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america would be so lucky.....

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The recent decision in Maine to ban former President Donald Trump from the state ballot in the 2024 presidential election could rapidly escalate and lead to a complete disintegration of the national US political system next year, such as happened in 1860 - leading directly to the 1861-65 Civil War, experts told Sputnik.

"This whole situation might end badly for the United States [and] lead straight to a national breakdown. Like it happened in 1860," US constitutional historian and political commentator Dan Lazare said.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows disqualified Trump from the state's Republican primary ballot because of his role [UNPROVEN] in the January 6 riot at the Capitol in 2021.

"They [the challengers] have provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the falsity of Mr. Trump's declaration that he meets the qualifications of the office of the presidency," Bellows wrote in a document on Thursday. "Therefore, as required by [law], I find that the primary petition of Mr. Trump is invalid."

However, Bellows added that the effect of the decision will be suspended until the Maine State Superior Court rules on any forthcoming appeal from the Trump defense bench. Maine will hold its vote for the Republican primary in March.

The appeal will be filed immediately, a Trump campaign spokesman said in a press release.

Bellows' announcement followed the Colorado state decision earlier this month to bar Trump from participating in that state's Republican primary and marked a serious escalation towards a national constitutional crisis and breakdown, Lazare said. "The results are negative no matter how you look at it," he said.

If the courts uphold the Colorado and Maine decisions, other states would follow the same path and the crisis would go nationwide, Lazare said.

 

"Suppose the [US] Supreme Court lets the Colorado and Maine decisions stand. That means that other states will likely follow suit, knocking Trump, the leading candidate according to a multitude of polls, off the ballot in much of the country," Lazare said.

 

That process could destroy Trump's prospects of being elected in a free and fair national vote even if he won the Republican presidential nomination, Lazare said.

"Presumably, that spells defeat [for Trump] in November. But how many Americans will regard such an outcome as even remotely fair?" he said.

Republican-controlled states would not stand by passively and allow the Democrats to manipulate the national presidential election that way, Lazare said.

 

Threat to Biden's Rule

"Even worse is if Texas Lieutenant-Governor Dan Patrick follows through on his threat to bar Biden in retaliation. If so, Sleepy Joe [President Joe Biden] could find himself off the ballot in much of the country as well," Lazare said.

The United States has not been rocked by such a constitutional crisis in 164 years, he noted. 

"The result will be a replay of 1860 in which Lincoln was off the ballot in nine southern states, Stephen A. Douglas was off the ballot in two up north, John Breckinridge, the Southern Democratic candidate, was barred in four, and John Bell, the Constitutional Union candidate, was barred in three," Lazare said.

 The result was the almost immediate slide into a Civil War now estimated to have cost 800,000 lives out of a total population of only 30 million, he said.

"Since no candidate was capable of achieving anything resembling a national mandate, a broken-down electoral process led straight to a national breakdown as well," Lazare said.

The US Supreme Court might well overturn the irresponsible decisions of the Colorado and Maine state governments. But that in turn would outrage Democrats across the nation, he said.

"But now consider what happens if the Supreme Court overturns the Colorado and Maine decisions, thereby putting the other 48 states on notice that such shenanigans will not be tolerated. It is not hard to guess what happens next: a hue and cry from Democrats that the court is operating at gross variance with the Fourteenth Amendment's insurrection clause," Lazare said.

  

Claims of a Power Grab

However, the Fourteenth Amendment itself was adopted as part of the Republican-directed Reconstruction of the South in the post-Civil War era, Lazare said.

Therefore, "they [today's Democrats] will label it a neo-Confederate power grab and a replay of Bush v. Gore in December 2000. Since Trump appointed three of the court's six conservative justices, they'll accuse him of fixing the outcome," Lazare said.

Such a crisis would destroy US political stability even if Trump won legitimately, he said.

 "If he [Trump} wins, the blow to legitimacy will be terrific. Political instability will deepen," Lazare said.

The underlying cause of the entire crisis is the collapse of the United States' ancient and unreformed political system, he said. "The bottom line is that American democracy is falling apart regardless," Lazare said.

The faults in the current system had been apparent, exposed and had only gotten worse for decades, he said.

"America's hyper-federal system of 50 separate state elections is so baroque and antiquated that it fairly cries out for an overhaul. Yet fundamental structural reform is something our sclerotic constitutional system will not allow. Consequently, the decay can only intensify," Lazare said.

 

 

Decisions to Ban Trump Not Valid

Historian and TNT radio commentator Bruce de Torres added that the arguments for barring Trump from the Republican primary ticket were not valid.

