Obama or Trump: Who's the Real Russian Stooge?
A sobering -- and telling -- look at the historical record.
December 12, 2019
Ari
Lieberman
Democrats and their
socialist allies have been quick to portray President Donald Trump as a tool of the Russians.
Pejoratives like "Putin's puppet" and "Russian asset" are
terms routinely employed by Trump's shrillest critics with banal regularity.
The Mueller Report,
compiled by a team largely composed of Trump antagonists, conclusively
established that neither Trump nor members of his campaign conspired with
Russia to influence the 2016 election. That fact, established after wasting $32
million in taxpayer funds, has not stopped Democrats and their echo-chamber
puppets in the establishment media, from regurgitating tired tropes and talking
points steeped in Alice in Wonderland-like fantasy.
Democrats and elements
within the leftist media have absurdly attempted to portray Trump’s efforts to
establish good, working relations with Russia as an attempt to undermine the
republic. However, no such criticism was ever leveled against Barack Obama
when he attempted his farcical Russia re-set, which ended in disaster.
It’s a tired double standard that Trump and his supporters have become
accustomed to.
Despite cautious efforts
to foster good relations, the Trump administration’s foreign and domestic
policies have adversely impacted Russia and its imperialistic designs. In fact,
even a cursory review of Trump's record on Russia reveals that he is anything
but Russia's stooge and can more accurately be characterized as its worst
nightmare. I’ve compiled a list of seven significant actions undertaken during
the Trump administration, which unequivocally supports this assertion.
Energy: In September 2019 the United States exported more crude
oil and petroleum products than it imported, marking the first
time that the U.S. was a net petroleum exporter since monthly
records were initiated in 1973. This startling development occurred under
Trump’s watch. Trump reversed his predecessor’s deleterious energy policies,
which were viewed by the energy industry as hostile. In fact, Obama, who nixed
Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone XL pipeline, banned offshore drilling in
the Arctic and enacted harsh regulations on the fossil fuel industry, developed
a reputation of being anti-energy. Instead of shoring up U.S. energy interests,
Obama did everything he could to thwart the fossil fuel industry while
providing taxpayer subsidies to failed solar energy companies like Solyndra.
By contrast, U.S. fossil fuel development and production under Trump is now
surging. This not only strengthens America’s national security, it harms
Russian economic interests.
Ukraine: Despite the Democratic narrative, it was the Trump
administration and not the Obama administration that provided lethal aid to the
Ukrainian army to repel Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s
invasion of Crimea and the Russian-backed proxy takeover of two provinces in
eastern Ukraine was met by tepid action by the Obama administration. Ukraine
had asked the United States for lethal military assistance, but that request
was rebuffed by Obama. Trump reversed Obama’s pro-Russian policy and authorized
the release of military assistance to Ukraine, which included delivery of
highly effective Javelin anti-tank
guided missiles.
Poland: Shortly after taking office, the Obama administration
announced that it would be scrapping a missile defense agreement that the Bush
administration had negotiated with Poland and the Czech Republic. By 2013,
Obama had completely dismantled the concept of a Europe-based missile defense
system, leaving the Poles and Czechs embittered. By contrast, the Kremlin was
ecstatic. Putin had to concede nothing and received a windfall. In 2012, Obama
was infamously caught on hot mic telling Russian president Dmitri Medvedev that
he would have “more flexibility” to capitulate on missile defense after the
November presidential election. In 2017, Trump partially reversed Obama’s
Russia cave-in by signing a memorandum of
understanding with Polish president Andrzej Duda in which the
U.S. agreed to sell Poland Patriot missile defense systems. The MoU signals to
both America’s friends and foes that America does not abandon allies.
Rebuilding the military: It is no secret that the U.S.
military – which endured severe budget slashings under Obama – was compromised
during the Obama years. U.S. overseas military obligations coupled with
sequestrations put an enormous strain on the military and its ability to
perform its mission. Military personnel did not have a favorable view of Obama,
who saw climate change and not Russia as America’s main threat. A joint poll
conducted by the Military Times and the Institute for Veterans and Military
Families found that more than 50% of those polled maintained an unfavorable
view of Obama while only 36% registered approval. But the toxic situation
existing under Obama was reversed under Trump. The latest version of the National Defense
Authorization Act, signed by Trump, ensures that the US. Military
maintains its qualitative and quantitative edge over its adversaries, which
include Russia and China. Equally important, morale among America’s military
personnel has surged under
Trump.
