Moral Equivalence?

President Trump was on Bill O'Reilly's show before the Super Bowl and of course he said something that freaked out the cucks and pussies of both the left and the Rhino right. When O'Reilly said that "Putin is a killer" and Trump said "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot killers. What do you think? Our country is so innocent."  

This freaks out the NeoCons and the left who both seem to want to start a war with Russia. Super cuck  Paul Mirengoff  spouts off at Powerline:

"Trump was now suggesting that there is a moral equivalence between the U.S. and Russia under Putin. Would he back this up with specifics; if so, which ones?

The U.S. isn’t entirely innocent. Trump might have cited our treatment of the American Indians in the 19th century, for example. Andrew Jackson can be thought of as a “killer” we respect.

But this isn’t what Trump had in mind. Instead, he cited the Iraq War, and repeated his false claim that he opposed it from the beginning.

The Iraq War may have been a mistake — it was, in all events, fought under a mistaken premise. However, fighting that war in an order to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction does not make the U.S. and its then-president “killers.”

This was not a war of territorial aggression, like the one Russia wages in Ukraine. Nor did it involve the systematic and wanton bombing of civilian populations, as Russia does in Syria. And Bush’s political enemies didn’t die mysteriously, as Putin's do."

Obama clears runway for Trump-Putin ME relations

"WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S.-Russian talks on their separate fights against the Islamic State group are improving and becoming more frequent, American officials said, with each side trading information in real time and even outlining some of their strategic objectives in the months ahead. The progress dispels the notion that ties between the former Cold War foes are "frozen."

In the discussions, Russia has made clear its counterterrorism priority in Syria is retaking the ancient city of Palmyra, officials said. The U.S. is determined to pressure IS' headquarters in Raqqa.

The closer contacts have developed despite the former Cold War foes' bitter accusations against one another over the devastation in Aleppo and Moscow's claim that relations are now "frozen on all practical levels."

The confidential military discussions aren't focusing on the two countries' opposing positions in Syria's civil war, where Russia is fighting alongside the government and the United States has backed rebel groups, officials said.

But U.S. officials with knowledge of the ongoing conversations are crediting both sides with putting aside much of the public animosity, which has included Washington's accusations of Russian war crimes in Aleppo and Moscow's charges of American support for terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

Much of the talk has concerned the two nations' immediate operations.

Since Dec. 15, the U.S.-led coalition has conducted airstrikes on about two dozen locations around Palmyra, destroying air defense weapons, tanks, aircraft shelters, storage bunkers and other vehicles and equipment. At the same time, U.S. and Russian officials having been ensuring that the two militaries' don't cross paths in the airspace above the city that IS militants seized for the second time earlier this month, and that American strikes don't mistakenly hit Russian or Syrian forces.

But the talks have gone beyond the granular and even touched on broader U.S. and Russian plans, according to several U.S. officials, who weren't authorized to speak publicly on the confidential discussions and demanded anonymity.

...According to officials, the U.S. and Russian military have been communicating regularly, often in real time as strikes have been about to launch to make sure innocent troops aren't at risk. The new concentration of U.S. strikes around Palmyra in the past week has made the effort especially important for Russia, one senior U.S. official said.

The scope of the discussions suggests the two sides are pulling back from some of the extreme rhetoric in recent months, mainly colored by Russia's support for the successful Syrian military effort to retake all of Aleppo. While Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed hopes that Donald Trump will improve U.S.-Russian cooperation, it appears some of the groundwork already is being done."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6250cda719d74e23b05732155f934d7e/officials-us-russian-military-talks-quietly-proving-useful

Putin on DNC leak: 'Does it even matter who hacked this data?'

“Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?’’ Putin told Bloomberg on Thursday. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.’’

“There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” Putin said. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.”

Link

"The Clinton Foundation, State and Kremlin Connections"

"Why did Hillary’s State Department urge U.S. investors to fund Russian research for military uses?"

