The Entire Republican Party Is Becoming A Russian Asset, Washington Post
- The Entire Republican Party Is Becoming A Russian Asset - By Paul Waldman, The Washington Post, July 20, 2018.
In the past few days, President Trump has given at least some Republicans reason to express displeasure over his relationship with Russia. First he performed a pathetic ritual of subservience before Vladimir Putin, standing beside the Russian leader — after a private meeting between the two, which no aides were permitted to attend — and dismissing the copious evidence of a Russian attack on the 2016 election in deference to Putin’s word. Then we learned that Putin had suggested that we make Americans available to the Kremlin for questioning, including Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, in exchange for allowing us to question some of the agents who carried out the cyberattack. Trump had called it “an incredible offer,” and the White House said he was considering it, before finally backing down after the Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning the idea.
But look past the modest number of Republicans saying that Trump has gone a bit too far here or here or there, and you see a very different picture. The truth is that the entire GOP is well on its way to becoming a Russian asset.
Are there a few Republican dissenters? Sure. But perhaps we’re having difficulty viewing that whole picture because what’s happening is so utterly bonkers that we can’t quite bring ourselves to see it clearly. So let’s review just some of the things we know: In 2016, the campaign of the Republican nominee for president was approached multiple times by representatives of the Russian government offering to help them win the election. These offers were welcomed with enthusiasm. The campaign was also led for a time by a political consultant with deep financial and personal ties to a Russian oligarch and a Kremlin puppet in Ukraine. Multiple members of the Trump team had contacts with the Russian government that they later lied to conceal.
As part of its attack on the American electoral system, Russian intelligence hacked into Democratic Party systems.
Some of the information it found there was released publicly and promoted gleefully by Republicans at all levels in order to help the Trump campaign; information relating to down-ballot campaigns was passed to Republicans, who used it in order to maintain their hold on the House of Representatives. Amid the insistence from the intelligence community that in 2018 Russia will likely attempt to once again penetrate the computer systems of state election agencies, Republicans this week killed an effort to provide funding to states to bolster the security of their election systems.
As part of a lengthy effort to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, an important Republican interest group, an alleged Russian spy began a romance with a Republican activist, met multiple Republican leaders and fostered a relationship between American gun advocates and Russians..The NRA dramatically increased its spending on the 2016 presidential campaign from past years, pouring $30 million into their effort to elect Trump. The FBI is investigating whether that money may have illegally come from Russia, funneled to the organization by Torshin. The Trump administration has announced a change to IRS rules so that groups like the NRA will no longer have to identify their donors on their tax forms, making such money almost impossible to trace in the future.
Over the last few years, the Christian right, another key part of the GOP coalition, has grown increasingly close to Putin, whom they see as an ally in a global clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam. In Congress, Republicans have undertaken an aggressive campaign to discredit and, many of them plainly hope, shut down the probe into the Russian attack on America. Fox News, which functions as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, has aired relentless attacks on the Russia investigation and calls for it to be shut down. ~ MORE, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-entire-republican-party-is-becoming-a-russian-asset/ar-BBKSkAu?li=BBnb7Kz
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, bids farewell to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of their press conference after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, July 16, 2018.
= new reply since forum marked as read
>"Despite the mountain of unambiguous evidence of the Russian attack in 2016, the overwhelming majority of Republican voters continue to say no such attack occurred...Hard-core Trump supporters are beginning to argue that even if Russia did attack the American electoral system, it was actually a good thing because it helped Donald Trump get elected."
GOTV!!
That's what's galling to me. People I've known & respected for many years, are OK with the usurping of our government as long as it's their side benefiting from it. I won't even go into the fact that I thought they were decent human beings & they support one of the most vile, vulgar men to ever be in the public sphere. WTF? 
I will never view these people the same. Never. They will always have the taint of supporting Donald J. Trump. 