As reported on the Duran, an American Congressional delegation comprised of seven Republican US Senators and Congressmen traveled to Russia from June 30 to July 5th. During this time the delegation met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak.
The two sides expressed hope for a thawing of relations between the US and Russia, which have been in a very poor state since 2014.
As the delegation heads home, the Washington Post reported that their activity was met with derision by Democrat Party members and “Kremlin watchers”, whose statements were anything but positive… and anything but true.
The Post reports:
Republican lawmakers who went to Russia seeking a thaw in relations received an icy reception from Democrats and Kremlin watchers for spending the Fourth of July in a country that interfered in the U.S. presidential election and continues to deny it.
“Cannot believe GOP, once the party that stood strong against Soviets & only a decade ago sought to democratize the Middle East, is now surrendering so foolishly to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Kremlin’s kleptocracy — only two years after Russia interfered in U.S. election,” tweeted Clint Watts, an information warfare specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and frequent featured expert before congressional panels examining Russian influence operations.
“Russians wooing with a shopworn song — repugnant as nails on a blackboard,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a Twitter post in response to the delegation’s trip. “They are enemies and adversaries, attacking us.”
Of course, this rhetoric is the continuing narrative of RussiaGate, which has becoming increasingly evident as merely the tactic deployed by Democrats who were enraged that their candidate failed to win the 2016 election. Further, the Democrat criticizers tried to use the Republicans’ historic strength as their foundation for accusation, while conveniently avoiding their own historic alignment with the Communists of the Soviet times. This is historically known and often commented upon, as here by Rush Limbaugh in this piece dated 21 February 2017:
Accuracy in Media (AIM) raised concerns about the influence of Russian propaganda on the U.S. political process more than four years ago, when Russia Today (RT) television was trying to disrupt the Republican presidential primary. Going further back into history, the Moscow-funded Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was openly advocating the defeat of Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
A good place to start this inquiry is a quarter-page ad that appeared in The New York Times on August 19, 1984, entitled, “The Bottom Line: NO to Reaganism.” It was an anti-Reagan diatribe under the byline of the then-CPUSA vice presidential candidate, longtime pro-Russian communist Angela Davis. She said, “…if Reagan is not defeated in November we may well be on the way to war—and even a nuclear holocaust.”
Though running on the CPUSA ticket, she praised the Democrats for nominating Geraldine Ferraro as the first female vice-presidential candidate of a major party, and said that Jesse Jackson’s campaign for president had moved the Democrats “in a more progressive direction.”
This is the same Angela Davis who appeared as a co-chair and spoke at the anti-Trump Women’s March on Washington on January 21 [2017].
The CPUSA ad in The New York Times was an obvious signal that the Kremlin didn’t want Reagan re-elected as U.S. president. But The New York Times took the money for the ad and moved on, rather than use the ad as an opportunity to expose Moscow’s involvement in the anti-Reagan campaign.
Despite this opposition, Reagan won a stunning re-election victory, carrying 49 of the 50 states over the Democratic candidate, former Vice President Walter Mondale.
Earlier that year, the CPUSA paper, the Daily World, had run a banner headline, “Fight to Sharpen Dems’ Platform,” on how progressives were working to improve the “peace” and “rights” planks of the Democratic national platform. By August, the Daily World was highlighting how unity at the Democratic Party convention had shifted the odds toward a defeat of Reagan in November. The story quoted Gus Hall, general secretary and presidential candidate of the CPUSA, as saying that “it is necessary to pay special attention to the issues and forms that will unite and bring together the supporters of Mondale and the supporters of Jackson.”
Earlier, Davis had given an interview to the CPUSA paper, denouncing “the ideological myth of the Soviet menace” and the anti-communist policies of President Reagan. She described the CPUSA as “a part of the united people’s front that will be able to defeat the Reagan Administration.”
By September of 1984 the Russians were openly expressing their sympathies, marked by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko meeting with Walter Mondale. The meeting was designed to highlight a Soviet propaganda theme that Reagan was responsible for a breakdown in arms-control negotiations.
The Advanced International Studies Institute, associated with the University of Miami, analyzed Soviet propaganda themes, demonstrating that the Soviets were “calculating how to most effectively damage President Reagan’s reelection efforts.”
In July 1984, the Heritage Foundation released a detailed analysis of how Soviet propagandists were aiming at Reagan’s ouster. A study by Manfred R. Hamm declared, “Moscow’s disinformation campaign has been aimed at convincing American, European, and world opinion that U.S. military and political policies are the root cause of international conflict and instability.”
Reagan was opposed because the Soviets/Russians perceived him to be an ideological conservative committed to restoring America’s economic and military strength. At the time, the Democrats and the Russians backed the so-called “nuclear freeze campaign” to undercut Reagan’s military build-up.
By any objective measure, Trump’s campaign proposals to rebuild America’s economic and military strength are more of a threat to Moscow than anything Democratic President Hillary Clinton had proposed. Yet it’s Trump who stands accused in the media and by the Democrats of being an agent of Russian influence.
Indeed, Republican Senator Richard Burr (NC), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has joined with Democratic Senator Mark Warner (VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in announcing an “inquiry into Russian intelligence activities” regarding U.S. elections.
For Mr. Limbaugh, even today often the word “Russian” and the world “Soviet” are considered one and the same thing. However, even so it is easy to see that the Soviet leadership of the day is what Mr. Limbaugh is calling out. Also, despite the radio talk show host’s views about modern-day Russia, he still considers the notion of RussiaGate as “preposterous.”
Rush Limbaugh says he doesn’t buy the notion that Russia influenced the election of President Donald Trump.
It is preposterous to believe the Russians had any influence on the election, the conservative radio talk-show host said on “Fox News Sunday.”Trump lavished praise on President Vladimir Putin during his bid for the presidency, a trend that continued during his first month in the White House. And Democrats and Republicans alike have called for a congressional investigation into Russia’s cyber interference with the 2016 campaign.
Limbaugh argued that Trump’s groundswell of support came directly from voters who feared for the country if Democrat Hillary Clinton were elected.
“People that voted for Donald Trump really believed they would lose the country if Hillary won,” Limbaugh said.
The post US delegation to Russia met with lies from Democrats appeared first on The Duran.