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I haven't seen much coverage of this here. Two weeks ago, two Russians - Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, both employees of Russia Today - where charged with conducting a money-laundering operation that spent nearly $10 million on efforts to sway public opinion in the US and interfere with the upcoming election. The money went primarily to three right wing influencers - Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, and Benny Johnson - funnelled through a right wing media company called Tenet Media. One of the influencers got $400K month, plus a $100,000 signing bonus, for making four videos a week for Tenet. RT mocked the charges, posting "Hahaha!" As part of the filing, they included some Kremlin documents that asked the influencers to post articles that: -Portray Ukrainian President Zelensky as corrupt and inept -Amplify any news about migrants crossing the US border -Emphasize how illegal immigrants are a threat to white Americans -Demand border security and aid for homeless vets come before funding for Ukraine -Create content "proving" that the LGBT community is a threat to white Americans How odd that these align so exactly with GOP talking points as of late. Merrick Garland stated that these attacks are increasing as the US gets closer to an election. The election of Harris would be a diaster for Putin. He needs Trump to win so that he can win in Ukraine - thus the amount of money being poured into this election interference effort. And by using American influencers, he can claim that Russia has nothing to do with this; it's all Americans! Blame them! Which also plays into his goal to weaken America. Several people close to Putin have said that Putin views an American civil war as the best possible outcome from his efforts. For their part, Rubin, Pool and Johnson have maintained their innocence, claiming that they had no idea where all that money was coming from. They have continued their spreading of Russian propaganda in the meantime. Vladimir Lenin called such people "useful idiots" - people who could be manipulated into doing a foreign power's bidding, against their own interest, through facile lies.

Yeah, how about the NBER saying it was a recession? That's not a rhetorical question, BTW, I would actually like to hear your answer. The NBER's definition emphasizes that a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months. In our interpretation of this definition, we treat the three criteria—depth, diffusion, and duration—as somewhat interchangeable. That is, while each criterion needs to be met individually to some degree, extreme conditions revealed by one criterion may partially offset weaker indications from another. For example, in the case of the February 2020 peak in economic activity, the committee concluded that the subsequent drop in activity had been so great and so widely diffused throughout the economy that, even if it proved to be quite brief, the downturn should be classified as a recession. https://www.nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating

Trump demands NBC brings back Johnny Carson.....who has been dead for 20 years..... https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/donald-trump-late-night-show-johnny-carson-b2618266.html

Biden did indeed pull the country out of Trump's recession. Only one state did not have any shutdowns. The other 49 - democrat and republican alike - had shutdowns. Those pesky facts again!

worth a listen -

Actually this is a good example of perhaps the biggest threat of a Trump presidency. He may be blind, or at least unable to see beyond his own grievances. However he is surrounded by truly malignant people who will easily manipulate him, putting themselves in positions of power to do enormous harm to the country, and to the world. They were not prepared last time, as they did not expect to win. Project 2025 is enough to show they won't make that mistake again, and it's likely even worse is being planned by people who are smart enough to keep things under wraps until it's too late to stop them.