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How Traitor John Kasich Managed to Infuriate Everyone With His DNC Antics; Top DNC Speaker Made Millions Lobbying for Russia; Republican Women Trash Trump

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By Townhall. . .You were already on the outs with the party, Mr. Kasich. And now, you’re not only endorsing Joe Biden for president—you’re speaking at their convention. I don’t know what is going through Kasich’s mind—I don’t. Does he think that somehow, after a Biden win, the GOP will go back to the days of old? Those days are gone. They’re over. Finished. All of those people who were uncomfortable with Trump have either retired or resigned. The Republican Party is now a right-wing populist party. And if you were paying attention, it’s a party that still mostly advocates close to 90 percent of what the old Reagan coalition has advocated for in the past 25 years. The delivery isn’t as polished sure—but who cares. Trump gets results. I’m a proud Trump Republican as is most of the base. Yes, there are some annoying folks who yearn for past days. They can still hop on the Trump train. Well, everyone can still do that, except John Kasich who is speaking tonight at the Democratic National Convention to break tribalism or something (via NYT):

Four years ago, John R. Kasich considered it unthinkable to vote for Donald J. Trump for president, yet he could not bring himself to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton either — so he wrote in Senator John McCain of Arizona.

Not this time around. Mr. Kasich, a lifelong Republican who has spent decades in politics — as a state legislator, congressman, governor of Ohio and presidential aspirant — will become his party’s most prominent leader to cross the partisan divide and support former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., speaking at this week’s Democratic National Convention, and then voting for him this fall.

“I wasn’t going to vote for somebody else,” Mr. Kasich said in an interview before his speech on Monday night. “I just wasn’t going to do it this time. I did it the last time. You know, I had always been hopeful, even after the convention and after the election, that perhaps we would see a change in the president, but we just never have. I happen to think it’s the soul of our country that is being damaged, and that’s what I’m concerned about.”

(Read more from “How Traitor John Kasich Managed to Infuriate Everyone With His DNC Antics” HERE)

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Republican Women Trash Trump at DNC

By Washington Examiner. A trio of once-prominent Republican women trashed President Trump on the opening night of the virtual Democratic National Convention to highlight a segment of the GOP that is backing Joe Biden for president.

“I’m a longtime Republican and a longtime CEO,” Meg Whitman, a former top executive and GOP candidate for California governor in 2010, said. “And let me tell you, Donald Trump has no clue how to run a business, let alone an economy. Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a plan.”

Whitman was followed by former New Jersey GOP Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who is also backing Biden.

“This isn’t about a Republican or Democrat,” Whitman, who was governor from 1994 to 2001, said, explaining her appearance at the convention. “It’s about a person — a person decent enough, stable enough, and strong enough to get our economy back on track. A person who can work with everyone.” (Read more from “Republican Women Trash Trump at DNC” HERE)

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Top DNC Speaker Made Millions Lobbying for Russia

By The Federalist. The heavily promoted formerly Republican lawmaker endorsing Joe Biden for president tonight at the Democratic National Convention was a highly paid Russian lobbyist whose firm was paid millions of dollars for work on behalf of the Kremlin, federal records show.

According to federal documents filed pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the lobbying firm run by former Rep. Susan Molinari and its business partner received nearly $2.5 million in just one six-month period in 2008 to “cover fees and expenses for providing services for the benefit of the Russian Federation.” During the final of the year, the Russian lobbying deal made the consortium another $2.8 million for its work on behalf of the Kremlin, records show.

Molinari, who ran for and won the same congressional seat vacated by her father in 1989, left Congress in 1997 to embark on a lucrative career promoting the interests of foreign governments in Russia, Bangladesh, and Panama. Molinari’s former firm The Washington Group was part of a consortium of high-powered marketing and lobbying operations that raked in more than $60 million from the Russian Federation to improve the country’s image in the United States.

