Saw you quoted in the New York Mag piece about Stancil. Two standup guys who get the power of eyeballs and repetition. Keep browbeating sir! Maybe they will wake up before it's too late.
Beautifully written. Thanks. I remember seeing those tabloids in the checkout line in 2016 and thinking to myself, “how can this obvious propaganda be legal”? But then I would forget about it because social media was so obviously worse
This SCOTUS decision should be simple. Allowing a President - or a candidate for the presidency - to break the laws that govern our nation, enables a dictatorship.
However, the plague that has besieged our democratic nation has come from the eastern direction of Russia. Anyone who thinks that Trump and his criminal buddies like Guiliani are smart enough to create this infectious and alien species of Republicans is not living in real time. What we are seeing happening in our country is a destructive and invasive plan carefully assembled by Russia.
No, I am not delusional. I spent 12 years studying Russia including learning Russian, then the next 20 years off and on living in Russia and Russian-speaking countries. I wrote From Democracy to Democrazy as a warning to all Americans. Yes, the Russians are coming and 95% of Americans are not cognizant of Trump's linkage and affinity to Russia. This is because the Mueller Report sorely failed - but that is another day's discussion.
Donald Trump is not smart. The Washington Post 2020 poll asked Americans "Do you think Trump has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president? Fifty-two percent of the respondents said no." "The 2017 Washington Post-ABC News poll asked people an open-ended question: What one word best describes Trump? The most common term to describe him was 'incompetent.' Other related characterizations included 'idiot,', 'ignorant,' and 'unqualified." The Quinnipiac poll asked the same question in 2017, and "by far, the most frequent word that came to mind was 'idiot', 'incompetent,' 'moron,' 'ignorant,' and 'stupid."
The point is: Trump did not concoct the plan to defeat our democracy. He is simply a puppet used by Putin toward it's achievement. In 1997, a book was published in Russia called The Foundations of Geopolitics. Putin was surmised to be the ghost writer since this book outlined his goals as the second President of Russia. This book includes the internal destruction of the United States - a plan that Putin has dreamed of since childhood when his target was to join the KGB. He first obtained a law degree, was accepted into the KGB, then spent his spy years in East Germany. There he perfected his bribery skills on West German men and foreigners.
He returned to Russia and was picked by Yeltsin to be the next president. In a blink, he transformed the Russian government into a solid dictatorship assembling other KGB/FSB men and women to support his "holy grail" of restoring Russia to its glory days of world domination - by destroying NATO, demolishing the United States, and obliterating the sovereign nation of Ukraine.
In the June 2022 NYT's article titled "Putin Denounces the U.S. as a Fading World Power." Putin has built upon the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence (KGB) with the new organization called the FSB and helped to establish their policies and procedures with far more strategic planning expertise. From the time of his inauguration in 2000, Putin's number one target has been the United States, using Trump's idiocy as his main tool. Trump has been following Putin's instructions to the tee.
Do you recall when Trump hosted Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador and Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Russian Foreign Affairs to the White House Oval Office? No other American government officials were invited and there were no translators. Trump, a kompromised American stooge, was fallaciously "showing off" his new dog house and tricks to his owners.
In the end of Catherine Belton's book called Putin's People, she concludes: "The Russian black-cash seemed to be digging in ever deeper. Their activities, combined with Trump's disregard for the institutions and codes of the U.S. democracy, were leading to a systematic standoff. . . From the beginning, the Russian black-cash networks had, in part, been embedded to erode the American system, and exacerbate corruption in the West. . . In the impeachment probe and the 2020 U.S. Presidential race, the dash between the democratic values and a Putin-style corrupt authoritarian order was reaching a denouement. Putin understands that Russia can spend any amount of money it wishes on sowing chaos in the West."
Pragmatically, Putin won this round with democracy. The U.S. Senate - replicating the Russian DUMA - had been Trump's ace in a hole and prevented impeachment. They were reacting out of fear of reprisal from Trump and his violent followers just like the DUMA knows they cannot offend Putin or they or a member of their family could die.
Threats had been made on all Republican Senators. Afterward, Gonzales (R) of Ohio refused to run for re-election and hired 24-hour protection for his family. He was one of the ten Republicans who voted FOR impeachment. It is safe to say that Putin had already predicted this in advance and knew the full implications of preventing Trump's impeachment.
Belton goes on to say: "The Russian network and system of KGB capitalism has infiltrated the West - and it still operates twenty-four hours per day. It has penetrated our banks and financial institutions, our consumer supplies, our government's vital automated information systems, our health systems and hospitals, our gas, oil, and energy sources and probably every single aspect of American life." The plan for dismantling our democracy did not come from "stupid" Donald Trump. It came from Russia/Putin and has been in place for more than a quarter of a century.
