#trump putin meeting

[sniperct]

Source

He revealed it to an Australian businessman.

This was uncovered as part of ongoing investigations.

[trmpt]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2018/07/16/trump-and-putins-helsinki-summit-relationship-as-skewered-by-cartoons/

2018

Trump and Putin’s Helsinki summit relationship, as skewered by cartoons

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

On 7/31/2019 Trump has a private meeting with Putin. On 8/3/2019, just 3 days after his private meeting with Putin Trump issues a request for a list of top US spies. By 2021 the CIA reports an unusually high number of their agents are being captured and/or being murdered. During the search executed at Mar A Lago the FBI find nore documents with lists of U.S. informants on them.

A Timeline

• FBI wiretapped Russian gambling ring headquartered at Trump Tower for two years - March 21, 2017

• Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador - May 15, 2017

• Trump, Putin Meet For 2 Hours In Helsinki - July 16, 2018

• Rand Paul Goes To Russia And Delivers Letter For Trump, Marking Our Era Of Irony - August 9, 2018

• Following the Money: Trump and Russia-Linked Transactions From the Campaign to the Presidential Inauguration - December 17, 2018

• The US extracted a top spy from Russia after Trump revealed classified information to the Russians in an Oval Office meeting - September 10, 2019

• Trump’s Loose Lips Force US to Extract Spy From Kremlin - September 10, 2019

• Was Mar-a-Lago Trespasser a Tourist or a Spy? A Judge Said Her Story Didn’t Hold Up. - November 25, 2019

• Trump downplays massive cyber hack on government after Pompeo links attack to Russia - December 19, 2020

• Russia has been cultivating Trump as an asset for 40 years, former KGB spy says - January 29, 2021

• There was Trump-Russia collusion — and Trump pardoned the colluder - April 17, 2021

• Longtime GOP operatives charged with funneling Russian national’s money to Trump, RNC - September 20, 2021

• Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants - October 5, 2021

• Files Seized From Trump Are Part of Espionage Act Inquiry - August 12, 2022

• Ex-Clinton aide implies 'President of France' file found at Trump's home during Mar-a-Lago raid could be valuable to Putin as 'kompromat' - August 13, 2022

• Inventing Anna: The tale of a fake heiress, Mar-a-Lago, and an FBI investigation - August 22, 2022

• Russians used a US firm to funnel funds to GOP in 2018. Dems say the FEC let them get away with it - October 30, 2022

• Trump makes shocking comments about trusting Putin over US 'intelligence lowlifes' - January 31, 2023

• Russia's Prigozhin admits links to what US says was election meddling troll farm - February 14, 2023

• GOP operative sentenced to 18 months for funneling Russian money to Trump- February 17, 2023

• Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - October 5, 2023

• 'So appalled': What witnesses told special counsel about Trump's handling of classified info while still president - April 24, 2024

🤔🤔🤔

[darcylindbergh]

I have no idea what Harris' actual views on I/P are, but even if she is fully pro-Palestine wouldn't she still have to meet with Netanyahu? I mean realistically any change the US can possibly make would have to involve talking to Israel, right? Presidents meet with Putin even if they hate him/Russia's actions because that's how international politics works, it doesn't mean they like/agree with him

Well, theoretically, there's a bit of political game playing involved yes. But because the ICC has issued warrants for Netanyahu's arrest, if we're strictly following international law, Netanyahu shouldn't have been meeting anybody, he should have been arrested. But we're not doing that because the US currently thinks the ICC is wrong, which is a bad look for the US and which undermines the strength of international law, so I think this is bad and also wrong, but that's what's happening at present. And although US presidents etc have historically met with Putin, they would not at this point because Putin also has warrants out for his arrest. The difference between how the US has treated Putin v Netanyahu is, as it seems, pretty hypocritical.

Practically speaking, as you say, meeting with Netanyahu is a bit of a political game. The US has historically been a very strong ally to Israel and the US has historically been very much involved in the normalization of relations vis a vis Israel and the rest of the Middle East, and the US would very much like to remain involved in brokering a lasting peace, which involves not seriously alienating Netanyahu and Israel et al. Netanyahu and his far-right government are the ones holding up the ceasefire, and the US is only able to exert pressure so long as they are a valuable ally to Israel - if Israel has nothing to lose, in other words, the US loses its ability to exert pressure. And Harris wants very much to hang onto that ability, because she's setting herself up to exert more pressure than Biden has.

