PUTIN3

SEE FOUR 11 24

BAK 2 22

putin222

neg 3 22

see musk

see BLT ukraine 3

see useful idiots

see ukraine war watershed

olig ussr invest in trump fake twitter

see main and bak 4/19

also tag vlad

see disinfo meddling/ active measures

see tucker

see macho male

strict fr on steroids?

see poison attack /assassination

see navalny oppositionMURDERED 2/24?

recall his start in KGB?!

html locomotive bak capt 2 24

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an 11 24

Russia made an audacious public attempt to blackmail the incoming U.S. president, according to a military expert.

Vladimir Putin and his ministers are already trying to mess with Donald Trump's head when Kremlin intelligence chief Nikolai Patrushev claimed in an interview that Trump had "relied on certain forces" to win a second term in the White House and warned that he had "corresponding obligations" that he was "obliged to fulfill," wrote Slate columnist Fred Kaplan.

:{:{"This is a mind-blowing bit of psychological warfare!" Kaplan wrote. "The Russians are basically telling Trump: We put you in office. Now it’s time for you to pay us back.Did this make Trump wonder: WTF?"}:

The FBI, the director of national intelligence and the top cybersecurity agency all confirmed that Russia was sowing disinformation against Kamala Harris during the election campaign, and law enforcement blamed the foreign adversary for bomb threats called into polling stations in Black neighborhoods.

"However, there is no evidence — nor has anyone claimed — that Trump or his campaign staffers colluded in, or knew anything about, these videos or the bomb threats," Kaplan wrote. "If Trump did have some involvement, or if Russia possesses some other form of kompromat (compromising material) on Trump, Patrushev’s message constitutes an extraordinarily bodacious threat of blackmail, delivered in public, against an American president-elect.

"If Trump did not have any involvement in this escapade, Patrushev’s gambit shows — some would say, confirms— that Russia’s main goal, in all these misinformation ventures, is to sow chaos, breed mistrust, and weaken the sinews of democracy in Western countries, especially in the U.S., regardless of who is the president," Kaplan added.

Trump and the MAGA movement have long sought to improve relations with Russia, but Kaplan said the Kremlin's reaction to his re-election should serve as a warning.

"One can only wonder what Trump will do — whether he’ll change his position, whether he’s capable of changing his stance — when he realizes, if he realizes, that Putin is not his friend," Kaplan wrote. "Trump certainly should not act as if he is."

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11 24 putin congrat call man man b/c survive assassination

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===

Why would the world’s richest man be “f-----” if Trump loses?

Because under a Harris administration, Musk may be held accountable for his many abuses of power — for busting unions and mistreating workers, for using SpaceX and Starlink to monopolize America’s satellite and space infrastructure, and for using his social media platform to knowingly spread dangerous lies.

When I say “may be held accountable,” I don’t mean Musk would be punished for supporting Trump, as Trump has promised to punish his opponents. Instead, Musk’s many possible violations of the law, including some that are quite recent, may finally catch up with him under a Harris administration.

Musk’s daily million-dollar sweepstakes giveaways to people who have registered to vote in battleground states appear to be clear violations of campaign finance law, which makes it illegal to pay money to people to register to vote.

Campaign finance law also makes it illegal for superPACs to coordinate with candidates. As the person in charge of one of the largest superPACs supporting Trump, Musk’s frequent conversations with Trump would appear to run afoul of these provisions, as well.

In addition, Pennsylvania — the state where Musk began his million-dollar sweepstakes — prohibits illegal lotteries and deceiving consumers by not providing a complete set of contest rules including odds of winning and details on how winners are selected. The district attorney of Philadelphia filed a lawsuit Monday to halt Musk’s giveaway.

Musk may also be held accountable for conflicts of interest between his being in “regular contact” with Russian president Vladimir Putin, as reported byTheWall Street Journallast Friday, and his status as one of the most important national security contractors to the U.S. government through his SpaceX and Starlink enterprises.

The Journalreports that Musk’s regular discussions with Putin — confirmed by several current and former U.S., European, and Russian officials — have involved business and geopolitical tensions.

Musk’s SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite system, has a $1.8 billion contract with U.S. military and intelligence agencies. It’s the primary rocket launcher for NASA and the Pentagon. It launches vital national security satellites into orbit and is the company NASA relies on to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

To effectuate these contracts, Musk says he has top-secret security clearance.

How can someone who runs two of America’s most important military and intelligence agencies, and who has top-secret security clearance, be secretly meeting with Putin?

At one point, Putin reportedly asked Musk to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, according to two people briefed on the request.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said The Wall Street Journal’s report should prompt an investigation.

Musk's conversations with Putin would clearly violate Musk’s security clearance if he failed to properly report them to the U.S. government. If classified information was leaked, Musk could be required to give up control of SpaceX, which holds the majority of his companies’ government contracts.

Musk has also been in contact with other high-ranking Russian officials, according toTheWall Street Journal,including Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff. Last month, the U.S. Justice Department accused Kiriyenko of creating some 30 internet domains to spread Russian disinformation, including on Musk’s X, where it was meant to erode support for Ukraine and manipulate American voters ahead of the presidential election.

If Musk has been a witting conduit for Russian election disinformation, he could lose control of X. He could even go to jail.

Musk’s and Russia’s interests have increasingly overlapped. Russian forces occupying the country’s eastern and southern swaths have started using Starlink to enable secure communications and extend the range of their drones. Russian troops also began using Starlink terminals, brought in through third countries, undermining one of Ukraine’s few battlefield advantages.

Earlier this year, Musk gave airtime to Putin and his views on the U.S. and Ukraine when X carried Tucker Carlson’s two-hour interview with Putin inside the Kremlin. In that interview, Putin said Musk was “a smart person” and “you need to find some common ground with him, you need to search for some ways to persuade him.”

But what may get Musk really “f-----” is his leading role in the emerging anti-democracy movement.

Since Musk was born in South Africa, he’s ineligible to become president of the United States. But that doesn’t seem to be stopping him. He’s planning to become CEO of the United States of America, Inc.

The anti-democracy movement includes Musk, along with Peter Thiel (the self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible” and who invested $15 million in JD Vance’s bid for the Senate), JD Vance, Blake Masters (in whose Senate bid Thiel invested $10 million), tech entrepreneur David Sacks, and blogger Curtis Yarvin.

Yarvin, who comes as close as anyone to being the intellectual godfather of the anti-democracy movement, has written that real political power in the United States is held by a liberal amalgam of universities and the mainstream press, whose commitment to equality and justice is eroding the social order.

Yarvin believes democratic governments should be replaced with sovereign joint-stock corporations whose major “shareholders” select an executive with total power, who serves at their pleasure. Yarvin refers to the city-state of Singapore as an example of a successful authoritarian regime.

How to achieve Yarvin’s vision? The first step, as Vance offered in a 2021 podcast, is to replace “every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state … with our people.”

The second step? We can only guess, but Trump has offered Musk a position in his administration to head up “government efficiency.”

In early October, Musk registered with the Texas secretary of state’s office a new corporation called United States of America, Inc.

If Trump becomes president, will Musk’s United States of America, Inc. replace the administrative state?

an 10 24

robt r

We’ve learned from a forthcoming book by journalist Bob Woodward that in 2020, while he was president, Trump secretly shipped Covid-19 testing equipment to Russian president Vladimir Putin for his own personal use at a time when Americans could not get it.

The author of The Art of the Dealdid not demand in return that Putin forego attacking Ukraine or release Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two Americans being held by Russia at the time and later released under the Biden administration.

The Trump campaign denies this story, but on Wednesday the Kremlin confirmed it.

Woodward also reported that Trump and Putin have had “as many as seven” personal conversations since Trump left office in 2021.

Let’s be clear about the implications of all this: If Trump wins the election, he’ll likely do whatever Putin wants, including allowing Putin to take much, if not all, of Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly avoided criticizing Putin, even going so far as to praise him as a “genius” and “very savvy” for his unprovoked invasion. At the same time, Trump has been critical of the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

During the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last month, vid] Trump he wanted to see Ukraine win the war against Russia.

Earlier this year, Trump suggested he’d encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” if a NATO ally wasn’t paying their fair share to the alliance.

I used to believe seven things about the 21st century that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s presidency and current neck-and-neck race with Kamala Harris have shown me to be false. I assumed:

Nationalism is disappearing. I was wrong.

I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions, and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide.

But both Putin and Trump have exploited xenophobic nationalism to build their power. (Putin’s aggression has also ignited an inspiring patriotism in Ukraine.)

Nations can no longer control what their citizens know. I was wrong.

I assumed that emerging digital technologies, including the internet, would make it impossible to control worldwide flows of information and knowledge. Tyrants could no longer keep their people in the dark or hoodwink them with propaganda.

