Putin Tests Biden

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Author: craigcrawford

Trail Mix Host. Lapsed journalist, author & retired pundit happily promoting nothing but the truth for Social Security checks.

70 thoughts on “Putin Tests Biden”

  2. wapo editorial board:

    WHEN PRESIDENT Ronald Reagan signed the bill creating a federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he warned that “traces of bigotry still mar” the country. This may seem the understatement of the 20th century; it would be an understatement today.
    […]
    Has America finally heard? Hindsight brings convenient moral clarity, so an admiration for King has become practically a matter of public curriculum. Yet what looks unimpeachable now was unpopular then, whether his full-throatedopposition to the Vietnam Warorhis insistence that there weretwo versions of this nation — one full with the “sunlight of opportunity” and the other with a “daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair.” The reality that the invigorating autumn of which King dreamed has not yet arrived is met with resistance today, too. It is easier to think about how far we’ve come than how far we’ve yet to go.
    […]
    “I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working . . . that men, in some strange way, are responding.
    “Something is happening in our world.”

  3. now, from the good to the bad back to joe and vlad.

    excerpt from the new yorker back in 2014:

    … the Boeing 777-200, carrying two hundred and ninety-eight people, had been hit by a surface-to-air missile. There were no survivors. When Biden reached the dais at a convention center in Detroit, he said that the plane “apparently has been shot down.” He added, “Not an accident. Blown out of the sky.”

    […]
    … Biden recalled visiting Putin at the Kremlin in 2011: “I had an interpreter, and when he was showing me his office I said, ‘It’s amazing what capitalism will do, won’t it? A magnificent office!’ And he laughed. As I turned, I was this close to him.” Biden held his hand a few inches from his nose. “I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul.’ ”
    “You said that?” I asked. It sounded like a movie line.
    “Absolutely, positively,” Biden said, and continued, “And he looked back at me, and he smiled, and he said, ‘We understand one another.’ ” Biden sat back, and said, “This is who this guy is!”

  5. BTW, that old NewYorker piece had some fun passages about joe the veep.  samples:

    On Easter Sunday, Biden boarded Air Force Two, bound for Kiev, the beleaguered Ukrainian capital. Compared with the Commander-in-Chief, the Vice-President flies in restrained splendor. The modified Boeing 757 was well used. An armrest came off in a passenger’s hands. The Vice-President had a private cabin with a foldout bed, a desk, and a guest chair, but if a second visitor arrived a plastic cooler passed as a seat. “If you want the trappings, it’s a hell of a lot better to go into some other line of work,” Biden said.

    and this one

    Biden told those seated around him, “To be very blunt about it, and this is a delicate thing to say to a group of leaders in their house of parliament, but you have to fight the cancer of corruption that is endemic in your system right now.” Biden likes to be candid in such settings. In 1979, on one of his first trips to the Soviet Union, he listened to an argument from his Soviet counterpart, and replied, “Where I come from, we have a saying: You can’t shit a shitter.” Bill Bradley, then a fellow-senator on the delegation, later asked the American interpreter how he had translated Biden’s comment into Russian. “Not literally,” the interpreter said.

    and this:

    Instead of raging against the indignities of the Vice-Presidency, Biden luxuriates in the job. Perched in his chair during the State of the Union address, peering down on his former congressional colleagues, Biden makes a pistol out of his finger and thumb, and blasts away, winking and gunning with no evident irony. Last year, C-span taped him getting ready to swear in new senators. He greeted each senator’s family with frisky enthusiasm. To the old ladies, he’d say, “You’ve got beautiful eyes, Mom, holy mackerel.” To the young women: “Remember—no serious guys till you’re thirty!” To the little kids in their Sunday best: “Take care of your grandfather. Your most important job.” The full package—the Ray-Ban aviators, the shameless schmalz, the echoes of the Fonz—has never endeared him to the establishment, but it lends him an air of authenticity that is rare in his profession. It has also produced a whiff of cult appeal, such that his image now has more in common with Betty White than with John Boehner. In May, after a teen-ager invited Biden to her prom, he replied with a corsage and a handwritten note encouraging her to “enjoy your prom as much as I did mine.” On Twitter, people went affectionately berserk.