SCOTUS has disgracefully attempted to analyze a President's right to break the law - the very laws that are the pillars of our democracy and they are obligated to safeguard. Because the majority of these judges were appointed by Trump, they are searching for barricades to protect HIM instead of our country.
The shadow cast by Putin over the landscape of American democracy, and his control over Trump is the destructive force we see happening NOW. Our democracy hangs in the balance and the tipping point may be the decision made today or tomorrow by these Judges.
>>Why is it so hard to imagine a Brooks Brothers riot, but of Democrats shouting Stop The Bans at places Republicans gather?
I know you weren't trying to go here, but I can't help but note that this specific mode of protest is pretty counterproductive. Perhaps it worked a lot better in the French Revolution, but today it always just ends up looking like a couple angry professional protestors fucking with some politician's dinner in one of the few moments they get to be a normal person instead of a public persona. It makes even the worst actors look sympathetic.
That said, I agree on the broader point. Democrats have done some token protests, but it's not what you'd expect based on the rhetoric -- even accounting for "rhetorical inflation" IE the fact that it's usually overblown.
"On the other, the center-left strategic class seems strangely hostile to the idea that it should also be trying—without fraud or unethical deceit—to place contagious ideas in front of as many eyeballs as possible as a matter of course."
Fox is one but telegram groups are huge misinformation channel, namely med bed type of talk coming out of Russia has tens of thousands of followers and some kind of make believe age regression therapy bed. It’s all linked to baby eating Democrat propaganda, auto Russia, huge in all kinds of groups on Telegram have polluted my wife’s mind.
Got to agree. Perpetually bringing knives (plastic ones at that) to gunfights.
Saw you quoted in the New York Mag piece about Stancil. Two standup guys who get the power of eyeballs and repetition. Keep browbeating sir! Maybe they will wake up before it's too late.
Maintaining the status quo is all they're interested in 🙁
Things that don't make it across:
Bernie on Netanyahu, somehow not getting much US media attention (although noticed abroad!):
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/bernie-sanders-benjamin-netanyahu-protests-b2535139.html
TikTok blocking anything negative on Kennedy from Inequality Media (Robert Reich):
"Last weekend, Inequality Media Civic Action launched our latest video warning
voters about the dire threat posed by the third-party presidential campaign of
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
"In the video, I quote some of RFK Jr.’s most dangerous conspiracy theories and
explain how Republican Party donors are backing him in an effort to skim votes
away from Joe Biden and help Donald Trump win the White House.
"Then something extremely troubling happened. TikTok took down our video,
labeling it “harassment” and “misinformation.”
"It’s hard for me to fathom what TikTok might have objected to. The video
included footnotes identifying our sources, and, frankly, the most damaging
parts of the video were clips of RFK Jr. himself spouting his crackpot ideas."
Beautifully written. Thanks. I remember seeing those tabloids in the checkout line in 2016 and thinking to myself, “how can this obvious propaganda be legal”? But then I would forget about it because social media was so obviously worse
This SCOTUS decision should be simple. Allowing a President - or a candidate for the presidency - to break the laws that govern our nation, enables a dictatorship.
However, the plague that has besieged our democratic nation has come from the eastern direction of Russia. Anyone who thinks that Trump and his criminal buddies like Guiliani are smart enough to create this infectious and alien species of Republicans is not living in real time. What we are seeing happening in our country is a destructive and invasive plan carefully assembled by Russia.
No, I am not delusional. I spent 12 years studying Russia including learning Russian, then the next 20 years off and on living in Russia and Russian-speaking countries. I wrote From Democracy to Democrazy as a warning to all Americans. Yes, the Russians are coming and 95% of Americans are not cognizant of Trump's linkage and affinity to Russia. This is because the Mueller Report sorely failed - but that is another day's discussion.
Donald Trump is not smart. The Washington Post 2020 poll asked Americans "Do you think Trump has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president? Fifty-two percent of the respondents said no." "The 2017 Washington Post-ABC News poll asked people an open-ended question: What one word best describes Trump? The most common term to describe him was 'incompetent.' Other related characterizations included 'idiot,', 'ignorant,' and 'unqualified." The Quinnipiac poll asked the same question in 2017, and "by far, the most frequent word that came to mind was 'idiot', 'incompetent,' 'moron,' 'ignorant,' and 'stupid."
The point is: Trump did not concoct the plan to defeat our democracy. He is simply a puppet used by Putin toward it's achievement. In 1997, a book was published in Russia called The Foundations of Geopolitics. Putin was surmised to be the ghost writer since this book outlined his goals as the second President of Russia. This book includes the internal destruction of the United States - a plan that Putin has dreamed of since childhood when his target was to join the KGB. He first obtained a law degree, was accepted into the KGB, then spent his spy years in East Germany. There he perfected his bribery skills on West German men and foreigners.
