Republican = Russian? Youbetcha...

stumbler · Mar 2, 2019

I think this might be more than just mocking Trump and the US. The Russian foreign minister also just happened to be in Hanoi and they could have helped sabotage the summit. But at any rate Putin/Russia continue to make Trump their own little bitch and all he can do is bend voer and take it.

Russian state TV mocks end of Trump-Kim summit

Russian state-run media reportedly mocked the sudden collapse of talks between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week.

“It ended so badly the sides even avoided signing any joint agreement," one host said, according to a transportation reported by CNN. "Crafty Kim Jong Un was ready for some concessions, but not the ones Trump reportedly wanted.”

Another reportedly called the results "meager."

“Overall very, very meager for such a pompous summit," she said, according to the translation.

Analysts reportedly went as far as suggesting that the U.S. would invade North Korea if Kim gave up his country's nuclear arsenal.

Talks between Trump and Kim in Vietnam broke down on Thursday as the leaders failed to reach an agreement. Trump defended his decision to terminate the negotiations, saying "sometimes you have to walk."

*A spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Kremlin is working to put together its own meeting with Kim, according to CNN.

“This meeting is on the agenda,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly said. “We will continue to coordinate this with our North Korean counterparts through diplomatic channels."
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*They are just jerking Trump's chain.

https://thehill.com/policy/internat...state-tv-mocks-end-of-trump-kim-summit-report

shootersa · Mar 2, 2019

stumbler said: ↑

I think this might be more than just mocking Trump and the US. The Russian foreign minister also just happened to be in Hanoi and they could have helped sabotage the summit. But at any rate Putin/Russia continue to make Trump their own little bitch and all he can do is bend voer and take it.

Russian state TV mocks end of Trump-Kim summit

*They are just jerking Trump's chain.

https://thehill.com/policy/internat...state-tv-mocks-end-of-trump-kim-summit-report
Click to expand...

Wait.
So, Trump is Putin's bitch, jumps at Putin's bidding, does what Putin tells him to do.

But Russia mocks the end of the Summit, and that proves that;
A) Trump is Putin's bitch
B) Russia might have maybe could have sort of had something to do with sabotaging the summit.

Even for deluded frauds, this one makes no sense.

stumbler · Mar 4, 2019

Yes the American people have a right to know what Trump and Putin are talking about. Trump may very well be a Russian asset and betraying the US.

House panels seek details on Trump communications with Russia’s Putin

Three U.S. House committees sent a letter to the White House and State Department on Monday asking for details on President Donald Trump’s communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Government Oversight committees said in a statement they wrote to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seeking documents and interviews on Trump’s communications with Putin.

Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Lisa Lambert
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/house-panels-seek-details-trump-communications-russias-putin/

stumbler · Mar 5, 2019

Russian TV relishes ‘this clown’ Trump hurting relations with US allies — and coming up empty on North Korea

Russia’s state television service this week mocked President Donald Trump for harming relationships with his own country’s allies while completely failing to come away with an agreement to denuclearize North Korea.

ssian state TV As Julia Davis reports in The Daily Beast, Rushow host Dmitry Kiselyov this week listed all of the president’s foreign policy missteps and ridiculed him for painting himself as a top deal maker who could convince North Korea to abandon its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

“Trump miraculously managed to worsen relations on all fronts: with the European Union, China, Russia,” he said. “Total failure in Syria. The same with Turkey. Failure with Iran and failure with Venezuela. Nothing but failures at every turn… Trump, who calls himself the ‘master of the deal,’ left Vietnam empty-handed.”

Konstantin Asmolov, an expert from the Center for Korean Studies, similarly mocked Trump and said that many foreign leaders could be wary of cutting a deal with someone whom they believe will be voted out of power in less than two years.

“If Kim conceded anything [to Trump], then Trump’s successor might say that everything that this clown [Trump] has signed was not in our national interests and then Kim would end up in Gaddafi’s position,” he explained.

Russian state TV host Olga Skabeeva, meanwhile, said that she was encouraged that North Korea had refused to dismantle its nuclear program.

“We trust in Kim and hope he won’t abandon anything,” she said.

