Dem senator: Why is Trump silent on Putin blaming Jews for election interference?

[DonViejo]

Source: The Hill




BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 03/12/18 10:09 AM EDT

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) slammed President Trump on Saturday for staying silent after Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Russian minority groups, including Jews, for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Link to tweet

Putin suggested in an NBC interview that Russian citizens from different ethnic background could be behind the 2016 U.S. election interference.

“Maybe they are not even Russians, but Ukrainians, Tatars or Jews, but with Russian citizenship, which should also be checked,” Putin said. “Maybe they have dual citizenship or a green card, maybe the U.S. paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know, either,” he added.

The American Jewish Committee quickly condemned Putin's comments and urged him to clarify his comments.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/377919-dem-senator-why-is-trump-silent-on-putin-blaming-jews-for

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Notice how Putin said Jews aren't Russians, even if they have citizenship. . . . . nt

[leftynyc]

4. All 4 of my grandparents

(all Jewish) had to escape that craphole early last century. I see things haven't changed.

[karynnj]

12. One of my daughter's high school friends was a boy whose family immigrated to the US

from the Soviet Union under the amendment that Senator Lautenberg got passed that made it easier for people to gain refugee status based on not being able to practice their religion. (https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/frank-lautenberg-dies-at-89-1.5272909 ) This law started in the Soviet era when no religion was allowed in the Soviet Union.

After the dissalution of the Soviet Union, there were many articles that spoke of how many Russian leaders allied with the Russian Orthodox church and nationalism to tighten their own crasp of power. A January 2018 NYT article is more scary than anything from the soviet era - and that situation was pretty bad! https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/russia-jew-bishop-lies.html In this context, Putin's comments are pretty scary. (If Putin's goal was to destabalize the US, could he be intending to transfer blame from the Russian government to Russian Jews allied with people like Kushner, Michael Cohen, Felix Slater ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-mafia-linked-figure-describes-association-with-trump/2016/05/17/cec6c2c6-16d3-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html?utm_term=.76f6c3eb4833 ) etc )

[tblue37]

19. My mother's father was a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US. nt

[Igel]

11. Because ethnicity / citizenship.

If I move to Mexico and get citizenship, that doesn't make me Zapotec or Mayan. I might move to Wales and get British citizenship, but it won't make me Welsh. Perhaps I could try to assimilate, and in a generation or two my kids might be taken for Welsh and feel Welsh and therefore *be* Welsh, but I can never be. Those voiceless lateral fricatives are too different for my speech habits. And, of course, if I insist on always being "American-Welsh" and raising my kids always to be apart, they'll never fit in and always be on the outside.

This failure to contrast meanings is fairly common a problem for countries which are also ethnicities. It's why we insist on making clear that some people may be Americans by citizenship, but they are not American by ethnicity--going so far as to say that even if 70 or 80% of the population has a common culture, that's not "the ethnicity" or "the culture" because others would feel bad. And if there's, say, a terrorist attack we're quick to flip and say, "Ah, the attacker is French" even if he immigrated at age 20 and became a citizen at age 24 and now he's 25, but really barely speaks French or acts French. (Then we insist that others we don't like but who were born to US parents born of US parents all in the US aren't *really* "American".)

We like to play this confusion game at times. But only when it serves our interests. However, Putin wasn't playing at hypocrisy in this instance.

The translation doesn't even make an attempt to make clear the distinction, which is very in-your-face in Russian.

Может, они вообще не русские, – сказал Путин – Может, они – украинцы, татары, евреи, у которых просто есть российское гражданство. Даже это надо проверить

If you feel the need to try to pronounce it, it's "Mozhet, oni voobshche ne russkie," skazal Putin. "Mozhet, oni ukraintsy, tatary, evrei, u kotorykh prosto est' rossiiskoe grazhdanstvo. Dazhe eto nado proverit'."

