Back in 2010, a couple of things seemed strange to me about the Ukrainian election. Yulia Tymoshenko came across as much more corrupt and autocratic than I had recalled. At the same time, Victor Yanukovych had greatly upgraded his image from unimaginative apparatchik.
I don’t follow Ukraine as closely as I do the Baltic states, so I figured that I had missed some things about Tymoshenko and that maybe Yanukovych was transcending his origins. This week I learned that those impressions were a result of Paul Manafort’s work with Yanukovych’s campaign.
Manafort’s campaign against Tymoshenko was intended to discredit her beyond Ukraine. Through Breitbart and by other means, the negative information reached US media. The US media is often taken in by pro-Russian propaganda. For years, American media have repeated Russian claims of unfair practices of language requirements in the Baltic states. In fact, another storm on that issue is brewing in Latvia. If American media cover it at all, look for a lean toward the idea that Latvia is persecuting Russian speakers. So it probably was easy for Manafort to get his material into the mainstream media.
Yanukovych won the election. Immediately after that, he prosecuted Tymoshenko for corruption and put her in prison. Compare that with Donald Trump’s encouragement of “Lock her up” chants. Similarity of election tactics, to be sure, is not a prosecutable offense, but other Trump connections to Manafort’s activities may be.
As president of Ukraine, Yanukovych was notably corrupt and willing to do Russia’s bidding. The response to this was the demonstrations in the Maidan, a major square in Kyiv. Yanukovych’s government eventually responded to those demonstrations by shooting protesters. If Tymoshenko had been president, things might have gone differently. Without the Maidan protests, there would have been less pretext for Vladimir Putin to move his “little green men” into the Donbas.
Manafort has a lot to answer for. We may not yet know the full extent of it.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner.
glory b
I’d like to read something on Tad Devine’s actions in Ukraine too.
He’s never mentioned at al. I’ve wondered why.
germy
@glory b:
I’ve wondered, also.
Why has he dropped so completely out of public view?
Will he emerge in time for the next presidential election? Maybe he’s molting right now.
schrodingers_cat
@glory b: For the same reason that BS is given the opportunity to rant against Ds by the media.
Yutsano
It could be something as simple as requiring Latvian being the language of instruction in schools. It doesn’t matter. Vladdie will take any excuse to “protect” the people of his ethnic origin. It’s a decent scam if he gets his propaganda monkeys on it.
rikyrah
@glory b:
Uh huh
Uh huh
boatboy_srq
Interesting parallel.
And indeed, Lord Dampnut seems better suited to running a banana republic of Warsaw Pact vassal state than to the WH. One wonders whether he thought the role was similar, and is now stymied by the constraints a strong Federal government with established separation of powers applies.
Yutsano
@boatboy_srq:
One would think Vlad was enough of a student of the United States to recognise this. It’s not enough to secure the Presidency and a compliant Congress. You have to get pretty much everywhere, which is why the speed of judicial nominations (fuck you very much Yertle) is disturbing. But even that will take time.
Roger Moore
I think the US media is generally far more susceptible to propaganda than any independent media ought to be. I suspect a big part of it is that they’re simply trying to cover more news than they really have the resources to manage well. The result is a willingness to rebrand others’ takes on the issues as their own without as thorough a vetting as they ought to give. I notice this the most in business reporting, where the majority of articles are barely rewritten press releases, but I assume it’s a problem in foreign affairs journalism also. Even the big national media doesn’t have the resources to cover most countries with any kind of thoroughness, which makes them incredibly vulnerable to concerted propaganda campaigns.
gvg
Devine may turn out to be more but before he helped Sanders, he was a comic book shop owner. In other words he had been involved in Ukraine but wasn’t so sucessful that he continued making his living by politics until Sanders and I think he went back to that after the primary was over. Manafort had been active doing these types of things for 30 years and was much more sucessful at it. My impression is he was active in republican politics a bit after Nixon and gradually found making more money helping real dangerous foreign dictator types so much so that while he still knew many active political republicans, no one in the states hired him because of his associates. Until Donald who just doesn’t care or understand.