Read the whole report here.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/ru...relations-us-allies-coming-empty-north-korea/

stumbler · Mar 9, 2019

It is obvious that right now at least it is Putin calling the shots on North Korea with the intent of humiliating Trump on the world stage. In fact Putin and Kim had Trump set up going into the summit planning to let Trump sit down and then Kim walk out in advance. And the proof of that is Kim actually started on his launch facility BEFORE the summit.

Here is how Putin suckered Trump into becoming his easily manipulated pawn

Law enforcement officers and prosecutors have a saying, that when it comes to crime, there are no coincidences. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin taught us during the last presidential election that these days, there are no coincidences in politics either.

This article first appeared in Salon.

When last we gathered to have a look back at how the 2016 election was stolen, we were discussing a day when that lesson was driven home with a vengeance. On March 6, 2014, when President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea, he was doing what every president in the modern era had done before him. We express our condemnation of transgressions by foreign powers we disapprove of all the time. We sanctioned Iran for its nuclear program. We sanctioned Syria for its support of terrorism and human rights abuses. We have sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear and missile programs and against Venezuela for its anti-democratic and human rights violations.

What Obama did not know, and we did not know on March 6, 2014, was that he was setting the stage for how the presidential election of 2016 would not only be fought between two American political parties, but interfered with by a hostile foreign power, aided and abetted by then candidate Donald Trump.

What Trump did later on the same day Obama sanctioned Russia should have given us a hint of what was to come. He went to the CPAC convention, took the stage, and once again praised the autocratic leader of the nation that had pissed us off enough by its seizure of Crimea that we imposed sanctions on a passel of Russian oligarchs, Putin pals, and financial institutions and industries.

A month later, Trump was on Fox News telling viewers who only two years hence would become known as the “Trump Base” that he thought Putin was “very strong,” and that he “played Obama like a fiddle.”

A month after that, he was standing on a stage in Washington D.C. at the National Press Club telling the assembled pixel-wrought wretches that he had been in Moscow, where he “spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin who could not have been nicer. And we had a tremendous success.”

Three weeks later, on June 20, he gave an interview to the conservative American Spectator and basically endorsed remarks Putin had made criticizing the idea that America was exceptional. “And I understand that,” Trump said. “You know, he [Putin] said, ‘Why are they exceptional? They have killings in the streets. Look at what’s going on in Chicago and different places. They have all of this turmoil, all of the things that are happening in there.’”

Almost exactly one month later, a Buk surface to air missile from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade was used by pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing all 283 passengers and 15 members of the crew onboard. The Buk missile battery was hurriedly moved back across the Ukrainian border into Russia and hidden after the civilian airliner was shot down. The Russian government began a campaign of denial that its occupation of Ukrainian land and support of Ukrainian insurgents had anything to do with the shoot-down.

What the hell was Trump doing back in 2014, running around the country telling anyone who would listen what a fantastic leader Vladimir Putin was, how he was “strong,” while our own president was weak? Here was an autocratic leader of a hostile foreign nation that had just invaded another country, seized its territory, and supplied the weapon used to commit one of the largest civilian aircraft atrocities in history. And this guy was the national leader Trump looked up to?

WTF was going on with Trump and his love affair with Vladimir Putin?

Recent revelations that Trump was pursuing a deal to build a Trump Tower in the center of Moscow during the campaign of 2016 raised suspicions that Trump was flattering Putin to get the Russian leader to approve the deal. But I think it’s way, way deeper than that. I think Trump looked at Putin, and he said to himself, that’s the kind of leader I admire. He runs his country with a strong hand. He gets things done. Trump actually admired the guy. Putin ran Russia by fiat, and Obama was “weak” because he adhered to democratic rules and norms.

I don’t think Trump had to know much more about Putin than what he saw on cable news, but that was enough. He was a tough guy. He took a country that was, if not a real democracy, something close to it, and he transformed it into an autocracy. In 2014, when Putin saw Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych forced from power right next door by a popular uprising that was driven in part by social media, he decided the influence of the west was getting too close for comfort and moved to destabilize Ukraine with his invasion and seizure of Crimea.

When Obama cracked down with sanctions, Putin started making moves to infiltrate and destabilize the United States political system. He started up the Internet Research Agency and empaneled its “Translator Project” and sent at least two Russian agents into this country armed with dollars and technical expertise they would use to establish propaganda outlets on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. He called in the top officials of his intelligence agency the GRU, and he said, you guys start looking around for some way to fuck things up over there in the United States for me, okay? We’re not going to take this sanctions shit lying down.

