In the past few days there has been a sort of alt-singularity as Putin and Trump exchanged compliments, as one might think befits mature heads of powerful states (one actual, one potential). Naturally, one of these men has been taking a lot of heat for it from all the empty suit punditry and the Cuck-in-Chief himself:
Does Donald even know Putin backs Iran/Assad? Does he care? We must stand up to Putin not coddle him #ChaosCandidate https://t.co/sPJrLeXQyY
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 18, 2015
Far from apologizing and backing down, Trump has instead doubled down. This is really encouraging, because it suggest that his opposition to invade/invite the world is borne of genuine convictions, and that increasing numbers of Americans are beginning to wake up to the scams the elites run on them. And of course it doesn’t hurt that the facts are solidly, incontrovertibly on Trump’s side, regardless of how much the presstitutes might hate it.
(1)
Putin’s approval rating, from National Review:
Donald Trump: Well, he is a strong leader! What am I gonna say, he’s a weak leader? He’s making mincemeat out of our president. He’s a strong leader. You would like me to call him a weak leader. He’s a strong leader, and I’m not gonna be politically correct. He’s got an 80 percent approval rating done by pollsters, from I understand this country, okay? So it’s not even done by his pollsters, he’s very popular within Russia!
That is correct. A Gallup survey conducted in 2014 showed Putin with an approval rating of 83%. The latest poll from the (liberal-leaning) Levada Center gives him 85%. A recent study by four American political scientists confirm his genuinely high level of support at around 80% or more.
(2)
No evidence Putin kills journalists, from Breitbart:
Stephanopoulos said, “Here’s what Mitt Romney tweeted, ‘there’s an important distinction, thug Putin kills journalists and opponents our presidents kill terrorists and enemy combatants.”
Trump said, “Does he know for a fact? It’s possible that he does. I don’t think it’s been proven. I’m not trying to be –”
Stephanopoulos interjected, “Allegations he was behind,” then Trump continued, “Sure, there are allegations. I have read those allegations over the years. But nobody’s proven that he’s killed anybody … If he has killed reporters, that’s terrible. He’s always denied it. He’s never been proven that he’s killed anybody. You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty at least in our country. He’s not proven that he’s killed reporters.” …
Trump answered, “I’m not saying anything. I’m saying when you say a man killed reporters I’d like you to prove it.I have never seen any information or any proof that he killed reporters, George, you’re just saying, he killed reporters. You and other people killed reporters. I don’t know that. I haven’t seen it. If he did it’s despicable. It’s horrible. You’re making these accusations, I don’t see any proof. By the way, he totally denied that he killed reports are. He totally denied it.”
This particularly enraged Establishment commentators, but once again Trump is completely right and cannot be stumped. There is absolutely no evidence that Putin ordered the assassination of a single journalist.
Moreover, according to figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists – hardly a bastion of Putin apologists – journalist murders have plummeted in Russia under the reign of the Dark Lord of the Kremlin relative to the “free” and “democratic” 1990s when the US was best buddies with Russia, or at least the oligarchs pillaging it, and for that matter whacking any journalists who dared report on their activities.
Literally MORE Russian journalists were murdered for their reporting under 8 years of Yeltsin than 15 years under Putin.
Note also the following:
(1) Russia has a lot of journalists – according to UN data, it has twice the number of newspaper journalists as the US (despite having half the population). Adjusted for per capita rates, Russian journalists have always been far safer than any number of “democratic” countries that get on with the US such as Brazil, Mexico, India, Colombia. Even in the 1990s. And this is despite the fact that under Putin, the CPJ has been actively trying to tie any murder of a Russian journalist it feasibly could to his or her professional activity, even where such connections are questionable or altogether non-existent. According to a 2008 analysis by blogger Fedia Kriukov, considerably more than 50% of the Russian journalists the CPJ claims were killed for their professional activities – that is, angering business interests, local authorities, etc. – actually turned out to be wholly or partially falsified. Note that Putin doesn’t even begin to enter into this.
(2) As of this year, Russia imprisons only one journalist. It usually veers in the 0-1 range. Although even one is too much, but within the 1-3 range that even developed Western countries occasionally stray into. That consistently includes Israel; Italy in 2013; and for that matter, the US itself in 2013, though for some reason, the CPJ doesn’t count Barret Brown. (Another curious exception is Ukraine and the case of Ruslan Kotsaba, who is in prison and almost a year on still awaiting trial for calling the war in the Donbass a civil war and expressing his opposition to conscription). In contrast, Erdogan’s Turkey imprisons 14 journalists (an improvement from 40 in 2013). Of course that minor matter didn’t stop Jeb Bush from enthusiastically affirming his support for them when the Turks knocked a Russian warplane out of the sky for an accidental infringement of their territory for a few seconds.
On Russia as on most other things Trump steers a blazing path through Establishment lies. If he or his aides read Steve Sailer, as seems to be within the realm of possibility, it is perhaps not an entirely empty fancy of mine that they might have skimmed over a bit of my stuff as well.
Mitt Romney is a red underwear-wearing pathetic joke and the typical vacuous mainstream Republican. One of his intellectual gurus was a penniless con-man who was arrested for fraud and whose only claim to fame is he wrote a book on how to get rich.
NB: Trump made more money on his television show than Romney made in all of his years in a predatory money-shifting business.
[a penniless con-man who was arrested for fraud]
Just like Joseph Smith, in other words.
Here are some interesting recent comments by two distinguished military men. One is Brigadier F.B. Ali, formerly of the Pakistani military (now a Canadian citizen) and Col. Patrick Lang (U.S.A., ret.), who was head of intelligence analysis at the DIA.
So in other words, in the last two years of Dignity™ more journalists have been whacked in Kiev (3 by my count, Buzina, Sukhobok and Moroz) than in the Dark Empire (0).
Then, you have a bunch that have been killed in crossfire incidents and so on in the conflict zone, but that’s a whole other thing. The above journalists were assassinated, and all three were critical of the Poroshenko regime.
Let’s up the ante. Apart from journalists, Mr. Trumps opponents brought up “political enemies” and what not. Now, in Russia, as far as I can recall one (1) opposition figure was assassinated in this time for what appears to be political reasons – namely Mr. Nemtsov. He fell victim to a well complicated plot that by all accounts appears to be intended as a message TO Putin rather than a message FROM him. But that’s beside the point, we got one there.
In Ukraine, I’ve seriously lost count. Starting from Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014 up until this June (2015), about a dozen oppositionists, critics and people affiliated with Yanukovych in various ways were smoked. Many were subsequently labelled as bizarre suicides by the Kievan authorities. Case closed. There’s probably been more since then, I haven’t bothered keeping track, and the media’s not too keen on keeping track either.
Whataboutism sure, but it does make a fine point.
By the way, that old blog by Fedia Kriukov you referenced turned out to be a gold mine. Shame it’s so short though, what’s he doing these days?
It’s baffling when you realize just how wrong these big shot “Kremlinologists” were, looking back 7 years later. Kriukov completely trashed their analyses and forecasts back then (as did you, Anatoly, as far as I can remember) for good reasons, but oh boy, now as the actual stats are in it’s nothing short of staggering how incredibly wrong they all were.
And these are the same guys that are still on the job as “leading experts” that to no small degree shape Western policy and general sentiments vis-a-vis Russia.
♪♪♪
Whataboutism to the left of me, Whataboutism to the right.
Here I am , stuck in the middle with yoooooouuu!
♪ ♪ ♪
Trump’s a better and more diplomatic guy than me, that’s for sure. If somebody tried to tell me Putin is a bad guy because he “kills journalists”, I’d probably say something like “I’m not a journalist, so I don’t care” just because the person asking me obviously is a journalist.
I think that it is funny that the MSM is trying to use the Putin/Trump relation as a way to damage Trump. I would guess that for a great many Trump supporters, Putin might be their 2nd choice as a leader so this is will be one more desperate and failing effort to damage Trump.
Trump is a pretty smart guy. He’s able to recognize and cut immediately to the core of an issue on his feet. Because he’s rather plain spoken some people have downplayed his intellectual ability as compared to some of his political competition which is, in my view, mistaken as they confuse style and packaging with substance. Analyze his responses and read between the lines. He’s had actual real-world successes unlike the others, most of whom have had few accomplishments outside of government. Because of this he doesn’t need to play follow the leader. He’s much smarter than the other candidates who are hardly more than wind-up toys. From the little I saw of the ‘debates’ the others were just mindlessly vying with one another as to who could be verbally tougher against the Russians. Nothing much about their blueprints for improving the quality of life for Americans. They were just using it as a major distraction.
The vast majority of Americans didn’t know there was such a place as Crimea. After the huge propaganda barrage of the past few years many now think they can’t live without it, whatever and wherever it is. How dare Putin take it away from us even though it’s rather hazy as to when did we actually own it. Another propaganda meme has been injecting the word “thug” constantly into the discourse to attach it to those the propaganda apparatus doesn’t like. Bush launched wars of aggression that have killed hundreds of thousands of people and yet he’s not a “thug”.
Journalists are killed in countries with free press.
That is why media hyenas were not killed in Soviet Union. And are not targeted in Russia or USA.
MSMs in both Russia and USA became branch of government and follow orders from above.
You do not kill your own functionaries.
And as both Turkey and Ukraine have so far some free press, the end result is that Journalists are being killed.
It’s like Trump is the bad guy because he doesn’t want Putin assassinated and says he would talk to him. Shows how screwed up our policies are. BTW, professor of Russian studies Stephen Cohen talks for an hour about Russia on the John Batchelor Show every Tuesday. Worth listening to. Cohen’s a lefty who is more positive about Trump and Russia than the conservative host is.
Trump is a bit of an innocent in regards to foreign policy. He didn’t know what Nuclear Triad was. On the other hand, he didn’t know that he was supposed to hate Putin’s guts. True, there are many things that he has to learn, but, even more important, there is just as much stuff that he doesn’t have to unlearn. On balance, I’ll take it.
If he or his aides read Steve Sailer, as seems to be within the realm of possibility, it is perhaps not an entirely empty fancy of mine that they might have skimmed over a bit of my stuff as well.
If this happens to be true and Trump wins, you will have accomplished more than 99.999% of all the writers who’ve ever lived. If you need motivation, imagine that it’s true. And it could be.
There is much less freedom of speech and of the press in the Ukraine than in Russia. Anatoly and others have posted pictures of billboards in the Ukraine asking citizens to report those of their friends and neighbors who support separatism, denigrade the Ukrainian language and criticize the junta’s version of Ukrainian history in private conversations. The billboards specify the punishment for such speech (it’s some number of years in prison).
A Ukrainian journalist whom I folllow online, a guy named Anatoly Shariy, has received public death threats from Ukrainian government officials. He lives in exile in Western Europe.
A journalist who supports separatism cannot work in the Ukriane. None do. It’s exile or death. In contrast, lots of Russian journalists openly support the Kiev junta, the United States, the EU, Turkey and lots of other entities that are hostile to Putin and Russia. Ukrainian officials regularly appear on Russian talk shows to argue for the junta’s view of the conflict. At the very worst this results in some back-and-forth shouting on live TV.
I don’t think Trump has made more money with his TV show than Romney has. At any rate, Trump and Romney are in the same basic industry – the FIRE sector. Real estate developers like Trump work closely with finance and make money off of financial speculation. They make money off of land rent – which is capitalized as interest – appreciation. They don’t actually make money off of the building value itself, the building is just a tool for financial speculation.
Also, Trump’s daughter is married to the son of a convicted felon and con-man.
“3 by my count, Buzina, Sukhobok and Moroz”
There are many more. Sergei Dolgov for a start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Dolgov
The interesting thing about that murder was that not only was it almost completely ignored in the western MSM, but they were very touchy about any mention of it.
My commenting account on the Guardian was instantly disabled for mentioning Dolgov. That doesn’t happen that often (they frequently delete posts which are too sceptical of their narrative, of course).
Let’s use the media’s logic:
The entire establishment, other than a few mavericks like Trump, cozies up to Mexico, where thugs routinely harass, intimidate, kidnap and murder journalists. They want to import Mexico here, and go ape and pillory Trump when he suggests keeping Mexicans out.
Same thing goes for Syrians.
Meaning, the establishment does precisely what they accuse Trump of doing. They want to import these anti-freedom-of-the-press populations into America, and they lie consistently to further that aim. It’s no wonder journalists are famous for being drunkards; they’re self-medicating their consciences because they know they lie for a living. They lie to give aid and comfort to murderers for their daily bread.