Harris has been critical of Israel. Harris is the highest-ranking Dem that has been critical of the situation in Gaza. She has been upfront about highlighting the suffering in Gaza. She's not oblivious to the conversations going on re: Palestine and the ongoing genocide. She's not sticking her head in the sand on it.

“The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time - we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”

But she's trying to walk a very careful line on public sentiment re: Israel and Palestine. She's going to be very cautious to condemn anything with even a whiff of antisemitism in strong terms. She's going to be very cautious to affirm Israel's right to exist and to defend itself, which she does in the article linked above, with the caveat that "how it does so matters." But her willingness to call attention to the crisis ongoing in Gaza and her willingness to imply wrong-doing by Israel in how that crisis has been created signals to Netanyahu that her government will have stronger limits than Netanyahu has encountered previously. Will she be a perfect candidate? No. Will she always align with my moral compass? No. Will she be totally evil? Also no.

As voters, what does this mean for us and how we support Gazans and Palestinians?

To me this is very simple. Harris is a candidate who is willing and able to exert pressure on Israel to end the genocide and, ideally, to broker a long-lasting peace. Trump is a candidate who is willing and able to exert pressure on Israel to blow Gaza off the face of the earth. Between "willing to tell Netanyahu this is unacceptable" and "willing to tell Netanyahu to break out a nuke," I'm voting for the former every fucking time.

Not voting or voting third party doesn't actually tell Democrats anything except that you didn't care. They don't have a list of people who would otherwise have voted blue if only they'd taken harder pro-Palestine stance, they're not cross-checking your voting status against your social media posts and going, oh, nuts, we lost that one. Not voting or voting third party doesn't exert pressure on the Dems to go more left, you're not "teaching them a lesson," you're not making a point. It's non-information. It's not a boycott - it's a white flag. It's giving up.

You know how you exert pressure on politicians? You call. You write. You protest. Are you still calling your representatives about Gaza every day? Are you going to town halls and asking them about what they're doing to stop the genocide? Pressure is exerted through participation.

Progress is made by the people who show up.

If the Dems lose, you can pressure them all day and it won't make a difference because they don't have any power to make a difference. And the racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Middle East far right won't be listening no matter how much you shout.

I'm not giving up on Palestinians just because some greyface anon on the internet tells me I'm a bad person for choosing to vote for the candidate I can pressure to make a change.

I'm also not going to give up on people here at home who's lives are hanging in the balance. I'm a queer woman with a uterus and a pre-existing condition - I simply do not have the luxury or the privilege to stay home in November. I do not have the luxury or the privilege of being a single issue voter. I'm not going to give up on trans kids or immigrants or BIPOC or women or disabled folks or poor folks. I'm not going to give up on healthcare or on libraries or on public schools or on the environment or on the court systems. I'm not going to give up on safe workplaces and livable wages and safe products. I'm not going to give up and let corporate monopolies and censorship and AI and five rich dudes decide what the future will be.

Don't you care? Don't you look around you and care about the people in your own communities? Or are those people too real, too complicated? Do you only care when you can win points off it in someone else's inbox on tumblr dot com?

Is Kamala Harris going to be the perfect pro-Palestinian candidate? No. But I'm not inviting her to brunch. I don't need her to be my bestie. I don't need her to be my moral compass - I have one of my own, thanks.

I just need her to step forward instead of back.

Progress is made one step at a time.

[batboyblog]

On Top of the totally fictional story of black immigrants eating their neighbors cats and dogs here are some more totally fictional stories Trump made up in the last month, does he believe these are real things that happened? or does he just not care at all if he lies making things up at will?

1 Harris and the military draft

At a rally in Las Vegas last week, Trump claimed his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is talking about forcing Americans to serve in the military: “She’s already talking about bringing back the draft. She wants to bring back the draft, and draft your child, and put them in a war that should never have happened.” That’s absolute bunk. Harris is not talking at all about bringing back the draft.

2 Harris’ CNN interview

Trump claimed during a Fox News event in Pennsylvania in early September that Harris “had notes” to assist her during the television interview she did with CNN in late August. He even performed an impression in which he portrayed Harris supposedly looking down at these notes. She didn’t actually have any notes.

3 Transgender children and schools

At an event held by a conservative group in late August, Trump claimed that schools are sending children for gender-affirming surgeries without their parents’ knowledge. He said, “The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.” Trump’s campaign subsequently made clear to CNN that it could not find a single example of such a thing having happened anywhere in the United States. Parental consent is required for gender-affirming operations; schools have not performed or approved these surgeries for minors behind their parents’ backs. Even after Trump’s campaign demonstrated that it couldn’t substantiate the story, he repeated it days later at a Wisconsin rally in early September.