And Putin started looking around and asking himself, gee, who can I cozy up to over there who might be susceptible to lifting those goddamned sanctions?

See, “sanctions” aren’t just pieces of paper presidents of the United States sign to needle foreign leaders and try to bring them back in line. Sanctions are a powerful tool used to project power because of where they come from: the USA. You start telling officials of a foreign government like, say, Russia that they can’t travel to the United States, they can’t facilitate deals here on behalf of corporations from that country, and most importantly, they can’t move millions and billions they’ve skimmed off their economy through American financial institutions . . . well, that fucking hurts, and hurts badly.

You start telling foreign companies in Russia like the oil and gas giant PJSC Roseneft Oil Company that they can’t make deals with American companies like ExxonMobil Corporation to drill for difficult-to-get oil in the far reaches of the icy Russian north, and that fucking hurts.

And when you deny Russian state-owned banks and other financial institutions the ability to make big international deals that have to use the nexus of banking and investment headquartered in New York, that fucking hurts.

So the sanctions Obama imposed in March of 2014 weren’t some little pain in the ass for Putin. They were a major threat to his power. They cut deeply into the Russian economy. They caused financial pain to billionaire allies and business partners he needed to maintain his political power inside Russia. Putin’s sitting there in Moscow, and he’s looking at a nearby leader unnervingly similar to him, Yanukovych, another crook who’s running his government like a personal piggy bank, and he’s watching Yanukovych get thrown out, and he’s thinking, this could happen to me.

How to survive as an autocratic leader is in Putin’s blood. In 1989, he was a KGB agent serving in the city of Dresden in East Germany when almost overnight, the autocratic government of that Russian satellite nation fell. Putin stayed up all night burning KGB and Stasi secret records when the wall came down. He returned to Russia convinced, as he said later, that the fall of the Soviet Union was “the greatest catastrophe of the [20th] century.” In short order, he began a campaign to rise to power in Russia and make certain the same fate would never befall him.

Trump probably didn’t know Putin’s history. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was watch Putin in action. When Putin wanted a political opponent prosecuted, it happened. When he wanted to shut down a pesky news outlet that was opposing him, it happened. When he wanted private media companies nationalized and made organs of the state, it happened. And when he wanted somebody dead, that happened, too.

That’s why Trump was running around during 2013, 2014, and 2015 singing Putin’s praises. He wanted to be just like him.

One year after Obama imposed sanctions on Russia, Trump descended the escalators in Trump Tower and announced he was running for president. And only a few weeks after that, Trump was in Las Vegas taking questions at something called “FreedomFest,” and a young woman stood up and asked him if he was elected president, would he continue the sanctions imposed by Obama on Russia.

“Putin has no respect for President Obama. Big problem. Big problem,” Trump said, waving his arms, making that now-familiar circle with his forefinger and thumb. “I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, okay? And I mean where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions.”

The young woman was a Russian citizen by the name of Maria Butina. She is at this moment sitting in a Washington D.C. lock-up, occasionally venturing forth to visit with FBI agents and federal prosecutors as a cooperating witness for Robert Mueller in his investigation of the connections between Donald Trump, his campaign, and the Russian government. Maria Butina, at last report, was still drawing breaths of District of Columbia air.

Donald Trump, it appears, still has some things to learn from his BFF, Vladimir Putin.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/putin-suckered-gullible-trump-becoming-easily-manipulated-pawn/

stumbler · Mar 12, 2019

Russian investor wanted in major corruption scandal turns up at Mar-A-Lago — along with brothel spa owner

A Russian real estate investor wanted back in his home country for alleged tax fraud has been rubbing shoulders with other guests at President Donald Trump’s private Mar-A-Lago club.

Sergey Danilochkin landed in South Florida after fleeing Moscow in 2010 fearing for his life over his alleged role in a $170 million tax fraud case linked to the mobsters behind the “Magnitsky affair” corruption scandal, reported the Miami Herald.

The tax fraud and resulting coverup prompted sanctions against Russian oligarchs implicated in the brutal murder of accountant Sergei Magnitsky, who exposed the conspiracy, and turned then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s most hated enemies.

