Monday’s summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended with a relatively modest press conference. Things went well, by both leaders’ accounts, and it represented a small but significant attempt at improving bilateral relations from their recent lows.
Deals were said to have been reached on cooperation on some fronts. Putin says he even told President Trump he intends to extend the New START nuclear treaty that is set to expire in 2021. But don’t expect any positive coverage of the talks in the press, let alone any votes of encouragement from the US Congress.
That’s because US hostility toward Russia being what it is, there is an incredible amount of bipartisan comfort with continuing that acrimony. Trump faced condemnations for even attending the summit, and more still for getting out of it without picking a fight with Putin.
Media coverage of the summit was uniformly negative, parroting disputed allegations of election meddling. Fox News’ Chris Wallace interviewed Vladimir Putin, and failing to get Putin to admit to anything, reporters praised Wallace for “giving Putin the grilling Trump won’t.”
Lawmakers were, of course, lining up to go after Trump over the summit. But now that the summit is over, their attention has shifted to trying to pass legislation that would attempt to undermine whatever modest progress toward a rapprochement Trump can be said to have made.
Speaker Paul Ryan termed Russia “a menacing government,” and Congress is considering more sanctions, more hearings, and potentially even some non-binding resolutions endorsing the intelligence community’s allegations against Russia.
Which is really the center of most of the efforts to stop diplomatic progress. Allegations of meddling in the 2016 election have become “unquestionable” in the mainstream, both as a talking point and as a justification for picking new fights with Russia.
Trump has long expressed interest in improving ties with Russia, and this summit was actually one of his first real opportunities at doing so. Yet it will be difficult for this progress to have any permanence with everyone else so united in undermining it.
No amount of Russian meddling in our election could off set the FBI’s meddling in our 2016 election . And the FBI did not stop meddling after the election was over either . Almost the entire democrat party and much of the established republican party including much of the news media all joined forces with the sixteen lying intelligence agencies , FBI and even the DOJ all to push Trump out of office . Yet Trump has stood his ground and has prevailed to push his agenda . He is still our president and actually is stronger now than when he first took office .
DING! DING! DING! We have a winner! Congratulations, Eric, you nailed this one perfectly:-) Indeed, no amount of Russian meddling in our election could offset the FBI’s meddling in our 2016 election. James Comey was the FBI Director at the time, and he had his agency meddling after the election was over.
Pres. Trump did the right thing in firing Comey on the spot, even though he had been chosen by Obama and ratified by the Senate. What Comey did is a felonious act, by aiding and abetting Hillary Clinton’s usage of a private server for classified e-mails and other documents. A POTUS has the authority to fire any Intelligence agency’s director, if that director breaks the law. In this case, Comey definitely broke the law, and must be held accountable.
As you also rightly said, Trump has stood his ground and prevailed to push his agenda, despite the insidious machinations of all of the Democrat party and much of the established Republican party, including much of the news media in joining forces with the 16 lying intelligence agencies, FBI and even the DOJ, all to push Trump out of office; as a result, he’s actually stronger now than when he first took office.
I agree with Eileen below, you definitely nailed it Eric.
That said, some fun. From the realm of irony consider this: If instead of fulfilling the requirements of the DC insiders club and exonerating Hillary Clinton, Queen of the Clinton dynasty, presumptive head of the Democratic Party, Heir Apparent to the presidency,… if instead of exonerating her, Comey had indicted her, forcing the Democratic party to find a new candidate, one not under indictment, it’s highly likely that that candidate, and not Donald Trump, would now be President. Bottom line: It was Comey who interfered in the election, Comey who subverted American democracy (such as it is), and Comey — not Putin — who elected Donald Trump.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
It is par for the course for the USA to want conflict and even war, but with Russia this is exceedingly dangerous. Putin behaves like a rational human, and in these talks even Trump seemed close to normal, but that is too much for the incredibly unfree US media and the obsession with “meddling in our election” (without, of course, actually having an effect or involving real Americans). Putin is more conversant with American law than any of the “journalists” or lawmakers berating the whole meeting, as if the “indictments” were the truth.
The problem is many Americans hate the fact that Putin is a “rational human.” They’d prefer that he be just like them.
No, they want a shoe thumping Khrushchev
The theory is that the legislative branch is more measured and rational than the executive branch given that the executive branch is controlled by one individual. Toss that theory out.
The “meddling” was by illegal aliens fraudulently voting.
Interesting that you would have just as rich a fantasy life concerning “meddling” as Trump’s opponents do.
So you think in liberal whacked out California, illegals didn’t vote? They give them sanctuary and protect them from being apprehended, and I suppose those same people are going to quibble over “no ID” or “phony ID” people from voting. Would you be interested in the Golden Gate bridge if I give you a good deal?
So you think that Trump would have won California if not for your fantasy “illegals” voting? Sounds like maybe you really believe that you CAN sell the Golden Gate bridge.
Did I say I thought Trump could have won California? No I did not. Do you think so?
Stop bidding for that bridge.
Thomas, what do you make of this?
https://fs.wp.odu.edu/jrichman/category/non-citizen-voting/
And here’s the research that started it all:
http://web.stanford.edu/group/bps/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Do_non-citizens_vote_in_US_elections.pdf
What I make of it is that it looks a lot like an epidemiological study. My wife, who works in epidemiology, hates it when I quote Steve Milloy’s first two rules of junk science to her:
Rule #1: Statistics isn’t science.
Rule #2: Epidemiology is statistics.
I agree they want to prevent any detente.
I can’t agree that Trump has been competent enough to create or even progress toward a meaningful detente.
They are heading off the possibility that peace could break out, but there is no sign that Trump is likely to accomplish that deliberately, much less that he’s made progress in that direction. It is just a danger from the trend, to be halted before it gets too far to being a risk to the money flow.
The Deep State isn’t that bright! They are still operating from a post WWII playbook and are trying to bring back the McCarthy era and the Cold War…and Iron Curtain. What they don’t realize is that the dynamics changed loooong ago and Putin isn’t looked upon as the evil entity. As a matter of fact, he comes across as a cool guy who is in control of his situation. Really makes us look bad to always be on the verge of war with someone. Oops! Forgot, if we don’t have continual, endless and nonsensical wars, the deep state would have no reason to exist…and the poor corporations would go wanting…
Trump was the peace candidate and Hillary was the war candidate. Liberals are now crazed John Birchers – who thought Eisenhower was a commie.
Today’s so called liberals have out-McCarthy-ed McCarthy. This is one leftist who’s grown exhausted with having to defend a president I despise from an opposition who has become even worse. I’m moving to f**king Iceland as soon as I can afford a ticket.
I’m with you, I don’t really want to be defending Trump all the time and I sure as hell don’t want to be defending someone like Putin either. I don’t think anyone should ever have that much power let alone these two men who are both willing to use the military in ways I would never approve of. But like it or not those two men could be the difference between war and peace. We’d better hope they manage to find a way to get along.
It’s been obvious to me from the start that the whole point of RussiaGate was to sabotage any form of detente, WHEREVER it might come from. This isn’t just about Trump, this RussiaGate nonsense pretty much silences anyone who even thinks about questioning the necessity of a new cold war. Even if you took Trump out and replaced him with someone else it wouldn’t change the fact that RussiaGate is being used as cold war propaganda. They would probably do the same thing to Sanders, Stein, Paul(s), Kucinich or anyone else who suggests the cold war is over. And that’s just it’s effect on this country, it’s effects are not limited to just the US either. In Europe it’s being used the same way to twist arms.
As for the Left (whatever that word is worth any more). I warned my “progressive” friends (the right word for this particular group), after Hillary called Trump a puppet in the debates, not to fall for it and that attacking Trump from the Right was a bad idea. If you find yourself on the same team as the neo-cons it would be a good idea to at least consider you might be being duped, right? They are pretty much still on the F Trump and Putin kick and loving every minute of it. Nuclear war? What??? Trump is a Traitor and you’re a bigot, blah blah blah. Although some of the Bernie Bros friends that, I know locally, are giving Trump a chance at least on stuff like this and then bashing him on everything else, which makes a lot more sense to me.
“giving Trump a chance at least on stuff like this and then bashing him on everything else”
I ain’t no Bernie bro but that’s me in a nutshell. I sincerely doubt Trump’s commitment to peace but if he wants to slow down the showdown, for any goddamn reason, then I’m not gonna stand in his way just for laugh when he falls down. It’s not worth the laugh. I’ll trip the bastard when he’s done talking to Putin, thank you very much.
Baja is closer, warmer, lower cost of living, and very few — astonishingly polite — cops. And no ticket needed, just get in your car and drive.
Sounds nice, and I’m sure the pot is fantastic too. But much like the late great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, I’ve never been able to properly explain myself in that climate. Plus, I live in Pennsylvania so it would be one hell of a drive. I should probably stick to the land of Bjork.
The Helsinki conference has a remarkable association with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and its aftermath. When the leaders of the communist party came to power they immediately denounced secret diplomacy as a capitalist ruse to mislead and suppress the workers of the world. They vowed never to engage in secret diplomacy themselves. Lenin personally ordered that all documents pertaining to secret diplomacy which were found in the collection of the Czarist government were to be published. That angered the governments of France and the United Kingdom when the Soviets opened the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement for inspection. The German government became incensed when Trotsky and Lenin published every word uttered by the Germans and Trotsky at the Brest-Litowsk talks. When Trotsky became foreign minister and thereby had access to a powerful radio transmitter he began what he called his “war with the Eiffel Tower” where the transmitter of the French government was located. In that war of words he published even more French-Russian secret diplomatic papers of the past.
The first Russian leader who then broke with the Soviet Union’s open diplomacy was Stalin whose agreement with Germany (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) contained secret clauses on spheres of influence.
Putin was once a dyed-in-the-wool communist. As a Russian he is not an adept of Lenin but of Stalin. Why did he have a need for this weird piece of secret diplomacy? Spheres of influence again?