4 Harris and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Trump told a vivid story on Fox News in late August about how President Joe Biden supposedly sent Harris to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 in an effort to prevent an invasion of Ukraine. Trump claimed Harris was sent “to see Putin in Russia three days before the attack. She went. She said – she gave her case. He attacked three days later. He attacked three days later. He laughed at her. He thought she was a joke.” Trump also told a version of the story at the September debate. But this story, too, is wholly false. Biden never sent Harris to negotiate with Putin – in fact, the Kremlin said in July that Harris and Putin have never spoken – and Harris did not travel to Russia just prior to the invasion. Rather, Harris traveled to a conference in Germany to meet with US allies, including Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky.

5 Harris’ identity

Trump claimed at a convention of Black journalists in late July that Harris used to “only” promote her Indian heritage, then “all of a sudden” made a “turn” and “became a Black person.” Defending the claim, Trump reiterated at the September debate that Harris had “put out” at some point that “she was not Black.” None of that is true. Harris – who was raised in a Black community and graduated from a historically Black university – has embraced her Black identity since her youth. While she has also fondly discussed her South Asian heritage, she never “put out” that she wasn’t Black.

6 Harris’ 2020 primary performance

Trump has repeatedly claimed during the last month that Harris was so unpopular when she previously ran for the presidency, in 2019, that she was the very first candidate to drop out of the crowded Democratic primary. “She was one of 22 people that ran. She was the first one to quit,” he said at a Pennsylvania rally in late August. Not even close. In fact, 13 other Democratic candidates dropped out of the race before Harris did – including the sitting or former governors of Washington, Montana and Colorado; the sitting mayor of New York City; and sitting or former members of the House of Representatives and Senate.

7 Opinions of Roe v. Wade

Facing heavy criticism from Harris and others for appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision in 2022, Trump concocted a tale that this unpopular decision fulfilled the wishes of “everybody” – including “every Democrat.” “Every Democrat, every Republican, everybody wanted Roe v. Wade terminated and brought back to the states,” Trump said on Fox News in late August. This is not even remotely accurate. Roe was consistently supported by a majority of the American public, and it was overwhelmingly popular among Democrats – with 80% support or better among Democrats in many polls.

8 Elections in California

At a September press conference in California, Trump claimed that “if I ran with an honest vote counter in California I would win California, but the votes are not counted honestly.” He had delivered an even more colorful version of the claim in an interview in late August, saying, “If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay?” More rubbish. The votes are counted honestly in California, as they are in every other state; Trump loses California because it is an overwhelmingly Democratic state that has not chosen a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. He lost the state in 2020, fair and square, by more five million votes and more than 29 percentage points.

9 A ‘Man of the Year’ award in Michigan

Since 2016, Trump has told a lie that he was named “Man of the Year” in Michigan before he entered politics. Media outlets including CNN have repeatedly noted that Trump never got such an award and that the award doesn’t even appear to exist. But Trump claimed at a Michigan event on Tuesday that he has now been vindicated. “The press said, ‘Oh, it never happened.’ Well, then it did happen. They found out where it was,” Trump said. “But it was like 15 years ago, a beautiful area, but nobody remembered it; nobody remembered it all. All of a sudden, like through a miracle, they found out it did exist.” That’s a lie on top of a lie. The media has not discovered proof that Trump got a Michigan Man of the Year award. His campaign didn’t respond Wednesday to a request to explain what he was talking about.

10 Migrants, prisons and ‘the Congo’

For months, Trump has told a story about how “the Congo” has deliberately emptied prisons to somehow get its criminals to come to the United States as migrants. “Many prisoners let go from the Congo in Africa, rough prisoners,” he said at an August event in Arizona. At an August rally in Pennsylvania the week after, he said, “In the Congo, in Africa: 22 people deposited into our country. ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘The Congo.’ ‘Where in the Congo?’ ‘Jail.’” But Trump has presented zero evidence that “the Congo” has actually emptied any prisons for migration purposes. Representatives for the governments of both the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo have told CNN on the record that the claim is fiction, experts on the two countries say they have seen no evidence it is true, and Trump’s campaign has ignored requests to offer any substantiation.