Trump’s namesake eldest son discussed the possibility of lifting those sanctions in a controversial 2016 campaign meeting with a Russian government-linked lawyer promising damaging information about Clinton.

Danilochkin arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa, snapped up rundown residential properties during the recession and is now petitioning a federal court for political asylum, claiming whistleblower status.

He’s since sold most of the properties and has reinvented himself as a YouTube journalist, going by the name Serge Daniloff.

That’s how Danilochkin ended up at Mar-A-Lago for a Jan. 26, 2018, “Safari Night” fundraiser for the Young Adventurers charity, which he filmed and posted on his YouTube channel.

The president was not in Palm Beach for the event, and first lady Melania Trump reportedly left before the fundraiser began.

However, Li “Cindy” Yang, who once owned a Jupiter massage parlor embroiled in a human trafficking investigation that involves New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, was among the 250 guests that night.

Yang has been accused of selling access to the president and other government officials through her Mar-A-Lago membership.

Danilochkin claims he used to work for Kremlin-linked oligarch Oleg Deripaska, an associate of Paul Manafort for whom the Trump administration tried to ease sanctions.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/ru...andal-turns-mar-lago-along-brothel-spa-owner/

stumbler · Mar 20, 2019

Revealed: The Kremlin has been ‘facilitating a cover up by’ Trump

In a new, detailed examination of the counterintelligence aspect of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, NBC News reported Tuesday that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, believes the possibility that Russia may have leverage over Trump may not be getting enough scrutiny.

And near the end of the article, Schiff makes an argument that I’ve previously referenced but is routinely ignored — even in the very NBC News report that quoted the committee chair.

In the last three paragraphs of the article, reporter Ken Dilanian writes:

Schiff said he is particularly concerned about the Trump Tower Moscow project, the real estate development Cohen was pitching to the Kremlin while Trump was running for president.

He noted that when it first emerged that Cohen had emailed Putin’s office seeking help, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Pescov, said he never answered the email. But it later emerged in court documents that an assistant to Pescov did respond, emailing Cohen and asking him to call, which he did.

“So here we had the Kremlin facilitating a cover up by the president of the United States,” Schiff said. “This needs to be exposed.”

Indeed, even as the Kremlin was lying about its ties to the Trump campaign, Cohen himself lied to Congress and Mueller about the extent of the Trump Tower Moscow deal in an attempt to downplay its significance. Cohen has since pleaded guilty to those criminal lies. And when he testified before the House Government Oversight Committee in February, Cohen said he told these lies in an effort to please the president and follow his lead. At one meeting to discuss the Russia investigation before he lied to Congress, Cohen said, he spoke with Trump and was told — falsely — there was no “collusion” and no “deal.”

So, in essence, Trump’s personal attorney committed a crime to further a cover-up that was done in concert with — either explicitly or implicitly — the Kremlin. And, from all appearances, it looks like Trump was directing this cover-up. There’s another word you might use for this behavior: collusion.

But bizarrely, despite having all this information, Dilanian writes: “some of the key figures seen as likely participants in any Russia conspiracy — Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen — have been charged with other offenses in cases that made no allegation of any ‘collusion’ with Russia.”

There’s no reason to think Mueller should have to use the word “collusion” to describe this behavior — but it fits the commonsense definition, and it’s baffling that informed observers of the investigation can’t recognize it. It seems the word “collusion” has come to be redefined to mean, in this context, some extremely specific and overt type of behavior which may indeed never happened, but it’s unclear why we should accept these word games.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/revealed-kremlin-facilitating-cover-trump/

Hush · Mar 27, 2019

And now the Russians are intervening on this side of the world. DON'T believe Trumps demands are anything but smoke and mirrors...

Trump tells Russia to get its troops out of Venezuela
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...-troops-out-of-venezuela/ar-BBVixIQ?ocid=iehp

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday called on Russia to pull its troops from Venezuela and warned that "all options" were open to make that happen.

The arrival of two Russian air force planes carrying nearly 100 Russian troops outside Caracas on Saturday has escalated the political crisis in Venezuela.

Russia and China have backed President Nicolas Maduro, while the United States and most Western countries support opposition leader Juan Guaido. In January, he invoked the constitution to assume the country's interim presidency, arguing Maduro's 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

"Russia has to get out," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he met with Guaido's wife, Fabiana Rosales.

