139 Comments

I'm taking my time with this article, but couldn't help but pipe up when you mentioned The Mueller Report because not only did I read it once, I read it twice. There was so much in it that seemed damning to Trump and dangerous for the United States. Why more people were not jumping up and down after reading it still stuns me. Why Bill Barr pretty much swept it under the rug shocked me and it should have shocked everybody else. Now back to the rest of this article and thank you for confirming why I was so intrigued by the report.

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Regarding Barr’s complicity see today’s NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/politics/durham-trump-russia-barr.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

How Barr’s Quest to Find Flaws in the Russia Inquiry Unraveled

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We are witnessing the destruction of our democracy by agents who have been sworn to uphold the Constitution. The list includes too many in the NY FBI office; Tony Ornato, still collecting a federal check, who served trump at the expense of the lives of some of his fellow law enforcement officers; and all the civilian officials in the a military chain of command who sat back and watched the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol!Their personal beliefs no longer align with their vow to protect OUR democracy, rather they act to protect THEIR version of democracy!

Ironic, the macho image of the FBI in contrast to the little person, who may have been the original ‘gender fluid poster boy’, J Edgar Hoover! Pathetic!

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I think what we're actually witnessing is a serious challenge to privileged white men's illusions about "our democracy." Many of the rest of us have known better for decades, centuries even.

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Hey Susanna! How great to run into you, here of all places. Glad to know you are still alive and kickin’. Me, too. Reach out if you like: kayhag@icloud.com

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I remember how easy it was to pull the wool over the eyes of those who who rather not see. So many believed Barr's "summary". With the election of Trump we allowed a takeover of ill intentioned forces in our government.

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Bill Barr belongs I prison.

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Excellent and informative article.

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Because, as Tim alluded to, very few people actually READ it... And our delightful media have shown, time and time again over the past 6+ years, they are not able to read tea leaves or see forests for their trees. If it can't immediately stoke some ratings/clicks, most of them don't care and too few of them understand what these things even mean.

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Unfortunately, people don't spend a lot of time reading important documents, and I think it's a matter of time, how much time we can devote.

Today I read the 35-page State Bar Court of Los Angeles, CA, Notice of Disciplinary Charges against John Eastman, who fomented the Jan. 6, 2020 coup and plotted to overturn the 2020 election of Pres. Biden. He certainly deserves to be disbarred. When people are held accountable, we can breathe a sigh of relief that our government is working. Much of the information in the charges came from the Jan. 6th Committee's work.

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You are forgetting that NO ONE READS NEWSPAPERS anymore and that our 4th Estate is teetering on bankruptcy! I agree that the NYTimea and WaPO let a lot of this stuff slide, but they're going broke. People prefer to get their news from Fox/ Twitter/ and Facebook. It's not good.

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Some of us still read newspapers, including our local papers when they still exist. The Washington Post and NY Times are not always reporting what seems essential, same as with TV journalists, but there is reason why so many of us subscribe to this newsletter, as well as others, like Heather Cox Richardson, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Joyce Vance or listen to podcasts that are truth-seekers like Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa on Gaslit Nation.

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Hi, Susan, since yours is the top story (i.e., the most liked, I hope you will not mind an update here on Professor Snyder's Shahed Hunter Fundraiser. The news comes from UNITED24.

THE GOAL is 1 250 000 $

As of January 27, $1,095,099 has been raised.

January 27th is my birthday, and I'm celebrating it by a further donation. Please join me, if you can.

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And there's this:

"'There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,' McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. [. . .] Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: 'Swear to God.' [...] [Paul] Ryan instructed his Republican lieutenants to keep the conversation private, saying: 'No leaks. . . . This is how we know we’re a real family here.'"--Recording of June 15, 2016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

For more than 6 years I've been saying that if the NY FBI field office isn't fully investigated and the appropriate people indicted, there is no such thing as justice.

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I am going to read this again it is chilling and the only other person who took the time to break this story out point by point is Keith Olbermann in his Countdown podcast episode 118 he devoted the entire segment 1/24/33 It is frightening. The collusion deception and Everything else is so clear. The Road to Unfreedom. The fact that we may be or are hostages of insurrectionists now in the House. 45 back on social media Horrendous. We have to be strong and Fight Like Ukraine For Freedom

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Heather Cox Richardson discussed McGonigal’s relationship both to Comey’s public announcement of the reopening of the bogus email investigation as well as the larger more widespread implications immediately after the indictment was revealed.