11 The jobs revision

After the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in August that its annual revision of jobs data found that the economy added about 818,000 fewer jobs than initially reported for the 12 months ending in March, Trump told a story about how the government had been planning to announce this downward revision “after November 5th,” Election Day, but was forced to do so before the election because of “a whistleblower” – “a patriot leaker.” Another fabrication. The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly releases the preliminary revised data in August, and it had disclosed the precise date of this particular data release – August 21 – weeks in advance. William Beach, a conservative economist who was appointed by Trump to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wrote on social media: “For those who think the big revision to the BLS jobs numbers ‘leaked’ and was meant to come out after the election, remember that BLS always announces its draft revisions in August and announced this year’s date, August 21, many months ago. It is important to check your facts.”

[liberalsarecool]

The fact that the Kremlin can influence Republican politicians and policy with ease has evaded the media.

All those private meetings with Trump and Putin with no witnesses.

All the missing top secrets.

All the people in Trump's inner circle who are Russian assets like Manafort and Flynn.

All the Republicans in Congress who take trips to Moscow and/or repeat Russian propaganda.

All the Republicans who were once critics of Trump who now bend the knee: Graham, Cruz, Rubio.

Putin has as anti-West agenda and Trump, MAGA, and Republicans are part of his plan.

The media has ignored every red flag.

[foone]

I was getting bored at the Dimensional Nexus and all this assassination talk had me wondering how it might have gone down if either of the recent attempts on the former president's life had succeeded. So I did a search, and wowza. Turns out the search did the usual thing and over-fit the query: I got a dimension where both assassination attempts succeeded.

Yeah it's one where Necromancy became an accepted part of US politics after the JFK assassination and now the secret service employs at least one practitioner of the forbidden arts in every group of presidential body guards.

I watched the presidential debate (delayed to Oct 3rd due to the deaths) and Kamala was all "we need to deliver arms to the Ukrainian SSR so they can ensure their safety and independence" and Trump (whose head is just a skull now, kept "alive" only by the sickly glow of the amulet) starts telling about how he's walked with Premier Putin* under the cloudless skies of the plane of suffering, and seen the huge** pyramid imprisoning the God of Pain, and the Premier is a good man.

And the whole time there's this guy wearing all black and with glowing eyes that's standing behind the former president and it slightly hurts to look at him? You hear static when you meet his gaze, increasing in volume every second he's on screen.

No wonder they only did one presidential debate. I didn't check out the vice presidential debate, I saw enough of Gore back in the 2000s***.

* author note: I am not getting paid enough to come up with an even remotely plausible idea of who might be running the USSR in 2024. Sorry. Putin it is!

** well, yuge.

*** I went to college in one of the timelines where Al Gore won the 2000 election. They had 9/11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars too, just with different wallpaper: blue instead of red. I heard they elected McCain/Palin in '08 (and Palin in 2012 and 2016), but I'd already graduated by then so I wasn't keeping up with their politics, just hearing it second hand when talking with some of my old friends from that world.

[mariacallous]

In late August 2023, Ilya Gambashidze was in a conference room at the office of Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company he founded that is based in Moscow, close to the world-renowned Moscow Conservatory. Gambashidze was relatively unknown in Russian politics at the time, but just a month earlier his name had appeared on a Council of the European Union’s list of Russian nationals subjected to sanctions for playing a central role in a sprawling disinformation campaign against Ukraine.

In the conference room, Gambashidze was laying out his plans for a new target: Along with his colleagues, he began drafting what would become known as the Good Old USA Project. The project was supposed to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in favor of former president Donald Trump, specifically targeting certain minorities, swing-state residents, and online gamers, among others, in a scheme that included a full-time team dedicated to the cause.

On Wednesday, Gambashidze and his company were named by the US Department of Justice among the architects of a disinformation campaign known as Doppelganger that has for the past two years been targeting Ukraine and, more recently, US elections. The Doppelganger campaign uses AI-generated content on dozens of fake websites designed to impersonate mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post and Fox Business, using a network of fake social media accounts to disseminate pro-Russian narratives targeting audiences across the globe. Doppelganger is a Kremlin-aligned disinformation campaign that was first linked to the Kremlin in 2023 by the French government.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced the seizure of 32 internet domains it says are linked to the Doppelganger campaign which violate US money laundering and criminal trademark laws.

“Today’s announcement exposes the scope of the Russian government’s influence operations and their reliance on cutting-edge AI to sow disinformation,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “Companies operating at the direction of the Russian government created websites to trick Americans into unwittingly consuming Russian propaganda.”

The Treasury Department had previously sanctioned SDA and Gambashidze in March for its part in the Doppelganger campaign. But the court documents unsealed on Wednesday contain a treasure trove of documents and meeting notes from Gambashidze and his colleagues, outlining in unprecedented detail the goals and tactics that the Kremlin has been deploying in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US election.

