Daily Beast: Kremlin Media Still Like Bernie, 'Cause They Love Trump

[TomCADem]

Last edited Sat Mar 28, 2020, 06:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Is Bernie repeatedly voting in support of Russia, because he is expecting continued support for his efforts to disrupt the Democratic primaries or is it because he truly supports Russia against American interests? Which is it? It is just amazing how consistent Bernie is in voting, or skipping, votes in order to benefit Russia.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-media-still-like-bernie-sanders-cause-they-love-trump

In the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, Russian state media strongly backed both Sanders and Trump. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of the St. Petersburg troll farm, known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) detailed how its operatives were instructed to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them).”

In 2018, Russian state media included Bernie Sanders in its line-up of “Russia’s friends,” alongside Dennis Kucinich, Dana Rohrabacher, Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Mike Flynn. Sanders made the list because in 2012 he voted against the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation seeking to impose sanctions for the Russian government’s extrajudicial killings, torture, or other human rights violations committed against individuals seeking to promote human rights or to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the government of the Russian Federation.

In 2017, Senator Sanders voted against legislation that imposed sanctions against North Korea, Iran and Russia. The bill was passed by Congress in response to Russia's interference in the 2016 US election, as well as its human rights violations, annexation of Crimea, and military operations in eastern Ukraine.

In 2019, Bernie Sanders was the sole senator to miss the vote on a bill that would prevent the U.S. Treasury Department from rolling back sanctions on three companies owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Senator Sanders skipped the vote in order to meet with former staff members who conveyed their dismay over the alleged mistreatment of women during his 2016 campaign.

[The Magistrate]

1. Exactly, Sir

"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[TomCADem]

4. When The BS Campaign Says "We don't know what will befall us..."

As an excuse as to why BS continues to campaign against Biden, you have to wonder whether they are holding out for another assist from Putin. If hacked emails suddenly show up, I am sure BS will play the role of victim. It is almost Trump-like when Roger Stone kept on teasing about how something might show up to change the dynamics of the race.

[The Magistrate]

8. They Could Be, Sir

In 2016, 'Bernie' used his wife to float the idea shorty before the convention, that Mrs. Clinton might be indicted, to the political benefit of her 'Bernie'.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[NurseJackie]

2. It is just amazing how consistent Bernie is in voting, or skipping, votes in order to benefit Russia

It is just amazing how consistent Bernie is in voting, or skipping, votes in order to benefit Russia.

Brace yourselves for the chorus of defenders claiming "it would have passed anyway" or "it wouldn't have passed anyway" (therefore his vote "didn't matter'') or something.

Ugh. Well, if his vote doesn't matter... what's he doing there anyway? Why bother with ANY vote if someone is going to make an argument or defense as specious as that?

I'm so glad that someone FINALLY looked at his voting record and did the math in order to BUST THE MYTH that "Ohhhh! But Bernie votes with the Democrats 99% of the time". ---Of course that's nonsense! TOTALLY FALSE! In reality, he votes with the Democrats only 80% of the time (if you round-up).

[SheltieLover]

3. Yup!

Quite disturbing, to say the least.

Why would we wabt to trade one ego maniacal Russen asset for another?

[showblue22]

5. There are many on the far left who are Russia sympathizers.

Like Trump, they deny election interference. I suspect Greenwald is a willing Russia Asset.

[TomCADem]

7. On the right as well with Rohrbacher and Trump...

...plus a fair amount of the right are big fans of Putin anti-LGBT views. It is not just Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Thom Hartmann and Ed Schultz who are jumping on the Putin bandwagon.

[Cha]

6. That's nice.. ugh

[Hortensis]

9. Sanders publicly supported Putin's goal of disbanding NATO

and creating a new organization that would include Russia and focus on terrorism, also in line with Putin's own suggestion. Sanders declined to say if this new organization would include mutual defense commitments, or not. This as as NATO and other European nations are being forced to rearm against the threat of Russian invasion.

[The Magistrate]

10. It Would Be Nice To See A Link To That, Ma'am

It had escaped my notice.

Such a line would certainly be of a piece with Sanders' 'SWP-adjacent' days in the Reagan era.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[Hortensis]

11. It was a speech at I believe Georgetown University,

but I didn't pull the speech up on a quick search. It was in the news back in 2017 or so.

Regarding the OP's theme of usefulness to Russia, it's actually important to note that Sanders has also publicly taken a firm position against any expansion of NATO. That's a guaranteed way to please Putin. In a lot of ways that benefit Russia his positions overlap Trump's, and no coincidence that Russia helps both.

Although I don't find anywhere that Sanders has actually called for exiting NATO if it can't be dissolved, there's been a lot of discussion, including among worried Europeans, that his stated noninterventionist foreign policy goals, which include continued withdrawal and even elimination of much of the U.S.'s military capability, literally could not be achieved while maintaining NATO commitments to mutual defense. It's hard not to suspect that Sanders, like Trump, must accept the very strong likelihood of military invasions by various aggressive nations with imperialist plans.

Secondary only to a lot of alarmed Democrats, those charged with stopping Russian invasion into their own nations must be greatly relieved to see Sanders soundly rejected in favor of a man they know will honor our commitments to maintain peace and security.

[BidenBacker]

15. The Atlantic sure does have some writers doing good work over there

The Russian Trolls’ Next Favorite Candidate

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/russia-trump-bernie-sanders-election-interference/606703/

Luckily for the Russians, then, the two current front-runners for the presidency, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are both polarizing figures—and they’re both candidates Russian trolls sought to promote in 2016, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller found. This time, the Democratic field is crowded and squabbling, but it includes no hawkish, long-established Hillary Clinton to tear down. If the election does end up being a Trump-Sanders face-off, one of the Kremlin’s favored candidates from 2016 is guaranteed a win. They are far apart ideologically but nearly equally suited to the Kremlin’s interests, both in being divisive at home and in encouraging U.S. restraint abroad. Both Sanders and Trump profess to want to refocus the U.S. inward—a message that clearly appeals to many Americans. But that doesn’t mean the Russian propaganda machine is slowing down; it’s just aimed at a new target.

Darren Linvill, a Clemson University professor who has studied Russian information operations, told me, “Systems like this don’t tend to stop simply because their reason for being no longer exists. They find new reasons for being.” In this case, building on their 2016 successes and worsening divisions in the United States.

Here's a good summary on BS's preferred foreign policy...

The Sanders Doctrine

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/bernie-sanders-doctrine-america-military-foreign-policy/606364/

What the US needs is a POTUS who is not a reckless interventionist like Dubya but neither a dangerous isolationist like Trump or Sanders. Hopefully Biden would be a President who could successfully walk that narrow line. He'll have to find ways not to start stupid costly wars but yet not withdraw from the world stage and hand Putin a free pass to do whatever the hell he wants wherever the hell he wants.

[TomCADem]

12. I Actually Think That Bernie Was Pushing for Adding Russia to NATO...

... which to me is the same as destroying it, because the main purpose of NATO was to act as a bulkwark to Russian expansion. Expanding NATO to include Russia as part of that coalition makes no sense.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/11/19/sanders-wants-new-nato-with-russia

Sanders Wants New NATO with Russia

Bernie Sanders wants a new NATO -- and he wants Russia to be part of it.

In a lengthy speech to a jam-packed house at Georgetown University this afternoon, the senator and presidential candidate called for the creation of a new multi-nation organization to fight global extremism.

“We must create a new organization like NATO to confront the security threats of the 21st century -- an organization that emphasizes cooperation and collaboration to defeat the rise of violent extremism and, importantly, to address the root causes underlying these brutal acts,” he said in the speech. “We must work with our NATO partners, we must work to expand the coalition with Russia and we must work with members of the Arab League.”

The senator’s campaign press secretary, Symone Sanders, confirmed after the speech that the candidate wants Russia and Arab League member nations to be part of the group. She referred to it as “NATO 2.0.”

[BidenBacker]

13. Hey

How many Democratic delegates does Moscow have?

Not too many, I hope.

[TomCADem]

16. How Much Is Vladimir Putin Actually Worth?

Well, given that BS likes to focus on billionaire influence, it seems that Bernie has the backing of the biggest billionaire on the planet.

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a14480615/vladimir-putin-net-worth/

Vladimir Putin could be the richest man in the world. Take that, President Trump.

Last year, Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he believes the Russian president is "the richest man in the world" with a net worth of $200 billion. Browder has some bona fides to back up his Russia connections; the financier's firm was once the largest portfolio investor in Russia.

Celebritynetworth.com has a more conservative estimate: $70 billion, which matches the figure Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky gave the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2012. Forbes, the universally accepted source of wealth information, has dubbed the former KGB agent "the world's most powerful person" but does not give an estimate of his net worth.

A spokesperson for the publication told Town & Country earlier this year that's because they haven't been able to figure it out: "While Forbes has been able to track money tied to Putin’s allies, we have not been able to come up with a defensible, provable estimate of his net worth."

[BidenBacker]

17. Yeah, Tom

I looked up some estimates a week or two ago before making a post about how much he had compared to Bloomberg. Lowball estimates were around $70-80 billion and others say it could easily be twice that or more. Nobody really knows for sure how much that thug has stolen from the Russian people and has stashed away in secret Swiss and other accounts all over the world. But you can bet that Trump has laundered some of it at some point.

That's why I think Biden can confront him when he's POTUS and start pushing back hard where appropriate. At some point ol' Vlad is gonna wanna kick back and enjoy the fruits of his labor and all that hard-earned fortune he's built up over the years. He ain't gonna want a nuclear war and have all that dough go up in a flash of blinding white light only to be vaporized a few seconds later.

Trump kisses his KGB ass and Vlad loves it. Sanders would just let the US disappear and Putin would like that just as much. Doubt Joe would put up with his shit and make stopping his meddling all over the free world a high priority. Which is exactly why he's the last person Putin wants to see become the next US President.

[BidenBacker]

14. Sanders taking credit for something that never happened

now that's a, ahem, big surprise.

Bernie Sanders promoted false story on reporting Russian trolls

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/24/bernie-sanders-russian-trolls-false-story-423413

Some juicy stuff here I didn't know about...

How The Russian Social Media Effort Boosted Bernie

https://www.vpr.org/post/how-russian-social-media-effort-boosted-bernie

This guy is no better than the UK's Boris Johnson and half the Parliament who know damn well that Putin interfered with their Brexit fiasco but have done everything they can to squelch it so that the British public doesn't go totally apeshit.

You can bet your ass the Russkies will ramp it up bigtime not very long before the election just like they did in 2016. Biden better build up his War Room and take it to DEFCON 1 when October rolls around, if not sooner.

[TomCADem]

18. Unlike Biden, BS's Ads Do Not Specifically Target Trump

They tend to be generic attacks on billionaires with Bernie accusing his Democratic rivals of supporting such billionaires, which undercuts any attack on Trump.

This makes it easier for Russia to amplify Bernie's attacks. So, is it coordination if BS runs a campaign that emphasizes Russian propaganda points attacking the US knowing that Russian trolls will distribute such propaganda?