RussiaGate

[barbos]

To be fair to me, this thread is in a forum entitled "US Presidential Politics".

RussiaGate naturally leaks into general politics. Speaking of which.
Ukrainian Rada continues its war on its own citizens and passed a new law which was applauded and described by one member of the Rada (ukrainian parliament) as a way to restrict some basic human rights (defined by international laws) for russians (he literally said that). That's who US installed in Ukraine. Law basically defines ukrainians as best people because they are native to the land and don't have a country outside of Ukraine.
Of course, exceptions had to be made to that because there are bunch of other folks who you don't want to exclude from best people. Americans are not specifically excluded, so consider yourself warned. Especially non native americans.

Imagine Nazi Germany but with Jews comprising 30% of the Country plus 200mil people Israel bordering Germany. Rada has some chutzpah I must say.

 

[barbos]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...-indicts-democratic-lawyer-alfa-bank-1228059/

WASHINGTON — A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, for allegedly making false statements to the FBI about research he shared regarding a supposed connection between Donald Trump and a Russian bank.

CNN tries to downplay it. But it's clear that the whole story was a manufactured lie.

 

[ZiprHead]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...-indicts-democratic-lawyer-alfa-bank-1228059/

WASHINGTON — A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, for allegedly making false statements to the FBI about research he shared regarding a supposed connection between Donald Trump and a Russian bank.

CNN tries to downplay it. But it's clear that the whole story was a manufactured lie.

Sorry, no. The lie was that he wasn't connected to the Hillary campaign. It was right in the headline.

The Justice Department says Michael Sussmann came to the FBI seemingly as a concerned citizen and not on behalf of a client — and then billed the Clinton campaign for the meeting

 

[barbos]

Sorry, no. The lie was that he wasn't connected to the Hillary campaign. It was right in the headline.

Why would you lie about such insignificant details when you know you are right about significant fact?
Is that because piece of shit knew he was lying about significant fact?

I mean we know for a fact that the whole story was a complete and utter BS.
The only question was which people knew it was BS and which were too stupid to know. Now we know this piece of shit lawyer knew it was BS and still he pushed it.

 

[ZiprHead]

Sorry, no. The lie was that he wasn't connected to the Hillary campaign. It was right in the headline.

Why would you lie about such insignificant details when you know you are right about significant fact?
Is that because piece of shit knew he was lying about significant fact?

I mean we know for a fact that the whole story was a complete and utter BS.
The only question was which people knew it was BS and which were too stupid to know. Now we know this piece of shit lawyer knew it was BS and still he pushed it.

No lie. It was in the quote I posted from your link that you then snipped. Some might say your posting style is a little dishonest.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

To be fair to me, this thread is in a forum entitled "US Presidential Politics".

RussiaGate naturally leaks into general politics. Speaking of which.
Ukrainian Rada continues its war on its own citizens and passed a new law which was applauded and described by one member of the Rada (ukrainian parliament) as a way to restrict some basic human rights (defined by international laws) for russians (he literally said that). That's who US installed in Ukraine. Law basically defines ukrainians as best people because they are native to the land and don't have a country outside of Ukraine.
Of course, exceptions had to be made to that because there are bunch of other folks who you don't want to exclude from best people. Americans are not specifically excluded, so consider yourself warned. Especially non native americans.

Imagine Nazi Germany but with Jews comprising 30% of the Country plus 200mil people Israel bordering Germany. Rada has some chutzpah I must say.

The problem is that Russia has been shitting on the Ukraine since the revolution. Naturally with the current situation, more of the same ,many Ukrainians are pissed as hell. Hard to blame them. Russia will be living with this for a century more.

 

[Swammerdami]

There's much talk in the thread about "hatred of Russia." Is that the same as "hatred of Putin and of Russian kleptocracy"?

I hated the Trump Administration but I didn't hate the U.S. I hated Netanyahu's policies but I don't hate Israel.

 

[barbos]

Sorry, no. The lie was that he wasn't connected to the Hillary campaign. It was right in the headline.

Why would you lie about such insignificant details when you know you are right about significant fact?
Is that because piece of shit knew he was lying about significant fact?

I mean we know for a fact that the whole story was a complete and utter BS.
The only question was which people knew it was BS and which were too stupid to know. Now we know this piece of shit lawyer knew it was BS and still he pushed it.

No lie. It was in the quote I posted from your link that you then snipped. Some might say your posting style is a little dishonest.

