Tag: Russia

Categories
Donald Trump Russia Vladimir Putin

Trump Minimizes Putin’s Bloody Invasion At Saturday Rally: He Just Needs ‘Somebody To Talk To Him’

At a rally in Florence, South Carolina on Saturday evening, failed former President Donald Trump downplayed the brutality of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, suggesting that he simply needed “somebody to talk to him.”

The ex-president, who at times sounded exhausted and spoke for less than an hour, remarked:

“But the swamp was deep deeper than anybody believed, despite all of Biden’s weakness, cowardice and incompetence, there is still a path for him to end this tragedy in Ukraine. Without getting Americans snared in a gruesome and very bloody war. Bloody war. This could lead by the way this could lead to World War Three. I see what’s happening. Because if you think Putin is going to stop, it’s going to get worse and worse. He’s not going to accept it, and we don’t have anybody to talk to him. You had somebody to talk to him with me.”

Trump also told rallygoers:

“(Putin) happens to be a man who is driven. He’s driven to put it together.”

Just this week, Putin’s troops attacked a maternity hospital in Mariupol, killing three people and endangering the lives of pregnant women and their babies. But he just needs someone to talk to? Sounds like he needs someone to put a bag on his head and deliver him to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

Twitter users were disgusted by Trump’s attempt to minimize Putin’s brutality:

Maybe we can arrest Trump at the same time as Putin and put them both on trial.

Categories
Fox News Media in America Russia

WATCH Fox’s Jennifer Griffin Call Out Sean Hannity For Spreading Russian Propaganda

Fox News host Sean Hannity got fact-checked to his face Wednesday evening when he tried to spread Russian propaganda about the United States having built “biowarfare” labs in Ukraine, which forced Vladimir Putin to launch an invasion of the country.

Specifically, Hannity referenced Soviet-era bioweapons research labs that were constructed in Ukraine, remarking that “we never got clarity” about what became of those facilities:

“Jennifer, but we do know that Victoria Nuland admitted that labs existed. What exactly they’re for, we never got clarity on, correct?”

That’s when Fox Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin called Hannity out for being duped into parroting Russian lies:

“Well, we do have clarity, I have a fact sheet—that’s what I was just reading—from the Pentagon. It is a long program that has existed where the Pentagon has partnered with these biolabs. These were Soviet-era labs that—remember the Nunn-Lugar Bill and trying to deal with proliferation when the Soviet Union ended—that is part of this effort to try to clean up those Soviet-era labs and make sure that nothing escapes from those labs. And so the U.S. has been very open about its involvement there with that. But what Russia does is they take that information, distort it, turn it around, and turn it into disinformation, and that is what has U.S. government officials concerned.”

This is just the most recent instance of Griffin pushing back on lies being broadcast by Fox hosts who seem bound and determined to take the side of Russia, ABC News notes:

Griffin, who has reported for Fox News Channel since 1996, has attracted attention over the past two weeks as she has publicly corrected or contradicted several Fox analysts and hosts on the air about the crisis in Ukraine. When Tucker Carlson suggested this week that some reporters are acting as flacks for the Pentagon, some interpreted that as a criticism of his colleague.

Categories
Donald Trump Foreign Policy Russia Vladimir Putin

Historian Says Putin Misjudged The Resolve Of NATO On Ukraine Because ‘He Was Listening To Trump’

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t going well, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian says that’s because he listened to Trump and thought NATO didn’t have the resolve to stand up to him.

Historian Anne Applebaum said Wednesday on CNN that Putin has long wanted to weaken the NATO alliance, and Trump’s feckless actions and policies led him to believe the Western powers wouldn’t be willing to defend Ukraine:

“Yes, I think Putin was listening to Trump’s denunciations of NATO and he imagined NATO was permanently divided and wouldn’t be able to unite again. I think he didn’t count on what the sight of tanks rolling across a European country would do to people in Germany, people in Italy, people in France, people in Europe, and of course people in the United States.”

