candide

Your post gave me the idea to check. Actually it seems JonnyF was right to state that the EP scandal would have significant repercussions! ???? "LONDON — British MPs have defended taking gifts paid for by the Qatari government as a corruption scandal in Brussels shines the spotlight on lobbying by the country ahead of the World Cup. The Qatari government spent more than £260,000 in gifts, hospitality and travel on British MPs since October last year." https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-mps-defend-accepting-260000-in-qatari-gifts-before-world-cup/

Nice to see there is more transparency about MEP's sponsored trips. The list is provided in the Politico article. Hmmm... lots of suspect sponsors such as Harvard University, Nobel Peace Center, Czech Academy of Sciences, Confrérie des chevaliers du Tastevin......????

She's one of the Dem's best assets to win the next elections (after Trump, of course)! ????

Don't forget it's a diplomatic statement made in a specific context. Putin's communication strategy is to claim being a victim of NATO aggression and Western imperialism, and he is relatively successful with it in a certain number of countries, particularly in some French-speaking countries in Africa. So it's obvious that he will not say anything which may give some substance to Putin's claim. Same for the other NATO countries, they will never say they want to help destroy or even just agress Russia (whatever they may think).

Trump is whatever he thinks may be useful to him. He started by identifying as a Democrat, then his conman instinct led him to change side. His problem is that, while courting the far-right allows him to own the GOP, it doesn't work well with moderate electors.

It's not that simple. China makes most of its trade with western countries and Russia's economy weights peanuts. 3% of China trade.

Most of which he inherited from Obama, and the economy was just following global trends ( in case you did not notice gas price and inflation are global).

Done nothing? Got the country out of an economic crisis, triggered continuous growth, reduced unemployment to historically low level, started to reduce inflation despite the world-wide inflation context, increase energetic independence and energy exports, unite NATO countries again... Not to mention in-depth work to secure strategic industry independence, to improve infrastructure and develop alternative energy sources.

I think some of them believe what they are being served, but others just don't care what is true or not. They just think they can score a point against the other side. Anyway, most of them won't even know about it, as the right-wing media are mute about it. I made a quick check: nothing on Fow News website (of course), nothing on the NYPost website either, and not a line about it on the Washington Examiner website (which is sometimes a bit more informative than the other two). So someone who only looks at right-wing media won't even know about it.

Not literally expressed with this sentence, but hate is there (ok, among politicians, it may also be motivated by opportunism). Just look at some posts in the Florida book ban thread.

Not much to add to what other posters said. They should have been more critical as there were credible dissenting voices at the international level. They diffused what was being served to them by the Bush administration. At that time, there was a climate of collective irrational craziness in the U.S. This is also long time ago and I guess some media have learned a lesson from it. It cannot be compared to more recent events such as the case in the OP.

It would be fair. However, I am not sure there is a legal framework allowing it.

Not going on about him. About you making false claims that you have been drawn into talking about him.

So now you suggest I have drawn you into talking about Trump with a post you did not even reply to? The sub-discussion you replied to was nauseus arguing that: "While there is hard evidence that Putin was not afraid of Obama or Biden." I replied: "Could it be simply that he was not afraid of the U.S.?" Nothing about Trump in this exchange. Then you invite yourself and re-introduce Tump in the discussion, and then you complain I reply to you about Trump.

Actually I checked the post you replied to, and it wasn't about Trump. It's you who introduced Trump in your reply. ???? My post was (Full quote): "Could it be simply that he was not afraid of the U.S.?"

Stop playing the victim! You invited yourself in a discussion I had with someone else. I have not drawn you into it.

Well, when someone makes the claim that Putin did not previously invade Ukraine because of Trump, It's not surprising that the name of Trump comes up in replies.

As I addressed in my other post, did Trump send any signal suggesting that he would retaliate in the case of Ukraine, or was it just the opposite?

Remind me, who first addressed the issue of image in the world, in this thread?

And what were exactly the signals Trump sent to Russia that he would retaliate? Actually, from the start, it has been exactly the opposite. He approved the annexion of Crimea, tried to blackmail Ukraine about weapon deliveries, discredited Ukraine and undermined Zelinski. Here's the first of the 4 main counter-signals he sent: "Within weeks, Trump praised Putin for how he handled the takeover of Crimea and predicted that “the rest of Ukraine will fall … fairly quickly.” Echoing Kremlin propaganda, Trump said in a TV interview that the Crimean people “would rather be with Russia,” a position he also pushed in private. One of his 2016 campaign aides falsely claimed that “Russia did not seize Crimea.” 4 things to remember about Trump, Ukraine and Putin https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/26/politics/trump-putin-ukraine/index.html

I'm not a fan of the Tories, but in this case, I can only approve.

Could it be simply that he was not afraid of the U.S.?

Deflecting

Correlation is not causation. So what's the evidence it is due to Trump being President, and not due to another more plausible reason, such as the huge Covid crisis affecting Russia (population decrease of 900,000 in 2020), or the low price of energy during the Covid years. You have no evidence that Putin was afraid of Trump.

Well, he has nearly a double rate of positive opinion than the previous president: 29% for Trump against 58% for Biden. Actually Trump was aroumd the same level as Putin or Xi. So the change of President has been a huge improvement in terms of international opinion. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/01/08/trump-ratings-remain-low-around-globe-while-views-of-u-s-stay-mostly-favorable/