Of course he fails to mention that had Navalny gone on Russian Television and accused Putin of persecuting him or of Taking bribes he wouldn't have left the TV station alive. Of course he never would have even been allowed to go on TV in the first place. But he couldn't even have held a rally and bad mouthed Putin. . Free speech is not something the Russian people have ever experienced. They even got arrested for quietly laying flowers in memory of Navaldy.
While, like Athens and Sparta.. our American (fragile) Democracy remains, by it’s nature dangerously vulnerable to both Russia/Putin and Trump
That's about it in a nutshell,Gregory. It's a scary time.
Yes, at MOST there were sporadic periods lasting only months between 1918 - 1922 and it was never close to encompassing the entirety of Mother Russia, especially as the post- Bolshevik coup civil war raged on, and with some twenty-one other nations (including the USA) intervening to one extent or another.
Yup. Sad but true. Yet every flower-laying citizen deserves a medal for bravery. They knew what lay in store for them.
So true, Arthur, imagine, knowing you will be arrested and fined but bringing flowers anyway. You have to wonder what makes a man like Putin be what he is? He has untold wealth, several luxury homes. absolute power. and has no hesitation over killing anyone he perceives as a political threat. If he manages to stay in power until old age gets him and eventually death, what has he really gained? He can't be a happy man knowing any loyalty to him is either out of fear or they are greatly rewarded financially. He has to know he is universally hated. ,
It’s virtually impossible to understand a psychopath. Their minds are very different from yours or mine. Putin lives in the here and now and only answers to his inner lust for power and control. Other people mean nothing to them. Trump is a psychopath (and a malignant narcissist—- a really toxic combination). Stalin was a psychopath. They often rise to power. Many CEOs are psychopaths. They’re often successful. They can be charming and persuasive. They are often very dangerous people. They have no conscience and have trouble relating to other human beings. Many live among us (about 1 in 25), according to Martha Stout in her excellent book, “The Sociopath Next Door.” Only a very tiny fraction of 1% is a serial killer… but when one rises to power, watch out. This is where we are with Putin. He’s a serial murderer and a head of state.
Wow, very r enlightening, Arthur, so well explained. I hadn't heard of that book. Now for a big question: Do you think there o are more of these types (albeit to a lesser degree) in the Republican party than in the general population? In other words more of them are more likely to vote republican' or is there no way to tell without a mass psychological test :)
Just to day for example the chief Justice of the Superior Court in Alabama (as I'm sure everyone knows by now) has ruled that a frozen fertilized egg is a baby. So now all the clinics have paused treatments for fear of being prosecuted forcing prospective parents to essentially make lifetime payments to the clinics to keep all fertilized eggs alive for fear of being charged with causing the death of a baby. The Chief Justice based his decision on his religious beliefs that to destroy an embryo would anger God. (so much for separation of Church and state. https://www.yahoo.com/news/alabama-chief-justice-invoked-god-182002024.html
Since the 1930s, the Republican Party has hsd only a passing acquaintanceship with hard numbers and factual accuracy in anything resembling politics, public accounts, and foreign relations. Since the old-style southern racists and demigogues took over the party after the 2000 election, Republicans' racial anxieties have gotten the better of them. They can't help themselves. They do it because they've convinced voters in mostly interior Republican-strong states that our country is on the verge of being overrun by destitute refugees from south of the border. Their home states have been losing population for decades. What remains are cities and towns that live in a mythic past, when their residents were young and vital, and the world was their oyster.
Now their world is different, with people who don't look like them, who worship a different diety, whose children show up in local schools who look like they don't really belong there, and who have names local people can't pronounce. Local people react in fear. Imagine, if you will, groups of foreign-born people suddenly showing up in our own neighborhoods, unannounced and unwelcome. What was once 'our' town no longer seems so.
Whatever new businesses come to depressed towns is cut-throat, low-wage, and is typically physically-demanding, slaughter houses and rendering plants.
Many of these facilities are foreign-owned. Hollowed-out, down-sized economies and the corporate plants and businesses that become the mainstay of those economies are often located in states whose better days were half a century ago -- they exist because state governments offered tax breaks that no local firm or business could qualify for. Welcome to economic dependency and the modern version of colonial exploitation.
These companies will fight unionization with every tool at their disposal. Republicans, never labor's friend, support the bosses at the newcomer's company. This isn't about tax rates and economics any more, it's about social status, and keeping the foreign-born in their place. Foreign-born workers can be discriminated against and fired at will, with no recourse.
