Моральное неравенство

[tijd]

Wrapping up our #DemDebate here in California — and the wave of support and enthusiasm we're seeing is AMAZING. Go to https://t.co/iVg91M9DTq now and join our grassroots campaign. pic.twitter.com/Qc7GoQfX5K

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) December 20, 2019

В выступление Эми Клобушар на вчерашних дебатах прозвучало важное слово "патриотизм".

KLOBUCHAR: I think when you see what's going on around the country, yes, it's the economic check that Elizabeth and Bernie have so well pointed out on this stage, but there's something else going on here, and it is a decency check. It is a values check. It is a patriotism check.
When you see people -- and we've all had this happen -- that come to our meetings and say, you know, yeah, I voted for Donald Trump, but I don't want to do it again, because I want my kids to be able to watch the president on TV and not mute the TV.
We have to remember as Democrats, and if I get worked up about this, it's because I believe it so much in my heart, that we have to bring people with us and not shut them out. That is the gift we can give America in this election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/20/transcript-december-democratic-debate/



На предыдущих дебатах Клобушар упомянула вопрос моральной эквивалентности.

YANG: We have to let Russia know, look, we get it. We've tampered with other elections, you've tampered with our elections. And now it has to stop. And if it does not stop, we will take this as an act of hostility against the American people. I believe most Americans would support me on this. <...>
KLOBUCHAR: I want to respond to Mr. Yang. I don't see a moral equivalency between our country and Russia. Vladimir Putin is someone who has shot down planes over Ukraine, who has poisoned his opponent, and we have not talked about what we need to do to protect ourselves from Russia invading our election.
This wasn't meddling. That's what I do when I call my daughter on a Saturday night and ask her what she's doing. Sorry.
This was much more serious than that. This was actually invading our election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/15/october-democratic-debate-transcript/



В этом она звучит похоже на Джона Маккейна, вместе с которым встречала новый 2017 год в Украине: "...no moral equivalence between the United States and Putin’s Russia".

KLOBUCHAR: I miss him every day. I traveled all over the world with him. And he would sometimes, when we were seated with world leaders, and they would look away from me, he'd say, "Senator Klobuchar is the lead Democrat on this trip, and she will go next."
And I still remember being there at his ranch. John and I went to visit him and Cindy when he was dying. And he pointed to some words in his book, because he could hardly talk. And the words says this: "There is nothing more liberating in life than fighting for a cause larger than yourself."
That's what we're doing right now. And while we have had major debates about policy, we have to remember that what unites us is so much bigger than what divides us. And we have to remember that our job is to not just change policy, but to change the tone in our politics, to look up from our phones, to look at each other, to start talking to each other, because the way we win -- and not just win the presidency, but take back the U.S. Senate -- is by winning big.



Вопрос о санкциях против путинского режима опять оказался в центре баталий: Законопроект DASKA (Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act) успешно прошел утверждение в сенатской комиссии, но наткнулся на нападки со стороны администрации Трампа.

The Trump administration is quietly fighting a new package of sanctions on Russia, The Daily Beast has learned. A Trump State Department official sent a 22-page letter to a top Senate chairman on Tuesday making a wide-ranging case against a new sanctions bill. <...>
Despite Trump’s strong opposition, the bill passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning. Five senators opposed it, all Republicans: Chairman Jim Risch, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Johnny Isacson, Sen. John Barrasso, and Sen. Ron Johnson.
The bill, called the “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act of 2019” (DASKA) would level new sanctions against Russian oligarchs, against its banking sector, and against its sovereign debt (which the powerful California Public Employees Retirement System has hundreds of millions of dollars invested). It would also open the door to sanctioning Russia’s ship-building industry in response to the Kremlin’s capture of Ukrainian sailors and ships as they sailed through the Kerch Strait late last year. And it would sanction some crude oil development projects in Russia, as well as energy projects outside the country backed by Russian state-owned entities.
It would also aim to bring more transparency to purchases of high-end real estate, which many foreign nationals use to launder money into the U.S. And it would require that the State Department and the Intelligence Community report to Congress every 90 days on whether or not the Kremlin is meddling in U.S. elections.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-battles-new-sanctions-on-russia

Непонятна его дальнейшая судьба https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/482.