Devine may also skate due to the sheer size of the sewage flood of news making him a much lower priority than he would be in say Obama’s no drama era. I miss normal and decency.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@glory b: I can’t imagine Meuller has talked to Devine. Maybe Tad is cooperating to such an extent that investigators don’t need the subpoenas and warrants and plea deals that make news? In return for not looking too closely at the assets of Mrs Devine and the little Devines? IANeitherALnoraReporter so I am speculating on a blog, as one does.
chris
@gvg:
Nope, you’re thinking of Jeff Weaver. Devine is a longtime political mercenary.
Roger Moore
@gvg:
You’re confusing him with Jeff Weaver. Devine has been a political consultant for his entire career. He hasn’t been a very successful one here in the US- he has a long history of advising failed Democratic campaigns- but he has worked overseas, including with Manafort in Ukraine.
Major Major Major Major
Manafort is the surest of them all to die in prison, methinks.
Mak
@gvg: You’re thinking of the other guy, Weaver I think his name was. Devine had been a Big Time campaign manager for some time, mostly for Democrats, ironically.
ETA: Kindly insert “As Rodger Moore will state before me,” at the front of my comment. Thanks.
Cheryl Rofer
@Major Major Major Major: Manafort may think that’s a better deal than an earlier death by Novichok.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe… unless Putin gets to him first. Manafort’s story is remarkable, IMO. There’s that bus on top of him now, but for a while everything was going his way.
Fair Economist
@gvg:
Was that actually because he couldn’t get work, or did he do it because he liked it? Being the owner isn’t necessarily onerous, either.
Edit, never mind, I see there was a misunderstanding.
schrodingers_cat
We are all Ukranians now.
h/t John McCain
Roger Moore
@Mak:
And a lousy one, at that. His clients included Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Bob Kerrey in 1992, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Sanders in 2016. It’s not a record that would encourage me to hire him, and it’s sad to think what a better manager could have done in some of those campaigns, especially Gore’s in 2000.
Major Major Major Major
@Cheryl Rofer: @MattF: dying in prison and being assassinated are not mutually exclusive outcomes.
ByRookorbyCrook
The thing we need to be prepared for is that this Russian influence and money is not ideological. There are going to be dems caught up in the net with Goopers. You know the bothsiderism must be maintained by the media, so no matter the skew of numbers it will be a pox on both houses theme.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: there’s nothing wrong with being a comic store owner but the transition is jarring. Not suspicious of foreign involvement, but pretty weird!
Yes I know we’re talking about weaver, I’m just sayin.
Roger Moore
@ByRookorbyCrook:
Your first statement is false. The Russian influence and money is very much ideological. Putin doesn’t necessarily care a lot about some issues in American politics, but he’s clearly racist, anti-Islamic, and anti-LGBTQ, and he’s been putting real money into establishing ties with ideologically aligned candidates in the US. He’s also willing to spend money supporting people like Bernie Sanders and organizations like BLM when he thinks it will help him to maximize political conflict in the US, but that’s not because he’s non-ideological; it’s an attempt to undermine his ideological enemies here in the US. That willingness to use his resources to stir up trouble on the left means there will undoubtedly be some people on the left, like Bernie Sanders and co, who are caught up in his web, though.
Cheryl Rofer
@Major Major Major Major: That is true.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I read that as ByRook saying that the Americans’ collaboration was not ideological? But I could be wrong.
Mike in DC
“Which Ukrainian political figures are not corrupt” is actually not only a vexing question, but a vital one.
Cheryl Rofer
@Roger Moore: I agree with this.
They need to recognize that people who give them already-written material may have agendas they’re pushing.