Consider Skolkovo, an “innovation city” of 30,000 people on the outskirts of Moscow, billed as Russia’s version of Silicon Valley—and a core piece of Mrs. Clinton’s quarterbacking of the Russian reset.

Following his 2009 visit to Moscow, President Obama announced the creation of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state directed the American side, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov represented the Russians. The stated goal at the time: “identifying areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the Russian and American people.”

The Kremlin committed $5 billion over three years to fund Skolkovo. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department worked aggressively to attract U.S. investment partners and helped the Russian State Investment Fund, Rusnano, identify American tech companies worthy of Russian investment. Rusnano, which a scientific adviser to President Vladimir Putin called “Putin’s child,” was created in 2007 and relies entirely on Russian state funding.

What could possibly go wrong?

Is Trump calling for a cyber attack on his own country?

NYT: Donald J. Trump directly addressed Russia in a news conference in Florida on Wednesday, openly calling on it to find the roughly 30,000 emails that Hillary Clinton deleted from her private email server.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said, staring directly into the cameras. “I think you will probably be mightily rewarded by our press.”

Later in the news conference, when asked if he was really urging a foreign nation to hack into the email server of Mrs. Clinton, or at least meddle in the nation’s elections, he dismissed the question. “That’s up to the president,” Mr. Trump said, before finally telling the female questioner to “be quiet — let the president talk to them.”

Mr. Trump has largely dismissed assertions that Russia was behind the Democratic committee breach as conspiracy theories — a view he reiterated again when he said the hack “is probably not Russia.”

If you are a Trump supporter, how do you explain this move?

Putin dating Murdoch's ex

How’s this for a new couple alert? The rumor circulating around the corridors of power — from Washington, D.C., to Europe and Asia — is that Vladimir Putin and Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife, are dating. See more photos of Wendi here.

Reports of the pair have been floating around for years, ever since their respective divorces in 2014 and 2013.

One insider close to the powerful leader tells Us Weekly the relationship is “serious.”

Murdoch, 85, filed for divorce from Deng, 47, after 14 years of marriage in June 2013 after he reportedly grew suspicious of her relationship with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (A spokesperson for Blair denied the affair to The Hollywood Reporter in July 2013.) The businesswoman famously made headlines in 2011 when she jumped to Murdoch’s defense and slapped a protestor’s face after he tried to pie her husband during a meeting with parliament. 

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/rupert-murdochs-ex-wife-wendi-deng-is-dating-vladimir-putin-w200077

Brewing bromance?

No audio available. Obama and Putin hold a sidebar today in Turkey at the G20 conference.

Below, follow the link to a two-minute video of Obama pushing back in a 60 Minutes interview, where he questions that Russia is 'challenging us.'

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/10/11/obama_pushes_back_in_what_way_is_putin_challenging_me.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/11/15/obama_and_putin_huddle_on_the_sidelines_of_g20_meeting_in_turkey.html

"Russia demands US to remove warplanes from Syria’s airspace"

"Russian warplanes have begun bombarding Syrian opposition targets in the war-torn nation's north, working on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to a senior military official."

The official said airstrikes targeted fighters in the vicinity of Homs, located roughly 60 miles east of a Russian naval facility in Tartus, and were carried out by a "couple" of Russian bombers. The strikes hit targets in Homs and Hama, but there are no presence of ISIS in those areas, a senior U.S. defense official said. These planes are hitting areas where Free Syrian Army and other anti-Assad groups are located, the official said.

The development came after Pentagon officials brushed aside an official request from Russia to clear air space over northern Syria, where Moscow intends to conduct airstrikes against ISIS on behalf of Assad, according to sources who spoke to Fox News.

"It's me or it's him."

Link to video

Who wants to manage a conscious decline?

"The Pentagon’s top official overseeing military relations with Russia and Ukraine [Evelyn Farkas] is resigning amid the ongoing debate within the Obama administration over how respond to Russian moves in Ukraine and Syria."