The U.S. government believes the Russian troops include special forces and cybersecurity personnel.

Asked how he would make Russian forces leave, Trump said: "We'll see. All options are open."

Russia has bilateral relations and agreements with Venezuela which it plans to honor, Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said, in response to Trump's comments.

"It's not up to US to decide actions and fate of other countries. It's only up to the people of Venezuela and its only legitimate president Nicolas Maduro," Polyanskiy said on Twitter.

Maduro, who retains control of state functions and the country's military, has said Guaido is a puppet of the United States.

Rosales, a 26-year-old journalist and opposition activist, told Trump that Guaido was attacked on Tuesday, though she did not provide details.

"I fear for my husband's life," she said. She was accompanied by the wife and sister of Roberto Marrero, Guaido's chief of staff, who was arrested and detained last week.

Earlier at the White House, Rosales met Vice President Mike Pence, and told him that power outages and food shortages were hurting children in her country.

"They are trying to break our morale. They want to submerge us in eternal darkness. But let me tell you that there is light, and the light is here," Rosales told Pence.

She is slated to meet U.S. first lady Melania Trump in Palm Beach on Thursday on a swing through South Florida, home to the largest community of Venezuelan exiles in the United States.

Rosales is also slated to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the Venezuelan diaspora at a prominent Washington think tank.

Pence praised Rosales for being "courageous."

"Our message very simply is: We're with you," Pence said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York and Doina Chiacu and Makini Brice in Washington; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Hush....an alias

shootersa · Mar 28, 2019

Well, we know one thing.

Whatever president trump does, or doesn't do, or says or doesn't say, the despicables will howl.

Hush · Mar 28, 2019

We know something else... The deplorables seem to have no concerns regarding AMERICA's long standing enemy, Russia.
How easily they, and Trump who guides them, seem to shrug off concerns that in all administrations past would have found sabers rattling.

Why is that?

Hush....an alias

stumbler · Mar 28, 2019

Hush said: ↑

We know something else... The deplorables seem to have no concerns regarding AMERICA's long standing enemy, Russia.
How easily they, and Trump who guides them, seem to shrug off concerns that in all administrations past would have found sabers rattling.

Why is that?

Hush....an alias
Click to expand...

I would really to hear the answer to that question myself. The Russians have been our most dangerous adversary my whole life. When Obama was president the Trump supporters howled over him trying to have a reset with Russia. And when Putin invaded Ukraine there was a thread where the alleged conservatives demonized him for something like 30 pages as being too weak to stand up to Putin.

But as soon as Putin/Russia help elect Trump now they are just great folks and nothing to see here.

shootersa · Mar 28, 2019

One of the silliest troll posts ever.
It starts with the assumption a) that Russia is more of a threat to the US and b) that Trump and deplorables should be rattling sabers at russia.

Oh, and STILL the lie that Russia helped elect Trump (note to the fraud, Mueller says Russia didn't collude with Trump and the consensus is that Russian interference had no effect on the outcome of the election).

So, back to the question posed.
Pigeon
chess

Try harder.

Hush · Mar 28, 2019

The best part being... when Venezuelans refugees began flooding elsewhere, Trump can then demand more money for higher walls.

But I forgot, Trump is tough... What's going on with North Korea? He sure showed them And Syria, And Ukraine, And... Wait for it, it's Soviet/Red Chinese imperialism all over again. The cold war didn't end. They just shifted tactics and the bear feigning sleep waited for us to snore.

Hush....an alias

stumbler · Mar 28, 2019

Another thing that used to be my whole life was the strategy of stopping Russia in their backyard and never let them get to ours. And the only place that didn't work was Cuba. And was the last time. Otherwise we fought our proxy wars over there. Meaning we stop Putin/Russia in Ukraine and Syria. But once Trump failed to do that ..... well here they are in our backyard. Thumbing their nose at us.

Russia says it sent ‘specialists’ to Venezuela, rebuffs Trump

Russia said on Thursday it had sent “specialists” to Venezuela under a military cooperation deal but said they posed no threat to regional stability, brushing aside a call from U.S. President Donald Trump to remove all military personnel from the country.

