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It's Putin Duck-Puppets Gone Wild as Luna and Musk Quack Putin's Ukraine Agenda Into Congress [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-09-20
Luna Supports Assault Rifles – Just Not for Ukraine, While “Bearing” Arms…and Midriff
To My Fellow Floridians:
Our Congresswoman Anna Luna got back from Warsaw where as part of a Congressional delegation she met with members of Ukraine’s parliament. I guess she didn’t have the guts to meet them in Kyiv. And what did she do next? She trashed President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian Parliament and she lied about them demanding F-35’s. You’d think an Air Force veteran who claims her job was USAF base airfield management could tell the difference between an F-35 and an F-16. Guess not. She carried Putin’s laundered propaganda back with her on the plane. Now she and her so-called “Freedom Caucus” Putin duck-puppets, and Elon Musk, are quacking Putin’s Ukraine agenda in Congress and all over the right-wing media outlets. Further, she’s falsely alleging that her constituents don’t really care about Ukraine.
Au Contraire, Luna Bare! I was and still am your constituent. But now I’m your opponent too. And I care, and so do 95%+ of the Pinellas County residents I’ve spoken with on this subject. Ukraine has overwhelming support in Pinellas County. I challenge you to publish your constituent surveys, statistics, and your incoming constituent emails on Ukraine support. To quote Luna’s email to the NY Times reporter Robert Draper where she spouted her disingenuous special kind of “faux indignation:”
Luna: “I just got back from meeting with the Ukrainian Parliament in Poland, where they demanded F-35s and thought it was an obligation for every American to pay $10 a month to fund their war,” Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a conservative Republican freshman from Florida, wrote in a heated email to this reporter three days later. Ukrainians are not asking for the more advanced and expensive F-35s, but regardless, Ms. Luna said the United States’ role in the conflict could “potentially start WWIII.” “Ukraine ranked low on her constituents’ concerns,” she added, vowing to “brief her colleagues about the encounter.“
Read the full just-published NY Times article on her Poland trip and her subsequent actions here.
It occurs to me that this sounds eerily like Elon Musk’s rationale for denying Ukraine his StarLink service in Crimea which ended up thwarting their drone attack on the Russian Black Sea ships moored in Sevastopol? To quote a line from my song “The Highway to Moscow,” “They get their talking points from WhatsApp from the Kremlin, and do it all in the name of me and you.
Here’s me performing “The (Lunamusk) Highway to Moscow,” which is parody of the Jim Reeves’ song “The Highway to Nowhere”.
Perhaps the two of them are getting their talking points on WhatsApp from the Kremlin and are executing what the PR folks call messaging discipline.
Luna (and Elon Musk) Regurgitate Putin’s World War Threats While Forgetting Nazi Fascist History
I’ll point out to our readers that if President Roosevelt had taken the same position as Luna in WWII, Great Britain, under bombardment from Hitler’s V-2 rockets and Luftwaffe, would have fallen to Hitler, just like our other-best-ally France had already fallen. Had the United States not supplied arms to the British before entering the war…not to mention to the French…and even to Stalin and the USSR, the swastika would be flying over London, Paris, and Moscow. Remember “The Lend Lend-Lease Act of 1941” Luna?
Luna, you’re starting to quack just like Charles Lindberg and the Nazi-compromised congressmen did in the early ’40s before and during WWII. Lindberg and those compromised Congressman quacked Hitler’s Nazi agenda into the US Congress. Some of those traitors (and I don’t use that term lightly) were literally tried for sedition. That seditious conspiracy trial would fail. But not so our Jan 6th sedition trials this year. America law enforcement and the people didn’t have cellphone cameras, Facebook, and facial recognition tech back in the day, so proving sedition was a heavy lift in 1944.
For a deep dive on the 1944 Nazi sedition plot in Congress and the trial, read The Rolling Stone’s article published on October 3, 2022 which summed up Rachael Maddow’s Ultra Podcast covering that trial. Or, just listen to her Ultra Podcast itself here. To quote from that Rolling Stone article on Ultra:
“FOR A HISTORICAL podcast, Rachel Maddow’s new project could hardly be more timely. As the seditious conspiracy trial seeking to hold the Oath Keepers accountable for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection ramps up in Washington, D.C., Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra explores a World War II-era prosecution known as the Great Sedition Trial of 1944. The prosecution exposed a Nazi-backed plot that connected sitting members of Congress — many of them tied to the original, nativist America First movement — and militias and street thugs who wanted to overthrow the republic and install a fascist, authoritarian regime.
Luna Co-Sponsors Matt Gaetz’s “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Others (HR-113)
For those Floridians in Pinellas County in the 13th Congressional District in particular, I wish to make you all aware that your own Congresswoman Luna, who stole valor from US Special Forces by posting in Spec Ops gear to raise campaign funds, has also co-sponsored House Resolution 113: “The Ukraine Fatigue Resolution,” along with co-sponsors Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Bobert, and 8 others. These “Putin Duck-Puppets Gone Wild” are demanding the immediate cessation of all US military and financial support to Ukraine in the middle of their hot war with Russia. Yes, she wants to abandon our democratic ally in their dire time of need. She and they want to throw Ukraine under the bus and hand it to Putin.
HR-113 says in summary that “This resolution states that the United States must end its military and financial aid to Ukraine.” Here’s the full text of HR-113 and it’s downloadable pdf file below.
She’s Enabling Putin’s Rape of Ukraine
Just to put some Ukrainian childrens’ faces on this Putin-war in which you are advocating a policy that will result in a Putin victory, Congresswoman Luna, these artistic works below depicting Putin’s rape and traumatization of Ukraine’s children were created by Ukrainian artist Mariia Loniuk. Look at their faces Congresswoman Luna. Have you no shame?
Art courtesy of Vaclav Havel Laureate, Ukrainian Artist Mariia Loniuk (@mariialoniuk)
How Did Luna Get Elected in the First Place? DeSantis Gerrymander Splits St. Pete in Half Luna won her seat in 2021 after Governor DeSantis and the Florida GOP-supermajority legislature succeeded in splitting St Petersburg right down the middle, gerrymandering out the more liberal downtown St. Petersburg and it’s southeastern African-American neighborhoods. That, plus the also pumped into the new District 13 another 32,716 Republican voters they grabbed out of District 12. The libers were shoved out of Pinellas County geographically and pushed across Tampa Bay to the already-too-blue-to-win District 14. See the newly redrawn 13th and 14th Districts below. It’s racist gerrymandering at its worst and most transparent, and needs to be challenged in federal court for the civil and voting rights travesty that it is. Good luck with that with our right-wing Supreme Court justices. A Russian Malign Influence Campaign Hiding in Plain Sight? As Founder and CEO of RussiLeaks, a media company whose mission is to flip the scrip on Putin by exposing his secret ops, plans, and schemes in defense of America, Ukraine, and democracy, and as a constituent of Congresswoman Luna’s myself and now her opponent in the 2024 race, this smacks of a malign Russian influence campaign right in my own backyard: Just like the one recently exposed here in St. Petersburg, FL as the DOJ indictments of four leaders of the African People’s Socialist Party and other politicians in other states, and 3 Russian intelligence operatives, were unsealed. The charge is aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence campaign by the American politicians, executing said influence campaign (by the Russian operatives), and failing to register as agents of Russia. Russian-compromised political groups named in the indictment were: “The African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement (collectively, the APSP) in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and a political group in California (referred to in the superseding indictment as U.S. Political Group 3).” Spotlight on Congresswoman Luna So we’re shining a bright light on Congresswoman Luna, on behalf of all Floridians in the 13th Congressional District, as well as on Matt Gaetz’s in Florida’s 1st Congressional District, on what your Congresswoman and man are doing, in your name, to effect a Putin victory over Ukraine. They answer to you, and only you can hold them accountable for their malign actions through your votes. My mother once told me, “Silence means consent.” I urge you to stand up and be heard, now. I call you to action. Reasonable Questions Raised Given the above, we have to raise the following timely questions: Has Russia compromised Congresswoman Luna? What Kompromat if any does Putin have on her? Has she received Russian sourced dark money? Is she being blackmailed or threatened? Is she STILL under threat of assassination by the Russian mafya like she was in 2021? (See more on that below) Does she have any agency whatsoever when it comes to advancing Russian interests in Congress? Did the same 3 already-indicted Russians also target Congresswoman Luna given the nexus in space, time, circumstances, and events as depicted herein? How does one explain this sudden drastic change in behavior of who, until 2023, had been mostly silent on US military aid to Ukraine? This wasn’t part of her platform in 2021. It wasn’t until after she was elected that she began acting out for Russia in public. With her support for The Ukraine Fatigue Resolution, Luna has now said the quiet part out loud, and has in a bizarre and inexplicable fashion, openly aligned herself with Putin’s Ukraine interests. She is a USAF Veteran (like me) for God’s sake. What is she doing, and why? She is literally laundering Putin disinformation and pro-Russian positions into the US Congress and the US media, where hopefully, they will die a quick death. I call on every voter in Florida’s 13th Congressional District to take peaceful action to vote...her...out, and elect me...of course. Congressman Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bobert’s Districts may seem to be lost causes, but not in my District. Not on my watch. Polygraphs, Polygraphs, and the Shifting of the Burdon of Proof I call on Congresswoman Luna (and Matt Gaetz and the other co-sponsors) to voluntarily submit herself to a polygraph examination where she must answer questions about her Russian contacts and entanglements, if any, and the sources of her campaign funding, including PACs, individual donors, and businesses, off-shore and domestic. Are there masked Russian sources cleverly hidden within her donor pool through cutouts and shell companies in the Virgin Islands, or Deleware, or Florida, for example? We’ve seen enough circumstantial evidence now, just through her own behavior and speech, to convince reasonable Floridians that she (and Gaetz et al) is behaving as if she has been Putin-compromised. Now that she has self-outed on her Russian support, the burden of proof shifts to her to prove to her constituents that she hasn’t been compromised. That is the standard of review Americans should apply to her and any of our leaders (Trump), now that she and her co-sponsors have self-outed. Criminal Conspiracy Indictments Involving Russian Malign Influence Ops in Florida, Georgia, and California And if you think Russian malign influence campaigns in Florida or elsewhere in America are fiction, take a look at these two recent cases. The first involves a Russian intelligence op which compromised 4 leaders of the left-wing African People’s Socialist Party in St. Petersburg, Florida, and in Georgia and California, by 3 Russian intelligence operatives of the FSB operating on US soil. See the unsealed indictments here:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-citizens-and-russian-intelligence-officers-charged-conspiring-use-us-citizens-illegal. It’s public record, not fake news. And so it’s fairly obvious that the Russians have infiltrated and are influencing some of our left AND right political parties and their most-fringy, and therefore our most vulnerable, politicians and demagogues. Same goes for the NRA (can you say Maria Butina?) These are the ones spouting the most outrageous and sometimes even psuedo-violent speech. This is not a liberal or conservative issue: It’s a national security issue since the Russians swing both ways. As a former Staff Sergeant in the USAF, NSA intelligence analyst, and airborne cryptologic linguist, I’m a national security hawk. I still remain faithful to the oath I swore at 18 during my USAF enlistment induction ceremony in Scranton, PA: My oath to protect and defend the US Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic is an oath I remain faithful to today. So, if you are a USAF veteran like Anna Luna and I are, and suddenly, out of the blue, you start walking, talking, and quacking Putin’s bullshit, as if you’re an agent of Russia…you must prove you’re not to your constituents, or, in an abundance of caution, we should all assume you are compromised, until proven otherwise. Luna Threatened With Assassination by Russian Mafya in 2021 In an even more bizarre case involving Luna and Russia in particular, an opponent of Luna’s in the 2021 election, William Braddock, was recorded threatening a Luna supporter, and Luna herself, with assassination by a Russian (and Ukrainian) mafya hit squad. Here is the actual recording of Braddock’s assassination threat phone call. I have to say, this creepy phone call gives me the chills and appears to be the first time a GOP politician has been caught on tape invoking the Russian mayfa as his personal instrument of political assassination. The Politico article on this case is here:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/17/secret-recording-florida-republican-threat-hit-squad-494976. Luna would file for an injunction (restraining order) against Braddock stating she was in fear for her life. It’s public record. In the recording, Braddock also made statements about not just commanding Russian mafya assassins, but also of “getting financial help from fellow Freemasons or by somehow importing millions of dollars from Malta and Gibraltar.” The Freemasons too??? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. Check out our RussiLeaks expose’ entitled: “Indicted Ghost Machine-Gun Lawyer Challenges Red Flag Law After Wife Threatens Suicide by Gun.” In that case, the Freemason Ghost Machine-Gun lawyer was Carl Somerlock, a Maryland attorney (who happens to have been my ex-wife’s divorce attorney at the time, in full disclosure), that was federally indicted and copped a plea deal for having been caught by the Howard County Maryland police with un-serialized ghost machines guns and a silencer inside his Glenwood Maryland home in May of 2019 (which was just 6 miles from my MD house). Here’s the Somerlock indictment. Did They Get to Luna and Her Husband Andy Gamberzky? This begs the question: Has Russian intelligence, through their Russian mafya or intelligence operatives here on American soil, even those right here in St. Petersburg, succeeded in kowtowing Luna and her husband Andy Gamberzky into doing Putin’s bidding? It may very well be they have no agency at all, and if so, my heart would go out to her and her family and she needs our help and protection. If they have no agency under threat of...whatever, they really can’t be held criminally liable, one would imagine. That said, if they have been threatened or blackmailed, they should go to the FBI and report it, ask for immunity, turn state’s evidence, and ask for federal protection. This is spy tradecraft & kompromat 101 right out of the old Putin KGB playbook. Want to compromise a politician? What better way than to threaten to kill or rape them and/or their family. It’s a vulnerability the Russians or would have no reservations exploiting to further Putin’s interests. Want to compromise an American male politician? Drug him and get him on tape in bed with children, or a pee tape, or, threaten to kill or HISA family (can you say Ivana/Ivanka?). That’s just how Putin rolls. Resistance is Not Futile America And so it would seem that these Russian malign influence campaigns are party-agnostic. They are real. They are not fake news. They are here and they are walking among us. The Russians are compromising politicians on both the left AND the right (and the NRA), with the goal of sowing division, polarization, with the end-goal of installing their own compromised politicians in power, destroying American democracy, turning us against each other, and fomenting violence a la January 6th. How, you may ask, has America become so polarized since, say, 2013? There’s your answer. It’s a “Putin Op” of gargantuan proportions. If you’re a Star Trek fan, Putin is the Borg Hive Queen, these politicians have become his drones, and, as the Borg like to say: Resistance is Futile, You will be assimilated.”
x YouTube Video “You Will Be Assimilated. Resistance is Futile”… (Star Trek Borg Compiliation)
I say resistance is not only not futile, it is imperative. We can and will win. This Russian pattern of behavior uncovered in St Petersburg FL, GA, and CA by the FBI/DOJ is being rinsed and repeated all over America and in the halls of Congress, our court system including maybe some on our Supreme Court, and in other American institutions, the gun lobby (the NRA). We’ve only just begun to unmask it.
Now, what are the odds that these same Russian operatives, operating in Luna’s backyard weren’t actually in or around Luna’s actual physical backyard or local District office in the 2 years since she’s been in office. As I said, I don’t believe in coincidences. The nexus in space, the timing of the Russian operatives’ compromising activity in St. Pete, coupled with the Russian mafya assassination threats by her Republican opponent, coupled with Congresswoman Luna’s Putin-Ukraine flip-flop with HR-113, all constitute circumstantial evidence.
In a Light Most Unfavorable
And, when taken in a light most unfavorable to Luna by her constituents and given all the reasonable inferences her constituents can make from the public facts and circumstantial evidence, one can reasonably conclude that these are key indicators of Russian compromise and that it is thus more likely than not that she and her husband were compromised by Russia sometime after she was elected. I will note that the distance between Luna’s local office in Seminole, and the Uhuru’s office for The African People’s Socialist Party in downtown St. Petersburg that was targeted by Russian intelligence, is only 14.5 miles. They’re already among us here in District 13.
By the way, here are the 12 representatives who co-sponsored HR 113 “The Ukraine Fatigue Resolution”:
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida
Rep. Matt Gaetz (drafted the resolution)
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona
Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado
Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky
Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois
Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama
Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina
Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana
A Gift Best Not Given
As for Putin and his propaganda minister Maxshut Shodayev, both of who are under US sanctions, to quote George Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm from the 1943 musical “Girl Crazy”, as sung by Judy Garland” “Who could ask for anything more” from Anna Luna, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, and Lauren Bobert than the de-fanging of Ukraine? What better gift to Putin than the gift of Ukraine running out of ammunition and weaponry?
The “Don’t Look Up” Scenario and My Predictions
Luna’s going to be fired by her constituents. I’m going to defeat her in a landslide. That’s assuming she and her husband even make it to the general election a free couple, or a couple free from indictment. Will she end up resigning in disgrace? I doubt it. Instead she’ll wage a Trumpian war on the FBI, DOJ, and, and this will be the kicker, the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI). Mark my words. But that’s a topic I’ll reserve for a separate article.
Luna presents herself as what can reasonably be called a younger female version of Trump.
Luna’s like Meryll Streep playing exactly that role, the presidential female version of Trump, in the hysterical movie “Don’t Look Up.” Streep totally nailed it. And so did the actor playing the American tech oligarch in that movie that ended up bringing about earth’s destruction out of naked greed and hubris. THAT movie oligarch was obviously the writer’s and directors’ takedown of Elon Musk.
Competing Campaign Endorsements: Jax v Trump
And while Luna has the endorsement of Trump, a twice-impeached indicted felon facing 98 criminal charges, a man who tried to to overthrow our democracy, stole America’s secrets and refused to return them and tried to cover up their existence, a man who fomented an insurrection to stay in office...Me? I have the endorsement of Jax Taylor, President and CEO of Jax in and Out, a local cafe here in Gulfport.
I’ll take Jax’s endorsement over Trump’s any day of the week. She’s a real, hardworking, honest woman, running an honest business. Not a fraud. Not an indicted felon. Not a Putin puppet. Her endorsement of me? Priceless. Watch the video of her endorsement of me: that wasn’t scripted.
Jax Taylor Endorses John Liccione for Congress at Jax In and Out Cafe in Gulfport, FL
Special Election Prediction
Will Luna be removed from her House seat by the Republican-controlled House? Maybe. How about impeachment? Imprisonment? Could be. If so, and I predict one or more of these scenarios is more likely than not to come to pass, then sometime between now and next fall a special election will be held right here in the 13th District. I wonder who my Republican opponent will be under that scenario.
In closing, I say unto my Pinellas County neighbors and to the rest of America, to borrow a turn of phrase from our American brothers and sisters claiming to be champions of both the 1st and 2nd Amendment:
“You’ll have to pry America’s military support to Ukraine out of my cold, dead hands!”
This article is an updated version of a RussiLeaks expose’ Liccione published on May 12th.
John Liccione is a candidate for the US Congress in Florida’s 13th Congressional District where he is the only declared Democratic candidate running against Anna Luna in 2024. (see VoteLiccione.org)
He is also Founder and CEO of RussiLeaks, a media company focused solely on exposing Putin’s secrets and those of his agents operating on American soil. He is also the Founder and CEO of Leaks Media, a global media company just getting started whose mission is “Exposing the Secrets of the Enemies of Democracy.”
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