If It Walks Like a Russian Stooge

Russian stooges are everywhere these days:

Gabbard, who went on to run for president in 2020, was extremely conspicuous for repeating Vladimir Putin’s talking points accusing the opposition to the Assad regime of being jihadists, including in editorials published in her home state Honolulu Star-Advertiser. It was behavior like this that led Hillary Clinton to say in 2019 “I’m not making any predictions, but I think [the Kremlin has] got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians.”

To prove the point, Gabbard repeatedly appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show to oppose NATO membership for Ukraine. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard tweeted, “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border.” 

Then there is Matt Taibbi who has extensive experience in Russia, having lived there for most of the 1990s. He has long made excuses for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and separatist activity in the Donbas, including during his stint at Rolling Stone. He’s even made excuses for Russia’s meddling in American elections. And he was insistent that Putin would not launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a position he later acknowledged was a colossal mistake: “My mistake was more like reverse chauvinism, being so fixated on Western misbehavior that I didn’t bother to take this possibility seriously enough.” He quickly pivoted to doing podcasts with Katie Halper (of “Joe Biden is a rapist” fame) with titles like “How the US Caused the Ukraine Crisis.”