"It's a travesty. If, as I believe, Trump has not been 'convicted' of 'insurrection' in any case that I know of. If this process continues, nothing good comes of it," Torres said.

The Colorado and Maine decisions in reality revealed a terror of the outcome of any just, free and fair democratic process by the very officials and political establishment who had been elected and appointed to uphold it, he said.

"We cower in fear, proving our weakness to ourselves, and sink into deeper self-loathing and hatred of ourselves, which we'll project onto 'others,' further divided and conquered in the 'war of all against all' that our overlords would love to induce," Torres said.

The crisis can only serve to destroy the last vestiges of trust and confidence that the American people still have in their political system, he said.

"As many are now saying, a majority will believe 'our institutions are rotten' and so we'll go along with some plan to follow - be governed by - some foreign/international power, because we will think 'the American experiment failed so let's try something else,'" Torres added.

 

Supreme Court Bulwark

George Mason University law professor Frank Buckley said there was still one bulwark of constitutional responsibility that could and probably would overturn the Colorado and Maine state announcements.

 "[They will be] reversed by the Supreme Court," Buckley said.

In August, President Tom Fitton, president of the conservative legal and election watchdog group Judicial Watch, described the indictment moves against Trump as "a naked threat and act of intimidation by the Democratic Party" against any and all of their political opponents.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231229/us-facing-1860-scale-national-breakdown-threat-over-state-ballot-bans-against-trump-1115883996.html

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW................

GUSBELIEF: I THINK THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE DOING THIS UNDER INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE DEEP STATE. WHETHER TRUMP OR BIDEN WINS, THE DEEP STATE DOES NOT CARE, BUT IT NEEDS A SHAMBOLIC UNWORKABLE DEMOCRACY TO DO WARS AND ROB PEOPLE AS IT PLEASES.....

Cartoon at top by MOIR, SMH, 30/12/2023

 

SEE ALSO: https://sputnikglobe.com/20231229/watch-putin-biden--zelensky-wrap-up-2023-1115877332.html

he means what he says....

WHETHER YOU LIKE PUTIN OR NOT IS IRRELEVANT. PUTIN MEANS WHAT HE SAYS. Most of the reasons you don't like Putin is because of a relentless Russophobic and Putinophobic American media. So here goes the NEW YORK TIMES:

 

SERGE SCHMEMANN   Ukraine Doesn’t Need All Its Territory to Defeat Putin

Putin is not trustworthy, but if he turns out to be serious, Ukraine should not pass up an opportunity to end the bloodshed.

By SERGE SCHMEMANN

 

IN FACT, PUTIN IS TRUSTWORTHY. HE SAYS WHAY HE MEANS AND MEANS WHAT HE SAYS... HE'S SERIOUS. 

SO MAKE A DEAL SOONER THAN LATER...

But this irks people who hate Putin, who have no clues about the origins of the Ukraine/Russia conflict and who are prepared to sacrifice other people's lives to prove their STUPID point. this is the case of this YouTuber:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LquIXLFShJQ

 

Combat Veterans... IT'S IDIOTIC.

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

  

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

 

 

 

 

a woman?....

 A WHILE BACK, ANDREY PERTSEV WROTE A SORT OF ANTI-PUTIN ARTICLE FOR THE MEDUZA WEBSITE....

 

This weekend, Russians will head to the polls for yet another presidential vote with a practically predetermined outcome. Incumbent Vladimir Putin is expected to win by a record landslide — by more than 80 percent, to be exact. Kremlin officials have set this specific goal for themselves and believe they’re on course to achieve it, even in the face of war fatigue and backlash over the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. To find out more about the plans the Putin administration has laid for this weekend’s vote, Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke to sources on the inside. Here’s what they said.

 

------------------

 

The Kremlin believes Vladimir Putin’s reelection campaign has gone “more or less smoothly,” despite the ongoing war in Ukraine and recent protests in response to Alexey Navalny’s death. Two sources close to the Putin administration’s political bloc, which is responsible for running the elections, are confident that officials will be able to “hit their KPIs for the president.”

The Kremlin plans for Putin to achieve a “record result” of 80 percent of the vote. According to official figures, Putin took home 76 percent in the last election in 2018. The latest poll from the independent research group Russian Field shows that the results this weekend are indeed expected to be higher: more than 81 percent of respondents intending to vote said they’ll support Putin.

