#Russia Probe

[memenewsdotcom]

House votes to censure Adam Schiff

[tomorrowusa]

^^^ What really happened. hehe 🙂🇺🇦

Seriously, don't be too surprised when Russia's missiles go WAY off course.

Putin's project to revive the glory days of the Soviet Union has not been going well.

[liberalsarecool]

I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency and am still exhausted from the experience.

But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than:

• when he incited an insurrection against the government,

• mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans

• separated children from their families

• lost those children in the bureaucracy

• tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church

• tried to block all Muslims from entering the country

• got impeached

• got impeached again

• had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history

• pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden

• fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia

• bragged about firing the FBI director on TV

• took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community

• diverted military funding to build his wall

• caused the longest government shutdown in US history

• called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate”

• lied nearly 40,000 times

• banned transgender people from serving in the military

• ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions

• vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers

• refused to release his tax returns

• increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion

• had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history

• called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers

• coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist

• refused to concede the 2020 election

• hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House

• walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl

• called neo-Nazis “very fine people”

• suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID

• abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey

• pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans

• incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic

• withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords

• withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal

• withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances

• insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter

• pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op

• failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies

• called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries

• called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation”

• claimed that he single-handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere

• forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader

• believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe

• suggested the US should buy Greenland

• colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges

• repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people”

• claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases

• violated the emoluments clause

• thought that Nambia was a country

• told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public

• called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution

• nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet

• nominated a corrupt head of the EPA

• nominated a corrupt head of HHS

• nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department

• nominated a corrupt head of the USDA

• praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies

• refused to allow the presidential transition to begin

• insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death

• spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president

• falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote

• called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser”

• falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year

• considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions

• mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID

• locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones

• used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus”

• hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser

• pardoned several of his shady associates

• gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories

• got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!)

• had a Secretary of State who called him a moron

• forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history

• botched the COVID vaccine rollout

• tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him

• charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties

• constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate

• claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear

• called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas”

• used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise

• opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling

• got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers

• claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US

• ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings

• blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining

• redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle

• got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters”

• threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution

• botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

• threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them

• pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes

• thought that the Virgin islands had a President

• drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane

• allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing

• rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos

• pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID

• rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers

• held blatant campaign rallies at the White House

• tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man

• refused to attend his successors’ inauguration

• nominated the worst Education Secretary in history

• threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted

• attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci

• promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)

• allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues

• struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble

• called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ”

• threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders

• went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic

• claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

• seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution

• demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director

• praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles

• completely gutted the Voice of America

• placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service

• claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower

• suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country

• suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public

• overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported

• reduced the number of refugees the US accepts

• insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames

• gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address

• named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties

• eliminated the White House office of pandemic response

• used soldiers as campaign props

• fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him

• demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade

• hired a shit ton of white nationalists

• politicized the civil service

• did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government

• falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts

• claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won

• insulted reporters of color

• insulted women reporters

• insulted women reporters of color

• suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs

• attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him

• summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election

• spent countless hours every day watching Fox News

• refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas

• hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer

• tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him

• acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney

• attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault

• held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present

• didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media

• stopped holding press briefings for months at a time

• “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power

• led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform

• claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers

• tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course

• suggested that the government nuke hurricanes

• suggested that wind turbines cause cancer

• said that he had a special aptitude for science

• fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure

• blurted out classified information to Russian officials

• tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida

• fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban

• hired Stephen Miller

• openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them

• interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel

• abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war

• tried to get Russia back into the G7

• held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden

• seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive

• lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated

• falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t

• shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies

• still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan

• still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks"

• forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID

• told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”

• fucked up the Census

• withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic

• did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act

• seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican

• stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win

• constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump

• claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened

• said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake

• claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him

• claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President

• created a commission to whitewash American history

• retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain

• claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there

• hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims

• had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others

• bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties

• apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House

• stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians

• falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police

• said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about

• tried to rescind protection from DREAMers

• gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic

• tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax

• said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states

• deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented

• claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln

• touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all

• retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile

• forced through security clearances for his family

• suggested that police officers should rough up suspects

• suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs

• tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender

• suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher

• nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy

• retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event

• hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags

• accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address

• claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia

• mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault

• obsessed over low-flow toilets

• ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release

• called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek)

• hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech

• took advice from the MyPillow guy

• claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists

• said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure

• never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign

• falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent

• announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest

• insulted the leader of Canada

• insulted the leader of France

• insulted the leader of Britain

• insulted the leader of Germany

• insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!)

• falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues

• blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually

• continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,

• said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked

• left a NATO summit early in a huff

• stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of five knows not to do that

• called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary

• refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise

And a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember .

[rahulrainbow]

रूस का पहला चंद्रमा मिशन लूना-25 और भारत का चंद्रयान-3

रूस का पहला चंद्रमा मिशन लूना-25 और भारत का चंद्रयान-3 20 अगस्त 2023 को, रोस्कोस्मोस (रूसी संघ के राज्य अंतरिक्ष निगम) ने घोषणा की , कि लूना -25 प्री-लैंडिंग के दौरान चंद्रमा की सतह पर दुर्घटनाग्रस्त हो गया था। . अब पूरी दुनिया चंद्रयान-3 (इसरो द्वारा लॉन्च) पर नजर रख रही है, जो 23.08.2023 को शाम 6:05 बजे चंद्रमा की सतह पर उतरने के लिए तैयार है।  . ��ूस का पहला चंद्रमा मिशन लूना-25 और भारत का…

[spacenutspod]

*Hosted by Tim Gibbs with AI Assistant Hallie* - **NASA's Lunar Trailblazer Satellite** - Mission: Search for water on the moon. - Details: Lockheed Martin built, measures 11.5 feet wide, weighs 440 pounds. - Launch: No earlier than 2024, alongside the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission. - Instruments: Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) sensor from the University of Oxford. - Purpose: Map lunar surface temperature and variations in minerals. - **Oxygen Production on Mars** - Need: 30 metric tons of oxygen for a crew of six astronauts. - Solution: Produce oxygen on Mars from its abundant CO2. - Recent Development: Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (Moxie) Project. - Research: Donald Rapp and Eric Hinderman's model for a full-scale Mars ISRU system. - **Discoveries with the FAST Telescope** - Led by: Professor H.A.N. Gene Lin from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. - Findings: Distinct dwarf pulses from pulsar PSR B2111+46. - Observations: Galactic Plane Pulsar Snapshot Survey. - New Emission State: Dwarf pulses. 4. **Spotlight Story** - **Russia's Lunar 25 Probe Crash** - Incident: Lunar 25 crashed during pre-landing maneuvers. - Last Contact: 2.57 pm on a Saturday. - Background: Russia's first moon mission in almost 50 years. - Mission Goal: Soft landing on the Lunar South Pole. - Historical Context: Last attempt in 1989 with the Phobos 2 probe. - Statement: Roscosmos Boss Yuri Borosov had estimated a 70% success rate. 5. **Hallie's Joke of the Week** - "Why did the scarecrow win an award? “ 6. **Closing Remarks** - Find all episodes and the parent podcast, SpaceNuts, at spaceknuts.io or bitesz.com. - Join the conversation on the Facebook page: SpaceNuts podcast group. - Weekly Schedule: Steve Dunkley on Mondays and Tim Gibbs on Fridays. - See you next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Astronomy Daily podcast!

[niveditaabaidya]

Russian Investigators Open Probe Into Nova Kakhovka Dam Blast. #kherson ...

[fairuzfan]

PELOSI SAYS WHAT?????

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pelosi-urges-fbi-probe-gaza-ceasefire-protests-us-suggests-russia-links-2024-01-28/

[ID: A screenshot of text that reads:

"US Muslim group condemns Pelosi for saying Gaza ceasefire protests have Russia link

By Kanishka Singh, January 28, 2024 3:44 PM EST. Updated 2 min ago

Pelosi made the remarks in a CNN interview after she was asked whether opposition to President Joe Biden's policy in the war in Gaza could hurt the Democrat in November's presidential election.

"For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin's message, Mr. Putin's message. Make no mistake this is directly connected to what he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) would like to see," Pelosi told CNN.

"I think some of these protesters are spontaneous, and organic, and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia," she said. "Some financing should be investigated and I want to ask the FBI to investigate that."

End ID.]

[reality-detective]

In a crazy turn of events, a former top FBI official, who played a key role in the Trump-Russia collusion probe, was just sentenced to four years in prison for colluding with Russia. But it gets crazier 🤔

[remnantglow]

Maya Andreyeva is a "camera," a reporter with virtual-reality-broadcasting equipment implanted in her brain. What she sees, millions see; what she feels, millions share. And what Maya is seeing is the cover-up of a massacre. As she probes into the covert political power plays of a radically strange near-future Russia, she comes upon secrets that have been hidden from the world…and memories that AI-controlled thought police have forced her to hide from herself. Because in a world where no thought or desire is safe, the price of survival is betrayal - of your lover, your ideals, and yourself.

happy (re)publication day to The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed, the lesbian cyberpunk cult classic that's been out of print for almost 3 decades!

it's a dark, intense, haunting book (if somewhat dense and undeniably demanding) about the place where noble ideals and brutal reality meet, about human nature, about how far you're willing to go for your principles, or for love, or for survival, about the erosion of privacy by technology, and about a whale.

it's some of the best cyberpunk has to offer, i'm really glad it can finally reach a wider audience 👁📷🐋

[thevoicefromanotherworld]

"I SUPPOSE YOU WILL BE THE FIRST ONE"

Another story with Sergei, because... do I need to explain it?

I hope you like it!

Cristel woke up with a severe headache.

She tried to look around, but the pain was so strong that she felt dizzy trying. She felt a rope wrapping around her wrists and ankles around a normal chair. The smell of leather, sweat and dust filled the air.

She squirmed against the ropes trying to free herself. She didn't know where she was, in fact she didn't remember anything from the last 72 hours.

"You can keep trying as much as you want," said a voice interrupting her thoughts. "Believe me, they won't come loose."

Cristel looked around scared, trying to see where the voice came from.

"I don't know who you are, or what's going on," she murmured hastily. "There must have been a mistake…"

That's when she saw them, a pair of amber eyes emerged from the shadows in front of her, making her swallow hard. Her breath caught in her throat, and he could see her pulse quickening due to the tension she was feeling.

"Do you know what I think?" he questioned, looking at her firmly, his eyes now bright blue. "I think you know perfectly well who I am, just as you know what you're doing here."

He gave her the chance to speak, but she just watched him without saying a word.

"I have a list," he announced. "Your name is on it." He tilted his head. "It's not one of the highest, but it's no less important." He slowly slid a small knife between his fingers, before looking away at her again. "We can do this the easy way," he offered, surrounding her, as if he were cornering her against an imaginary cliff. "Or I can cut off a finger for every lie you tell." He shrugged. "You decide." Cristel made a move to speak, but he silenced her with a gesture of his hand.

-Ah, ah, ah, I'm the one asking the questions, dorogoy – he whispered firmly, his thick Russian accent echoing loudly in the space between them-

He stared at her, his blue eyes locked on hers, as he sat down on the chair in front of her. He ran the knife through his fingers with the dexterity that only someone like him could possess. Cristel watched the movement for a few moments, until he stopped dead.

-First question, and I want you to be completely honest – he asked, looking at his reflection in the blade before looking at her again – Where is it?

-Where is who? – he asked in a small voice, he brought the knife closer to her hand – I really don't know what you're talking about, please! – she squealed, feeling the tip of the weapon gently digging into her nail – please – she begged –

He pulled the knife away, which made Cristel's body relax a little against the chair. He held her chin between his index finger and middle finger, staring into her eyes. The girl felt like she could easily get lost in that blue that looked so similar to the sea.

He let go of her more gently than he intended, to rest both hands on her knees.

-You're telling the truth - he said, she nodded -

-I've been trying to tell you - he whispered - I don't know who the person you're looking for is, or what I have to do with all this - she admitted - I just want to go home

-I can't let you do it - he said - until we know for sure who you are and how you found me, you'll stay here, with me

-And where is here, exactly? - he asked, looking both ways -

-Russia - he answered, looking at her coldly - you don't need to know more

-Of course - he murmured, observing him with respect -

She didn't know who he was, but it was clear that he had power, great power, so it wasn't a good idea to piss him off.

-So -she probed- Will you tell me who you are?

He let out a low growl, like that of a rabid animal.

-I am The Hunter -he answered-

-It is not possible, The Hunter is a myth -Cristel countered- no one who has met him has lived to tell the tale

He gave a half-smile before answering:

-I suppose you will be the first one

NOTE: DOROGOY MEANS SWEETHEART IN RUSSIAN 😌

[specialagentartemis]

THE FORTUNATE FALL RE-RELEASE IS OUT!

A cyberpunk novel from the 1990s that’s been out of print for years, and just got a new release, new cover, new introduction, under the author’s new name. And all of that FULLY DESERVED because it’s one of my favorite novels of all time. Cameron Reed only has the one novel and she knocked it out of the park.

Maya Andreyeva is a "camera," a reporter with virtual-reality-broadcasting equipment implanted in her brain. What she sees, millions see; what she feels, millions share. And what Maya is seeing is the cover-up of a massacre. As she probes into the covert political power plays of a radically strange near-future Russia, she comes upon secrets that have been hidden from the world...and memories that AI-controlled thought police have forced her to hide from herself. Because in a world where no thought or desire is safe, the price of survival is betrayal - of your lover, your ideals, and yourself.

Maya Andreyeva is a “camera,” a VR journalist who used to do real work and is now reduced to doing celebrity puff pieces and stories that don’t really matter. She does work she no longer thinks matters and goes home to an empty apartment and it’s a cyberpunk near future surveillance state where she feels like nothing she does matters anymore.

So when she stumbles on evidence of a massacre—a genocide— that the government would really rather have everybody forget, she decides she’s going to make this her swan song of a broadcast. Along with her new screener—a real-time editor she only knows from VR sharing her brain, who edits her raw experiences for broadcast—she’s going to expose these crimes to the world, and then maybe die or run away to claim asylum in Africa together, she doesn’t know yet and it almost doesn’t matter to her. Until it does.

It’s gay. There are whales. It’s weird and different and so worth reading. It’s bleak and sad and often harrowing, and does not shy away from what Maya finds out about the covered-up genocide. It’s about truth and justice and love and survival and journalistic integrity and the media, and it is so, so, so good.

[iamthetruenhaz]

Russia's prep work

I originally wrote this as a reply to a reddit comment about the prep work Putin's Russia has done to reconquer Eastern Europe (and Central Asia) and soften up the West in order to "reclaim" the "lost" global power status the USSR had.

Putin* has been prepping his "reconquering" of Eastern Europe and Central Asia since he stepped into office. He took on an openly anti-western course since the Munich speech in 2007. He probably saw American global dominance weakening following Afghanistan and Iraq and because Russia had stabilised after the 90s, he thought it was time to act.

First he paved the way with the Chechen war where he "won" and got to jump on the War on terror bandwagon and use Islamic terrorism as a boogeyman for his own imperialistic purpose to rile up Russians against external threats.

Then he invaded Georgia to probe the soil and see how the west would react. They mostly ignored him so he went on to meddle in Eastern European politics, coerce Ukraine for gas and fund right-wing parties all across Europe (at the time mostly to drive a wedge between Eastern and Western Europe and suck EE countries back into Russian orbit) while pumping anti-western sentiment and Soviet nostalgia at home.

He saw that the west was disunited because of the US-UK-EU split following the wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria. He capitalized on that in several ways using both the wars and the refugee crisis that followed. One, to increase racist and nationalist propaganda and stir up hatred against "the liberal gay western cabal" and the resulting Euroscepticism. Two, to prop up the "proper" traditionalist Russia as an alternative. Three, to paint Eastern European countries as a puppet of the US liberals who were "ackschually" nazis in disguise, which was easy when the West was divided between trying to coax them into the EU and leaving them as a buffer-zone backwater. The brightest example of the latter was in late 2021 when Lukashenko started dumping Middle Eastern migrants on the Polish border so the Poles could be painted as a racist, white supremacist state. Unlike, you know, Belarus (really Russia) which weaponized the migrants.

Then he failed in Ukraine when his puppet's sharp turn away from a planned EU accession path caused the Euromaidan revolts. Pro-Russian protesters soon spawned, staging provications (my own country had a wave of protests and pro-russian counter-protests back then and I remember neonazis and other paid protesters being at the forefronts). Russian media started hurling accusations of nazism against pro-western protesters.

All of a sudden, it's like a switch was flipped in Russian society. Decommunization was out the window. In 2015, Stalin was chosen as the most influential figure in *world* history by Russians. All the anti-Western, Russian irredentist, traditionalist, racist and homophobic sentiments coalesced into one, directed against the "evil nazi gay jewish West". Putin started openly provoking the West with displays of military force, close flybys in territorial waters, playing Cuban missile crisis in Kaliningrad. All to rack up the atmosphere of an imminent Cold War II and maybe even WWIII where a "wronged", "humiliated" Russia would finally make the West pay. The WWII victory celebrations also took on the appearance of a war cult, with jingoistic slogans like "we can do it again", "to Berlin" and "we're coming for the German women" displayed on every 9th May parade. Eastern European countries, especially the Baltics and Poland, noticed and tried to raise alarm, but were mostly told to keep their paranoia down and ignored.

In the last decade, he used his military and propaganda machine (what we call "hybrid warfare") to create the impression of the following: (1) The West is imperialist (and is being hypocritical about it), waging pointless bloody wars in the Middle East; (2) The West is weak in those wars, causing Russia to step in like in Syria and deal with the issue "properly"; (3) Western democracies are weak in dealing with "barbaric" refugees because they're too greedy not to let them in but too soft to throw the bad apples out (this was used to boost nationalism and Euroscepticism).

By those means, Russian propaganda managed to manipulate both anti-imperialist and nationalist groups within the West as well as in Russia and Eastern Europe and pave the way for its "just war" of "reconquering" Eastern Europe. In the West, the image of Eastern Europe was molded as either "poor backwards savages we're better off without" (for nationalists), "paranoid silly yokels crying wolf about Russia who is now playing nice" (for moderates), "ingrates not worth defending so we'll pull out" (for Trump-like US conservatives) or "backwards homophobic barbarians we don't want here because they'll ruin our utopia" (for progressivists). In Russia, they were portrayed as "lost property", accused them of being "taken over by nazis" anytime they tried to acknowledge any of the repressions suffered from USSR, and "unconscious puppets of the West" and routinely threatened with "annexation in 3 days" whenever they "misbehaved" by taking a stance against Russia's politics, whether past or current. Finally, in Eastern European countries themselves, Russia tried to ruin the image of the liberal West by portraying them as "the real fascists", "liberalism gone so far it circled back to fascism" and to prop up its own image as the "savior from debauchery upholding the good ols ways".

Also worth noting that Putin was all too eager to intervene in any country that tried to reject Russian dominance or even its own pro-Russian dictatorship. He was ready to support Belarus in 2020 and intervened in Kazakhstan in 2022 just a month before the invasion of Ukraine.

So yeah, it was quite the prep work. All to ensure that when he went on his imperialistic crusade in EE, people at home and in the West and even in Eastern Europe itself would applaud him, failing that be indifferent, failing THAT remain unheard.

* by "Putin" I don't necessarily mean just him, but the lobby behind him as well.

[rahulrainbow]

RUSSIA’S FIRST MOON MISSION LUNA -25 AND INDIA'S CHANDRAYAAN-3

Russia’s First Moon Mission Luna -25 And India’s Chandrayaan-3 On 20th August 2023, Roscosmos ( the State Space Corporation of the Russian Federation) announced that Luna-25 had crash-landed on the Moon’s surface during pre-landing manoeuvres. . Now whole world is watching the Chandrayaan-3 ( launched by ISRO), which is readying for its the powered descent at Moon Surface at 5:45 p.m. on…

[contemplatingoutlander]

The House GOP is a circus. The chaos has one source.

Republicans spent two years sabotaging the U.S. House. Another two years would be ruinous.

Dana Milbank does a masterful job of describing just how dysfunctional the House GOP members have been in the past two years.

This is a gift🎁link for the entire article. Below are some highlights:

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Six weeks after his improbable rise from obscurity to speaker of the House in late 2023, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson decided to break bread with a group of Christian nationalists. [...] “I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here,” Johnson teased the group, unaware that his hosts were streaming video of the event. Johnson informed his audience that God “had been speaking to me” about becoming speaker, communicating “very specifically,” in fact, waking him at night and giving him “plans and procedures.” [...] Today, Johnson’s run looks anything but heaven-sent. In the first 18 months of this Congress, only 70 laws were enacted. Calculations by political scientist Tobin Grant, who tracks congressional output over time, put this Congress on course to be the do-nothingest since 1859-1861 — when the Union was dissolving. But Johnson’s House isn’t merely unproductive; it is positively lunatic. Republicans have filled their committee hearings and their bills with white nationalist attacks on racial diversity and immigrants, attempts to ban abortion and to expand access to the sort of guns used in mass shootings, incessant harassment of LGBTQ Americans, and even routine potshots at the U.S. military. They insulted each other’s private parts, accused each other of sexual and financial crimes, and scuffled with each other in the Capitol basement. They screamed “Bullshit!” at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address. They stood up for the Confederacy and used their official powers to spread conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.” Some even lent credence to the idea that there has been a century-old Deep State coverup of space aliens, with possible involvement by Mussolini and the Vatican.

The above article was adapted from Dana Milbank's (2024) book: Fools on the HILL: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House.

[See more below the cut.]

And this is on top of the well-known pratfalls: The 15-ballot marathon to elect a speaker, the 22-day shutdown of the House to find another speaker, the routine threats of government shutdowns and a near-default on the federal debt that hurt the nation’s credit rating. They devoted 18 months to a failed attempt to impeach Biden, which produced nothing but Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly displaying posters of Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts. One “whistleblower” defected to Russia, another worked with Russian intelligence and is under indictment for fabricating his claims, and still another is on the lam, evading charges of being a Chinese agent. As soon as Biden withdrew his candidacy, they promptly forgot their probe of Biden’s “corruption” and rushed to launch a new series of investigations into Kamala Harris (over her record on border security) and Tim Walz (over his military service and “cozy relationship” with China). After a number of failed attempts, they did impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (the first such action against a Cabinet officer since 1876) without identifying any high crimes or misdemeanors he had committed; the Senate dismissed the articles without a trial. House Republicans created a “weaponization committee” under the excitable Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), but it was panned even by right-wing commentators when it produced little more than a list of conspiracy theories from the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. They lapsed repeatedly into fits of censure resolutions, contempt citations and other pointless acts of vengeance. In all of its history, the House had voted to censure one of its own members only seven times; in the two weeks after Johnson became speaker, members of the House tried to censure each other eight times. [...] In lieu of consequential legislating, they passed bills such as the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards (SUDS) Act. On the House floor, the Republican majority suffered one failure after another, even on routine procedural votes. Seven times (and counting), House Republicans voted down their own leaders’ routine attempts to begin floor debates — something that hadn’t happened once in the previous 20 years.

[beardedmrbean]

FBI leadership is starting an investigation into the origins of the agency’s plan a decade ago to infiltrate the campaign of presidential candidate Donald Trump using two female undercover “honeypot” agents.

The off-the-books investigation, launched in 2015 by FBI Director James B. Comey, was revealed by an agency whistleblower in a protected disclosure to the House Judiciary Committee last year and first reported exclusively by The Washington Times in October.

In the intelligence community, a honeypot commonly refers to an undercover operative, usually a woman, who feigns sexual or romantic interest to obtain information from a target.

The whistleblower said two female FBI undercover employees infiltrated Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign at high levels and were directed to act as “honeypots” while traveling with Mr. Trump and his campaign staff.

The Times has learned that the bureau, now led by Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, is looking for those once-undercover employees under Mr. Comey’s direction.

The FBI declined to comment.

According to the whistleblower disclosure, which The Times reviewed, the investigation differed from Crossfire Hurricane, a later FBI counterintelligence operation that looked into never-proved allegations that the campaign was colluding with Russia.

The whistleblower said the early off-the-books criminal investigation targeted Mr. Trump and his staff.

Mr. Trump launched his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015, about a year before the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane.

The whistleblower agent “personally knew” that Mr. Comey ordered an FBI investigation into Mr. Trump and that Mr. Comey “personally directed it,” according to the disclosure.

The investigation did not appear to target a specific crime but was more of what agents would describe as a fishing expedition to find anything incriminating against Mr. Trump.

The whistleblower said the undercover operation was obscured from Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, who investigated misconduct in the bureau’s probe of the Trump campaign.

“The case had no predicated foundation, so Comey personally directed the investigation without creating an official case file in Sentinel or any other FBI system,” according to the whistleblower’s disclosure. “The FBI has multiple methods of protecting highly sensitive investigations, so Comey did not have a legitimate reason not to officially create an official investigation file or have a file number.”

The disclosure says the secret investigation may have indicated institutional bias at the FBI against Mr. Trump, though “it does not appear that any information about this investigation was turned over to Trump’s criminal defense counsels.”

The investigation was eventually closed because a major newspaper obtained a photograph of one of the undercovers and was about to publish it, but the FBI press office told the outlet that the photograph was an FBI informant who would be killed if the photograph was publicly released.

In fact, it was a photograph of the FBI undercover employee.

The FBI whistleblower employee noted in the disclosure that one of the undercovers agreed to be transferred to the CIA so she would not be available as a potential witness.

The other undercover employee was rewarded for her activities through a promotion in the bureau and is now a high-level FBI executive in a major field office.

The whistleblower employee observed one or more employees in the FBI being directed to never discuss the operation with anyone ever again, including other people involved in the 2016 Trump campaign infiltration operation.

The FBI employee making this disclosure took this admonishment as a direct threat to the employees who received it.