Re-Visiting Russiagate In Light Of The Ukraine War

It’s hard to believe that the last president spent his term pouring weapons into Ukraine, shredding treaties with Russia and ramping up cold war escalations against Moscow which helped lead us directly to the extraordinarily dangerous situation we now find ourselves in, and yet mainstream liberals spent his entire administration screaming that he was a Kremlin puppet.

A lot of anti-empire commentary is rightly going into criticizing how the Obama administration paved the way to this conflict in Ukraine with its role in the 2014 coup and support for Kyiv’s war against Donbass separatists. But what’s getting lost in all this, largely because Trumpites have been using their mainstream numbers to loudly amplify criticisms of the role of the Obama and Biden administrations in this mess, is what happened between those two presidencies which was just as crucial in getting us here.

Though it’s been scrubbed from mainstream liberal history, it was actually the Trump administration that began the US policy of arming Ukraine in the first place. Obama had refused forceful demands from neocons and liberal hawks to do so because he feared it would provoke an attack by Russia.

In a 2015 article titled “Defying Obama, Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraine“, The New York Times reported that “So far, the Obama administration has refused to provide lethal aid, fearing that it would only escalate the bloodshed and give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a pretext for further incursions.”

It wasn’t until the Trump presidency that those weapons began pouring into Ukraine, and boy howdy are we looking at some “further incursions” now. This change occurred either because Trump was a fully willing participant in the agenda to ramp up aggressions against Moscow, or because he was politically pressured into playing along with that agenda by the collusion narrative which had its origins at every step in the US intelligence cartel, or because of some combination of the two.

In all the world-shaping news stories we’ve been experiencing lately, it’s easy to forget how the narrative that the Kremlin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government dominated news coverage and political discourse for years on end. But in light of the fact that today’s major headlines now revolve around that exact same foreign government, this fact is probably worth revisiting.

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Rep. Ayanna Pressley says black and Latinx commuters ‘are disproportionately criminalized by fare evasion policies’

Rep. Ayanna Pressley popped up on Twitter Saturday to urge Congress to pass her Freedom to Move Act, which would “grant Black and brown riders the freedom to navigate their community without fear.” Apparently, black and Latinx commuters are hardest hit by “fare evasion policies.” It was back in 2019 when fellow squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a similar point, tweeting that “arresting people who can’t afford a $2.75 fare makes no one safer and destabilizes our community.” We suspect no one was arrested for not being able to afford subway fare; our suspicion is that the arrests had more to do with not paying one’s subway fare.

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BLM’s charity status at risk over solicitation of funds to elect Democrats, watchdog says

The embattled national Black Lives Matter group used its charitable resources to solicit funds for its affiliated political action committee Tuesday, a move one expert called a “clear violation” of IRS charity rules.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the charity that represents the national BLM movement, voluntarily shut down its ability to raise money Feb. 2 following a Washington Examiner investigation into its lack of financial transparency that prompted multiple states to issue demands to the group to cease its fundraising activities.

Since then, BLM had refrained from using its email list to solicit contributions — until Tuesday, when it sent a message to its supporters that was signed “Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation” and contained what appeared at first glance to be a donation button to support the charity.

When clicked, however, the donation button sends supporters to a fundraising page for Black Lives Matter PAC, BLM’s affiliated political group that has worked to elect Democrats across the country since its launch in October 2020.

“BLM PAC is preparing for the most critical midterm election yet. Every single race is an opportunity to build Black political power,” the fundraising page linked in BLM’s charitable email states. “If you’re ready to continue the electoral fight for Black lives, chip in to our efforts and start building for the 2022 midterms.”

Paul Kamenar, an attorney for conservative watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, told the Washington Examiner that BLM’s use of charitable resources to solicit funds for overtly political activities “appears to be a clear violation of the IRS rules prohibiting charities from soliciting contributions to a political action committee.”

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Opposition To Starting WWIII Doesn’t Make You Pro-Putin, It Just Means You’re Sane

While Florida Democrats have been running around the Sunshine State yelling “gay!” the rest of the Democrat Party has been busy yelling “Russia!” in the general direction of anything they don’t like. The 2016 election of Donald Trump? Must have been Russia! Hunter Biden’s damning laptop? Russia!

