80 years later and Russia has learned nothing

 

    We've seen these images before. Hell, the Russians have seen the horrific images before. But one gets the impression the lessons learned in Finland in 1939-1940 were forgotten by Vladimir Putin when it came to invading Ukraine, another independent nation on Russia's western border. Didn't he study ANY Soviet history? This never goes well for the Russians.

    How many more dead Russian soldiers is the world going to have to see before it breaks the heart of Mother Russia and someone there finally strikes out at the idiot that led Russia's military into another catastrophe?

    There's an old tradition where the targeted victim gets kissed by his biggest suck-up before he gets snuffed.

GLORY TO UKRAINE!

Putin claims Trump helped him again

A new TASS story sounds suspiciously familiar: 

because it's almost a carbon copy of the incident Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced from the White House Press Room on Sunday, December 17, 2017, (two years ago) saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned Donald Trump to thank him for a tip from the CIA that thwarted a terrorist attack being planned at Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, that Trump's supplying “secret information” had helped Russian FSB agents mop up a terrorist cell.

So on December 27, 2019, according to the Kremlin, Putin spoke with President Trump to thank him…again…for information that Putin said assisted Russia to thwart another terrorist attack this time over the New Year's holiday. (How is it U.S. intelligence agents can catch terrorists in Russia but can't catch terrorist mass shooters here at home?)

TASS reports that the Russian Federal Security service said it obtained the information from its “American partners” and seized material from two Russian suspects that confirmed they were preparing to launch terrorist attacks...again in St. Petersburg...during the upcoming holiday. What an amazing coincidence; terrorists are stopped at the same time of year in the same foreign city by the same U.S. Intelligence people! 
Of course, no further details were provided.

(What the Russians are asking people to do is to connect the dots - with no dots.)

There was no immediate comment from the White House, which is strange because if Trump actually had anything to do with supplying this information that stopped an attack, he'd be tweeting about it nonstop. The White House did not even acknowledge any call with Putin. All the reporting came from TASS or the Kremlin. 
(Two days later, after repeatedly being asked about the Kremlin report, the White House released a statement admitting there was a call and promptly re-directed everyone to a claim that the two had also discussed nuclear issues.)

So what this sounds like is Trump getting a positive performance review at his annual evaluation from the boss for not saying a word about Russia completing a railroad into Crimea ahead of full annexation and diverting election-interference attention away from Russia and toward Ukraine. 

Fox is always willing to deflect for Trump to appease Putin.

       Putin is thanking Trump for a tip from something U.S. intelligence sources discovered…the same intelligence agencies Trump has openly disparaged in favor of whatever Putin says. Why would Trump trust anything our agencies uncovered? And if Putin is so convincingly powerful why is he relying on American intelligence agencies to save his ass from a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg and then thanking his puppet Trump, who believes our intelligence and national security agencies make up a part of a "Deep State" that is out to get him? Does the FSB suck at discovering potential terrorists in their own country? How did U.S. intelligence stumble upon it first? Why would anyone, including Putin, believe anything Trump says?

       This is a calculated cynical appeal to Trump supporters as a means of embellishing Donald Trump’s great accomplishments from a Russian perspective.

“You like Donald, yes? Here, we give you more reason for liking...because he helps Mother Russia.”

Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton’s Incredible Offer

        On Monday, September 10^th, National Security Advisor John Bolton made a speech where he said the US would do everything "to protect our citizens" and threatened sanctions against the International Criminal Court if it goes ahead with prosecutions against Americans. Founded in 2002, the International Criminal Court investigates and brings to justice people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute. The US is among several nations that have not joined the court.

          In the speech given in Washington, Bolton said: "If the court comes after us, we will not sit quietly." And that the ICC “is dead to us.” ICC judges and prosecutors would be barred from entering the US and their funds in the US would be sanctioned. No one is going to mess with any US citizen.

          Couldn’t be clearer how he feels.

          So how does Trump’s self-abasing praise for Putin’s offer at the Helsinki summit last July square with Bolton’s claim that the US would do everything "to protect our citizens?"

           At the summit, Putin proposed what President Trump described as an “incredible offer,” Russia would be allowed to question certain U.S. officials it suspects of interfering in Russian affairs, like former Ambassador Michael McFaul and Bill Browder (who was mostly responsible for the Maginsky Act), whom Trump considered turning over to Putin’s FSB. Trump even seemed excited about the prospect, calling it an "interesting idea."  

