Saturday, December 7, 2024
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Informed
Confluence

What’s Wrong with Having a Good Relationship With Russia? – Confluence Daily

Reading Time: 4 minutes The company a person keeps will tell you a lot about that person. Same goes for countries. That concept is what diplomacy is built on. As a nation, you ally yourself with other countries that share your values and vision for the future.

In theory, there would be nothing wrong with having a stronger relationship with Russia. The problem with that theory is Vladimir Putin.

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Informed
Confluence

The Most Important Article You Can Read Right Now About Trump is from the New Yorker

Reading Time: 3 minutes Suppose we are currently making the same mistake we made at the outset of this drama — suppose the dark crevices of the Russia scandal run not just a little deeper but a lot deeper. If that’s true, we are in the midst of a scandal unprecedented in American history, a subversion of the integrity of the presidency. It would mean the Cold War that Americans had long considered won has dissolved into the bizarre spectacle of Reagan’s party’s abetting the hijacking of American government by a former KGB agent. It would mean that when Special Counsel Robert Mueller closes in on the president and his inner circle, possibly beginning this summer, Trump may not merely rail on Twitter but provoke a constitutional crisis.

And it would mean the Russia scandal began far earlier than conventionally understood and ended later — indeed, is still happening. As Trump arranges to meet face-to-face and privately with Vladimir Putin later this month, the collusion between the two men metastasizing from a dark accusation into an open alliance, it would be dangerous not to consider the possibility that the summit is less a negotiation between two heads of state than a meeting between a Russian-intelligence asset and his handler.

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Informed
Confluence

Make No Mistake, Russia is Behind the Shift In Our North Korea Policy

Reading Time: 4 minutes Russia has been one of North Korea’s very few allies since the Cold War. Maybe it’s because of that tiny shared border. Maybe it’s because they share similar totalitarian political viewpoints.

Almost everyone concedes nothing was gained for the U.S. in this sham of a summit. While some believe it was a run-up of political theater intended to distract from other issues that threaten Trump’s Presidency, there might be a more ominous answer to the why question.

The military isn’t jumping at the words of our Commander in Chief. While they have their own logic for putting the breaks on, I’m left wondering who our Commander in Chief is. Who does Trump take direction or even orders from? We know he’s not taking direction, input, or guidance from our international allies who’ve been in this game with us for a long time. We know he’s flying in the face of long-held U.S. foreign policy under both Democrat and Republican administrations.

We also know that Russia wanted the U.S. to stand down regarding North Korea and has wanted that for a very long time.

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