"We now know that Russian operatives helped Trump’s campaign in 2016 in part because of what Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort knew as the Mariupol Plan, which called for Trump to look the other way as Putin installed puppets in the oblasts of eastern Ukraine, permitting him to take through political manipulations the land that he ended up in February 2022 trying to take by force."-- Heather Cox Richardson

Cannon takes sledgehammer to rule of law protecting country from tyrants and hostile foreign interests (in other words, Trump and Putin)

Cannon slow-walked a grand jury’s meticulous indictment of the former president for criminally risking the free world’s safety by walking off with nuclear secrets and intelligence sources and methods, leaving them in places accessible to apparent foreign agents, and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. Now she has toppled the whole case by shredding the long-established structure through which successive attorneys general have appointed special counsel to investigate and prosecute crimes against the nation too sensitive for the justice department to handle in the ordinary course.

This election, our constitutional republic is at stake, along with its first principle: no one, including the most powerful, is above the law. Only We, the People, can preserve the freedom and security our laws safeguard.

Cannon takes sledgehammer to law, Professor Tribe, The Guardian

The Coup that Launched the Second Cold War between the U.S. and Russia

Bookmark this one: A commenter who uses the nom de plume “Democracy” responded to a discussion on Diane Ravitch's blog about Putin and Russia interference in our elections. Some commenters were belittling Putin interference in our 2016 election, as they do on the Sunday morning news shows on the regular, or since Barr sabotaged and scuttled the Mueller report anyway. Democracy provides quotes and links to copious intelligence evidence of Russia's active and considerable influence. The election of Trump was obviously a major coup for Putin. Good post to share when this kind of Republican gaslighting comes up, not that many people on that side are interested in any "research" beyond nodding to the blowhards on Fox but here are links to the evidentiary backup should someone actually like to know what's what. 

BTW, Ravitch is a longtime historian of public education and has several indispensable books on the topic.

Setting the Record Straight, Part 1

Setting the Record Straight, Part 2

 

Krugman on US Aid to Ukraine and Economic History

Ukraine Aid in the Light of History 

The first title of this Krugman column, from my email version, said "Why aid to Ukraine is so important." No question mark but inescapably a question. 

Can't say I found any clear answer to that question but Krugman does compare usefully US aid to Ukraine now and US aid to Europe during World War 2; so some good history. Take away: Our alliance with Europe is longstanding and immensely important as mutual aid and as a powerful agent for global stability and progress. And has been since at least the World Wars of the last century. 

The main thrust of Krugman's polemic is an econometric refutation of all the MAGA trash talking points thrown around while blocking aid to Ukraine. (Putin now owns a significant propaganda caucus in the US congress!) Or economic attacks, anyway. Ukraine aid drains US budget. In fact, Ukraine aid is less than one-fourth of 1 percent of US GDP.  Europe isn't paying their fair share. In fact, some European states spend a higher percentage of GDP than the US and total aid support between the US and Europe is more or less equal.  Remember, Europe or the European Union includes 27 countries, and taken together it is comparable in size to the US but not separately, of course. 

Anyway, Europe pays their fair share in support of Ukraine, not surprisingly, because they don't want Russian invading them next. They feel this pressure more acutely than North Americans, naturally, although it is one of the most salient features of our age to note that we still seem to be underestimating Putin's invasion of the US. 

The real problem is Europe doesn't have the military industrial capacity Ukraine needs. They can't crank out the weaponry and military hardware like the US or Russia can (with China's help). But they're working on it, Krugman assures us. None of this is reassuring, mind you, but at least this is an explanation that makes some sense.

So, "Why [is] aid to Ukraine is so important"? Because without military aid Ukraine could not defend itself against Russia's invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine? 

In 1991 Ukraine won its independence in a referendum, 84 percent of eligible voters turned out and 90 percent endorsed Ukraine's independence; including voters from the Crimea and the eastern parts now occupied by Russia.  

From United Nations Charter of 1945, 

Article 2 (4) of the Charter prohibits the threat or use of force and calls on all Members to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other States. 

Russia uses, is using right now, and has been using since 2014, at the very least, force to flagrantly disregard Ukraine's "sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence." 

