Secretary of State rejects 80 million from Congress to fight Russian propaganda because it will upset Moscow.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

Congress has given $80 million to the State Department to fight Russian propaganda and misinformation, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly is reluctant to put it to use. 

A former senior State Department official told Politico that Tillerson’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond, suggested using the money to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda would rile Moscow. 

“Hammond said the secretary is in the process of working through disagreements with Russia, and this is not consistent with what we’re trying to do,” the official said.

Tillerson and President Donald Trump have been working to mend relations with Russia from their “all-time low point” (in Tillerson’s words) after U.S. intelligence agencies issued a report early this year concluding that the Kremlin worked to interfere in the 2016 election.

I'm sorry, WHO does Rex Tillerson work for again?

Since when has America not wanted to protect itself from Russian propaganda for fear it might hurt their feelings?

I am sure that the White House will want to label this "fake news," but that will be a tad difficult with their boss tweeting things like this:

Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time & very dangerous low. You can thank Congress, the same people that can't even give us HCare!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2017

And then there's this:

🔥🔥🔥Top WH source: Trump spoke with Putin before he signed Russia sanctions bill. No word yet on what #PutinsPuppet told him, but stay tuned!

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) August 2, 2017

Yeah, in Trump world Congress is just a bunch of cock blockers interfering with the Trump Administration's love affair with the Kremlin.

And some on the Left want to start aggressively pointing out what should be obvious to everybody.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:

A major progressive think tank wants Democrats to stop being shy about accusing the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia. 

The Center for American Progress has written a nearly 50-page report for Democrats in Congress, making the case for collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. The report, a draft of which was reviewed by BuzzFeed News ahead of its release Wednesday, makes the bold claim that “it is now clear there was collusion” and “this is the biggest political scandal in American history.”

I have been saying for awhile that the evidence of collusion is literally all around us.

But clearly we need to start working harder to make that obvious to to those who still cannot, or will not, see it. 

Donald Trump melting down on Twitter? Must be Saturday.

Okay these are really all over the place so I will just present them one at a time, since there does not seem to be a unifying theme.

Word is that @Greta Van Susteren was let go by her out of control bosses at @NBC & @Comcast because she refused to go along w/ 'Trump hate!'

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017

Or perhaps MSNBC just insisted on journalist standards that Greta simply could not meet.

Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017

What are they hiding? Well perhaps the personal information of their citizens, so that it cannot be weaponized against them.

How about that?

I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It's about time!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017

I have my own issues with CNN, but they most certainly have NOT been exposed as "fake news."

The only people who believe this are the extreme Right Wing who have never really watched CNN in the first place.

Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017

Yeah not "bad people," just dumb and crazy.

Considering the source they should take this as a compliment.

You know speaking of dumb apparently European intelligence agents don't have much confidence that Trump has the brain power to deal with Vladimir Putin during their upcoming meeting.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Moscow believes its leader, ex-spy master Vladimir Putin, can extract major concessions from President Donald Trump when the two meet for the first time next week, European officials tell The Daily Beast. 

The officials say their intelligence indicates Putin thinks he can outmaneuver Trump at the G-20 summit, playing on promises of cooperation on areas like counterterrorism to win concessions like a reduction in the raft of sanctions against Russia. 

“When you meet Russia, don’t give anything away for free,” one Western official warned, echoing the fears of many European diplomats ahead of next week’s Trump-Putin meeting on the fringes of the G-20 in Germany. 

Their misgivings highlight concern that Trump’s inexperience and Putin’s ability to flatter will slowly degrade the U.S. alliance with Europe over time, and boost Moscow back to near-superpower status while extracting no changes to its aggressive, expansionist behavior.

I think it is blatantly obvious that Trump has been compromised by Putin, and I have no confidence that Trump will even bring up the fact that Russia hacked our election.

I'm just worried that by the end of the meeting Trump will have unconditionally surrendered the country to Putin.

Assuming of course that he has not already done that.

Putin feigns anger with US during meeting with Secretary or State Rex Tillerson.

Oh shucks. I could never quit you.

Okay so after at first putting out the message that Putin would not meet with Tillerson, thereby getting the press all atwitter about a rift concerning Syria, that meeting finally took place.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

After Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson waited for much of the day, wondering whether he would get to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin, the two men sat down at the Kremlin late Wednesday afternoon in the first face-to-face meeting between the Russian leader and a top official in the Trump administration. 

Relations between the United States and Russia have grown so tense that it was unclear whether Mr. Putin would agree to see Mr. Tillerson, a man he once gave a medal of friendship. 

Their meeting lasted almost two hours and ended just before 8 p.m. local time.

So what we are supposed to take from this is that Putin is really, really pissy with the United States right now so he threw shade at them by making the Secretary of State cool his heels like some peasant, before finally giving in and taking the meeting.

(A meeting by the way that Putin showed up on time for, even though he is famous for showing up late to meetings, including one with former Secretary of State John Kerry and even the Pope. )

Keep in mind that Tillerson is a such a good friend of Putin's, that he once gave him the Russian Medal of Friendship.

But now we are to believe that he would suddenly dis his old friend over something as silly as politics?

According to statements by Tillerson after the meeting things were supposedly chilly between the two old friends.

Courtesy of CNN: 

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that relations with Moscow are at a low point after meetings in Russia that seemed to do little to bridge a deepening diplomatic divide over a chemical attack in Syria. 

Relations are "at a low point, there is a low level of trust between our two countries," Tillerson said at a news conference with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Of course we have to simply take Tillerson's word on this because....

If you're wondering why the US press doesn't have pictures of Secretary Tillerson at the Kremlin, that's because he ditched his press pool

— margaret brennan (@margbrennan) April 12, 2017

That's right, no press allowed.

For all we know Tillerson and Putin greeted each other with high fives and air kisses, because let's face it the only group of people who lies more to the press than the Russians, are the folks associated with Donald Trump.

But it sounds good right?

Good enough to fool even the folks over at Vox, who actually wrote this headline: 

Rex Tillerson’s first visit to Moscow showed that the Trump-Russia lovefest is dead

WTF? So we are to believe that in just five days since the missile attack in Syria that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin went from braiding each other's hair to writing nasty messages in each other's school lockers?

Bullshit!

I like the folks over at Vox, I really do. But they are acting like it is their first day on the job of covering Donald Trump and his use of Tourette Syndrome like distractions.

Here is an observation from former presidential candidate Evan McMullin:

In his prepared remarks today in Russia, Secretary of State Tillerson made no mention of Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election.

— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) April 12, 2017

Yeah, if the Trump Administration has really had enough of Putin's shit why not hold his feet to the fire over this?

No, take my word for it this "lovefest" is far from dead.

They are just waiting for the media to get distracted before they start tongue kissing again.

Just keep your eye on those Russian sanctions.