Putin Asks Reporter If US 'Assassinated' Ashli Babbitt
Days ahead of his summit with President Biden in Geneva, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the United States was being hypocritical in its criticism of the way his country handles internal dissent.
During an interview with NBC News, Putin said Russia was no worse than the United States in this regard, and used the government's handling of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as an example.
He even pointed to the arrests of hundreds of suspects in the U.S. Capitol riot and the death of one rioter as proof that the U.S. also targets its citizens for their political opinions, just as Russia is accused of stifling dissent. (The FBI has arrested people for the violence inflicted on the seat of government in Washington, rather than for their political opinions.)
"We have a saying: 'Don't be mad at the mirror if you are ugly,'" he said. "It has nothing to do with you personally. But if somebody blames us for something, what I say is, why don't you look at yourselves? You will see yourselves in the mirror, not us."
Meanwhile President Biden recently was two hours late for a press conference. He only answered five questions from hand picked reporters. His team set this up so he wouldn't be exposed. Guess they are waiting for Vladimir Putin to do that later this month.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
I should point out in the interest of accuracy that President Reagan didn't "walk out" of the talks in Reykjavik. He and Gorbachev failed to reach an agreement and both left at the pre-appointed times.
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Because Gorbachev was demanding that we get rid of Star Wars, the SDI, and all of our nuclear weapons. And Ronaldus said, "You're not serious. I'm outta here."
Gorbachev wanted Reagan's 30-BILLION-DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE to remain in the lab. They had already agreed on everything else. Reagan wouldn't agree to that stipulation at that time.
Over the course of 10 years, the U.S. government worked on developing the SDI concept (including space-based lasers), but the futuristic program remained just that—futuristic. It was formally scrapped by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in Washington, D.C. about six months after the summit. The final treaty eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons, restricting the deployment of both intermediate and short-range land-based missiles worldwide.
And some believe SDI brought down the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. The Russians realized they couldn't compete with the US's military budget. Others think Chernobyl broke the back of the Soviet Union. Biden? He requested that the Russians stop hacking 16 key industries.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Wayne Harrison wrote: And he told Putin if he didn't stop, the U.S. would respond in kind to Russian targets.
(You left that part out)
A hacking war? Is the Cold War coming back? Meanwhile I think China is the more dangerous opponent. Interesting article in the WSJ today, China is rewriting their history. Deng, a former leader had allowed criticism of Mao and past mistakes the communists had made. Xi doesn't want the truth out there. More autocracy in the future?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