The records also reveal the plan was discussed at the highest levels of the Russian government, with Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy chief of staff of the presidential executive office, playing a key role. The notes appear to show that President Vladimir Putin may have been updated on the campaign; in one meeting with Russian government officials, Gambashidze wrote that government officials told him they had “reported to the President about the project,” which the FBI agent who authored the affidavit said he took to refer to Putin.

The documents show that the orchestrators of the campaign targeted existing divisions within US society, using racist stereotypes and far-right conspiracies to target supporters of former president Donald Trump.

​​"They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” Gambashidze writes in one document outlining his “guerrilla media” plan. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.”

The same document is full of racist and conspiratorial claims, including that Republicans are “victims of discrimination of people of color.” It adds that white middle-class people are being discriminated against with high inflation and rising prices, while “unemployed people of color end up being privileged groups of the population.”

And the goal of the campaign, from the beginning, was crystal clear: “To secure victory for [Donald Trump],” Gambashidze wrote in the Good Old USA Project planning document.

The Good Old USA plan openly admits that “none of the significant American politicians can be considered pro-Russian or pro-Putin,” and so rather than focus its efforts on trying to convince people that Russia is great, the plan called for promoting the idea that the US should be focusing its resources less on Ukraine and more on domestic issues, such as rising inflation and high gas prices.

“It makes sense for Russia to put a maximum effort to ensure that the Republican Party’s point of view (first and foremost, the opinion of Trump supporters) wins over the US public opinion,” the Good Old USA Project planning document reads. “This includes provisions on peace in Ukraine in exchange for territories, the need to focus on the problems of the US economy, returning troops home from all over the world, etc.”

As well as getting Trump elected, the campaign’s secondary goals included increasing the percentage of Americans who believe the US is doing too much to aid Ukraine to 51 percent, and reducing the percentage of Americans who have confidence in President Joe Biden down to 29 percent.

The plan lists a variety of audiences the campaign specifically wants to target, including residents of swing states, American Jews, “US citizens of Hispanic descent,” and the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4chan.”

The document describes this category of gamers and chatroom users as the "backbone of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet.” In recent months, the Trump campaign has embraced many of the most influential figures within these communities, including many who share deeply misogynistic rhetoric on a regular basis.

To spread their narrative, the plan called for the creation of YouTube channels that shared pro-Trump content as well as other viral videos (“music, humor, beautiful girls etc,” according to the documents) in order to appear at the top of search results for “US elections.”

Meanwhile, Gambashidze and his colleagues used Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to create community groups of Trump supporters, with one sample name given as “Alabama for America the Great.” The document also reveals that the Russians planned to use Reddit as a vector to disseminate their propaganda as it is a platform “free from democratic censorship.”

Gambashidze’s plan outlined how Doppelganger would create 18 “sleeper cells” on social media platforms in each of the swing states, which would “at the right moment, upon gaining momentum, become an important instrument of influencing the public opinion in critically important states and portals used by the Russian side to distribute bogus stories disguised as newsworthy events.” It’s unclear if these so-called sleeper cells were created and, if so, whether they are still present on the platform.

The campaign also used targeted ads on Facebook to not only promote their narrative but also to gain valuable insight into what messages were sticking and which were falling flat. “Targeted advertising in Facebook allows tracking reactions of users to the distributed material in real time and directing the psychological response group to contribute to comments thereof,” the document reads. “With the help of a network of bots the psychological response group moderates top discussions and adjusts further launches depending on which group was affected the most.”

One of the key aspects of the Kremlin’s campaign is also to engage with influencers. According to the FBI’s affidavit, Gambashidze’s company ​​“extensively monitors and collects information about a large number of media organizations and social media influencers.”

According to the Good Old USA project document, the Kremlin was seeking to work with influencers who are “proponents of traditional values, who stand up for ending the war in Ukraine and peaceful relations between the US and Russia, and who are ready to get involved in the promotion of the project narratives.”

Among the types of influencers listed as possible collaborators are actors, politicians, media representatives, activists, and clergymen.

The affidavit references one document maintained by the Social Design Agency, which is not included in the unsealed court documents, that contains a list of more than 2,800 people identified as influencers. While this list is global, US-based influencers account for around 20 percent of the accounts being monitored, including many US lawmakers, according to an analysis of the list by the FBI.

