American Politics

[PVMonger]

I would ask what color is the sky in your world, JC, but obviously you are still locked up in your mom's basement and for good reason. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.

Are you on your 10th booster?

I am not so sure why you hate Putin so much. When he invaded Ukraine, the pandemic ended.

With President Joe "I never met a war I did not like" Biden in charge, the freedom hating, defense industry funded neocons have jumped parties, and Putin is the new villain. We had M Qaddafi in Libya, S Hussein in Iraq, and Assad in Syria who somehow hung in there. Thing about regime change is that I cannot cite one since WW2 where things got better when the USA toppled a leader, but that was never the goal. The defense industry made out like bandits thank God. Toppling Putin and having another failed regime change kind of reminds me of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, "It will work this time for sure. ".

Speaking of Rocky and Bullwinkle, maybe we should go back in a time machine to 2000. Your boy Bill Clinton was a big fan of Yeltsin. Remember him? Yeah, he was getting stoned on vodka why the country burned. My brother went to Russia and heard the horror stories with Yeltsin. Women turned to prostitution like crazy, not enough food, trains not running on time ETC. Putin came in, arrested one oligarch, and said to the oligarchs you guys worry about making money, and I will run the country. It helped that oil prices rebounded but Russia became very prosperous under Putin and is in a much better economic place than Ukraine. He is not as popular as he was but he still is loved by many there.

As for history, JFK knew the truth about WW2. The Russians much more so than the USA defeated the Nazis, and you would be hard pressed to find a country that suffered more than they did in the history of the world. One in seven Russians died. Women were raped. Cities were starved ETC, and those fears linger to this day.

You can call Putin all the names you want, but you are dead wrong about how the Russian people feel. When Ukraine started shutting off water to the Crimea, had soldiers wearing Nazi symbols, abused ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, and talked of joining NATO where Germany is a member, you may think that was no big deal, but I guarantee you the Russian people felt differently. The Russian people are determined to never again have a WW2 and if that means invading Ukraine to get themselves in a better defensive position, then the feeling for many Russians is so be it.

The Russian people don't want a WWII so they thought invading Ukraine was OK?

You realize, hopefully, that Estonia and Latvia have been NATO members since 2004 and they both share a border with Russia. Finland entered NATO about 6 months ago and they share a border with Russia also.

Using your logic, it will be perfectly OK for Russia to invade those countries next.

As to this statement "I am not so sure why you hate Putin so much. When he invaded Ukraine, the pandemic ended. " it is probably tongue-in-cheek. But Repubs love post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking. Somehow, they always forget that COVID happened several months after the one-term, twice-impeached, twice-indicted, former-guy stopped funding for PREDICT. Coincidence? Not by Repub logic.

[Tiny 12]

Elvis, That's the second truly thought provoking post I've read here. The first was written by PVMonger or Tooms, although I never gave him the satisfaction of knowing that.

Clayton's out of character. I believe he's usually more diplomatic.

I am not so sure why you hate Putin so much. When he invaded Ukraine, the pandemic ended.

I'm on my third booster -- that's still hilarious.

With President Joe "I never met a war I did not like" Biden in charge, the freedom hating, defense industry funded neocons have jumped parties, and Putin is the new villain. We had M Qaddafi in Libya, S Hussein in Iraq, and Assad in Syria who somehow hung in there. Thing about regime change is that I cannot cite one since WW2 where things got better when the USA toppled a leader, but that was never the goal. The defense industry made out like bandits thank God. Toppling Putin and having another failed regime change kind of reminds me of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, "It will work this time for sure. ".

I started thinking about that. Yeah, Iran, Guatemala, Zaire, Libya, Iraq, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba etc. , when we overthrew or tried to overthrow a leader, things got worse. Or they didn't get demonstrably better. The only interventions I can think of with good outcomes were Kuwait, and probably Kosovo and South Korea. And in those instances the population was on our side. Well, the Russian people aren't on our side. As you say, Putin's popular in Russia, a lot more popular than Biden or Trump is here. Those who believe he's going to get kicked out of power in the near future are probably mistaken. And who replace him if Putin's pushed out? Patrushev and Medvedev are the most likely, and they're to the right of Putin. This could play out like Cuba. We try to overthrow Putin, but never do. He finally dies of natural causes. And then the people who come along afterwards aren't much different.

So, aren't we on the same side as the Ukrainians? Well, yes, probably we did the right thing by pumping in support to help prevent the fall of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, etc. But Crimeans clearly want to stay part of Russia. And the majority of people in separatist areas of Donbas want to be part of Russia. I linked to a 2019 poll by Ukrainian institutions that showed that, and so did an early 2022 poll conducted by the Washington Post. An interesting question posed by the Post in January, 2022, do you agree or disagree with the following, "It doesn't matter to me in which country I live: all I want is a good salary and then a good pension. " The majority of people in both government controlled and non government controlled Donbas agreed with that statement.

Maybe Biden's wising up. Supposedly he has a couple of people at the state department talking with the Russians, looking for a solution. I hope his administration will push for peace harder, and not wait around for years until the Ukrainians have either recaptured Crimea and all the Donbas or capitulated to Russia.

I did a little reading this morning on some of your other points. There's more truth there than some of our friends here would care to admit, for example about cutting off water to Crimea and the attitude or paranoia or whatever you want to call it of many Russians towards the west. I wonder what their reaction would be if Trump used the Proud Boys like Poroshenko used the Azov Brigade.

[Elvis 2008]

10% of Americans believe the Earth is flat.

Are you one of them?

[John Clayton]

I would ask what color is the sky in your world, JC, but obviously you are still locked up in your mom's basement and for good reason. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.
...I am not so sure why you hate Putin so much. When he invaded Ukraine, the pandemic ended...

10% of Americans believe the Earth is flat.

[Elvis 2008]

Trying to persuade you is a waste of precious world bandwidth. Eventually, after Putin is deposed, it will be revealed that Trump was a closely held Kremlin asset. He is a traitor to the United States.

I'm hopeful that Russia will come to its senses after Putin is gone, and that 2016/17 uncorroborated (and unfairly maligned) NYT reporting will be shown to be wholely true. I'm looking forward to it.

I would ask what color is the sky in your world, JC, but obviously you are still locked up in your mom's basement and for good reason. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.

Are you on your 10th booster?

I am not so sure why you hate Putin so much. When he invaded Ukraine, the pandemic ended.

With President Joe "I never met a war I did not like" Biden in charge, the freedom hating, defense industry funded neocons have jumped parties, and Putin is the new villain. We had M Qaddafi in Libya, S Hussein in Iraq, and Assad in Syria who somehow hung in there. Thing about regime change is that I cannot cite one since WW2 where things got better when the USA toppled a leader, but that was never the goal. The defense industry made out like bandits thank God. Toppling Putin and having another failed regime change kind of reminds me of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, "It will work this time for sure. ".

Speaking of Rocky and Bullwinkle, maybe we should go back in a time machine to 2000. Your boy Bill Clinton was a big fan of Yeltsin. Remember him? Yeah, he was getting stoned on vodka why the country burned. My brother went to Russia and heard the horror stories with Yeltsin. Women turned to prostitution like crazy, not enough food, trains not running on time ETC. Putin came in, arrested one oligarch, and said to the oligarchs you guys worry about making money, and I will run the country. It helped that oil prices rebounded but Russia became very prosperous under Putin and is in a much better economic place than Ukraine. He is not as popular as he was but he still is loved by many there.

As for history, JFK knew the truth about WW2. The Russians much more so than the USA defeated the Nazis, and you would be hard pressed to find a country that suffered more than they did in the history of the world. One in seven Russians died. Women were raped. Cities were starved ETC, and those fears linger to this day.

You can call Putin all the names you want, but you are dead wrong about how the Russian people feel. When Ukraine started shutting off water to the Crimea, had soldiers wearing Nazi symbols, abused ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, and talked of joining NATO where Germany is a member, you may think that was no big deal, but I guarantee you the Russian people felt differently. The Russian people are determined to never again have a WW2 and if that means invading Ukraine to get themselves in a better defensive position, then the feeling for many Russians is so be it.

[EihTooms]

I think theres a YUGE difference between millions of drunks / mongers choosing to spend their mongering dollars in Siam and actually living there.

I've spent over 55 yrs in comfort in what the west has to offer and even if I won 650 million on the powerball tonite I'm not moving to BKK or anywhere else in the 3rd world.

I just spent 5 months there again (Asia)!! And I won't be moving there, ever not even if you put a gun to my head!!

The 3rd world is not for me, I need to eat safe / normal food, breathe clean air, clean water, have competent physicans etc etc.

But the west does have serious flaws, ie Joe Biden and the junkie and their ilk.

I might prefer some place like eastern Europe / Budapest? Moscow? The middle east? Istanbul / Ankara?

Some place like those above far away from Joe Biden and voters but not anywhere in Latin America or anywhere in Asia NO THANK YOU!

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualized-ocean-plastic-waste-pollution-by-country/

the air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution , trash everywhere, massive rats and roaches AGAIN NO THANK YOU

ie, I was in Bali, what a fucking shithole, you want a nice place to visit goto Maui instead!!

Yes, I spent over 55 years living in USA too. Almost all of those years in one of the most desirable regions of the most desirable and populace states as a matter of fact. If I won the Big Lottery tomorrow, where I live now would still be my preferred home base. Maybe I would travel more for 2-3 years but know I would get bored with that soon enough. Same as I got bored with the USA, bored with Western sensibilities and chose to experience something else in the last 1/3 or so.

In terms of relaxation, comfort, safety, peace of mind, fun, variety, freedom, pleasure and my good health, as a single man with no children, grandchildren, older parents or other family obligations in the West to speak of, it has turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I wish I could have done it at 38 instead of 58.

I don't think Bangkok has been ranking either #1 or #2 on those Most Visited Cities lists for years due to drunks and mongers flooding the place. It would be general tourism same as it is for Paris, London and most others at the top of the list.

The superior mongering scene over the others at the top of the list could be the icing on the cake and also addresses a point Paulie made about it.

Noise pollution, water pollution, trash everywhere, massive rats and roaches? Not a problem where I sleep. Maybe you should choose a better hotel next time you treat yourself to a trip. I hear several cities in the USA had the worst air pollution on Earth lately out of Canada, no?

[MarquisdeSade1]

Great. Then since you have done so much better with your investments, building a retirement income and will be retiring in Spain, that leaves more 20-something Asian cuties for me to fuck and get blown by in my poor but beautifully well-located shanty in the #1 most visited city on the Planet. Personally, I prefer to live in a big city, not on a beach, staring at the ocean. I spent many years living at or near the beach in the USA:

The Worlds Most Visited Cities.

June 23, 2023

https://travelness.com/most-visited-cities-in-the-world

Yeah, Paris and London are on the list. After Bangkok. But those are the only cities in France or the United Kingdom on the list. Thailand has three on the list of the top 20, including a mongering resort town too boring for me to even consider living in. All three of them rank higher than the first city in Spain on the list.

Maybe you should do a little more traveling around Thailand and other destinations in Asia before you settle on retiring in that casa in Spain.

I think theres a YUGE difference between millions of drunks / mongers choosing to spend their mongering dollars in Siam and actually living there.

I've spent over 55 yrs in comfort in what the west has to offer and even if I won 650 million on the powerball tonite I'm not moving to BKK or anywhere else in the 3rd world.

I just spent 5 months there again (Asia)!! And I won't be moving there, ever not even if you put a gun to my head!!

The 3rd world is not for me, I need to eat safe / normal food, breathe clean air, clean water, have competent physicans etc etc.

But the west does have serious flaws, ie Joe Biden and the junkie and their ilk.

I might prefer some place like eastern Europe / Budapest? Moscow? The middle east? Istanbul / Ankara?

Some place like those above far away from Joe Biden and voters but not anywhere in Latin America or anywhere in Asia NO THANK YOU!

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualized-ocean-plastic-waste-pollution-by-country/

the air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution , trash everywhere, massive rats and roaches AGAIN NO THANK YOU

ie, I was in Bali, what a fucking shithole, you want a nice place to visit goto Maui instead!!

[SubCmdr]

One of the reasons I left the (Dis) United States of America is because of decline in civil discourse and the failure of the powers that be to enforce the law against rogue law enforcement officers and agencies. The mentality of looking at me as 3/5 of a person is still in play and due to current politics on the rise and out in the open. I don't care which party you favor, neither the donkey or the elephant care about the individuals in the country looked at as 3/5 of a person.

Wage slaves want to characterize everything they don't understand by being critical of it even thought they have no real experience with it. The (Dis) United States of America taxes all of its citizens world wide. They currently have the world's reserve currency. And they have the money printer and they make it rain at a level no one else can match. And they still cannot get their financial affairs in order. A currency collapse is coming.

It is a sad state of affairs and I loathe to return to the (Dis) United States of America. My biggest fear is Police Violence. I grew up respecting the police. I now have a NWA philosophy about the police. The last thing in the world that I want when I am in the (Dis) United States of America is a police encounter. The fear mongering and scapegoating has gotten completely out of control. That makes me a acceptable target as I am only looked at as 3/5 of a person.

There are many reasons people leave the (Dis) United States of America. It always assumed that individuals who do so are poor. Actually, I have found that you need real money in order to live a lifestyle equivalent to the one in the (Dis) United States of America. If you want to live on less money you have to do so by dramatically changing your lifestyle. I believe that the DUSoAGOV has purposely slowed down processing of passport issuance and renewal applications, because they see people running for the exits. Passport holders in DUSoA has climbed to 40% of the population. That is 133,000,000 people. DAMN!

Productivity is in danger because the parties cannot put in place immigration law that will serve the purposes of the economy. They would rather sacrifice economic viability on the alter of principle. The constitution of the (Dis) United States of America was designed to force compromise to avoid tyranny of the majority. Now it has reversed and there is tyranny of the minority of political thinkers in DUSoA. The constitution needs to an update.

[MarquisdeSade1]

I can do that for you. And I use a mirror to shave. I don't need one to answer your question. But thank you for your suggestion. There is an organization known as the World Bank Are you familiar with it?

3rd world describes geo political situation that no longer exists. And if you look at the current world the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world does not exist. The world is breaking down into trade blocks without unified political philosophy. The World Bank classifies economies for analytical purposes into four income groups: low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high income.

https://datatopics.worldbank.org/wor...nd-region.html#text=The%20 World%20 Bank%20 classifies%20 economies,%2 Dmiddle%2 see%20 and%20 high%20 income.

You are welcome for the education I gave you.

There are enough posters getting high off their own farts around here, this thread doesn't need more of you.

https://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0

#NO MORE FART HUFFERS!

[EihTooms]

The worst slam against the Times reporting on Trump's Russia connection in 2016/17 is that it was "uncorroborated", never that it was false or untrue or a lie. Prior to his election, I believed him to be simply, in KGB parlance, a "useful idiot" -- greedy, vainglorious and easily manipulated. I chalked up the 2016 changes to the GOP platform as purely (or mostly) the contrivance of Manafort who, inarguably, is a Russian agent. Trump's opposition to NATO could have been due to his primitive, internal ideology. However, my epiphany about him occurred in the summer of 2017 when he, out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, when he opposed Montenegro's talks about eventually joining the EU. Manafort, long gone by then, had had a financial interest in Ukraine, but not Montenegro. I mean, come on, could Trump even find Montenegro on a map? Clearly, someone had instructed him to say that word for word. Later, Trump in Helsinki, Trump undermining NATO, Trump blocking arms to Ukraine were just further evidence that someone was telling him what to say. The false narrative in the press was that Trump was using arm sales to Ukraine to elicit dirt on Biden. The reality is that search for Biden malfeasance was just a cover for blocking arm sales. Stopping the shipment of MANPADS was the entire point.

I'm hopeful that Russia will come to its senses after Putin is gone, and that 2016/17 uncorroborated (and unfairly maligned) NYT reporting will be shown to be wholely true. I'm looking forward to it.

Reports of this kind have been coming in since at least last year. Much further back than that if you count his attempt to fire Mueller.

Of course, a so-called potus illegally ordering IRS audits and investigations on his perceived foes for investigating his extraordinarily tight connection and collusion with Russia is exactly what someone does when he know there was nothing even more incriminating for the investigators to find.