  6. The countdown to freedom continues. 
     
    A single number, a simple percentage, a number of importance, 73% tells a huge story. According to findings by Zignal Labs, conversations about election fraud fell from 2.5 million mentions to 688,000 across several social media sites.  This is where the fight to regain our America starts.  Propaganda to overthrow the U.S. is not free speech.  It is the shouting fire speech that causes death.  By slowing down the lie so truth has a fighting chance to be heard is how we regain what was destroyed these last five years.

  11. BB and others on trail who may know how these things work in detail,  just how do/did they “vet” the 25,000 troops coming to secure the inauguration particularly those who will be inside the most inner barriers and any within sniper range anywhere outside the inner circle?   

  12. patd – that is a very good question.  When you start in basic training the DoD does an background check to find obvious issues.  Things like arrests, traffic tickets, court orders, money proble3ms or foreign contacts.  That usually gets you the DoD clearance of Confidential it used to be all military had a Confidential clearance, mostly as something that could be enforced if you talk about things.  If you need a higher clearance, Secret or Top Secret, you have a different investigation, one that involves contacting your acquaintances and others who know you. This is to find things like mob or gang contacts, o foreign contacts such as Russian, Korean, Chinese or others.  There are other clearances that are in addition to or in conjunction with, the DoD clearances. It is in the area of the clearance requires a clearance to get it. 
     
    Now to answer your question directly.  We already know the troops have a clearance.  What the FBI is doing is a deeper background, most likely involving contacting people who know you if anything pops up.  Say your name is associated in some manner with a group that has been deemed a domestic threat.  That will trigger a deeper look.  Doing backgrounds on twenty-five thousand people in a week is not possible.  But doing some associations by reviewing social media is.  Which is probably the first view the FBI is doing.  I suspect anyone who is associated with a nasty group will find an invitation to talk to their commander and their plane ticket home very soon.

  13. Jobs & Community Resources – 1/15/20

    For I know how many are your transgressions
    and how great are your sins—
    you who afflict the righteous, whotake a bribe,
    andturn aside the needyin the gate.
    13 Therefore he who is prudent willkeep silent in such a time,
    for it is an evil time.

    But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

     

  14. intelligencer:

    President Trump reportedly plans to offer clemency to at least 100 people in his final hours in office, according to Trump administration officials who spoke with multiple news organizations. The White House had initially planned for Trump to issue the pardons and commutations in batches, but that plan was scrapped in the aftermath of the insurrection the president incited at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Now the mass-clemency will all happen on Tuesday.

    […]

    The New York Timesreported Saturday that selling potential access to the unscrupulous president’s clemency pen has become a cottage industry, “with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the White House for clemency, according to documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers” — and the market has only gotten hotter now that the end of Trump’s term is nigh. Among the moneymakers, per the Times:

    […]

    The Timesalso reports that Kiriakou was at one point told that Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani —who is himself one of people the president may pardon on Tuesday — could help arrange a pardon in exchange for $2 million. Kiriakou, fearing Giuliani was illegally selling pardons, rejected the offer and reported it to the FBI. (“Giuliani challenged this characterization,” the Times noted.)

  16. BB, thanks.  given the time restraints i agree about the impossibility of a thorough enough vet that’s required for this mission. 

  17. from thespoof:

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – (Satire New) – Financial experts are saying that President Trump left nothing unturned when it came to lying; and that goes triple for his finances.
    A source close to Trump’s personal accountant, Aydin F. Periwinkle, stated that, for years, the man who is now regarded as the worst president in the history of presidents, has tremendously exaggerated his net worth.
    Don the Con has claimed he is worth $9.2 billion, but the truth of the matter is, he is only worth $3.1 million.
    Now, comes word that he is so desperate for money, that he is selling presidential pardons for $1 million each. So far, he has netted $173 million.
    GOPicky Magazine reports that he is selling presidential pardons to members of his insurrectionist army of right-wing anarchists, who have been charged with invading the USA on his orders.
    The President knows that most of his group of invaders really have no money to speak of, so he has offered to sell them full pardons at a much lower reduced price of $25,000 each.
    Trump’s newest ass-kisser, Michael Lindell, aka The My Pillow Guy, has offered to purchase presidential pardons for 200 of the scum-sucking, treasonous traitors.

