USA vs Russia

[Minnie the Minx]

Oh here we fucking go.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

[harvey k-tel]

I hear the moose lip dumplings at White Rabbit are the dogs bollockskis.

[Minnie the Minx]

LGBT rights?

[Goat Boy]

America can always get rid of Trump, you know? There are signs of a fight back too.

Russia? I don’t have much hope in that country these days. In fact I think Russia can fuck right off at the moment.

Who's the more dangerous? I dunno, how do you measure these things? Which country can categorically eat a dick however? Open up Putin!

[sloopjohnc]

America can always get rid of Trump, you know? There are signs of a fight back too.

Russia? I don’t have much hope in that country these days. In fact I think Russia can fuck right off at the moment.

Who's the more dangerous? I dunno, how do you measure these things? Which country can categorically eat a dick however? Open up Putin!

A good book I recently finished was the National Book Award winner, seen below.

Some of the author's main messages are that the US and Europe didn't approach Russia correctly after the Iron Curtain fell and that the uncertainty of democracy can be a very scary thing for people, especially for people like Russians with their history. Authoritarianism can be strangely comforting.



Here's a summary and author info. . .

ABOUT THE BOOK

Hailed for her “fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia” (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times. In The Future Is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own—as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist and the author of several books, including The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Carnegie Fellowship, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Slate, Vanity Fair, and many other publications. A longtime resident of Moscow, Gessen now lives in New York.

[Diamond Dog]

I hear the moose lip dumplings at White Rabbit are the dogs bollockskis.

Not sure why but that made me giggle.

[Jimbo]

Which country can categorically eat a dick however? Open up Putin!

Masha Gessen

In other words, it makes good sense to avoid a replay of the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse by edging U.S. nuclear weapons up against Russia’s borders, especially when U.S. politicians and commentators are engaging in Cold War-style Russia-bashing. Baiting the Russian bear may seem like great fun to the tough-talking politicians in Washington or the editors of the New York Times and Washington Post but this hostile rhetoric could be taken more seriously in Moscow.

From a Consortium News item which referenced Gessen

So I dug a bit and today's Russia is not a magical kingdom but it is what it is. It is not a good place to be openly or militantly gay, that seems to be for sure. A cause for that is the deep love many people have for the Russian Orthodox church and the many followers of Islam, neither LGBT friendly organizations. Most Russians, it seems, are conservatives.

That said I wonder at how many of you think the removal of Saddam Hussein, Kadaffi, oh, our regime change policy in general is a good idea? Who among you thinks, in retrospect, that at least strongman Saddam kept order, persecuted Islamic radicals, would not tolerate Al Qaida, that blaming him for 9/11 was a "mistake," and now thanks to his removal we've burst open a bees nest of trouble? Well then, can you not see that we are doing the same thing with Putin and Russia with our missiles, sanctions, propaganda, provocations, poking the Russian bee nest. Do you not see a pattern? We want Putin gone, and it isn't because they have anti-gay laws, etc. It's probably the same reason we wanted Saddam and Kadaffi gone: Oil.

[Diamond Dog]

Saddam didn't possess nuclear weapons.

[Jimbo]

Saddam didn't possess nuclear weapons.

Which makes me think that fucking with Putin is an even worse idea.

[Diamond Dog]

Saddam didn't possess nuclear weapons.

Which makes me think that fucking with Putin is an even worse idea.

So Putin is this considerate, reasonable good guy (in your eyes) yet he'd drop the bomb if provoked?

Square that circle for me please.

[Jimbo]

Saddam didn't possess nuclear weapons.

Which makes me think that fucking with Putin is an even worse idea.

So Putin is this considerate, reasonable good guy (in your eyes) yet he'd drop the bomb if provoked?

Square that circle for me please.

Reminds me a of a Henny Youngman joke. Guy goes to his doctor and says, "Doc, it hurts when I do this." Doctor says, "Don't do that." So, if provoked, yes, he might drop a bomb. Let's stop provoking him.

[Diamond Dog]

Right.

*TILT*

[Jimbo]

FLU LIES Russian cyber units ‘spreading slurs’ online about flu and measles jabs in the UK

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5006522/r ... in-the-uk/

Pu-u-u-tin!

[KeithPratt]

I'm reading Michael Burleigh's new book "The Best of Times, the Worst of Times". It's pretty much an audit of the main players in the political scene right now.

His overall analysis of Russia is that their economy isn't in a good shape. They can export gas and the like, but they don't have medium level consumer goods that they can flog. That's their main problem, that apart from weapons, they can't get anyone to buy anything they make, and so when the price of gas or oil fluctuates, then they are in problems. They have a declining birth rate that goes alongside a rising Muslim population in the southern parts of the country. No-one wants to live in Siberia where 6 million people live surrounded by 150 or so Chinese million across the border. Putin's secret service oligarchy - basically his govt is made up of former KGB people - is working at the moment, but corruption and the like is so bad that there are no real signs of it improving for anyone a decade or two down the line. In short, they are not implementing structural foundations for the country's future. Putin's one strength is that he has become a major player in the Middle East. The signs are that China is now the superior partner of the two, particularly with the Silk Road Belt initiative.

[Jimbo]

Washington Post Writer: ‘No Evidence’ of Collusion Between Trump and Russia

"We've seen a lot of flirtation, if you will, between them but nothing that, in my opinion, would rank as actual collusion. Now that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, it just means we haven't found it yet. Or maybe it doesn't exist."

https://sputniknews.com/us/201711291059 ... collusion/

[Deebank]

In the late '90s I interviewed a young Russian guy for the mag I was working on. He was about 25 and he owned a massive (beer and food) can-making plant, actually a couple of plants I think, near Moscow. You have to wonder - and I did - where his money came from. He said he had a number of 'backers', but the rumour was it was Russian mafia money.

I wonder if he's still in business.

[Sneelock]

Washington Post Writer: ‘No Evidence’ of Collusion Between Trump and Russia

"We've seen a lot of flirtation, if you will, between them but nothing that, in my opinion, would rank as actual collusion. Now that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, it just means we haven't found it yet. Or maybe it doesn't exist."

https://sputniknews.com/us/201711291059 ... collusion/

here's a homeless man. He says there was no actual collusion.


here's a sock puppet. HE says there was no collusion.


Here's a can of Heinz Baked Beans. if it could talk, it would certainly say that there was no collusion.

Maybe Bill Moyers is a big doody head but I don't get how even the slightest grazing of Steven Harpers Trump/Russia timeline is less convincing than any Tom Dick or Harry who says "nope, never happened"
http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/

I mean, certainly there is more than enough there to at least FLIRT with the idea that maybe, just maybe, there IS some collusion to be uncovered?

talk about the cart leading the horse!