From ALEXANDRA CHALUPA, ABOUT BIDEN, SANDERS , PUTIN, AND TRUMP; BEGINNING WITH Today, six years ago (March 5, 2014):
Today, six years ago (March 5, 2014):
A. Putin’s Disinformation Warfare - RT:
On this day in 2014, in an act of moral courage, American Liz Wahl quit working for one of the Kremlin’s most influential disinformation outlets.
“Russia Today (now RT) America anchor Liz Wahl resigned while broadcasting on live television Wednesday, citing Russia's decision to invade Ukraine as the reason for her departure.”
Here’s the article:
More than a year later, in December 2015, former U.S. General Michael Flynn and U.S. Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein were photographed at a gala celebrating the 10 year anniversary of RT, seated at the same table as Vladimir Putin while Putin was attacking the U.S. election to help Donald Trump win. Flynn later joined Trump’s campaign as his national security advisor while leading chants of “lock her up” against Trump’s opponent - former First Lady, former US Senator, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Directly after the election, Flynn and his son promoted a Pizzagate conspiracy that specifically targeted my Washington, DC neighborhood, Hillary Clinton and her campaign Chairman John Podesta, as well as my home, and a few neighbors. Flynn was then appointed National Security Advisor to the President when Trump took office but soon after was forced out. He was investigated in the Mueller probe and indicted, pleaded guilty, then withdrew his plea and awaits sentencing.
Jill Stein, who was also investigated in the Russia probe, was instrumental in leading a recount that was blocked by the GOP, including Michigan Republican Chairwoman Ronna McDaniels who was rewarded by Trump the position of RNC Chairwoman for her efforts in a state where Paul Manafort provided campaign data to the Russians about the 2016 election, and who continues to gaslight the American public and fuel divide in the Democratic presidential primary of 2020, which recently sparked former DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile to tell her to “stay the hell out” of the Democratic primary and to stop promoting Kremlin talking points. The Mueller probe found that Russia used Stein, who often promoted anti-Ukraine talking points and other Kremlin propaganda, to help fuel divide in the U.S. election. During the 2016 general election, Bernie Sanders’ former campaign senior staff, including Nina Turner and Brianhna Joy Gray, actively promoted Stein during the election, including Turner campaigning for her. Gray now serves as Bernie’s national press secretary and Turner is his campaign co-chair. Turner was also an early vocal opponent to the Russia probe.
B. Clinton Warns of the Danger of Putin
Also on March, 5, 2014, Hillary Clinton warned of the danger of Vladimir Putin, who heads a mafia state and severely oppresses Russian people, including murdering and censoring journalists and political opponents, cracking down on freedom of speech and freedom of religion, rigging elections to stay in power, and invading his neighboring countries.
Specifically, Clinton warned that Putin was mirroring Adolph Hitler in the early 1930s, for his invasion of Ukraine and using disinformation and a false narrative to justify his aggressions against Ukrainians by claiming he had to save Russian speaking people (many Ukrainians are multilingual and speak Russian and/or Ukrainian).
Clinton said: "The ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they're not being treated right, I must go and protect my people," Clinton said. "And that's what's gotten everybody so nervous."
Many pounced on Clinton for the statement. But here’s the original article of what she said:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-on-ukraine-russia-behaving-like-nazi-germany/
Today, Donald Trump, the man who Clinton ran against for president and who Putin helped elect in 2016, including (among other political hybrid warfare tactics) hacking Clinton’s campaign Chairman and the DNC, and who Putin continues to support today and is trying to re-elect, is being compared to Hitler in the early 1930s. While some of us took a lot of heat in 2016 and the couple years following for warning that Trump was a fascist who mirrored some of Hitler’s techniques, including disinformation warfare, that term has become more mainstream to describe Trump today as he’s demonstrated he’s a fascist over and over again and multiple public figures, including Republican Christine Whitman, musicians, historians, and other experts compare him to Hitler. Here’s one good article from 2018 by an Iraq combat veteran and historian, titled, ‘Its not wrong to compare Trump to Hitler’:
C. Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity Peacekeeper - Ruslana
Finally, on this day six years ago, my sister and I had the honor of attending a private round table discussion with Ukrainian rock star, former Ukrainian MP, and human rights advocate Ruslana who received international recognition for being a powerful voice throughout the protests in Ukraine. During the months of protests in Kyiv, which included hundreds of thousands of protestors who came out every day, throughout the harsh winter, Ruslana took the stage in Independence Square in Kyiv and advocated for democracy in Ukraine and called for peace, using her powerful voice - both spoken words and song - to keep an often turbulent climate, calm, as she called for Yanukovych’s police force not to be violent toward the protestors (at the start of the protests, the special police beat students, at the end, there were snipers who assassinated dozens of protestors who would become known as the “Heavenly Hundred”).
Ruslana was in Washington, D.C. that day to receive a “Woman of Courage” award from First Lady Michelle Obama, as part of a Women’s Global Issues initiative that was started by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and which had as it’s first Ambassador of U.S. Global Women’s Issues, Ukrainian-American Melanne Verveer (Clinton’s former Chief of Staff in the First Lady’s Office and who was also the former Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio who serves as Co-Chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus).
During our round table discussion, Ruslana discussed humanitarian aid that was desperately needed for Ukrainians and also shared her personal horrific experiences throughout the Maidan protests, including one incident when Yanukovych, then still being advised by Paul Manafort who had helped him and other Putin backed thugs be propped into elected office, had the Berkut (Ukrainian special police) come to her home very late at night when she was sleeping, pound on her door, and then threatened her in a failed attempt to silence her from supporting the protests. She shared how terrified she was with that incident and others that threatened her life because of her advocacy for Ukraine.
The next day, on March 6, 2014, Ruslana met with Vice President Biden, a lifelong champion of Ukraine who oversaw the Ukraine portfolio for the White House throughout Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity and the two years that followed. Biden was the highest U.S. elected official who was the strongest hands-on supporter of Ukrainians in their pro-democracy and anti-corruption efforts, speaking to its leaders regularly, including President Poroshenko. This is when Vice President Biden worked especially closely with another champion of Ukraine, the late Republican Senator John McCain; and one of the reasons why Biden was at McCain’s bedside his final weeks of life. Vice President Biden tirelessly worked to protect Ukraine, partnering with other world leaders, including our allies in the EU and the heads of the IMF, placing Biden on the frontlines of going head to head with Putin who, despite having his political hold over Ukraine drastically weakened by protestors, continued to try to reestablish his grip over the young democracy that had to rebuild its new government while militarily defending itself from the powerful hostile aggressor next door. Like he had done before, Paul Manafort was in Ukraine helping Putin’s loyalist rebrand and mobilize again after many returned after having fled to Moscow. Manafort continued to cause havoc in Ukraine and even turned to help from one of his loyal associates who helped him influence peddle for Putin there over the years - Tad Devine, Bernie’s longtime friend and former campaign advisor. A few of these Kremlin linked Ukrainian elected officials would become clients of Rudy Giuliani’s “security” firm after the 2016 election and while Giuliani served as Trump’s personal lawyer. Giuliani worked with these dirty politicians to try to launch bogus investigations in Ukraine against Hillary Clinton, me, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, all while strong arming Ukraine since Trump took office.
At the time of this photo (which is a bit blurry) with my sister and Ruslana, I was a stay at home mom of three little girls 6 years-old and younger, taking a break from politics after having served in senior capacities at the DNC. I volunteered countless hours, including working with Vice President Biden’s office, the NSC, and State on helping connect President Obama’s administration to Ukrainian-Americans and other Eastern European American leaders and other Ukraine experts to better help pro-democracy efforts.
My sister and I could not have imagined then that less than six years later I would be on the enemies list of a White House run by a corrupt mobster installed by and beholden to Putin or that the Kremlin’s disinformation warfare machine would be aggressively launched at me, with Republican Congressional leaders and the White House helping amplify Moscow’s falsehoods in retaliation because I warned Putin was attacking the 2016 election and that Manafort was the smoking gun. Never did I imagine then that Republicans would promote Kremlin disinformation to severely hurt Ukraine, a U.S. ally that enjoyed the full support of both parties in the US. Nor could I have predicted that I would be one of the original organizers of a protest in front of the White House known as the Kremlin Annex, which was sparked because the President of the United States had a secret meeting and press conference in Helsinki during which he sided with America’s greatest enemy on the world stage while attacking the US intelligence community and media; a protest that continues to go strong for the past 600 days despite recent attempts of the national park service to try to crack down on it. A protest that is to this day led by a Ukrainian-American close friend, who today received a drum to include in the protest that honors Ukraine, with its colors or light blue (sky) and gold (wheat) (see photo in comments section).
We had no idea then that my sister would co-host a podcast (Gaslit Nation) that would teach Americans about fascism and standing up to tyranny while exposing the corruption of the Putin-backed occupant of the Oval Office, or that she would have a film coming out this April that she wrote the script for and produced, called Mr. Jones, about Stalin’s disinformation warfare that helped bury the Kremlin’s man-made famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s, and which our grandparents survived.
But this much we did know then, which we know today: the United States and democracy is always worth fighting for, at any cost and self sacrifice, and that truth matters.
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Alexandra Chalupa
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2 年Very good article. Especially looking at the invasion of Ukraine that is going on now, combined with the crimes of Trump that are becoming more and more public. I'm sorry that I didn't read this when first written, but it is more compelling now.