#vladimir putin is a liar

[odinsblog]

Violated agreements:

1991, Russia cosigns Ukraine's independence and agrees to its territorial sovereignty and integrity as a successor of the Soviet Union.

1994, Budapest Memorandum: Russia pledges to safeguard Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, it had at the time.

1997, The Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty: Russia once again reiterates its commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

1999, Istanbul OSCE Summit: Russia promises to withdraw troops from Moldova and Georgia.

2008, Ceasefire Agreement: Russia promises to withdraw troops from Georgia.

2014, The Ilovaisk Green Corridor Agreement: Russia guarantees that it'll provide safe passage for Ukrainian soldiers that are surrendering and instead fires upon them and kills upwards of 360 people.

2014-2015, Minsk Agreements: Russia commits to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine after invading it.

2022, The Black Sea Grain Initiative: Russia promises safe passage to grain shipments, instead hinders the initiative and then withdraws completely.

I would also give a special mention to the 2006 speech of Vladimir Putin, where he says that there is no issue that Russia has with Ukraine:

“Actually, Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been resolved and has been pre agreed upon. And areas like Crimea really don't concern Russia because there is no ethnic conflict and Russia doesn't want to have anything to do with them. They're Ukrainian anyways.”

What is this list?

This list is all of the promises and agreements that Russia violated, off the top of one's head.

Yeah.

Let's pressure Ukraine into a ceasefire agreement. Let's pressure Ukraine into concessions. Let's give Russia more time to violate all other promises and re-attack once they can.

Great idea.

Great idea.

[mariacallous]

When Angela Merkel stepped down in December 2021 after four terms in office, many Germans wondered how on earth they would cope without her. An entire generation had grown up knowing only this reserved woman from the east as their chancellor. She had brought them prosperity, something they took for granted, and stability, something they regarded as indispensable.

Weeks later, as Olaf Scholz and his three-party coalition were still finding their footing, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. All the assumptions that voters had made about their country and the world came crashing down. And so, soon after, did Merkel’s reputation.

Three years into her retirement, having said almost nothing about her record, Merkel has finally had her say. Her much awaited and heavily marketed autobiography, titled Freedom, hit the shelves simultaneously in dozens of languages in November and revealed … very little. It is a stunning disappointment.

Celebrity interviewers from several countries were given 30-minute television and radio slots to speak with Merkel. Selected newspapers were given extracts. Yet no matter how hard they tried, the best they got were a smattering of predictable thoughts about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and a few other crumbs from the table. As for the book itself, some of the episodes that Merkel recalls are tamer than those already in the public domain.

Despite the slim pickings, these 700 pages of recollections do provide some insights for historians and political scientists. The tome is not an entirely fruitless endeavor for the general reader. It provides an insider’s guide to most of the major global events during Merkel’s 16 years at the top, with sometimes amusing snapshots about her interlocutors.

The tensest negotiations are recounted in a contemporaneous style: She describes her refusal to loosen the European Union’s and Germany’s fiscal rules surrounding the euro, to the consternation of the Greeks, as well as her refusal to give early and immediate NATO membership to Ukraine, to the frustration of the Americans.

In these cases and more, however, Merkel provides only the most superficial explanations for her actions—she confines herself to saying that she feared the demise of the single currency and that she feared that Russia (a nuclear power, as she keeps on repeating) would respond violently.

Her relationship to Putin has long been considered the most complex. As I wrote in my book Why the Germans Do It Better, she believed that she understood his mindset better than any other world leader could. That was by virtue not just of language (both his German and her Russian were fluent), but also by shared communist upbringings.

Apart from letting it be known that the Kremlin leader has a penchant for Radeberger beer and—in a needy “don’t you know who I am” kind of way—likes to keep his interlocuters waiting, she reveals nothing else of particular interest. The infamous January 2007 incident of Putin bringing his labrador Koni into the room during a meeting, despite reportedly knowing about her phobia of dogs, has been told many times—and, in fact, is more sparsely detailed in her account.

Given that Merkel describes Putin as a pathological liar and says that she has never been under any illusions about his obsession with grievance as well as his contempt for democracy and the rule of law, then why did she cling to the belief that mutual economic dependency (the two Nord Stream gas pipelines being the most egregious case) would make him behave better?

“Two decades of mutual encounters lay behind us, an era during which Putin, and with him Russia, had changed from an initial position of openness to the West to one of alienation from us, culminating in a total hardening of its stance,” Merkel insists in the new book. “With hindsight, I still believe in spite of everything I was right to make a point, to the end of my tenure, of preserving our contact with Russia.”

Merkel gives only the most perfunctory answer to the central question of why her accommodation of Putin, and pursuit of cooperation with him, was a defensible policy—she suggests that to have done anything else would have enraged him further. Plus, it was good for German business; plus, it provided cheap energy, and nobody in her cabinet was arguing for any other approach. Is that the extent of the analysis, after all the time that she has had to ponder further a question that has become her country’s most vexing?

At least as egregious is her unwillingness to engage in discussion of the big decisions that she took—or didn’t take—on the economic front. Germany’s lamentable digital record, its refusal to diversify and modernize much of its industry, the failures of the auto sector, and the overdependency on trade with China barely merit much more than throwaway lines.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. If so, it is because I have always held Merkel up as an exemplar. Even when her reputation went from hero to zero, I still regarded her type of rationalist, deliberative politics as better than all the others that were on offer around the world.

And I still do. Indeed, as the narrative sweeps the reader from one global crisis to another, almost on a weekly basis, you understand better just what Merkel faced and how so many of the other leaders came to depend on her calm.

Of all the challenges that she confronted, the one that—by Merkel’s own admission—defined her chancellorship was the influx of refugees in 2015. Curiously, she devotes an extended section to quibbling with journalists’ use of her phrase wir schaffen das, “we can do it.” She writes that this was not meant to be interpreted as a catch-all statement of national self-confidence.