The Other Chuck
@germy:
Preparing his defense against a raft of indictments that include “Conspiracy against the United States”. Unlike 45, he’s not actually completely fucking stupid, and that keeping his mouth shut might work to his benefit.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: I notice a sudden uptick in nyms pooh-poohing the R interference.
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
If he doesn’t fall upwards in his own house.
rikyrah
@ByRookorbyCrook:
Traitors must be dealt with. Period.
ByRookorbyCrook
I mean it is not ideological in that collaborators taking money aren’t taking it to conspire with Russia or other foreign nationals; they are taking the help to get a leg up on their opponent and merely don’t care about the ‘light treason’. Rikyrah is right we need to deal with all traitors not just GOP operatives. Don’t be surprised if some Dems get caught in the net and the PTB try to bothsider it.
Yutsano
@ByRookorbyCrook:
Both sides will always happen no matter how far the MSM has to stretch the association. We already know this. There’s no point in getting all worked up about it.
schrodingers_cat
@Yutsano: Comrade has a quota of comments he has to post before getting paid, hence the repetition.
Before the media both-sides it, Comrade R is implicating Ds without any proof.
germy
@The Other Chuck:
Well he’s certainly been quiet. Haven’t heard a peep out of him.
Usually, guys like him (win or lose) are all over the cable shows, gabbing and yukking it up with the hosts.
Origuy
The same people who make this an issue will still be wanting Spanish-speakers in the USA to use English.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
It’s kind of amazing how nobody seemed to think it was weird that a guy whose last job was running a comic book store was able to co-run this insurgent campaign against the Democratic establishment. IIRC, at some point Devine officially “left” the campaign and Weaver was allegedly running everything.
But, no, I’m just being paranoid and Russophobic when I point out stuff like that …
Mnemosyne
@ByRookorbyCrook:
You are 100 percent wrong about that, because the pattern shows that it’s absolutely ideological, and the ideology is White Supremacy.
American conservatives have decided that white supremacy transcends national borders, and that they’re better off partnering with their ideological friend Vladimir Putin than living in a diverse America.
I think there will be very few Democrats caught up in this net because the ideology being defended is white supremacy.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: Or an independent, from Vt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup. That’s why Sunday morning television idol Lindsey Graham is pretending to be Very Concerned about “The Dossier”, to the point of damming our relationship with the British intelligence authorities, so that when Meuller drops his bomb(s) he can go on those shows and pretend to be Very Concerned about the many “unanswered questions” about what Obama and Lynch and Comey did. If you refuse to take yes (or no) for an answer, insist that no one can trust their own lying eyes, there are always “unanswered questions”.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t think that’s true, either. It’s clear there’s a real ideological affinity between Putin and the Republicans and that forms the backbone of their collaboration.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Yep. ByRook seems to be conflating “ideological” and “partisan.”
And anyone who claims that a large number of Democratic politicians have an affinity for white supremacy is either a moron or pushing propaganda.
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
I think they understand that, but just knowing isn’t enough. When there’s something to report and they don’t have any experts on staff, what are they supposed to do? Do they just ignore something newsworthy because they don’t trust their source, or do they report something they can’t properly vet? Obviously, the ongoing gutting of their reporting staff has made this problem worse over time.
Time pressure is undoubtedly a big part of it, too; the 24-hour news cycle rewards speed over accuracy. The news media appears to pay a much bigger price for missing a scoop than they do for being completely wrong, and their reporting decisions reflect that.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
But, no, I’m just being paranoid and Russophobic when I point out stuff like that …
You are NOT being paranoid…
Nope, you are not.
Roger Moore
@ByRookorbyCrook:
I don’t think that’s a meaningful distinction. It doesn’t matter whether somebody has an ideological affinity to Russia or they’re just doing it for Russian campaign assistance. As long as they’re helping Russia at the expense of the US, they deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
ByRookorbyCrook
Fine no democrat would ever take shady money or kompromat to win an election. I forgot we are the purity party. Tad Devine never worked on Democratic campaigns previously and no Blue dog or Wilmerite would ever think of it either. Just because we are the party in the wilderness of political power proves how pure we are.