Среди программ, предложенных кандидатами в президенты, пугающей для Путина должен выглядеть план Элизабет Уоррен о борьбе с международной коррупцией и клептократией.

When the Panama Papers were released in 2016, the world learned how Russian president Vladimir Putin had channeled billions from state-owned banks and companies to his friends and relatives. <...>
Target corrupt kleptocrats. Together with our partners and allies, the United States has taken the lead in sanctioning and holding accountable those who abuse human rights and or facilitate nuclear proliferation around the world. We must similarly take the lead in standing up to corrupt and kleptocratic businesses and regimes, shining a light on financial corruption that undermines democracy and development around the world. This means investigating, naming, and shaming corrupt individuals and their criminal rings - including through targeted sanctions on individuals and by excluding them from the financial system - limiting their ability to steal from their countries and stash the money overseas. This can also be a basis for working with allies, coordinating law enforcement efforts to pursue corrupt and kleptocratic activity. And it will incentivize jurisdictions to bring their legal frameworks up to speed with international standards.
https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/international-corruption

Why is this man smiling?
(Pick a man.) pic.twitter.com/lhkW0TStMK

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 11, 2019

Между тем Путин нашептывает Трампу про злодейскую Украину и публично подбадривает его про импичмент.

After meeting privately in July 2017 with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Trump grew more insistent that Ukraine worked to defeat him, according to multiple former officials familiar with his assertions.
The president’s intense resistance to the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia systematically interfered in the 2016 campaign — and the blame he cast instead on a rival country — led many of his advisers to think that Putin himself helped spur the idea of Ukraine’s culpability, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
One former senior White House official said Trump even stated so explicitly at one point, saying he knew Ukraine was the real culprit because “Putin told me.”
Two other former officials said the senior White House official described Trump’s comment to them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former-white-house-officials-say-they-feared-putin-influenced-the-presidents-views-on-ukraine-and-2016-campaign/2019/12/19/af0fdbf6-20e9-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html

В.Путин: Что касается продления нашего диалога до конца президентства Трампа, Вы как будто уже ставите вопрос о том, что оно заканчивается. Я в этом как раз не уверен. Ещё нужно пройти Сенат, где у республиканцев, насколько мне известно, большинство, и вряд ли они захотят представителя своей партии отстранять от власти по каким-то, на мой взгляд, абсолютно надуманным причинам.
Это просто продолжение внутриполитической борьбы, и одна партия, которая проиграла выборы, Демократическая партия, она добивается результатов уже другими способами, другими средствами, предъявляя Трампу то обвинения в сговоре с Россией, потом выясняется, что никакого сговора не было, это не может лечь в основу импичмента. Теперь давление на Украину какое-то придумали. Не знаю, в чём там дело… Но это вашим конгрессменам виднее.
http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62366



В истории России попытка импичмента была 20 лет назад, когда коммунисты и партия "Яблоко" пытались сместить Ельцина. На борьбе с этой попыткой впервые проявил себя Владислав Сурков.

Приход Суркова во власть был как призыв на фронт — он стал помощником главы администрации президента 15 мая 1999 года, за три дня до этого Ельцин с подачи «семьи» отправил в отставку «розового» премьер-министра Евгения Примакова. Шаг, казалось, безумный с точки зрения политических перспектив: по опросу фонда «Общественное мнение», 81% избирателей эту отставку не одобрили. А впереди были парламентские выборы. Незадолго до этого едва не стала реальностью идея импичмента Ельцину: по одному из вопросов — войне в Чечне — для его объявления Госдуме не хватило всего семнадцати голосов. Считается, что это как раз заслуга Суркова: еще не работая в администрации президента, он по ее поручению «работал» с депутатами Думы, убеждая их голосовать против импичмента.
https://expert.ru/russian_reporter/2012/04/surkov/

Каким образом Владислав Сурков убеждал депутатов голосовать против импичмента Бориса Ельцина, рассказывается в книге Дэвида Сэттера "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State".



may 15, 1999
A deputy from the Russian Regions faction in the State Duma was preparing to vote on the motion to impeach President Yeltsin when there was a knock on the door of his office, and a stranger entered and introduced himself as ‘‘a well-wisher who wants to offer you a very advantageous deal.’’
The stranger said, ‘‘You can receive big money, help yourself, and at the same time help us.’’ He gave no indication, however, of whom he meant by ‘‘us.’’
Of the five accusations against Yeltsin, only one, unleashing the war in Chechnya, was believed to have a good chance of gaining the two-thirds vote necessary for impeachment. Accordingly, it was not a surprise to the deputy when the stranger explained that his principal concern was to prevent him from supporting the point of the indictment concerning Chechnya. ‘‘You can vote for impeachment,’’ he said. ‘‘Just don’t vote for the point concerning Chechnya. You can say that you supported impeachment but couldn’t bring yourself to approve the charge concerning Chechnya because you did not think that the war was the responsibility of the president.’’
There was a pregnant pause, and the stranger said, ‘‘I can offer you $30,000.’’
The deputy got up and said, ‘‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that you have mistaken the door.’’
At about the same time, another deputy from the Russian Regions faction received a similar visitor who offered him $30,000 not to vote for impeachment.
The deputy did not accept the $30,000 but expressed interest in a deal. He insisted, however, that he was going to vote for at least one point of the indictment against Yeltsin. His visitor asked him which one. The deputy said he would vote to convict Yeltsin of illegally dissolving the Soviet Union.
The visitor smiled. ‘‘We respect your choice,’’ he said. They agreed on a payment of $52,000. <...>
Alexander Kravetz, the party’s secretary for ideology, entered the Duma press room and took his place behind a microphone at a table on the stage. The crowd of reporters became silent and leaned forward as he began to speak. ‘‘Deputies are being bought,’’ he said. ‘‘The starting price is $30,000. If a deputy agrees to vote against all points of the indictment, there can be a lot more.’’
The votes were still being counted, but in the wake of Kravetz’s statement, all tension was gone. No one any longer expected that Yeltsin would be impeached.
At 5:30 the counting commission announced that, on the critical vote on Chechnya, 283 deputies had voted in favor of impeachment. This was a large majority but 17 short of the necessary two-thirds vote. The other counts of the indictment received even fewer votes.
After the totals were announced, the Communists appeared stunned. Filomonov found it difficult to speak. Zyuganov told reporters, ‘‘This was all bought.’’

После этого началась спецоперация "преемник", пришел Путин, и работать с Госдумой стало проще.



Возвращаясь к Америке, американскому патриотизму и отсутствию моральной эквивалентости, процитирую историческую речь Нэнси Пелоси на заседании об импичменте.

"We in Congress, Article I, the Legislative Branch, must stand up and make clear to the American people, and to all people, that this body still stands by the principles enshrined in the Constitution and defended by generations of Americans.
Last week, in observance of the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Members traveled to that hallowed ground to express our gratitude to the heroes of freedom, who sacrificed everything to secure victory of freedom over tyranny – not just for America, but for the world.
The veterans of that Battle, who were there in their 90s, told us how, after the war was won, the Europeans whom they liberated would ask, ‘Why did you risk for us? You don’t know us. And give your lives to save us? We’re not Americans.’
And our men would say, ‘We came here to fight for you, not because you are Americans, but because we are Americans.’
As our beloved Chairman, Elijah Cummings, and Oversight Committee Chair, our North Star, said when announcing support for this action, ‘When the history books are written about this tumultuous era, I want them to show that I was among those in the House of Representatives who stood up to lawlessness and tyranny.’
He also said, almost prophetically, ‘When we are dancing with the angels, the question will be, did we – what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact?’ Elijah, as you know, has since passed on. Now, he's dancing with the angels.
And I know that he and all of us here are very proud of the moral courage of Members – want to honor the vision of our Founders for a republic, the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform to defend it and the aspirations of our children to live freely within it.
Today, we are here to defend democracy for the people."
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/121819