 

The runners-up

Sources close to Putin’s administration say that New People candidate Vladislav Davankov may come in second in the elections. After Russia’s Central Election Commission refused to register Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova as candidates, many Russian opposition figures called for people to vote for Davankov. Meduza’s sources say that initially, the administration had “some concerns” Davankov might “try to get additional votes [from the protest electorate],” but that in the end, everything turned out well and he didn’t “step out of line.”

Unlike Nadezhdin and Duntsova, who openly oppose the war, Davankov has been very careful with his words. “Would I like peace at any cost? No, I don’t align with that position,” he said at a campaign event in St. Petersburg in January. “It’s important to me that we settle the matter of the ‘special military operation’ and don’t pass it on to our children. As someone who’s worked in many countries, I don’t wish to fully disclose my position on the ‘special military operation.’”

The Kremlin isn’t “concerned” by Davankov’s current rating, sources told Meduza. The state-owned Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) puts him at six percent, and Russian Field at 7.4 percent. Putin’s administration is confident the final figures won’t differ significantly and finds these numbers acceptable.

A close acquaintance of Davankov’s, who spoke to Meduza on condition of anonymity, said that internal data from the politician’s campaign headquarters also showed him in second place, but there are concerns voters may not remember the name of a candidate who, until recently, was relatively unknown. However, the acquaintance confirmed that closed focus groups show many Russians view Davankov as a “candidate for peace.”

As Meduza previously reported, the Kremlin initially planned for Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of Russia’s ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), to win second place in the upcoming presidential election. The Putin administration’s political bloc has long hoped the LDPR will overtake the Communist Party as the informal “second-place” party in the country.

Slutsky himself was eager to come in second in the election so as to strengthen his own position within the LDPR. However, despite the best efforts of his campaign headquarters, his rating never rose: according toVTsIOM’s polls, Slutsky’s rating dipped from four percent to two percent in February, before rising to three percent at the beginning of March.

“Second place already seems unattainable,” a source close to Putin’s administration admitted to Meduza. A source in the LDPR concurred. This doesn’t come as a surprise, however. Kremlin insiders expressedtheir doubts about Slutsky’s potential as a charismatic figure early on.

Slutsky already understands that second place, and possibly even third, is out of reach for him, said a source close to the Putin administration. According to Russian Field’s latest poll, Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov is likely to come in third. Kremlin insiders admit that Kharitonov can count on four to seven percent of the vote but say this is only due to the party’s core base, which has voted for the Communists for years, regardless of the candidate. The Putin administration views Kharitonov’s personal campaign as “very weak.” Indeed, over the last few months, Kharitonov has only garnered attention for his very strange interviews and even stranger campaign videos.

The opposition

As Meduza previously reported, officials in the Kremlin’s political bloc viewed Alexey Navalny’s death as “a very negative development” for Putin’s reelection campaign. Sources among the “Russian elites” called the lines of thousands waiting to pay their respects at the politician’s grave a “necessary evil.” However, the Kremlin doesn’t think all this will have a significant impact on the elections. Referencing a Levada Center poll, a source close to Putin’s administration said that fewer than 20 percent of Russians experienced “negative emotions” over Navalny’s death.

According to Meduza’s sources, the Kremlin also doesn’t consider the “Noon Against Putin” initiative to be a serious problem. Russian opposition figures are calling on everyone who opposes Putin to go to the polls at exactly 12:00 p.m. on March 17, and vote for any other candidate. However, the Kremlin doesn’t think this will lead to large-scale protests. “Maybe there will be something noticeable at some polling stations in Moscow, or in some other city with a population of millions, but across Russia as a whole — no,” said one source. “And anyway, would it surprise anyone that there are a few hundred, or even thousands, of opposition supporters in a city [of that size]?”

The Kremlin remains confident that the initiative won’t have any noticeable impact on the election’s key indicator: Putin’s percentage of the vote. According to the Putin administration’s plans, any of the opposition’s efforts should be offset by votes from civil servants and employees of large state-affiliated companies, as well as by remote electronic voting (the results of which, as Meduza has reported, are easy to falsify and nearly impossible to verify).

A political strategist working with Putin’s administration characterized the election campaign as a “well-designed simulation” which, in his opinion, will lead to voting results that roughly “correspond to the general mood of Russians.”

A source close to the Kremlin agrees with him: “So far everything is going calmly — maybe even boringly. But thank God for that. We’ll get the numbers, and both those involved and those not involved in getting them will receive rewards. Many [Russians] will be satisfied, many will feel indifferent, and a few will feel disappointed.”

 

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/03/14/a-well-designed-simulation

SEE THE CARTOON FOR THE RESULT...