GregB
It appears the far right in Russia and in the US also use the same tactics when it comes claiming to be both politically powerful masters of the universe and also a beleaguered minority set upon be evil others.
Conservatives have nearly untrammeled political dominance at state, local and federal levels and a massive media Wurlitzer that pushes their agenda 24/7 yet we are supposed to believe they are victims of bullying who can’t even have their voices and opinions heard.
It is really repulsive.
Gerald
Humpt … lets face it.
Manafort WAS hired by Dodard 45 BECAUSE of his success in the Ukraine election!
No doubt Manafort was a referral and highly recommended by Vlad.
The changes in the RNC platform IMMEDIATELY apon Manafort’s arrival … coincidence???
Flynn … Tillerson … Papadopoulos … Gates … Bannon … Cambridge Analytics …
Russia’s … EVERYWHERE ya look!
Bet cha when the tax returns show up … especially over the years … Russia!
And/or the Oligarchs of … Russia!
Mnemosyne
@ByRookorbyCrook:
Ah, I see your mistake here. You’re classifying Wilmer as a Democrat.
Devine is dirty as hell, and my spidey sense tells me that Wilmer’s surprise success was at least partially due to Russian assistance.
I just doubt that we’re going to discover that, say, Kamala Harris was assisted by the Russians.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
I would still like to know more about Uretsky accessing Clinton’s voter information. Before we knew Guccifer was GRU he was discussing his hack of the DNC and said something like as it was agreed Uretsky was searching for voter information belonging to other campaigns.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
May have?
Anyone who puts out a press release/goes on TV/sits for an interview/etc, has an agenda they are pushing. It may very well be an unoffensive agenda or a positive agenda or 180 deg out from that, but it is an agenda.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
And look right here on BJ we have people who show up with agendas. Like in this post.
George Spiggott
I’ve felt for the longest time that career international criminal Manafort has never been offered a plea deal nor will he ever; that Mueller intends to throw the book at him, and if he gets pardoned, then the NY AG will follow up.
I’m even more convinced of that now.
Manfort’s crimes are so extreme that the prosecutors intend for him to die in prison.
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
“He’s also willing to spend money supporting people like Bernie Sanders and organizations like BLM when he thinks it will help him to maximize political conflict in the US,”
Thought the wording of this was a bit conspiratorial.
We know Russian disiinfo ops promoted Bernie and BLM, but at the same time, attacked Bernie and BLM, and often from nym’s that would have appeared to be “allies”, just to sow discord,
But this line insinuates that Bernie and BLM got Russian funding, which as far as we know, didn’t happen.
Are we once again worthy of a better class of Russian troll?
jl
Probably too specialized a topic for a post, but I’d be interested in Cheryl’s views on how the different Baltic states handle relations with their Ruffian speaking communities. Having spent time there as well, i know that the three countries have different national attitudes and stances towards Russia. I have an easier time believing, for example, that Latvia, is too hard-nosed about language requirements, or providing services to Russian speaking community, than Estonia or Lithuania.
Gravenstone
@schrodingers_cat: Knock it off, please. Just because you seem to be finding reason to disagree with a given post (and in this case, given additional replies, I have no fucking idea what you’re objecting to) is no reason to jump to the immediate conclusion someone is a Russian troll – let alone continue to double down on that baseless assertion.
