Would make for good neighbors, no? Why then is Russia killing Ukrainians?
“Out comes my best opener: “Uh, not even American sportsmen look quite as strong as you do.” He laughs. Turns out his name is Dima, and he’s former Spetsnaz—Russia’s elite special forces. I tell him I’m a writer visiting Russia with my 12-year-old son to introduce him to the “Russian table”—not just the bounty of flavors and dishes in this land of 11 time zones and over 160 ethnic groups, but also the conversation, laughter, and intimacy that can come with a shared meal here. Our Russian heritage is diminishing—I grew up with my immigrant grandparents and mother; my son is acquiring fragments of that influence—so we’re also here to see what this food means to us, or might come to mean.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/russia-food-family-fun
Russophobia is a deep fake. So deep in fact we are going to drown in it. All that is left is a matter of accountability. Europe will be splitting away in the course of the next two years via democratic means. It’s going to be a slow, long, struggle to get to the truth.
Struggle we shall. Squeak wee must!
One truth is that this loving father is an elite special forces warrior, a killer.
That was how this thread started, not sure why it’s being hijacked by the Ukrainian mess, which is being discussing in other threads.
Political Optics on the American theater of the mind.
Here’s some latest news regarding the master of American Dirty Tricks Politics that is tailored for the theater of the absurd, but oh so destructive to the civility & sanity of American politics.
I mean the Votes weren’t even counted, yet the game was afoot.
Aug 16, 2023 #msnbc #rogerstone #trump
In exclusive video obtained by “The Beat with Ari Melber,” Trump adviser and ally Roger Stone is seen pushing a plot to overthrow the 2020 Election. In this report, Melber, MSNBC’s Chief Legal Correspondent, breaks the exclusive news and reports on its wider context amidst several election probes and indictments.
You’ve got to be kidding yourself.
People of the world were waking up in the 1960s - that didn’t go anywhere.
None of those three nations is standing tall, they are all in deep dodo of their own making, well not really, it’s not of their own making, China being the exception, though all have been utterly dominated by western colonialism. Not that we’re any different.
It’s always someone else fault.
Then the melodrama of finding fault and denying fault, makes for many storylines.
When I think human accomplishments of the past half century it makes me want to puke, and cry, and rage.
Still obsessing over the same idiot BDG games, while we’re destroying our life support system as fast as possible. Space Tourism, AI and luxury vacations, that’s where it’s at.
Meanwhile back down here on planet Earth, thing’s are getting really shaky, watch out for them Black Swans.
1 Like
Yes, this was the situation a century ago. It is truly amazing how far we have gotten in 100 years. Today, we have people from all races holding office in all three branches of government, including president and vice president.
The US does not have any colonies. In fact, the US was a British colony, and we know what that means and what it takes to oppose a “superior” establishment
2 Likes
And amazing how far we are fallen, just in the past few years.
MAGA man
Trump Conduct SPARKS Massive Sheriff Investigation After Indictment
Aug 18, 2023
Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on the Fulton county sheriff department and judges opening and investigation along with the FBI to bring to justice the Trump followers who have doxxed and viciously attacked the 23 grand jurors who voted to indict Trump, as Trump stands by silently and does nothing.
A developing story, worth being aware of.
Officials Investigate Threats Against Trump Grand Jurors in Georgia
By Anna Betts, James C. McKinley Jr. and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Aug. 17, 2023 - Atlanta - New York Times
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday that it was investigating online threats against the grand jurors who voted this week to indict former President Donald J. Trump and 18 others, accusing them of conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
The jurors’ names are listed early in the sprawling 98-page indictment, as required in Georgia, making the state an outlieramong federal and state court systems.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken." - Carl Sagan
But as to who you see fit to apply this to, I see it applies to Russiagate. Now as an extension Russophobia is reignited, and Ukraine enters the mix. These details are toxic not only to the souls that have been consumed, but even toxic to bystanders who seek the truth, and witness their personal acquaintences diminish as a direct result of lies from the deep state.
Applies to politics as well. It’s not a matter of deciding to apply to someone. The kit is designed to be used objectively. Apply it to yourself to make sure your argument is sound. Show others how you did that, then apply it to them, it’s more convincing that way.
Much of Carl’s ideas are encoded into our rules and guidelines. I dislike bad arguments and I dislike them more when they are made by well intentioned people with decent values. It does more harm to the decent valued group when bad arguments are made. More harm than and a group with bad values making bad arguments, because then we can just dismiss them. But, if we do it, they dismiss us. The rich love to see us arguing, it’s easier for them to get their hands in our back pocket.
You aren’t making sense.