However, NATO is now being tested, Applebaum noted, and the alliance is proving to be more than equal to the task:

“It reminds everybody of a part of the European past that we hoped would never come back and NATO was encouraged to prevent. You have seen a really remarkable shift all across Europe as Europeans do now what should have been done some months ago, which is to reinforce and rearm Ukraine.”

Putin has overplayed his hand. And that could well cost him the war in Ukraine, as well as his position of power and his life.

 

Categories
Donald Trump GOP Impeachment WTF?!

Steve Scalise Gets Brutally Fact-Checked For Lying About Trump’s Extortion Of Ukraine 

Even though their continued devotion to failed, one-term, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump is dragging down Republicans in the polls, they simply cannot help themselves when they’re asked a question about the Donald. They always defend him, frequently looking like complete fools as they tie themselves in rhetorical knots.

That’s exactly what happened to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), the House minority whip who was asked about Trump’s infamous 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the then-president attempted to extort Zelensky by suggesting he’d agree to release military aid to Ukraine in exchange for damaging information on Joe Biden or members of his family.

Rather than admit Trump had been wrong to do what he did, Scalise desperately tried to suggest that Zelensky had praised Trump for his “leadership.”

“You look at that conversation. President Zelensky had called President Trump to thank him for the leadership he provided. When Zelensky got elected, he said he modeled after President Trump’s, and ultimately, he got the relief money he wanted.

“President Trump stood with President Zelensky. In fact, the two of them had a really good relationship. In fact, when President Zelensky was asking for things like the Javelin missiles that the Biden and Obama administration said no to. President Trump said yes, and actually helped Ukraine get those tank-busting missiles that they needed and frankly have been using.”

Nope. That’s not what happened. Not even close. And we know that because we have the White House transcript of that conversation which was read into the record as part of Trump’s first impeachment:

“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.”

In other words: Sure, we can send you the military aid you need to defend yourself from Russia, but first you’re gonna have to play ball and help me win reelection.

Scalise was hit with a brutal fact-checking on Twitter.

 

Categories
Foreign Policy Fox News Lies Russia WTF?!

Tucker Carlson Is Now Trying To Blame The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine On…The United States?!

When Russia first invaded Ukraine a couple of weeks ago, Fox News host Tucker Carlson tried desperately to make excuses for the naked aggression of Russian mass murderer Vladimir Putin.

But when polling revealed that Americans universally despised Putin and his attack on Ukraine, Carlson began looking for other ways to frame the issue, suggesting that it was the fault of the Biden administration’s energy policy, which was also met with skepticism by the public.

So Carlson has now shifted his ranting points yet again, and come across this conclusion: The United States itself is to blame because politicians want to go to war with Russia.

HuffPost notes that Carlson was pushing that asinine theory on his show Monday evening:

“Kamala Harris encouraged Ukraine to become a member of NATO. Quote, ‘I appreciate and admire President Zelenskyy’s desire to join NATO.’

“Message: Up yours, Vladimir Putin, go ahead and invade Ukraine. And, of course, Vladimir Putin did that just days later. So the invasion was no surprise to the Biden administration. They knew that would happen. That was the point of the exercise.

“We watched all this happen, we missed it. How? Honestly because it was insane and therefore very hard to take seriously. Why in the world would the United States intentionally seek war with Russia? How could we possibly benefit from that war? We still don’t know the answer to that question.”

They knew that would happen. Really, Tucker? That’s what your going with? Because it sounds more like something you’d hear from a tinfoil hat wearing loon standing in Times Square and clutching a tattered Bible as he proclaims the end of the world is nigh.

Ukraine should have the right to join NATO. If Putin doesn’t like that, too damn bad. He doesn’t set policy for the NATO alliance. Or at least he doesn’t now that Donald Trump is no longer in the White House and doing whatever his “genius” buddy Vlad orders.

By extension, it can be implied that Carlson (and Fox News) thinks that you and I are also culpable for the invasion of Ukraine. If we support NATO and Ukraine, then we triggered Putin to do what he did.

You’d think it’d be difficult for Tucker Carlson to speak with so much bullshit in his mouth. But he’s so used to lying that it comes naturally for him.