The following article by Gene Lyons was posted on the National Memo website February 22, 2017:
Mr. Trump with Tevfik Arif, center, and Felix H. Sater at the official unveiling of Trump SoHo in September 2007, when it was still under construction. Mark Von Holden/WireImage.
If you think about it, no wonder Donald Trump prefers the imaginative stylings of Fox News to the Presidential Daily Briefing. He’s pretty much the network’s target demographic: a daffy old-timer with time on his hands.
Intelligence reports tend to be complex, hedged with uncertainties. That’s boring to an elderly adolescent. Rather like the big-screen evangelical churches that furnish much of the rest of its audience, Fox News delivers provocative melodrama that keeps viewers wide-awake.
Hence Sweden, one of the safest, most prosperous democracies on earth, becomes a hotbed of terrorist violence. Never mind that Sweden’s terrific crime novelists –Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Maj Sjowall, and Per Wahloo—probably kill off more imaginary victims than the country has actual homicides. Continue reading “Follow The Money To Uncover Trump’s Deep Ties To Russia”
The following article was posted on the TrumpAccoutable.org website February 22, 2017:
Donald Trump has been asked numerous times over the past week what the causes of anti-Semitism and discrimination are as well as what his administration plans to do to address these challenging issues. In each case he has either dismissed the question (or the questioner) or retreated to vague statements about the importance of unity and bridging the issues that divide Americans.
The following article by Jean Hopfensperger was posted on the Star Tribune website February 20, 2017:
Mark Stipakov, second from right, second row, a real estate agent in Plymouth, went to grade school with Russian President Vladimir Putin, third from right, front row.
Mark Stipakov went to grade school with Russian President Vladimir Putin and consulted with him in the 1990s when Putin worked in the St. Petersburg’s mayor’s office. Watching the barrage of news about his old classmate’s possible influence on the Trump administration, Stipakov worries.
The following article by Megan Twohey and Scott Shane was posted on the Washington Post website February 19, 2017:
Michael D. Cohen, second from left, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, with Michael T. Flynn, left, and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas at Trump Tower in December. Mr. Cohen delivered the peace plan to Mr. Flynn a week before Mr. Flynn resigned as national security adviser. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
A week before Michael T. Flynn resigned as national security adviser, a sealed proposal was hand-delivered to his office, outlining a way for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.
Mr. Flynn is gone, having been caught lying about his own discussion of sanctions with the Russian ambassador. But the proposal, a peace plan for Ukraine and Russia, remains, along with those pushing it: Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, who delivered the document; Felix H. Sater, a business associate who helped Mr. Trump scout deals in Russia; and a Ukrainian lawmaker trying to rise in a political opposition movement shaped in part by Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
At a time when Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia, and the people connected to him, are under heightened scrutiny — with investigations by American intelligence agencies, the F.B.I. and Congress — some of his associates remain willing and eager to wade into Russia-related efforts behind the scenes. Continue reading “A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates”
The following article by Martin Finucane was posted on the Boston Glub website February 14, 2017:
In a series of tweets posted in the wake of national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation, Massachusetts US Senator Elizabeth Warren called for a bipartisan inquiry into the Trump administration’s contacts with Russia, saying national security was at stake.
The following article by Corey Ciorciari and Anna Perina was posted on the Center for American Progress Action Fund website February 10, 2017:
AP/Andrew Harnik President Donald Trump—accompanied by, from the left, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 28, 2017, in the Oval Office.
Recordings of phone conversations by U.S. intelligence agencies show that President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Flynn likely lied when he denied discussing election-related sanctions on Russia with Kremlin officials before Trump’s inauguration.
The intercepts contain disturbing revelations showing a long history of contact between Flynn and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak that began before the election and continued into the transition, with Flynn telling the Russians that Trump would revisit sanctions. Critically, these contacts persisted even after the U.S. government concluded the Kremlin engaged in a covert influence operation to put Trump in the White House. Continue reading “Trump and Russia: A Timeline”
The following is from the Washington Post Today’s WorldView by Ishaan Tharoor was issued February 13, 2017. Teamed with President Trump stating he wasn’t aware of this issue this past Friday, the situation is extremely concerning on multiple levels.