Are you implying powerful Russians, beholden to Putin, weren’t involved in Mr.trump’s election?:
comment #316 in this thread:
Guess it comes down to, who you wanna believe? Mr.MAGA man, or your lying eyes?
Oh brother we got to go through this all over again with the russiagate conspiracy theorists
What do you fear most?”
"I fear that love is not enough "
the full quote Politico.eu: > “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” the special counsel wrote in his findings, which Attorney General William Barr released Sunday in four-page summary form.
I like how you cleanse that. You meant Barr’s sanitized summary made that conclusion.
Let’s consider the fuller picture:
BY BARBARA MCQUADE AND JOYCE WHITE VANCE
JUNE 24, 2019
When we joined other legal experts earlier this month to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding lessons from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, it became apparent from the questioning that a number of misconceptions continue to exist regarding Mueller’s findings.The narrative was shaped by Attorney General William Barr, who issued his description of Mueller’s conclusions three weeks before the public saw the full 448-page report. In a letter to Barr, Mueller complained that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his team’s work and conclusions, and created “public confusion.”
Here is our effort to dispel some of those myths.
Myth One: Mueller found “no collusion.”
Response: Mueller spent almost 200 pages describing “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”
He found that “a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”
He also found that “a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations” against the Clinton campaign and then released stolen documents.
While Mueller was unable to establish a conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians involved in this activity, he made it clear that “[a] statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.”
In fact, Mueller also wrote:
“The investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
Click here for a downloadable fact sheet.
This resource is a part of ACS’s Mueller Investigation resources. Click here to see all resources.
The Special Counsel investigation uncovered extensive criminal activity
- The investigation produced 37 indictments; seven guilty pleas or convictions; and compelling evidence that the president obstructed justice on multiple occasions. Mueller also uncovered and referred 14 criminal matters to other components of the Department of Justice.
- Trump associates repeatedly lied to investigators about their contacts with Russians, and President Trump refused to answer questions about his efforts to impede federal proceedings and influence the testimony of witnesses.
- A statement signed by over 1,000 former federal prosecutors concluded that if any other American engaged in the same efforts to impede federal proceedings the way Trump did, they would likely be indicted for multiple charges of obstruction of justice.
Russia engaged in extensive attacks on the U.S. election system in 2016
- Russian interference in the 2016 election was “sweeping and systemic.”[1]
- Major attack avenues included a social media “information warfare” campaign that “favored” candidate Trump[2] and the hacking of Clinton campaign-related databases and release of stolen materials through Russian-created entities and Wikileaks.[3]
- Russia also targeted databases in many states related to administering elections gaining access to information for millions of registered voters.[4]
The investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” and established that the Trump Campaign “showed interest in WikiLeaks’s releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton”
- In 2015 and 2016, Michael Cohen pursued a hotel/residence project in Moscow on behalf of Trump while he was campaigning for President.[5] Then-candidate Trump personally signed a letter of intent.
- Senior members of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner took a June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower, New York, after outreach from an intermediary informed Trump, Jr., that the Russians had derogatory information on Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”[6]
- Beginning in June 2016, a Trump associate “forecast to senior [Trump] Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton.”[7] A section of the Report that remains heavily redacted suggests that Roger Stone was this associate and that he had significant contacts with the campaign about Wikileaks.[8]
- The Report described multiple occasions where Trump associates lied to investigators about Trump associate contacts with Russia. Trump associates George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen all admitted that they made false statements to federal investigators or to Congress about their contacts. In addition, Roger Stone faces trial this fall for obstruction of justice, five counts of making false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
- The Report contains no evidence that any Trump campaign official reported their contacts with Russia or WikiLeaks to U.S. law enforcement authorities during the campaign or presidential transition, despite public reports on Russian hacking starting in June 2016 and candidate Trump’s August 2016 intelligence briefing warning him that Russia was seeking to interfere in the election.
- The Report raised questions about why Trump associates and then-candidate Trump repeatedly asserted Trump had no connections to Russia.[9]
Special Counsel Mueller declined to exonerate President Trump and instead detailed multiple episodes in which he engaged in obstructive conduct
- The Mueller Report states that if the Special Counsel’s Office felt they could clear the president of wrongdoing, they would have said so. Instead, the Report explicitly states that it “does not exonerate” the President[10] and explains that the Office of Special Counsel “accepted” the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted.[11]
- The Mueller report details multiple episodes in which there is evidence that the President obstructed justice. The pattern of conduct and the manner in which the President sought to impede investigations—including through one-on-one meetings with senior officials—is damning to the President.
