How Is Little Russia - Wagging Big Dog America? (#89)
Modern day Russia is tiny, in every critical aspect of global power, to the one and only true ‘Super-Power’ in the World today – The United States of America – (except geographically, of course). Yet it seems to be in almost complete command of America’s administration through the abjectly servile Donald J. Trump, who cannot help but bow and scrape in front of the diminutive Vladimir Putin, as does his administration, and the enablers - the Republican Senators and Congressmen, which to outside observers is a baffling mystery, as it probably is to Americans.
It has now been proven, ad nauseam, that Russia interfered extensively in the American Presidential Election of 2016.
The proof is everywhere. Not only in the extensive evidence gathered by America’s intelligence agencies (one of the World’s best, one would presume), but also in Facebook, WikiLeaks and other social media company records. The Russians used social media expertly and extensively to shape the political profiles of the two leading candidates to harm Hillary Clinton and build up Trump.
And now, Russian interference is chronicled exhaustively in the much maligned Mueller Report, which will form the basis of new Democrat led investigations into Russian and Trump misdeeds of the recent past, before and after the Presidency.
Additionally, not one, but all 15 or so American intelligence agencies were pretty well unanimous in their finding that Russia attacked the U.S. by actively shaping the Presidential Election to favor their preferred candidate, Trump.
Yet, just about all the Republican lawmakers, then in complete charge of both the Congress and the Senate, did not so much as attack Russia, but viciously turned on their own intelligence agencies and the agency leaders, and on their Democrat colleagues who dared to sound the alarm and call for investigations into Russian and Trump campaign activities, which definitely seemed interlinked.
A nation’s lawmakers turning on their own intelligence agencies, and their leaders, their fellow Senators and Congressmen, and any witnesses who dared to offer any testimony against Russia and Trump, is totally bizarre, but there it is.
Since then, President Trump, his administration, and the supporting Republican lawmakers have consistently denied and obstructed investigations into Russian interference, and when the unstopped investigations produced their findings nonetheless, they have gone to extraordinary lengths to disparage, deny and block them, and attack those that were brought in to report on the activities.
How bizarre this behavior actually is can only be fully realized from a non-American’s perceptive - to watch a country’s highest officials fight their own, to protect a dangerous adversary’s frontal assault on them, their country, and their most powerful and precious system of an honest, fair and full Democratic election is beyond mysterious; it in fact crosses into the realm of unpatriotic behavior.
The fact that Trump is denying and protecting Russian interference in the election is totally understandable as it was done entirely to favor him. And since Trump is a fully fledged narcissist, and has always been, his behavior is understandably self-preserving, even if it is at the cost of his country.
But, the fact that the Republican lawmakers are in full alignment with him borders on the frightening, as the U.S. is the bulwark for freedom and democracy in the free World, and the bastion of resistance against the enslaving authoritarianism of countries like Russia and China, and other dictatorships.
Does having a Republican President, one even as flawed as Trump, doing their ‘Republican/Conservative’ bidding, more important to them than the integrity and security of the United States? It would certainly seem so.
If that is so, is it not kind of treasonous, allowing an incredibly dangerous adversary to infiltrate the White House and control the President, and through him some of the highest ranking officials in the US Government?
After the collapse of the great ‘Super-Power’ of the post Second World War modern World, the Soviet Union – America’s greatest and most dangerous foe – the country that emerged from the rubble as the Russia of today, is a country literally a shadow of its former self.
This collapsed Soviet empire was hijacked by a devilishly brilliant former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin, who with a handful of loyalists has taken the remnants of the former Soviet Union hostage, and made it their personal piggy bank, and as a result, have become some of the wealthiest Oligarchs in the World.
Their ill-gotten wealth bailed out Trump and his collapsing real estate empire time and again, to the point that Donald’s sons are on record saying they don’t need banks because they are more than adequately funded by Russian money. (There was a time, the banks wouldn’t lend to Trump because of his many bankruptcies.)
But what Putin also holds hostage is the biggest nuclear arsenal in the World, perhaps not as sophisticated as the United States, but very large and lethal nevertheless. That makes Russia very dangerous in any direct confrontation.
Beyond that, Russia is laughably weak in front of the overall might of the U.S.
It’s economy (the most important factor in having and retaining global power) is literally a fraction of the U.S’s, estimated at $1.5 Trillion to America’s $20.4 Trillion (less than 1/10th ).
And, Russia’s economy is un-diversified, being too heavily dependent on energy and resource exports with not much else as a modern economy. Meanwhile the U.S. is the most dominant economy in the World, with some of the most dominant global companies (China is ascending but it still has some ways to go before it can truly rival the U.S. in economic and military power).
But Putin figured out that by controlling the politicians in the U.S., he does not have to rival American economic and military power, he just has to control the decision makers. He targeted the Republican political organizations and Trump.
The NRA and the Republican (GOP) political circles were deliberately infiltrated by Russian agents like Maria Butina, (photos below) who according to the US Judge, Tanya Chutkan, that sentenced her to 18 months in prison for ‘sophisticated & dangerous’ work – said at her sentencing that "…the conduct was sophisticated and penetrated deep into political organizations…", for the benefit of the Russian Government. (The ‘Political Organizations’ were: the Republican Party, the NRA and the National Prayer Breakfast. Her boyfriend was a GOP operative Paul Erikson, who was allegedly involved in helping her gain access to influential Republicans.)
All the way into the earliest part of Trump’s Presidency, prominent Republicans were being bought by Russian money, starting with the disgraced and now convicted Trump’s first National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and his Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who also now is convicted.
Some of Trump’s highest profile Republican surrogates, like the former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, members of his family, other Senior Advisors, also had questionable contacts and dealings with Russian operatives.
And most other Republicans, right down to the current Attorney General, William Barr, have been so infected by Trump that it is of no consequence to them to side with a President totally beholden to Vladimir Putin and Russian money.
They do not consider it treasonous to defend Trump and the flagrant Russian involvement in American politics at the highest levels, against all those who are fighting to repel Putin and Russia’s hold on the President and free America from Russia’s oversized and dangerous influence.
And as for Trump, he is openly servile to Putin and makes no effort to hide his loyalty to him even to the extent of attacking his own if they dare question or fight to expose Putin’s sinister machinations to weaken America. He, as the US President, astonishingly called Putin, to brief him on the Mueller Report which was all about Russian interference in America’s and Trump’s politics!
Reportedly, Trump has been beholden to Russian money since the early 1980s. Certainly since then, by numerous accounts, money has flowed more or less uninterruptedly into the Trump organization’s real estate projects which have been luxury condos, hotels, casinos and resorts, and possibly other businesses.
Russian free flowing money, from dubious sources, laundered through nameless shell companies, has as the saying goes, bought and paid for Donald Trump many times over. Once Trump became U.S. President with Russian help, the Republicans seemingly fell in line behind him and fought aggressively at his side, every step of the way, to bully, intimidate, discredit and harass any American that dared to expose Russia’s and Putin’s ownership of Trump and his administration.
And that is how, it seems, little Russia wags the big dog America, at will.
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