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Thank you

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I remember listening to Snyder and Masha Gessen discussing whether Russia played a role in the 2016 election. Gessen was pretty adamant that Russia had not. At that time, I was more familiar with Gessen's writing and books than with Professor Snyder's, so thought Gessen was probably right. I'd like to hear Gessen's viewpoint now, in light of the new information. Prof. Snyder makes some mighty good points here. I'm terrified that the growing fascist, anti democratic leaning of the Republicans in congress, and their staggeringly self serving behavior will, well, lead us to UNfreedom within my lifetime, and I'm 71.

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I am so grateful to read this. I have been thinking along similar lines ever since 20l6. I am a ceramic artist and one piece I have in my studio is a sculpture of a garish female figure clad in gown with a plunging neckline and covered with bugs, bats, and snail shells. The figure is set on my copy of The Muller Report and is titled "All is Revealed." I keep it as a visual reminder of 2016 in all of its grotesque horror.

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I hope you might consider renaming your sculpture in relation to the "pussy" tapes. At any rate, keep creating. Let artists spotlight the rot of these plutocrats, like the Sacklers' greed for oxycontin profits no matter deaths and ruined lives.

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Actually I made it because of all of Trump's disgusting behavior, especially his sexual predation. The figure is actually joyously revealing all the sliminess of his overall behavior on so many levels. Yuck. I also created it as a kind of homage to Stormy Daniels who blew the whistle on Trump early on. The Sacklers are right up there in the book of creeps indeed. It's also creepy to think they funded art museums with their ill gotten gains.

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They appear to want to look and smell right to each other in their "class" It is those that are after natural resources and privitization for personal gain that should concern us all. 45 and company are ready to roll back all protections

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Bravissimo! and keep up your work.

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The Mueller report has not been read by many who should because many Trump supporters are over worked, and under paid to the point of where is the time to care? The others are illiterate. The majority do not know much about Russia, or Soviet history or history in general. There is also a HUGE problem that many Americans will distrust brown skin toned people (Mexican immigrants) versus white skin toned Russians. I know this from my own rural teaching experiences. Quite often funding is found to support the white Russian or Eastern European students, however not the brown skin toned students. Quite often brown students are used for additional funding and after the white students graduate the brown students are dropped. That is a mentality across a very broad spectrum. Gone are the Top Gun movie days when Russians were portrayed as dark, mysterious, and dangerous. But Mexicans very recently are portrayed as drug dealing rapists. That's a gigantic problem since it has never been the case of any of my very gifted Mexican students or their families.

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Wow. That's an eye-opener. And it's pretty creepy.

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Thank you so much for your research and writing. I hope that you publish this widely. I am sharing it with all friends and family.

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In 2014 I noticed something EXTREMELY disturbing while substitute teaching in a poverty level rural school. A lot of students in varying grades, with varying socioeconomic levels, in varying styles of groups were making a lot of antisemitic jokes and slurs. It wasn't just one small group of neo Nazi type kids. It was the jocks, the nerds, the creative, the goths etc. and then one day I saw some anti-semitic materials come up on the school computers in the computer lab. I wasn't sure if neo-Nazis somewhere out there were making it. And at that time I was only beginning to learn about Ukraine. After 2016 I was quite certain it was Russian propaganda. Shouldn't the FBI have seen that? I thought the FBI monitors more radical things like that on the internet and especially in schools.

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thank you for sharing this

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Very worrisome... This is for the US Department of Education and the state's Departments to follow closely and act upon.

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Hopefully, but honestly, it is for the people to bring up to school boards and department of ed. The public has a significant amount of leverage in public schools. Many do not realize this, remain uninformed and do not show up.

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Likewise the department of education also needs to also follow what is happening inside public schools. There should be anonymous surveys sent to teachers so they possibly open up about if they are afraid of losing their jobs for being openly friendly towards the LGBTQ community, or if they are not teaching in a "conservative" enough manner etc.

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Telegram was developed in St.Petersburg, Russia. I've wondered how safe it actually is. A Russian I've known for many years recommended we stay in contact with it. There used to be Resistbot to text our representatives with when Trump became elected. I'm not sure what happened to that but it went to Telegram instead. I feel like it's Russia's way of monitoring things even though people tell me the encryption is very safe. I 100% don't trust it.

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Where were you having this experience if I may ask?

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In a West North Central State in a rural location is as much as I'm willing to say.

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Thanks- I was wondering if you are talking about a certain area of the country where this might be more of the culture. I live in an area of the country ( the NorthEast, New England) that is mostly not like that, more multicultural, accepting of immigrants and people with a different skin color or foreign nationality-- though there are some of those who are like what you describe. Before Trump people were more politically correct and kept their morally deplorable thoughts to themselves. Fox/GOP news has added to the problem, breaking us up further.

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I had never seen it on school computers before and had subbed in these areas for about 13 years or so at that time. Nor had I ever encountered such a large and wide variety of students saying antisemitic things. This is a very white area and known to be quite racist however it had never been that obvious in a school before nor usually antisemitic. At the time I was under the impression they must all be viewing something similar on the internet. Something popular like Tik Tok but I don't think that existed yet and I wasn't up on what was popular for teens and young teens on the internet during those years. A lot of people in that area I don't think knew much about Jewish people or antisemitism but maybe I just didnt know the community that deeply. It was shortly after that a Jewish woman in the area was murdered. Her teenage son was accused of killing her although her son claimed neo Nazis had killed her. It's hard to tell what the truth was there. It seemed strange it happened coinciding at the same time so much antisemitic things seemed to be rising as well. There has also been what seems like Russian propaganda targeting home school families on Facebook in these areas. One very unusual one sometime around 2018 was a very assertive lady convincing home school parents their choice of schooling was correct because home schooling would protect their kids from the evils of liberals and liberal influence in public schools. Then she went on a tirade about how horrible Lithuania was. Ironically the vast majority of home school families in this area especially at that time would have had little to no knowledge about Lithuania. I stopped subbing around 2015-2016 because my husband started working many extra hours. So I don't know what the situations are like currently in these schools.

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I am Jewish 100%. Eastern European. My grandma came from Lithuania. My grandfather came from Minsk. My other grandparents came from south of Kiev, a shtetl. They were all welcomed here over a century ago and all contributed to this country and their progeny continue to do so. I was brought up in NYC. A lot of this "stuff" anti-Semitic, racist, has been let out defiantly as being okay. It is then used. Trump appealed to it and nurtured it. I could never understand antiSemitism ( through the centuries)other than as scapegoatism, a valve that opens wider periodically especially when politicians allow it and find a need to take advantage of it. It's vile and harmful to the whole. It pains me that kids are being brought up this way, that their parents were brought up this way and it gets passed on.. this sickness. Home schooling is very worrying. It was better when we had political correctness at least in public. People had to keep their racist, AntiSemitic prejudices under wraps, hide it, confine it to their homes, to know it was immoral. But too, with antiSemitism and racism ( including about Muslims) it's ignorance and unfamiliarity, not knowing other than your own kind. It's not surprising that you speak about experience in rural areas- it sounds like rural white Christian areas. The internet maybe, or for sure, but it's also part of the DNA of some, that was buried, now out. It's latent, there to be called upon, in the air, like a virus, catchy.

Russia wants chaos here. Anything goes.

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I agree, and it's quite terrifying in my opinion. I studied German, the Holocaust, Russian Studies, history twenty years ago. Just a B.A. but still way more than most people around our area have learned so many don't recognize a lot of it and that makes their lack of knowledge and pre-anti Semitic assumptions very vulnerable. However, one thing people get wrong is that homeschooling doesn't just exist in rural areas. People in cities and suburbs also homeschool. It also isn't always done just for religious reasons. Sometimes families do it for health concerns even pre Covid for cancer etc. Other families do it to escape bullying in their districts. One family started homeschooling after a bullied sixth grader hung herself on a bathroom stall hook in the school and died a few days later. There are many reasons other than religious reasons. However, this particular Facebook oddity did seem to be aiming at religious homeschoolers. Sometimes I wonder if possibly even eastern European immigrant homeschoolers.

