Back in the whole 9/11 uber patriotism thing, a gas stationed paired with a radio station in Hartford had a ‘patriotic decoration and pay $1 a gallon for gas’ thing going on. I showed up with my usual ride, and they didn’t want to give me the buck gas, so I pointed out the Department of Defense sticker on my windshield and told them that I display my patriotism every day, not just for a contest. Offered to tell the people on the navy base they refused to let the DoD sticker be considered a patriotic decoration. Got serious grumbles, but I got my gas.
Remember when Hillary Clinton was ridiculed for suggesting that Tulsi Gabbard was being groomed as a Russian asset in 2019?
Here’s Tulsi today…
How much can he keep doing that if his country’s economy has cratered? And what would be the point? And would he still be around to keep doing it?
Are these all brand new biolabs? Seems like a pretty slick operation to get them all up and running in the time since Trump had the election stolen left office.
I’m not saying that Tucker Carlson is an actual active Russian agent, I’m just saying that it’s hard to think of what he’d be saying if he were that he isn’t actually saying already.
If he isn’t a paid Russian agent, he’s sure doing a lot of unpaid volunteer work for Putin.
Stranger
Gabbard is being paid by Russia.
(Also, autocorrect tried to change “Gabbard” to “Garbage”. I like your style, AC.)
Daddy needs some bowtie money.
Also, “Putin working our fifth column” sounds like the start of a Chuck Tingle book. You’re welcome for the image.
I think Soros sounds even more like the acronym name of the worldwide evil criminal network the Bond villain is the head of.
S.O.R.O.S.
True. Sinister Organization Recruiting Ominous Socialists? Eh, not bad, but not quite t-shirt (or jumpsuit) worthy. Let me keep thinking.
yeah. I left that “S.O.R.O.S.” hanging unexplained as an exercise for the reader.
Look, I already got their check. Now I actually have to make the merch. You don’t wanna know how they enforce deadlines… 
The other conspiracy that seems to be gaining traction is “Gas prices aren’t going up because of the war in Ukraine – that’s just a cover for Biden raising gas prices to force everyone to buy electric cars.”
It’s hard for me to comprehend how many stupid things you’d have to believe to advance that theory, and yet here we are.
And of course, getting the US off of fossil fuels by converting everything to electricity created by solar/wind/nuclear/hydro/tidal/etc would give us actual energy independence and strike a blow against Russia/Iran/Saudi Arabia/Venezuela and various other occasional GOP boogeyman states.
But solar and wind energy are an abomination unto the lord. Coal and oil are the are the only energy sources acceptable in god’s eyes, it says to right in the bible.
I wish Putin was vulnerable to a coup or a general uprising, but I don’t see it happening. Short of that, how will he lose power?
Russia’s economy is a basket case, true, and will probably be set back years due to this. But Russia’s economy has some strengths as well. They are an autarky for the basics like food and fuel; they’ll probably experience deflation this year for grains, oil and methane; I’m sure China will snap up as much of their exports as Russia’s infrastructure will allow them to export. People who are warm and well-fed are less likely to foment revolution.
Putin looks at that and contrasts it to the West, where already-high inflation is only going to be made worse due to shortages in those areas. The US can supply our domestic needs for food and fuel, but we need to help Europe with their shortages; doing so will drive up prices and create shortages domestically. With elections coming up this year in the US and France, there is the prospect of cracks in the alliance against him if the pressure keeps up.
Keep in mind that all of these trends are bad for Putin and Russia in the long term. Over time, Europe, the US and our Pacific allies will be pushed to greater energy independence as a result of this war, and sub-Saharan Africa will have incentives to increase agricultural production to sell to Europe, which will make Russia’s petro-kleptocracy less lucrative and powerful over time.
Putin thinks that West will not be able to stay united against him over the long term. He thinks democracies are weak, myopic, and riven by internal divisions that he can control and exacerbate to his advantage. Over time, as the war Ukraine recedes from public view but our economic woes continue, political actors in the west will do what he wants them to do simply to gain political power and the western alliance against him will fracture.
Keep in mind that his prognostications before now have not gone well - I’m sure the unity of the west since the invasion has been a real surprise, as has Ukraine’s resistance and his army’s lack of competence. But I don’t think he’s going to change his mind about the democratic West until he out-and-out loses, and that’s going to take a long time to happen.
Right now, the western-aligned world needs to keep proving Putin wrong over years, not just weeks or months. If we can do that, we can turn this into Putin’s Waterloo in the long run. Putin’s bet is that we can’t.
While I find Gabbard’s pro-Russian positions despicable, this article fails to mention that the total of the donations added up to less than $60. This article mentions it.
I doubt she purchased much influence for that, and I suspect Gabbard was unaware of her existence.
It sort of reminds of the time someone tried to make a big deal out of the fact that Adam’s Schiff had a mutual fund in his portfolio that had an investment in one Ukrainian based company among their hundreds of assets.
“Ukraine does not actually exist. Do you know anyone who has been there?”
“Heck I don’t know anyone who has been out of this state!”
“See! I’m right!”
Even if it was larger, that it was a single donation among thousands by competing interests is probably more relevant.
That said, in the DOJ charging document on Branson, they do specifically call out that she was doing something in Hawaii.
I’d probably say that the total evidence that we have is:
- Gabbard supported Assad
- While a congresswoman, supported legislation in favor of freeing Julian Assange and shutting down PRISM.
- A known Russian agent seemed to be active in her territory (Hawaii) and was recruiting people there.
- Hillary Clinton pretty well outright said that she’s a Russian asset - for no known reason. (And you might include that Gabbard dropped her defamation case against Clinton, but it looks like it would have been hard to win anyways, so it’s plausible that she was just saving money by not seeing it through.)
- Mitt Romney, likewise, outright states that she’s a Russian asset.
On those last two items, one might note that Bill Clinton is likely to still be receiving intelligence briefings from the White House and it does seem likely that the DOJ looked through Gabbard’s Russian connections (if any) as part of their Branson investigation, so that should be factored in when you try to decide how much weight to give Clinton’s statement. If the FBI did find a connection, but it wasn’t criminal, then warning off members of the US government might be the limit of their ability. Clinton and Romney would be the sort of people to receive that information.
But, on the second item, it does seem that she was anti-national secrets from the start of her first term in office, talking about defunding PRISM. If she was “turned” by Russia, it was a really long time ago.
Given her focus on creating National Yoga Day, religious nuttiness, and etc. my guess would be that she’s more in the category of a useful idiot than, explicitly, a “bought and paid for”. I expect that the Russians have, somehow, contacted and manipulated her in their favor but mostly by feeding her the sort of material that appeals to her world view.
he thought a lot before attacking Ukr. … most of it was dead wrong