In 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched a sprawling investigation of the Trump campaign after Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak was spotted meeting with Republican lawmakers at the G.O.P’s nominating convention. Former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was targeted, illegally leaked against, and eventually prosecuted over his conversations with Kislyak during the presidential transition in 2016 and 2017. Federal records show, however, that Molinari’s lobbying partner worked directly for Kislyak to burnish his image to American voters. (Read more from “Top DNC Speaker Made Millions Lobbying for Russia” HERE)

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New York Times Manipulates FBI Lawyer’s Guilty Plea to Hide Real Spygate News

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A New York Times reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his role perpetrating the Russia collusion hoax was tasked with framing the news that a former top FBI lawyer was to plead guilty to deliberately fabricating evidence against a Donald Trump campaign affiliate targeted in the Russia probe. The resulting article is a case study in how to write propaganda.

Adam Goldman broke, and cushioned, the news that former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was to plead guilty to fabricating evidence in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application to spy on Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page.

His job was to present the news as something other than an indictment of the FBI’s handling of the Russia collusion hoax, to signal to other media that they should move on from the story as quickly as possible, and to hide his own newspaper’s multi-year participation in the Russia collusion hoax. One intelligence source described it as an “insult” to his intelligence and “beyond Pravda,” a reference to the official newspaper of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Here’s how Goldman did it. . .

The New York Times used to put every Russia collusion story it had on the front page. Then, when the narrative fell apart, the Times moved on to a new narrative of redefining America as irredeemably racist.

Even though Clinesmith’s guilty plea is directly relevant to the false story the Times peddled for years, and even though it broke the news of his guilty plea, the publication hid the story deep in the paper and put a boring headline on it. “Ex-F.B.I. Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty in Durham Investigation,” as if begging readers to move on. If they didn’t, the subhead told them that the news really wasn’t such a big deal. “Prosecutors are not expected to reveal any evidence of a broad anti-Trump conspiracy among law enforcement officials,” it claimed, without, well, evidence. (Read more from “New York Times Manipulates FBI Lawyer’s Guilty Plea to Hide Real Spygate News” HERE)

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Russia: Putin Approves Coronavirus Vaccine, Claims Daughter Took It

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President Vladimir Putin claimed on Tuesday that he approved Russia’s experimental Chinese coronavirus vaccine and the nation was readying mass distribution, alleging that his daughter was one of the test subjects and is feeling well since taking it.

An official claimed that the vaccine still needed to clear Phase Three testing, however, which would place its development behind the leading American-made vaccine. . .

Russia is one of a number of rogue states — including China itself, Iran, and North Korea — claiming to be developing a vaccine against the Chinese coronavirus. No vaccine currently exists for any known coronavirus, including those responsible for the SARS and MERS outbreaks in the past two decades.

“As far as I know, this morning for the first time in the world a vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection was registered,” Putin proclaimed on Tuesday, according to the Russian news agency TASS. Putin claimed that some who have taken the vaccine “do not have any symptoms at all” and that his daughter was among the experimental patients.

“I know this very well, because one of my daughters got vaccinated, so in this sense, she took part in testing,” he claimed, stating that she developed a fever after both doses of the vaccine, but “after the second shot, she had a slight fever again, and then everything was fine, she is feeling well and has a high [antibody] count.” (Read more from “Russia: Putin Approves Coronavirus Vaccine, Claims Daughter Took It” HERE)

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Russia Sends Former Marine to Prison Established ‘as Part of the Gulag Under Stalin’

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Russian authorities have sent imprisoned Michigan native Paul Whelan to “a strict regimen camp” established “as part of the gulag under Stalin,” according to the former Marine’s twin brother. . .

Whelan has been sentenced to 16 years of imprisonment on charges of espionage based on allegations that his family says were trumped up by Russian security services with the assistance of a supposed friend who owed him money. His family believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government wants to swap Paul Whelan in a prospective deal involving high-profile Russian criminals in American prisons, but U.S. officials have dismissed the idea of a trade.

“We seem to be at sort of an impasse where if there are discussions going on, it’s not clear they’re going on,” David Whelan said. “And in fact, Paul being sent out to the labor camp suggests that there aren’t any activities going on between the two countries.”

