Posted in the Controversial Law Enforcement thread
Ex-congressman Dana Rohrabacher, R, whom House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said was being paid by Putin (along with Trump), was at the January 6 Insurrection.
Richard Barnett, the guy who took over Pelosi’s office, was interviewed on Russian TV, where he was identified as a “patriot” who was protesting the “stolen election”.
I’ll be pissed if Biden doesn’t broach this on Wed. with the petty, insecure weasel.
Does Russia have elections any more? Time for a little tit-for-tat if they do.
They usually make sure inconvenient people aren’t candidates in the first place, by finding some reason to disqualify them, imprisoning them on trumped-up charges, or they just have unfortunate accidents.
Mind, if it could be arranged that Ivan Nohopeski emerged a surprise winner, it might be interesting. For a day or two, anyway, until another unfortunate accident.
What’s he gonna say? “Why don’t you rein in your media?”?
There is no way to bring this up with Putin that doesn’t play into Putin’s hands. It’ll just give him a chance to say that the US wants to interfere with free speech and free media in the very free and model democracy Russia.
I believe that Joe is too smart to play Putin’s game.
I get your sentiment. But, if you value democracy, meddling in anyone’s election (no matter how much they deserve it) is right out.
The USA’s media disinformation campaigns puts Russia to shame. And a lot of it comes from congress.
Insurrectionist thinks he’s running for New Hampshire state representative. Doesn’t realize that the woman he thinks he’s running against is a Congresswoman.
Sure, I get Vlad’s provocation puppetry for eliciting outrage and propaganda spin, but I can’t see Putin trying to smile this one off especially if it’s in concert with the other hard questions about Ukraine, 2016 election meddling, and Navalny. Never been much of a fight-fire-with-fire proponent, but I feel Biden should be almost unrelenting in putting Putin’s feet to the fire, unsettling him, a little, with a “go ahead, make my day” approach. That’s definitely not Joe’s approach, but I think those days are over now, as far as Russia is concerned - why be anything other than up front, nay, in your face, with someone who will act - regardless of diplomatic approach - in bad faith?
Sure, Vlad can disingenuously go off about free speech and free media, but seeing increasing protests in Russia tells me that such propaganda will sit only with (what is likely) a shrinking reich-wing base - not much, at all, of a notch for VP to chalk up.
WOW! Watching that portion of the video left me nearly speechless.
I think you’re over-optimistic. It’s quite possible that the protestors still represent only a minority; and highly probable that the general idea of Western conspiracy to do Russia down has been so reinforced over the last 20 years of controlled media that it’s a default assumption of a substantial majority.
Navalny campaigned against corruption and deceit, not necessarily for turning Russia into a branch of the Western democracies or limiting Russia’s ambitions as a world power.
Agreed - the message that the West has been trying to bring down Russia has been a strong, reinforced one over some considerable time.
There’s a Daily Beast article I wanted to cite but it’s paywalled…about Putin, a couple months ago, having to ramp up the propaganda for slipping poll ratings.
And as a corollary to that, I can’t see how poll ratings would not worsen with the advent of all the mass clamp-downs on protests - resulting in an outright pollce state.
This is now a whole new terrifying level of, well, is ‘totalitarianism’ too heavy a word, here? Hopefully I’m not wishing in vain that the substantial majorty of Russia’s electorate will see the immediate threat of this crazily escalated police state for what it is.
(pardon the hijack - my last post on this)
And what impact do you suppose the Russian electorate could possible have on any Russian election?
Indeed, a fair question, and one that can be increasingly asked of the US, too.
Sadly, yes. The electorate is on its way to becoming irrelevant.
Yes,because GOP vote stealing, voter suppression, gerrymandering, fraud and what not got them the Senate and the White house in 2020.
not.
And the threat of that is exactly what could happen in '24.