"The President's going to meet with his team and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on that," White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

        In speeches, interviews and op-eds, John Bolton has called Vladimir Putin a liar who aligns himself with America’s enemies, and whose country is a long-term strategic threat to the United States. So what was Bolton’s reaction to Trump finding Putin's offer "incredible" last July?

(Crickets)

        It was left to Sarah Sanders to respond. “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it," Sanders said in a statement. It took Trump four days until he finally "disagreed with it." How do we even know Trump disagrees with this proposal, especially since it was made to him in sincerity and he originally said it was an incredible offer? Trump should tell us what was incredible about it. Of course, Trump didn’t bother to verbally disavow it himself, nor would Sanders. Trump didn’t say, do, or tweet jacksh*t. Sanders just issued a statement. When that didn’t put out the raging firestorm it caused, the State Department sent out spokeswoman-apologist Heather Nauert to try to undo the damage by telling a reporter that Russia’s request is “absolutely absurd.” That shows how tough Bolton and the Trump administration can be.
BOLTON...
SAID...
NOTHING

        Bolton will defend U.S. citizens even against the world…as long as Trump isn’t trying to sell them out.

        This is why Bob Woodward’s observations about Trump are so critical. Trump is a very real threat to the safety and well-being of every American.

Putin and Trump - World-Class Liars

Trump – “There is no collusion. Absolutely none. I have nothing to do with Russia.”

Putin - "Thank you, President Trump. Information obtained from the CIA was sufficient to search for and arrest of criminals.”

          Today, it is revealed by White House press manipulator Sarah Huckabee Sanders that on Sunday Russian President Putin phoned Trump to thank him for a tip from the CIA that thwarted a terrorist attack being planned at Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. A tip from the CIA? And Trump had a hand in providing it?

Countries share intelligence occasionally, but this call was highly unusual since presidents rarely, if ever, thank one another for something from the other's spy agency. According to the White House press release, which was offered only after the Kremlin had mentioned it in their own TASS dispatch, “The Federal Security Service said Friday that seven members of a terror cell had been detained for their involvement in the plot, and that "a significant amount of explosives," weapons and "extremist literature" were confiscated.

          TASS also reported that when caught, the perpetrators even obliged by confessing to the whole terrorist scheme on camera. It was almost as if it was STAGED!!!

For the fifth time this year, this information was released by the RUSSIANS…not by the White House. Not until the Kremlin made the phone call known did our own president acknowledge he had been colluding with…I mean, in contact with, Putin. So we’re just now finding out OUR intelligence agency is working with the RUSSIAN intelligence agency and American citizens have deliberately been kept in the dark. Yet both governments now want to openly brag about it, so it’s not like they’re trying to keep it a secret so they can thwart future terrorist attacks. Why is Trump telegraphing this information? He said so many times on the campaign trail that he wasn’t going to let our enemies know what the U.S. is doing. (What he seems to mean is he doesn’t want U.S. citizens to know what he’s doing.) As if it has always been done this way, Trump is pointing out how our intelligence service is helping the Russians.

This then begs the question of why didn’t our CIA do the same for the Pakistanis who supposedly are our allies when a terrorist bomber struck at a Christian church in Quetta last Sunday killing 9 people? Why didn’t our intelligence services provide any help to Nigeria in recent weeks when Boko Haram killed hundreds of people in separate attacks across that country since mid-November? Closer to home, why didn’t that vaunted intelligence stop Akayed Ullah the New York City subway bomber on December 12th? On top of all that, as recently as last month, Trump said he didn’t trust our intelligence agencies, and less than a year ago he was comparing them to the Nazis. Why was their untrustworthy intelligence good enough now to pass on to the Russians?

Does anyone believe this nonsense? What evidence do we have that the CIA provided the information? There is nothing to show it sent anything or contacted the FSB at all. Neither Trump nor Putin has provided proof of cooperation between the two agencies. We just have to take their word for it. But things that are asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Putin called to thank Trump for the CIA tip, after Thursday's call congratulating him on how strong our economy is. Why would the Russians congratulate the U.S. on a booming economy? How does that help Russia?

          This is just the latest pack of lies from two world-class liars. It was invented (by Putin or Trump, or both) to gloss over something entirely different. Both leaders agreed that this serves as an example of the positive things that can occur when the two countries work together. Here’s the bizarre part…you notice that “when the two countries work together,” the Trump administration never works with Brazil, Thailand, Iran, Denmark, China, Sri Lanka, or any other country in that manner. It is always…ALWAYS…the Russians - and only the Russians. Why?