He got charged with lying to the FBI..... the current FBI.
I did not mean you, I meant that lawyer, why would that lawyer lie?

 

[barbos]

To be fair to me, this thread is in a forum entitled "US Presidential Politics".

RussiaGate naturally leaks into general politics. Speaking of which.
Ukrainian Rada continues its war on its own citizens and passed a new law which was applauded and described by one member of the Rada (ukrainian parliament) as a way to restrict some basic human rights (defined by international laws) for russians (he literally said that). That's who US installed in Ukraine. Law basically defines ukrainians as best people because they are native to the land and don't have a country outside of Ukraine.
Of course, exceptions had to be made to that because there are bunch of other folks who you don't want to exclude from best people. Americans are not specifically excluded, so consider yourself warned. Especially non native americans.

Imagine Nazi Germany but with Jews comprising 30% of the Country plus 200mil people Israel bordering Germany. Rada has some chutzpah I must say.

The problem is that Russia has been shitting on the Ukraine since the revolution. Naturally with the current situation, more of the same ,many Ukrainians are pissed as hell. Hard to blame them. Russia will be living with this for a century more.

Says who? Who says that? And what revolution? 1917? or 2014 "revolution"?
The one in which your "ukrainians" famously twitted referring to Russians in Crimea "Promise them anything now, we will hang them later"

Where were you when these revolutiories were twitting that?
Imagine Psaki saying "Promise texans anything, we will hang them later"

 

[Copernicus]

There's much talk in the thread about "hatred of Russia." Is that the same as "hatred of Putin and of Russian kleptocracy"?

I hated the Trump Administration but I didn't hate the U.S. I hated Netanyahu's policies but I don't hate Israel.

This is an old Russian trope used to deflect criticisms of Russian behavior that would otherwise be difficult to defend. Russians aren't the only ones who do this kind of thing, but it helps to justify attacks against former occupied territories that have large ethnic Russian populations. More importantly, the siege mentality in Russia makes it sound plausible that the US and EU are the real aggressors, even though Russia has annexed and occupied large portions of Ukrainian territory. An objective observer would find it hard to defend the idea that Ukraine caused Russia to attack it and actually wants to keep the war going. Ukraine has neither the means nor the desire to attack Russia. It is fighting a purely defensive war.

The problem is that barbos is not totally wrong when he criticizes the Ukrainian government for passing ill-conceived laws designed to suppress the Russian language and discriminate against ethnic Russians, not to mention Poles, Hungarians, and Rumanians, who happen to be Ukrainian citizens. This right wing nativist behavior is no worse in Ukraine than it is in Russia, but you won't find a lot of criticism of Russian behavior in the Russian media these days. Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula are not having an easy time of it either. Some of the ethnic chauvinism in Ukraine is probably being driven by the Russian invasion, which makes it easier for Ukrainian nativists to pass discriminatory laws. However, their behavior helps the Russian propaganda machine to continue churning out lots of material to justify Russian aggression against Ukraine.

 

[barbos]

Are you accusing me of deflection? I have no problem of admitting that Russia did a lot of stupid crap. Except Alfa bank, which was clearly lame democrat inspired and completely unnecessary attempt to smear Trump... and Russia of course.

More importantly, the siege mentality in Russia makes it sound plausible that the US and EU are the real aggressors, even though Russia has annexed and occupied large portions of Ukrainian territory.

There is no question in my mind that US/EU are the real aggressors here. Your side fucking admitted and keeps admitting it.
The whole damn thing was a no-brainier for your egghead generals: Let support this fascist revolt (we will deal with fascists later), if Russians react like we would have done in their place 10 times over, we will blame them for the aggression, if don't we will have Sevastopol and Russia will lose all control over Black Sea. It's a win-win scenario.

