KremlinGate

Trump-Russia Dominates Headlines, But There's More Evidence of Collusion Between Democrats & Ukraine

https://on.rt.com/8ht3

"Ukrainian cooperation with the Democratic Party appears to have been far deeper than any equivalent Trump-Russia collusion. Both pale in comparison to Washington's meddling in the former USSR. US media focuses on the most illusory of the situations...."

RussiaGate

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/14/russiagate/

"What a dangerous, albeit bipartisan, spectacle - unreconstructed Clintonites working side by side with the likes of John McCain and Lindsay Graham. All this does, though, is increase the liklihood that, in the process, the world will  stumble into a war that, this time around, really will be a war to end all wars."

NDPP wrote:

 

(FROM COUNTERPUNCH)  "What a dangerous, albeit bipartisan, spectacle - unreconstructed Clintonites working side by side with the likes of John McCain and Lindsay Graham. All this does, though, is increase the liklihood that, in the process, the world will  stumble into a war that, this time around, really will be a war to end all wars."

I don't understand why Trump/Russia would lead to war. Whether or not you think there is anything to the allegations, the investigation is a strictly internal issue for the United States. The US and the USSR didn't go to war over the Rosenbergs.

voice of the damned wrote:

I don't understand why Trump/Russia would lead to war. 

NDPP: re 'I don't understand...'

This will start you off

More from that silly Counterpunch...

"...Which brings us back to his policy towards Russia, which is in self-contradictory tatters. According to MSN news, Trump tweeted on Sunday, July 9 that 'sanctions were not discussed at my meeting with President Putin...' But according to the Washington Post (which is not the most dependable source in reporting anything to do with Russia, but in this case seems to be accurate) 'Immediately after Friday's meeting with Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the President told his Russian counterpart that members of Congress are pushing for additional sanctions...'

No foreign service, no government, no country, can operate effectively in international affairs when there are contradictory statements at such levels about matters of enormous importance. Nobody knows where they stand, and Trump's tweet fandangos serve only to further complicate US-Russia relations about which there are increasingly grave doubts.

The rabid anti-Russia diatribes in the US Senate have made it clear that no matter what Trump might try to do in order to establish cordial relations, both US political partners are inflexible in their determination that no peaceful progress will be permitted.

There is a major split in government in Washington, with President Trump - of all people - apparently intent on seeking balanced rapprochment with Russia, while the political Establishment and the Pentagon, backed to the hilt by the Fourth Estate, are relentlessly intent on a malevolent campaign of insult, innuendo and increasing military deployment close to Russia's borders in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

The United States is sending mixed messages to Russia, but they are equally clear: on one hand there is desire for mutually beneficial rapprochment and on the other there is determination to intensify military and economic confrontation. If these conflicts continue, there will be confrontation. If the Washington Warriors succeed in their campaign of malevolent hostility there will be war."

Sending Messages To Russia

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/14/sending-messages-to-russia/

The Sound and the Fury Sequel William Faulkner Couldn't Write Starring the Mad Golfer, His Wife, the War to Topple the Big Russian etc From Alpha To Omega : Helmer (and podcast)

http://johnhelmer.net/the-sound-and-the-fury-the-sequel-william-faulkner...

From the Counterpunch article:

There is a major split in government in Washington, with President Trump - of all people - apparently intent on seeking balanced rapprochment with Russia...

​This is just plain old hogwash. Trump has been all over the map on Russia, changing his mind on a more or less daily basis. As someone said, he thinks whatever the last person he talked to thinks.

And does anyone really need reminding that no one is going to start a way with Russia. Russia has nuclear weapons, and Vladimir Putin has been very clear that he would use them. 

The government of the United States, along with the Senate, the House, the military, the judicial, and every other government body one could think of, are all there to defend capitalism. And the last thing capitalism wants is a nuclear war. A regular war, fine. Lots of bombs and planes and boats to sell, and everyone gets rich. The problem with nuclear war is that it destroys the ability of capital to survive.

That's why war is carried on these days by imposing sanctions, building trading  blocks, etc. No matter who was president of the USA, they wouldn't be tossing nuclear bombs around.

Meantime, another right-wing writer has abandoned Trump. Charles Krauthammer, in a column published today in the National Post has this to say, in part, about the Trump Jr. meeting:

It's rather pathetic to hear Trump apologists protest that it's no big deal...

This defence is pathetic for two reasons. First, have the Trumpites not been telling us for six months that no collusion ever happened? And now they say: Sure it happened. So wha? Everyone does it. What's left of your credibility when you make such a casual about-face? Second, no, not everyone does it....

...There is no statute against helping a foreign hostile power meddle in an American election. What Donald Jr. - and Kushner and Manafort - did  may not be criminal. But it is not merely stupid. It is also deeply wrong.

...I leave it to the lawyers to adjudicate the legalities of unconsummated collusion. But you don't need a lawyer to see that the Trump defence  - collusion as a desperate Democrat fiction designed to explain away a lost election - is now officially dead.

​Krauthammer has been a defender of all things Republican for as long as I can remember.

