Monday, March 25, 2019

The private-state nature of corrupt criminal dictatorships like Putin's Russia confounds law enforcement the way hybrid war confounds traditional military response.


  1.  9 hours ago
    Putin uses his oligarchs as emissaries to corrupt, cultivate, and compromise foreign business people and politicians. But they aren't officially state actors. It's a mafia using a nation for cover.
    47 replies1,177 retweets3,133 likes
     
     
     
  2.  8 hours ago
    So Trump's campaign manager sharing data with a Ukrainian loyal to the Kremlin or a billionaire crony of Putin isn't "conspiring with Russia" only in the most technical, least accurate sense.
    51 replies1,359 retweets3,696 likes
     
     
     
  3.  8 hours ago
    This pattern has repeated all over. Loans to Western politicians & parties with Russian backing, millions in donations from private citizens. Technically very little of it is "Russia," but it's always Putin.
    15 replies769 retweets2,391 likes
     
     
     
  4.  8 hours ago
    Defending will require transparency, unity, and a commitment to strengthening the institutions Putin exploits so easily. It will also require fighting back on terms a mafia responds to.
    32 replies527 retweets1,958 likes
     
     
     
  5.  8 hours ago
    As with Trump's power grabs post-election, there is a lot of work to do so that the letter of the law matches the spirit of the law. If winning an election after asking for and receiving the aid of a hostile foreign power isn't illegal, it sure as hell should be.
    29 replies1,020 retweets2,952 likes
     
     
     
  6.  8 hours ago
    Campaign finance reform, full financial disclosure, eliminating potential conflicts of interest. Running for office or running a country for personal gain must be proscribed if real democracy is to survive.
    41 replies826 retweets2,859 likes
     
     
     
  7.  7 hours ago
    Putin and his imitators are good at finding the gray areas of public/private, legal/illegal, media/propaganda, and they exploit every gap. Legal systems & news orgs in the free world are bound by strict rules & traditions of fair play.