Trump said on Wednesday that “all options” were open to make Russia pull troops out of Venezuela after two Russian air force planes landed outside Caracas on Saturday carrying nearly 100 Russian troops, according to media reports.

As Venezuela has descended into political turmoil this year, Russia has emerged as a staunch backer of President Nicolas Maduro while the United States backs the country’s opposition and has imposed sanctions.

Venezuela’s military attache in Moscow said on Thursday Russia had sent “servicemen” to Venezuela, but that they would not take part in military operations, Interfax news agency reported.

“The presence of Russian servicemen in Venezuela is linked to the discussion of cooperation in the military-technical sphere,” Jose Rafael Torrealba Perez was quoted as saying.

Speaking at a weekly news briefing on Thursday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the arrivals only as “Russian specialists”.

“Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone, unlike (officials) in Washington,” she told a weekly news briefing.

“Russian specialists have arrived in Venezuela in line with the provisions of a bilateral inter-government agreement on military-technical cooperation. No one canceled this document,” Zakharova said.

*Russia and China have backed Maduro, while the United States and most other Western countries support opposition leader Juan Guaido.

In January, Guaido invoked the constitution to assume Venezuela’s interim presidency, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

Maduro, who retains control of state functions and the country’s military, has said Guaido is a puppet of the United States.

Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Gareth Jones
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*That is the triangulation of fire Trump walked into. North Korea at the point with Russia and China on each flank. Such is life under the mad king.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/russia-says-sent-specialists-venezuela-rebuffs-trump/

stumbler · Mar 31, 2019

Nothing like being mocked on nearly a daily basis by Putin and Russia to bolster US "sovereignty." Something we might have actually had once. Before Trump and the Republicans sold us out.

Kremlin responds to Mueller report: Moscow wins and the US is a ‘pain in the ass’

“A mountain has given birth to a mouse. The ‘Russian affair’ falls to pieces before our eyes.”

So pronounced the Russian news site Gazeta.ru, as word of the completed Mueller report swept around the world.

Thus far, official Russian response to the Mueller findings has been scornful. Leaders are taking the conclusions of U.S. Attorney General William Barr – that the report shows no collusion between the Kremlin and U.S. President Donald Trump – as a chance to dismiss all claims of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The Mueller investigation in fact confirms that Russian government agents did meddle in U.S. politics, resulting in the 2018 indictments of 25 Russians. But Russian agencies like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs call charges of covert information warfare “far-fetched lies.”

“It’s hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if it’s not there,” scoffed Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. (The same phrase was used by Russia’s defense minister in 2014, to deny the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine – a fact the government later acknowledged to be true.)

Kremlin pundits may be claiming Trump’s victory as Russia’s victory. But that doesn’t mean they are showing him the same sympathy they did two years ago, when the investigation into the president and his election committee began.

Today, most Russian media outlets are holding up the Mueller story as just another example of American dysfunction. Trump is cast as a symptom of larger problems, rather than as the man who might solve them.

Dysfunctional America
Those alleged “larger problems” are emphasized in what, for Russia, has been a much bigger news story in recent days. Somber Russian journalists commemorated the 20th anniversary of NATO’s decision to bomb Yugoslavia for its suppression of the Albanian independence movement in Kosovo.

Their reports cast NATO’s Operation Allied Force as a U.S-led attempt at “regime change.” The bombing campaign “failed to destroy most military targets, but was highly effective in terms of killing civilians,” read one report on RT’s Sunday evening news show, “The Weekly.”

As a historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, I was living in Moscow in 1999 when those NATO airstrikes began. My apartment, as luck would have it, was directly across the street from archnationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s campaign headquarters, where activists urged Russians to go to Belgrade to fight “for their Slavic brethren” in a “World War Three” against America – all as the theme from “The Godfather” blared in the background.

Back then, however, such anti-Western rhetoric was limited to a fringe political party.

Today, in contrast, it is promoted by the status quo. Monday, Russian Sen. Aleksei Pushkov tweeted that the Mueller investigation was “a humiliation for the USA and its political elites.” A typical comment posted in response read: “The whole country is full of idiots.”

“The word ‘conspiracy’ has become one of the most popular in the U.S. political lexicon,” noted Kremlin newspaper Russian Gazette, in an article titled “Mueller and the Void.”