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Thank you Dr Snyder for your report. One has to wonder how deep the treason flows. The DOJ let McGonigal free on $500,000 bond. I see either defection or untimely accident involving a balcony.

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Was his passport revoked?

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Wow- thank you! YES! "Again, if these allegations are true, they will soon be surrounded by other heretofore unknown facts, which should lead us to consider the problem of election integrity in a general way" We are letting this happen!!

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I remember Trump shouting "no collusion!" to the cameras. Vindicated. And "responsible voices" went with it, not only sycophants and yahoos. We, the media, believed what we wanted to believe-- some called it conspiracy theory.

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Kathleen Hall Jamison issued a report/book in 2018 but she was an outlier:

"Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President - What We Don't, Can't, and Do Know .

Jane Mayer in an article in the New Yorker September 20i8 highlighted "How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump" "A meticulous analysis of online activity during the 2016 campaign makes a powerful case that targeted cyberattacks by hackers and trolls were decisive."

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The threat by McConnell to call investigations "political", Comey's succumbing to threats, and now the fears of our DOJ about politicization.., plus the charge that Biden is politicizing government. They,those ill intentioned forces, blackmail in this way, take advantage of weaknesses. In fact the GOP has been doing this and IS doing this big time. This is so depressing. I include weakness of people who have power to stand up but don't, and too many who would rather look the other way it seems, brush it all off as partisan.. Adam Schiff's dismissal from the Intelligence Committee and all the dishonest far right appointments to committees tells what peril we are in. Schiff is an outstanding example of integrity and courage.

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Due Process will come to pass in his case, will he trade tangible insights with his attorney's advice in exchange for a lesser sentence? Based on this study written he's a proven trader of measures ; so -- yes.

A second can of worms shall be opened, tieing in the Mueller findings, the J6C analysis and the then published, Senate Republican Intelligence findings...(last paragraph)... Leading right to the

sources. [...].

Thank you professor. I do feel bad for Frank Figliuzzi, saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice on MSNBC when the arrest was first broadcasted. His old section in counter Intel where many dedicated folks work and then, this blackeye - - on the important profession our country counts on. I think the last agent traitor was Robert Hanssen, '79 - 2001 that cost ten assets their lives. Motive...money and greed. Salutes. Jim.

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I thought Frank Figliuzzi was going to break down on Deadline: White House.

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Thank you Tim Snyder. This is quite something.

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I was a teen during the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam and opposed the war, and opposed U.S. military intervention in other wars since then. I have Peace Movement friends who oppose U.S. military support for Ukraine. I have tried to convince them that this is a much different situation. They see our involvement as just another instance of military industrial complex wanting to make money. And believe the idea that NATO/the U.S. provoked Russia. I'm so frustrated.

After reading this piece, I get the feeling they are being manipulated by Russian active measures. They have a lifetime of ideological framework that predisposes them to see any war we are involved in as illegitimate.

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Lynne As a Foreign Service Officer (Congo 1960-1966) my ‘rambunctious’ Congo activities triggered two ‘invitations’ from our Saigon ambassador to ‘join’ him.. I twice refused, because I saw no light at the end of the tunneled.

I had spent years in the Middle East in the 1950s researching NASSER’S NEW EGYPT: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS [1960, NY, London ]I kept abreast of ME affairs and was appalled by the deliberate miss information that resorted in the interminable Iraqi war commencing in 2003. In 1960 I had a 21/2 hour interview with Iraqi President Abdul Karin Qassim. He was deposed and killed in 1963 in a coup sanctioned by JFK. This provided Saddam Hussein his start (hunting down commies identified by CIA). AWWK!

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The problem with pacifism, as with any "ism" is that it tends toward being dogmatic. People get caught up in the black versus white aspects of any such movement, which denies them the ability to make subtle judgements. In the late '60s I was against the war, even though an officer in the Navy, because I thought there was no real threat, and that it was immoral. Needless to say I had to keep my head down as I was embedded in folks who were blinded by the opposite of pacifism.

So in short I would not jump to any conclusions about your friends being manipulated by the Russians. Most likely they are simply blinded by their rigid beliefs.

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Stephen My first exposure to ‘pacifism’ was when my cousin, a Quaker, enlisted in the Marines and landed on Guadalcanal in late 1942 and then island hopped.

Much later, on the editorial board of the New York Times, he wrote eloquently against the Vietnam war. I think he got it right both times.

In 1964 I volunteered to return to Congo to be directly involved in the rescue of 3,300 foreign hostages held under rebel death threat. Because of my Congolese ‘exploits,’ in 1965 and then 1967 our Saigon ambassador twice ‘invited’ me to join him, I saw no light at the end of the tunnel and firmly declined.

I think I got it right both times.

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I agree. It is really unfortunate that when the Soviet Union collapsed more attention wasn't paid to their crimes. I think the left is just as easily manipulated as the right. And that is dangerous because they can be used to further Putin's agenda.

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It’s almost impossible to comprehend... that this sort of rot and corruption was swept under the carpet. Are western nations responsible for the war? In some measure definitely

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Responsible for the war? Only if you buy the idea that by caving in to Hitler in 1938 it was Britain and France who were responsible for starting World War 2 in Europe. Or maybe it was Poland, whose diplomats refused to sign a treaty allowing the Germans to attack the USSR from their territory. Me, I'd call it "blaming the victim".

Like Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Putin has been very clear about his vision for the future. The west's great error was in not taking him at his word. Particularly in 2014; perhaps had we been able to react forcefully then the current war would not have happened, although it should be remembered that the Ukraine was far weaker and fragmented in 2014.

We should be thankful that Putin waited until 2021 to launch his attack. Had he done so two or three years earlier, I expect that both the reaction and the outcome would have been vastly different.

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Not disagreeing..however…West was enabler in both…and the trainwroeck of the eastern democraticies that’s emerged makes harder to fox..puts it on the people fighting in the trenches at Bakhmut ..that’s not the same as drinking Kremlin koolaide .

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Because the Western Democracies were betrayed by those who were responsible for their security, they are responsible for Putin’s misreading of weakness leading to his aggression? It makes more sense to say the weak response to the Crimea & Eastern Ukraine takeovers lead to the current war.

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"In some measure definitely" Say how? By not expanding NATO to Ukraine sooner?

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By not responding from time of Budapest, by building nordstream11. By not lifting an eyebrow to Crimea …

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I agree... but hindsight. ...and a German problem. Obama was reluctant though he did send help to Ukraine in 2014. Trump hesitated and was with Russia. We, the country, did not want to get involved in a war. It took this outrageous egregious aggression to put a fire under Biden.

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Exactly….I haven’t the eloquence of Snyder or Francis, but while there is no excusing genocide and aggression of Putin that’s deep rooted - we were our own worst enemies and often seemed to play into his hands..

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We have war because Putin asked for it. We have war because Biden responded and got the West on board with us because we still could. We have war because Ukrainians will fight for their existence. We have war because there was no choice anymore.

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Still this is hindsight. All those factors, what was going on at the time apply. Putin nevertheless is criminal. He brought this on. I cannot agree this is our fault when we never imagined he would do what he is doing. Nobody did.

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Fault isn’t the word..I do say we enabled ..

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It’s the thousand cuts….not calling out interference in 2016 elections…even go as far back as collapse of Soviet Union and essentially yelling “we won” which served to underline sense of world being against Russians….the blame is on Putin…but we hardly helped ..not trying to make a mountain here or excuse Putin/russia…

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Thank you, Dr, Snyder, for this incisive article. Two things: (1) the children of the "patriots" of the 50s who vaunted our fears of Communist takeovers now brush such concerns aside, just as (2) the children of the men and women who fought and died in WWII against fascism now strut it at home. I am so ashamed of them. But I am proud of those who have remained loyal to the principle of democracy, and especially of my neighbors in Phoenix who, despite pressure, made Arizona blue!

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There's something of a pattern here. The investigation into the Trump-Russia connections was strangely limited as you say - and now we know it is true of the FBI investigation of Bret Kavanaugh as well.

https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/fbi-director-confirms-agency-sent-tips-from-kavanaugh-tip-line-to-trump-white-house-without-investigation

https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/after-new-details-on-kavanaugh-investigation-surface-senators-call-on-fbi-for-answers-on-handling-of-tip-line

Is this that "Deep State" we keep hearing about - and why does it seem to be a Republican asset?

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