Above all the impeachable Trumpshit, this:

[Kid Berwyn]

Trump’s actions and lies helped Putin and Russia, those who attacked our democracy,
and hurt the United States and our allies, those who defend democracy.

[Kid Berwyn]

1. In the Oval Office in the merry, merry month of May 2017

“I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job," Trump said, according to The Times. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.”



President Trump gestures to Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, as he speaks to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office on Wednesday, May 10, 2017. (Alexander Shcherbak/TASS/Getty Images)

"I'm not under investigation," he added.

WE WOULD NEVER HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THE ABOVE WITHOUT TASS, RUSSIA’s OFFICIAL NEWS AGENCY REPOTING THE EVENT. TRUMP HAD ZERO US MEDIA INVITED.

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/10/527755991/trump-meets-with-russias-lavrov-at-the-white-house-today

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nut-job-james-comey-russia-2017-5

[Kid Berwyn]

2. What if Trump betrayed the nation in 1987?

PRUMP TUTIN: Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?

A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion.

By Jonathan Chait
New York magazine, July 9, 2018

Excerpt...

The first intimations that Trump might harbor a dark secret originated among America’s European allies, which, being situated closer to Russia, have had more experience fending off its nefarious encroachments. In 2015, Western European intelligence agencies began picking up evidence of communications between the Russian government and people in Donald Trump’s orbit. In April 2016, one of the Baltic states shared with then–CIA director John Brennan an audio recording of Russians discussing funneling money to the Trump campaign. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of the U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief Brennan on intercepted communications between the Trump campaign and Russia.



Snip...

It is often said that Donald Trump has had the same nationalistic, zero-sum worldview forever. But that isn’t exactly true. Yes, his racism and mendacity have been evident since his youth, but those who have traced the evolution of his hypernationalism all settle on one year in particular: 1987. Trump “came onto the political stage in 1987 with a full-page ad in the New York Times attacking the Japanese for relying on the United States to defend it militarily,” reported Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The president has believed for 30 years that these alliance commitments are a drain on our finite national treasure,” a White House official told the Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin. Tom Wright, another scholar who has delved into Trump’s history, reached the same conclusion. “1987 is Trump’s breakout year. There are only a couple of examples of him commenting on world politics before then.”

What changed that year? One possible explanation is that Trump published The Art of the Deal, which sped up his transformation from an aggressive, publicity-seeking New York developer to a national symbol of capitalism. But the timing for this account does not line up perfectly — the book came out on November 1, and Trump had begun opining loudly on trade and international politics two months earlier. The other important event from that year is that Trump visited Moscow.

During the Soviet era, Russian intelligence cast a wide net to gain leverage over influential figures abroad. (The practice continues to this day.) The Russians would lure or entrap not only prominent politicians and cultural leaders, but also people whom they saw as having the potential for gaining prominence in the future. In 1986, Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin met Trump in New York, flattered him with praise for his building exploits, and invited him to discuss a building in Moscow. Trump visited Moscow in July 1987. He stayed at the National Hotel, in the Lenin Suite, which certainly would have been bugged. There is not much else in the public record to describe his visit, except Trump’s own recollection in The Art of the Deal that Soviet officials were eager for him to build a hotel there. (It never happened.)

Continues...

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html

[Kid Berwyn]

3. PUTIN'S PAYOUT: 12 WAYS TRUMP HAS SUPPORTED PUTIN'S FOREIGN POLICY AGENDA

BY MAX BERGMANN, JAMES LAMOND, AND TALIA DESSEL
The Moscow Project, July 10, 2018

EXCERPT...

There is no clear geopolitical or policy rationale for Trump’s behavior, which often comes at the cost of longstanding American foreign policy interests. As political scientist Ian Bremmer assessed, “No serious foreign policy analyst I know (nor any ex-Trump- Admin official) has a good explanation for why Trump is so singularly enamored with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Nor is there a political rationale. Amid Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and near constant revelations about the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia, it would almost certainly benefit Trump to distance himself from Putin and dispel rumors that he is beholden to his Russian counterpart. Instead, at every opportunity, Trump has embraced Putin and adopted positions that align perfectly with Russia’s foreign policy goals, often favoring the Kremlin over his own country.

In other words, Putin’s return on investment from Trump’s presidency has been significant.

Here are twelve ways that Putin has received his payout:

Putin’s Goal: Weaken and divide the transatlantic alliance.
Putin’s Payout:Trump undermines US relationships with European allies and calls the US’s commitment to NATO into question.

Putin’s Goal: Degrade the European Union and foster pro-Russian political movements.
Putin’s Payout:Trump attacks the EU and actively supports anti-EU, Kremlin-backed parties.

Putin’s Goal: Disrupt American leadership and dominance of the global economic order.
Putin’s Payout: Trump is eagerly pushing for an all-out trade war with Europe

Putin’s Goal: Build global resentment and distrust towards the US and stoke anti-American sentiment.
Putin’s Payout: America’s closest allies are explicitly suspicious and distrusting of the US because of Trump’s rhetoric and actions.

Putin’s Goal: Relieve economic and domestic political pressure from US sanctions on Russia.
Putin’s Payout: Trump tries to roll back, impede, and blunt the impact of sanctions at every step.

Putin’s Goal: Legitimize his regime in the eyes of the world.
Putin’s Payout: Trump repeatedly praises and defends Putin, lending the credibility of the US presidency to Putin’s standing.

Putin’s Goal: Revive Russia’s status as a great power and gain international recognition for its illegal seizure of Crimea.
Putin’s Payout:Trump publicly says that Crimea is part of Russia and calls for Russia to be welcomed back into the international community with no concessions.

Putin’s Goal: Continue to sow discord in Western democracies and avoid repercussions for interfering in American and European elections.
Putin’s Payout: Trump dismisses Russian interference and has done nothing to prevent future interference, putting him at odds with his own intelligence community.

Putin’s Goal: Soften America’s adversarial stance toward Russia.
Putin’s Payout: Trump is shifting the Republican Party’s generations-long hawkish views on Russia.

Putin’s Goal: Destabilize the US from within.
Putin’s Payout: Trump attacks US institutions while driving divisive politics and eroding democratic norms.

Putin’s goal: Advance the Kremlin’s narrative to shape global perceptions.
Putin’s payout: Trump has repeatedly, and inexplicably, parroted Kremlin talking points across a range of global issues.

Putin’s goal: Undermine international norms and democratic values abroad.
Putin’s payout: Trump has repeatedly failed to respond to human rights violations or support democracy abroad, creating a more permissive environment for autocrats to crack down.

The pattern is clear: Putin has received—and continues to receive—a good payout on his investment in Trump’s campaign.