Tag: russian interference
Ukraine Is Our War -- And Joe Biden Is Our Wartime President

Ukraine Is Our War -- And Joe Biden Is Our Wartime President

We and our allies are in a war to save civilization. Fortunately for us, Ukrainians are doing the fighting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's barbaric assault on Ukraine has awakened Europe to the reality that he is truly evil and could continue his march westward. It is no coincidence that Sweden and Finland — once fiercely neutral countries — now show serious interest in joining NATO. Ukraine is not in NATO, which is why members of the military alliance have held back in sending in their forces.

It is also the West's good fortune that Joe Biden is president and not Donald Trump. Overseeing a flood of arms to Ukraine as it fights alone, Biden is playing Franklin Roosevelt to Ukraine's Winston Churchill, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And he's doing it carefully, working with allies to squeeze Russia financially and giving Ukraine the means to defend itself, all the while carefully trying to avoid a wider conflict.

This is a full-time job whose consequences are not politically helpful. Confronting Putin has raised the cost of gasoline. It's making food more expensive. The resulting inflation has hiked the cost of borrowing to buy a home.

This, plus the carnage in Ukraine, is making Americans feel bad. The tendency in such circumstances is to blame the president, even when the president is doing the best job possible managing crises that aren't his fault. (The one exception for Biden would be his fuzzy messages about easing immigration restrictions at a time of a surge at the border.)

Those worried about climate change must hold their tongues as Biden releases 1 million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Same goes for his plan to open some public lands to new drilling.

It's hard to calculate the threat to national security had Trump won reelection — or succeeded in pulling off a coup after he lost. Trump was God's gift to Putin and his maniacal plans. Russians have owned him for decades.

In 1987, Trump took out full-page newspaper ads urging Americans to stop paying to defend others, the big subtext being to leave NATO. (George W. Bush and Barack Obama also called for other countries to raise defense spending but didn't dream of using that as an excuse to compromise U.S. security.)

These were Russian talking points parroted by a real estate investor whom the Russians were bailing out of bankruptcies. Trump in return laundered Russian oligarch/mob money through sales of U.S. property in all-cash, anonymous transactions. One example is the deluxe Trump Towers in Miami's Sunny Isles Beach, now known as "Little Russia."

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russians interfered with the 2016 presidential election to help elect comrade Trump. He came through for the Russians three years later when he blocked nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine.

Trump claims that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine had he still been president. This is the opposite of true. Trump's advisers reportedly warned him that blowing up NATO would be unpopular and could cost him reelection.

"Yeah, the second term," Trump is said to have responded. "We'll do it in the second term."

Had Trump succeeded, Putin would now have free rein to rampage through Eastern Europe and who knows where else.

After calling Putin "a genius" for invading Ukraine, Trump added, "I know him very well. Very, very well."

Apparently not nearly as well as Putin knows Trump.

As a wartime president, Biden has one mission: to stop the aggressor. He doesn't have the luxury to obsess over rough poll numbers related to inflation. And the culture wars can wait. Right now, the only war that matters is the one directed at defeating Putin.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: jorono at Pixabay


Russian TV: 'Preparations' Under Way To Get Trump Re-Elected In 2024

Russian TV: 'Preparations' Under Way To Get Trump Re-Elected In 2024

Propagandists on Russian state television told their public audience last week that the time has arrived to sever diplomatic relations with the United States and that the Kremlin is finalizing its "preparations" to interfere with future American elections.

The Daily Beast's Julia Davis reports that President Joe Biden's unwavering support for Ukraine has revitalized Moscow's appetite for manipulating the American electorate.Their objective, one of the individuals revealed, is to "again help our partner," former President Donald Trump, "to become president."

But Davis' takeaway was a little broader. While Trump is certainly a valued asset inside of Russia, Davis believes that "the real agenda of the Kremlin’s operatives was never limited to boosting any particular candidates, but rather aimed to harm America as a whole."

This line of thinking was evident in conversations that occurred among Russian President Vladimir Putin's "puppets" on state television, Davis found.

“With Europe, economic wars should take priority. With America, we should be working to amplify the divisions and—in light of our limited abilities—to deepen the polarization of American society," political scientist Malek Dudakov said on Thursday's edition of The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev.

“There is a horrific polarization of society in the United States, very serious conflicts between the Democrats and Republicans that keep expanding. You’ve already mentioned that America is a dying empire—and most empires weren’t conquered, they were destroyed from within. The same fate likely awaits America in the near decade," he continued. "That’s why, when all the processes are thawed, Russia might get the chance to play on that.”

Davis noted that the show's host, Vladimir Soloviev, believes that Putin's bloody war in Ukraine and the US's backing of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government is a preview of an upcoming clash between the US and Russia that is only starting to heat up.

He lamented that Russia's ability to spread disinformation was significantly diminished when Russia Today was banned on American airwaves after Putin attacked Ukraine.

“I would act through various diasporas" to make up for the elimination of that channel for misinformation, Soloviev said. "For example, I would work with the Spanish-speaking media—since America is becoming predominantly Spanish-speaking, with the colossal influence of Latin America, I would work through their press, through those narratives, moving in that direction… they aren’t allowing us to work with American media directly, but we have many opportunities that we aren’t using thus far.”

Other chatter, however, went far beyond ideological battles, according to what Davis' witnessed on Soloviev's program just days earlier:

Pundit Karen Shakhnazarov: 'I would find it useful to break diplomatic relations with the United States. I don’t see any point in maintaining them. And that would deliver a crushing blow to Biden. There are plenty of people in the U.S. who say that he is bringing us all to the edge of nuclear war. That will be a strong signal.'

