It's time to confront the Trump-Putin nexus

[Nevilledog]

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Alfons López Tena
@alfonslopeztena
It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network — A stunning number of Trump’s closest associates had deep ties to the Kremlin. The significance of this cannot be overstated

theguardian.com
It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin nexus | Rebecca Solnit
A stunning number of Trump’s closest associates had deep ties to the Kremlin. The significance of this cannot be overstated
8:58 AM · Mar 2, 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/time-to-confront-trump-putin-network

In 2014, the Putin regime invaded Ukraine’s Crimea. In 2016, the same regime invaded the United States. The former took place as a conventional military operation; the latter was a spectacular case of cyberwarfare, including disinformation that it was happening at all and promulgation of a lot of talking points still devoutly repeated by many. It was a vast social-media influencing project that took many forms as it sought to sow discord and confusion, even attempting to dissuade Black voters from voting.

Additionally, Russian intelligence targeted voter rolls in all 50 states, which is not thought to have had consequences, but demonstrated the reach and ambition of online interference. This weekend, British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr said on Twitter, “We failed to acknowledge Russia had staged a military attack on the West. We called it ’meddling.’ We used words like ‘interference.’ It wasn’t. It was warfare. We’ve been under military attack for eight years now.”

As she notes, Putin’s minions were not only directing their attention to the United States, and included pro-Brexit efforts and support for France’s far-right racist National Front party. The US interference – you could call it cyberwarfare, or informational invasion – took many forms. Stunningly, a number of left-wing news sources and pundits devoted themselves to denying the reality of the intervention and calling those who were hostile to the Putin regime cold-war red-scare right-wingers, as if contemporary Russia was a glorious socialist republic rather than a country ruled by a dictatorial ex-KGB agent with a record of murdering journalists, imprisoning dissenters, embezzling tens of billions and leading a global neofascist white supremacist revival. In discrediting the news stories and attacking critics of the Russian government, they provided crucial cover for Trump.

In her 2019 testimony to House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, former National Security Agency staffer Fiona Hill declared, “Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified. The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart; truth is questioned; our highly professional expert career Foreign Service is being undermined. US support for Ukraine, which continues to face armed aggression, is being politicized. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter US foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.”

*snip*

[Midnight Writer]

1. It's time to exploit the whole Russian-Republican nexus. It's not just TeamTrump.

The whole Party has Russian connections, both philosophically and financially.

There are tons of public examples, and Democrats should make hay with them.

The label "Moscow Mitch" needs to be more famous than their "Crooked Hillary".

Labels work. Let's use them.

Edit: A couple of House Republicans have introduced a Bill forbidding the USA from helping Ukraine. That is the kind of behavior we need to jump on. Every Democrat in every media appearance should point out these GOP actions and tie them to the Party as a whole.

[XacerbatedDem]

2. Thank you for the post.

Loved the last two paragraphs:

"What’s striking in retrospect is that all of this was made possible by corruption and amorality inside the United States. It was Silicon Valley’s mercenary amorality that created weapons and vulnerabilities and sat by pocketing the profit as they were exploited to destructive ends. It was corrupt Americans – from Manafort to Trump himself – that gave Putin his influence. It was international players such as Wikileaks and Cambridge Analytica that helped. It was corruption of media outlets such as Fox News that continued – in Tucker Carlson’s case until last week’s invasion of Ukraine caught up with him – to defend Putin and spread disinformation.

The Republican party met its new leader by matching his corruption, and by covering up his crimes and protecting him from consequences, including two impeachments. The second impeachment was for a violent invasion of Congress, not by a foreign power, but by right-wingers inflamed by lies instigated by Trump and amplified by many in the party. They have become willing collaborators in an attempt to sabotage free and fair elections, the rule of law, and truth itself."

...AND TRUTH ITSELF...

Kick

[onecaliberal]

3. Why did 8 republicans spend the 4th of July WITH PUTIN?

[bahboo]

4. this needs to be hammered relentlessly....

[Scrivener7]

5. Yes, yes, yes!!!

[JasonMain]

6. Remember how Russians hacked Democrats and DNC?

I bet they also hacked Republicans and RNC but are blackmailing them with their private info. It’s the reason Trump will always take Putin’s side because they have so much dirt on him dating back decades.