Five words in we find "russkie", meaning "Russians," and these days usually reserved for some sort of ethnic or quasi-ethnic meaning. Then it goes on, "Maybe they're Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, who simply have Russia citizenship. This needs to be checked." "Russian citizenship" uses a different word for "Russian," rossiiskoe, which is reserved for the state and official status. Even the punctuation in the most common English translation seems to inaccurately lead us to infer that there are 3 groups, "Ukrainians," then "Tatars," then "Jews who have Russian citizenship." (Heck, a lot of paraphrases make it sound like Jews were the sole target of the abuse. Hard to stop fighting domestic battles or even to get one's head around the fact that the domestic, familiar battle isn't the only true battle.)

Of greater importance in the context that is Russia is putting Ukrainians and Tatars in first and second place. Ukrainians have always been considered a variety of Russians by Putin, and Tatars were nothing of any great importance. Now, however, we have the US supporting Ukrainians; after years of constant hybrid warfare Ukrainians have gone from being mostly pro-Russia to being starkly anti-Russia, and this is a gaping sore for Putin. Tatars are openly oppressed and mutinous, belying the greatness that is the return of Crimea to Russia. Jews are just the old trope--but not the first one, in this case.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Thank you for an interesting analysis. . . . nt

[bronxiteforever]

2. Or why is Cheeto silent when the UK is attacked by Putin

Kick and recommend.

[TranssexualKaren]

3. Stupidity or treason?

In 1916 Pavel Milyukov gave a speech before the Russian Duma listing all the failures of the tsarist government, ultimately posing the question of weather it was stupidity or treason. His eventual conclusion was that it really doesn’t matter, either are equally a threat to the nation.
This isn’t funny anymore, this man represents an existential threat to our republic!

[Eyeball_Kid]

6. At this juncture, no one who is in violation of the Constitution is stupid. They all know

what they're doing.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

9. No, Trump doesn't know anything about the Constitution

Nor does he care to know. He feels that he is above such petty concerns.

[apnu]

17. I'm not sure if you are speaking about Trump or Putin or both.

Doesn't matter, you statement works in all three scenarios.

[Eyeball_Kid]

5. By now, the answer is obvious: Trumpy sees Putin as THE world leader and looks up to him.

He admires Putin for murdering his political opponents. To Trumpy, this proves that Putin is a strong leader, just as Trumpy desires to be a strong leader. Putin uses the lie to perfection, just as Trumpy tries to use the lie as his major political and marketing tool. Everything Putin does is sacred. He is NEVER to be crossed or challenged.

Trumpy's Fanboys will never comprehend that Trumpy is a traitor, that he'd gladly open the US to Putin's rule, if only those nagging Democrats would stop citing such irrelevant allegations such as... oh... treason, conspiracy against the US, money laundering, violations of the Emoluments Clause, Obstruction of Justice... you know, all those pesky things called criminal violations-- being investigated by a nonpartisan Republican, of all things. To Putin, those issues come in a distant second to political and strategic expediency to maintain an iron grip on power. And because it's the way Putin sees it, it's also the way that Trumpy sees it.

Were this the 1930s, Trumpy would be Hitler's Mussolini. He is NOT loyal to the Constitution. Even when he pledged his Oath of Office last year, he was lying. He always lies. He has no intention of maintaining loyalty to the Constitution and he never did. But he has the GOP machinery behind him, and that's because the GOP leadership is NOT loyal to the Constitution either.

[Me.]

7. Dems Are Kicking It Today

This and Menendez confronting the Comrade on his claim about his nominees so far roday

[riversedge]

13. we need the Kicking It to be constant 24/7

[Me.]

14. Here's Another For You

“Dems to Trump: Push for extradition of Russians accused of U.S. election meddling”

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142011277

[dalton99a]

8. The puppet wouldn't dare say a word

Besides, he agrees with Putin on everything

[IronLionZion]

10. When citizenship doesn't mean citizenship

and people are treated like foreigners in their own country simply because they are minorities, people should know what's wrong with that.

But of course our current president launched his political career by claiming that the previous president's birth certificate was fake.

[poboy2]

15. Because...that 400lb guy WAS jewish, but the fake news didn't report it.

Snoflakes can't take to truth!

[hoffyburger]

18. Because

He agrees