COMPARE THIS PUTIN "VICTORY" TO THE INCOMING AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.... FULL OF CORRUPTION FROM THE JUSTICE SYSTEM TO THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE, WITH A SENILE UNSTABLE GERIATRIC FIGHTING IT OUT WITH A 100 PER CENT CIRCUS CLOWN... THE CLOWN SHOULD WIN, BUT THE DEEP STATE THAT CONTROLS THE SYSTEM MIGHT STOP HIM WITH A BULLET IF THEY CAN'T STOP HIM WITH CROOKED COURT CASES... YET, THE OLD DELUSIONAL ABSENT-MINDED KOOK MIGHT DROP OFF HIS PERCH BEFORE NOVEMBER.... THE POLITICAL SPACE IN THE USA IS FILLED BY PSYCHOPATHS AND CONGRESS-PERSON ON THE TAKE, LIKE NOXIOUS GAS FILLING A VACUUM.

ONE WONDERS HOW THE USA CAN STILL FUNCTION, WITH MORONS FOR THE LEADERS, WITH MOST OF ITS JUSTICES BEING BLATANTLY BIASED AND THE CROOKERY SPREADING EVERYWHERE TO THE BANKING SYSTEM RELYING ON PRINTING UNSECURED CASH...

YES I KNOW, IN ORDER TO FAKE UNITY THROUGHOUT THE OPPOSING AMERICAN LOONIES, ONE NEEDS AN ENEMY: RUSSIA — AND EVERYONE SALUTE THE AMERICAN FLAG WITH ONE HAND ON THE LAPEL CONTAINING THE WALLET, AS A SIGN OF COHESION... ALL WANTING TO DESTROY RUSSIA... THIS HAS BEEN AMERICA'S PURPOSE SINCE 1917....

 

MEANWHILE IN RUSSIA, THE PROBLEM IS THAT THERE COULD BE TOO MUCH LATENT TALENT WAITING IN THE WINGS OF POWER... HERE IS Andrey Pertsev WITH A GLIB ARTICLE AGAIN — FOR THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE (READ AMERICAN EMPIRE HEGEMONIC THINK-TANK FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE).

 

 

Personnel Stagnation to Splinter Putin Elite With Battle of Lost Generations Putin is more likely to promote people in their forties than older generations who have been in power for too long and can envisage life without him. But Russia doesn’t have enough young administrators ready to replace those in their sixties. 

The Russian elite is both fearful and hopeful about the major personnel changes expected to follow March’s presidential election. The new configuration of power could cement the successes of the ambitious and largely effective bureaucrats in their sixties. But it’s also possible that President Vladimir Putin could replace these aging professionals with younger bureaucrats in their forties.

No matter which cohort the president chooses, any large-scale personnel shift will create a “lost generation” of the elite that lacks real prospects within the power vertical. This latent battle of generations poses a threat to the system, yet was hardwired by Putin himself.

There are three distinct generations within the ruling Russian elite. First, there is a group of people around seventy years of age: these are primarily members of Putin’s inner circle who control key resources, hold high-status positions, and head the security services. Many of them hail from St. Petersburg and have longtime connections with Putin from his time working in the city’s government back in the 1990s or from serving with him in the security forces. 

The Kovalchuk and Rotenberg brothers, Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev, FSB director Alexander Bortnikov, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu all belong to this first category. They could be compared to major shareholders or board members of large corporations. They understand that soon their time will be up, but would like to hold on to their positions for as long as possible and then pass them down to their heirs. 

The second generational cohort comprises ambitious and often professional bureaucrats in their sixties. Many have reached their career ceiling and would like to break through it. To continue the corporate analogy, they are akin to the top managers hired by the shareholders. During their many years on the job, they have learned the ins and outs of the company, have gotten to know the board members, and have even acquired some assets. 

This group includes Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Kiriyenko, and Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev, among many others.  

The main objective of this generation is to not only retain their high positions but also to secure adequate rewards for their achievements: to get more posts to divvy up or even join the board. One lucky “top manager” might even become the chair of the board—i.e., a consensus candidate for the role of successor.

The third and final generation is made up of politicians and officials in their forties, including some “princes” with benefactors in the oldest group and ambitious bureaucrats who currently hold secondary or tertiary roles, but are already making names for themselves and want to get further ahead. In corporate speak, they are the heirs of board members and the go-getters who have spent their entire careers at the corporation, are loyal to it, and don’t know any other rules of the game.   

This generation includes Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev (son of the Security Council head), the United Russia party’s secretary general Andrei Turchak, and Putin’s economic advisor Maxim Oreshkin, as well as several regional governors.

The conflict over the clashing interests of these generations is becoming increasingly acute. The principle reason is Putin’s ultraconservative personnel and resource allocation policies of recent years. Financial flows, subsoil resources, key state corporations, and law enforcement structures are all controlled by members of his inner circle, the oldest cohort. Meanwhile, most members of the second and third generations have been stuck in place for more than a decade—even those who were promised higher positions and more authority. 

In 2020, Putin changed up his cabinet of ministers, but the changes were limited and only highlighted the stagnation at other levels of government. Now the 2024 presidential election has launched the reformatting of the power vertical. We may see changes not only in the government, but also within the presidential administration, at state corporations, at law enforcement structures, in the Federation Council (the upper chamber of the Russian parliament), and in the regions. All of this exacerbates the generational conflict: above all, between the second and third generations. A battle lies ahead, and its losers will become a lost generation.

Ambitious bureaucrats in their sixties who currently expect promotions run the risk of obsolescence. Sobyanin, Kiriyenko, Mishustin, and Trutnev have all featured on lists of Putin’s potential successors. To stay in the running, they must keep their current positions or move to ones that are at least as important.  

However, any career progress (or even lack of demotion) for those in their sixties will disappoint those in their forties, because by the time new career opportunities open up, they might go to those currently in their thirties. Sure, those in their forties can continue to wait for the older cohort to age out or fall out of favor, but as time goes on, they too could go down in Putin’s esteem. 

In theory, intra-elite competition benefits any political system by forcing its members to be as efficient as possible. Younger players gradually replace older figures, while motivated and professional middle-aged bureaucrats endeavor to keep their positions.   

However, in order to be beneficial, competition must be lasting, natural, and follow clear rules, which is not the case in Putin’s nontransparent and nepotistic Russia, where competitive processes could spin out of control when one generation loses or starts to fear that it is losing. 

Putin is more likely to promote those in their forties in order to rejuvenate the bureaucracy. After all, those in their sixties have been in power for too long and can envisage life without him. 

The problem is that Russia doesn’t have enough young administrators ready to replace those in their sixties. The younger generation mostly worked in favorable conditions, climbing the career ladder thanks to their own loyalty and the patronage of the older group, while Sobyanin, Kiriyenko, Mishustin, Trutnev, and their like came up in the cutthroat days of the 1990s, emerged victorious, and retained the energy that the system needs so much.   

Yet keeping the more experienced bureaucrats at the top will also damage the power vertical. The forty-year-olds will be disillusioned, less motivated, and less efficient: they will see no point in outdoing themselves to show the powers that be how useful they are.

There is no easy solution for the Kremlin. The battle of the generations, which could jeopardize the stability of the system and prompt a split in the elite, was made inevitable by Putin himself through his ultraconservative personnel policy of the past decade, and by his refusal to leave his position—putting his own interests above those of his regime.

https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/92258

 

PUTIN IS THE BEST BET FOR RUSSIA PRESENTLY... HE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE WHERE HE IS, BUT RUSSIA NEEDS HIM UNTIL THE WEST SETTLES IN ITS OWN CACA — POSSIBLY AS SOON AS NOVEMBER THIS YEAR. THE STAKES ARE HUGE AND RUSSIA'S FUTURE AS A PROPER INTEGRAL ENTITY DEPENDS ON THIS "CLEVER" PUTINOLOGY.

PUTIN HAS SAVED RUSSIA FROM DESTRUCTION, SOME SELF-INFLICTED IN THE 1990s AND MOST FROM NEFARIOUS INFLUENCES FROM THE AMERICAN EMPIRE THEREAFTER. WE SHALL BE SURPRISE ONE DAY, WHEN UNLIKE AMERICA'S CRAPPY POLITICAL GAMES, HE WILL PROMOTE A SUCCESSOR WORTHY ON CONTINUING HIS WORK. LIKE HIM, THE SUCCESSOR WILL BE YOUNG AND FULLY VERSED IN UNIQUE RUSSIA-MANIA. IT IS ESSENTIAL TO BE ECONOMICALLY SOUND, POLITICALLY ASTUTE TO THE CRAP FROM THE WEST AND CHARISMATIC ENOUGH TO HOLD THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE. AND IT MIGHT BE A YOUNG VISIONARY WOMAN...

AND SO SPOKE GUS ZARATHUSTRA....

 

CHEERS.

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

 

 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

READ FROM TOP

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....