- Five episodes of obstructive conduct stand out as being particularly serious:
- In June 2017 President Trump directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to order the firing of the Special Counsel after press reports that Mueller was investigating the President for obstruction of justice;[12] months later Trump asked McGahn to falsely refute press accounts reporting this directive and create a false paper record on this issue – all of which McGahn refused to do.[13]
- After National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was fired in February 2017 for lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, Trump cleared his office for a one-on-one meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and asked Comey to “let [Flynn] go;” he also asked then-Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland to draft an internal memo saying Trump did not direct Flynn to call Kislyak, which McFarland did not do because she did not know whether that was true.[14]
- In July 2017, the President directed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to instruct the Attorney General to limit Mueller’s investigation, a step the Report asserted “was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct.”[15]
- In 2017 and 2018, the President asked the Attorney General to “un-recuse” himself from the Mueller inquiry, actions from which a “reasonable inference” could be made that “the President believed that an unrecused Attorney General would play a protective role and could shield the President from the ongoing Russia Investigation.”[16]
- The Report raises questions about whether the President, by and through his private attorneys, floated the possibility of pardons for the purpose of influencing the cooperation of Flynn, Manafort, and an unnamed person with law enforcement.[17]
Congress needs to continue investigating and assessing elements of the Mueller Report
- The redactions of the Mueller Report appear to conceal the extent to which the Trump campaign had advance knowledge of the release of hacked emails by WikiLeaks. For instance, redactions conceal content of discussions that the Report states occurred between Trump, Cohen, and Manafort in July 2016 shortly after Wikileaks released hacked emails;[18] the Report further notes, “Trump told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming,” but redacts the contextual information around that statement.[19]
- A second issue the Report does not examine is the fact that the President was involved in conduct that was the subject of a case the Special Counsel referred to the Southern District of New York – which the Report notes “ultimately led to the conviction of Cohen in the Southern District of New York for campaign-finance offenses related to payments he said he made at the direction of the President.”[20]
- The Report also redacts in entirety its discussion of 12 of the 14 matters Mueller referred to other law enforcement authorities.[21]
- Further, the Report details non-cooperation with the inquiry by the President, including refusing requests by the Special Counsel for an interview; providing written responses that the Office of the Special Counsel considered “incomplete” and “imprecise” and that involved the President stating on “more than 30 occasions that he ‘does not recall’ or ‘remember’ or ‘have an independent recollection.’”[22]
1 Like
The hardcore russiagaters cant accept the referees decision . Cant let go of their loved conspiracy theory obsession 
What do you fear most?”
"I fear that love is not enough "
And you are the referee? If not who then is your referee?
Gosh. I forgot all about “no collusion”. I forgot Barr kept the report for days while he created the narrative. I forgot Mueller said he did not have the power to prosecute, to bring it to trial, but he thought he had enough for an indictment. I forgot that impeachment is a political process, not football with referees. I forgot about the indictments and the jail time. I forgot the 500 pages of evidence.
But…but…the whole report was all made up anyway. Typical deep-state stuff, don’t you know?
Yes. You’ve summed it up nicely here.
Indeed , the entire Western attitude has nothing to do with integrity or with the truth. We see it in all the common language. As to how this has come about, and how it gets itself out of its own stranglehold while eating its own tail: I once came upon a water-snake, and I had been making a knife scabbard, and I saw that the snake’s dimension would be quite a fit. On a rocky ledge, with a wooden paddle, I smashed the snake’s skull in. Minutes later it wriggling and winding, and after more mashing of the head of the thing and no end to its life I reluctantly placed it in the other end of the canoe; up front where I could keep an eye on it. Even after a half hour of paddling and returned home the thing was still breathing and active.
Yes, eventually it did turn in to quite a fine scabbard.
I only hope that we do not face the same problem with this organism that our cuntry has become.
As weak as the analogy is, the cause to doubt it even more so, is actually apparent. That these are very dark times for us is an analytical outcome which I do believe holds.
FAFA
WAAOOA
How do you determine what is true?
( In this link, The Washington Post link is no longer valid)
If nothing else, the GOP is great at playing dirty tricks.
D.A. Fani Willis Arrested Trump:
See how Georgia GOP is trying to remove her,
Aug 24, 2023 #msnbc #georgia #trump
State Republicans in Georgia have expedited the passing of a new law allowing the removal of local prosecutors with the likely first target of the law to be Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as she is in the midst of prosecuting Donald Trump.
Clark Cunningham, law professor at Georgia State University, talks with Rachel Maddow about how the new law may work and its likely weaponization to rescue Trump from prosecution.