From here:
Exclusive: Jack Cashill notes how Dems turned against Moscow after years of cooperation
No one would have predicted this scenario because it defied common sense. Russia had a proven pawn in Obama and a friend in Hillary. It did not need Donald Trump.
The campaign to sell the Trump-Putin collusion scenario could not have worked had not the media shoveled tons of information down a Grand Canyon-sized memory hole. There was much to forget.
Among the memories to be disposed of was the White House's courtship of Russia starting immediately after the January 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama.
Speaking at a February 2009 security conference in Munich, Vice President Joe Biden told the audience, "It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia."
A month later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the Russian foreign minister in Geneva and presented him with a red plastic "reset" button.
Two years after proposing the reset button, Biden made a revealing speech at Moscow State University. There he listed the many new areas of cooperation between Russia and the United States and cited with pride the fruits of that relationship.
During his speech Biden boasted of visiting a high-tech hub on the outskirts of Moscow called "Skolkovo." Biden openly encouraged American venture capitalists to invest there, promising that Skolkovo held the potential to become Russia's Silicon Valley.
Even apolitical observers were troubled by this happy exchange of capital and information.
EUCOM, the American military's leading intelligence think tank in Europe, called American involvement in Skolkovo "an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage – with the additional distinction that it can achieve such a transfer on a much larger scale and more efficiently."
Always on the prowl for a quick buck, Bill Clinton secured State's permission to meet with Skolkovo honcho Vekselberg. Clinton happened to be in Russia at the time to give his notorious $500,000 speech, paid for by a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin.
On that same trip Clinton met with senior Rosatom official Arkady Dvorovich. The media scarcely noticed or cared.
Rosatom controlled all things nuclear in Russia, including the arsenal. At the time, Rosatom was seeking the State Department's permission to buy Uranium One, a Canadian company with vast U.S. uranium reserves.
Even the New York Times noticed this fandango. In April 2015, too late to stop the transaction, the Times reported how the Russians took control of Uranium One in three distinct transactions from 2009 to 2013.
During this time, said the Times, "a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation."
For those who want to know more, Peter Schweizer does a great job documenting the transactions executed by Hillary's State Department in his books "Secret Empires" and "Clinton Cash."
Obama was hardly blameless. "She works for me," he proudly said of Hillary during the 2012 town hall debate with Romney. "I'm the president, and I'm always responsible."
During that 2012 campaign, Obama beamed about the happy state of U.S.-Russia affairs. In March 2012, Obama met with outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Seoul, Korea.
A live microphone picked up a private conversation between the two. "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it's important for him to give me space," said Obama, the "him" being incoming president Putin.
Obama continued, "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility." Replied Medvedev, "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir."
Obama showed his Russia-friendly chops during his final debate with Mitt Romney in 2012. Earlier in that year, Romney had called out Obama for his not-so-secret overture to Putin.
"This is without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe," said Romney. "They fight for every cause for the world's worst actors. The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed."
During the debate, Obama answered with a rehearsed comeback: "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War's been over for 20 years." The media laughed off the Russian threat along with Obama.
Of note, Vladimir Putin served as prime minister during Obama's first term and was elected president eight months before Obama blew off Romney's concerns.
Obama had a friendly relationship with Russia during those first four years and expected to get even friendlier, especially with his new "flexibility."
Of course, Putin read Obama's flexibility for the weakness it was. Russia promptly annexed Crimea, refused to accept international inspection of its nuclear sites and gave fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden a home.
For all that, Obama continued to laugh off Russian potential. In July 2015, tensions between the White House and the Kremlin eased considerably when Obama called Putin, thanking him for his much needed help securing the Iran nuclear deal.
Obama had reason to be grateful. No foreign leader had more pull with the mullahs than Putin. "We would have not achieved this agreement had it not been for Russia's willingness to stick with us and the other P5-Plus members in insisting on a strong deal," Obama told the Times.
After the Iran deal no particular Russian provocation made the administration turn against Russia. Hell, Russia had been meddling in American politics since the Sacco and Vanzetti case in the 1920s, and Obama published his first article in 1983 in support of the KGB-inspired anti-nuke mania.
The event that dimmed the White House enthusiasm for Russia was Donald Trump's emergence on the national scene. To frame Trump the White House had to frame Russia too.
No doubt, Putin provided the framers ample ammunition, but Putin had been in power either as president or prime minister since the presidency of his buddy Bill Clinton. "He kept his word on all the deals we made," said Clinton in 2013.
Putin had not changed. Neither had Obama and his inner circle. They had been spying on the media, punishing whistleblowers, harassing honest reporters, even imprisoning politically inconvenient people for the past seven years.
They had the experience and the media support to execute this one last epic, Soviet-style, character assassination and silent coup.
Or so they thought.
;-)
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