But Trump and Putin have filled the media with lies. Putin has also cut off Russian citizens from the truth about what’s occurring in Ukraine. Putin filled American social media with lies in favor of Trump and against his opponent in the 2016 election and apparently is doing so again.

Advanced nations will no longer war over geographic territory. I was only partly right.

I thought that in the “new economy,” land was becoming less valuable than technological knowhow and innovation. Competition among nations would therefore be over the development of cutting-edge inventions.

I was only partly right. While skills and innovation are critical, land still provides access to critical raw materials and buffers against potential foreign aggressors.

Major nuclear powers will never risk war against each other because of the certainty of “mutually assured destruction.” I was wrong.

I bought the conventional wisdom that nuclear war was unthinkable.

I fear I was wrong. Putin is now resorting to dangerous nuclear brinksmanship in Ukraine.

Civilization will never again be held hostage by crazy isolated “strongmen” with the power to wreak havoc. Wrong.

I assumed this was a phenomenon of the 20th century and that 21st century governments, even totalitarian ones, would constrain tyrants.

Trump and Putin have convinced me I was mistaken.

Advances in warfare, such as cyber-warfare and precision weapons, will minimize civilian casualties. I was wrong.

I was persuaded by specialists in defense strategy that it no longer made sense for sophisticated powers to target civilians.

Utterly wrong. Civilian casualties in Ukraine are huge. Meanwhile, since October 7, 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu has created a bloodbath in Gaza as well — another arena where xenophobia and a “strongman” unconstrained by democratic norms have wrought havoc.

Democracy is inevitable. I was wrong about this, too.

I formed this belief in the late 1990s, after the Soviet Union had imploded and China was still poor. It seemed to me that totalitarian regimes didn’t stand a chance in the new technologically driven, globalized world. Sure, petty dictatorships would remain in some retrograde regions of the world. But modernity came with democracy, and democracy with modernity.

Both Trump and Putin have shown how wrong I was on this, too.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians have demonstrated that Trump’s and Putin’s efforts to turn back the clock on the 21st century can be addressed only with a democracy powerful enough to counteract autocrats like them.

They have also displayed with inspiring clarity that democracy cannot be taken for granted. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It’s notwhat governments do. Democracy is what people do.

The resistance to Putin in Ukraine should remind us that democracy survives only if people are willing to sacrifice for it.

Some sacrifices are smaller than others. You may have to stand in line for hours to vote, as did tens of thousands of Black people in America’s 2020 and 2022 elections. You may have to march and protest and even risk your life so others may vote, as did iconic civil rights leaders like the late John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr.

You may have to knock on hundreds of doors to get out the vote. Or organize thousands to make your voices heard. And stand up against the powerful who don’t want your voices heard.

You may have to fight a war to protect democracy from those who would destroy it.

The people of Ukraine have also reminded us that democracy is the single most important legacy we have been bequeathed by previous generations who strengthened it and risked their lives to preserve it. It will be the most significant legacy we leave to future generations — unless we allow it to be destroyed.

Putin and Trump have convinced me I was wrong about how far we had come in the 21st century. Technology, globalization, and modern systems of governance haven’t altered the ways of tyranny.

In a few weeks, we will see how much the people of the United States value democracy — for ourselves, for Ukrainians, and for others around the world.

===

rww 9 24

Trump-supporting “prophets” and “apostles” are functioning as an unofficial arm of the Trump campaign, using their substantial media and social media platforms to repeat Trump’s lies about voter fraud, tell people that God has anointed Trump to be president, and declare that Trump’s opponents are evil and demonic.

“Prophet” Robin Bullock provided another example this week in an appearance on ElijahStreams with host Steve Shultz. ElijahStreams provides dominionist prophets with a significant platform; it claims that 1.2 million viewers watch Shultz’s daily livestream show, and its channel on video platform Rumble has 181,000 followers.

Bullock repeated Trump’s false assertions that President Joe Biden could not have legitimately won the 2020 election, declared that the Democratic Party is “evil,” claimed that the “problems” with “crooked” voting machines have never been fixed, and asserted that Democrats cannot win without cheating.

Trump’s claim that he can only lose if his opponents cheat is designed to undermine his supporters’ faith in the legitimacy of the election process and prime them to respond with rage if he loses. In 2020, that rhetoric led to harassment and threats against election officials and fueled a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. This year, it is forcing election officials to invest in significant new security measures. MAGA prophets’ spiritual warfare rhetoric—like Bullock saying Democrats “are not just bad, they’re evil”—similarly poisons our political culture.

Democrats’ strategy in the presidential election, Bullock claimed, is to make their candidate popular enough to convince voters that it would be possible for her to win a close election. But Bullock said God is preparing to defeat all those plans:

I saw it in the spirit. And I saw God and the devil playing chess. And the Lord was sitting back like this, just laying back, looking at the chess board. And Satan had his tongue stuck out of his mouth. He was really thinking about his move. And he finally moved one player and sat back like he was so proud. ‘I’ve done it.’ And the Lord in my vision did this [makes sweeping motion with his arm] and then stuck his arm out and just wiped the whole chess board clean and knocked every piece on the floor. And that’s what he’s about to do.

Bullock called on God to give pastors “a David anointing to take down the giant of the deep state elites with their stone of truth.” And he urged pastors to speak up and tell their churches that Trump was anointed by God. If pastors speak up, he said, “this whole thing is done.”

Bullock warned pastors who don’t have the courage to tell people God has anointed Trump, “you and your church will not be spared.”

Along the way, Bullock also talked about witchcraft being deployed against Trump and on the world stage on behalf of globalists. Reflecting an extreme version of religious-right support for Vladimir Putin and other dictatorial leaders, Bullock declared, “The Lord said, ‘Putin is my battle-axe against the one-world regime.’”

===

no lnx

alternet 4 24lnx

'Putin’s envoy' Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked in Democrat’s bill

David Badash April 18, 2024FRONTPAGE NEWS AND POLITICS

For years U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been called “Pro-Putin.” As far back as 2021, her first year as a member of Congress, the question had been raised on social media: “Is Marjorie Taylor Greene a Russian asset?”

In 2022 The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org reported: “Marjorie Taylor Greene Parrots Russian Talking Point on Ukraine.”

Back then, as the article highlighted, Greene had said, “there is no doubt that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s actions in Ukraine are despicable and evil.”

Now, she promotes a far more favorable view of President Vladimir Putin and his illegal war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation which the Russian autocrat wants to incorporate – at least partly – into Russia.

Just last week Greene spread demonstrably false pro-Russia talking points about a “war on Christianity” while defending and promoting President Vladimir Putin.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

“This is a war on Christianity,” Greene told far-right propagandist Steve Bannon. “The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.”

That’s just plain false, as NCRM reported.

Largely in response to her strong opposition to the U.S. supporting Ukraine, and her spreading Russian disinformation and flat-out pro-Putin falsehoods, Greene’s fondness for Putin and Russia has been making headlines.

“Republicans Who Like Putin,” was the headline last month at The New York Times, which observed: “A few Republicans have gone so far as [to] speak about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused Ukraine of having ‘a Nazi army,’ echoing language Putin used to justify the invasion.”

“The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand” warned Washington Monthly‘s David Atkins on Wednesday, reporting on “conservative extremists led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“They admire the strongman as a Christian nationalist leader, and won’t support Ukraine. The global consequences of their besotted love affair with the Russian strongman could be cataclysmic.”

“Russia Is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is It Happening Here Too?” The New Republic‘s Alex Finley wrote last week. The photo at the top of the page? Marjorie Taylor Greene.

READ MORE: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Finley pointed to Greene’s interview with Bannon, “about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post last week ran this headline: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she ‘seriously hates’ people who support sending more aid to Ukraine: ‘Most repulsive, disgusting thing happening’.”

Then there is Greene’s obsession with Nazis. Specifically, equating Ukrainians with Nazis, which she did several times over the past week, including on Wednesday. That earned her the condemnation and wrath of U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who demanded: “Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler.”

Wednesday night, Congressman Moskowitz, known for his use of humor and sarcasm to make his points, declared: “Just submitted an amendment to Bill drafting appointing MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] as Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”

Moskowitz’s amendment was in response to Congresswoman Greene’s amendments requiring members to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they vote for the Ukraine military funding bill, as Juliegrace Brufke reported.

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

The Florida Democrat wasn’t joking, as Axios’ Andrew Solender pointed out Thursday morning.

— (@)

Moskowitz did not stop there.

He drafted legislation on Thursday to name the Capitol Hill offices occupied by Congresswoman Greene after the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for promoting appeasement in dealing with Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain also signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

— (@)

See the social media posts above or at this link.

From Your Site Articles

How Putin seized control of the GOP ›

'Working hard for Russia': MTG mocked over proposing US reps backing Ukraine aid fight in the war ›

'Disinformation': Greene pushes pro-Putin propaganda in 'war on Christianity' rant ›

Dem unleashes on 'uniquely demented' MTG after she proposes amending Ukraine funding to $0 - Alternet.org ›

Carlson takes aim at Kamala Harris blaming her for Russia's invasion of Ukraine

https://www.alternet.org/tucker-carlson-2659437361/

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an 1 23

former President Donald Trump in 2018 had an infamous press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Finnish capital of Helsinki in which he signaled that believed Putin's denials about having interfered in the 2016 election despite assessments to the contrary from American intelligence agencies.

Four-and-a-half years later, Trump is now touting his trust of Putin over American intelligence agencies as a source of pride.

In a post on his Truth Social account, the former president attacked former officials at the FBI and CIA whom he accused of trying to undermine his presidency by investigating his campaign's multiple contacts with Russian agents during the 2016 presidential race.

"Remember in Helsinki when a 3rd rate reporter asked me, essentially, who I trusted more, President Putin of Russia, or our 'Intelligence' lowlifes," he wrote. "My instinct at the time was that we had really bad people in the form of James Comey, McCabe (whose wife was being helped out by Crooked Hillary while Crooked was under investigation!), Brennan, Peter Strzok (whose wife is at the SEC) & his lover, Lisa Page. Now add McGonigal & other slime to the list. Who would you choose, Putin or these Misfits?"

Trump has repeatedly heaped praise on Putin over the years, and even called him a "genius" last year after he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has faced multiple setbacks over the past 11 months while costing the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainians.

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2x?

why America’s 'misogynist incels' adore Vladimir Putin and 'modern-day Russian fascism': journalist

Alex Henderson

January 05, 2023

yikes putin 3 of 4

https://www.alternet.org/doomsday-clock-90-seconds-midnight/

an 1 23

We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality."

That's what Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists president and CEO Rachel Bronson said in a statement Tuesday about the historic symbol being set at 90 seconds to midnight, or global catastrophe, after three years at 100 seconds to midnight.

As the bulletin's annual statement explains, the clock—created in 1947—has reached its current position due to "an exceedingly dangerous nuclear situation," largely from Russia's war on Ukraine;inadequate global action to tackle the climate emergency; a "daunting array" of biological threats, exemplified by the Covid-19 pandemic; and "disruptive" technologies enabling the spread of disinformation.

"90 seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it's a decision our experts do not take lightly," Bronson noted. "The U.S. government, its NATO allies, and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the clock."

Watch the full announcement:

2023 Doomsday Clock Announcement

While the nearly yearlong Russian invasion—with fighting over a nuclear power plant and thinly veiled threats of using weapons of mass destruction—is a primary reason humanity is now closer than ever to apocalypse, experts from across the globe emphasized that it's far from the only threat.

The Elders chair Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, stressed that "the Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity. We are on the brink of a precipice. But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and liveable planet."

"From cutting carbon emissions to strengthening arms control treaties and investing in pandemic preparedness, we know what needs to be done," she said. "The science is clear, but the political will is lacking. This must change in 2023 if we are to avert catastrophe. We are facing multiple, existential crises. Leaders need a crisis mindset."

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an 1 23

During the Cold War, nothing angered right-wing Republicans more than seeing a red Soviet flag. But these days, Russian President Vladimir Putin is admired by many Republicans in the United States’ far-right MAGA movement — including incels. Washington, D.C.-based journalist Natalia Antonova, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on January 5, lays out some reasons why Putin is so appealing to anti-feminist American incels.

The anti-feminist movement, which calls itself “the manosphere” online, contains a variety of rival factions. And those factions really hate one another. The PUAs (pick-up artists) favor an in-your-face form of patriarchy and believe that men should totally dominate women sexually, and they have a very low opinion of MGTOWs in the “manosphere.” MGTOW stands for Men Going Their Own Way, and MGTOWs are male separatists who have given up on women. As MGTOWs see it, feminism has made relationships a bad deal for men.

The PUA ideology was exemplified by an alt-right website called Return of Kings, which was operated by former PUA proponent Roosh Valizadeh. Since undergoing a religious conversion, Valizadeh has discontinued Return of Kings and disavowed the PUA beliefs he once championed. When Return of Kings was still operating, Valizadeh often expressed his contempt for MGTOWs. Valizadeh viewed MGTOWs as quitters and defeatists and argued that their problem was that they had no “game.”

But as much animosity as there is between PUAs and MGTOWs, they have a mutual disdain for incels — who are extreme even by the standards of other “manosphere” factions. PUAs and MGTOWs are fond of saying that they have “taken the red pill”; when incels say that they have “taken the black pill,” that’s their way of setting themselves apart from PUAs and MGTOWs and taking their misogyny to a whole other level of bitterness.

Incel stands for “involuntarily celibate.” As incels see it, celibacy has been forced upon them by feminism. And they are extremely bitter about it.

Putin is far from an incel, and he is admired by many PUAs. But as the Ukraine-born Antonova emphasizes, the Russian president really resonates with incels.

“Although he is losing his genocidal war against Ukraine and experiencing increasing economic turmoil at home, Russian President Vladimir Putin has one thing going for him: The genocidal dictator has children, palaces, and many rumored mistresses — the power-hungry alpha male’s dream,” Antonova explains. “Why, then, is he so admired by prominent ‘incels’ — i.e., men who refer to themselves as ‘involuntarily celibate,’ mostly because they are transparent misogynists who are rightfully spurned by women?”

Antonova adds, “The Book of Matthew warns of false prophets: ‘You will know them by their fruits.’ Today, you will also know them by their fans. And in western society, where nobody is really forced to like Putin, some of his most ardent fans are deeply troubled people.”

One “deeply troubled” individual Antonova discusses in her article is white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who is both a self-described “incel” and a Putin admirer. Fuentes is openly fascist in his views, declaring that democracy needs to be abolished in the U.S. And he has called for the U.S. to have a government similar to the Taliban’s regime in Afghanistan, but with a severe form of Catholicism rather than radical Islam and Shariah law.

Antonova describes Fuentes as “one of the most prominent and most troubled of Putin’s western boosters,” noting that he “doesn’t hold back on his admiration for Putin’s war in Ukraine, and considers (Putin) to be a beacon of hope for the white race.”

“Earlier this year, before he was fanning the flames of Kanye ‘I like Hitler’ West’s anti-Semitic meltdown, Fuentes made comments about sex with women that eerily echo the ideology of the Kremlin,” Antonova observes. “Fuentes also refers to himself as an incel, although he also states that he deliberately stays away from women, because he is heterosexual. One might think this makes him voluntarily celibate, but Fuentes explains: ‘The only really straight heterosexual position is actually ‘incel’…. What’s gayer than being, ‘I like cuddles, I need kisses?’”

Antonova continues, “It’s not that Fuentes is opposed to sex with women per se. He is opposed to asking for affection. Incels frequently complain that, as women have been given more choice over their personal lives, men must now woo them rather than dragging them off to a cave. Viewing all sexual contact as inherently transactional, incels decry the fact that they don’t have the upper hand in the transaction. Genuine affection doesn’t figure into their calculus, so it makes sense that people like Fuentes refer to sex with women as ‘gay.’ In their language, ‘gay’ = ‘weak.’ And the officially homophobic Russian regime would readily agree.”

According to Antonova, “modern-day Russian fascism” shares the “misogynist” outlook of incels even though Putin is hardly an “incel.”

“Affection can make you vulnerable,” Antonova argues, “and vulnerability is anathema to Putinism, which first rose out of an aggrieved, anti-western revanchism and a feeling of failure that over time turned into seething resentment…. Just like Putin, members of the American far-right, sensing that they are losing the culture wars, have painted themselves as outsiders, misunderstood and downright reviled…. Putin is fragile. The best way to disband his cult among the American right is to prove it for all to see by supporting his unequivocal defeat in Ukraine.”

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gaetz and her smirk at zel sp?

https://www.alternet.org/trump/boebert-russian-tv-brave-zelensky/

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https://www.alternet.org/tucker-carlson-2658998824/

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On Wednesday, December 21, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Joe Biden in the White House and gave an English-language speech during a joint session of Congress.

This was Zelenskyy’s first visit to the United States since Russian forces, on orders from President Vladimir Putin, launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine on February 21. During his speech before Congress, Vice President Kamala Harris and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood behind Zelenskyy while holding up a Ukrainian flag in solidarity with his country.

But some far-right MAGA Republicans were not happy to see Zelenskyy getting a warm reception from Biden, Harris, Pelosi and other Democrats. And libertarian/conservative journalist Cathy Young calls out those MAGA Republicans in a biting article published by The Bulwark on December 22 and headlined, “Putin’s Useful Idiots: Right Wingers Lose It Over Zelenskyy Visit.”

