Conversely, I've met many, many working-class people who DESPISE Trump - men and women, urban and rural, college-educated and not college-educated, old and young, white and PoC.

The stereotypes may have some basis in fact, but they're BY NO MEANS universal.

Thanks for this thread.

February 18, 2019

I had missed this story: "Putin's Stasi ID card found in German archives."

The discovery of an East German secret police ID card wouldn't normally attract much attention, but things get a lot more interesting when it's Vladimir Putin's.

Issued in 1985, the document belonged to the then mid-ranking Soviet officer, now the President of Russia. At the time, Putin worked for the KGB spy service as a liaison with the East German State Security Service (Staatssicherheitsdienst), nicknamed the "Stasi."

From Wikipedia:

The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS) or State Security Service (Staatssicherheitsdienst, SSD), commonly known as the Stasi (IPA: [ˈʃtaːziː]),[3] was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies ever to have existed.[4][5][6][7][8][9] The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. The Stasi motto was Schild und Schwert der Partei (Shield and Sword of the Party), referring to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) and also echoing a theme of the KGB, the Soviet counterpart and close partner, with respect to its own ruling party, the CPSU. Erich Mielke was the Stasi's longest-serving chief, in power for thirty-two of the GDR's forty years of existence.

One of its main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures, including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents (Zersetzung, literally meaning decomposition). Its Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung) was responsible for both espionage and for conducting covert operations in foreign countries. Under its long-time head Markus Wolf, this directorate gained a reputation as one of the most effective intelligence agencies of the Cold War. The Stasi also maintained contacts, and occasionally cooperated, with Western terrorists.[10][11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

February 18, 2019

The bigger point is that the President of the United States is an active national security threat.

The Oath of Allegiance to the United States is taken by any Lawful Permanent Resident a national of this country.

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

"against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Turns out that this President is one of the latter, intimately tied to many of the former. So help us God, indeed!

February 18, 2019

Putin is smarter. He's a veteran intelligence operator who doesn't leave a paper trail.

You won't find a document in Putin's office that says "Kill X dissident" or "Intervene in elections around the world" or "Sabotage American government processes via Donald Trump and the Republican Party." He's way too smart for that.

He's a quietly evil man, a master manipulator, which makes it easier for many people to underestimate him. He was an unknown, anonymous bureaucrat to most of Russia when Yeltsin appointed him Prime Minister after a long list of failed Prime Ministers. But his experience in the KGB, and his maintaining of his KGB and allied foreign intelligence service contacts (e.g. the widely feared Stasi of East Germany, where Putin was stationed from the mid-80s right up until the collapse of the Soviet Union) allowed him to rapidly consolidate power and reconstitute the viciously repressive Russian intelligence and security services. This was and is his base of power, which he used to shake down various Russian oligarchs, murder critics, defectors, and dissidents, and spread various forms of dangerous mischief around the world ever since.

The high oil prices of the mid-2000s definitely helped in his domestic popularity too; don't underestimate THAT aspect of Putin's power...

February 3, 2019

Better question: Is every decision TRUMP makes in complete compliance with Russia?

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