A pessimistic prediction from Joy-Ann Reid. Read it anyway: she could well be right about everything

[MADem]

15. I think she's using the word as shorthand for "old school USSR, only with BMWs and high fashion"

One big strongman, rubber-stamp legislature, no Pravda in Isvestia and no Isvestia in Pravda, that kind of thing. And he LOVED the KGB, Pootie did--that's where he got his "mindset" about the powerful Soviet Union with influence across a wide swathe of the globe. Same shit, but no food shortages and you can buy UGGs at the (more than one) department store(s). He's consolidating power like mad, and he does want to bring back the Old School Empire, under a "wise leader" (himself) who is both strong and charismatic.

Twitter does not lend itself to verbosity.

As for Assange, I think Putin has been paying his bills from the get-go. Funny how all those Russian docs somehow never got released, but never mind that, eh?

Same with Snowden--I think he's been on the Russki take for years. Personally, I believe Snowden was turned when he was working in Japan, and the deal was sealed when he vacationed in Hong Kong during that assignment. That's why he was able to find the Russian consulate in that rather obscure high rise so easily--he'd been there before.

I also think our intel services KNOW this, but they don't want to let us know they know, for reasons that are obvious to them but perhaps not so to the rest of us.

I don't think he's America's Kim Philby, either--I think he got in it for the money, and was caught out when they actually started looking at clearance renewals and found out that he lied-lied-lied with regard to his education (which is a massive crime--that and debt are real no-no's). He told them he'd get the documentation, that it must have been a mistake, and then he claimed to have epilepsy and needed to see a specialist....and then "POOF" ... he disappeared to HK. I do not believe he "tried" to blow any whistles, but I do think he took money from Pootie's boys to improve his lifestyle. He may have been making north of 120K a year, but only 80 of that was from US government coffers. IMO, anyway.

Joy Reid is not misinformed or unhinged. That's just not a valid assessment of her at all. She used poor shorthand, is all.

As for Sanders, he liked the old USSR, which was a bit weird. His kibbutz basically worshipped Joe Stalin, they sang the Internationale and hoisted the red flag. Weirder still, he claimed to have "forgotten" the name of the kibbutz when he remembered it easily a few years earlier when talking to an Israeli paper. Hmmmm. And he did go to USSR on an "exchange" as mayor of Burlington, and cheaply turned it into his honeymoon as well. He schlepped off to visit Daniel Ortega and went to Cuba, too, when most people weren't doing that. He touted it like it was a paradise rather than an improved shithole (it was up from awful, but that's about all you could say about it) and also opined that he thought waiting in line for food wasn't so bad, and that people had too many choices in US markets (remember the "deodorant" whine?). Some of his writings had that old school "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" vibe. So, I don't think she was off the mark on that at all. At this stage of the game, though, he can live like a high ranking Politburo member--he's got his dacha at the shore...not quite a "regular" guy. Like Nader. And wealthy suburbanite Stein (who also is has visited Putin's Russia and listened attentively to him while he spoke at some dinner).