Yet Germany did do it. It displayed an enviable mix of compassion and organization. Its record of assimilation of refugees—and the proportion who are in employment or training—is far better than it is portrayed in the orgy of retrospective denunciation in the increasingly fickle media. In any case, as she points out herself, what else was she supposed to do? Germany did not have legal standing to shut its open borders; nor, for reasons that do not require spelling out, could it build camps.

The rise of the far right and population flows from poorer to richer countries are here to stay. And they cannot be reduced back to this one moment in history. In my view, irrespective of the clamor of post hoc denunciation, 2015 was Merkel’s finest hour.

As I write this, I wonder whether I’m doing a more passionate job than she did in defending her legacy—or at least, those parts of her legacy that deserve defending.

Why, I wonder, does she manage to be so pedestrian in her attempts at explaining her actions? One prosaic explanation is the book’s style—it has all the hallmarks of a ghostwritten narrative, ironed out incessantly to remove any creases, thereby removing passion.

Another possibly more interesting explanation is that this was Merkel’s chosen approach to shaping the narrative. She quotes the late British queen’s nostrum, “never complain, never explain.”

Maybe it has more to do with psychology and her early political life. This is where her memoir is at its most revealing—the young, unassuming woman scientist from the communist East Germany maneuvering her way to the top job, to the consternation of her predecessor Helmut Kohl and the physically domineering men around him. Once there, she had to put up with incessant, if low-level, condescension. Perhaps she has not been able to shed the restraint that she felt required adopt throughout.

The Merkel memoir and the Merkel record are cast into a particularly sharp light with the advent of a renewed Trump administration and his second and more dangerous wave of populism.

In December 2015, as he prepared to depart the White House, then-U.S. President Barack Obama went on a short farewell tour. Over dinner in Berlin, Merkel told him she was thinking hard about standing down. I was told by her close advisors (and have subsequently written it several times) that he begged her to stay. With Trump preparing to enter office, the Brexit movement gaining steam, and France’s Marine Le Pen on the horizon, Europe needed a grown-up in the room. (Strangely, her version of the story is more limited in its recollection).

Whatever Obama actually said, Merkel concluded that she needed to carry on. And when she did finally leave, she recounts the Nina Hagen song about East Germany, “They Forgot the Colour Film,” that she requested as one of the songs for the military parade that marked her departure, and the meatballs and potato salad and sparkling wine that she shared with friends before being driven away into retirement.

It was this final period of office, between 2016 and 2021, that would be her undoing. This is the era that is now retrospectively so denounced: the continued insistence on the Nord Stream pipeline, the continued line of communication to Putin, the continued trade dependence with China, and the continued inability to meet NATO defense spending targets.

Had she left office at the time of the previous election, her place in history would have been altogether different. So might have been any book she had chosen to write.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

“It’s lies all the way down.”

October 9, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Oct 10, 2024

“It’s lies all the way down.”

An apocryphal story tells of a skeptical audience member who challenged a 19th-century astronomer after a lecture in which the astronomer asserted that the Earth is round and suspended in space. The skeptic told the astronomer that the Earth rests on the back of a giant turtle (a myth with an ancient heritage). The astronomer patiently pushed back, asking, “On what does the giant turtle stand?” The skeptic replied, “On another giant turtle.” The astronomer persisted, “And on what does the second turtle stand?” The skeptic responded, “You aren’t going to trick me! It’s turtles all the way down!”

So, too, with Trump world’s cascade of lies. It’s lies all the way down. It is impossible to disprove lies that disappear into a bottomless cesspool of falsehoods. Trump’s self-replicating lies are a virus compounded by the absolute lack of shame or remorse when the liar is caught in the lie. The last forty-eight hours have given us the textbook example of Trump's “respond to disproven lies with bigger lies” strategy.

On Tuesday, multiple outlets reported that Trump sent Vladimir Putin an early Covid testing machine. Putin instructed Trump to keep the transaction secret because it would prove embarrassing to Trump. (In fact, as noted below, the transfer was probably illegal.)

The story of the Covid testing machine gift to Putin was met with a furious, unequivocal denial by Trump and his spokesperson. Trump told ABC News, “That’s false. He [Bob Woodward] is a storyteller. A bad one. And he's lost his marbles.

Trump's shameless campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, dismissed the stories, saying,

None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

On Thursday, a Kremlin spokesperson made a liar out of Trump, confirming that Trump did send a Covid testing machine to Putin during the early days of the pandemic. See Axios, Kremlin refutes Trump denial on sending Putin COVID testing equipment. The original report of the Kremlin statement is here, behind a paywall: Bloomberg, US Elections: Kremlin Confirms Trump Sent Putin Covid Tests While President.

To recap: Trump and his campaign issued a flat-out denial of Woodward’s report. The Kremlin confirmed the report, proving that Trump was lying about a matter that posed the risk of blackmail by the Kremlin.

How can this man be president?

And, just as importantly, why is the story of this blatant lie not the leading story on every newspaper and website, accompanied by a red-flashing siren graphic? But as of Thursday evening, that outrage—or even news coverage—was missing from major media.

This isn’t just any lie. It is a lie about an action by Trump that likely violated the US sanctions embargo in effect at the time. See Lucian K. Truscott IV, Kremlin confirms that Trump sent COVID testing equipment to Putin (substack.com). (“Russia was under strict sanctions by 2020, which were imposed under the Obama administration after Moscow invaded and seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.”)

The media is reporting that Trump has been caught lying. But those stories lack the analysis of “So what?” and “Why does it matter?” No other candidate caught in such a lie would survive the press firestorm that would follow.