President Trump’s claim that America is morally on parwith Russia’s corrupt dystopian regime was so historically ignorant that even timid Republicans felt compelled to speak out this week. Perhaps that is because remaining silent in the face of such a morally disorienting claim would make them look like fools. Vladimir Putin is, after all, the same ruthless autocrat who kills journalists and political rivals who cross his path. He is also the same man who called the Soviet Union’s collapse “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
The evil empire Putin admires says much about the tyrant our new president defends. Burning with resentments carried over from a fallen empire, Comrade Putin hopes to rebuild the U.S.S.R. one invasion at a time. And while Putin pursues that delusional dream, Trump should be reminded exactly what kind of world his new friend wants to create. Continue reading “Joe Scarborough: Trump’s dangerous lie about Russia”
The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website February 6, 2017:
If you would like to see a man struggle, witness Vice President Pence:
Pence was asked on “Face the Nation” to account for President Trump having likened Vladimir Putin’s alleged killing of political opponents to the United States’. Trump had told Bill O’Reilly: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
CBS’s John Dickerson asked Pence, “Do you agree?” And Pence had to draw a long, pronounced breath. Then, asked four times whether the United States is “morally superior” to Russia, Pence avoided and danced around the question before relenting (kind of):
DICKERSON: Do you think America is morally superior to Russia?
PENCE: What — what you have in this new president is someone who is willing to, and is, in fact, engaging the world, including Russia, and saying, where can we find common interests that will advance the security of the American people, the peace and prosperity of the world? And he is determined to come at that in a new and renewed way.
DICKERSON: But America morally superior to Russia — yes or no?
PENCE: I believe that the ideals that America has stood for throughout our history represent the highest ideals of humankind.
(CROSSTALK)
PENCE: I was actually at — I was at Independence Hall yesterday. And I stood in the very room where the Constitution of the United States was crafted, the very building where the Declaration of Independence was held forth. Every American, including our president, represents that we uphold the highest ideals of the world.
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: Shouldn’t we be able to just say yes to that question, though?
PENCE: I think it is, without question, John.
DICKERSON: That America is morally superior to Russia?
PENCE: That American ideals are — are superior to countries all across the world. But, again, what the president is determined to do, as someone who has spent a lifetime looking for deals, is to see if we can have a new relationship with Russia and other countries that advances the interests of America first and the peace and security of the world.
Suffice it to say, this is not an easy question right now for Pence — or anybody in the Trump administration. That’s because American exceptionalism is at the core of the Republican Party’s brand and identity in the 21st century. Squaring that with Trump’s suggestion that the United States doesn’t have the moral high ground on the killing of its opponents requires all the politician-speak one can muster — and ignoring pretty much everything you’ve ever said about why the United States is morally superior to the likes of Russia.
Just look at Pence’s comments about both Russia and American exceptionalism in one speech back in February 2015 at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):
“And as we gather here tonight a new iron curtain is descending down the spine of Europe as modern Russia seeks to redraw the map of Europe by force. Unlike the former Soviet Union that respected the strength of West, Putin’s Russia ignores talk of sanctions, claims land, and supports rebels in Ukraine with impunity.”
“You either choose to view America as the shining city on the hill that inspires the best in all mankind, or you don’t.”
“The truth is you cannot command the respect of the world when you spend years apologizing to our enemies and abandoning our friends. Lecturing the American people about the Crusades while refusing to call Islamic extremism by name is an abdication of leadership.”
The last comment in particular sticks out. Pence didn’t like the equivalence between radical Islam today and the Crusades back in the 13th century. Now he’s being asked to explain Trump’s comparison of Putin and the American government.
And then there’s the polling.
Back in 2015, the Pew Research Center asked whether the United States “stands above all others,” was one of the greatest countries, or whether there were other countries that were better.
Fully 48 percent of conservative Republicans said it was the greatest country in the world, compared to 17 percent of liberal Democrats. Just 8 percent of conservative Republicans disagreed that the United States is at least “one of the greatest countries.”
The GOP’s embrace of patriotism and American exceptionalism ramped up after 9/11 and especially when Democrats began to question the war in Iraq. Some on the right fought back by arguing that this was unpatriotic or that war skeptics opposed U.S. troops.
Giuliani is now a key Trump confidant, and Trump is espousing almost that exact view that Giuliani ascribed to Obama. And now the likes of Giuliani and Pence are left to explain it.