And yes, all these territories should have been returned to Russia in 1991, because some of them were simply not Ukrainian at all (Sevastopol),
some (Crimea) given to Ukraine illegally and then illegally lost autonomous region status. And Some (Eastern Ukraine) should have been granted autonomous status (as a former present from mother Russia with majority russian population)

Instead we get fascists promising to hang russians and US generals vetting their pants over prospects of a base in Sevastopol. So what would you have done in place of russians in Crimea?
keep in mind that russian pensions and GDP per capita in general were ~3 times higher. Yeah, keep that in mind Speaking of which, do you know why Ukraine was able to keep hold of these territories in 1991? - if you said economy you would be correct. Ukraine was believed to be in way better shape than Russia which was in deep shit at the time. One of the reason USSR dissolved in the first place, Russia was no longer useful for these republics who figured out that they would be better off without Russia. Well, did not turn out exactly that way for most of them. Russia managed to survive until oil prices recovered and got semi-competent government with Putin.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Are you accusing me of deflection? I have no problem of admitting that Russia did a lot of stupid crap. Except Alfa bank, which was clearly lame democrat inspired and completely unnecessary attempt to smear Trump... and Russia of course.

More importantly, the siege mentality in Russia makes it sound plausible that the US and EU are the real aggressors, even though Russia has annexed and occupied large portions of Ukrainian territory.

There is no question in my mind that US/EU are the real aggressors here. Your side fucking admitted and keeps admitting it.
The whole damn thing was a no-brainier for your egghead generals: Let support this fascist revolt (we will deal with fascists later), if Russians react like we would have done in their place 10 times over, we will blame them for the aggression, if don't we will have Sevastopol and Russia will lose all control over Black Sea. It's a win-win scenario.

And yes, all these territories should have been returned to Russia in 1991, because some of them were simply not Ukrainian at all (Sevastopol),
some (Crimea) given to Ukraine illegally and then illegally lost autonomous region status. And Some (Eastern Ukraine) should have been granted autonomous status (as a former present from mother Russia with majority russian population)

Instead we get fascists promising to hang russians and US generals vetting their pants over prospects of a base in Sevastopol. So what would you have done in place of russians in Crimea?
keep in mind that russian pensions and GDP per capita in general were ~3 times higher. Yeah, keep that in mind Speaking of which, do you know why Ukraine was able to keep hold of these territories in 1991? - if you said economy you would be correct. Ukraine was believed to be in way better shape than Russia which was in deep shit at the time. One of the reason USSR dissolved in the first place, Russia was no longer useful for these republics who figured out that they would be better off without Russia. Well, did not turn out exactly that way for most of them. Russia managed to survive until oil prices recovered and got semi-competent government with Putin.

@barbos,

Which is a more democratic country, Russia or the U.S.?

 

[barbos]

Are you accusing me of deflection? I have no problem of admitting that Russia did a lot of stupid crap. Except Alfa bank, which was clearly lame democrat inspired and completely unnecessary attempt to smear Trump... and Russia of course.

More importantly, the siege mentality in Russia makes it sound plausible that the US and EU are the real aggressors, even though Russia has annexed and occupied large portions of Ukrainian territory.

There is no question in my mind that US/EU are the real aggressors here. Your side fucking admitted and keeps admitting it.
The whole damn thing was a no-brainier for your egghead generals: Let support this fascist revolt (we will deal with fascists later), if Russians react like we would have done in their place 10 times over, we will blame them for the aggression, if don't we will have Sevastopol and Russia will lose all control over Black Sea. It's a win-win scenario.

And yes, all these territories should have been returned to Russia in 1991, because some of them were simply not Ukrainian at all (Sevastopol),
some (Crimea) given to Ukraine illegally and then illegally lost autonomous region status. And Some (Eastern Ukraine) should have been granted autonomous status (as a former present from mother Russia with majority russian population)

Instead we get fascists promising to hang russians and US generals vetting their pants over prospects of a base in Sevastopol. So what would you have done in place of russians in Crimea?
keep in mind that russian pensions and GDP per capita in general were ~3 times higher. Yeah, keep that in mind Speaking of which, do you know why Ukraine was able to keep hold of these territories in 1991? - if you said economy you would be correct. Ukraine was believed to be in way better shape than Russia which was in deep shit at the time. One of the reason USSR dissolved in the first place, Russia was no longer useful for these republics who figured out that they would be better off without Russia. Well, did not turn out exactly that way for most of them. Russia managed to survive until oil prices recovered and got semi-competent government with Putin.

@barbos,

Which is a more democratic country, Russia or the U.S.?

U.S. for now. Why?

 

[Elixir]

Sorry, no. The lie was that he wasn't connected to the Hillary campaign. It was right in the headline.

Why would you lie about such insignificant details when you know you are right about significant fact?
Is that because piece of shit knew he was lying about significant fact?

I mean we know for a fact that the whole story was a complete and utter BS.
The only question was which people knew it was BS and which were too stupid to know. Now we know this piece of shit lawyer knew it was BS and still he pushed it.

No lie. It was in the quote I posted from your link that you then snipped. Some might say your posting style is a little dishonest.

I like barbos, and don’t really blame him for being a Russia apologist. But the basic fact remains beyond assault:
Putin is a bad actor who harbors bad intent toward the US, and has found a willing-if-incompetent pawn in Donald Trump.
He gave Trump step-by-step instructions on overthrowing the American government, which would have been successful had Trump’s cowardice not prevailed. Unlike Trump, Putin was not timid about putting his life on the line when the chips were down. While it is still possible - indeed it seems likely at this point - that autocracy might prevail, I doubt that Trump will ever fulfill his “President for Life” aspiration.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

@barbos,

Which is a more democratic country, Russia or the U.S.?

U.S. for now. Why?

It rather explains the historical conflict, don't you think? We could exchange Putin and Trump and the two countries wouldn't change. The fact that Russia has a legacy of Tsarism and the U.S. has a legacy of law is what keeps the two going. In the U.S. we can't arrest or outlaw the opposition or have journalists killed, but that happens on a regular basis in Russia.

If I lived in Russia I'd fear for my life pretty much daily. The country doesn't have the same freedoms as the U.S.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

@barbos,

Which is a more democratic country, Russia or the U.S.?

U.S. for now. Why?

As in since its founding and likely for a long time after, even if the country does fall into a Nazi controlled state.

 

[TomC]

We could exchange Putin and Trump and the two countries wouldn't change.

I disagree. Putin is a far more competent oligarch than Trump. So are many other world leaders. Trump was totally outclassed by people like Putin and Xi, even Netanyahu.

I believe that's why Putin helped Trump so much. He knew that Trump would help weaken the USA. Trump would damage the economy, divide the American people, make us look like idiots on the world stage, weaken us in many ways. C19 was an unexpected bonus.

Putin knew that Trump would help him prevent America From Becoming Great Again. And it worked. We're more divided, sicker, less capable, more inclined to live by borrowing, more inclined to believe lies told by people we respect, than ever before. Russia and China have been going the other direction.

Putin took on the USA in the 2016 election and he won. Huuuugely.
Tom

 

[barbos]

We could exchange Putin and Trump and the two countries wouldn't change.

I disagree. Putin is a far more competent oligarch than Trump. So are many other world leaders. Trump was totally outclassed by people like Putin and Xi, even Netanyahu.

I believe that's why Putin helped Trump so much. He knew that Trump would help weaken the USA. Trump would damage the economy, divide the American people, make us look like idiots on the world stage, weaken us in many ways. C19 was an unexpected bonus.

Putin knew that Trump would help him prevent America From Becoming Great Again. And it worked. We're more divided, sicker, less capable, more inclined to live by borrowing, more inclined to believe lies told by people we respect, than ever before. Russia and China have been going the other direction.

Putin took on the USA in the 2016 election and he won. Huuuugely.
Tom

So it explains why US was so fond of Eltsin. Becuse you knew he was so incompetent that he would weaken and split Russia further.

 

[barbos]

@barbos,

Which is a more democratic country, Russia or the U.S.?

U.S. for now. Why?

It rather explains the historical conflict, don't you think?

No, it does not. GB/France wanted Russia dead long before they were democracies.
Not to mention they did not want united democratic Germany later.
Democracy is not a factor here.

 

[barbos]

No lie. It was in the quote I posted from your link that you then snipped. Some might say your posting style is a little dishonest.

I like barbos, and don’t really blame him for being a Russia apologist. But the basic fact remains beyond assault:
Putin is a bad actor who harbors bad intent toward the US, and has found a willing-if-incompetent pawn in Donald Trump.
He gave Trump step-by-step instructions on overthrowing the American government, which would have been successful had Trump’s cowardice not prevailed. Unlike Trump, Putin was not timid about putting his life on the line when the chips were down. While it is still possible - indeed it seems likely at this point - that autocracy might prevail, I doubt that Trump will ever fulfill his “President for Life” aspiration.

You have been bad actor toward Russia (not only Putin personally) long before Trump. Putin simply returned the favor.
I may disagree with these actions (which you clearly exaggerate) but I understand them.

I noticed you USA apologists have remarkable tolerance toward democratically elected Ukrainian government officials calling for hanging their ethnic russian citizens.