Jay
@Gravenstone:
New poster,
Insinuates Putin funded Bernie and BLM,
Suggests other unnamed Dems are dirty too,
Gravenstone
@Jay: Not new, but not prolific either. And I would hardly be surprised to find that properly filtered monies ($27 donations ring any bells) found their way into Bernie’s coffers.
cmorenc
@Yutsano:
I never thought we would someday be rooting for the continued health and commitment of one of the five conservative SCOTUS members, if Justice Kennedy decides to step aside while Trump is still in office, American law will become hard-wired against every progressive institution and civil right for decades – it may be 50 years or more for a sufficiently revamped SCOTUS to come along and dismantle the bullshit, just as it did from the immediate post-Civil War years through the late 1930s. True, Kennedy does too often join the other four right-wing justices in some truly terrible decisions (Bush v Gore, Citizens United, Shelby v Holder, etc) – but he’s also the one who is single-handedly preventing the overturning of Roe v Wade (even though he’s sometimes voted to weaken it) – and without him, LBGT rights (including marriage equality) will quickly be whittled down to a cramped nub, if not outright overturned.
Also, as much as I respect Justice Ruth Ginsburg, we’re also hanging by a thread on the continued health of an 85-year old woman with a previous history of pancreatic cancer we can only hope stays in permanent remission. Yeah, she should have stepped down in Obama’s first term, while the Ds had a Senate majority. Trump’s would-be replacement for her will be a monster determined, and now able with four other RW justices, (irrespective of whether Kennedy joins them) – to dismantle and burn her life’s work, salting the ashes to insure against regrowth.
Recall what happened when Justice Thurgood Marshall’s health failed him sufficiently in 1991 that he had to resign, barely a year out from the 1992 Presidential election – and President Bush nominated the disgraceful pustulence, Clarence Thomas, who still squats on the court like the horrible toad that had Princess Leia bound in chains.
J R in WV
@Gravenstone:
You be polite, or you could turn into an expert on pie… yum! Hot Apple Pie!!!
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
We had a nominee: Merrick Garland. And the left wing decided he wasn’t sufficiently pure because of one (1) Guantanamo decision.
They then further decided that the Supreme Court wasn’t important enough to bring themselves to vote for Hillary.
So if you want to blame someone for this outcome, don’t forget to include those assholes who couldn’t be arsed to prevent this while you’re claiming it’s all RBG’s fault for not retiring 10 YEARS AGO.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
Seriously, you did an entire comment without mentioning Merrick Garland’s name even once. WTF?
schrodingers_cat
@Gravenstone: I was warning Yutsy not to engage with Comrade R, who has in this thread said without any evidence that we are going to find Ds who have benefited from Putin’s machinations.
Jay
@Gravenstone:
There’s a big difference between Russian money, properly filtered, finding its way to a Campaign,
Russian money, made “fungible” by the NRA, finding it’s way to a Campaign or PAC,
And Russian’s dropping off duffle bags of rubles with a Campaign or PAC.
A campaign would have to take “due diligence” far beyond what the FEC requires, or does, or even the NSA, to ensure no “questionable” $27 donations entered their accounts,
The NRA on the other hand, well, there’s plausible deniability there, it’s not like no Dem’s take NRA money,
Boris with the bags however,…….
cmorenc
@Mnemosyne:
Because Merrick Garland isn’t any longer relevant going forward to whether Justices Kennedy is willing and Justice Ginsburg is able to stay on the court long enough to outlast Trump or his potential GOP replacement should Trump not last his own full term. The subject I’m addressing isn’t whether Garland should have been on the court instead of Gorsuch, but-for GOP obstructionism, instead it’s the terrifying strategic position Trump and the hard-right would be in to completely redo US constitutional law to their liking, should they get the chance to replace either Kennedy or Ginsburg before January 2021 (when hopefully a democratic president will take the oath of office, accompanied by a D majority in the Senate).
Roger Moore
@Jay:
Those are my words rather than Schrodinger’s Cat’s, so I should answer for them. You’re right that to this point there’s evidence of Russian trolls promoting Sanders and BLM, but no evidence either took money from him. Many of us are suspicious of the Sanders campaign. Sanders:
1) Worked with Tad Devine, who’s connected to Putin through his work with Manafort in Ukraine, and
2) Received a lot of small money donations that didn’t receive careful scrutiny and was notably poor about following up to make sure all the money he was getting was really from US persons.
3) Followed many of the same lines of attack against Hillary that Trump used, and in a way that fed Trump’s attacks.
The combination makes many of us believe Bernie was effectively a tool of the Russian election interference campaign. To what extent he was a witting ally rather than a dupe is much more open to question. I would like to see his campaign investigated to see how much it was coordinating with Russia and whether or not Bernie was directly involved. I want to believe Bernie was an innocent dupe, but I’d be a lot more confident of that if somebody looked carefully to see rather than just assuming it.
TenguPhule
@Jay: Dial it back a bit.
Our own security front pager has been warning that we’ve got a high probability of dirty laundry being found among the Democrats once the lights come on if only because the Russians would have to be complete idiots not to try and hedge their bets through their catspaws the NRA and Free Willies Born agains. We’ve got enough stupid blue dogs who really may have been that stupid either unknowingly or because they slippery sloped there.
TenguPhule
@cmorenc:
Pretty certain we’ll have uncivil violence rampaging across the nation at that point.
Once legal remedies are impossible, things get nasty in those countries.
Jay
@Roger Moore:
“The combination makes many of us believe Bernie was effectively a tool of the Russian election interference campaign. To what extent he was a witting ally rather than a dupe is much more open to question. I would like to see his campaign investigated to see how much it was coordinating with Russia and whether or not Bernie was directly involved. I want to believe Bernie was an innocent dupe, but I’d be a lot more confident of that if somebody looked carefully to see rather than just assuming it.”
If the Dem’s, at the conclusion of Trump/Russia, don’t roll over again for “bipartisanship and working across the isle”, there probably will be a public investigation.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find there is/was an IC investigation.
A few of the “leftier than thou’s” that I know have gone all “I can’t believe it was Russian disinfo” ,
Most however have gone Deep State, Deep Greenwald, Deep RT, Deep Spudnik.
After the bitter primary, there was little healing, and there has been little healing since.
Attacking Bernie for Selma, being tone deaf, ie. Current issues, is valid and somewhat productive given the cult nature,
But in the absense of evidence, attacking the Bernie Campaign for anything other than being “suckered” and “manipulated” by Russian disinfo, just feed’s the claims of New McCarthyism.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
Neither is Ginsburg’s decision from 10 YEARS AGO.
To claim that if she dies tomorrow, that totally proves that she should have retired a decade ago is completely fucking idiotic. For all we know, one of the other liberal justices could get hit by a bus tomorrow and we would be equally as screwed.
Again: IT WAS TEN YEARS AGO. GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
Jay
@TenguPhule:
It’s productive to remember that when/if the time comes.
It’s not really productive to speculate about taint in the absence of investigations or evidence.
That’s something Red State and Briebart do about Democrats, it’s not something we need to do.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Let’s not give Republicans any ideas.
Bill Arnold
@Mnemosyne:
Timeline:
(1) Justice Scalia dies, reportedly during a nap after a long day of hunting with other members of the International Order of St. Hubertus, February 13, 2016. Conspiracy theories emerge, as usual.
(2) Merrick Garland nominated as Scalia’s replacement on March 16, 2016
(3) McConnell Rule!
(4) Trump elected
(5) Neil Gorsuch nominated by Trump
(6) Fillibuster for Supreme Court nominees eliminated
(7) Neil Gorsuch confirmed 54–45 on a mostly party-line vote.
I did not expect (3),(4), and (6) was … also tacky.
Cheryl Rofer
@jl: I love your typo!
I generally agree with you. The language problems are going away because the young folks are growing up speaking whatever languages they need, and, for the most part, the people who insist on only Russian are getting old and dying off. When I started going to Estonia in 1998, hardly anyone spoke English. Now all the young folks do.
Latvia has the most Russian speakers, Estonia second, and Lithuania third. Latvia has just passed another language law that I haven’t looked at in detail. Whatever it says, Russia will paint it in the most negative light.
No One You Know
@ByRookorbyCrook: No one said that, but you.