It's a short step to cheating on elections involving native-born Amrricans. Authoritarian politics are contagious. Donald Trump is simply the most extreme manifestation of the inequities that have been plaguing our country for decades, hollowing out our middle income folks and rewarding get rich quick schemes that find our political culture easy marks for exploitation. Republicans put a premium on 'making their bones', whatever the numbers, figuring they won't be held accountable. They won't own the damage they bring to the table.
Republicans used to be fornational security, and supporting allies. That's no longer true. For them allies are foreigners to be extorted or played. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have dumpster-dived down that path.
Somewhere along the line, some of us lost our vision of a more equitable society. That's why Joe Biden's my guy. He's one of the few people in politics who didn't need a trust fund to get into politics and he likely won't have one when he leaves. His legislative program has been aimed squarely at building out the middle.
No main-stream Republican candidate has raised the standard of national honor in our dealings with others. And that is shameful. They conflate autocratic control with genuine accomplishment. And they are so wrong about that. They deserve no one's vote
As always in the good ole USA, follow the money!!
The Republicans have been screaming treason since the election of Franklin Roosevelt. They screamed about treason in the 1950s, conducted witch hunts, and destroyed hundred of thousands of lives. They've kept it up ever since. Now it turns out that they are the real traitors. Are they going to pay a price for their treason? What is the DOJ going to do about this?
They commited Treason in 1939 and got busted. US Senators and Congressmen. Working for Hitler. America First. Sound familiar? The isolationists were working to keep the US ut of the war to save Germany.
Absolutely true.
The Trump russia connection was well known. Feckless Barr and Comey said there is nothing see here..
Disappearing texts from the secret service on 1/6, DHS and FBI knew nothing about the threat that day? All MAGA boys by appearance.
Maybe the 'dossier' was real?!
"Fainting couch," haha!! Love the reference to this antiquated Victorian furniture.
Looks like the GOP has been successfully assimilated into the KGB. Must be a proud moment for those creeps.
The rubes don't have a clue...Putin smiles.
In the LOL part of your terrific post, if you gave away or can't find your fainting couch, Wayfair's Almous Chaise really looks the part, although it's pricey, at around $2500. Speaking of money, which we must, since it's the only other measurement that means anything to Convicted Sexual Offender and Indicted Defendant Tr**p, Lockheed Martin is producing F-35 fighters a year, at a fly it off the lot price of $177 million each. My phone calculator function, held sideways, says that means USAF operational squadrons with 24 planes cost $4.24 billion just for the original hardware. Replacement parts extra.
Do we think ex-KGB agent Putin has spent $4.24 billion "supporting" (old-fashioned word, "bribing") Make America God Awful Trumpublicans as they silverfish their way through the U.S. Constitution. Some of your readers have mentioned the 1930s. All of your readers should get their hands and put their eyes on Rachel Maddow's "Prequel," which tells the story of the Nazi investment in promoting "America First." It was working then, save for FDR's resolution and ingenuity, Similar tactics are working now. Make that "have been working."
Cast your mind back to August, 2016, a Trump rally in Ohio, where two middle-age friends from the town of Delaware, Ohio (population around 40,000) were photographed wearing "I'd Rather Be Russian Than Democrat" t-shirts. I'd love to know what James Timothy "Tim" Alicie and Richard Birchfield have to say today about Russia, Putin, et cetera.
Even the brilliant Rod Serling couldn't have made all this up in one of his Twilight Zone episodes. The real has become unreal and the unreal, real.
The stench over washington is unbearable right now. Of course V Comey and Jordan playing it down as "we have other evidence, this was just one item" As if to say it wasn't that important, but yet it was very big news when they first announced it with glee.
The GOP was really taken in by the Russians weren't they? They were played for suckers. Doing all f Putin's work for him, holding off on aid for Ukraine, implicating Bisen in wrongdoing, etc., And covering up the early Russian intervention No mention of that private meeting at the White House to discuss "Adoption."
Remember when Putin said Trump was a useful fool? That now includes the entire GOP. as well as the entire right wing media.
Yeah, they were salving at the thought of "getting" Biden..Now they are probably throwing up. :)
May be the acronym "GOP" should be changed to "FOP" ( Friends Of Putin) or maybe "EOP" (Enemies Of Democracy.
Forgot about the 'Adoptions' BS!!