Soloviev expanded on that point, suggesting that Russia should just go ahead and nuke the US because that is the true nature of the war in Ukraine.

“De facto, we aren’t fighting a campaign against Ukraine, but against the entire West," he said. “Maybe it’s time we strike them?" he added, referring to the US, "since we’re already a pariah state, a war criminal if everything is so bad.”

Davis pointed out that "short of nuclear holocaust, it is now clear that Russia is focusing its efforts on distracting America from its foreign policy objectives by threatening to meddle in US internal affairs."

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Five Major Pro-Putin, Anti-Ukraine Things Trump Did To Stoke Crisis

Five Major Pro-Putin, Anti-Ukraine Things Trump Did To Stoke Crisis

As Ukraine and its people continue to face Russian aggression and attacks, citizens in the West and Russia itself watch in horror at what one megalomaniac gone mad is doing to a sovereign land and its innocent people. America and its European allies stand together and are doing everything to stop Putin from continuing his naked aggression and tyrannical aspirations. Well, except for the Biden-hating traitors at Fox News and in the Republican party.

Hours before Putin ordered his forces into Ukraine, Fox News’ Tucker Carson (or Putin's cuck boy) was still heaping praise and worship on the Russian autocrat. Putin’s belligerent threats towards Ukraine and build-up of roughly 190,000 troops on the country’s border, was, according to Carlson, a mere “border dispute”. Carlson placated Putin and went so far as to play into Kremlin talking points by declaring that Ukraine was “not a democracy” in a sickening attempt to humanize the evil scumbag.

Maybe We Need To Freeze This Russian Asset

Tucker Carlson loves Putin

Meme by Michael Hayne

And while slimy and feckless Republicans look to score cheap political points by attacking President Biden ahead of midterms, it's vital to remind these disingenuous Trumplicans just how much Trump was pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine.

1. Trump Hired Pro-Russian Criminal To Run His 2016 Campaign

Manafort was hired by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a controversial pro-Russia politician who was ousted from power twice. After Yanukovych was elected president in 2010, Manafort reportedly stayed on as an adviser and worked on other projects in Eastern Europe, including the Party of Regions political party (Politico)

In early 2016, Manafort became Trump's campaign chairman. Manafort’s resignation from the campaign was announced on August 19, 2016, after The Times reported that he'd received $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments from Yanukovych’s pro-Russian party between 2007 and 2012. Manafort and Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016. She reportedly was said to have damaging information on Trump’s campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, which was "part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump." (Fox News)

2. Trump Rewrote 2016 Campaign GOP Platform To Make It Anti-Ukraine

The Trump campaign convinced the platform committee to change GOP Platform committee member Diana Denman's proposal of bulking up security for Ukraine. It went from calling on the U.S. to provide Ukraine "lethal defensive weapons" to the more benign phrase "appropriate assistance." (NPR) Oh, and who can forget the decidedly anti-Ukraine act of threatening to withhold security assistance from the country unless it helped smear Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election. You know, the very thing that spawned impeachment number 1.

3. Trump Gave Classified Intel To Russia

Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials revealed, plunging the White House into controversy just months into Trump’s term. (Reuters)

4. Trump Refused to Impose New Sanctions On Russia

In 2018, The Trump administration announced it wouldn't impose additional sanctions on Russia, despite Congress passing a law allowing the President to do so. (Independent)

5. Trump Attacked And Weakened NATO At Every Chance

Trump repeatedly unleashed attacks on the major western alliance in existence since the end of World War II, threatening to withhold money and even calling NATO "obsolete” and “unfair, economically, to … the United States.” Worse yet, it seems that Trump was aiming to leave NATO altogether if he somehow won reelection.

We all know today's GOP is totally immune to facts and reality, but it's imperative to make sure that those of us still residing in Reality Town know the truth behind every vile and hypocritical smear a desperate and power-hungry GOP makes.

Michael Hayne is a comedian, writer, voice artist, podcaster, and impressionist.Follow his work on Facebook and TikTok

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

Indicted Russian Tech Mogul May Know Secrets Of Kremlin Election Meddling

In December 18, Russian tech millionaire Vladislav Klyushin was extradited from Switzerland to the United States — where he is facing insider trading charges. And according to Bloomberg News reporters Henry Meyer, Irina Reznik and Hugo Miller, U.S. authorities consider Klyushin a “Kremlin insider” who “works with the Russian government’s top echelons” and may have valuable information on Russian interference in the United States’ 2016 presidential election.

“Just 18 months earlier,” the Bloomberg reporters explain, “Klyushin received a medal of honor from Russian President Vladimir Putin…. Klyushin’s cybersecurity work and Kremlin ties could make him a useful source of information for U.S. officials, according to several people familiar with Russian intelligence matters. Most critically, these people said, if he chooses to cooperate, he could provide Americans with their closest view yet of 2016 election manipulation.”

Meyer, Reznik and Miller report that according to sources, Klyushin’s “transfer to the U.S. represents a serious intelligence blow to the Kremlin” that “would deepen if Klyushin decides to seek leniency from U.S. prosecutors by providing information about Moscow’s inner workings.” The Bloomberg reporters note that although Switzerland granted the United States’ extradition request for Klyushin, it denied one from the Russian government.

“Indications of Klyushin’s vantage point are peppered throughout U.S. filings,” Meyer, Reznik and Miller report. “His IT firm, M-13, worked for the Russian presidency, government and ministries, according to his insider trading indictment. Among his subordinates was a former military intelligence official named Ivan Yermakov, who is charged alongside Klyushin in the indictment. Yermakov is also a defendant in a 2018 indictment from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team that accuses him and 11 other Russians of hacking into Democrats’ computers systems.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet