Yesterday was another bizarre news “Alert” day. It started like this:
As Washington’s political class, news media and the political punditry circles churned this around, once again we got few facts and lots of partisan theorizing to bolster political talking points. Some of the right-wing punditry circle rushed to the conclusion this statement was just fearmongering to scare people into supporting the Senate foreign aid bill that moved to the House, which includes more aid for Ukraine. Some of the right-wing pundit class went down even crazier conspiratorial rabbit holes. Some Republican officials in Washington offered various takes, trying to tamp down alarm by stating Rep. Turner’s information is real, but trying to calm fears, by stating we’re not facing an imminent threat.
Russia is way ahead of America on hypersonic missile development and this Washington news yesterday seems to be about Russia developing space-based nuclear weapons.
The right-wing punditry circle in right-wing media now has some “super-stars,” who are clueless about national security and military matters. Some of them live in Deep State paranoia and insist there is no Russian threat and it’s the evil US intelligence agencies, who are the real threat. Both are a threat – Russia is a threat and so are US intelligence officials operating outside the parameters of the law or for domestic partisan advantage. Here’s a FOX News pundit just making fun of and completely dismissing the Russian threat. Waters framed this as all about Ukraine funding and news media hysteria:
I believe China, Russia and Iran are already aligning to challenge the West – and that definitely includes America. This threat is there, regardless which party controls the White House or Congress in America. China has been working to implant malware within our computer systems that control our critical infrastructure, in order to launch cyber-attacks against critical American infrastructure – especially near US military installations. A space-based nuclear capability could allow our adversaries to take out satellites and our power grid (EMP attack). That’s the gist of this latest threat from the little bit of information that came out yesterday.
So many Americans are now completely immersed in seeing the world through an Us vs. Them domestic political lens, that they are unable to fathom that the world is much bigger than just MAGA vs. Woke/Globalist Elites. We still have actual countries who have their own political and territorial aspirations. China wants to take Taiwan and expand influence in the Pacific, plus become the world economic superpower. Putin wants to restore as much of the former Soviet Union as possible, Iran wants to be the regional superpower and Shia Islam to control the Islamic world. All three of these adversaries’ aspirations require unseating America from its world superpower status. There’s also North Korea that wants to seize control of South Korea, which is part of that China, Russia, Iran alliance.
With Rep, Turner’s statement and the news media doing what it does best – creating drama and hysteria to fill in airtime, when no new information is available- his statement probably did more harm than good. Most of the American public has no clue about an EMP following a nuclear blast at high-altitudes. And most people have never even thought about an extended grid-down situation. I hadn’t given this much thought either until recent years. Making sensitive intelligence information public usually tells our adversaries way more about what our intelligence experts know about their programs than providing useful information to the American public.
With this crazy “ALERT!” news hysteria all day yesterday, it’s probably more sensible to be aware of new information pertaining to the weapons system advancements of our adversaries, but to just go about our daily lives. I can’t speak to Rep. Turner’s motivations for issuing his statement yesterday, but there’s a sizable segment on the MAGA right, that will dismiss any warnings about Russian threats, especially since Tucker just went to Moscow. Plenty of the Trump-right have bought into the belief that Ukraine should just surrender to Putin – because they should want peace – even though Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of their country two years ago. And of course, Ukraine (or any of the other former Soviet bloc countries bordering Russia) should not want to align closely with the West or want to join NATO, out of fear of Russian aggression. Why on earth would they believe Russia might want to invade their countries…
Again, Russia launched a full-scale invasion into Ukraine two years ago.
History matters. In 1994, the US agreed to protect Ukraine from Russian aggression, in return for Ukraine returning the Soviet nuclear weapons in Ukraine to Russia. Russia signed that agreement to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty in that Budapest Memorandum and then invaded Ukraine in 2014 and in 2022.
Russia is not the victim. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago, even Finland, a country that prided itself on neutrality between the Soviet Union and the West, has now joined NATO and Sweden wants to join too. Yet, Trump wants to abandon NATO and cozy up to Putin… For the life of me, I can’t fully understand why so many right-wing pundits now sound like 1960s radical leftists, with making excuses for Russian aggression and siding with our adversaries, who want to destroy America, but that’s where we’re at. Tucker waxing on about how wonderful Moscow is compared to American cities sounded like Bernie Sanders’ 1988 honeymoon trip to Russia.
The larger part of the right-wing lurch into siding with Putin though, I think, goes to 2016 and the corrupt Hillary campaign creating a fake dossier about “Trump-Russian Collusion.” The Clinton campaign’s Steel dossier dirty trick evolved into the left’s #Resist effort and then even into pandemic “Russian disinformation” hysteria constantly, which Dems used to silence opponents on social media and malign people with differing views about COVID. This Democrat spin war effort of calling everything “Russian disinformation” has made “Russian disinformation” a meaningless term and many people on the right just automatically dismiss any mention of Russian disinformation now.
However, Russian threats to America are real, whether we choose to believe it or not. The Russians trying to build this space-based weapons system sounds like it’s further off than the Chinese, who already have implanted malware in American critical infrastructure, according to FBI reports for several years now. Reports about a threat posed by American cell towers using Chinese Huawei equipment were coming out during Trump’s presidency too.
National security is about all Americans, not just the left or right.
libertybelle diaries 
One might be forgiven I suppose, at not being aware that for decades practically all the space venturing nations (Japan excepted, so far) have been powering their maneuvering satellites by means of nuclear propulsion – and powering – units. There’ve been “mini” Chernobyls in orbit for years.
Point taken, JK.