Young observes, “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s surprise arrival in Washington on Wednesday for a meeting with President Joe Biden and a speech before Congress has unhinged the always-seething anti-Ukraine Trumpian right, triggering a deluge of snark and grievance…. ‘National conservative’ pundit and Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer, who played the ‘obviously, Putin is a thug and Ukraine is the victim here, but….’ game in the early days of the war, went full Putin this time around.”

Hammer, on December 21, tweeted, “Raise your hand if you are personally DONE with the Ukraine gravy train.” And Republican activist Donald Trump Jr., on Twitter, posted, “Zelenskyy is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.”

“To top it off, Hammer, who shares Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage, also accused the Ukrainian president of being a bad Jew — unseemly under any circumstances, but all the more so considering that only a few days earlier, Hammer had been spotted at a New York Young Republicans’ Club Gala in the company of various alt-right types with, shall we say, a complicated relationship to antisemitism,” Young writes. “Among them: Rep. Marjorie ‘Jewish Space Lasers’ Taylor Greene, the founders of the white nationalist website VDARE, and erstwhile Jew-baiting troll Jack Posobiec.”

Young notes that the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh said of Zelenskyy, “Get this grifting leech out of our country please,” while Fox News’ Tucker Carlson mocked Zelenskyy as a “Ukrainian strip club manager” and said of his visit to the U.S., “It may be impossible to imagine a more humiliating scenario for the greatest country on Earth.”

MAGA conspiracy theorist Benny Johnson and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk slammed Zelenskyy for wearing casual attire during his speech before Congress.

Young writes, “A few other right-wing pundits, including career plagiarist-turned-conspiracy-theory-peddler Benny Johnson and Turning Point USA grifting leech Charlie Kirk, homed in on the really important stuff: Zelenskyy’s outfit…. Of course, Zelenskyy’s clothes were meant to visually convey the fact that he’s in the middle of a brutal war. When you’re just back from a visit to the front lines in an area that looks like a ghost warscape from World War I come back to life, you’ve earned the right to make that particular fashion statement — even on a visit to Washington, D.C.”

The libertarian/conservative journalist goes on to offer some reasons why many MAGA Republicans have such intense “hatred” for Zelenskyy.

“The question of why the Trumpian populist right is so consumed with hatred for Ukraine — a hatred that clearly goes beyond concerns about U.S. spending, a very small portion of our military budget, or about the nonexistent involvement of American troops — doesn’t have a simple answer, Young explains. “Partly, it’s simply partisanship: If the libs are for it, we’re against it, and the more offensively the better. And if the pre-Trump Republican establishment is also for it, then we’re even more against it. Partly, it’s the belief that Ukrainian democracy is a Biden/Obama/Hillary Clinton/‘Deep State’ project, all the more suspect because it’s related to Trump’s first impeachment.”

Young continues, “Partly, it’s the ‘national conservative’ distaste for liberalism — not only in its American progressive iteration, but in the more fundamental sense that includes conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: the outlook based on individual freedom and personal autonomy, equality before the law, limited government, and an international order rooted in those values. Many NatCons are far more sympathetic to Russia’s crusade against secular liberalism than to Ukraine’s desire for integration into liberal, secular Europe. Whatever the reason, the anti-Ukraine animus on the right is quite real and widespread.”

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https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-calls-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelensky-uppity-foreigner

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an 12 22

During his visit to the United States on Wednesday, December 21, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Joe Biden in the White House and gave an English-language speech during a joint session of Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood behind Zelensky during his speech, holding up a Ukrainian flag as an expression of solidarity with a country that is experiencing Europe’s worst fighting since World War 2.

Many of the more traditional GOP conservatives in Congress joined Democrats in giving Zelensky a warm reception, but seven far-right MAGA Republicans were so disdainful of the Ukrainian president that they wouldn’t even stand up during his speech. On Twitter, Axios reporter Andrew Solender named the House Republicans who were “repeatedly remaining seated in standing ovations during the Zelensky speech.”

Libertarian/conservative journalist Cathy Young, in a biting article published by The Bulwark on December 22, stressed that the “unhinged” MAGA Republicans who attacked Zelensky during his visit to the U.S. were echoing the talking points of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. One of the anti-Zelensky talking points that often comes from Putin allies in Russia and MAGA Republicans in the U.S. is that Zelensky, who is Jewish, is anti-Christian — a claim that Never Trump conservative Matt Lewis tears apart in a December 23 column for the Daily Beast.

“The charge that Zelensky is at war with Christianity is potentially a potent wedge issue on the right, particularly as Republicans, many of whom are Christian — and many of whom are increasingly skeptical of foreign entanglements — take control of the U.S. House of Representatives next month,” Lewis writes. “Most Republicans still support aiding Ukraine, but support is declining. If this narrative takes hold, it is sure to negatively impact our role as an ally.”

The conservative Daily Beast opinion columnist continues, “Russia knows this. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, wasted no time in casting Zelensky as an enemy of Christendom, saying, ‘The current Ukrainian authorities have openly become enemies of Christ and the Orthodox faith.’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov went so far as to accuse Ukraine of ‘waging a war on the Russian Orthodox Church.’”

Lewis goes on to present some data showing that most of Zelensky’s supporters in Ukraine are, in fact, Christians.

“It seems to me that if Zelensky is actually waging a war on Christianity, then it is an ill-advised war against his own constituents,” Lewis explains. “According to the Pew Research Center, 78 percent of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox — a higher percentage than exists in Russia. Meanwhile, only ‘14 percent of the public called themselves faithful to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.’ That leaves a lot of Christians with whom Zelensky isn’t at war.”

Lewis points out that Zelensky “doesn’t talk like a man who is at war with Christians,” adding that during his December 21 speech before Congress, he described Christmas celebrations in Ukraine.

Zelensky told Congress, “We will celebrate Christmas. Maybe candlelit. Not because it’s more romantic, no, but because…. there will be no electricity… We’ll celebrate Christmas. Celebrate Christmas. And even if there is no electricity, the light of our faith in ourselves will not be put out.”

The claim that Jews are trying to force Gentiles to give up their religion is an antisemitic trope from way back. But as Lewis stresses in his December 23 column, Zelensky certainly doesn’t talk like someone who has any problem with Ukrainians practicing Christianity. During his speech before Congress, he sounded like he welcomed it.

“The bottom line is this: It’s impossible for anyone to know exactly what is happening in Ukraine,” Lewis writes. “But I’m inclined to trust Zelensky over Putin. You’d probably have to believe in Santa Claus to believe otherwise.”

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bad code

useful idiot?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/elon-musk-fiona-hill-ron-desantis

badash

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be aligning with the increasingly powerful Elon Musk, as the richest man in the world is accused “transmitting a message” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Monday DeSantis blasted Musk’s critics, including Ukraine, who were angered the billionaire had threatened to pull his SpaceX Starlink satellites away from Ukraine. The low earth orbit (LEO) satellites provide internet access to Ukraine and especially its military forces.

Despite the U.S. government having paid Musk $3 million for equipment and to keep the satellites over the war-torn country, Musk threatened to pull the hardware critical to the war effort.

He was quickly excoriated, and recently agreed to keep the satellites in place, at least for now.

DeSantis has generally avoided international issues, leading some to question where he stands. Many were surprised when the ultra-outspoken Florida governor not only was silent when Putin invaded Ukraine, but appeared to dodge questions about the illegal war. Politico at the time called his refusal to speak “eerie.” DeSantis has invested what were at the time about $300 million of his state’s pension funds in Russia, and refused to pull out.

Monday was different.

“When Russia invaded Ukraine, Elon Musk positioned his satellites over Ukraine and gave them these things. So they’ve actually been using his devices to be able to defend their country, and I guess some of the people in the government [of Ukraine] were attacking Musk,” DeSantis said Monday, as Florida Politics reported.

“And I’m just thinking to myself, ‘He’s doing this for free,’ ” DeSantis said. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Good Lord!”

“He’s provided that for them for free,” DeSantis continued. “And if you think about it, in a country that big, given what’s going on, that’s tens of millions of dollars that he’s effectively donated.”

READ MORE:... [twt vid] republican former U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh

https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/1582094061539688449...criticized DeSantis.

“Yet another leading Republican voice ‘admonishing’ Ukrainian officials. Republicans never admonish Putin. But they never hesitate to admonish Ukraine,” he said.

More Perfect Union reporter Jordan Zakarin observed: “Ron DeSantis choosing Elon Musk and Putin over the Ukraine is pretty on brand for a wannabe dictator who caters to billionaires.”

Musk reportedly had spoken to Putin before tweeting what many saw as pro-Putin remarks, but Musk denied the claim.

“Last week, Musk tweeted out his proposals for ending the war in Ukraine ― and they were very similar to what [Ian Bremmer] said Musk told him Putin wanted,” HuffPost reported.

Bremmer is a political scientist with an expert focus on Russia and the founder of a political risk research consulting firm. He has a PhD from Stanford where he wrote, “The politics of ethnicity: Russians in the Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, earlier on Monday Politico reported on “Fiona Hill, one of America’s most clear-eyed observers of Russia and Putin, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump and gained fame for her testimony in his first impeachment trial.”

“In the early days of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Hill warned in an interview with POLITICO that what Putin was trying to do was not only seize Ukraine but destroy the current world order. And she recognized from the start that Putin would use the threat of nuclear conflict to try to get his way.”

Politico adds that “despite the setbacks Russia has suffered on the battlefield, Hill thinks Putin is undaunted. She sees him adapting to new conditions, not giving up. And she sees him trying to get the West to accede to his aims by using messengers like billionaire Elon Musk to propose arrangements that would end the conflict on his terms.”

“Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin,” Hill told Politico.

“It’s very clear that Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin,” she says.

Watch DeSantis’ remarks above or at this link.

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USEFUL IDIOTS

AN 11 22

The Democrat’s surprising strength in the midterms has been framed mostly as a rebuke of Republicans’ attack on abortion rights and on democracy. The GOP’s flirtation with imperial oligarchic Russian leader Vladimir Putin has, in contrast, received little attention.

That’s not exactly a mistake. Foreign policy rarely drives many votes, and the war between Russia and Ukraine was never a top issue for voters or for candidates on the campaign trail.

And yet the Democratic midterm strength serves as a powerful defeat not just for the GOP, but for Putin. Republican losses in the Senate and narrow gains in the House all but guarantee that the US will continue to lead international support for Ukraine.

GOP Putinistas

The GOP has been divided on aid for Ukraine. An older, more traditional wing of the party, steeped in Reaganite Cold War antagonism to the Soviet Union, has supported the (much more justified) Ukrainian war against Russia imperial invasion.

But there’s another wing that’s openly pro-Putin.

Putin has long cultivated ties with far-right nationalist groups globally, portraying himself as a defender of manly tradition through shirtless iconography and vicious homophobic policies.

He saw a potential ally in wannabe-authoritarian Donald Trump, and tried to aid his campaigns in 2016 and (less successfully) in 2020.

Trump reciprocated by praising Putin consistently over the last six years. Most recently, he called the Russian invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “wonderful.”

Trump’s enthusiasm has affected his partisans.

Between 2015 and 2017, GOP opinions of Putin went up 20 points from 12 percent favorability to 32 percent favorable. A February poll found that Putin’s favorables among Republicans were higher than those of Democratic President Joe Biden.

It’s not just the rank-and-file either. Fox News far-right host Tucker Carlson has ceaselessly pumped out pro-Putin propaganda since the invasion of Ukraine in February. So has Carlson’s frequent guest, erstwhile progressive and current far-right shill Glenn Greenwald.

Many in the GOP conference have followed along. In the House, the chair of the rabid more-MAGA-than-thou Freedom Caucus, Scott Perry, wants to investigate, and potentially spike, US aid to Ukraine.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy signaled support for Perry in an interview in October: “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine.”

In May, 57 House Republicans voted against $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. Eleven senators joined them, including Rand Paul and Josh Hawley.

In addition, one of the few midterm contests focused on foreign policy was that of JD Vance, the Ohio Republican Senator-elect, boosted by fash-curious tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who made opposition to Ukraine a centerpiece of his campaign.

Republicans are split

With far-right Putinophilia bubbling up from the MAGA swamp, observers believed Biden might have real trouble continuing support for Ukraine. Reports suggest Russia put off announcing its retreat from Kherson until after the midterms because Putin did not want news of a Ukrainian victory to bolster Democrats.

Republicans who support Ukrainian aid were reportedly nervous that they’d be undercut in a GOP-controlled House. Biden was floating a Ukrainian aid package in the lame-duck session of the Congress, anticipating that further funding might be blocked.

Democrats may still vote on a Ukraine funding bill. But prospects for aid in the new Congress have significantly improved.

First of all, Democrats retained control of the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has strongly supported aid for Ukraine. Even so, his conference is unpredictable, and the Democrats are in a much better position to buttress Biden’s foreign policy priorities than they would have been had they lost the chamber.

Democrats did lose the House — but it was very close. The GOP majority is likely to be somewhere between 220-215 and 222-213.

McCarthy — or whoever the GOP chooses as speaker — is will block many Democratic initiatives on abortion rights, voting rights and much else. Ukrainian aid is different, though. That’s an issue that sharply divides McCarthy’s own caucus. Even if he wanted to, he’s not going to be able to win a vote striking down Ukrainian aid.

And if he were to try, the Democrats could likely get enough GOP support to bring it to the floor without his say-so.

Opposition to aid would likely expose huge fissures in the Republican caucus and lead to an embarrassing defeat for the speaker.

Stepping away, domestically

If the GOP were a normal party, that would be the end of that.

But the conference is neither normal, so there are caveats.

Representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz hate their more moderate Republican colleagues almost as much as they hate Democrats. They might oppose Ukrainian aid precisely because they know it would put their own speaker in an impossible and humiliating position.

So there could be bumps in the road.

The bottom line is that after their weak showing in the midterms, the Trumpy GOP pro-Putin wing doesn’t have the leverage to successfully advance their dream of global totalitarianism.

The defeat of election deniers in races for governor and secretary of state across the country means that the US has taken a step back from authoritarianism — domestically.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/stupidest-act-in-human-history/

long analysis war AGW

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an 11 22

A Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin is finally admitting to have interfered in the United States’ elections, and is promising he still is and will continue to do so.

“Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” boasted Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative Kremlin catering contracts, the Associated Press reports.

Prigozhin’s statement came “from the press service of his catering company…on the eve of U.S. midterm elections in response to a request for comment.”

The U.S. Dept. of Justice has not commented, but in February of 2018 announced that Prigozhin was part of a large grand jury indictment via Robert Mueller.

“The Department of Justice announced that a grand jury in the District of Columbia … returned an indictment presented by the Special Counsel’s Office,” the DOJ’s statement reads. “The indictment charges thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies for committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the United States political system, including the 2016 Presidential election. The defendants allegedly conducted what they called ‘information warfare against the United States,’ with the stated goal of ‘spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.'”

That statement specifically names “Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin,” alleging he “funded the conspiracy through companies known as Concord Management and Consulting LLC, Concord Catering, and many subsidiaries and affiliates. The conspiracy was part of a larger operation called ‘Project Lakhta.’ Project Lakhta included multiple components, some involving domestic audiences within the Russian Federation and others targeting foreign audiences in multiple countries.”

Calling him the “Russian who orchestrates Putin’s private army,” The Daily Beast adds that Prigozhin “did not specify which election the Russians have intervened in, but he is well aware that there has been intense focus, and several indictments, surrounding Russia’s alleged efforts in the election of Trump, when there was reason to believe that Kremlin wanted the former reality TV star to be victorious.”

Prigozhin, according to Reuters, “has been formally accused of sponsoring Russia-based ‘troll farms’ that seek to influence U.S. politics.”

Last week CNN reported Prigozhin has been growing his influence inside the Kremlin by leveraging his “brutal” Wagner Group mercenaries “who are operating in Ukraine.”

Watch that video below or at this link.

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smacked down?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/elon-musk-ukraine/

Ukraine ambassador Andrij Melynk recently fired back at billionaire Elon Musk's latest remarks about the ongoing contention between Russia and Ukraine. His fiery response has left Twitter users reeling.

On Monday, October 3, Musk took to Twitter to offer his take on the unrest between the two countries. He also included a poll to see if anyone agreed with his take.

"Ukraine-Russia Peace: - Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people. - Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake). - Water supply to Crimea assured. - Ukraine remains neutral," Musk tweeted.

He added, "This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end – just a question of how many die before then."

While many Twitter users appeared to agree with Musk, Melynk had a colorful response as he offered a blistering suggestion for the Tesla owner.

"The only outcome ist [sic] that now no Ukrainian will EVER buy your f…ing tesla crap. So good luck to you. [Elon Musk]," Melynk tweeted. He also added, "F--k off is my very diplomatic reply to you [Elon Musk]."

It didn't take very long for Twitter users to catch his response and many have shared their reaction to it. While some assumed Musk's suggestions were a means of helping to resolve the situation, others agreed with Melynk.

"I am sorry, but WHAT? What help he’s offering? To give up? To stop fighting for our lives and our people, that don’t want to live under [Russian flag]?" one Twitter user asked. "To give this evil, what he wants, our lands? Shame. And about what war are you saying???? The war, which we haven’t started."

Another user wrote, "Best thing Elon Musk could do is offer Putin a free one-way #SpaceX ticket to #Mars. That's the off ramp everyone's looking for. Season 1 of 'The Expanse' will explain the rest."

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mma 9 22 https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/**carlson-kremlin-feedback-loop

Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s dubious allegation that the United States sabotaged a natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany as part of a sinister “escalation” of Russia’s war with Ukraine echoed the Kremlin’s own propagandists. Carlson’s report is now getting substantial attention from Russian state TV, which is promoting his theory — and his suggestion for how Russia could strike back at U.S. interests in light of the supposed attack.

On Monday, “two powerful underwater explosions” damaged the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. While the former had been shut down by Russia in August and the latter never became operational, both contained pressurized gas which is now leaking into the Baltic Sea. The international consensus is that the pipelines were sabotaged, with U.S. and European Union officials suggesting Russia is behind the explosions.

But the Kremlin, in turn, is suggesting that the U.S. sabotaged the pipelines, latching on to a since-deleted Tuesday tweet from Radek Sikorski, a Polish E.U. parliamentarian, which stated, “Thank you, USA,” alongside a photo of the leak. On social media, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson immediately questioned whether Sikorski’s tweet was an “official statement that this was a terrorist attack,” while another Russian official likewise thanked Sikorski for “making it crystal clear who stands behind this terrorist-style targeting of civilian infrastructure!” Russian state media outlet RT quickly amplified their theorizing under the headline “U.S. praised for Nord Stream explosion.”

[twt]

carlson’s coverage of the crisis created by Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine generally aligns with the Kremlin’s preferred narratives, to the point where Russian state media outlets, following their government’s explicit instructions, regularly air clips from his program.

That is what happened following the apparent sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

Just hours after Russian officials floated the narrative that the U.S. was responsible for damaging the pipelines, Carlson adopted it as his own.

Describing the ruptures as an “act of industrial terrorism,” Carlson quickly dispatched with the notion that Russia or its dictator, Vladimir Putin, might be involved. According to Carlson, Putin “would not do that” and would have to be “a suicidal moron to blow up your own energy pipeline.”

Instead, Carlson strongly suggested that the U.S. had sabotaged the pipelines. “If they did this, this will be one of the craziest, most destructive things any American administration has ever done,” he said. “But it would also be totally consistent with what they do. What do they do? They destroy.”

Carlson’s comically weak case revolved around two main pieces of evidence – Sikorski’s tweet, and a February statement from President Joe Biden that if Russia were to invade Ukraine, “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” That seems to very obviously reference what happened after Russia invaded – Germany froze the pipeline project, which has yet to become operational. But in Carlson’s typically dishonest translation, Biden “said ‘there won't be a Nord Stream 2. We'll put an end to it. Will take it out. Will blow it up.’”

On that scanty evidence, Carlson suggested that the U.S. had blown up an ally’s energy infrastructure. While on-screen text stated “Today’s escalation will have huge consequences,” Carlson asserted that “we've entered a new phase, one in which the United States is directly at war with the largest nuclear power in the world.” He added: “If we actually blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, why wouldn't Russia sever undersea internet cables? What would happen if they did that?" [vid]

it was inevitable that Carlson’s theory would spread through the right-wing media, given his influential role in that ecosystem. But it isn’t just the likes of Charlie Kirk rushing to follow him in blaming America.

Carlson’s monologue “entered heavy rotation” on Russian state TV, as The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted on Thursday. Bump highlighted 12 different times that Russia’s Channel One, Russia1, and Russia24 networks had aired clips of Carlson highlighting his theory.

Julia Davis, a Russian media monitor and Daily Beast columnist, compiled and translated some of the segments. She noted that the Russian commentators seemed particularly interested in Carlson’s suggestion for how their state might retaliate for the supposed U.S. attack.[twt nice pix of puny panel and big tucker]

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9 22 400 ppl well doc hunt on social media , torture, noose

https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/war-crimes-russia-ukraine-izyum/

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cancer rumor?

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allows grain export from ukr (day after blowing up port infra?)

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an 922

The invasion of Ukraine has not gone as planned for the Russian government. When Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, President Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin allies were obviously hoping to take over the country in a hurry; instead, the Ukrainian military have fought back much more aggressively than Putin anticipated — and done so with the support of the Biden Administration and the United States’ European allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). September has found Russian forces suffering some major humiliations at the hands of the Ukrainian military.

Liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman examines the state of the conflict in a September 12 column, drawing a parallel between Putin and his allies in Russia and MAGA Republicans in the United States. Both of them, Krugman argues, underscore the fact that “tough-guy swagger” doesn’t automatically translate to military victories.

Krugman opens his column by noting that on August 29, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson — who Krugman slams as a “Putin cheerleader” — happily told viewers that Putin was “winning the war in Ukraine.”

“Carlson’s timing was impeccable,” Krugman writes. “Just a few days later, a large section of the Russian front near Kharkiv was overrun by a Ukrainian attack. It’s important to note that Putin’s forces weren’t just pushed back; they appear to have been routed. As the independent Institute for the Study of War reported, the Russians were driven into a ‘panicked and disorderly retreat,’ leaving behind ‘large amounts of equipment and supplies that Ukrainian forces can use’…. The Russian collapse seemed to validate analyses by defense experts who have been saying for months that western weapons have been shifting the military balance in Ukraine’s favor, that Putin’s army is desperately short on quality manpower and that it has been degraded by attrition and missile attacks on its rear areas.”

Krugman goes on to explain why “Putin cheerleaders” like Carlson are so flawed in their thinking.

“There’s something special about the MAGA embrace of the mystique of Russian might: a worldview that equates tough-guy swagger with effectiveness,” Krugman writes. “This worldview has warped the right’s perception not just of the Russian Army, but also, of how to deal with many other issues. And it’s worth asking where it comes from. Many Republicans have admired Putin for a long time — even before Donald Trump took over the GOP. Back in 2014, for example, Rudy Giuliani said of Putin, ‘That’s what you call a leader.’ And Trump continued to praise Putin even after he invaded Ukraine.”

Krugman continues, “So, it’s not hard to see where the MAGA right’s admiration for Putinism comes from. After all, Putin’s Russia is autocratic, brutal and homophobic, with a personality cult built around its ruler. What’s not to like?.... On the right…. approval ofauthoritarian regimes is all bound up with assertions about their military prowess…. The MAGA ethos is all bound up with exaltation of tough talk and denigration of expertise.”

MAGA Republicans, according to Krugman, “needed to see Putin as a leader made powerful by his rejection of liberal values.”

“There’s growing speculation about what will happen inside Russia if the invasion of Ukraine ends in outright defeat,” Krugman observes. “But you also have to wonder how the U.S. right will handle the revelation that sometimes, tough guys finish last.”

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thom an 8 22

...

It adds, detailing Trump’s specific obstruction of justice crimes:

These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.

Viewing the acts collectively can help to illuminate their significance. For example, the President’s direction to McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed was followed almost immediately by his direction to Lewandowski to tell the Attorney General to limit the scope of the Russia investigation to prospective election-interference only—a temporal connection that suggests that both acts were taken with a related purpose with respect to the investigation.

There are, after all, credible assertions that when Trump was elected, members of Russian intelligence and Putin’s inner circle were literally partying in Moscow, explicitly celebrating a victory they truly believed they helped make happen.

In his first months in office, Trump outed an Israeli spy to the Russian Ambassador, resulting in MOSAD having to “burn” (relocate, change identity of) that spy. That, in turn, prompted the CIA to worry that a longtime US spy buried deep in the Kremlin was similarly vulnerable to Trump handing him over to Putin.

As CNN noted when the story leaked two years later:

The source was considered the highest level source for the US inside the Kremlin, high up in the national security infrastructure, according to the source familiar with the matter and a former senior intelligence official.

According to CNN’s sources, the spy had access to Putin and could even provide images of documents on the Russian leader’s desk.

The CIA concluded that the risk Trump had burned the spy was so great that, at massive loss to US intelligence abilities that may have helped forestall the invasion of Ukraine, we pulled the spy out of Russia in 2017.

Similarly, when they met in Helsinki, Trump and Putin talked in private for several hours and Trump ordered his translators’ notes destroyed; there is also concern that much of their conversation was done out of the hearing of the US’s translator (Putin is alsofluent in English and German) who may have been relegated to a distant part of the rather large room in which they met.

Things were picking up in 2019, as Putin was planning his invasion of Ukraine while Trump was preparing for the 2020 election.

On July 31, Trump had another private conversation with Putin. The White House told Congress and the press that they discussed “wildfires” and “trade between the nations.” No droids in this car…
The following week, on August 2nd, The Daily Beast’sBetsy Swan reported that Trump had just asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a list of all its employees (including all our “spies”) who had worked there more than 90 days, and the request had intelligence officials experiencing “disquiet.”
Within a year, The New York Timesran a story with the headline: “Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants.” The CIA then alerted spies around the world that their identities had probably been compromised, apparently by Donald Trump himself.

Also in 2019, when the international press verified that Putin was paying the Taliban a bounty to kill American service members in Afghanistan (and 4 had died as a result), Trump refused to demand the practice stop, a possible sign that Putin ran him, not the other way around.

As The New York Times noted at the time:

Mr. Trump defended himself by denying the Times report that he had been briefed on the intelligence... But leading congressional Democrats and some Republicans demanded a response to Russia that, according to officials, the administration has yet to authorize.

Instead of stopping Putin, Trump shut down every US airbase in Afghanistan except one (there were about a dozen), crippling incoming President Biden’s ability to extract US assets from the country in an orderly fashion.

In July 2019, Trump had conversations with five foreign leaders during and just before a visit to Mar-a-Lago; they included Putin and the Emir of Qatar.

In one of those conversations, according to a high-level US Intelligence source, Trump made “promises” to a “world leader” that were so alarming it provoked a national security scramble across multiple agencies.

As The Washington Post noted in an article titled “Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaintthat spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress":

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint [against Trump] was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of ‘urgent concern,’ a legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight committees.

Along his journey toward converting America into a full-blown oligarchy (as I detail in *_{The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class}_*), Trump has picked up quite a few democracy-skeptical allies.

As early as 2018, for example, Senator Rand Paul made a solo trip to Moscow to personally hand-deliver a private note from Trump to Putin. Its contents are still unknown.

Senator Paul has also consistently taken Trump’s side with regard to the 2020 election and, when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago this month, responded with a call for the repeal of the Espionage Act. Perhaps he had ambitious plans for a role in the Trump administration after the planned end of American democracy?

With that backstory, consider more contemporary events to see if they fit together.

In January of last year Trump stole and moved to Florida information that, multiple sources assert, would reveal the identities of many of our spies, as well as our nuclear plans and capabilities.

Three months later, in March of 2021, Jared Kushner filed papers showing that his brand new investment company — against the advice of the Saudi government but at MBS’s order — had received over $2 billion from the Kingdom.

It’s still unknown if or how much money the Kingdom gave to Trump himself, presumably through the dark offshore accounts common among billionaires like Trump.

This was not the first time Kushner had apparently altered US foreign policy or shared valuable US secrets with Middle East players in exchange for large quantities of cash that flowed directly to him or other members of the Trump family.

{As investigative reporter Vicky Ward notes in the most recent post on }_}_{*Vicky Ward Investigates*}__{{ on Substack:}

Kushner was struggling with the ticking time bomb of a $1.8 billion mortgage on 666 Fifth Avenue that would come due in February of 2019—a debt no domestic buyer was interested in. Not even the Chinese or Qataris wanted it. … Kushner desperately needed a bail-out for his troubled building…and the clock was ticking.

Then, in the spring of 2018, two things happened within weeks. First, the U.S. withdrew their support of the blockade of Qatar, leading the Saudis and Emiratis to lift it.

Then, Brookfield, a Canadian real estate investment trust whose largest outside shareholder is the Qatari government, bailed out the Kushners in a deal that has real estate moguls rolling their eyes to this day: A 99-year lease paid upfront on a building that was bleeding money.

Which brings us back, again, to last year, just after Trump’s failed January 6th attempt to overthrow the US government.

About six months after the Saudis gave Kushner that second batch of billions, we learned that for several months “dozens” of American spies and agents had been “captured or killed” around the world. As The Washington Post reported on October 5, 2021:

Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said.

Is it possible that all these different data points are part of one whole?

That Trump had a plan, worked out with Putin, MBS, a few dozen high administration officials, and a large handful of Republicans in the House and Senate, to overthrow our government and establish an oligarchic system like what is currently in place in Russia and that Fox “News” showcased in Hungary? ...

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ukraine war

an 8 22

An alleged Russian mercenary brandished a human skull as a prop during a recent speech in which he justified his participation in genocide against Ukraine's population.

The man was identified as "Igor Mangushev" by Ukrainian blogger Den Kazansky.

"He is from Moscow. The Russian authorities deny that the Russian army organized the massacre in Bucha. But the Russian military openly calls for massacres and takes pride in torturing and killing Ukrainians," Kazansky tweeted early Sunday morning along with a video of Mangushev's macabre performance.

"We're alive, and this guy's already dead. Let him burn in Hell. He wasn't lucky. We'll make a goblet out of his skull," Mangushev boasted.

"We are not at war with people of blood and flesh. We are at war with the idea – with the idea of Ukraine as an anti-Russian state. There can be no peace. We must de-Ukrainize Ukraine. We must return our Russian lands. We are not at war with people. We are at war with the idea," he proclaimed.

"This is the tragedy of Ukrainian soldiers. We don't care how many; we have to kill them," Mangushev continued. "If we were at war with people, we could make peace with them. But we are at war with the idea, so all bearers of an idea must be killed. Like this guy, probably he did not want to lie near Azovstal."

A member of the audience asked for confirmation that the deceased was "definitely not a civilian."

Mangushev maintained that "this is definitely not a civilian" and bragged that "we killed him ourselves."

The unidentified onlooker then pondered, mockingly, "did he understand what the 'Russian world' is?"

Mangushev replied that "I think he did."

Notable Twitter observers like Russian Media Monitor founder and Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis reacted with horror.

"Pay attention to those genocidal barbarians," she wrote. "They're telling on themselves."

Watch below or at this link.

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omfg

https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-calls-darya-dugina-casualty-joe-bidens-red-regime-and-its-war-impose

8 22

PEARSON SHARP (CORRESPONDENT): Washington's proxy war against Russia claims another victim. Darya Dugina, an innocent journalist, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. On Saturday night, Darya was killed in a massive explosion from a car bomb planted under her father's truck. Evidence suggests that bomb was meant for her father instead – the famous Russian political commentator Aleksandr Dugin, who also happens to be a close friend with president Vladimir Putin. Darya, like her father, has been adamantly opposed to the illegal, criminal, and unprovoked western aggression in eastern Europe, especially towards Russia. Over the last year, she has cemented her reputation as an independent journalist fiercely critical of Joe Biden’s red regime, as well as his efforts to start World War III.

Her reporting took her across the war zones in Ukraine, where she even contributed to a documentary by One America News on the fighting at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. Of course, you can't cover Joe Biden’s shadow war against Moscow without including hispuppets in the corrupt Ukrainian government. Puppets like president Volodymyr Zelensky, who’s been bought and paid for by George Soros. But tragically, truth-telling in journalism is rarely profitable, especially for an independent journalist, and Darya’s courageous reporting made her the target of some very powerful enemies.

…

Naturally, Ukraine is denying any involvement. In a very convincing speech, one of Zelensky's stooges protested that Ukraine couldn't be responsible for the assassination because Ukraine is not a criminal state. No, Ukraine is just run by criminals who are financed by the greatest criminals on Earth, like George Soros, and which works hand in hand with the criminals in the Biden crime syndicate. No, no, no reason to suspect Ukraine.

…

SHARP: Following the brutal assassination, western governments drummed up their allies in the media to pump out attacks on Darya, with the BBC even pushing sickening reports trying to portray her death as justified. The New York Times ran a hit piece on Darya, trying to discredit her work and painting her as a pro-Russian radical, calling her an ultranationalist guilty of spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine.

But for anyone remotely familiar with Darya or her work, that's obviously fake news designed to cover up western war crimes in Ukraine, which Darya was fighting hard to expose.

…

SHARP: These are scenes from the documentary she contributed to for One America News. Darya described the war in Ukraine as the result of liberal fascism,which by definition is exactly what it is. This is a conflict brought on by the liberals, the Democrats in Washington, as a result of the rampant fascism and their war to impose totalitarianism upon the entire world. Darya was absolutely right. And now, she's dead.

…

SHARP: Ultimately, Darya will be remembered as a brave and courageous journalist, who took a stand for freedom, and for the innocent civilians suffering from the illegal wars of Washington. She exposed the crime and corruption behind these conflicts, and paid for it with her life. One more casualty of the criminal war being waged by Joe Biden and his bloody regime.

But as long as we keep her memory alive, and continue reporting the truth about what's happening in Ukraine, then that freedom and her struggle will never die. For One America News, I'm Pearson Sharp.