Another reason the NATO alliance is important is as a coalition of states willing to defend the UN Charter. Some people try to blame the war on NATO expansion; even Chomsky and some leftists. Besides, again, basically doing more of Putin's dirty business, this take fails to mention NATO expands only to independent states already resisting Russia's invasive kleptocratic threat to their sovereign independence.

(Recall: Overthrow of Putin puppet leader in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2013, triggers Russia's invasion and takeover of the Crimea and eastern sections of Ukraine. Yanukovynch's chief political handler, Paul Manafort, was Trump's campaign manager in the 2016 election, and an obvious Russian asset, caught giving insider polling data to Russian intelligence attacking the US election for their candidate, convicted for some crimes related to these activities but was then pardoned by Trump. In short, again, all roads lead to Putin and Trump as the biggest Benedict Arnold betrayal in American history.) 

America could, of course, be better about respecting the independence and self-determination of neighboring countries, especially to our south in Mexico and Latin America. No doubt. If such stories interest you, try four critical histories of US national security and foreign intelligence gathering, more or less in historical order: Jonathan Katz's Gangsters of Capitalism (1890s-1940s), Vincent Bevins' The Jakarta Method (1980s-1990s), Spencer Ackerman's Reign of Terror (2001 to 2010s), and Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes (post-WW2). A numbing parade of American imperialist misadventures, unmasking realpolitiks from the Spanish-American War to the Cold War to the War on Terror, and always the CIA mixed up in the worst of it.

For all the spycraft and espionage and anti-communist death squads, though, invading and occupying other countries has been a red line largely and effectively frowned on by the UN and international community since 1945. This normative deterrence has held up more or less for over a half a century or until Putin decided it was the mission of his life to rebuild the Russian Empire, going on offense after 9/11.

Empires are not supposed to exist in a post-colonial world, by the way. Or if they do they're supposed to be based on trade and financial power (Neo-Imperialsim) and not on military force; or this is the gist of the Bretton Woods system setup after WW2, at any rate. 

Meanwhile, back in the USSR, and Putin's fantasy of a Greater Russian Empire, military power and political tyranny rule everything. And this is more or less the MAGA fantasy as well, right? You might think someone in Russia would suggest that there is more economic gain in trading with their neighbors than fighting them for political control but violent autocracy, dictatorship, and political tyranny runs deep in Russian history. 

And we'll find out this coming November how deep in this country. 

Selling Out the Country to Putin, Again

Trump is turning to his 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort to advise him in 2024. 

An investigation by a Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee into the links between Trump’s campaign and Russia determined that Manafort had shared polling data from the Trump camp with his partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, who the senators assessed was a Russian operative.  

Translation: A vote for Trump is a vote for treason, a betrayal of America and selling out the country to Putin, again.

HCR, Letters from an American, March 18, 2024 

And more on all that: Brian Buetler Trump Did Collusion

A Bigger Story Than You Can Possibly Imagine

Josh Marshall @ TPM

Refers to recent revelations that the primary source guy behind the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, the Twitter Files, and the GOP's effort to impeach Biden, etc, is, basically, a Russian intelligence operative, spreading disinformation to sabotage American democracy. Surprise, surprise! 

Media organizations at first wouldn’t touch the story because they’d spent the previous four years kicking themselves for allowing themselves to become the promoters of a Russian election interference and disinformation campaign with the purloined DNC emails back in 2016. Since the Hunter Biden laptop stories had all the hallmarks of exactly the same thing somehow happening to pop up in the final days of the 2020, of course they were suspicious.

 

At worst, that initial resistance was very reasonable, given the record for 2016, even if it had been the case that the story was entirely legitimate. But it wasn’t. Even though the Smirnov revelations themselves don’t speak directly to the laptop story, they tell us very clearly that Russian intelligence operations have continued to drive stories at the center of the American political debate right up until today. 

To sum up, for me: we know Dump and MAGA and conservative media (Fox et al) are Putin assets (if not active agents) and with them they have played the MSM, TV News, and NY Times/WaPo for treasonous fools going on a decade now, amplifying hostile foreign influences at a scale not seen since the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, if ever in American history. This is the "Big" part of the story. 

Reminder: MAGA and OFCB have been Putin Assets since 2016

 

"In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign." -Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American Historian