Meanwhile, the Senate Republicans have delayed that vote on their not ready for prime-time health care plan yet again.  They dont' have the votes to get it passed. Some commentator, I don't remember who, referred to this administration as a 'Confederacy of Dunces'. Whoever it was, they were being too kind.

"New reports illustrate when you meet w/Russians in an official capacity, you're also working w/Russian intelligence,and therefore Putin." 

https://twitter.com/RepMikeQuigley/status/885894645284302849

Neocons Enlist in Anti-Trump #Resistance

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/15/neocons-enlist-in-anti-trump-resis...

"...The neocon revival has been facilitated by #Resistance-friendly media like MSNBC, which frequently features David Frum and William Kristol, two early and outspoken members of the NeverTrump movement. But perhaps what the #Resisters at MSNBC are forgetting is that the neocon-dominated NeverTrump movement was driven by the fact that, for them, Trump was not militaristic enough, which is why they threw their support behind the likes of Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham in the Republican primaries and, in the cases of Robert Kagan [Mr Victoria Nuland] and Max Boot, behind Hillary Clinton in the general election."

Is Media Misrepresenting Trump Jr Russia Collusion Story?

https://youtu.be/2yPtUzzYpDk

Jimmy Dore on latest Russiagate 'Nothing-burger'. 'We have big problems . And Donald Trump Jr meeting with some frickin lawyer from Russia isn't one of them.'

I just saw short clip on cbc, they sent someone into pennsylvania to talk to trump supporters and regualar people.  The person that conconluded that most people cared little about russia.  When the presenter CBC heard this he commented that people should be concerned because they are Americans.  To that the pennsylvania reporter just said are busy and they want answers for healthcare and jobs.  They showed a family where the father working 3 jobs to keep his family feed and he very time to think geo politics since to busy trying to stay a float.  This why democracts lost they had no answers for these individuals rather the democratics would not even acknownledge that this situation exists.  For democracts we never had so good but atleast Trump ackownlenged that this exists and he would will America great.  Trump maybe a flawed and liar but he is better in tune was is happening in US.  The democracts dont care and republicans will further put the screws to these people.

Lets move on the immagration how is playing in that part of Penn.  The cbc reporter talked about the a woman that is bearly holding on finincal and hostile to immagration becasue she see'sthe government will her use meager wealth subsuize the immagrates.  How can I condem this women, she does not reconigne that she was told lies why she poor.  The immagrants are not talking her resources but rather she is pitted agaisnt powerless group of people to fight over the scraps that are left to them.  While top few percent hold on and increase their share national income and wealth.  Democrats and Repulicans have no interest in discussing this situation much doing something about.  And trump walks in and harrnesses this anger and ignorance to win the election.  This just is sad situation.

Bernie and Trump are the politicail reaction to the  sick and dying society.  Trump will fail his main mission is to be an ememerncy release button on political steam cooker.  I hope the Dems get their stuff together because someone worst and more dangerous is coming after 4 years of faliure that trump will be.  Russia has nothing to do with this dynamic.  Thats I view things things.  

Does President Trump want to build up US armaments? Apparently:

Trump budget plan boosts Pentagon

The White House will send federal departments a budget proposal on Monday containing the defense spending increase President Donald Trump promised, financed partly by cuts to the U.S. State Department, Environmental Protection Agency and other non-defense programs, two officials familiar with the proposal said.

...Trump, in a speech to conservative activists on Friday, promised "one of the greatest military buildups in American history."

​Maybe they won't have the money after building the wall...

With New DC Policy Group, Democrats Continue To Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons : Greenwald

https://interc.pt/2u1AKOA

Trump is beginning to fall apart:

Trump laments Sessions hiring

U.S. President Donald Trump told The New York Times in an interview Wednesday that he never would have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.

In an extraordinary denouncement of one of his earliest backers in Washington, Trump said the decision by Sessions to recuse himself from all matters related to Russia was "very unfair to the president."

"Sessions should have never recused himself," Trump told the paper, "and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else."

...In the interview, Trump also appeared to threaten Mueller, suggesting he had damaging information on the former FBI director.

Trump said Mueller's selection for the job was a conflict of interest because Trump had interviewed him to serve as the replacement FBI director.

"There were many other conflicts that I haven't said, but I will at some point," Trump said.

...He lobbed similar conflict of interest charges at acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and accused former FBI director James Comey of briefing him on a dossier of unverified, incriminating information in an effort to gain leverage over the soon-to-be president.

​It's one thing to rail away against your enemies. It's something completely different to rail away against your friends. Usually it means they won't be your friends much longer. It's also the syptom of someone who is losing their grip.

Trumps ego prevents him from accepting the truth, the fact that he is incapable of performing the duties of the president of the USA. The only thing he can do is keep blaming everyone else for his problems. In fact he is acting exactly as his wife suggested he was. That is, an emotional ten year-old. Will he grow up? I doubt it, but anything is possible.

Trump preparing to declare himself above the law?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/politics/trumps-lawyers-seek-to-u...