But here, the response is “crickets.” Nothing. Nada. Zip. The press spilled tankers of ink over whether Tim Walz and his wife used “IVF” versus “fertility treatments” twenty years ago. I hope that major editorial boards are furiously working on opinion articles that say, “Trump is a liar who is unfit to be president.”

The second part of Woodward’s story will likely prove true, as well. On Wednesday, JD Vance said, “I haven’t talked to Trump about this, but even if he did talk to Putin, what’s the big deal?” See HuffPo, JD Vance Scorched For ‘Grotesque’ Defense Of Trump’s Reported Chats With Putin.

In case you missed the point, Vance’s comments are a set-up for the revelation that Trump did, in fact, speak to Putin on a half-dozen occasions after leaving office—in direct contradiction to Trump's denials.

Why do those conversations matter? Because the DOJ has accused Russian interests of actively interfering in the 2024 presidential election. The fact that Trump is holding secret discussions with Putin at the very moment that Russia is interfering in our elections creates the strong implication that Trump and Putin are coordinating those efforts. The burden lies on Trump to rebut that logical inference.

The problem with Trump's constant lies is that they are not limited to his treachery. He lies about immigrants, elections, the economy, and natural disasters. Trump has managed to create distrust between victims and first responders. He has encouraged potential victims to ignore evacuation warnings because they wrongly believe FEMA will seize their homes if they leave. He has caused his followers to believe that the government can control and direct the weather to “red states” or “red counties” in purple states.

Marjorie Taylor Green tweeted that hurricanes are striking “red” states because “they” control the weather. She also famously claimed that wildfires in California were caused by “Jewish space lasers.” It is always only one step from any conspiracy theory to antisemitism. (Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has an important story about antisemitic texts being sent to Florida voters connecting disaster relief lies and US support for Israel. See TPM, The Text Campaign Underworld and the Florida Anti-Semitism You Can Find There. This article may be behind a paywall.)

It has become so bad that President Biden took to the airwaves on Wednesday to deny that the US government controls the weather. See Talking Points Memo, Biden Forced To Remind Everyone He Doesn’t Control The Weather.

When the media ridiculed Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ludicrous lie, her response was to double down with more��lies. See The Independent, Marjorie Taylor Greene doubles down on weather control conspiracy theory despite experts rubbishing ‘hurricane modification’.

Marjorie Taylor Greene expounded,

“Everyone keeps asking, ‘who is they?’ Well, some of them are listed on NOAA, as well as most of the ways weather can be modified . . .” Greene also attached screenshots of “weather modification project reports” from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] website.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attack on NOAA is consistent with the goals of Project 2025. Project 2025 proposes the “commercialization” (read: privatization) of NOAA’s weather forecasting function.

Per PBS, Project 2025 “describes NOAA as a primary component “of the climate change alarm industry” and said it “should be broken up and downsized.”

Republicans are institutionalizing lies. For example, in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill in May that removes the term “climate change” from state law and “deprioritizes” efforts to fight global warming. See NPR Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law. DeSantis said when he signed the bill that “I am not a global warming guy,” but 90% of Floridians believe climate change is happening now. After Hurricane Milton, that percentage is likely to increase.

The attack on NOAA and the institutionalized lies in Florida bring us full circle to Hurricane Milton and Trump's “lies all the way down” strategy of undermining trust in the government. That strategy seeks to reduce the size and presence of the federal government in our lives. However, Hurricanes Helene and Milton highlight the federal government's irreplaceable role in natural disasters that quickly overwhelm the resources of any individual state.

Trump's lies matter. It should be big news when he lies, not a collective yawn in the media and among elected officials. Lying about the federal government's response to natural disasters and his own violations of US embargo sanctions against Russia are disqualifying for the presidency. The media needs to say so. As do we—with an overwhelming repudiation of Trump at the polls.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

Don't believe anything notorious liar and political destabiliser Vladimir Putin says except, apparently, if he says he wants Kamala Harris to win the US Presidential Election 🤔

[comeonamericawakeup]

"I am conservative," said David French in The New York Times, and that's why "I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris." As an evangelical Christian and Reaganite who believes "life begins at conception," I disagree with her policy goals.

But "this is no ordinary race." The Republican party's presidential nominee is a habitual liar and convicted criminal who tried to foment a coup to remain president, allies himself with Vladimir Putin, and promotes a contagiously cruel mindset that has infected evangelical Christianity with “viciousness and intolerance." The Republican Party cannot return to compassionate, small-government conservatism until we defeat Donald Trump and MAGA extremism at the ballot box.

French is "not alone," said Moe Davis in the Ashe-ville, N.C., Citizen-Times. Some 73,000 people virtually attended last week's "Republicans for Harris" rally, and prominent conservatives such as legal scholar J. Michael Luttig, former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, and former Trump administration press secretary Stephanie Grisham have publicly endorsed her.

I'm not sure a Trump loss will de-MAGA-fy the Republican Party, said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch, and I find Harris a "highly cringe-worthy" candidate of malleable views. But if Never Trumpers write in a candidate as a protest vote, it will effectively enhance Trump's chances of winning. Trump's attempt to overthrow the 2020 election in a "coup plot" goes far beyond mere policy disagreements; it's disqualifying. If Trump returns to power, "the country as we've known it can't survive." For conservatives who believe in democracy, there is only one choice. "Vote Harris."

THE WEEK August 30, 2024

[whisk3yteacup]

Tucker fuck-wad Carlson, who is not a journalist, has scheduled an interview with Vladimir Putin. TRAITOR TRAITOR TRAITOR. And, this traitor is going to show it on mainstream media. Fuck you, Tucker. Putin laughs at his useful American idiots. Let's play a game of "can you spot a liar".

[bopinion]

2024 / 10

Aperçu of the Week:

"When will conservatives understand that climate protection is conservative because it preserves. When will liberals understand that climate protection is liberal because it secures freedoms and when will social democrats understand that climate protection is social because it protects the weakest in society the most?"