Clearly, even that numbskull recognized that what those investigations did and could reveal about him and his Team regarding Russia was far from "nothing":

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Lisa-Page.html

John Kelly, who served as Donald Trump's chief of staff from July 2017 to January 2019, has testified about Trump's request to the IRS.

Kelly said that Trump wanted the IRS to investigate FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, after they were involved in investigating his Russia ties in 2016.

[EihTooms]

Sigh. Another article published in 2019 that just looks at data from the first year when changes in the corporate tax regime went into effect.

What do shareholders do with money from corporate buybacks? They re-invest it. That's the process by which typewriter manufacturers are replaced by computer manufacturers. Buybacks and dividends which move money to higher return investments are better for the economy than when empire-building CEO's keep the money and invest it in lower return projects and expansions.

Companies didn't immediately repatriate all their cash held overseas in 2018. And as I said, companies didn't immediately pick up and move a business from, say Ireland to Austin, the year when the corporate tax cut and the GILTI tax on foreign earnings took effect. And as I showed you, investment by S&P 500 companies at least didn't boom until a couple of years after the tax cut.

As to your article on the 2004 act, I'm not familiar with it. It did not lower the corporate income tax rate from the highest in the developed world to the middle of the pack, thus making many American businesses competitive again. Nor did it impose a new tax on foreign earnings like the TCJA. In the medium and long term, those changes encouraged domestic investment.

Finally why do you keep quoting the 2.5 trillion number, for the amount that the TCJA is supposed to leave in taxpayers' pockets? That assumes that all the provisions of the TCJA will be extended when they sunset. And that will require Democratic votes in Congress and most likely a Democratic President. Given the way the Republican Party is self destructing, that's unlikely to happen.

Oh, then you must have loads of up-to-date links from, say, the Federal Reserve Board as well as the BLS detailing all the domestic jobs being created due to repatriated money flowing into USA thanks to TCJA lo these 6 years later.

May we see them, please?

I don't even think Fux News is on the assignment to float such a claim. Nor have I heard pro Trump Repub leadership insisting that is what is behind Bidenomics' historic jobs creation. Their preference is either to blame inflation due to too many jobs being created by Biden's remarkably successful recovery legislation or to just ignore the job gain numbers as they come in. Shouldn't they all be celebrating these fabulous results of Repub economic stewardship each and every time the same as you do?

[Xpartan]

The worst slam against the Times reporting on Trump's Russia connection in 2016/17 is that it was "uncorroborated", never that it was false or untrue or a lie. Prior to his election, I believed him to be simply, in KGB parlance, a "useful idiot" -- greedy, vainglorious and easily manipulated. I chalked up the 2016 changes to the GOP platform as purely (or mostly) the contrivance of Manafort who, inarguably, is a Russian agent. Trump's opposition to NATO could have been due to his primitive, internal ideology. However, my epiphany about him occurred in the summer of 2017 when he, out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, when he opposed Montenegro's talks about eventually joining the EU. Manafort, long gone by then, had had a financial interest in Ukraine, but not Montenegro. I mean, come on, could Trump even find Montenegro on a map? Clearly, someone had instructed him to say that word for word. Later, Trump in Helsinki, Trump undermining NATO, Trump blocking arms to Ukraine were just further evidence that someone was telling him what to say. The false narrative in the press was that Trump was using arm sales to Ukraine to elicit dirt on Biden. The reality is that search for Biden malfeasance was just a cover for blocking arm sales. Stopping the shipment of MANPADS was the entire point.

And let's not forget his friendly chats with Pu without an interpreter. At least three such chats took place between 2017 and 2019, but who knows if there weren't other occasions.

And when there was an interpreter present? Well. . .

Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration.

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi*mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States main adversaries.

As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trumps face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...0a8_story.html

I'm hopeful that Russia will come to its senses after Putin is gone, and that 2016/17 uncorroborated (and unfairly maligned) NYT reporting will be shown to be wholely true. I'm looking forward to it.

No doubt! We'll get his file. The only question is what new set of lies Trump's apologists will manage to come up with.

[Tiny 12]

For example the Mediterranean coastal life is superior in about every aspect, infrastructure, stability, scenery, food, and even hookers (loads of variety)

Agreed, depending on which countries you're comparing to, at least with respect to the Costa del Sol. The hookers in France are harder to come by, and then for those of us who don't speak French, the language is an impediment. I also agree with the Commander about wacko attitudes. And you better be darn sure you don't spend over 183 days a year in either country and not file a tax return, as Shakira found out. She's facing up to 8 years in jail.

[Tiny 12]

The worst slam against the Times reporting on Trump's Russia connection in 2016/17 is that it was "uncorroborated", never that it was false or untrue or a lie. Prior to his election, I believed him to be simply, in KGB parlance, a "useful idiot" -- greedy, vainglorious and easily manipulated. I chalked up the 2016 changes to the GOP platform as purely (or mostly) the contrivance of Manafort who, inarguably, is a Russian agent. Trump's opposition to NATO could have been due to his primitive, internal ideology. However, my epiphany about him occurred in the summer of 2017 when he, out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, when he opposed Montenegro's talks about eventually joining the EU. Manafort, long gone by then, had had a financial interest in Ukraine, but not Montenegro. I mean, come on, could Trump even find Montenegro on a map? Clearly, someone had instructed him to say that word for word. Later, Trump in Helsinki, Trump undermining NATO, Trump blocking arms to Ukraine were just further evidence that someone was telling him what to say. The false narrative in the press was that Trump was using arm sales to Ukraine to elicit dirt on Biden. The reality is that search for Biden malfeasance was just a cover for blocking arm sales. Stopping the shipment of MANPADS was the entire point.

I'm hopeful that Russia will come to its senses after Putin is gone, and that 2016/17 uncorroborated (and unfairly maligned) NYT reporting will be shown to be wholely true. I'm looking forward to it.

From the cjr piece, the Republican Party in its 2016 platform went farther than Obama in its support for Ukraine. Manafort wasn't a Russian agent, and the campaign dropped him like a hot potato when his Ukrainian connections came to light. Yes, he did help pro Russian Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians as a part of his consulting business.

Trump in Helsinki was just being self serving. He didn't want to admit Russia interfered in the election. Same with the Ukraine. He temporarily withheld aid to use that as leverage to try to get the Ukrainians to investigate Giuliani's loony Hunter Biden conspiracy theory and the extremely loony Crowdstrike conspiracy theory. I'm not familiar with Montenegro or MANPADS.

Trump's criticisms of NATO were coupled with demands that NATO countries spend more on defense. And Trump jumped through hoops to try to prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from starting up. Those don't sound like actions of a Russian asset.

You know this subject better than I do. Still, the claim that Trump's a Russian asset sounds very dubious to me, like Republican claims linking Joe Biden to bribery and extortion.

[John Clayton]

.. the highly-respected Columbia Journalism Review.

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/t...ent-part-1.php

The worst slam against the Times reporting on Trump's Russia connection in 2016/17 is that it was "uncorroborated", never that it was false or untrue or a lie. Prior to his election, I believed him to be simply, in KGB parlance, a "useful idiot" -- greedy, vainglorious and easily manipulated. I chalked up the 2016 changes to the GOP platform as purely (or mostly) the contrivance of Manafort who, inarguably, is a Russian agent. Trump's opposition to NATO could have been due to his primitive, internal ideology. However, my epiphany about him occurred in the summer of 2017 when he, out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, when he opposed Montenegro's talks about eventually joining the EU. Manafort, long gone by then, had had a financial interest in Ukraine, but not Montenegro. I mean, come on, could Trump even find Montenegro on a map? Clearly, someone had instructed him to say that word for word. Later, Trump in Helsinki, Trump undermining NATO, Trump blocking arms to Ukraine were just further evidence that someone was telling him what to say. The false narrative in the press was that Trump was using arm sales to Ukraine to elicit dirt on Biden. The reality is that search for Biden malfeasance was just a cover for blocking arm sales. Stopping the shipment of MANPADS was the entire point.

I'm hopeful that Russia will come to its senses after Putin is gone, and that 2016/17 uncorroborated (and unfairly maligned) NYT reporting will be shown to be wholely true. I'm looking forward to it.