Syria: When Bashar Assad used poison gas against his own
citizens in 2013, killing nearly 1,500 people including 400 children, Obama
declared that such use of chemical weapons crossed all red lines and warranted
a severe military response. Within a month, Obama reversed course and allowed
Putin to orchestrate a scheme compelling Assad to give up his WMDs. Despite the
deal, Assad was still able to retain some of his chemical weapons and the means
of manufacturing them. Worse yet, Obama permitted Putin, as interlocutor, to
gain a substantial foothold in Syria. Under Trump, Assad’s use of chemical
weapons was met with an overwhelming U.S. military response signaling to both
friend and foe that the U.S. would not tolerate the use of WMDs by rogue
regimes. Trump also ensured that Putin did not extend his reach beyond the
so-called de-confliction zone. In February 2018, a Syrian army column backed by
Russian mercenaries from CHVK Wagner attempted to seize an
oil refinery near the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. They were stopped cold in
their tracks by U.S. military personnel who called in air and artillery
strikes. The entire enemy force was wiped out and the Russians lost
an estimated 200 to 300 men. The action signaled to Russia that the U.S.
would not tolerate violations of prior understandings.
INF Treaty: Under Obama, the Russians flagrantly
developed and deployed ground-based missiles with ranges of between 500 to
5,500 kilometers. Obama likely ignored the transgressions in a misguided effort
to get the Russians on board with the JCPOA, colloquially known as the Iran
deal. In 2019 the Trump administration formally withdrew from
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) citing blatant Russian
violations of the accord.
Venezuela: In 2009, Obama warmly greeted Venezuela’s
authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez at the opening ceremony of the Summit of the
Americas in Trinidad. A smiling Nicholas
Maduro, Chavez’s successor, was standing nearby and appeared amused
by the encounter. Obama later defended his
warm embrace of one of America’s top enemies by claiming that the U.S. must
engage other countries through humanitarian gestures. During Obama’s tenure,
Venezuela became a center for nefarious Russian, Chinese, Iranian and Hezbollah
activity. Despite the presence of such pernicious actors right on America’s
doorstep, Obama actively opposed sanctions against
the Venezuelan regime even when there was wide bipartisan support for such
measures. Russia maintains a large economic stake in Venezuela to the tune of
over $15 billion.
In an effort to prop up the regime and secure its investments, it dispatched
troops to Venezuela several times this year. When Trump took office, he
reversed the pusillanimous policies of his predecessor by immediately imposing
sanctions on Venezuela and key Venezuelan officials. Trump continues to ratchet
up the pressure against Venezuela by initiating a relentless economic and
diplomatic offensive against its ruling junta. The Trump administration also sternly warned the
Kremlin not to deploy military assets in the region referring to such
deployments as a direct threat to international peace and security in the
region. Thanks to Trump’s relentless pressure campaign, Maduro’s days are
almost certainly numbered and when he inevitably falls, Moscow stands to lose a
bundle.
During his tenure, Obama
pandered to the Russians. He allowed them to violate missile treaties, gave
them a twenty percent interest in America’s uranium mining capacity in the now
infamous Uranium One deal,
transferred sensitive technology to
Russian companies that would later end up in the hands of the Russian military,
dismantled missile defense shields in eastern Europe, eroded the U.S. military,
prevented lethal aid from reaching Ukraine and stifled the fossil fuel
industry. If the Democrats want to find a Russian stooge, they need look no
further than Barack Obama.
Victorious Democrats would
also end congressional investigations into the Hillary-Deep
State-DNC-Russian-Clinton Foundation collusion and corruption. All the players
in these massive, sordid affairs will be deemed “too big to jail” – and too
closely tied to the Democratic Party to be investigated further. Paul Driessen
Hillary Clinton's Russia collusion IOU: The answers she owes
America
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/446736-hillary-clintons-russia-collusion-iou-the-answers-she-owes-america
BY
JOHN SOLOMON, OPINION
During the
combined two decades she served as a U.S. senator and secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s patrons regularly donated to her family charity when they had
official business pending before America’s most powerful political woman.
The pattern of
political IOUs paid to the Clinton Foundation was so pernicious that the State
Department even tried to execute a special agreement with the charity to avoid the overt appearance of “pay-to-play” policy.
Still, the
money continued to flow by the millions of dollars, from foreigners and
Americans alike who were perceived to be indebted to the Clinton machine or in
need of its help.
It’s time for
the American public to call in their own IOU on political transparency.
The reason?
Never before — until 2016 — had the apparatus of a U.S. presidential candidate
managed to sic the weight of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community on a rival
nominee during an election, and by using a foreign-fed, uncorroborated
political opposition research document.
But Clinton’s
campaign, in concert with the Democratic Party and through their shared law
firm, funded Christopher Steele’s unverified dossierwhich, it turns out, falsely portrayed Republican Donald Trump as a treasonous asset colluding with Russian President
Vladimir Putin to hijack the U.S. election.
Steele went to
the FBI to get an investigation started and then leaked the existence of the
investigation, with the hope of sinking Trump’s presidential aspirations.
On its face, it
is arguably the most devious political dirty trick in American history and one
of the most overt intrusions of a foreigner into a U.S. election.
It appears the
Clinton machine knew that what it was doing was controversial. That’s why it
did backflips to disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in
its Federal Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.
Clinton and the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) used the law firm of Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson’s research firm, Fusion GPS, which
then hired Steele — several layers that obfuscated transparency, kept the
operation off the campaign’s public FEC reports and gave the Clintons plausible
deniability.
But Steele’s
first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI’s imagination. So the
Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior
Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr — whose wife, Nellie, also worked for
Fusion — to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI.
Nellie Ohr
likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele’s dossier
to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump
dirt at the FBI, too.
Then Steele
and, separately, longtime Clinton protégé Cody Shearer went to the
State Department to get the story out,
increasing pressure on the FBI.
In short, the
Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure — and bad intel — until an
investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the
time, James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as
then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
To finish the
mission, Simpson and Steele leaked the existence of the FBI investigation to
the news media to ensure it would hurt Trump politically. Simpson even called the leaks a “hail Mary” that failed.
Trump won,
however. And now, thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller, we know the
Russia-collusion allegations relentlessly peddled by Team Clinton were bogus.
But not before the FBI used the Clinton-funded, foreign-created research to get
a total of four warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, transition and presidency from October 2016 through the
following autumn.
The Clinton
team’s dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used
house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out
its political hit job on Trump.
After two years
of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it’s
time for the house to call in its IOU.
Hillary Clinton
owes us answers — lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing
many high-profile media interviews.
I’m not the
only one who thinks this way. Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said
Friday night on Fox News that it’s time for Clinton to answer what she knew and
when she knew it.
Here are 10
essential questions:
1.
In January 2018, the Senate
Judiciary Committee sent a formal investigative request for documents and
written answers from your campaign. Do you plan to comply?
2.
Please identify each person in
your campaign who was involved with, or aware of, hiring Fusion GPS, Glenn
Simpson and Christopher Steele.
3.
Please identify each person in
your campaign, including Perkins Coie lawyers, who were aware that Steele
provided information to the FBI or State Department, and when they learned it.
4.
Describe any information you and
your campaign staff received, or were briefed on, before Election Day that was
derived from the work of Simpson, Steele, Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr or Perkins
Coie and that tried to connect Trump, his campaign or his business empire with
Russia.
5.
Please describe all contacts
your campaign had before Election Day with or about the following individuals:
Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, former foreign policy scholar Stefan Halper and Maltese academic Joseph
Mifsud.
6.
Did you or any senior members of
your campaign, including lawyers such as Michael Sussmann, have any contact
with the CIA, its former Director John Brennan, current Director Gina Haspel,
James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe?
7.
Describe all contacts your campaign had with Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal concerning Trump,
Russia and Ukraine.
8.
Describe all contacts you and
your campaign had with DNC contractorAlexandra
Chalupa, the Ukraine government, the Ukraine Embassy in the United States or
the U.S. Embassy in Kiev concerning Trump, Russia or former Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort.
9.
Why did your campaign and the
Democratic Party make a concerted effort to portray Trump as a Russian asset?
10.
Given that investigations by a
House committee, a Senate committee and a special prosecutor all have concluded
there isn’t evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, do you regret the actions by
your campaign and by Steele, Simpson and Sussmann to inject these unfounded
allegations into the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and the news media?
Hillary Clinton
owes us answers to each of these questions. She should skip the lawyer-speak
and answer them with the candor worthy of an elder American stateswoman.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose
work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the
Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in
drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an
investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.
Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports.
ALL
REVOLUTIONS START OUT MESSY AND UNFOCUSED. THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
The
Party of Antifa Fascists?
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2018/10/20/the-party-of-antifa-fascists-n2530342?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky2
Who are
the “Antifa” mobs? What are they doing to our country? How long will we
tolerate them?
The Brett
Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were their latest excuse for tantrums and
intolerance. Dismissing fairness, propriety and due process, they screamed that
mere allegations of misconduct were enough to bar him from the Supreme Court,
despite no corroborating evidence or witnesses.
Vicious
harassment of senators and White House officials in restaurants, streets,
grocery stores, and Senate offices and elevators was matched by ambush tactics
and despicable behavior by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. If Justice
Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings were “an electronic lynching,” those hearings were an electronic
assault on a respected jurist, his wife and young daughters.
When
Kavanaugh fought back, the same Senators and their media friends said he
“lacked the proper temperament” to be on the Court. (Apparently, he should have
just tried to enjoy the experience.)
The fact
is, Democrats and their allies had said in lockstep and from the outset that
they intended to keep any Trump nominee off our highest
court. The Women’s March mistakenly released a statement saying it opposed the
“nomination of XX” to the Court. (They forgot to fill
in the blank.) They view the Court as their supreme state and national
legislature: it’s far easier to get 5 votes than 5 million or 50 million.
In
reality, this ongoing attempted rule by mob (with Portland, Oregon a prime example) goes back to
the 2016 elections that put Donald Trump in the White House. The mobs weren’t
just disappointed that Hillary Clinton had not won. They were enraged. And they’ve remained so ever
since.
In fact,
their furor goes back even further – to mounds of excrement they left behind in
North Dakota, for instance, where they tried to block the Dakota Access Pipeline, by burning and bombing bridges,
threatening local residents and killing cattle. One “peaceful protester” tried
to shoot a deputy sheriff.
In
another example, they enlisted state attorneys general, universities, wealthy
leftwing foundations and private law firms (on a contingency fee basis) to
bring RICO and other actions against scientists and think
tanks that voice skepticism about “cataclysmic manmade climate change.” On
college campuses they have banned, disinvited, mobbed, harassed or just plain
screamed over 300 conservative
speakers into
silence. Being a Republican or wearing a Trump MAGA hat can get you beaten, or
worse.
They
forget President Obama’s dictum: “Elections have consequences.” One is the
President’s right to nominate Federal judges. But from their perspective,
“consequences” must never apply when they lose – and the Electoral College must be abolished when it works
as our Founding Fathers intended: to keep populous urban areas from dominating
presidential elections and imposing a tyranny of the majority. (The fact that
85% of all US counties voted for Donald Trump illustrates this principle in
action.)
In most
of these cases, “they” are the Antifa mobs. Antifa being short for
“anti-fascist.” Don’t be conned.
The
Antifa mobs are fascists! And they have become the
ski-masked thug wing of the Democratic Party.
They (and
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kyrsten Sinema, Andrew Gillum, Bernie Sanders and
other favored candidates) certainly espouse socialism as
their vehicle for wealth redistribution. However, in almost every other
respect, their philosophies and actions reflect fascism, which
is generally defined as:
A
political system in which an authoritarian government does not own businesses
and industries, but strictly regulates and controls their actions, output and
rights – while forcibly controlling and suppressing citizens and their thought
and speech via stringent laws, intimidation and even violence.
Sadly,
the Democratic Party is slipping further into these tendencies, becoming ever
more closely aligned with these radicals. It relies on Antifa thugs to “rally
the base,” intimidate and abuse Republican voters and
candidates, and get Democrat (and “undocumented”) voters to the polls. Like too
many in the “mainstream” news media, Democrats refuse to condemn the mob
behavior – and say it’s wrong to even call them
mobs. They’re just
concerned citizens, peaceably assembling and seeking redress of their
grievances. Right. (Hint: You don’t like being called fascist mobs? Stop
behaving like fascist mobs.)
“You
cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand
for, what you care about,” Hillary Clinton said recently. So instead of civil
debates we’re to have civil war over whose vision and agenda will rule? Is
there something wrong, antiquated or “threatening” about debating issues?
Former
Attorney General Eric Holder said, when Republicans “go low” with their
rhetoric, “we kick them.” Rep. Maxine Waters (R-CA) incites
Antifa mobs by ranting, “If you see anybody from the Trump Administration in a
restaurant, in a department store, tell them they’re not welcome anymore,
anywhere.”
Now on
top of the speech codes, trigger warnings, boycotts, censorship, groupthink and
identity politics, Google, Facebook and Twitter control and restrict access to
conservative views; crowd funding sites prevent conservative groups from
raising money; and the Obama IRS prevented Tea Party groups from getting the
tax status needed to operate. When all that fails, we’re supposed to tolerate
mobs and riots.
On
campuses, LGBTQ diversity is virtuous. Diversity of viewpoints or political
affiliation is intolerable. Some say Republicans want to control what you do in
your bedroom. But Democrats want to control everything you do anywhere outside
your bedroom. And Antifa mobs will keep you quiet and in line.
Antifa
thugs fire-bombed a North Carolina Republican office and trashed another one in
New York City, where they left a note that said, “This is just the beginning.”Others knocked a 71-year-old female
congressional staffer unconscious! It even reached the point where a rabid
Bernie Sanders supporter tried to gun down Republican
legislatorsand
staffers who were practicing for a charity baseball event.
Indeed,
death on a large scale, to serve state or other “higher interests,” is another
aspect of fascism. We see that with millions of people dying every year in
Africa and Asia, because pressure groups deny them access to energy, insect control, water
purification, agricultural and other modern technologies,
in the name of protecting the environment from dangerous climate change,
chemicals and biotechnology.
There are
crazy ironies, too. Google helps the
Chinese Communist
Government prevent its citizens from accessing “forbidden” knowledge and ideas
– but then claims helping the US Defense Department with Cloud computing or
artificial intelligence surveillance would “violate its principles.”
Around
many neighborhoods, signs proclaim “Hate has no home here,” in multiple
languages, with an American flag heart logo reminiscent of the Obama campaign
logo – in liberals’ yards. The signs are part of a project that “promotes just
and inclusive communities.” Trump supporters need not apply.
Democrats
appear to be depending on all of this to counter a possible “red wave” – and
regain control of the House of Representatives and maybe even the Senate. If
they succeed even with just the House, Democrat congressional committees will
investigate, interrogate and try to impeach Trump, Kavanaugh and other
officials. They will impede and obstruct everything the Trump Administration
tries to do.
They’ll
also try to abolish ICE, block the Wall, pack the Supreme Court, take our guns,
bash Israel – and replace the fossil fuels that provide 80% of our energy with
“100% renewable energy” that is so expensive and unreliable
it will bring our industries, economy and nation to its knees, while blanketing
rural and habitat land, damaging
people’s health and property rights, and butchering birds and bats by the
millions.
Our
rebounding energy, employment, economy, markets and living standards would get
rolled back.
Victorious Democrats would
also end congressional investigations into the Hillary-Deep
State-DNC-Russian-Clinton Foundation collusion and corruption. All the players
in these massive, sordid affairs will be deemed “too big to jail” – and too
closely tied to the Democratic Party to be investigated further.
Some say
the Antifa-Schumer-Pelosi-Clinton-Holder-Waters strategy will backfire. I hope
that happens, because it would be disastrous if these people run Congress,
America and our lives. But I won’t bank on it.
If you’re
worried too (and you should be), get inspired and involved. Above all, VOTE!
Vote to preserve our democratic Republic, our freedoms, our booming economy, reliable and affordable energy for all Americans – and
equal justice for all, based on the presumption of innocence until proven
guilty.
Paul
Driessen writes books and articles on energy, environmental, human rights and
political issues.
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