The Daily GOP Ignominious: Love Of Putin And The US Right

Russian President Vladimir Putin: hero to some in conservative America despite his clear Cold War Era leadership. The man is as regressive as any member of the GOP and only moderately more dangerous to the world at large. Let there be no mistake, conservative America is dangerous to our nation and increasingly dangerous and baneful to international well being.           

 

Veooz 

Ukraine Official: Russia Has Launched ‘Armed Invasion’ In Crimea

Fox News

· 10 mths ago

Summary At the White House, President Obama said the U.S. government is “deeply concerned” by reports of Russian “military movements” and warned any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty would be “deeply destabilizing.” Russia kept silent on claims of military intervention, even as it maintained its hard-line stance on protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea, a peninsula of Ukraine on the northern coast of the Black Sea.

BBC.Com

BBC News – Ukraine: Putin signs Crimea annexation 

Vladimir Putin was flanked by the two parliamentary speakers as he signed the law annexing Crimea

For Putin an Russia (with his 8 ls per cent approval rating): “Let the good times roll.”

Veooz

Obama Warns Of ‘Costs’ To Russian Intervention In Ukraine

Fox News 10 mths ago

Summary “There will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine,” he said, without specifying what those costs might be. “We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine,” Obama said.

Now let’s visit with the “Dark Side.” Yes, I am speaking of the ever-present drum of anti-Obama rhetoric for the Right. As we review what follows, try to recall any instance of US governance that proved more favorable for the Right while proving President Obama wrong you will not find enough of a case to occupy scant seconds of your thought processes. The American Right is a regressive self-destructive entity that thrives-off the social divides in the US. Divides that could easily lead to US wars, increased poverty and the death of the US middle class. Yet, you vote GOP with regard for what follows. 

Mind you, the Russian economy is withering under the grips of international sanctions in response to Putin’s Geo-po;iica ambitions. Well before the vice grip set-in the usual suspect GOP mouth-pieces chimed-in for a chorus of “we love Putin.”

LA Times


Marco Rubio

“We cannot ignore that the flawed foreign policy of the last few years has brought us to this stage, because we have a president who believed but by the sheer force of his personality he would be able to shape global events,” Rubio said. 

Sarah Palin 

“Obama, the perception of him and his ‘potency’ across the world is one of such weakness,” Palin said. “Look it, people are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.” 

Pat Buchanan

“While his stance as a defender of traditional values has drawn the mockery of Western media and cultural elites, Putin is not wrong in saying that he can speak for much of mankind.” Buchanan wrote. “… He is seeking to redefine the ‘Us vs. Them’ world conflict of the future as one in which conservatives, traditionalists and nationalists of all continents and countries stand up against the cultural and ideological imperialism of what he sees as a decadent West.”

Yahoo News

McCain on Obama and the Ukraine..

“….McCain had blasted the Obama administration as “cowardly,” and criticized the president for attending two Democratic fundraisers in New York late Thursday instead of focusing on the international crisis.”

Adam Kinzinger

“Adam Kinzinger, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News that Obama needs to be “very clear-eyed” about the Russian threat and “call Putin out by name.” 

“I hope President Obama shows the same moral leadership today that President (Ronald) Reagan showed in 1983,” Kinzinger said, referring to Reagan’s blistering speech four days after a Soviet fighter jet shot down a Korean Airlines passenger plane that strayed into Soviet air space.”

Lindsey Graham

 Senator Lindsey Graham said years of weak Obama diplomacy and passive responses to crises like Syria have emboldened the world’s aggressors. 

“I’m not blaming the United States for shooting down the airplane,” Graham said Thursday. 

“I’m saying that the foreign policy of President Obama is allowing conflicts to grow in scope and nature, and that the longer these things go the more people get drawn in.”

Rudy Giuliani (the supreme conservative bloviator)

The infamous Guiliani video

http://mediamatters.org/embed/198316

Now, a look at what the American Right embraced with full blown machismo and lust for jingoism.

Wait, do not believe your eyes an ears, this is not happening!

In March of 2014, the US and European countries struck a death knell to Putin and the Russian economy. Putin continued with his (Sarah Palin) “bear wrestling” and the impact of his machismo-Cold War leadership led to what follows.

Global Post 

Excerpt

As the chart below notes, US leverage on Russia via trade is limited, although Europe’s large imports of Russian gas and oil potentially offer a lever if replacement supplies can be arranged. But oil and gas supply chains are notoriously difficult to reroute, and the United States’ exports of its own suddenly copious gas to Russia-dependent Central and Eastern Europe are years away.

That has led many to suggest that by targeting Russia’s state-owned banking sector, the international community can punish with reasonable precision a group that’s abetted Kremlin policies, often enthusiastically.

