More than twenty things in support of notion that the Left (and their pop-left propaganda garbage known as MSM) have become nearly completely unhinged: McCain and others say they think Trump in Helsinki is the worst interaction we ever had with Russia, the worst diplomatic disaster ever. But they forgot: 1945 "Japanese internment camp" FDR at Yalta sold out half of Euro. to Stalin and repeatedly praised him. 1961 JFK told a friend - after his meeting with Khrushchev - he felt he rolled over for Khrushchev, came across weak, and that meeting was pretty disastrous, (USSR a few weeks later ship missiles to cuba and begins wall in Berlin). 1975 Ford w/Brezhnev, Recognized territorial Soviet sovereignty of USSR including the captive states of Europe. 1979 Carter: placed a big wet kiss on Brezhnev's cheek in Vienna. Meanwhile, the Left defended e.g. the Rosenbergs, and Alger Hiss, and they opposed/delayed development of pershing II missiles to counter Russia (we ultimate got 'em anyway), and also opposed SDI defense system to defend US against Russian nuke missiles (still do). Obama: EIGHT YEARS No steps taken to combat Russian interference in the US election (in fact he ridiculed the idea in Oct 2016: "there's no serious person out there who would suggest somehow you could even rig America's elections." Sat and watched while Russia annexed Crimea, and invaded Georgia He fucked over eastern Ukraine - refused to supply them with defensive weaponry. He capitulated in Syria (repeated unmet "red line" lost any credibility he might have had) At Russia's demand, he removed missile defenses from Poland and Chec Republic. Trump: EIGHTEEN MONTHS Expanded sanctions on Russia companies. Expanded Nato and pushed for add'l funding from members. Massive increase in US defense spending Restored missile defense against Russia of Poland and Chec. Ended arms embargoes on Ukraine and Georgia (imposed by Obama). Returned Hvy armored divisions to Germany. Pre-positioned armed brigades Baltics. Admonished Germany for fund Russia's economy and war machine by buying 70% of supply (and becoming dependent on) Russia's energy supply through dedicated pipeline. [or see Henry's list for further grist]
Identify inaccuracies of fact, or at least give some clue or idea why you believe that the Left is not actually deranged and has a cogent point about your collective meltdown over Helsinki. : ) Other than, of course, an absolute mistrust of anything that starts with the word "Trump …"
Cool, skoal. (Re-)Playing Fallout 3 for the added sick pleasure of wandering the Capitol as a wasteland. What a shit-show DC has become on practically every level. The Congress with the sound-bite stupidity, and "intel community," with such "leaders" as Comey, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, and other various literally pieces of shit at top places in our government, such as it is.
Stalin hadn't attacked us. He still didn't stand up at a podium with Kruschev and say "missiles? There are no missiles in Cuba" Still not selling out this country. SDI is arguable on merits. Which President did the rest? Yeah, that was pretty spineless. Of course, what would you have said if he'd said "We have solid intelligence that Russia is interfering in our elections for the benefit of Mr. Trump."? I bet it wouldn't have been "hot damn, no way I can vote for Trump now, he'd be beholden to Russia if he won!", and instead more along the lines of "FUCKING OBAMA TRYING TO THROW THE ELECTION TO HILLARY MAKING SHIT UP." Not our country's problem. Not our country's problem. Not Russia. No, he paused their deployment for 2 years as a gesture of good faith. And we hadn't been attacked then. He also put them in Romania. Congress did that, over his objections. He's not even enforcing them all. He had nothing to do with the former, and did his damnedest to make sure they didn't actually fund more by doing nothing but whining and waffling on our commitments? Not Russia-specific. This is simply a lie. There are no missile defenses in Czechia, and the ones in Poland that came online this year were the phase III of the ones that Obama delayed, not cancelled. Finally. One. And he did it quietly. A meaningless gesture if he's going to invite their cyberwarriors (ugh, there's a word I didn't want to use, but it fits) to have their way with US servers as long as it serves his personal interests. That's 2 though. To a smaller extent than asked. And now after the NATO conference they're wondering if they'll actually fight for them. 20%.
Okay, but I'm looking for details. What are we doing to influence Russian elections? What ever we're doing, we might as well be yelling at a tidal wave.
In 2012 USAID was funding opposition groups and was promptly kicked out by Putin. Link. Quite a lot was done in 1996 to prop up Boris Yeltsin. Link. Link. Here is a piece about how widespread it has been historically, all over the world. A lot of it is through NGO's under the moniker of "democracy promotion". One could argue that that's a good thing but it's still interference. Especially since democracy tends to be defined in such a way as to benefit US interests. It's so routine that labelling it an "act of war" is pretty absurd. Relations may be strained but Russia is not at war or technically an "enemy" of the United States. So however much of a buffoon Trump is, hysterical denunciations of his "treason" shouldn't be taken seriously.
Pic doing the rounds showing that he'd scrawled "there was no collusion!" on his typed script for that "apology", plus he went off script anyway and said others might have been involved besides Russia. People are comparing it to the same non-apology apology he gave after Charlottesville.
Oh...NGO's. Aren't those kind of like registered foreign agents? Well, sure. That kind of stuff happens all the time, and it's usually pretty transparent, more or less.. I was talking about stuff like influencing elections through illegal hacking, data theft, cyber attacks...stuff like that. I probably should have been more clear.
It certainly isn't transparent. It's incredibly underhand. Why focus on those things? Is it okay for foreign governments to meddle in elections by funding their preferred groups? What would you think if the Trump campaign was part-financed by Putin?
Because what we're talking about? If that's legal, then at least it's playing by the rules is it not?
We're talking about election meddling by foreign powers. There is more than one way of doing that. It isn't legal. Precisely some of the allegations of Russian meddling concern Russian funding of ads and "misinformation". And when the US does it, they do it covertly too.
Okay, then that's not what I was talking about. I was differentiating between the shenanigans that have been going on since the beginning of time and, cyber attacks. Then what exactly is legal when it comes to meddling? Right now we're hearing about Maria Butina. She's being charged with, among other things, "promoting Russian state interests as an unregistered foreign agent". The implication there is that promoting Russian state interests as a registered foreign agent is A-okay.
Question for all Trumpologists: can you honestly say that it is in the best interests of this country for the president to “get along” and have a “good relationship” with Vladimir Putin? Because right now he is making that relationship his top priorty.
Which is worse, the crossing out of the part about bringing the attackers to justice or the fact that the fucking Republican president is illiterate? Rellations? Colusion? He doesn't drink and it was hand written so he doesn't even have the @Dinner excuses.
Does it hurt when your Putin and Assange apologism makes you a Trump apologist? Or do you have enough cognitive dissonance that you don't even realize it?
I still don't understand to this day how hundreds of millions of Americans couldn't see during the election that the man was not very intelligent.
Sorry, I don't buy this "with us or against us" nonsense. It is not illogical to be against Putin, Trump and the hysterical campaign to imagine that one is a pawn of the other. That is designed both to push confrontation with Russia, which is highly dangerous - and to avoid the need to challenge Trump and the GOP on their despicable domestic agenda. I have no truck with either of those goals. As for Assange, he remains a martyr of free speech and the onslaught of slander against him over many years has done very little to dissuade me from support.
Thanks O2C. You're right that 70% would at best be a high-end estimate - though I didn't pull the number from thin air. Remind me, is Daily Mail one of those sources instantly dismissed by Wf? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...RIGHT-Germany-imports-70-cent-gas-Russia.html
The way I understood it, Trump claimed it was 70% of Germany's energy, when it's really just 70% of it's natural gas...which only makes up 20ish% of it's energy mix. That's not to say 20% isn't a big chunk nor something to be concerned about. It was already a controversial move before Trump chimed in.
Wasn't it like 30 years ago that Assange first hacked the Pentagon/DoD ? Wouldn't you agree that the US's weakness on cyber-security is an embarrassment, given we've had decades since our vulnerabilities were exposed to tighten up against threats like Russia and China messing with it? Both Bushes, Clinton and Obama were pretty shite in this regard. [Though of course we don't know the scope of what we don't know.]
Says the guy who, when pushed for more details, responded with, "I have no doubt". So you weren't talking about cyber attacks?
