The clearest message from this pathetic display is that Trump doesn't represent America, much like Putin doesn't represent Russia. And he just spent two hours alone with a KGB agent.
This is Putin's dream, bilateral equality with the US despite his dictatorship & aggression, one on one with the US president instead of confronting American interests, international institutions, and free world values.
That Trump not only allows this, but happily defends the dictator who recently ordered a Russian military intelligence unit to attack the USA, is either an overwhelming display of weakness or treason.
Trump hits Obama for not stopping Putin's attacks on the US. He hits Merkel for making a pipeline deal with Putin. But next to Putin himself, he won't say anything. Is he wearing a tie or a leash? #PutinsPoodle
And there's the next item on Putin's wish list, offering "help" in investigating his own attacks on the US in exchange for Trump's help stopping @Billbrowder and the Magnitsky sanctions that target him & his oligarchs.
Trump's "We're all to blame" says it all. Attacking his own administration and flattering Putin. America First? A sick joke. Where are Trump's supporters right now? Where are you? You fools and enablers selling out your country and the world for this traitor?
I'm ready to call this the darkest hour in the history of the American presidency. Let me know if you can think of any competition.
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Here Nathan Sharansky and I are at the March 7, 2018, NYC event honoring his life and retirement as head of Jewish Agency. I asked the great Ukrainian chess composer Eduard Eilazian for a problem in homage to Sharansky's own life. A trapped knight escapes to deliver mate!
I honestly don't know how I drew the game in the photo in 1994, and Nathan did beat me in our next simul game, in 1996. He is quite a strong player, not a courtesy draw at all!
"Like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing in our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom." Sen. Barry Goldwater, 16 Sep. 1981. nytimes.com/1981/09/16/us/…
"I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ''A,'' ''B,'' ''C'' and ''D.'' Just who do they think they are?"—ibid
"We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now."—ibid
A liberal society fighting against the promotion of fascism should not be equated with a totalitarian state banning freedom of thought. Or do good and evil not exist?
Horrible people promoting horrible ideas should be shunned, ridiculed, ignored. This isn't illiberal thinking, it's the immune system response to an attack. Don't engage with cancer to hear what it has to say.
Stop treating the destruction of your democracy like an academic conversation, or simply clickbait. It's a war, and you're aiding the enemy by giving them a platform.
The Trump GOP is clearly the greater evil now, but Obama would have more credibility if he and his admin acknowledged the role their mistakes & policies played in facilitating Trump's victory & misrule. Not just Russian hacking & response, but weakening the institutions.
I've been calling Trump a symptom of a dangerous disease for two years. It's an opportunistic virus on a weakened body that got weaker during Obama's 8 years. It would be healthy for the resistance to address how & why so as not to repeat the mistakes.
Nor is the disease just an American one. Trump is part of global wave of nationalism & authoritarianism that Obama & the rest of the free world's leaders failed to stand up to even as it lapped on their shores.
Corruption has always been at the core of Putin's influence in the free world. Instead of Communist ideology it's hard cash, and it finds takers on the right and left.
This Kremlin method of influence was actually encouraged by Western leaders as engagement. They hoped (so they said) it would liberalize Russia & China while also profiting themselves.
Instead, Putin-connected companies & oligarchs spread corruption along with the cash they looted from the Russian people, while always operating as Kremlin agents. It was always a one-way street.
"Purging" the shills & sycophants normalizing Trump's assault on US institutions would take authoritarian power that none of us have or want. We want them named for their own actions, and to know they will be remembered.
It's a call for democratic transparency, political accountability, and public memory. Calling that desire 'totalitarian' in order to defend Trump's attacks on fundamental US institutions & values is perverse.