The lack of communication was evident on Monday, when State Department officials made a routine inquiry about Paul Whelan’s status at Lefortovo Prison only to learn that he “wasn’t there anymore.” Prison authorities declined to provide any information about his whereabouts to the U.S. government, his brother said, but they told British officials on Tuesday that he had been sent by train to a camp in Mordovia.

“It is no surprise that once again the Russian authorities violated Russian law, by failing to notify our family about Paul’s whereabouts,” David Whelan wrote in an email to journalists and supporters. “It also shows how easily American citizens held in Russia can disappear from view, as consular access is now even more curtailed than it has been since Paul was first wrongly detained.” (Read more from “Russia Sends Former Marine to Prison Established ‘as Part of the Gulag Under Stalin'” HERE)

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Lincoln Project Founders Have Ties to Russia and Tax Troubles, Docs Reveal

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By New York Post. The founders of the Lincoln Project, a headline-grabbing anti-Trump political action committee formed by GOP operatives who describe the president as a “crook” and “huckster,” have their own checkered dealings with Russia and the tax man, documents obtained by The Post reveal.

Since its inception last November — announced with a blistering New York Times op-ed — the brainchild of George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson and John Weaver has raked in more than $19.4 million, according to FEC filings, and has needled President Trump repeatedly with provocative TV ads.

But the group — which the National Review on Monday dubbed “The Grifter Project” and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) last week dismissed as a “cabal of political consultants all in it for the money” — don’t exactly practice what they preach.

Co-founder Weaver, a political consultant known for his work on John McCain’s and John Kasich’s presidential campaigns, registered as a Russian foreign agent for uranium conglomerate TENEX in a six-figure deal last year, filings with the Department of Justice show.

TENEX’s parent company is Rosatom, a Russian state-owned corporation that also owns Uranium One — the company that paid Bill Clinton $500,000 in speaking fees and millions to the Clinton Foundation after then-President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed off on the controversial merger in 2010. (Read more from “Lincoln Project Founders Have Ties to Russia and Tax Troubles, Docs Reveal” HERE)

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The Grifter Project

By National Review. The four founders of the Lincoln Project — Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, George Conway, and John Weaver — introduced their new venture to the world in a New York Times op-ed in which they described their aims as to prevent President Trump’s reelection by “persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states” to vote against him and to take down as many Republican members of Congress as possible.

But the project is a scam — little more than the most brazen election-season grift in recent memory. And it is working. As the ragtag band of three otherwise unemployed strategists plus one lawyer hoped, the allure of Republican-on-Republican violence has proven irresistible to the MSNBC set. Per their most recent FEC filing, the group has raised $19.4 million since its inception this past November.

The gap between the group’s rhetoric and its actions is enormous. The Times op-ed declared that “national Republicans have done far worse than simply march along to Mr. Trump’s beat. Their defense of him is imbued with an ugliness, a meanness and a willingness to attack and slander those who have shed blood for our country, who have dedicated their lives and careers to its defense and its security, and whose job is to preserve the nation’s status as a beacon of hope.” And yet the group’s focus thus far has been on vulnerable Senate Republicans, notably the moderate Susan Collins and the mainstream Cory Gardner, who haven’t exhibited any such behavior. Neither has Joni Ernst, another target.

The Lincoln Project’s ads don’t attack these GOP senators for supporting profligate federal spending, contributing to explosive debt, or enabling feckless foreign policy, nor do they bash President Trump for his incoherent trade policy or his failure to tame an ascendant administrative state. Rather, they attack Republicans from the left, in terms that please the Lincoln Project’s predominantly progressive funders. Rarely, across dozens of ads, is a political principle recognizable to anyone as center-right to be found. Is the Lincoln Project aware of who Abraham Lincoln was?

