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A group of Russian nationals were able to donate to newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson's campaign in 2018 by funneling the money through a U.S. company.

The Texas-based American Ethane company previously donated tens of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Louisiana Republicans including Johnson, who was voted by the House to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker on Wednesday following three weeks of GOP chaos in the lower chamber.

While American Ethane was run in 2018 by American John Houghtaling, 88 percent of the firm was owned by three Russian nationals—Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev.

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[-] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 204 points 1 year ago

So, turns out russia is trying to bring down the U.S. from the inside? Isn't this what the intelligence community has been saying for years now, and somehow we keep letting it happen.

[-] eran_morad@lemmy.world 95 points 1 year ago

Republicans are actively and knowingly working toward russia’s goal. The traitor swine.

[-] tburkhol@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

It's ok now that Russia is run by oligarchs - oligarchs don't really have nationality in the sense of us peons. It was only that crazy, communist USSR they didn't like. Seriously: name me a significant Russian policy that doesn't 100% align with US conservatives.

[-] djsoren19@yiffit.net 19 points 1 year ago

Almost like the post-Soviet Russian government was heavily influenced by Ronald Reagan's administration. Of course conservatives love Russia now, it's fully realized Reagan's dream.

[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

The NRA was nearly shut down because it was funneling so much money from the Russian right to bear arms group that it didn'tknow what to spend it on - so the leadership spent it on luxury stuff.

Almost like they know how to destabilize a country

[-] Nougat@kbin.social 42 points 1 year ago

Part of me thinks, "Yeah, the American Fascist Party rushed Johnson into the Speaker's office so that the press wouldn't be able to assemble all this information in time for anyone to protest."

Another part of me thinks, "So much of this stuff being reported now happened a long time ago. Why didn't we already know?"

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 40 points 1 year ago

The frontrunner for the republican president is well known to have had ties and been compromised long before 2016 (remember the pee-pee- tape?). And plenty of republicans straight up flew to russia for july 4th a few years back.

Nobody cares. Their base will still vote for them and the rest of us are waiting for the end.

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

That's because Democrats don't know how to do rhetoric. Remember how we don't actually have a federal budget for the next fiscal year? If this were due to democratic infighting, republicans would be on air every day talking about how "they can't even manage their own party, they shouldn't be trusted with managing our government".

A competent democratic party should be talking about how we went over the cliff on the antarctic ice shelf melting because republicans don't believe in climate change, they should be talking about how republicans are prepared to abandon democracy, they should be talking about the incompetence of the republican party.

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 year ago

Nobody with a modicum of intelligence blames the Democrats for the impending shutdown.

It is just that people have largely made their mind up over that and there is the expectation of "a brief shutdown" because of how dysfunctional the government is.

In the likely event this continues? Then we will probably see that become a strong part of messaging. But even that only directly impacts a comparatively small part of the voting populace. Most people will instead blame "park rangers" for shutting down national parks and "lazy TSA" for the inevitable shitshow of airports. And continue to blame the USPS for everything else. Rather than realize there is one big connection between all those.

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Well that's the thing, rhetoric isn't for the people that agree with you, it's for the people that don't. Conservatives aren't completely hopeless, but their fear and anger are being weaponized to ignore fascist movements in their party while actively having their class consciousness suppressed. Deprogramming them will require a constant reminder about the failures of their party to actually improve their life through policy.

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Nobody with a modicum of intelligence blames the Democrats for the impending shutdown.

Except Republicans and their voting base

[-] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago

Nobody with a modicum of intelligence

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago
[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

There are also the low-info that might not be exactly stupid, but are so tuned out/busy that they fall for the "both sides" bullshit and take the "a pox on both their houses" route.

[-] CosmicTurtle@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I suspect, with zero evidence, that the press was more focused on covering the shit show that was the vacancy. To dive deep into all of the candidates was going to be a challenge, especially given that the candidates kept changing day to day.

So once the speaker was elected, the press could then coalesce around the one person.

[-] Nougat@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

The overarching shitshow (Shitshow Influenced Corrupt Organization, or SICO) serves to overwhelm the ability of the press to effectively cover everything. The effect of this is that while, yes, the press does cover some very important sub-shitshows, and those shitshows get blunted by public reaction, many more sub-shitshows go unnoticed and plow forward as shittily as intended.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

We can thank the conservative/corporate media, oops, I mean the "liberal media".

[-] seathru@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

Hell, they even published a book detailing their plans.

The book emphasizes that Russia must spread geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."

Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".[9] Aleksandr Dugin later recorded himself endorsing the presidency of Donald Trump in the 2016 election, expressing agreement with him and his proposed set of policies.

[-] TwoGems@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

DOJ needs to step it up but Garland's a "centrist."

[-] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Because the people they report to are the people on the inside.

[-] RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I'm thinking we start by torpedoing the oligarchs' yacts in international waters.

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I could use a new boat. Where's me cutlass?

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, but something something MUH FREEZED PEACH.

...or that's what the likes of Elmo and little d say.

[-] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

So the problem is obviously American politics. But I think it's entirely possible for a politician to be influenced by Russians without being a Russian plant. I think there's a level of insulation between the politician and their "donors." If there's any kind of overt link, that's bad. But if he can say hey, I just cash the checks, he isn't technically doing anything wrong. Legally. Ethically? Piece of shit. But we're talking American politics.

this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
807 points (98.6% liked)

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