5 reasons the GOP is the Party of Putin
Republicans are fond of calling themselves the “Party of Lincoln,” which is part of their continuing effort to fool American rubes into believing that Democrats are racists while conveniently forgetting that when Lincoln became president, the Republican Party was anti-states-rights, anti-slavery, and pro-stronger-big-government – in other words, they were Democrats!
In recent times, this writer has taken to referring to Republicans as the “Party of George Lincoln Rockwell“, particularly given former game show host turned GOP politician Donald Trump’s popularity among American neo-Nazis (see here, here, here, and here – and that is citing only a tiny number of examples).
Okay. This is a really tough admission – but I was wrong. I was wrong.
The Republican Party is now the Party of Putin, and here are five reasons why.
1: The GOP does not want Trump’s ties to Russia and Putin exposed. Latest case in point: prominent Republican and incoming House Oversight Committee chairman Trey Gowdy is one of Trump’s useful idiots.
Gowdy said Friday he has no plans to call fired FBI Director James Comey before his panel or demand the bureau hand over memos that Comey wrote detailing his interactions with President Trump.
Gowdy’s position is a sharp departure from that of his predecessor, retiring Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who had personally urged Comey to testify before the Oversight panel and demanded the FBI produce the memos.
The South Carolina Republicans’s comments suggest he won’t use the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to vigorously investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow, or possible obstruction of justice by the president.
2: GOP protests notwithstanding, Republican political operatives were working with the Russian government to hurt Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
A new report confirms that Republican political operatives were working with the Russian government to hurt Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The hacking spree that upended the presidential election wasn’t limited to Democratic National Committee memos and Clinton-aide emails posted on websites. The hacker also privately sent Democratic voter-turnout analyses to a Republican political operative in Florida named Aaron Nevins. Learning that hacker “Guccifer 2.0” had tapped into a Democratic committee that helps House candidates, Mr. Nevins wrote to the hacker to say: “Feel free to send any Florida-based information.” Ten days later, Mr. Nevins received 2.5 gigabytes of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee documents, some of which he posted on a blog called HelloFLA.com that he ran using a pseudonym./blockquote>
The Russia scandal is bigger than Trump, his campaign, and his administration. It is also about the Republican Party and how willing Republican operatives were to turn a blind eye and look the other way in pursuit of winning an election. The Republican Party sold out democracy to Russia, and what they received in return was a win in the 2016 election.3: While many Republicans in Congress are aligning with Democrats who want to step up sanctions against Russia, Donald Trump and his allies want to help their BFF Vlad.
The White House is quietly lobbying House Republicans to weaken a bill overwhelmingly passed by the Senate last week that would slap tough new sanctions on Russia for its meddling in the 2016 election and allow Congress to block any future move by President Trump to lift any penalties against Moscow.
The effort is designed to head off an awkward and politically damaging veto fight between the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress on Russia at a time when Mr. Trump is laboring under the shadow of multiple investigations about his campaign’s potential collusion with Moscow.
House Republicans, normally hawkish on Russia, face a choice between demonstrating a hard line against Moscow in the face of its misconduct and sparing their own president a potentially embarrassing confrontation.
4: One of the most VIP of VIPs at the 2016 Republican Convention was Russia’s Ambassador to the US. WTF????
Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July on the sidelines of the Republican convention, and in September in his office when Sessions was a member of the Senate Armed Services committee. Sessions was an early Trump backer and regular surrogate for him as a candidate.
The Washington Post first reported on Sessions’ meetings with the official.
Leading Democratic lawmakers, including Pelosi and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, called for Sessions to resign after the news broke, with Pelosi characterizing his comments in his confirmation as “apparent perjury.”“The top cop in our country lied under oath to the a people is grounds for him to resign,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday. “He has proved that he is unqualified and unfit to serve in that position of trust.”
5: How did Mitch McConnell react when briefed in the lead-up to the 2016 US election about Russian hacking? By essentially acting in Putin’s interest, of course.
In early September, [then-Homeland Security Dirctor Jeh] Johnson. [then-FBI Director JamesJames] Comey, and [then-Homeland Security Advisor Lisa] Monaco arrived on Capitol Hill in a caravan of black SUVs for a meeting with 12 key members of Congress, including the leadership of both parties [to brief them on Russian hacking of political parties and social media with the goal of “hacking” the 2016 election].
The meeting devolved into a partisan squabble.
“The Dems were, ‘Hey, we have to tell the public,’ ” recalled one participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public that the election was under attack would further Russia’s aim of sapping confidence in the system.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further, officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence truly supported the White House’s claims. Through a spokeswoman, McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.
Key Democrats were stunned by the GOP response and exasperated that the White House seemed willing to let Republican opposition block any pre-election move.
Party.
Of.
Putin.
