Trump definitely acts like a person that Putin has a hold over. If he had, the only question is what this "hold" is.
My bet: A video of Trump happily banging a minor (or even several) in a Moscow hotel room. It would perfectly fit his personal profile, him being a "friend" of Epstein.
From my perspective, this doesn't seem very complicated. Putin is rumored to be the richest (now second or third richest) man in the world. Elon gave what would have previously been well within Putin's budget and look at the absolute subjugation Trump is willing to put up with. This was always a quid pro quo, but Trump doesn't operate on Kompromat. In my opinion, it's just buying favor because it literally is that transactional. Trump will only rip you off if he thinks he can get away with it unscathed.
I would say anyone looking for buyers on favor is inherently a bad person, especially if those favors are always anti-"the one thing you're supposed to do"
At this point, I really do believe the guy could step onto timesquare and just kill a bunch of people, and his voters would still do the mental gymnastics to explain all of that away as the act of a genius businessman just out there to save your average white suburbanite slob. If they even believed it in the first place, the probability of which is quite low.
Once again, for the cheap seats - the US lost the third world war which was waged in the shadows and online. China and Russia installed this fucking nutter both times. Biden won in 2020 because enough folks got off their asses to vote, but the disinformation and propaganda run during Bidens term led to less asses going to the polls. Musk didn’t buy twitter and hollow it out for nyucks. He was directed to do so by China, Russia, and the UAE. Look at the public filings for his purchase. Look at who gave Musk the money for that purchase. Twitter was such a powerful tool to spread or combat disinformation and propaganda, so it was purchased and gutted in order to be used the another nail in the coffin of progressive collective action. Twitter under musk was such a huge part of drumpf 2024 winning.
To be honest and a bit pedantic, it's a continuation of the cold war. There has been no 3rd world war and likely as not due to; Russia's complete mishandling of their nuclear arsenal and China's economic interests, there is little threat of one. The US intelligence departments know this. And with Gabbard as the DNI Chief I'm pretty sure Russia has a finger on the pulse of what we will know. There are rumblings of compartmentalization efforts in the Intelligence communities and there are rumors of rogue efforts to keep sensitive intel within the DOD and subsequent cells and away from the DNI and the Executive branch. We're living in absolutely insane times and the US Hegemony is at it's most vulnerable now. I am not for US Hegemony in the general sense and I do not think that it is the only stabilizing force in world politics. But when a power vacuum forms, it's rare that stability follows in the short term.
If there were ever a time for a general strike to depose and defang the executive branch it is now. However, I don't see the general US populace doing anything on behalf of Ukraine or to further the Hegemony.
With what Musk is allowing DOGE to do we're headed for another great recession. Maybe that will be the inciting event to have a revolution. But I just don't know. The Constitution setup the branches of the government in such a naive way. There are no true checks and balances, just gentleman's agreements to "behave in the best interests of the country". To wit, the Constitution was designed to be a living document to be amended and changed to fit the current society it governs, but this has not been the case. Impeachment does nothing, we have a convicted felon in the White House and a foreign born national directing policy. These are uncharted waters but I don't think anything short of a general strike will change anything.
Yeah I agree on all your points. I like to call it ww3 bc “but US won Cold War, no more Berlin Wall”. Also ww3 sounds scarier and I want people to freak out in a real way.
The crazy part of this is how many people on here will agree with this in principle, but then turn around and repeat propaganda about Biden. The same exact thing they did with Clinton. The playbook is so obvious to anyone who has not become emotionally invested in denying that they got taken by this Russian agitprop.
protip: there is no russian kompramat. never was. it's headline grabbing laziness. donald trump was born a nyc construction scion raised equally in both the kkk and mafia. trump perfers russian strongmen and fascists, he thinks democracy is weak and worthless. there's no gotcha. trump does what he wants because it pleases him. that it. this was always the fight. if the million dead from a purposefully inept covid response didn't tell you that last time, i don't know if there anything anyone can say. in a free, fair, and safe (last?) election young democrats couldn't be bothered to cast a ballot for the continuation of democracy, and so we get fascist disassembly instead
It'd oddly coincidental that it always happens to please Putin too. Also go back to that Helsinki meeting and look at the body language. Trump's is a display of cringing submissiveness that is not consistent with it just being an alignment of interest. Trump is shit-scared of Putin for some reason, kompromat or not.
There is no kompramat that's been proven, however Trump is very happy to take Russian money to further Russian interests. It's the same with the Saudis and Israelis. The US government is for sale.
“The context for this footnote comes from a discussion of the conversation Trump had with Comey during the presidential transition about the Steele dossier, the original source of the pee tape allegations. According to Steele’s dossier, a source alleged that Russians had a tape of compromising material from a 2013 trip to Moscow in which Trump watched prostitutes engage in sexual acts. One part of that sexual encounter allegedly included “golden showers.” Comey would say later that Trump had become obsessed with the sexual allegations in the Steele dossier, despite those allegations being not the criminally incriminating ones, and raised it “at least four times” with the then head of the FBI.”
The narrative was that trump might turn on putin, because Russia is doing terribly on the war front. That seemed possible, but Trump is so easily influenced he bought in to the Russian propaganda the second Putin talked to him.
Trump turns on everybody, but he's never turned on Putin. I don't think there was ever a possibility Trump was going to go against Russia, the source of that was probably people around Trump who are less subservient to Putin.
My theory (and not just mine) is that, in the 80s, Trump ratted out the NY mafia to SDNY, and that's why he was protected from prosecution for his many crimes after that. The collapse of Gotti and co. led to the Russian mob getting much more power.
Yeah. But if you supported the alternative, you're a genocide supporting false progressive blue or nothing scab. In all caps sometimes. Get criticized for calling out the sitouts in one thread, then in another they claim they voted Kamala anyway.
Seriously, I think these guys are running on a script.
"Scaramucci did not elaborate on what he believes that “hold” might be, adding only: “I don’t know why it’s like this. [H.R.] McMaster couldn’t figure it out, [James] Mattis couldn’t figure it out, [John] Kelly couldn’t figure it out."
We know for a fact, thanks to the Mueller Report, that the Pee Tapes mentioned in the Steele Dossier do, in fact, exist. They're fake, but they exist.
"According to a footnote in the special counsel’s report, which was released Thursday, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, received a text from Russian businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze in October 2016 that said: “Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else. Just so you know…”
Rtskhiladze also told prosecutors that he was told the tapes were fake, but that he didn’t convey that to Cohen.
This is the difference between the DNC and the GOP. Both parties know that the PeePee tapes exist and are fake, however the GOP would have released them in 2017 regardless of if they were real or not. Much like the trumping up of Hillary's email server and Bengazi. It's not about what's true or real anymore. It's about public sentiment. That's how Russian and Chinese misinformation are so successful here. We've defunded our schools and have people struggling so much to make ends meet they cannot take the time off to vote, and when they do vote they're often not really looking at anything else than how much groceries and gasoline cost. Which pointedly, the Executive branch has little control over.
We've been fucked since Reagan. John Hinckly Jr. frankly should have had more firearms training.