“She has advised three secretaries of defense on Russia policy, providing steady counsel on how the U.S. should respond to Russia's aggressive actions and has been deeply involved in securing $244 million in support for Ukraine,” the official said. “In addition, Evelyn has brought fresh thinking to Southeast Europe policies — supporting Montenegro's interest in joining NATO, expanding defense cooperation with Georgia, and increasing multilateral cooperation with the three Caucasus nations.” 

In testimony last year before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Farkas took a hard line on Russia, saying the country’s actions “stand as an affront to the international order that we and our allies have worked to build since the end of the Cold War.” 

"Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, followed by blatant and unconcealed efforts to destabilize eastern and southern Ukraine, signifies a paradigm shift for our relations with Russia,” she said in prepared testimony. “As the crisis deepens, our European allies and partners will look to the United States to demonstrate resolve and to reinforce solidarity across the continent.”

Putin is taking over.

"US monitoring reports Russia has stepped up Syria presence"

"The White House and State Department said Thursday that it was monitoring reports that Russia is carrying out military operations in Syria's civil war on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad, with both warning that such actions would further destabilize Syria's perilous situation."

We are aware of reports that Russia may have deployed military personnel and aircraft to Syria, and we are monitoring those reports quite closely," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday

State Department spokesman Mark Toner echoed Earnest's message, saying "we have seen various reports that Russia may be deploying military personnel ... we're unclear what these might be used for." Toner added that he was "not sure that we have contacted [Moscow] about this yet."

"Russia has asked for clearances for military flight to Syria," a U.S. official was quoted as telling Britain's Daily Telegraph, "[but] we don't know what their goals are ... Evidence has been inconclusive so far as to what this activity is."

Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports "Chinese Navy Ships Came Within 12 Nautical Miles of U.S. Coast"

"US nuclear missile commander says Vladimir Putin's actions echo those of Nazi Germany in the 1930s"

Russia 'aggression'

Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson, commander of US Global Air Strike Command, said: “I don’t think we’ve ever seen so much power put in one person in Russia, and some of the things happening there are troubling and concerning for everybody.”...

“Some of the actions by Russia recently we haven’t seen since the 1930s, when whole countries were annexed and borders were changed by decree.”...

Lt Gen Wilson, also used the briefing to accuse Russia of risking lives when its military jets fly unannounced close to Western countries’ airspace, or near to corridors used by international commercial airliners.

“When we fly, we fly to a flight plan – we announce it, we ‘squawk’, our transponders are on, we are talking to air traffic control, we are following all international laws,” he said of USAF and other Nato missions. “That isn’t happening with Russia. You’ve got contested airspace with people flying all the time, you’re unannounced, you’re not on a flight plan, you’re not squawking. We would not do that. It puts people at risk.”

War In Eastern Europe

It could happen this summer, says the author of  this article.

Of course, moving thousands of troops is a difficult thing to hide completely in this day and age, and yesterday Reuters broke the story that large numbers of Russian troops, armed with tanks and artillery, have been sighted near the Ukraine border, more or less opposite the strategic city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Worse, Russians have been seen removing unit insignias from their vehicles and uniforms, in emulation of last year’s “little green men” episodes in Crimea and Southeast Ukraine. Putin is either readying to launch a renewed offensive in Ukraine or he wants the world to think he’s about to. Deception, what Russians call maskirovka, is a well-honed art there, so it’s possible this is yet another saber-rattle. But we don’t know yet. Though I suspect we’ll find out soon enough.

Meanwhile, some additional US forces are being quietly deployed to Poland.  Article here.

Russia is trying to hide its involvement in the war in The Ukraine.  Typical of the Russian government, they say the war is between Ukrainian nationalists and Ukrainian separatists, and that it doesn't involve Russian soldiers.  And Russia has sent mobile crematoriums to the area to dispose of the bodies of dead Russian soldiers so that they aren't sent home, confirming a Russian presence in a war.    Article here.

Russian long-range bombers have been conducting flights in or near American airspace from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico.  Article here.  It's like they are trying to provoke a war by having one of their aircraft  shot down.

Keep your eyes on the Middle East, but don't lose sight of Eastern Europe, especially now that the US military has been pared down to such an extent that it lacks the resources to fight a war on two continents.  The time is right for an aggressive Vladimir Putin to assert Russian control over the old Soviet Bloc nations.

Where is Putin?

Is the question a lot of twitter heavy hitters are wondering.

From Richard Fernandez... himself not a twitter heavy hitter, but a dam good pundit...

Rumors that Vladimir Putin is sick or has been deposed, fueled by his recent absence from public events are a reminder of the very real defects of autocracy. The problem, as Shakespeare noted, is that kings however well guarded, pampered and doctored eventually die. Age, disease and mischance take their toll and often leave a country, so recently dominated by a single godlike figure, without any process of orderly succession.

Today there is this, from a twitter heavy hitter...

Hey guys, I think I figured it out. #VladimirPutin pic.twitter.com/rkTnm1m0yc
— Logan Act Scholar (@JohnEkdahl) March 14, 2015

China's First Lady Refuses Putin's Blanket

 

What was that about?

 

Would Michelle Obama handled that differently?

Kerry: "There Will Be a Very Serious Series of Steps on Monday.”

Secretary of State John F. Kerry is in the final stage of training for the Hustle Up The Hancock April 13 in Chicago.  Mondays are especially heavy training days in his routine.  He's serious about this.

Oh.  Wait.  I need to read the complete article.  Here it is.

Well, this makes more sense.  He's not running stairs; he's talking about what will happen if Russia grabs up Ukraine because of a phony referendum to be held in Crimea this Sunday.  Crimeans will vote whether they want to (a) become part of beloved mother Russia, or (b) be invaded, crushed and destroyed before becoming part of beloved mother Russia.

The U.S. and Europe on Monday would then unite to impose sanctions on Russia, Kerry told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday during a hearing on the State Department's budget.

Kerry responded carefully, saying “we have contingencies – we are talking through various options that may or may not be available.”

“Our hope is not to create hysteria or excessive concern about that at this point in time,” he said. “Our hope is to avoid that, but there's no telling that we can.”

If I was Vladimir Putin, I'd be quaking in my сапоги.  Kerry has contingencies, and also various options that may or may not be available.

U.S. authorities are closely monitoring the number of Russian troops in Crimea, as well as their movements, he said, noting that Moscow is allowed to have a total of 25,000 troops in Crimea.

Allowed by whom?  By the US?  Seriously?  And what will the US do if Putin deploys, say, 30,000 troops to Crimea?  Demonstrate the same courage and leadership as the Obama administration regarding the "red line" and the civil war in Syria, probably.

Vladimir Putin understands that "there will be a very serious series of steps on Monday" is as much a threat  to him as this

Good luck, Crimeans.

Vlad set trap?

With a gap-filled chain of logic, David Samuels of Tablet puts forth a theory that Vladimir Putin was the mastermind behind the Damascus gas attack. Discounting the acting ability of Iranian leadership, whose public statements suggested they "were at the least discomfited by the Syrian government’s actions, if not blind-sided by them,"  and never mentioning the possibility that well-funded Syrian rebels could have carried the attack out, he asserts that the de facto head of the Syrian chain of command is not Assad, but those to whom he is beholden, his Iranian and Russian counterparts, Ayatollah Khamenei and Putin.

The idea that Assad gave the order to carry out such a massive and politically dangerous attack without the approval of his Russian and Iranian advisers is also absurd—given the regime’s near-total reliance on Russian and Iranian strategic planning, supplies, fighters, and diplomatic backing for its week-to-week survival. Ditto for the idea that Russian or Iranian officers inside Syria gave their approval for such an attack without the blessing of the men at the top of their own chains of command: Ali Khamenei in Iran, and Vladimir Putin in Russia.

He continues his line of reasoning by invoking Putin's KGB training, and the tactic of provocation: