Vladimir Putin is doing whatever he can to help Donald Trump win:
U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday said Russians seeking to disrupt the U.S. elections created a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz.... They added that Russian government agencies and contractors, which generally seek to boost Republican former president Donald Trump’s campaign, are considering trying to instigate physical violence in the fraught period after voters cast their ballots.
....Russia is “potentially seeking to stoke threats towards poll workers, as well as amplifying protests and potentially encouraging protests to be violent,” the official added.
Why is Putin so enamored of Trump? Lots of reasons, but I suppose the biggest one right now is that he thinks Trump will cut off aid to Ukraine and guarantee a Russian victory. If I were Putin, I suppose I'd prefer Trump too.
Trump is Putins puppet. We don't need his puppet back in the Whitehouse. The pathetic thing is Trump has no clue. He genuinely believes Putin respects him.
No, you're the puppet!!!
And thanks to Alito, the Russians can dump money via proxies into our elections too. Though apparently it's more cost effective to promote the crazy in the right wingnutosphere. The fake stories, laundered through this set up, help too....
Promoting the crazy has the side benefit of saying that the US democracy is broken.
January 6 was like a wet dream for Putin.
vlad, little donnie's impaler.
trump is vlad's wildest dream come true if he wins this election.
foreign spending on u.s. election is still illegal, samuel alito notwithstanding. doesn't mean money can't be funneled and laundered to disguise the source, but it's still illegal.
But do I have a great stock deal for you!
When donnie first started about Arnie's johnson (not the Speaker), any journalist worth their salt should have asked donnie for a Palmer/Putin comparison.
VP is Trump’s true vp.
Thanks to Bob Woodward, we now know that Biden had already leveraged use of American weapons in Russia to stop Putin from using tactical nukes in Ukraine. This explains why, despite all the solid reasons to do so, the Biden administration won't approve the use of long-distance JASSMs and ATACMs on Russian territory.
Yet.
Biden either needs a new red line that allows him to give Ukraine JASSMs and the right to use it and ATACMs on Russian territory or he needs to offer Ukraine a deal it can't refuse. Retired MQ-1 Predators and a thousand Hellfires? One Hellfire against one T-62 and poof goes the Russian stocks of tanks.
America's enemies want the Republican nominee to win because the GOP is the Weaken America party.
I will vote for Harris and hope she wins, but my contempt for trump voters is never going away. I’m not a political player and have no influence beyond my vote, but I’m really not interested in any of these policies, tax cuts, or programs Biden and Harris support. Just maintain the status quo. I wish they would cut off Israel and let it be devoured by hatred and better support Ukraine, but that’s not going to happen. So president Harris isn’t going to have any effect except to prevent trump from doing damage. I’ll take that. She might have a Republican senate so dysfunction and discord are baked in.
Oh well.
I will be happy to see widespread violence from trump and his stormtroopers either way. We need a reckoning.
Just your typical trump loving youth pastor… abusing children again.
Michigan news. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2024/10/youth-pastor-accused-of-sexually-abusing-children-was-leading-double-life-father-says.html
Dan Savage used to run a weekly item called “Youth Pastor Watch.” The number of incidents of sexual abuse he reported was astounding.
“I will be happy to see widespread violence from trump and his stormtroopers either way. We need a reckoning.”
Once a soulless amoral monster, always a soulless amoral monster. Stay safe in your mom’s basement.
"O man! while in thy early years,
How prodigal of time!
Mis-spending all thy precious hours-
Thy glorious, youthful prime!
Alternate follies take the sway;
Licentious passions burn;
Which tenfold force gives Nature's law.
That man was made to mourn.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/man_was_made_to_mourn/
Maybe you prefer this timeless truth…
"Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves,
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
So you see, sweetie, it’s not me you have to worry about. You’re the angry and bitter one.
More than all the other reasons Putin wants to see Trump back in power, I believe, he sees Trump destroying NATO.
"Why is Putin so enamored of Trump?"
Your kidding, right? Trump is Putin's crown jewel in his KGB/FSB career of developing valuable operatives. He is guaranteed to weaken the US, his main advisory, and the NATO alliance could be destroyed by 4 years of the Orange Il Duce. He will absolutely surrender Ukraine to Putin, with an appeasement agreement to rival what Chamberlain signed in 1938.
Then brag about how great of a deal it was.
This is the third election in a row that Putin has supported Trump, isn't it. This is not new...
1. If Trump wins, Putin wins.
2. If Trump loses, Putin loses.
US voters opt for Door #2.
In order to escape US justice, Trump takes a one-way flight overseas, ends up at Putin's dacha on the Black Sea. Losses in Ukraine mount and anti-Putin group seizes power in Russia. Rogue soldiers march on dacha, issue final statement to Trump: "Do svidaniya, tovarishch!" (Rough translation: "You're fired!")
Justice, Russian-style, is served.
Why is Putin so enamored of Trump? Because he is so easily manipulated. A little flattery her, a little subtle poking there, he’s in the palm of your hand. Look how Harris baited him in the debate, and he stupidly took it each time.
+1
Kevin's blog post on gasoline prices is something which may have come to the attention of Putin.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-the-price-of-gasoline/
He's been selling oil to India at reduced prices, just to make sure it gets sold. Now, he's meeting with China and India. Is he trying to make a deal to sell more oil or to raise the price at which it's sold? He would be stupid not to try that.
While we need to be ready for it, Harris may want to make a statement about the many ways Russia has been helping Trump and how he *might* raise oil prices to help Trump win.
It reinforces the public understanding that Trump receives help from Putin because The Donald can't win on his own. He was a business failure on his own and had to get help from Russia while he stole money from banks and refused to pay off his debts. Donald Trump is a loser, and that makes him vulnerable to people like Epstein and Putin. Now, it may lead to gasoline price increases which will directly hurt the American consumer.
Just making such a statement NOW could help head off any political damage.
"Now, he's meeting with China and India. Is he trying to make a deal to sell more oil or to raise the price at which it's sold?"
Putin really does seem hellbent on making Russia into a Chinese client state, doesn't he?
+1
If Harris brings up how the Russians have been helping Trump, she will have to answer to why the British have been helping Harris.
😂😂😂
The U.S. intelligence officials who on Tuesday claimed Russians are seeking to disrupt the U.S. elections and created a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz were from the same intelligence institutions that claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"were from the same intelligence institutions that claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."
Bush's whitehouse? From a quarter century ago?
Right. And Democrats used to be the party of Segregation while Republicans were for Integration.
Times change, Dude, and so do people and institutions. The intelligence agencies who got it wrong on WMD got it very right on the invasion of Ukraine, down to the day.
Obviously, it's quite easy to see masses of over-confident troops from space.
IIRC the intelligence analysts mostly had it right, Cheney and Bush deliberately distorted their findings and pressured the agencies and their leaders to support their pre-determined policy.
that's my recollection too
Trump has represented himself as an isolationist. That would give Putin a free hand to reign in the other "republics" that were once in the Soviet sphere, but now seem to be drifting to the West. So Ukraine is only one component.
If Putin gets his way with Ukrain the most obvious question is who's next? I'm ignorant of any eastern European countries besides Ukrain that aren't NATO members. I would assume he wouldn't invade a NATO member. Or I would hope not.
Russia already has troops in breakaway regions of Moldova (Transnistria) and Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), neither of which are NATO members. So far, he has tried to increase his influence in both through meddling in their internal affairs. There is always the option to create some pretext to employ force, but Russia simply can't afford a second front at present. Belarus is already closely aligned with Moscow, but I'm sure that Putin very much would like to have its army directly involved in Ukraine, which Lukashenko has so far avoided. Putin really doesn't have any more leverage against him. Belarus also doesn't seem to have any disgruntled ethnic minorities who could be goaded into rebellion. So Putin is probably going to have to wait until Lukashenko is gone, then try to install a puppet there.
Armenia - Russian relations have deteriorated considerably since the start of the Ukraine attack. I cannot keep all the "stans" straight, but there has been several clashes that is causing tensions amongst them since Russia is pre-occupied. Putin wants them all back in the fold.
More to the point, it would give Emperor Xi the go-ahead to take Taiwan and all those ASML ultraviolet lithography machines and the scientifically sophisticated workers who operate them.
Interestingly, both spellings "rein in" and "reign in" work equally well in your comment "That would give Putin a free hand to reign in the other "republics" that were once in the Soviet sphere..."