He returned to Russia and was picked by Yeltsin to be the next president. In a blink, he transformed the Russian government into a solid dictatorship assembling other KGB/FSB men and women to support his "holy grail" of restoring Russia to its glory days of world domination - by destroying NATO, demolishing the United States, and obliterating the sovereign nation of Ukraine.
In the June 2022 NYT's article titled "Putin Denounces the U.S. as a Fading World Power." Putin has built upon the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence (KGB) with the new organization called the FSB and helped to establish their policies and procedures with far more strategic planning expertise. From the time of his inauguration in 2000, Putin's number one target has been the United States, using Trump's idiocy as his main tool. Trump has been following Putin's instructions to the tee.
Do you recall when Trump hosted Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador and Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Russian Foreign Affairs to the White House Oval Office? No other American government officials were invited and there were no translators. Trump, a kompromised American stooge, was fallaciously "showing off" his new dog house and tricks to his owners.
In the end of Catherine Belton's book called Putin's People, she concludes: "The Russian black-cash seemed to be digging in ever deeper. Their activities, combined with Trump's disregard for the institutions and codes of the U.S. democracy, were leading to a systematic standoff. . . From the beginning, the Russian black-cash networks had, in part, been embedded to erode the American system, and exacerbate corruption in the West. . . In the impeachment probe and the 2020 U.S. Presidential race, the dash between the democratic values and a Putin-style corrupt authoritarian order was reaching a denouement. Putin understands that Russia can spend any amount of money it wishes on sowing chaos in the West."
Pragmatically, Putin won this round with democracy. The U.S. Senate - replicating the Russian DUMA - had been Trump's ace in a hole and prevented impeachment. They were reacting out of fear of reprisal from Trump and his violent followers just like the DUMA knows they cannot offend Putin or they or a member of their family could die.
Threats had been made on all Republican Senators. Afterward, Gonzales (R) of Ohio refused to run for re-election and hired 24-hour protection for his family. He was one of the ten Republicans who voted FOR impeachment. It is safe to say that Putin had already predicted this in advance and knew the full implications of preventing Trump's impeachment.
Belton goes on to say: "The Russian network and system of KGB capitalism has infiltrated the West - and it still operates twenty-four hours per day. It has penetrated our banks and financial institutions, our consumer supplies, our government's vital automated information systems, our health systems and hospitals, our gas, oil, and energy sources and probably every single aspect of American life." The plan for dismantling our democracy did not come from "stupid" Donald Trump. It came from Russia/Putin and has been in place for more than a quarter of a century.
SCOTUS has disgracefully attempted to analyze a President's right to break the law - the very laws that are the pillars of our democracy and they are obligated to safeguard. Because the majority of these judges were appointed by Trump, they are searching for barricades to protect HIM instead of our country.
The shadow cast by Putin over the landscape of American democracy, and his control over Trump is the destructive force we see happening NOW. Our democracy hangs in the balance and the tipping point may be the decision made today or tomorrow by these Judges.
Elizabeth
www.democrazy2020.org
>>Why is it so hard to imagine a Brooks Brothers riot, but of Democrats shouting Stop The Bans at places Republicans gather?
I know you weren't trying to go here, but I can't help but note that this specific mode of protest is pretty counterproductive. Perhaps it worked a lot better in the French Revolution, but today it always just ends up looking like a couple angry professional protestors fucking with some politician's dinner in one of the few moments they get to be a normal person instead of a public persona. It makes even the worst actors look sympathetic.
That said, I agree on the broader point. Democrats have done some token protests, but it's not what you'd expect based on the rhetoric -- even accounting for "rhetorical inflation" IE the fact that it's usually overblown.
"On the other, the center-left strategic class seems strangely hostile to the idea that it should also be trying—without fraud or unethical deceit—to place contagious ideas in front of as many eyeballs as possible as a matter of course."
Examples? Support for the claim?
Should be required reading for all students of journalism and media.
Excellent media analysis and the distinction between GOP misuse of information and the higher ground occupied by the Democrats.
Fox is one but telegram groups are huge misinformation channel, namely med bed type of talk coming out of Russia has tens of thousands of followers and some kind of make believe age regression therapy bed. It’s all linked to baby eating Democrat propaganda, auto Russia, huge in all kinds of groups on Telegram have polluted my wife’s mind.
They will slink away like always. I am starting to think the DNC is worthless, we should concentrate all our firepower on superpacs at this point.