Read More 
Putin’s Ruble suffers like a bear ready to “tap-out.”

                          

Turns out Vladimir Putin is exactly as smart as he looks … he needs some Rick Perry IQ glasses. pic.twitter.com/bZmntqbHJ3
— Col. Morris Davis (@ColMorrisDavis) December 19, 2014

A visit with a recent LA Times piece drives my point home like s jack hammer. 

If you want a more basic and less satirical ream try CNBC

Russia situation ‘extremely grave’: Trichet

I have focused on the Russian economy post Crimea not so much to criticize the Russian people. My take-away from the piece is a square and honest look at the fallacy of the American Right. Or should I say, those who spent significant time and energy snuggling up to the Russian leader who is by any definition a regressive Cold War relic. He is a dinosaur who shares firm footing with many American conservatives. They are all mired in tar-pits reaching, grabbing and yelping for a time long past.

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Karl Rove "Roves-out" More False Drivel To Fox News Viewers

Bush did it better. Seriously, Karl Rove?

Karl Rove and Fox News continue to malign President Obama with George W. Bush (of all presidents) as the whipping rod. Despite growing concern for Bush Administration and CIA involvement violations of international law (torture), we continue to hear comment and advice from the un-credible and shadowy Right. We continue to hear from GOP operatives as they disparage President Obama, despite  Bush Administration economic policy and fiscal malfeasance that contributed to a worldwide economic collapse and unjustifiable wars. From Dick Cheney, through Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and the ever-present Karl Rove the barrage of inane drivel from the “dealers of doom, flows like an out of control freight train.

But, as the old adage goes….“That dog don’t bark.” 

Carnival barking from Rove isn’t possible without a dedicated platform from which to spew rhetoric. Fox News managers and viewers partake in a symbiotic purveyor/sycophant relationship on a daily basis.  From time to time Fox programmers will schedule major right-wing operatives to feed its viewers unadulterated garbage. There are no GOP operatives more adroit at manipulation, GOP political subterfuge and outright carnival barking political garbage than Karl Rove. Rove served eight years with George W. Bush. He “no way” a credible person. Rove should have been investigated as a co-conspirator to US torture and he should have been publicly condemned for his role in the 2007/08 Bush economic collapse towards. Yet, we have to deal with his bull crap annoyances via Fox News’s need to feed its viewers. What better feeding arena than Sunday Morning GOP news shows. 

Progressive social media should spread Rove’s lack of veracity and manipulation far and wide.

Rove sat for Fox News Sunday (this past weekend) and laid more B/S across the ears, eyes and brains of people who obviously seek weekly doses of Obama Derangement feed. The Fox News Sunday feeding was laced with Rovian “bull” pureed with large amounts of George W. Bush fallacy.

The Tampa Bay Times investigated Rove’s disparaging remarks about President Obama’s handling of international crisis in the context offered by Rove: George W Bush handled such crisis more effectively. 

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

After Russia went to war with Georgia in 2008, the U.S. sent a “very strong message” to Vladimir Putin by sending “warships to the Black Sea” and airlifting “combat troops that Georgia had in Afghanistan” back to Georgia.

Karl Rove on Sunday, March 16th, 2014 in an interview on “Fox News Sunday”

Karl Rove says George W. Bush had a more muscular stance against Putin in 2008 Georgia crisis than Barack Obama has had over Crimea

A Russian military convoy moves past a horse-drawn cart with local residents outside Gori, Georgia, on Aug. 13, 2008. (Associated Press)

Russia and Georgia have had tense relations since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Some Republicans have been critical of President Barack Obama’s handling of Russia and President Vladimir Putin recently. The critics say that Obama has appeared weak in the face of Russia — first, when it sent troops into the Ukrainian region of Crimea, and then when it quickly acted to annex the territory.

For instance, on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said the Obama administration “is creating an air of permissiveness” toward Russian expansionism. “We do need to show long-term resolve.”

Another Fox News Sunday guest, Republican strategist Karl Rove, took the opportunity to contrast Obama’s actions with those of Rove’s old boss, President George W. Bush. Rove suggested that Bush’s policies were more muscular and effective in countering Putin’s Russia.

Read more aftefr the break below

Specifically, in 2008, while Bush was serving his final year in office, he faced a foreign-policy crisis that in some ways echoed what’s been happening more recently in Crimea. The conflict involved Russia; Georgia, a former Soviet Republic that was by then independent; and two separatist regions within Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After several years of restiveness by Russian-backed rebels in South Ossetia, the Georgian government made a military push that attempted to retake control of the region in August 2008. Russia responded militarily, successfully pushing back Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Clashes continued for a week, including in portions of Georgia beyond the two breakaway regions, until France helped broker a peace deal. Russia then recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign nations, though most other countries have not taken that step.