          Do you believe Trump when he says there’s no collusion?

A Farewell to the American Experiment - How it was lost

After listening to the testimony, or more accurately, the lack thereof, from Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant AG Rod Rosenstein, NSA Director Mike Rogers and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats on Wednesday, June 7^th, there is an unwitting, unprecedented, and unnerving thread implied from their non-answers. And that is; they don’t have to account for anything. They don’t have to explain anything. Even though there is no “executive privilege” that prevents them from answering the oversight committee’s questions, they tacitly told the American people “Go screw yourselves. We don’t work for you. We work for the guy in the White House, and anything to do with Russia is none of your damned business." So they give the impression they owe no allegiance to anyone…except for Trump. They must protect Trump at all costs. Why?

From now on, it's Trump first.

At this point, with a lack of any concrete information or even any useful tidbits, one must extrapolate the reason for those refusals from what we do know. Here is the rundown on Trump and his associates’ inexplicable actions, false statements involving the Russians, and Russian efforts to subvert our election:

·        Mike Flynn is fired after lying about his discussions with Sergey Kislyak about sanctions against Russia. He also was paid $43,000 by Russia Today TV in spring 2016 for a speaking engagement in Moscow and is seated right next to Putin, even leading the standing ovation for Putin. He conveniently forgot to mention that when vetted. Trump still defends him.

·        Jeff Sessions lied to Congress during his Senate confirmation hearings to become Attorney General about his two, and now possibly three, unreported meetings with Kislyak before the election. He just forgot about those meetings.

·        Jared Kushner fails to mention a dozen secret meetings with Kislyak on his high-security clearance SF86 form, as well as with sanctioned Russian bank president and KGB college graduate Sergey Gorkov in November and December 2016. Kushner's lawyers claim he just forgot. He even went to extraordinary lengths in December to establish a secret line of communication between the Trump administration and Russia, using secure facilities at the Russian Embassy.

·        Roger Stone, who admits contacting Guccifer 2.0, identified by US and European intelligence agencies as the go-between to the Russian military’s GRU and WikiLeaks, and aided in the release of the DNC hacked emails. He says there's nothing wrong with that.

·        Carter Page, identified by Trump as a key member of his foreign policy team who was discovered in transcripts between Russian intelligence agents as an unwitting dupe for them, admits on MSNBC that he met with Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Trump claims he barely knows Page.

·        Paul Manafort, who made millions helping pro-Russian Ukrainian officials for almost 10 years, and who was instrumental in having the only item changed in the Republican platform at the Convention - denying aid to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russians - is made Trump's campaign chairman and appears with him on stage at many rallies. Trump later claims he hardly knows him.

·        Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon/Mobil who personally received the Russian's highest civilian award, the Order of Friendship medal from Vladimir Putin, and who was working on a $500 billion oil deal in the Arctic above Siberia until the Obama sanctions against Russia for taking Crimea away from Ukraine stops it, is made Secretary of State by Trump. Until December 6, 2016, Trump had never met or talked with Tillerson at all. Why did he choose Tillerson?

·        The Congressional investigation into Russian meddling in the election has expanded to include Michael Cohen, personal attorney and close confidant to Trump. Cohen told ABC News that House and Senate investigators have requested “information and testimony” about any contacts he had with Russians officials.

·        When Trump held his very first foreign policy speech April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC, unbidden, he went up to Sergey Kislyak and greeted him warmly, indicating he had met him previously. He greeted no other ambassador in that manner. Also in attendance, Jeff Sessions.

In just the last month alone, there are these additional Russia-related items:

May 9, 2017, Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. Trump goes on TV later that week and tells Lester Holt of NBC News that he fired him because of “this Russia thing.” It is then revealed he brags to Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who meet with him in the Oval Office that Comey is “a real nut job” and “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
             May 18, 2017, it is revealed by former CIA Director John Brennan that Trump’s advisers, including Michael Flynn, contacted Russian officials at least 18 times in phone calls and emails between April and November 2016.

May 22, 2017, it is reported that Trump called Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Michael Rogers to request that they deny in public any evidence of collusion between his campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.

May 31, 2017, President Vladimir Putin acknowledges that some “patriotic” Russian individuals may have engaged in hacking but insisted Russia as a country has never done it.

June 1, 2017, the Wall Street Journal reports that from the earliest days of the Trump administration, they attempted to have the State Dept. lift sanctions against Russia. These are the very sanctions put in place from Russian tampering with our election. The White House does not deny it.