That most spots sound instead like Democratic boilerplate — the type of partisan schlock a Democratic candidate might run against a GOP opponent in a D+5 district — may go some way to explaining where the Lincoln Project is coming from. One ad slams North Carolina senator Thom Tillis for proposed cuts to federal education funding and Obamacare while claiming he supports putting “kids in cages.” Another sandbags Colorado’s Cory Gardner for siding with Trump on health care and the environment. Yet another lectures Susan Collins that she works “for Maine, not Mitch McConnell.” In an ad assailing the Senate majority leader, the group dubs him “Rich Mitch” and smears him as someone who has used his office to accumulate wealth (ignoring that most of McConnell’s wealth comes from his wife, Elaine Chao, not from anything he did during his time as a senator). (Read more from “The Grifter Project” HERE)

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Russian Elites Reportedly Given Access to Experimental Coronavirus Vaccine

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A group of Russian tycoons, business executives and government officials were given early access to an experimental coronavirus vaccine, according to a report.

They were given shots developed by the state-run Gamaleya Institute in Moscow as early as April, which last week completed a phase 1 trial on military personnel, Bloomberg News reported.

Gamaleya, backed by the Defense Ministry and the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund, hasn’t published results of the study and has moved on to the next round of trials.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he doesn’t know the names of those who received the vaccine. . .

The Health Ministry said in a statement that only those participating in the trials are eligible for a shot. (Read more from “Russian Elites Reportedly Given Access to Experimental Coronavirus Vaccine” HERE)

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Adam Schiff Reportedly Learned of Russian Bounty Allegations in February

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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA)’s aides first learned in February of allegations that a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties for American troops in Afghanistan, according to a report.

Top Intelligence Committee staff for Schiff were briefed during a congressional trip to Afghanistan on intelligence that Russia offered the Taliban bounties in Afghanistan, but Schiff took no action in response to the briefing, sources told The Federalist.

Schiff has so far refused to acknowledge that his staff was aware of the allegations. “I can’t comment on the specifics,” he said when asked by a reporter whether he indeed knew of the intelligence before the New York Times story. He has also acknowledged that Trump was never briefed on the intelligence. . .

The Federalist’s Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway wrote:

Schiff’s recent complaints that Trump took no action against Russia in response to rumors of Russian bounties are curious given that Schiff himself took no action after his top staff were briefed by intelligence officials. As chairman of the intelligence committee, Schiff had the authority to immediately brief the full committee and convene hearings on the matter. Schiff, however, did nothing. He did not brief his committee on the matter, nor did he brief the gang of 8, which consists of top congressional leadership in both chambers.

(Read more from “Adam Schiff Reportedly Learned of Russian Bounty Allegations in February” HERE)

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Top Intelligence Officials Release Statements Criticizing Leaking of Russian Bounties Information

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Top U.S. intelligence officials released statements Monday criticizing leaks to the media as the Trump administration continues to defend against allegations that it knew Russia had offered bounties to incentivize Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition troops in Afghanistan.

CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released similar statements Monday night slamming leaks as detrimental to intelligence investigations.

“The selective leaking of any classified information disrupts the vital interagency work to collect, assess, and mitigate threats and places our forces at risk. It also, simply put, a crime,” Ratcliffe said in a statement.

. . .Neither official directly addressed the reported intelligence assessing Russia had offered bounties to militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (Read more from “Top Intelligence Officials Release Statements Criticizing Leaking of Russian Bounties Information” HERE)

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Trump: Intel Doesn’t Back up NYT Bombshell on Russian Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops

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President Trump late Sunday said U.S. intelligence could not confirm an explosive story that Russian military officials offered bounties to militants linked to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, reported Friday that it is believed that some “Islamist militants” or “criminal elements” collected payouts. The report pointed out that 20 Americans were killed there in 2019. It was not clear if any of those deaths were the result of a bounty. . .

TASS, the state news agency, reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry called the reports “information fakes.” A Taliban spokesman also denied any truth to the report.

Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank, told the Wall Street Journal that “Moscow’s willingness to embrace the Taliban openly and publically dates back several years” and he would not be surprised if there is truth to the report.

“The truly shocking revelation that if the Times report is true, and I emphasize that again, is that President Trump, the commander in chief of American troops serving in a dangerous theater of war, has known about this for months, according to the Times, and done worse than nothing,” Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said during a virtual town hall. (Read more from “Trump: Intel Doesn’t Back up NYT Bombshell on Russian Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops” HERE)

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Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says

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American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion. (Read more from “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says” HERE)

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