Indeed, I’d have a hard time keeping myself from making a crack like, “you say that like it’s a bad thing.” And then pointing out that journalist is practically synonymous with “spy” and that there’s not much difference between the two; that journalists’ high regard for themselves is not necessarily shared the world over. Many people see journalists as little more than propagandist hacks at best, and spies at worst. A necessary evil, perhaps, but far from their ennobled self image.
And, consequently, he couldn’t tell us which of the DoD’s toys – subs, bombers, or missiles – where his favorite. Tsk.
WGAF? It’s jargon. It’s what the joint chiefs are for.
Anatoly says “once again Trump is completely right and cannot be stumped.”
Wrong, dead wrong, and stupid.
He has been extremely sloppy with his facts far in excess of any other presidential candidate ever.
Now there are things that Trumps says that I admire him for and agree with, don’t invade the world, don’t invite the world, ect ect. But the man plays fast and loose with the facts ALL THE TIME. When he is fact checked he is exposed as being wrong far more than any other candidate. It’s too bad, we could use a political leader as smart as Trump but the man is just too flaky.
He’s doing fine but no longer writes a blog about Russia.
That said he did do a few (4) translations for The Russian Spectrum (an abortive project I had in 2013 to translate articles from the Russian media). They are here: https://akarlin.com/writer/fkriukov/
Who are these people stalking me , I know some but not as much as I need , my twitter account ……”Complain_2_EPA “…… I know off duty cops are involved , but is a certain person in Homeland Defense involved in all of this , how is it police and FBI refuse to investigate . Been going on in all seriousness more than 12 years .
A few quick notes (a bit off-topic from the OP):
Seymour Hersh’s latest expose is pretty big. Evidently the US military has been secretly helping Assad since 2013, even as Obama has been steadfastly insisting that he needs to go:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
I suspect some of the spam comments, such as William Draper’s above, might be not-so-innocuous– e.g.,:
http://archive.is/PoUMo
Actually, Trump has done very well when “fact-checked” by MSM “neutral judges”.
The brouhaha about the “dancing Muslims” right after 9/11 is a case in point. The most important thing Trump got wrong was the true ethnicity of the dancers: They were Israelis celebrating their most brilliant Mossad operation yet, and that is, perhaps, installing the nuclear detonators (as in “nanothermite”) into the three towers so successfully, while World Trade Center Security was temporarily down “for renovations” and the cameras, etc., were not operational.
The “Israeli Art Students” at the WTC prior to 9/11 are an interesting object of study:
https://9/11justicehalifax.wordpress.com/israeli-art-of-deception-students-at-wtc/
“Ours is an argument that pushes back, at least in part, against the claim that politics has been captured by economic elites,” says Fisman, who is the first Slater Family Professor in Behavioral Economics, in BU’s College of Arts & Sciences. “We provide a less insidious—but still problematic—explanation for limited redistribution. Politicians are acting on their principles, but these principles—which emphasize efficiency at the expense of equality—diverge from those of everyday Americans.” Boston U.
H.L. Mencken was right, the man without hope is spared from the misery of being disappointed. Looking at the top political leaders today and those running, God might even be disappointed. The big crooks run everything and the small time crooks rot in jails creating state jobs to support the vote, which is keeping with tradition. Every election is a kind of advanced auction of stolen goods. We’re all slaves to water, the only pure thing left. China has air not worth breathing.
“the massively built old man was tired, despite his customary show of energy. I guess when you get up into that bracket, Herbert decided, you have to act in a certain way; you have to appear more than a human with merely ordinary failings.”
― Philip K. Dick, Ubik
We’re looking at the potential for massive failings. This could prove bigger than the first Russian collapse and with Snowden playing the role of hacker-in-residence more people will be trying to get underground faster. Yuri has you covered! Tap your app to get more crap!
Friendly OSS Intel: That independence Britons prize too high,
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell’d.
Ferments arise, imprison’d factions roar,
Represt ambition struggles round her shore,
Till over-wrought, the gen’ral system feels
Its motions stop, or phrenzy fire the wheels.
Every man is a lord underground and every lady sweetens life unknown. Love is gray combat.