The Social Design Agency also maintains another list, again not included in the court documents, that tracks over 1,900 “anti-influencers” from 52 different countries, with US-based accounts. The FBI agent who authored the document assessed that “anti-influencer” refers to accounts which post “content that SDA views as contrary to Russian objectives.”

In a note from one of the meetings with Russian government officials discussing the campaign’s use of influencers, Gambashidze wrote: “We need influencers! A lot of them and everywhere. We are ready to wine and dine them.” Though no links have been confirmed, hours before the Doppelganger affidavit dropped on Wednesday, Tenet Media, an organization that features a slate of right-wing commentators, was alleged in an unsealed Department of Justice indictment to have been largely funded by Russian state-backed news network RT.

The Social Design Agency operation appeared to be extremely well-run and well-resourced. There is a “project office” consisting of four teams that include one entire group dedicated to monitoring the social media posts from GOP lawmakers in order to generate ideas for topics to cover.

These would then be handed to a “text factory," with orders to whittle down the topics handed to them by the monitoring team to four to five main issues, along with eight to 10 basic posts for social media platforms and 40- to 60 comments to post under those social media posts for the network of bots. Another team was called the “manga editorial office,” which was charged with producing a daily output of three to four images, including memes. Finally, a video team was tasked with producing three to four videos each day.

“In order for this work to be effective, you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information,” the document’s authors wrote. “At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”

Antibot4Navalny, a group of anonymous Russian researchers who have been closely tracking Doppelganger’s activity, are doubtful that the affidavit will have a significant impact on the campaign’s activity.

“Frankly, I believe it's whack-a-mole as long as EU providers keep doing business with [Social Design Agency], and UK-registered shell companies keep helping SDA with its operation,” the researchers told WIRED, citing their own investigations earlier this year.

[redhoodie1723]

Yeah let's also cancel Lewis Hamilton for meeting and having conversations with Putin... Yeah... Also maybe Seb too because he was also there???? Yeah... Right...some of you have never had a job where you had to talk positively about someone you didn't like or approved just for the sake of keeping that job.

idk which time ur talking about hamilton and putin meeting up and making friends, as the only time i can find that they've interacted was at the 2015 russian grand prix where putin was giving out the race trophies. hamilton, vettel, and perez were all on the podium for that race. correct me if im wrong and theres another time theyve met, but thats literally all i can find.

now, first of all, there's a big difference between having to interact with a political figure on a race podium, and choosing to interact with them freely out in the paddock, taking pictures with them, and praising them in additional interviews. there's also a big difference between being polite to the current leader of the country you're in that is known for killing/imprisoning people who speak out against him, and actively supporting an ex-leader who has (as far as we know) never actually killed someone for not being supportive.

if you ask me, it would've been unsafe for hamilton or any of the drivers on that podium to speak out against putin at that moment or act impolitely. on the other hand, the biggest trouble norris could get in for not praising trump and taking pictures with him is maybe a talking too back at the mclaren HQ. like, lets be real, it would be ridiculous and insane of mclaren to fire norris after all the time/resources theyve put into his development, especially now that its finally starting to pay off. it would be like shooting themselves in the foot, a move thats generally reserved for ferrari's strategy team or sauber's pit stops.

furthermore, you are simply assuming that norris' job wouldve been at risk in this situation. not once has it been implied that he was threatened or coerced into this situation. its even less likely that that has happened since piastri hasn't made any comments or taken any pictures with trump as far as i can find. for all we know, it could've been norris' idea to do all that. so, not exactly the strongest defense here.

and even if he had been forced into the corner and told to take pictures and play nice, he also took it a step further to compliment trump in other interviews saying it was an "honor" and there's a lot to "respect" about trump. hamilton has never come out saying any of that about putin. in fact, he has come on the record since then condemning putin and his actions. can you tell me where norris has come out condemning trump and his actions? no? that's funny.

[mistressemmedi]

The Lando Stan copium going on right now is INSANE. He’s a grown man! He said what he said! Stop jumping through hoops as to why he “didn’t mean it”. If you want to support him in his Trumpie era, fine. But don’t pretend he didn’t say those things to make yourself feel better.

the whole infantilization of a 24 yr old man "because he doesn't know any better 🥺" just sits wrong with me on so many levels.

And I'm not saying he should have had a go at Trump but the whole gushing like a fanboy over meeting the man is just 💀💀💀💀

Also I was also thinking about how Rosberg in 2015? 2016? was straight up ignoring Putin in the cooldown room until Bernie made him interact with Vladdy boy 💀 and all he had say afterwards was "I'm surprised he didn't speak German to me" shfhfhfjntngkg

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Fascist friends.

[izooks]

Asked on a podcast if he thought it possible Trump was a Russian asset, Andrew McCabe, who Trump fired as FBI deputy director in 2018, said: “I do, I do.”

He added: “I don’t know that I would characterize it as [an] active, recruited, knowing asset in the way that people in the intelligence community think of that term. But I do think that Donald Trump has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem in the United States, and I think his approach to interacting with Vladimir Putin, be it phone calls, face-to-face meetings, the things that he has said in public about Putin, all raise significant questions.”

[preet-01]

This was longer than I expected, but something I have been thinking about since Sunday:

I studied international relations when I was doing my master’s degree. My thesis was partly focused on the politicization of sports and what role athletes have in taking a stance on political issues with one of my case studies being formula one. So while I don’t claim to be an expert in the intricacies of sports and politics, it is something that I spent a lot of time researching.

Anyone who says sports (specifically formula one) aren’t political is lying. Focusing on just formula one, it is in its nature a political sport due to how international it is. Choosing where they race and where they don’t race is a political statement. Though that is a discussion for a different time.

The issue at hand is the Miami GP and the presence of a former US President currently going through multiple court cases as he runs for re-election. Which is a convoluted way to say Trump but that is his role in the situation.

Trump is not the first questionable political figure to attend a Grand Prix, nor will he be the last. But there is a key difference in those situations versus this one.

Putin has been present for the Russian GP and handed out trophies to drivers. The Saudi princes at the Saudi Arabian GP. Greg Abbott at COTA. These are just a few questionable political figures present at GPs that have interacted with teams/drivers. But they were there in a ceremonial role. Which personally I still have some issues with, but unlike Trump it was a part of their job, something that was unavoidable because they were head of state/governor.

Trump is not currently an elected government official despite McLaren’s original statement calling him “the President of the United States.” (That was actually a huge part of Jan. 6th and the insurrection, but regardless presidents are called “former president X” or sometimes just “president X” or if you want to be really formal “the former president of the United States” once they leave office. The key is very clearly saying that they are not a sitting president. However, you could call it me being nitpicky.”)

He is instead a former president who is actively running for re-election and had official campaign merch with his political slogan. He is not there for a ceremonial role, nor is he just enjoying the race. Because his presence with that hat is a political statement. The McLaren CEO, FIA president, F1 CEO, and a driver posing with him in pictures is a political statement. Trump in front of the McLaren garage as a crowd chants “USA! USA! USA!” Is a political statement. Not only are they political statements, they are endorsements of a presidential candidate.

And if you as a fan are trying to justify what happened by saying “oh they didn’t know all that” or “they were forced to do this” remember that McLaren F1 team is a multibillion dollar organization with a good PR/comms team, all the drivers have PR teams, the FIA is an international sporting organization with a good PR/Comms/Governance team, as is F1. They are also grown adults who can say no (2018 US Olympians refused to go to the White House — which is considered an honor for any athlete — after the Olympics and meet Trump when he was president). They all knew who he was, what he has done, and what he currently is doing and chose to make political statements.

The biggest issue is once again the FIA President. The FIA has fined drivers for making political statements about basic human rights and equality. The FIA has issued amendments to the regulations that banned political statements from drivers. The FIA President who has been present for all of that made a political endorsement in a presidential election at a Grand Prix.

Though that is not to say that Lando’s comments weren’t an issue. They were and he should be called out on that. Even if it was ignorance or lack of knowledge on his part. Zak Brown should also be called out for his part in this and how he was one of the biggest supporters for a ban on political statements. Stefano Domenicali should be called out for his part in this.

If you don’t call them out, they will never learn and things will never change

[meandmybigmouth]

Gaetz says Trump trashed Ukraine aid during House GOP meeting

Gaetz says Trump trashed Ukraine aid during House GOP meeting (msn.com)

PUTIN'S PUPPET? HIS LAPDOG? BRINGING THE GOP WITH HIM? MAGA HAS JOINED THE PUTIN FAN CLUB!

[simply-ivanka]

Biden Leaves His Successor a World of Disorder

His policies have encouraged the advance of U.S. adversaries across the globe.

By The Editorial Board -- Wall Street Journal

President Biden will address the United Nations on Tuesday, in what is likely to be his last big moment on the world stage. A President’s foreign-policy legacy typically outlasts his term, so it’s worth taking a step back and considering the world Mr. Biden will leave his successor.

It is a far more dangerous world than Mr. Biden inherited, and far less congenial for U.S. interests, human freedom and democracy. The latter is tragically ironic since the President has made the global contest between democracy and authoritarians an abiding theme. Authoritarians have advanced on his watch in every part of the world—Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and even the Americas.

***

• Mr. Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was his single most damaging decision, and it has led to cascading trouble. The Taliban control the country and are reimposing feudal Islamist rule. His withdrawal has done more harm to more women than anything in decades, while jihadists have revived their terror sanctuary.

• More damaging is the message his withdrawal sent to adversaries about American will and retreat. The credibility of U.S. deterrence collapsed. Mr. Biden tried to appease Vladimir Putin by blessing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and refusing to arm Ukraine. Mr. Putin concluded he could invade Ukraine at limited cost, especially after Mr. Biden blurted out that a “minor incursion” might not elicit the same Western opposition.

After Kyiv bravely resisted, Mr. Biden sent weapons, but too little and too delayed at every stage of the war. Even now, after 31 months and 100,000 or more dead, Mr. Biden dithers over letting Ukraine use long-range ATACMS against targets inside Russia.

• His record in the Middle East is worse. Rather than build on the Abraham Accords he inherited, he tried to ostracize Saudi Arabia and he banned offensive weapons to fight the Houthis. From the start he courted the mullahs in Iran to renew the 2015 nuclear accord that had enriched Iran before Donald Trump withdrew. He refused to enforce oil sanctions, even as Iran spread mayhem through its proxy militias.

The U.S. was caught flat-footed when Hamas, aided by Iran, invaded Israel and massacred 1,200 innocents. His national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had to edit an online version of a Foreign Affairs essay already published boasting that “the region is quieter than it has been for decades.”

Here’s how quiet: Our foremost regional ally is now at war on multiple fronts. Israel’s defensive campaign in Gaza isn’t finished and a new and perhaps bloodier fight is unfolding with Hezbollah. The Houthis have all but shut down Western commercial shipping around the Red Sea, while Mr. Biden makes U.S. naval commanders play whack-a-missile.

Meanwhile, Iran marches undeterred to becoming a nuclear power. The Biden Administration mouths pieties that this is unacceptable, but its every action suggests it believes a nuclear Iran is inevitable and trying to stop it is too risky. When Iran goes nuclear, the security calculus in the world will turn upside down.

• Mr. Biden’s record in the Asia-Pacific is marginally better, at least diplomatically. He has strengthened U.S. alliances against China, especially with Australia, Japan and the Philippines. The Aukus defense deal is important, as is Japan’s move toward closer military integration with the U.S.

Yet diplomacy hasn’t been matched by hard power. The U.S. isn’t building enough submarines to meet its Aukus commitment and U.S. needs. American bases lack adequate air defenses and long-range missiles to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. State Department foot-stomping hasn’t stopped Chinese harassment of Philippine ships.

• Closer to home, Venezuela’s dictator has predictably stolen another election, exposing the Biden Administration’s deal to ease oil sanctions as naive. Mexico is tilting in an authoritarian direction without U.S. protest. Cuba continues to spread revolution wherever it can. The resulting human suffering reaches America in the flood of migrants that now burden our cities, from Manhattan to Springfield, Ohio.

• Most ominous is the collaboration of these menacing regional powers into a new anti-Western axis. Iran supplies missiles and drones to Moscow, which may be supplying nuclear know-how to Tehran. China is aiding Moscow, which now joins Beijing in naval maneuvers. North Korea also arms Moscow while being protected by China from United Nations sanctions it once voted for.

***

All of this and more adds up to the worst decline in world order, and the largest decline in U.S. influence, since the 1930s. Yet Mr. Biden continues to speak and act as if he’s presided over an era of spreading peace and prosperity. He has proposed a cut in real defense spending each year of his Presidency, which may be his greatest abdication.

Addressing this gathering storm will be difficult and dangerous. The first task will be restoring U.S. deterrence, which will require more hard power and political will. Whoever wins the White House will have to abandon the failed policies of the Biden years, lest we end up careening into a global conflict with catastrophic consequences.

Appeared in the September 23, 2024, print edition as 'How Freedom Faded on Biden’s Watch'

REPOST THIS EVERY TIME

[liberalsarecool]

Russia coordinated with Trump for years. All those Trump/Putin meetings with no witnesses were not a warning sign?

Congressional Republicans can't criticize Putin. Regular Republicans love Putin.

Entire Right Wing are backing the enemies from Russia to Iran to Hamas.