“Congratulations, Vladimir!”

In spite of everything that Vladimir Putin has done over the course of the past few years, from interfering in our 2016 election to launching the first chemical attack on British soil since World War II, our President reached out yesterday to personally congratulate the former KGB officer on once again being ‘elected’ the President of Russia.

Why Donald Trump would do this, given that Putin, just a week or so before, had boasted of his ability to drop nuclear warheads on the United States, I’m not quite certain. After all, as Senator John McCain said today, “An American president does not (typically) lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections.” For some reason, though, Donald Trump felt compelled to disregard the advice of multiple national security advisers and congratulate our adversary. [Trump, by the way is apparently furious that someone in his White House leaked the fact that he’d been given a briefing before making the call, which said explicitly, in all caps, “DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” only to then go ahead and congratulate Putin. I know some will see this as evidence that Russian news anchor Olga Skabeeva was absolutely right a few days ago when she said “Trump is ours!” a few days ago, but there has to be another reason, right?

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12 Comments

  1. anonymous
    Posted March 20, 2018 at 8:31 pm | Permalink

    Sarah Sanders is asked whether the Russian election was free and fair: “We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate.”

    https://twitter.com/axios/status/976159470781911040

  2. Jean Henry
    Posted March 21, 2018 at 4:31 am | Permalink

    Dunning-Kruger effect.

  3. Wikipedia
    Posted March 21, 2018 at 8:00 am | Permalink

    In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude; without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.

    Conversely, highly competent individuals may erroneously assume that tasks easy for them to perform are also easy for other people to perform, or that other people will have a similar understanding of subjects that they themselves are well-versed in.

    As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”

  4. Eel
    Posted March 21, 2018 at 8:14 am | Permalink

    Whatever Putin has on Trump has to be absolutely jaw-dropping, way beyond watching a prostitute pee.

  5. anonymous
    Posted March 21, 2018 at 10:02 am | Permalink

    Kimmel from last night’s show: “And guess who called his KGBFF to congratulate him on that? This guy just poisoned two people. Trump is calling to congratulate him.”

  6. John Galt
    Posted March 21, 2018 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    Trump has every reason to congratulate Putin. Putin is a winner, a man who snatches life by the pussy. Who cares that he imprisons opponents and kills journalists. He’s a rugged man’s man. Have you seen him bare-chested on horseback? He’s a god among men. Trump should take a sabbatical and study at his feet. He could learn so much.

  7. Jean Henry
    Posted March 21, 2018 at 11:47 am | Permalink

    Trump Aspires to be the kind of guy who can ‘shoot someone right in the middle of Times square and not lose a single supporter.’ Putin is his hero. They probably do have something on him but I think he also admired Putin. Some kind of Stockholm syndrome. He’s been both wooed and threatened. This is a surprisingly compelling cocktail to gain compliance… Well documented and entirely in keeping with other patterns of Russian asset cultivation.

  8. The New Republic
    Posted March 21, 2018 at 12:41 pm | Permalink

    Trump’s decision to congratulate Putin against the advice of, well, pretty much everyone, captures many of the pathologies of this administration. http://bit.ly/2FYQvuV

  9. M
    Posted April 2, 2018 at 1:00 pm | Permalink

    The Russian news agency TASS is reporting that, during this call in which Trump congratulated Putin, he also invited Putin to DC.

    http://tass.com/politics/997292

  10. wobblie
    Posted April 4, 2018 at 5:48 am | Permalink

    So what do you know, maybe the Russians didn’t carry out a nerve gas attack.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/salisbury-poisoning-russia-novichok-nerve-agent-porton-down-proof-evidence-mod-latest-a8286761.html

  11. Proton
    Posted April 4, 2018 at 11:26 am | Permalink

    The Skripal story has more holes than swiss cheese, just like russiagate. It was obvious from the first moment that the story as originally presented was highly questionable at best. But then, everything about the story (as pointed out in the youtube vid below) has changed except the “russia/putin did it!” hysteria part. It is becoming a 3-ring circus. This is good insofar as it will further discredit the Western media apparatus and punditry, which richly deserves to be further discredited.

    See Craig Murray’s posts over the last few weeks:
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk

    And:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMspcP0jO0U
    CrossTalk on Skripal case: Toxic Relations

    And, just 3 hours ago:
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/04/skripal-poisoning-deleted-foreign-office-tweet-leads-to-awkward-questions
    Skripal poisoning: deleted Foreign Office tweet leads to awkward questions
    Boris Johnson under pressure to explain whether position has changed after tweet blaming Moscow is deleted
    snip
    “The deletion … has deepened the government’s difficulties after British scientists at the UK’s defence research laboratory announced on Tuesday that they had not established that the nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal had been made in Russia.”

    …………..

    Snippet of comment by Glenda Kirby, on youtube link above:
    “People are waking up to the fact that their governments are owned,and that they the people are under threat.They know the media are also controlled so go elsewhere for their information.This is a school play,and it is a very amateurish production.We are learning to watch the actors in this production,and those who are honest or criminal and who they really are working for.”

    Pearl of observational wisdom: THIS IS A SCHOOL PLAY, AND IT IS A VERY AMATEURISH PRODUCTION.

  12. Proton
    Posted April 4, 2018 at 11:38 am | Permalink

    The New Republic: “Trump’s decision to congratulate Putin against the advice of, well, pretty much everyone, captures many of the pathologies of this administration.”

    Absolutely right. Trump should dial-up the rudeness and bellicosity. Time to FORCE PUTIN’S HAND and CONFRONT THE RUSSIAN BEAST, before they further undermine our democracy and contaminate our Precious Bodily Fluids.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY

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