Dysfunctional media
At the same time, Russian media is playing up the political divisions in the U.S. They suggest that the Mueller report will stoke rather than heal them.

RT sent out a “breaking news” alert Sunday that read “Trump Is Still Bad – Media and Democrats refuse to swallow Mueller’s red pill, grasp at obstruction straw.”

In line with many tabloid publications around the world, Russian news also immediately emphasized the calls for “retaliation” and “punishment” coming from Trump supporters.

The worst scorn, however, was reserved for Western journalists who, again to quote RT, were struggling to “spin the unspinnable,” after having heavily promoted the collusion story.

While many U.S. media outlets are still fighting to keep the possibility of a cover-up alive, RT wrote on Sunday, “the BBC has passed into the ‘acceptance’ stage of grieving.”

All such coverage highlights an implicit contrast. As U.S. politicians trade recriminations, Moscow officials appear united and on message. And as Trump publicly savages his critics, Russian President Vladimir Putin remains silent and above the fray.

Dysfunctional Trump
This difference between the two leaders is emphasized at every turn. Trump, despite his Mueller victory, is portrayed as weak, even as Russian pundits speculate that he may now win re-election.

“There’s a chance to re-set much in our relations, but whether Trump will take the risk – that’s the question,” Sen. Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote Monday on Facebook.

Kosachev went on to urge Trump to revisit his decision to pull out of treaties limiting nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Russia.

While Kosachev’s language was tempered, his underlying message was a critical one, suggesting that Washington, not Moscow, disregards global well-being.

It’s the same line most Russian media takes in all international stories with a U.S. angle. That includes what Russia claims is the administration’s disastrous decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. As the anchor of a Monday television report on Channel One said in regard to the Golan: “We are seeing how America’s hysterical internal politics are morphing into external politics” that are becoming a “growing global pain in the ass.”

In a 2018 skit on the popular show “Comedy Club,” two Trump and Putin impersonators faced off against each other in a game show called “Where’s the Logic?”

By way of introduction, the game show’s host posed a series of what were meant to be humorous questions.

“Why is it that a country that builds the longest bridge in Europe is considered an ‘aggressor’ and the one that builds a wall against Mexicans a full democracy?” he asked. The bridge referred to is, ironically, one that runs from the Russian mainland to Crimea, the Ukrainian territory that Russia annexed in 2014 amid international outcry.

The skit showed Trump as a bumbling, blustering figure who was consistently outmaneuvered by Putin. The Russian president was portrayed as knowing more about secret U.S. military sites around the world than Trump did. Putin – no surprise – ultimately won the contest 6-0.

Such cultural productions are important, because they provide the backdrop against which Russian leaders are responding to the Mueller report as well as framing their future relations with the United States.

Their message: Putin is stronger than Trump, and in any challenge, Russia wins.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/kremlin-responds-mueller-report-moscow-wins-us-pain-ass/

shootersa · Mar 31, 2019

Awesome!!
The despicables spew for 2 damned years that TRUMP COLLUDED WITH RUSSIA!!!!

Mueller confirms what Russia(Putin) and Trump said all along: that there was no collusion.

Trump crows he won. Russia says told you so.

Mueller also said Russia tried to interfere with the election. This was known before the election but Obama didn't take steps to stop it (some threats and warnings).

But its Trumps fault. He sold us out to Russia. Hell, its even the deploorables fault that Obama didn't take steps to stop Russia.

this is the logic despicables use where trump is concerned.

Shooter tries to remain optimistic where despicables are concerned. He really does.

stumbler · Mar 31, 2019

It is so easy when all you have to do is make shit up.

shootersa · Mar 31, 2019

Well, fraud, you'd know best about that.

Really, isn't it a stretch, even for you, to blame Trump for the collusion story?

shootersa · Apr 1, 2019

"I know the foster care system"
For starters.

shootersa · Apr 1, 2019

Every child care facility in the United States operates under the same fundamental policies. Shooter provided the link to them.

The Fraud promptly spewed stories of how kids were lost, dumped off, kept from their parents and their parents kept from them, and blah, blah, blah.

If the fraud knew anything about the foster care system as he claimed, he'd know how fucking impossible his claims were.

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Republican = Russian? Youbetcha...

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