(Ingwar Perowanowitsch - German activist, blogger and political journalist)

Bad News of the Week:

Thousands of Russians are not letting the arbitrary arrests by the police stop them from publicly mourning opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who (it has to be said exactly like this) was killed by the Kremlin. Flowers are piling up at his grave in the Borisovskoye cemetery in the south-east of Moscow and no one is afraid to show their tears. A different face of Russia can be seen here. Vladimir Putin has created a classic martyr who was prepared to go to his death for his belief in the cause.

A second critic with reach has now also been taken out of the game: the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who is also widely known in the West, has found himself on a list of "terrorists and extremists" for a few days now. He has already been listed as a "foreign agent". This shot could also backfire, and here too a great deal of solidarity can be expected from better-informed and more critical sections of the Russian population. But will it do any good? No.

As there are only puppets of the power apparatus on the committee responsible, there is no real alternative to Putin in the presidential elections due to take place in the next few days. This will be just as much an alibi event as the last elections. Which won't even bother the majority of the electorate. After all, outside the metropolitan areas, this majority consumes almost exclusively state-controlled media. And they get what they want: a strong man at the top who knows what's going on.

One insight from this is the same as that gained from the ever more firmly cemented status of Xi Jinping in China, who, like Putin, wields almost dictatorial power without any checks and balances, let alone a corrective: Democracy begins above all with information. Only if independent media observe and comment on political events can voters form an informed opinion. And then press for these opinions to be heard and acted upon. In the form of a genuine opportunity to vote - the keyword is "people's representatives". Unfortunately, more and more nations are further away from this ideal as ever. In a world that could actually be more enlightened than ever before in its history. But people are obviously too comfortable for that. And probably also too stupid.

Good News of the Week:

It was "Super Tuesday" already a few days ago. And it went like expected. As did the following pre-elections. Two guys who are too old were elected by a massive margin. Because this nation simply hasn't managed to build worthy successors - neither the Republicans nor the Democrats. While the former will indeed euphorically nominate a notorious liar and cheat for the most powerful office in the world, the latter seem to simply resign themselves to their fate: if an incumbent seeks re-election, they concede it to him. Even if his approval ratings are subterranean and his physical capacity is at least questionable.

Let's be clear: if the majority goes to Donald Trump in November - and it will probably go to him if the numbers are to be believed - the Democrats should not complain about it. Because they are to blame. There is only one politician who is currently in an even worse position than Joe Biden. And that is Kamala Harris. She is not yet officially running mate. But since it has never seemed so likely that a vice-president would have to take the helm during a term of office, these two are a duo infernale. A team that nobody wants. Even if that may seem unfair or unjustified.

Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán have just met as autocrats in Mar-a-Lago. Trump publicly admires the fact that Orban is a dictator. What he says happens, "he's the boss". And Orbán hails Trump as the "president of peace", with whom there would be neither the Ukraine nor the Gaza war. Par ordre du mufti. A clear rejection of democracy. Which Biden takes to the extreme by stylizing the upcoming election as a decision for or against democracy. And he is right.

The situation is frightening for us Europeans. We look across the Atlantic with the morbid fascination of a car crash that is clearly on the horizon. And which can no longer be prevented. The whole world was surprised by Trump's last election victory, including himself. I remember exactly how I heard about Trump's 2016 election victory on the radio in the morning and thought that I must still be dreaming. In a way, I was right, because Trump was and is a nightmare.

And that makes Super Tuesday good news in the context of its negative circumstances. Because now we know pretty much exactly what we are in for at the beginning of next year. The whole world will suffer from Trump's ignorant "America First" attitude - politically, economically, in terms of security policy and also morally. But we have been warned, we know it. And we can now prepare ourselves for at least nine months of serious damage for the cooperative US-European axis. And the US democratic establishment is to blame. This swamp should have been drained.

Personal happy moment of the week:

For our stay in Montréal with the children in late summer, we got a great loft in a great neighborhood. Having never booked anything on AirBnB before, the host didn't want us at first - he'd had bad experiences with newcomers who were apparently also being rated on this platform. My wife then had two arguments that convinced him that we wouldn't mess up his loft: she was traveling with Germans, the tidiest people in the world. And she was the daughter of a policeman. That worked.

I couldn't care less...

...that Boeing can't get out of a maelstrom of technical defects and quality deficiencies. As a European, I prefer Airbus anyway.

It's fine with me...

...that Jon Stewart is back as host of The Daily Show. For all his humor - and how that guy always makes me laugh - he's actually a sharp-tongued political commentator and investigative journalist who uses the stylistic device of satire to put a non-partisan finger in every wound he finds. Very good.

As I write this...

...I'm listening to songs by Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats. Because I realized that although I can really relate to "Tell me why I don't like Mondays", I don't know anything else by these musicians. It's just dawned on me why... Which doesn't change the fact that I think Live Aid and Band Aid ("Do they know it's Christmas?") were and still are great.

Post Scriptum

The strikes on German public transport continue. Just recently there were no trains for two days and the airports also had to close for two days because of the ground staff. Now, in the following week, there will not only be a strike by Lufthansa on-board staff, but so-called "wave strikes" will also begin on the railroads. These are announced at most 24 hours in advance so that it is - on purpose! - difficult to prepare for them. So the necessary "mobility turnaround" will certainly not happen. Why do we increasingly have the feeling that these labor disputes are being carried out on the backs of the passengers?

[tomorrowusa]

Good for the Czechs! 🇨🇿 All Russian state property and assets held by pro-Putin oligarchs around the world should be impounded and given to Ukraine.

The Czech government said on Wednesday it froze Russian state-owned properties in the Czech Republic, expanding a sanctions list set up in retaliation for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The government press office said the EU country widened its national sanctions list to include a Russian company, which is controlled by the Russian presidential administration, and is in charge of managing Russian assets abroad. It did not name the company in the statement. "Its income from operations serves directly for financing of the Putin regime," the government said in a statement. "The company's commercial activities are as of today illegal, as well as circumventing and violating this sanction, and its entire assets in the Czech Republic have been frozen," it said. In the Czech Republic, the Russian company manages a number of real estate properties, the Czech government said.

Of course that's not the only recent Ukraine news item. Ukraine has arrested a crony of Rudy Giuliani with ties to Russia.

Ukraine charges Rudy Giuliani’s top local ally with Moscow-linked treason

A Ukrainian MP who in 2019 helped former U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani in his search for dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden has been charged with treason. Oleksandr Dubinsky, together with ex-Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach and ex-prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk, had joined an organization formed by chiefs of Russia’s Military Intelligence (GRU), Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said in a statement on Monday. Although SBU did not name the MP in the statement, the photos and video materials attached to it identify Dubinsky, whose alias, “Buratino,” was taken from a 1930s Soviet “Pinocchio” knockoff.

It seems appropriate that somebody linked to the Trump crime family would have a code name related to Pinocchio – a mythological liar. 😆

Dubinsky met Giuliani during his visit to Kyiv in December 2019 while the former New York City mayor and failed U.S. presidential candidate was filming a documentary aimed at discrediting an impeachment probe into Trump. [ ... ] According to SBU, Dubinsky, guided by GRU, spread fake news about Ukraine’s military and political leadership, including claims that high-ranking Ukrainian officials were interfering in U.S. presidential elections. SBU said the Ukraine group was run by GRU deputy head Vladimir Alekseyev and his deputy Oleksiy Savin. If found guilty, Dubinsky faces up to 15 years in prison and forfeiture of his assets, SBU added.

This clearly smacks of Putin. He wanted to boost the chances of his stooge Donald "Pee Tapes" Trump while trying to undermine Ukraine – something he had actively been doing since 2004.

[taiwantalk]

thank you zelenskyy and this article from newsweek. i feel a stone had been lifted.

below is a series of my tweets dating from 2/13/2022 about the possibility of full scale invasion of ukraine by russia.

the reality was that it was never possible for zelenskyy to warn the people of ukraine. putin could always order invasion sooner. else, putin could also make a liar out of zelenskyy by delaying the invasion by a few weeks or a couple of months.

zelenskyy did the right thing and spent his time and energy on preparing behind the scene instead.

i'll leave it to you to judge my tweets.

below is a youtube video by vice 9 years ago.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

War criminal and pathological liar, Vladimir Putin, has now sunk to the new low of claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn't Jewish, and is a 'disgrace' to the Jewish people. Putin cited his 'Jewish friends' as proof of this statement, before noting the massacre of Jews in Ukraine during the Holocaust.

Bear in mind, of course, Putin's blackmail of Russia's Jewish Agency, which has received unprecedented requests to help expedite aliyah to Israel. Russian singer Alla Pugacheva is one of those who have left the country out of protest against Putin's war. Several members of Russia's despicable Wagner Group are known neo-Nazis, as are members of other Russian mercenary groups in Ukraine. Research shows that Russia's FSB is protecting several known white supremacist organisations. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's Foreign Minister, caused uproar in Italy last year when he claimed that Hitler had Jewish blood.

As for the massacre of Jews in Ukraine during the Holocaust, this part is true. Of course, Putin didn't mention that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died just days before he planned to carry out a second enormous massacre of the Jews, and that the Soviet Union was an inhospitable place for Jewish people. Clearly, Putin won't speak to men like Natan Sharansky, a famous refusenik. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was censored when he tried writing music to describe the hardships of Jews in Russia. In the USA, the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King expressed concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews in the year before he died.

Many of us who watch with horror as Russian soldiers commit unspeakable crimes against innocent Ukrainian people would say that it's Putin, his supporters, and his establishment who are a disgrace to Russia. Putin has encouraged the very worst elements of Russian society through his illegal war, bringing lasting shame and international condemnation upon the entire country. All of this because he is desperate to remain in power and desperate to seize Ukrainian natural resources to back up the failing Russian economy.

Since Putin is still failing to deliver a victory, he has to resort to these desperate and pathetic attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It is a way of saving face, as the whole world can see how a far smaller country with no active navy has caused severe setbacks and losses for an invading army. Putin's boasts about Russian strength have been shown as empty, something that only surprises those who haven't paid attention to Russia's long-standing corruption problem. Putin and his gang have been stealing from Russia for decades, and the results are plain to see. That's why Russian soldiers steal frying pans, don't have proper equipment, are dying in droves, and are failing to win.

Putin has to distract from these facts by attacking Zelenskyy. As long as he remains in a chair dishing out insults, we know that he still cannot win. I wonder whether this is behind his recent claim that he had a peace deal on the table last year. Is all this talk about negotation a way of trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

[yobaba30]

Manly, War-Winning Non-Loser Vladimir Putin Kidnapping American Journalists Now

We guess Russia was feeling weak and puny with its back stuck up against a wall, because it's taken a journalist from a real country hostage.

Russia's FSB has detainedWall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, from the paper's Moscow bureau, on what we assume are entirely fictional imaginary espionage charges. The world might be more inclined to take Russia's statements seriously if it were a real country that didn't stifle all dissent, murder (often literally) the free press, and wasn't currently engaged in a genocidal war it started for no other reason but to make the masturbatory fever dreams of its increasingly frail leader come true. Hell, it banned telling the truth about how poorly that war is going. Also, just in general, Russia is a huge fucking liar trusted by no one who isn't an easily flattered idiot and/or traitor.

This is reportedly the first time they've kidnapped an American reporter as a spy since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the first time they've kidnapped a foreign journalist since they barged into Ukraine and started killing children. Obviously they've kidnapped American lesbian basketball stars and ex-US Marines and others. It's a pretty big deal that they've kidnapped an American journalist.

According to the Journal, Gershkovich had the proper accreditation from the Russian foreign ministry, as all foreign journalists working there must. Since he started with the Journal in January of 2022, he's been covering a "variety of Russia-related topics, including the recent visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Moscow, close associates of Mr. Putin and tensions between Kremlin officials and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russian paramilitary group Wagner." He's also worked for Agence France-Presse, the New York Times and the Moscow Times.

Gershkovich was particularly known for reporting like this: "Putin, Isolated and Distrustful, Leans on Handful of Hard-Line Advisers." It was full of the kinds of quotes we've come to expect about a weakened president, disconnected from reality, who blunderfucked himself into the greatest geopolitical miscalculation of the 21st century when he figured he'd have an easy time invading the country next door and that nobody in the world would really do anything about it.

Fellow journalist Max Seddon, Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, says on Twitter that this is "yet another troubling sign of the off-the-charts repression, paranoia, and hostility to the US in Russia right now. A moment of which Evan was one of our finest chroniclers." He links to the article excerpted above.

Gershkovich was kidnapped in Yekaterinberg, in the east of Russia. The FSB says he, "acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.” They are particularly claiming his trip to Yekaterinberg was not journalism-related, but rather espionage-related. Sure you betcha.

His friends say he was doing reporting on the Wagner group there. Apparently it's a big place for Wagner's recruitment of fighters. Are these some of the same ones Russia is sending to get slaughtered on the frontlines and then reportedly hiding that information from their families? Don't know, but Gershkovich reported A LOT on the Russian military.

Putin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov says: “We’re not talking about suspicions,” Dmitri S. Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, said in a daily conference call with journalists, adding, “He was caught red-handed.” Mr. Peskov said he could not provide further details.

Eat a bag of dicks. The Wall Street Journal, of course, says this is all obvious bullshit.

As of now he's supposed to be held until May 29. Based on Russia's past behavior, we are sure that day will come and go and they'll still be illegally holding Gershkovich hostage and Russia will tell us as little about it as possible. As the Journal writes, "His case, according to TASS, is considered top secret." He could go to prison for 20 years, according to the New York Times.

Does Vladimir Putin think he's in a good position to be doing this right now? We know Putin's sidepiece Donald Trump is making sunny predictions on "Hannity" this week that Russia is about to take over all of Ukraine, but back here on Earth #1, Russia is a laughingstock and a pariah. But yeah, sure, take a hostage. Big strong man!

Many are noting that ever since Russia invaded Ukraine and banned all journalism that hurt Putiun's feelings, American and other foreign press outfits have cut back on their presence in Russia. And quite frankly, all Americans should leave that ugly, falling apart shithole of a country and never return. It's not like it has anything to offer to the world, culturally or otherwise. That said, what Gershkovich was doing was by definition what journalists do, and the risks are part of what make the job so vital to the world.

Therefore any commenters who say things like "DURRR DURRRR WHY WAS HE EVEN IN RUSSIA IF HE DIDN'T WANT TO GET KIDNAPPED" will be immediately thrown out of a window. Ha ha just kidding, that's just a little Russia joke for you!

But people who say that should fuck off anyway.

[Wall Street Journal / FT / New York Times]

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter right here

[mariacallous]

Russians have reacted ecstatically online to the two-hour interview between former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson and Russian president Vladimir Putin, hailing it as a historic, internet-breaking moment that will change the world. Many are now even calling the former Fox News presenter a national hero: Some have called for February 9 to be renamed as “Tucker Carlson Day,” while others posted pictures of Carlson wearing a Russian ushanka hat and claimed Carlson wore a tie during the interview bearing colors that closely resemble the colors and pattern of Saint George’s ribbon, a Russian military symbol.

The much-hyped interview ran for more than two hours on Tucker Carlson’s new streaming platform and X, and saw Putin spending a huge amount of time laying out a revisionist history of Russia and the Ukraine in a bid to justify Russia’s invasion. Carlson spent most of the interview listening, and rarely interjected to question Putin’s narrative. He also failed to push the Russian leader on his country’s widely reported war crimes in Ukraine.

The interview marks Carlson’s further embrace of the far-right and conspiracy world since departing Fox News last year, and comes on the back of Russia ratcheting up its interference operations ahead of the 2024 elections. This week, WIRED reported on a coordinated Russian disinformation campaign where state media, influencers, bots, and others claimed the Texas border crisis was pushing the US toward civil war. By providing Putin with direct access to millions in the US and around the world, Carlson gave the Russian leader an unprecedented opportunity to spread propaganda virtually unchecked, marking a new, and possibly even more comprehensive, era of Russian disinformation.

In a bid to highlight how Putin dominated the conversation, some Kremlin-linked trolls have also been sharing a meme of the interview that replaces the former Fox News presenter with a Swedish cartoon character called Karlsson who is beloved in Russia and known as a mischievous, overconfident liar. The memes depict Karlsson sitting in Carlson’s chair during the interview and include comments in Russian such as, “Tucker Carlson, when he finally got the coveted interview with Putin, which could make him one of the top modern journalists.”

The memes have been shared by accounts on X which have been linked to Kremlin disinformation campaigns in the past, according to researchers at Antibot4Navalny, a Russian anti-disinformation research group that has been closely tracking a Russian disinformation network known as Doppelganger on X.

“The Karlsson character is in the top three themes among pictures posted by Kremlin trolls,” a researcher with the group who did not want to be identified due to security concerns tells WIRED. “Using a widely-popular animation character was the obvious choice to maximize nostalgia, as the character refers to the best years of the target audience, [and] to the USSR, which was comfortable and predictable when they were young.”

