Category Archives: Putin
Reset of a Reset
President Trump doesn’t look like much of a Russian collaborator lately. Last week he bombed Putin’s Syrian Ally al Assad for using chemical weapons. Weapons the Russians promised to eliminate.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson got a chilly reception from his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and President Putin in Moscow yesterday. And he didn’t bring a reset button with him.
Reset of a Reset
When asked on the Journal Report what he makes of the U.S. Russian relationship, Dan Henninger answered, “I guess you could call it a reset of a reset. Because whatever Donald Trump’s relationship may or may not have been with Vladimir Putin, it’s not the same as of this strike against Syria.” CNN says, “Donald Trumps Russia’s reset already needs a reset.”
Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been, In a Russian Golden Shower?
The right leaning New York Post, Townhall, and left leaning Nation editor and publisher, Katrina vanden Heuvel, writing in the Washington Post, have something in common. They all compare the senate Democrats’ obsession with Russians to McCarthyism of 50 years ago. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
It’s fitting and proper that a comedian got the ball rolling for the Jeff Sessions act in this Russian circus. Senator Al Franken based a question to Senator Sessions on a bogus story in Buzzfeed about a Russian dossier on Donald Trump. It claims Trump hired prostitutes to pee on a bed Barack and Michelle had slept on in a Russian hotel.
Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?
Franken asked the senator what he would do if there’s any evidence of contact with Russians in the course of the Trump campaign. Sessions replied, “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.” You can roll the tape here on Politifact.
Then, as night follows day, two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak surfaced. One was in Sessions’ senate office. The other was a group introduction at the RNC in Cleveland. Senator Sessions says those meetings were in the course of his role as a senator and didn’t involve the Trump campaign.
Senator Claire McCaskill insisted that sort of thing just isn’t done. But her twitter account says otherwise.
Deep State Is No Deep Throat
Deep Throat was the secret source who led Woodward and Bernstein to break the Watergate story that brought down Richard Nixon.
I never heard of Deep State until a few weeks ago. That’s when quotes from unnamed sources started turning up in news stories about alleged connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The anonymous sources came from intelligence in the permanent government known as the “Deep State.” That would be the state previously known as “the bureaucracy”.
The Resist Trump crowd is hoping Deep State will work some Deep Throat magic on Donald Trump
Deep State is no Deep Throat
Anyway, none of the Russian allegations were proven but they still managed to bring down National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Now the Deep State is following the same playbook to go after Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Rush Limbaugh thinks the Deep State is conspiring with the Mainstream Media to sabotage the Trump presidency. The muckraking investigative news website Consortiumnews.com seems to agree with Rush. Writing for Consortiumnews.com, Daniel Lazar quotes NYT reporters Glenn Thrush and Michale Grynbaum bragging that,”Trump is being force-fed lessons all presidents eventually learn – that the iron triangle of the Washington press corps, West Wing staff and federal bureaucracy is simply too powerful to bully.” Lazare – no fan of Trump – is skeptical:
Iron triangle? Permanent government? In its tale of how Trump went from being a favorite of the New York Post and Daily News to fodder for the big-time Washington news media, the Times seems to be going out of its way to confirm dark paranoid fears of a “deep state” lurking behind the scenes and dictating what political leaders can and cannot do.
…Entrenched interests are nothing new, of course. But a major news outlet bragging about collaborating with such elements in order to cripple a legally established government is.
…So if the conflict between president and the deep state ever comes down to a question of legitimacy, there is no doubt who will come out ahead: The Donald.
Russian Election Hacking
In 2012 President Obama told Russian President Medvedev he would be much more flexible after the election. Obama thought his remarks were private but he was speaking into an open mic in front of tv cameras.
Lucky for him, there was no Republican narrative of Russian election hacking in 2012. It might have seemed plausible, considering the fact that Obama repeatedly mocked Romney for insisting that Russia was our number one enemy. Also, in 2009, Obama halted a missile defense system in Poland and The Czech Republic. Romney described that act as “a gift to Russia.”
Russian Hacking
If the Russians had any incentive to hack a U.S. election, 2012 would seem to be the ticket. After that election they felt comfortable enough to invade Crimea without fear of U.S. sanctions. Obama only got tough with Russia on his way out the door in December 2016. He imposed sanctions after Hillary lost and the Russians were accused of hacking John Podesta’s emails. Which, btw, is the only reason we know Donna Brazile fed debate questions to Hillary.
Those sanctions are the ones Michael Flynn is accused of discussing in December with the Russian ambassador. We know about that, not through an open mic, but from leaked classified U.S. intelligence.
Killing Putin
In his Super Bowl interview with President Trump, Bill O’Reilly accused the Russian President of killing people. Trump’s response? “You think our country’s so innocent?”
That made me think of one of my favorite exchanges between Michael Corleone and Kay Adams:
Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.
Michael: Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?
Except Trump is president, not a mob boss. Now who’s being naive?
Putin
Anyway, I got the idea for this cartoon from a Holman Jenkins column in the WSJ.
His assessment of Trump’s comments was, “unwise, spoken by somebody with a thin grasp of his circumstances.” But he went on to say, “Trump, clumsily, was actually keeping up a longstanding U.S. policy of covering up for Mr. Putin.” Then Jenkins detailed the Ryazan bombing plot by Putin security thugs to frame Chechen terrorists. It rarely gets mentioned by American officials. Jenkins thinks that’s because everybody wants to make a deal with Putin.
He concludes, “Read a certain way, Mr. Trump’s comments make him the first U.S. president to address Mr. Putin’s real nature.”
BTW: Not climbing on the assassination chic bandwagon or anything here with the title. Just having a little fun with a commentator’s line of books.