June 5, 2017, an NSA report, dated May 5, is leaked to Intercept, an online news site, by Reality Winner, an NSA contractor in Georgia, who is then arrested by the FBI. The report provides details of a 2016 Russian military intelligence cyberattack on a US voting software supplier. A US official confirmed to CNN that The Intercept's document is a genuine, classified NSA document. The FBI does not arrest people for releasing fake documents, only real ones.

June 9, 2017, the Trump administration says they are considering easing some punishments the Obama administration levied against Russia for election interference abuses, even returning two compounds that were closed in December because they were being used by Russian intelligence. The Trump administration asks for nothing in return.

You notice these instances never involve the Brazilians, the North Koreans, or the ambassador from Sri Lanka. It is always the Russians. Always. But hey, maybe they are ALL just coincidences.

It appears the Russians hold some kind of sway or power over Trump, something so damaging, that our highest intelligence and law enforcement officials; Rogers, Coats, Rosenstein, and McCabe, are willing to cover up for and protect Trump. They refused to answer any questions in any way, even so far as refusing to just answer yes or no to simple procedural questions about the investigation or what Trump asked of them. These are our TOP INTELLIGENCE PEOPLE. The people who were overseeing our security and matters related to intelligence gathering for the US. Yet on their watch, our election was hacked…even Trump admitted it at his first post-election press conference on December 11th.

Two of our most incompetent "intelligence" officers - McCabe (L) and Rogers (R)

McCabe and Rogers failed at their one and only job at the time. They failed to prevent Russian hacking of US computers - and that most likely aided Trump. Trump publicly asked the Russians to do it so why does he still insist the whole Russian hacking story is fake news? It is more and more likely that the Christopher Steele dossier is valid and fully factual. What must the Russians have on Trump that our intelligence and justice officials are willing to risk their integrity, their public perception and their loyalty to this country? How harmful must this information be? It appears if this information was revealed, it would be so damaging that our Constitutional Republic would be brought to an end. Is it the alleged hookers and pee tape? Is it the billions of dollars Trump owes to Russian-controlled banks? So much money that it could cause massive damage to the US economy now that Trump is president? Are there illegal deals the Russians can prove that Trump is involved in, like money laundering through the Bank of Cyprus, where our new Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Jr. was Vice President?  

The subterfuge and “shiny metal object” distractions Trump’s surrogates throw up is reminiscent to what was palmed off on Americans immediately after the assassination of JFK. What had happened in Dallas was initially considered so potentially detrimental that a lie had to be created to prevent the US from launching a war against the Soviet Union - a war that would leave at least 100 million people (40 million of which would have been American) dead from a nuclear exchange. This is what Lyndon Johnson used as leverage against Earl Warren to force him to form the committee to gather information on the assassination but find Oswald guilty at all costs. Americans must be deflected from thinking the Soviets were in any way involved. So it seemed strange that the Dallas Police immediately began saying Oswald was a communist. (He wasn’t, he was a Marxist.) And the FBI revealed they knew of his ties to Russia as he had just returned from defecting to the Soviet Union. But the Warren Commission whitewashed everything down to claiming that while Oswald was a communist sympathizer, he was a lone nut who just wanted his place in the sun, so he killed Kennedy but wouldn’t admit to it. Two days later Jack Ruby just happened to be in the right place at the right time to silence him. See, it’s all just coincidence.

One further point that needs to be made. Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz was the lead attorney for the Russian state-owned bank sanctioned by the US - and that same bank’s CEO is the one who met with Jared Kushner during and after the campaign that Jared failed to disclose on his security clearance application. Defending Russia's illegal activities and Trump and his family's treasonous actions seem to be Kasowitz’ only business.

Throughout all this, Trump has downplayed Russian tampering while exhibiting diminished mental acuity, moral ineptitude, complete fabrications, vicious acrimony, and a disdain for common decency. Yet his supporters and intelligence officers like McCabe and Rogers don’t give a damn about it. Russia can meddle anytime they like. Our highest ranking intelligence people condone the interference and give Trump a pass on it. This is now just the way the presidency works. It's the end of our Constitutional Republic.

If this goes on unchecked, then we are no longer a free people. We are now pawns of a hostile foreign power, and Trump, Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, J.D. Gordon, Mike Rogers, Dan Coats, Rod Rosenstein and Daniel McCabe are all traitors to this nation.
        It’s hard not to come to that conclusion.