According to data shared exclusively with WIRED by the researchers, all of the content posted by the Kremlin troll accounts they are tracking was related to the Putin–Carlson interview as of Friday morning.

“Across social media, Kremlin sources have moved quickly to take advantage of Tucker Carlson's interview as an opportunity to amplify propaganda aimed at building support for Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine,” Ben Scott, director at Reset, a London-based nonprofit that tracks disinformation campaigns, tells WIRED.

This blanket coverage was repeated across Russia’s state-run media. Newsroom homepages are filled with multiple stories about the interview, and many of them highlight how successful Putin has been at getting his message to a Western audience.

In one of a dozen articles published by state-run news agency RIA Novosti, the author claimed the interview was “aimed at a Western audience that knows nothing about Russian history so that it realizes that Russians and Ukrainians are one people,” referencing Putin’s 30-minute introduction to Russian history that went back to 862.

Even before the interview was published, Russian state-run TV channels had been tracking Carlson’s every move while in Moscow, including his trip to the Bolshoi ballet and the fact that he was charging his phone and using Wi-Fi.

The interview was also broadly disseminated on Telegram, including on channels created or renamed especially for the occasion, according to research shared with WIRED by Reset. These channels quickly accumulated large followings: One newly-created Telegram channel called “Tucker Carlson in Russian” gained over 18,000 new subscribers interested in the interview. Another channel, renamed “Tucker Carlson’s Interview with Putin,” has over 200,000 subscribers. Some pro-Kremlin Telegram channels published dashboards alleging through-the-roof statistics about how the interview performed online, while others posted screenshots of charts claiming to show interest in the interview on Google over time.

On Russia Today’s official Telegram channel, the news station celebrated how Western media reacted, writing: “Mainstream media’s Putin–Carlson meltdown reveals the Western narrative’s weak hand.” Other Telegram channels also posted clips of Western media reactions to the interview.

“Much of the Russian audience believes [the interview] was conducted with the sole vision of educating the West,” Kyle Walter, director of research at Logically, a company that uses AI to track disinformation, tells WIRED. “Many channels are focusing on just how much attention the interview got, as well as the articulated lengthy history associated with Russia that ‘America does not have.’”

In the aftermath of the interview, Vladislav Davankov, the vice speaker of the State Duma and presidential candidate from the New People political party, suggested that the Russian telecommunications agency Roskomnadzor should unblock X because the platform hosting the Putin interview had shown “it is neutral in disseminating information” and had “deleted more than 90 percent of the content prohibited in Russia” since Musk took control.

Many Russian Telegram users also celebrated Elon Musk’s role in disseminating the interview: On his X profile, Musk pinned the interview and encouraged followers to watch.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla.

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024 | 2 a.m.

Donald Trump’s racism, sexism, xenophobia and penchant for corruption have long made him unfit for any public office, let alone the presidency. But as he continues his bid for a second term in the White House, there is an unsettling and undeniable shift that is leading many experts, observers and even some Trump supporters to conclude that the former president’s mental acuity and sharpness are also in decline, that his physical health and stamina are waning and that his frustration and anger are boiling over.

Americans from both sides of the political spectrum should be alarmed by Trump’s words and behavior. The nation must confront the fact that beyond his hateful character, he is crippled cognitively and showing clear signs of mental illness.

There’s no need to resort to armchair psychology to interpret what’s apparent. If victorious, Trump would be the oldest president ever inaugurated. In recent weeks, he has canceled an increasing number of public appearances, with Trump’s own campaign citing the candidate’s exhaustion. When he does appear publicly, Trump struggles to complete sentences or sustain coherent thoughts, and has shown a pronounced difficulty concentrating and a tendency to repeat himself, sometimes within the same sentence.

At a recent rally in New Hampshire, for example, Trump began to discuss infrastructure and wound up segueing into a disjointed monologue about loyalty and perceived injustices against him, ending with a bewildering comment about windmills causing cancer.

This is not an isolated incident. A recent analysis by The New York Times noted that Trump’s rally speeches over the past eight years have become darker, longer, more profane and increasingly unfocused and unhinged — a troubling sign that he is no longer able to articulate ideas or reason in ways we expect of our leaders. This makes him prey to manipulations by his own staff or, worse, the control of foreign adversaries.

He shambles about aimlessly, slurs his words and sometimes speaks gibberish. Always an effortless liar, now that his speeches are nothing more than a series of lies tangled in a mass inside his head, it appears he no longer even knows he’s lying. 

He has called for the imprisonment of journalists, pledged to purge the government of “deep state” operatives he perceives as disloyal and is amplifying his tyrannical rhetoric. He has also increased his public praise for dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping while using increasingly fascist language to describe those he deems political enemies. The former president has even suggested using the military against his domestic critics — an approach reminiscent of repressive regimes in history that has often been the precursor to creeping authoritarianism.

With Trump’s fragility comes an increasing dependence on enablers who show a disturbing willingness to indulge his delusions, amplify his paranoia or steer his feeble mind toward their own goals. Among these enablers is his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. Should Trump be deemed unfit to serve, Vance would step into power.

Once a “Never Trump” conservative who openly criticized Trump as a danger to the republic, Vance has since fully embraced an extremist ideology, morphing into a vocal MAGA supporter who seems eager to emulate Trump’s worst instincts.

Beyond his weird obsession with childless women whom he says are “deranged” and “sociopathic,” and his penchant for spreading conspiracy theories about immigrants and other marginalized communities, Vance poses a different threat to democracy than Trump. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he is little more than a puppet of his billionaire hedge fund benefactors and has openly stated he would have refused to certify the 2020 election, suggesting he would subordinate constitutional principles for personal profit and power.

His willingness to discard any principles shows that he would likely not push back against Trump’s excesses or his deteriorating mental stability. Instead, he might embrace a Trumpian authoritarianism, exacerbating the very dangers we face with Trump’s current mental decline.

If history has taught us anything, it is that democracies are fragile. America’s founders designed the presidency to be a stabilizing force. Trump’s instability, paired with his and Vance’s increasing willingness to trample democratic norms and visible contempt of anyone not like him, has transformed what might have once been seen by conservatives as an uncomfortable leadership style into an existential threat to American democracy.

For those who believe in a country governed by checks, balances and the rule of law, a return to Trumpian leadership is dangerous in its own right. But to do so with an impaired leader who cannot govern competently and a fellow authoritarian waiting in the wings is perilous.

As voters consider Trump’s latest bid for the presidency, it’s essential to recognize that this election is not merely a choice between policy platforms or party loyalties. It’s a test of our willingness to safeguard our nation from leaders whose fitness for office is in serious question. This election is about protecting the integrity of our democracy from those who would let it collapse in the name of power, loyalty or expedience.

Donald Trump has never had the moral compass to lead this country. But even his supporters cannot afford to ignore the signs that he may no longer have the mental faculties to lead it either. The stakes are simply too high.

[mafaldaknows]

Perhaps Americans who believed big fat orange lies from the big fat orange liar are finally understanding that they’ve been colossally duped into electing a treasonous, vainglorious moron to destroy our American democracy, with interference from Vladimir Putin and influence by American plutocratic oligarchs who own many of our legislators as well as mainstream media, simply to prevent the 34x convicted felon and adjudicated rapist from going to federal prison. No more, no less.

it's january 2nd 2025.

there is a trucker making a bomb threat on the interstate 85 in South Carolina which has shut down the highway.

it's january 2nd 2025.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Donald Trump’s racism, sexism, xenophobia and penchant for corruption have long made him unfit for any public office, let alone the presidency. But as he continues his bid for a second term in the White House, there is an unsettling and undeniable shift that is leading many experts, observers and even some Trump supporters to conclude that the former president’s mental acuity and sharpness are also in decline, that his physical health and stamina are waning and that his frustration and anger are boiling over. Americans from both sides of the political spectrum should be alarmed by Trump’s words and behavior. The nation must confront the fact that beyond his hateful character, he is crippled cognitively and showing clear signs of mental illness. There’s no need to resort to armchair psychology to interpret what’s apparent. If victorious, Trump would be the oldest president ever inaugurated. In recent weeks, he has canceled an increasing number of public appearances, with Trump’s own campaign citing the candidate’s exhaustion. When he does appear publicly, Trump struggles to complete sentences or sustain coherent thoughts, and has shown a pronounced difficulty concentrating and a tendency to repeat himself, sometimes within the same sentence. At a recent rally in New Hampshire, for example, Trump began to discuss infrastructure and wound up segueing into a disjointed monologue about loyalty and perceived injustices against him, ending with a bewildering comment about windmills causing cancer. This is not an isolated incident. A recent analysis by The New York Times noted that Trump’s rally speeches over the past eight years have become darker, longer, more profane and increasingly unfocused and unhinged — a troubling sign that he is no longer able to articulate ideas or reason in ways we expect of our leaders. This makes him prey to manipulations by his own staff or, worse, the control of foreign adversaries. He shambles about aimlessly, slurs his words and sometimes speaks gibberish. Always an effortless liar, now that his speeches are nothing more than a series of lies tangled in a mass inside his head, it appears he no longer even knows he’s lying.  He has called for the imprisonment of journalists, pledged to purge the government of “deep state” operatives he perceives as disloyal and is amplifying his tyrannical rhetoric. He has also increased his public praise for dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping while using increasingly fascist language to describe those he deems political enemies. The former president has even suggested using the military against his domestic critics — an approach reminiscent of repressive regimes in history that has often been the precursor to creeping authoritarianism. [...] Donald Trump has never had the moral compass to lead this country. But even his supporters cannot afford to ignore the signs that he may no longer have the mental faculties to lead it either. The stakes are simply too high.

Las Vegas Sun Editorial Board on Donald Trump's cognitive decline (10.30.2024).

This Las Vegas Sun editorial on Donald Trump’s cognitive decline on why he must not be re-elected is a must-read.

[darkmaga-returns]

US Provides Proof that North Korean Troops are on the Ground in Ukraine

31 October 2024 by Larry C. Johnson 37 Comments

Gotcha! While the claim is ridiculous, the United States continues to lead the charge in pushing this nonsense. One of the most outspoken is US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin:

North Korea’s deployment to Russia to aid its war against Ukraine has the potential to lengthen the already 2-1/2-year old conflict and draw in others, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday. Some 10,000 North Korean forces have already been deployed to eastern Russia, wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment, Austin said, in what he added increasingly looked like a deployment to support Russia’s combat operations in the Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine. . . . The United States has said the North Korean deployment could be further evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin was having trouble filling military ranks after more than 600,000 casualties so far, according to U.S. estimates. Austin noted he was already seeking to replenish his arms inventories by turning to North Korea and Iran. “We know that Putin has gone tin-cupping to get weapons from (North Korea) and Iran. Turning to a pariah state like North Korea just underscores how much trouble he is in,” the defense secretary said. He and Kim both called on North Korea to withdraw its forces. But it was unclear whether there were any steps Washington or its allies could take to prevent Pyongyang from joining the war.

I will be blunt. Lloyd Austin is either a witting liar or a man devoid of critical thinking skills. If the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are presenting “intelligence” that Russia has suffered catastrophic casualties and is in desperate need of 10,000 Korean soldiers, then we have a case of intelligence malpractice and a gullible Secretary of Defense. Russia has not suffered crippling casualties. It is simply not true. Russia is advancing through Ukrainian lines all across the 900-mile front and Ukraine cannot stop them. Big Serge, after a noticeable absence of commenting on the tactical situation in Ukraine, published an important SubStack piece that addresses what is happening on the ground: