KremlinGate

NDPP wrote:

CrossTalk Bullhorns: 13 Russians (and vid)

https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/419180-american-presidential-election...

"Who would have thought it possible that 13 Russians, 3 entities and a little cash could decide an American presidential election? Yet this is where Russiagate stands today..."

If the argument is that an inexpensive plan hatched by a small number of people could not, by definition, have had a decisive effect on an election, well, there are ample examples from history proving otherwise.

To take just one, Allan Hunsperger's Lake Of Fire sermon is regarded as playing a pivotal role in rallying liberal Albertans to the Tory party in 2012, thus blocking the otherwise likely ascension of Wildrose. I don't know how many people were involved in the decision to publicize that speech, but it couldn't have been more than a half dozen or so. And the cost must have been close to nothing.

Of course, there was nothing illegal about that move, unlike what is being alleged about what these indicted operatives did in the US.  

voice of the damned wrote:

Question. Where exactly are the 13 Russians who have been indicted? Are any of them still living in the USA(if indeed they ever were)?

If they all went back to Russia, or never left there, I'd assume that the chances of them being arrested and put on trial are pretty remote.

 

As far as I know, they all live in Russia, but that does not make the indictments meaningless. The effect is that these individuals are unable to travel, for business or pleasure, through any country that has an extradition treaty with the U.S. Here is a summary from last July of a few recent cases.

"...I have to admit my definition of what the Russians did is unfortunately 'honorable state espionage'. A foreign intelligence service getting the internal emails of a major political party in a major foreign adversary? Game on. That's what we do. 

By the way, I would not want to be in an American court of law and be forced to deny that I never did anything like that as director of the NSA..." [Michael Hayden - director of the NSA under Clinton and Dubya and CIA director under Bush and Obama.]

From the '13 Russians' -  Extended Crosstalk youtube version @ 25:00

https://youtu.be/FvptUNoKgEM

The Jimmy Dore Show

FBI Russian Indictments Used To Silence the Left

https://youtu.be/YnPAxdII5PU

"Bernie's in bed with the Russians just like Trump!!"

Warning, Breitbart link ahead.   Unfortunately, this is a pretty good summary of the conservative response to the indictments.  

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/02/21/13-things-media-dont-...

Couple of points made:

1. Most of the Russian Spending Occurred AFTER the Election

Even though this Russian chaos campaign began in 2014, most of the money spent was still AFTER the 2016 election. According to Byron York, “Just 44 percent came before the election, while 56 percent came after the election.”

1. The Budget for This Operation Was Laughably Small

Starting in September of 2016, two months before the election, the Russians spent a measly $1.2 million a month. When you compare that to the billions spent by Trump, Hillary, special interest groups, and the anti-Trump corporate media, it is like dropping a teaspoon of water into a boiling cauldron.

Mindblowing Corruption At FBI - NSA Whistleblower Reveals

https://youtu.be/bGYSuULFzt0

'Parallel Construction', Russiagate and the US police state

Ex CIA Director Thinks US Hypocrisy About Election Meddling is Hilarious

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/ex-cia-director-thinks-hypocrisy-abou...

"... This is not cute. This is not funny. This is endangering the life of every terrestrial organism to advance the power hungry geopolitical agendas of the US-centralized empire..."

BAR: The Real Goal of 'Russiagate' Is To Prepare For Endless Austerity and War   -  by Glen Ford

https://blackagendareport.com/real-goal-russiagate-prepare-endless-auste...

"...It is quite evident that this campaign of self-inflicted chaos is a project of the global corporate class, manifesting elsewhere in the 'West' in remarkably similar fashion, but with local characteristics. Russia is, thus, charged with attempting to subvert governments around the world through minions like the St Petersburg outfit. Through their servants in the Democratic Party, the corporate media, and the intelligence agencies, multinational capital has used Trump's election to inflict a kind of shock treatment on their domestic polities -- a very dangerous gambit, especially in the US, with its weak social contract and immense capacity for civil violence.

More dangerous, is the whipping up of war fever based on Russia's non-existent aggressions (Ukraine, Syria) and fabricated ambitions (the demise of the 'West'). They are preparing the landscape for a regime of permanent austerity and war, and plan to suppress all opposition on the Left. That's why Black Agenda Report and a dozen other Left websites were named and defamed as Russian fellow travelers and purveyors of 'fake news' by the Washington Post, the plaything of the CIA-partnered oligarch, Jeff Bezos.

A lot has happened in the space of a little over a year. Based on Russiagate-era interpretations of 'law' and civil propriety, free speech is in the political eye of the corporate owners of media. The shrinking of the digital world that is accessible to the Left is well underway, with no workable alternatives in sight. The Russiagate express keeps on rolling, despite the fact there is still no evidence for the original contention, that 'the Russians' and Vladimir Putin conspired to steal and reveal the emails of the DNC, Hillary Clinton and John Podesta.

Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy AG, emphasized that there is no evidence that any actual votes were altered or tampered with in the 2016 presidential election. No matter. The Democrats keep imagining other 'Pear Harbors' worthy of going to war over, because their project is to harden the political system for endless war and austerity."

Nunes Memo exposed for the fraud it is by the Schiff memo.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/the-nunes-memo-is-fake-and-the-russia-scandal-is-very-real.html

TRNN: Is Russia A Threat?

https://youtu.be/warqBBTmYNs

"Alleged election meddling aside. There is a great deal of exaggeration of Russia's power and of its threat to the US, says author and scholar Vijay Prashad.

Russiagate and Democracy  -  by Margaret Kimberley

https://blackagendareport.com/index.php/freedom-rider-russiagate-and-dem...

"The beat-down of Sanders and Stein is a lot more troubling...The goal of vilifying them is to clear the field for a rightwing Democrat in 2020 and silence all dissent."

Mueller asking about Trump’s pre-election Russian ties.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/27/politics/trump-russia-investigation/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

More on the Torshin-NRA connection:

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/590076949/depth-of-russian-politicians-cultivation-of-nra-ties-revealed?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

CrossTalk: Democrats' Dilemma (and vid)

https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/420261-democrats-party-face-predicament

"Let's talk 'Russia, Russia, Russia'. How does this Russia conspiracy story move the Democrats forward after eight years of losing... ?"

Matt Taibbi at it again:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-russiagate-trump-putin-muel...

"

That's because #Russiagate, from the start, was framed as an indictment not just of one potentially traitorous Trump, but all alternative politics in general. The story has evolved to seem less like a single focused investigation and more like the broad institutional response to a spate of shocking election results, targeting the beliefs of discontented Americans across the political spectrum.

Two years ago, remember, the American political establishment was on the ropes. Donald Trump, a race-baiting game show host who'd run for office as a publicity stunt, was galloping to the Republican nomination in a rout. He got 14 million primary votes; the Republicans' chosen $100 million man, Jeb Bush, got 286,000. On the Democratic side, the overwhelming party favorite, Hillary Clinton, was fighting to hold off a Corbynite socialist with little money and even less institutional support."  ...

"

From Trump to Bernie Sanders to Brexit to Catalonia, voter repudiation of the status quo was the story of the day. The sense of panic among political elites was palpable. The possibility that voters might decide to break up the EU, or put a Trump, Corbyn, or Sanders into power, led to a spate of "Do we have too much democracy?" essays by prominent think tankers and national press figures.

Two years later, the narrative has completely shifted. By an extraordinary coincidence, virtually all the "anti-system" movements and candidates that so terrified the political establishment two years ago have since been identified as covert or overt Russian destabilization initiatives, puppeteered from afar by the diabolical anti-Western dictator, Vladimir von Putin-Evil."

I agree that the U.S. oligarchs are trying to use the Russian meddling to smear all non-conforming groups, but that is nothing new. Here is a short clip of Chomsky in the late 80s, describing a report of the Trilateral Commission entitled "The Crisis of Democracy". He explains that the crisis was that there was too much democracy back in the 1960s as groups such as women, youth and gays became politically active, threatening the dominance of the current rulers.

Now everything old is new again, and a small (but unacceptable) amount of democracy seems to be breaking out. In my opinion, Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election did happen, and it is a real problem, but it is also being used dishonestly by the most powerful factions to smear people who simply demand to have their voices heard in a so-called democracy.

Chomsky Exposes 'Russiagate' and 'Meddling"

https://youtu.be/edC5OjBK5zU

"That has most of the world cracking up in laughter. It's just a joke...Not even a joke compared to what we do constantly."

Chomsky is right. 

'Weapon of Mass Suppression': Russiagate Now Used To Target Any Dissent in US - Max Blumenthal (and vid)

https://on.rt.com/90rs

"Ultimately, Russiagate is about silencing inconvenient viewpoints regardless of whether they have anything to do with Russia, Blumenthal argued. 'There is an attempt at suppressing anything that's outside the establishment narrative,' Blumenthal said.

On Wednesday, a group of congressmen called for Al Jazeera to be designated a 'foreign agent' for its 'anti-American and anti-Semitic broadcasts.' The bipartisan letter, addressed to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, coincided with an announcement that the Qatar-funded broadcaster was releasing a film on Israeli lobbying in the US.."

The Cult of Authority

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/07/the-cult-of-authority/

"...It's [only] credible because 'authoritative sources' say it is credible, over and over, and treat it as a 'serious' story, in spite of how blatantly ridiculous it is."

NBC : Putin on US Election Interference (and vid)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-u-s-election-interference-i-cou...

"I couldn't care less..."

No Trump-Russia Collusion Found By House Intel Probe

https://youtu.be/-d_kDOLcDFY

"Democrats are expected to release their own report..."

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Democracy Now has an interview up (22 min) with former New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer, author of “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq”. And just for Magoo, a transcript is also available.

Excellent, thanks Michael. Not as sexy as Russian meddling, is it? And it should only be Part 1 of a long series.

Too bad history isn't taught to Canadian kids. Maybe one day.

Speaking of meddling in elections, here's one of many examples from that great democratic hero JFK:

How The Americans Toppled Diefenbaker

josh wrote:

Of course.  But also, of course, two wrongs don't make a right.

Correct. If it's ever proven that Russia covertly and significantly interfered in U.S. elections, it should be condemned for doing so.

But for U.S. Democrats and other wannabe progressives to stridently condemn Russian interference, while studiously ignoring/whitewashing their own country's (and their own party's) decades of identical crimes, only taken to an exponential power, and ongoing to this day? That's nothing short of obscene. And the underlying notion that AMERICA could never elect a neo-fascist buffoon like Trump without some foreigners subverting AMERICAN DEMOCRACY™? That's crossing the border into tragi-comic self-righteousness.