White House in Turmoil As Special Counsel Expands Russia Probe

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/22/trum-j22.html

NDPP wrote:

MSchumer: Dems Not Russia, Are To Blame For Loss To Trump

http://hill.cm/71gnJxe

May be true, but beside the point.

Full Doc: Today's Jared Kushner Statement To Congress

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/889533564563402752

Trump Backs Investigation into Kiev's Meddling Attempts To Sabotage His Election Campaign

http://tass.com/world/957709

"Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign - 'quietly working to boost Clinton.' So where is the investigation AG,' he tweeted."

Jared Kushner's Testimonial To Stupidity and Unfitness - American and Russian

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/07/john-helmer-jared-kushners-testim...

"Stupidity isn't a crime; it's a life sentence. Not so for power. Supposing everything Kushner has written in his presentation to the US Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday is true, then one conclusion from a half-dozen bits of evidence he testifies to is obvious - Kushner is unfit to rule, and so are the Russians whom he mentions..."

Ukraine Oligarch 'Top Cash Contributor' to Clinton Foundation Prior to Kiev Crisis

https://on.rt.com/fpwvmm

"That places Ukraine as the leading contributor among foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation."

Changing World - Changed Ukraine

http://pinchukfund.org/en/news/15148/

Petras: Imperial Power Centers: Divisions, Indecisions and Civil War   

http://www.unz.com/jpetras/imperial-power-centers-divisions-indecisions-...

"..From their institutional vantage points, the coup-makers have initiated a series of 'investigations' to generate propaganda fodder for the mass media and prepare mass public opinion to favor or at least accept extraordinary 'regime change'.

The pro-'regime change' forces (coup makers) have decided to go for broke..."

Ever Closer To War

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/06/21/ever-closer-war.html

"...And now, in 2017, it is apparent that channels of communication with Russia are being deliberately cut off  - and the hands of the Doomsday Clock have been placed at just 2 1/2 minutes from midnight..."

Dems Add Neocons to Anti-Trump 'Resistance'

quote:

Aaron Maté: Yeah, and it's interesting to remember that just a few years ago you didn't see this huge anti-Russia hysteria, at least from some Democrats that are now being a part of it. When Obama made fun of Mitt Romney at their 2012 campaign debate, when he said the '80s want their foreign policy back after Romney called Russia the U.S.'s biggest geopolitical threat, everybody backed Obama. The Democrats were behind him. It was ridiculed to be sort of beating the drums of this new cold war. But after Trump wins, it's just radically changed.

James Carden: Yeah, it shows how opportunistic really all of this is in a way. And I think that the Democrats are really not doing themselves any favors by this sole focus on Russia. I think last week, the DNC and the RNC released their fundraising numbers, and the RNC is outraising the DNC by quite a lot. And the Democratic Party's popularity is on par with Donald Trump's popularity. So they're not really doing themselves any favors. I think that they're going to sort of assign themselves to electoral irrelevance if they keep this up. And they'll deserve it.

Aaron Maté: James, is a part of this just the fact that it's a lucrative hustle to be a hawk, no matter what party you're in? I mean you worked at the State Department, so you've probably seen this up close. You know, groups like this, The Alliance for Securing Democracy, have a lot of money behind them. And so if you're out there advocating a détente with Russia, deescalating tensions, it's not very profitable. But it is, if you're cheerleading for war. Am I right?

James Carden: I can speak to that with some authority because I'm the executive director of The American Committee for East-West Accord, which has for the last couple of years been promoting the idea of détente between the United States and Russia. I can assure you that there's not a lot of money in that. So, you're exactly right, it's a think-tank hustle; that's where the money is. And that's where people go. And it's a deeply cynical enterprise.

.and you can argue that big oil owned both bushs. you can argue that the clintons were owned by corporations. the question is what are people going to do about that. not just omg trump is owned by russia..assuming that's true. where is that conversation that goes on to this degree?

..i distinguish between legitimate business persons and oil cartels, transnational corps etc.   

..come next election will the conversation turn back to dem vs rep with the dems being the lesser evil? which is why answering the question of what to do about is important. 

..during the dakota access struggle at one point, a court ruling came down temporarily halting construction. the company ignored it and continued working. they had the backing of the govenor and law enforcement. the collusion was stark throughout the struggle including arresting, beatings on the water protectors on indigenous territory. the company hired a war contractor who treated this as just another war operation. disinformation spying entrapment. all information revealed in the news. caused nary a stir from federal politicos. the system is totally corrupt. as corrupt as any organized crime body. even better, more organized more powerful than any organized crime body on the planet.    

Putin just said 755 U.S. diplomats must leave Russia

Quote:

The Russian president says that his patience has worn out waiting for improved relations with the U.S.

Breakups are always dramatic.

"And take back those mixed tapes you made for me, too", said Putin.  "They were totally lame, like you!!  And don't even TRY to get back at me on Facebook, unless you want your Mom to see those pictures!!!"

President Putin : Sanctions Backlash

https://youtu.be/WzVIwFf8fyI

"I decided that it was time to show that we will not leave anything unanswered."