Are we at war with Russia?

That's what alot of that free market anti government pukes don't get. We want Government out of our lives but they don't understand this shit is state sponsored. Jimbo's computer repair ain't gonna install a firewall to stop anything. Especially state sponsored cyber warfare.

Russia is out #1 geopolitical foe.

Mitt Romney 2012

Combine it with their moves in the arctic and Ukraine, it adds to the concern.

It makes having Senators, Congressmen, and other government officials knowingly pushing Russian propaganda, all the more dangerous.

Russia's greatest military advantage = geography
China's greatest military advantage = geography
USA's greatest military advantage = geography

Change my mind.

Putin runs Russia like Trump wanted to (and was beginning to) run the US.

Putin is the richest man in the world.  According to Bill Browder, an American who was investing in Russia after the collapse of the USSR.  (Bill Browder’s Russian accountant was Sergei Magnitsky who the Magnitsky Act that banned Russia investments in the US)

According to Browder and others who had done business in Russia, Putin personally gets a percentage of everything Russia exports (natural gas, oil, steel, munitions, military aircraft, even nuclear power plant engineering design).  Putin chooses his oligarchs who reportedly make him a 50% “partner”.  If you step out of line you are end up under house arrest in your estate, at worst you are locked up and die in prison.

I believe that the Russian”gangs” are part of Russian organized crime who are connected to and have a profit sharing arrangement with Putin.

If you think the recent ransom ware episodes since President Biden was elected are coincidental, I have some bridges on MSU’s campus I want to sell you.  There’s a reason Trump never shared what he and Putin talked about.  I believe Putin promised Trump financing and not to screw  with US companies in return for Trump promoting better relations with Russia.

My tinfoil hat take is Putin also shared FSB (formerly KGB) intel on US politicians including GOP pols with Trump.  Trump has used that intel to keep control of the GOP.

That’s some grade a speculation grr. Good on ya.

GRR Spartan wrote:
My tinfoil hat take is Putin also shared FSB (formerly KGB) intel on US politicians including GOP pols with Trump.  Trump has used that intel to keep control of the GOP.

I tend to think a professional spook and a serious intelligence agent would want to keep compromising info on US politicians to themselves to leverage for their own purposes for years to come, rather than give that over to an erratic, unstable 70+ year old (they have their own info on him). Derkach's involvement with some of them, as well as the 2018 Moscow trip by Ron Johnson and others, followed by the continued dissemination of Russian misinformation, seem to back this up, IMO.

This country is fucked. Answer to the question is yes, and our democracy is going to go down the toilet in the next four years because a bunch of bigots can't handle the shifting demographics in this country.

DWags wrote:Why are we letting them butt fuck our businesses? Isn’t that an act of war?

Don't underestimate the US skunkworks ability to foul things up in or with important Russian Oligarch nationals living high on the hog outside US. Everything from muddying up their life outside the US by screwing with their ability to wire money to messing with their multi-million dollar yachts harboredin the Med.