  18. Sturg, yep, BOGO Tuesday. Hope the FBI and DOJ are drawing up their subpoenas for Trudee’s financial accounts. 

  22. Republicans Will Try to Pretend Like Trump Never Happened A collective case of amnesia will begin to set in the moment the president leaves office.

    As Donald Trump lurches through the disastrous final days of his presidency, Republicans are just beginning to survey the wreckage of his reign. Their party has been gutted, their leader is reviled, and after four years of excusing every presidential affront to “conservative values,” their credibility is shot. How will the GOP recover from the complicity and corruption of the Trump era? To many Republicans, the answer is simple: Pretend it never happened.

     

    “We’re about to see a whole political party do a large-scale version of ‘New phone, who dis?’” says Sarah Isgur, a former top spokesperson for the Trump Justice Department. “It will be like that boyfriend you should never have dated—the mistake that shall not be mentioned.”
    The plan might seem implausible, but I’ve heard it floated repeatedly in recent days by Republican strategists who are counting down the minutes of the Trump presidency. The hardcore MAGA crowd will stay loyal, of course, and those few who have consistently opposed Trump will escape with their reputations intact. But for the majority of GOP officials, apparatchiks, and commentators who sacrificed their dignity at the altar of Trump, a collective case of amnesia seems destined to set in the moment he leaves office.

  23. I genuinely hope none of the media covers Trump’s departure.  Just a simple announcement of “If anything of interest happens we will let you know” will be sufficient.  It is so gross that he is going early so the  last flight on Air Force One not to mention the red carpet and 21 gun salute.  

    The inauguration is important and shouldn’t be supplanted in any way by the sludge leaving town.

     

  24. Poo-tin is KGB.  He has no soul because he’s a serial killer who is allowed to operate in plain view.  
    David is on to something there.  Those trucks with truck nuts should fetch a good price at a police auction.  As felons, they won’t be allowed to lawfully have guns anymore, either.   I’d still like to see tRUMPsky’s wages garnished to pay for it, though.  

  25. Yes, he was whining about leaving on a plane no longer known as AF1, so he’s making it an early flight to get around it.  Oh, if only authorities were waiting to take him into custody when he lands.

  27. Navalny has a bigger pair than Poo-tin. 

    The thing about Poo-tin’s tough, KGB shell is that if there is ever the slightest crack, he will crumble.

  28. Looks like post holidays COVID surge has peaked. All metrics down over last several days. We’re still in a horrible place but nationwide hospitalizations, positivity rates and deaths no longer rising as they were a week ago.

  29. Craig…  I love David’s suggestion
     
    Yup… the cold war is well and alive.  Navalny….  showing the world what true courage is…

  33. Poobah, I’d say you’re right. 
    Wapo:

    In the past week in the U.S….

    New daily reported cases fell 11.6% 
    New daily reported deaths rose 4.6% 
    Covid-related hospitalizations fell 3.7% 

    Among reported tests, the positivity rate was 10.9%.
    The number of tests reportedrose 6% from the previous week.

    While deaths are up on the 7 day rolling average, they have been flat for 4 days right at 3,340-3,350 for the past four days and New cases have declined by 30,000 per day over that same 4 days.  A very small ray of light in an otherwise pitch black night.

  34. Biden is getting serious about this climate change stuff.

    Joe Biden to sign executive order to cancel Keystone XL pipeline, CBC News reports
    According to CBC News, stakeholders have seen a list of US President-elect Biden’s planned executive actions which include a reference to repealing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on day one of his presidency. Biden’s incoming chief of staff released a memo on Saturday outlining some of the executive orders Biden will sign in the first days of his presidency including rejoining the Paris climate accord, reversing the Muslim ban and issuing a federal mask mandate.

  36. high anxiety at high noon?

    nbcnews:

    “Public safety and law enforcement responded to a small fire in the area of 1st and F streets SE, Washington, D.C. that has been extinguished,” the Secret Service tweeted. “Out of an abundance of caution the U.S. Capitol complex was temporarily shutdown. There is no threat to the public.”

     

    President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were not at the Capitol when the incident occurred. Both are participating Monday in service events to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Biden and his wife are helping to distribute goods at Philabundance, Philadelphia’s largest hunger relief organization, while Harris and her husband are volunteering in D.C.

    Yogananda Pittman, acting chief of Capitol Police, acted out of “an abundance of caution following an external security threat under the bridge on I-295 at First and F Streets,” and ordered a shutdown of the Capitol complex, according to a statement from Capitol Police.

    “Members and staff were advised to shelter in place while the incident is being investigated.”

    Capitol Police later gave the all-clear, lifting the shelter-in-place advisory.

    A law enforcement official told NBC News that the evacuation was prompted by what turned out to be a fire at a homeless encampment.

    […]

    A notice sent to House and Senate offices said, “All buildings within the Capitol Complex: Due to an external security threat located under the bridge on I-295 at First and F Streets SE, no entry or exit is permitted at this time. You may move throughout the buildings but stay away from exterior windows and doors. If you are outside, seek cover.”

  39. A very cool moment this morning. Troops moved out of our block to their assigned locations downtown and neighbors gathered, we clapped and cheered. Some soldiers a bit tearful at our display. This country is gonna be OK. 

  40. There was was video of the Capitol attackers taking pics of paperwork.   Who knows what they accessed when they were ransacking offices.  

  42. Craig, I’m  thinking of you, David, and your house during all this.  Wadda place to live right now.
     
    Putin’s the worst president the US has ever had!
     
    Follow the money, honey.  Trump’s pigeon’s donated money is going to partially fund the insurrection as well as repube groups bucks.  Follow the money.

  43. the pelosi laptop girl……turned in by her ex-boy friend.    Ho boy, dat’s cold.
     

  44. Notice, it’s like Big Brother lately.  Ex’s turning in their ex’s.  Families turning in family members. 

  45. from a fox news story:

    The tipster identified Williams as being seen in footage from a British news site, ITV News, wearing a brown trench coat over a green top.

    In the first of two ITV News clips mentioned in the warrant, a woman who appears to be Williams can be heard “repeatedly yelling, ‘Upstairs, upstairs, upstairs,’ and can be seen physically directing other intruders to proceed up a staircase,” court papers state. Investigators confirmed the staircase leads to Pelosi’s office.

    In the second ITV News clip, Williams’ mother told a reporter she “recognized her daughter inside the U.S. Capitol Building and that her daughter had taken a sudden interest in President Trump’s politics and ‘far right message boards,’” the warrant states.

    She told the reporter that Williams “took off,” and she did not know where her daughter had gone. She also changed her phone number and is believed to have deleted several social media accounts.

    Williams allegedly traveled to D.C. with her father on Jan. 6, but separated from him during the day, the warrant states.

    She is wanted on charges of knowingly entering a restricted building and violent entry and disorderly conduct.

    the 2 ITV vids mentioned above

    https://youtu.be/jJiSmVktty4

  46. TT – not big brother watching you, more like patriots pointing out traitors.
     
    Reading the snippets of people who have been in contact with what is happening in the WH these last couple of days is like reading the last days in the assylm.  It sounds like SFB has crossed over into never never land.  You name it, light bulb is dim, oars are out of the water, putting the loon in loony tunes, the gas is leaking from the ballon. . .  All which mean diminished capacity to process reality.  Why bobble-head does not want to be president for a couple of days is something I can’t figure out.

  48. Been looking over the comments at Wapo re: Joe’s promise to revoke the Keystone XL US-Canadian cross border permit.  Interesting dichotomy between the folks who oppose it (tree huggers and green energy types) and those who support it (do whatever and who cares if it hurts the environment ‘cuz that’s what we’ve always doners).  It’s a bit of a tiresome back and forth.  

  49. The Keystone pipeline has become an identity validation marker. For activist environmentalist you can’t be in the club unless you oppose it and for climate deniers well, if the activists environmentalists are against it then naturally a real climate denier has to go all out to champion it.. 
    My personal opinion, it is probably a safer way to ship the oil rather than on a tanker car that runs through my neighborhood. But then again our neighborhood has way too many real environmental problems to worry about a mostly fictionalized hazard. So I’m just going to pop some corn and watch the show.
    Jack

  50. Tweet of the day that showed up in my feed.

    I still think that on Wednesday Hillary Clinton is going to wake up in bed with Bob Newhart and we’re going to find out that it was all a dream.

    We can always hope,
    Jack

  51. This is almost retro. Takes me bad to my childhood when every tv channel was airing the same important thing.

    The special, Celebrating America, will be hosted by Tom Hanks and will air from 8:30 p.m.-10 p.m. across five TV networks and online. The participating networks are ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC, while also streaming on the PIC’s YouTube and social media channels. Amazon Prime Video, Twitch and NewsNOW

    Looks like America is going to party, even if it is front of the tv at home.
    So how long is it to party time?
    Jack
     

  52. Maybe we can get back to some good political satire. It is hard to do satire these days, snark gets so confused with reality.
    Jack

  53. BTW, good luck to the Cleveland Browns, I think they are going the right direction and as a Chiefs fan I can understand.
    Now the Chiefs and the Bills are fighting for the championship. Man I’m like 16 again. this is old AFL stuff. I just hope the f*ck Miami doesn’t show up.
    Jack

  54. Miss Melania just posted her farewell post on twitter. Looks like most of the responses are ” Don’t let the door hit you in the ass”
    I know Flatus felt sorry for her but I have trouble doing so. But I do hope there is enough left of the Trump estate to keep her from homelessness. 
    Jack

  55. I think one thing that has happened to me in the last 4 years with Trump and other things is the realization that for the most part. “it ain’t my problem” What ever happens it isn’t going to be so bad that it will affect me. After all I’m damn near 70 with diabetes and other health issues. If I make it through the next 10 years, count me lucky.
     
    Jack.

  56. Got to love it!

    Parler is back online now by routing 100% of its user traffic through servers located within the Russian Federation.

     
    Jack

  57. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-capitol-siege-campaigns-elections-d14c78d53b3a212658223252fec87e99

    Records: Trump allies behind rally that ignited Capitol riot
    By RICHARD LARDNER and MICHELLE R. SMITH

    “The AP’s review found at least three of the Trump campaign aides named on the permit rushed to obscure their connections to the demonstration. They deactivated or locked down their social media profiles, removed tweets that referenced the rally and blocked a reporter who asked questions.“

  58. dont know if it’s true or not but i heard to get on Parler you have to give them your SSN.    lol, if true.

  60. yep, Trumps people organized 1-6
    Now they are going “oh shit” Seems Ivy league jobs are scarce and nobody is inviting them to the good cocktail parties. poor people, don’t you feel sorry for them?
    Jack
     

  61. Sturge, sounds like a sting operation to me.
    “Now just give me your bank account number and everything will be good, You can be a member of the club, I promise.”
    Jack

  62. So tomorrow will be when we hit 400,000 deaths from the virus.  I remember Dumbass talking back in the Spring and opining that a death toll of 20,000 or 30,000 or even 50,000 would reflect that his misadministration had done  a good job.  Well, a factor of somewhere between 8 and 20 would be more than that now wouldn’t it, and that would not show a good job was done now would it?  Idiot.

    Jack, I couldn’t give half a shit about Melania – IMHO she has as much of a soul as Putin – probably shares the one he doesn’t have with him.

    So does the Parler/Russia servers link corroborate the Russia-Trump connection that has been so elusive?

    Questions, questions, questions….

  65. Jack

    All pipelines develop leaks and because they are underground, the seepage isn’t found except by the damage done.  In addition, Keystone is because Canada didn’t want it crossing Canada to their west coast or having it refined there.  Add in destruction of indigenous land claims, it is practically the perfect environmental monstrosity for sake of a dying industry.  

     

  66. They wanted keystone to go right through the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska, potentially polluting the water.   

  67. Stephen Colbert

    No garbage collection today—because it’s MLK Day and because, this week, America’s taking out the trash on Wednesday.

     

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