So how did Bush respond as hostilities were erupting in Georgia? Here’s Rove’s recollection:

“I think the 2008 experience is instructive. … What the United States did was it sent warships to the Black Sea, (and) it took the combat troops that Georgia had in Afghanistan and airlifted them back, sending a very strong message to Putin that you’re going to be facing combat-trained, combat-experienced Georgian forces. And not only that, but the United States government is willing to give logistical support to get them there. And this stopped (Russian troops) at … the two enclaves, and they did not make a move at Tbilisi. We need similar strong movement now.”

We’ll take a look at two of the moves Rove said Bush made — sending “warships to the Black Sea” and airlifting “the combat troops that Georgia had in Afghanistan” back to Georgia.

Sending warships to the Black Sea

The United States — and its military alliance, NATO — did indeed have ships in the Black Sea near Georgia in August 2008, but the story behind their presence is more nuanced than an unmistakable show of force against Russian aggression.

There was little question that the United States backed the Georgian position in the conflict. The United States had been a staunch supporter of Georgia and its military ever since Georgia became independent, and Bush, speaking from the Beijing Olympics, said, ”Georgia is a sovereign nation, and its territorial integrity must be respected. We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for the end of the Russian bombings.”

However, the military actions taken by the United States to back up these words were more cautious. For instance, the administration sent the guided missile destroyer McFaul to the Georgian port of Batumi, but it was loaded with humanitarian aid, according to a report in the Aug. 28, 2008, New York Times:

In essence, the United States was walking a tightrope between showing military defiance and offering a more humanitarian face. The Times called this balance “delicate.”

“At the time, these gestures were not viewed as particularly strong,” said Lincoln Mitchell, who was chief of party for the National Democratic Institute in Georgia from 2002 to 2004 and is now affiliated with the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mitchell said, “complained throughout the war that he was not getting support.”

It’s also worth noting that a portion of the western military presence in the Black Sea was already in place before the conflict erupted. For instance, NATO said that four of its warships were in the Black Sea because of previously scheduled anti-terrorist and anti-piracy exercises.

Airlifting Georgian combat troops from Afghanistan

There was in fact an airlift of Georgian military personnel — but it wasn’t from Afghanistan. It was from another country where the United States and its allies were fighting a war: Iraq.

On Aug. 11, 2008, Agence France-Presse reported that the United States military had “nearly completed” the airlift of 2,000 Georgian troops from Iraq to Georgia.

Here, too, the United States took pains to portray its actions as being limited rather than aggressive.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters that the United States was “fulfilling our agreement with the Georgian government that, in an emergency, we will assist them in redeploying their troops. We are honoring that commitment.”

Whitman told reporters at the time that the 130 U.S. troops and military contractors who were already in the country to train Georgian troops had been brought together at an undisclosed location away from the hostilities.

And Whitman made clear to reporters that — contrary to allegations by Putin — the U.S. was not flying the Iraq-based Georgian troops to the war zone.

It’s not clear that Russia was all that worried about the troops airlifted from Iraq, regardless of Putin’s rhetoric, Mitchell said. “The troops from Iraq were not exactly combat ready to fight against Russia, nor was Putin concerned about those troops,” he said.

David L. Phillips, director of Columbia University’s program on peace-building and rights, expressed skepticism about Rove’s suggestion that the United States’ response in 2008 was so strong that it essentially stopped Russian troops in their tracks.

“There was never any chance of the Bush administration going to war in Georgia, and everybody knew that,” he said. “It was for show. It would be misleading to suggest that our response was so robust that it deterred further aggression.”

Our ruling

Rove said that after Russia went to war with Georgia in 2008, the U.S. sent a “very strong message” to Putin by sending “warships to the Black Sea” and airlifting “the combat troops that Georgia had in Afghanistan” back to Georgia.

In reality, the military message sent by the warship movements was deliberately fuzzed by having the vessels carry humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, the airlift of Georgian troops from Iraq — not Afghanistan, as Rove had said — was carefully calibrated not to deposit them where they could quickly face off against Russian forces.

Contemporary accounts and experts agree that Rove was spinning what was actually a modest and nuanced military response into something more forceful. The truth is that Bush was geopolitically hamstrung — just as Obama is now — by facing a nuclear-armed, expansion-minded Russia willing to intervene militarily in countries on its own doorstep, but far from our own. We rate Rove’s claim Mostly False.

NPR And The Daily Kos: Russian Economic Influences On Putin

If there is a serious check on Vladimir Putin, it is the Russian economy. The young “alleged” democracy (non-communist state) has uber wealthy plutocrats much like in the United States and money fissures that spread far tot eh west into many corners of Europe. 

I heard a recent broadcast on NPR’s about Russian oligarchs who have money stashed around globe much like US corporatist with maintain offshore accounts across the globe.

NPR’s Robin Young, Then & Now, and guest political analyst and author Ben Judah explore why Russia is not worried about Sanctions. The radio segment also gave me insight into the extensive financial web that has to influence Putin and his obvious longing by-gone era.

NPR
Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Why Russia’s Not Worried About Western Sanctions

Excerpt

YOUNG: Well, and you write about why Putin is emboldened to do it. You say once upon a time, Russians might have feared Cold War sanctions, being cut off of access to Western banking, for instance, but no more, because what matters to the West is money. Explain your theory about how money is playing a role here. What money?  JUDAH: Let me explain to you how Russian corruption works. Out of every dollar stolen in Russia, the majority of that dollar will end up in Western Europe. It will end up in French chateaus. It will end up in German oil and gas companies. It will end up, above all, in British tax havens and in London property and the London stock exchange and in the London hedge funds.  Who are the people taking corrupt, stolen money out of Russia and bringing it to the West? These people are British bankers. They’re French bankers. They are German lawyers. They’re accountants. These people are the Western elite. Putin knows this. He sees that in the 21st-century Western Europe, there are no sources of growth in London and Paris, apart from living off oligarch rents.  You know, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron likes to say that Britain is open for business. Well, that sounds very charming. But what in actual fact that means is that Britain is open for the money of dictators to come and be placed and laundered in the capital, London.  YOUNG: Elaborate on that. You actually point to three former European leaders who you say are part of this.  JUDAH: Putin, when he came to power, Putin assumed the control of a Russia that, in many ways, had been ruined and driven into ruin by Western economic sanctions. And there was fear that Western elites were MI6, that Western elites were CIA, that they were cunning, determined, and they not only had economic power, but they were willing to use it.What Putin, who has been in power, dare I say it, for quite a long time, Putin has seen how the previous generation of European leaders turned out. Let’s take the moralizing Tony Blair, invader and democracy promoter in Iraq. This gentleman now works as a PR advisor for the dictatorship of Kazakhstan. Let’s have a look at Gerhard Schroeder, former chancellor of Germany. This gentleman was, of course, a very stern defender of human rights in Eastern Europe.

AUDIO Segment

Ian Reifowitz’s piece for the Daily Kos provided another perspective on the power of economic influences on a relic of the Cold War.

Re-Blog from The Daily Kos

Ian Reifowitz

Daily Kos member

MON MAR 03, 2014 AT 06:41 AM PST

Forbes: ‘The Invasion Of Crimea Is Crushing Russia’s Stock And Currency Markets’

byIan ReifowitzFollow

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The ruble dropped my how much?

Here come some of the “costs” to Russia for violating the sovereignty of Ukraine, as of Monday morning:

1) The Russian benchmark stock index, the MICES, is down 10% or more (it has been down as much as 11.2% earlier today), the biggest drop in at least five years (depending on the close).

2) The Russian ruble reached all time lows against the euro and the dollar. To prop it up the Russian central bank—on a “temporary” basis—raised interest rates 1.5%, from 5.5 to 7.0%, and spent $10 billion toward the same end. This will significantly hamper growth in Russia unless they lower those rates fast.

3) Shares of the corporation Gazprom, the Russian Federation’s gas monopoly, are also down 10%.

4) The yield the Russian government has to pay on its state bonds is near a record high.

5) Foreign capital reserves for Russia are at a multi-year low.

The Ukrainian currency and its markets, along with stocks in its neighbors Poland and Hungary, are down sharply as well, but of course the West can help out at a relatively small cost, given the size of their economies. No one is coming to the financial rescue of Russia here. For what it’s worth, global financial experts (it is hard to write those words with a straight face) are confident that they do not see the “contagion” spreading to worldwide financial markets, which are down 1-2 percent so far today.

Please read below the fold for more on this story.

The Forbes contributor makes one other excellent point. Whereas the Soviet Union was essentially economically self-sufficient when it invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, or Hungary in 1956, Putin’s Russia is decidedly not, as the data above make clear. It is fully integrated into world trade markets as well, something that offers the West real leverage. Peter Weber has neatly laid out the steps the West can take, and why they can cripple the Russian economy.

Vladimir Putin may be “out of touch with reality,” and “in another world,” as German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted after speaking with him. In this world, however, money talks, and money may well prove to be what reins in the man who would recreate the Russian Empire.

PS-I just found this photo on Facebook:

Translation: “Supporters of Putin—with him you will not be speaking in Russian, but will be silent in Russian.”

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO IAN REIFOWITZ ON MON MAR 03, 2014