Now that Russian President Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine in an attack that’s killed or displaced thousands of civilian innocents, Democrats are even more eager to accuse anyone they dislike of being a Russian plant. So that’s what they’ve resorted to instead of thoughtfully engaging arguments for why going to war with a nuclear power might not be the brightest idea.

It’s an obvious statement that shouldn’t need saying, but the willful distortion of common sense by manipulative media means not enough people are hearing it: Wanting to avoid World War III doesn’t mean you’re a Putin-lover, it just means you’re sane.

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Rabid Democrats Call on Justice Thomas to Recuse Himself From Jan. 6 Cases Because His Wife Exercised Her First Amendment Rights on 2020 Election

Rabid Democrats are now calling on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any cases related to January 6 because his wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas exercised her First Amendment rights to friends in private texts regarding the 2020 election.

Recall, the January 6 Committee on Thursday leaked Ginni Thomas’ text exchanges with Mark Meadows to the Washington Post as her husband was hospitalized with an infection.

The text messages exchanged between Ginni Thomas and Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows are uneventful.

The media however is having a feeding frenzy over Ginni Thomas’ benign text messages that are completely covered by the First Amendment.

Many Democrat lawmakers are now calling on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from January 6 cases because his wife sent text messages to Mark Meadows encouraging him to fight for Trump and expose the election fraud.

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School Administrator Agreed to ‘Sweep’ Student Records for Eligible Voters to Help Elect Warnock, Ossoff

A Georgia private school administrator allegedly agreed to sweep student records to find eligible voters to register in an effort to increase voter turnout for then-Senate candidates Raphael Warnock (D) and Jon Ossoff (D) ahead of the state’s runoff election on Jan. 5, 2021.

The Westminster Schools director of enrollment management Marjorie Mitchell said in a Facebook thread that the school would help register students with late birthdays by sweeping student records for eligible voters.

A supporter of Warnock and Ossoff said in a Facebook comment, “We need to get the seniors who will be 18 on Jan 5 registered to vote now! How do we go about that? All hands on deck for Ossoff and Warnock!”

Mitchell agreed to help increase the vote for the two Democratic Senate candidates, responding, “We got the current seniors registered, so we just need to sweep for any late birthdays.”

Screenshots of the Facebook comments were obtained by Wokeminster, a parent group associated with the school.

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Democrats push for $300 a month stimulus checks to help Americans struggling to pay for sky-high gas prices as a gallon soars past $6 in LA and 73% of voters say they back tax breaks

With the price of gas rising across the U.S., lawmakers are developing a string of proposals to help motorists – from $400 rebates for all taxpayers in California to imposing windfall taxes on oil companies or a sliding scale of payments that could net families as much as $300 every month.

The average cost of a gallon has raced past $4 a gallon amid domestic inflation and the impact of Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine.

This week, the average price of a gallon of regular gas in Los Angeles hit a record $6.011, even as the national average continued to decline slightly from the all-time high earlier this month, according to the AAA Gas Price Index. 

An opinion poll published Wednesday found that almost three quarters of voters were in favor of a holiday from federal energy taxes to ease the burden.

And lawmakers across the country are pushing legislation to bring down prices at the pumps.

A new bill proposed by three Democrats – Reps. Mike Thompson of California, John Larson of Connecticut and Lauren Underwood of Illinois – could be worth $300 each month to some families if the price of a gallon stays above $4.

‘Americans are feeling the impact at the pump of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and right now we must work together on commonsense policy solutions to ease the financial burden that my constituents are feeling,’ Thompson said in a news release. 

‘The Putin Price Hike is putting strain on our economy, and I am proud to be working with Reps. Larson and Underwood to introduce this legislation to provide middle-class Americans with monthly payments to ease the financial burden of this global crises.’ 

Their plan follows the model of COVID economic impact payments – offering $100 for single filers earning less than $75,000, plus $100 for each dependent. 

It is just one of a series of proposals unveiled recently.

In California, Democratic lawmakers want a $400 rebate for taxpayers – costing about $9 billion drawn from the state’s budget surplus and equivalent to the average gas tax paid by residents over a year. 

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