OAN host uses Nazi youth book burning to push book banning

08/23/22

After Mar-a-Lago search, OAN calls attack on FBI office a false flag

08/15/22

OAN host reacts to FBI Mar-a-Lago search: “We are the closest to Civil War II we've ever been"

08/15/22

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an 8 22

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is at the center of controversy yet again for her recent remarks inadvertently exposing the truth about the Republican Party. A new political ad released by the political action committee (PAC), Meidas Touch, highlights the Republican lawmaker's controversial remarks.

According to HuffPost, the clip of Greene's remarks featured footage of her echoing conspiracy-driven talking points laid out by Kremlin officials who have publicly discussed the Russian military's invasion of Ukraine.

The clip also highlighted grotesque remarks from Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) who could be heard describing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “thug” as former President Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine; disturbing behavior and leadership the former president has described as “genius.”

[twt vid] at another point, the clip also featured a portion of a recent interview Greene conducted where she insisted that Ukraine was to blame for the Russian invasion. "You see Ukraine just kept poking the bear, poking the bear, which is Russia, and Russia invaded," Greene said, adding, "And the hard truth is ... there is no win for Ukraine here. Russia is being very successful in their invasion."

The video clip, which was released on Tuesday, March 22, quickly began circulating on Twitter and garnered more than 325,000 views in less than 12 hours. Despite Greene's arguments, HuffPost pointed to the assessments from independent reports on the tension between Russia and Ukraine. Based on those reports, it appears "Russia misjudged the strength of Ukrainian resistance and is incurring higher casualties than expected."

The latest clip follows multiple incidents where Greene has been criticized for backing conspiracies and making baseless claims about a number of key issues. From the COVID-19 pandemic, to vaccines and the presidential election, Greene has often made remarks that have led to extensive fact-checks and opposition on social media.

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a reactor is out of control?!

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/russian-general-threatens-to-bomb/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/russian-state-television-our-friend/ trump

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/sanctions-facing-economic-oblivion-sanctions/

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raw

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/three-men-linked-russian-spies/

one of America's top counterintelligence experts revealed his thoughts on Saturday on the three men linked to sanctioned Russian spies who were present for a key White House meeting plotting Donald Trump's coup attempt.

"Four days after the electors met across the country and made Joe Biden the president-elect, Donald Trump was still trying to find a way to hang on to the presidency," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said in Tuesday's public hearing of the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"On Friday, December 18th, his team of outside advisers paid him a surprise visit in the White House that would quickly become the stuff of legend," Raskin explained. "The meeting has been called unhinged, not normal and the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency. The outside lawyers who'd been involved in dozens of failed lawsuits had lots of theories supporting the big lie, but no evidence to support it."

At the meeting, the idea of using the U.S. military to seize voting machines.

"In the wee hours of December 19th, dissatisfied with his options, Donald Trump decided to call for a large and wild crowd on Wednesday, January 6th, the day when Congress would meet to certify the electoral votes," Raskin explained. "Never before in American history had a president called for a crowd to come contest the counting of electoral votes by Congress or engaged in any effort designed to influence, delay, or obstruct the joint session of Congress in doing its work required by our Constitution and the Electoral Count Act. As we'll see, Donald Trump's 1:42 AM tweet electrified and galvanized his supporters, especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight against the government."

In a thread posted to Twitter, former FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok noticed a pattern among some of the participants. Strzok had also headed the FBI's counterespionage section.

Strzok said the meeting had 'staggering counterintelligence issues' presented the three of those in attendance.

"Mike Flynn, who was paid by an organ of Russian state media to travel to Moscow to attend a dinner where he was seated next to Putin. Flynn later plead guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with the Russian Ambassador about election interference," he noted.

"Patrick Byrne, one of several men once in an intimate relationship with convicted Russian agent Marina Butina. Byrne gave money to Butina after her return to Russia, where she ran for the Duma,hounded Navalny, and supported the invasion of Ukraine," Strzok continued. "Rudy Giuliani, who repeatedly met with and took info from sanctioned Russian agents like Andrii Derkach, despite USIC warnings to the White House in 2019 that Trump’s personal lawyer 'was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence.'"

"So in this tiny meeting in the Oval Office where options to upend US democracy were advanced to the President of the United States, there were not one, not two, but three people directly linked to sanctioned and convicted agents of the Russian government," Strzok noted. "While I doubt Russia planned it, their efforts to gain access to Trump’s inner sanctum succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. And it demonstrates just how successful seemingly amateurish intelligence activity can be."

He included a Russian Foreign Ministry photo from inside the Oval Office of Trump meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The meeting occurred in May of 2017, one day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating Russia's successful efforts to help Trump win the 2016 election.

"President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State," The Washington Postreported a few days later. "A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting."

Here is the thread Strzok posted to Twitter:...[twt]

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https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/putin-apologist-doug-macgregor-charlie-kirk-war-exception-kharkiv-and-odessa-far

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ex prez puppet meydved sez ICC --> nukes?!

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i'm sure palin will repel

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/russia-threatened-to-invade-alaska/

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7 22

nazi will not work/ used/ taken so next best (and tried and true) devil term:

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/russian-lawmaker-us-terrorist-state/

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an 6 22

Vladimir Putin's ill-begotten "special military operation" in Ukraine will enter its fifth month on Friday despite initial predictions that Moscow would quickly trounce its democratic neighbor. Thanks to arms support from the West, Ukraine has held on while casualties on both sides, which are already in the tens of thousands, continue to accumulate. Russia's relations with the West have deteriorated significantly. Heavy sanctions, as well as an embargo led by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Russia's fossil fuel exports, have forced Putin to seek alternative means of propping up his nation's petro-state economy. Outside of Russia, rumors about Putin's health and potential ouster have made their respective rounds.

For the US, the cost of supplying Ukraine with artillery and other defensive weaponry has swelled to tens of billions of dollars. Global gas prices – due in part to the bipartisan-backed boycott on Russia and compounded by oil conglomerate price gouging – have soared, jeopardizing the political near-future of the Democratic Party in the 2022 midterm elections and by extension, potentially, President Joe Biden's chances for winning a second term in 2024. Additionally, worldwide food stocks have taken a major hit because Russia and Ukraine provide a vast percentage of the planet's grain.

With no end to the war in Ukraine on the immediate horizon, avoiding a direct clash between the atomic superpowers remains a high priority. According to The Daily Beast, Putin has a sinister plan to chip away at American sympathies for Ukraine.Late Tuesday night, the outlet exclusively obtained an intelligence community document laying out how Putin intends to accomplish this.

"The May intelligence bulletin from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security says the Kremlin’s influence arm has focused Russian influence operations that are targeting American audiences almost entirely on the war in Ukraine," wrote the Beast. "Russian state media and proxy information operations are working to paint Western support for Ukraine as the reason the war is dragging on so long, and the reason there is a growing food crisis. Never mind the fact the conflict and grain export problems exist because Putin chose to invade Ukraine in the first place."

The missive explains "that the Russian government remains one of the primary threats to the United States due to its 'malicious cyber operations against federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, election organizations,' and more,"the Beast learned, noting that, crucially, "the Russian influence shops have also particularly been zeroing in on the idea that Western security assistance to Ukraine has been escalating the war."

For example, former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security Brian Harrell predicted to the Beastthat “as health-related rumors swirl surrounding Putin, I suspect we will see an uptick in propaganda and even counter-messages from loyalists."

Harrell added that Putin's primary strategy aims are "to stave off defeat in Ukraine and therefore stave off an ouster, too."

Harrell, and ex-Central Intelligence Agency Moscow chief Daniel Hoffman, believe that approach would include enhanced interference operations in American elections.

Putin is "going to try really, really hard to… exacerbate those isolationist tendencies and kind of induce us to question, ‘Why are we supporting Ukraine?’ He’s trying to dilute U.S. support for [Ukrainian President] Zelenskyy," Hoffman told the Beast.

Putin's mind, Hoffman continued, stews along the lines of, "'I can outlast all you people. And if I get this to 2024, I might get a Republican who doesn’t feel like Joe Biden.' They’re students of American politics. Of course he’s going to look at the midterms and he’s looking at anybody who’s… against the war in Ukraine.”

Citing another expert, Gavin Wilde, a former director for Russia, Baltic, and Caucasus affairs on the White House National Security Council, the Beast described how "Russian election interference may also include efforts to advance politicians or themes that would reverse sanctions against Russia."

Wilde foresees that at the top of Putin's disruptive agenda “there’s going to probably be, by 2024, a crystallized debate about the degree of U.S. commitment to Europe… including Ukraine. "Putin is very well aware that that debate is probably only going to become more acute.”

The intelligence memo further points out that "Russian malign influence actors likely will attempt to dissuade U.S. voters from participating in the 2022 midterm elections using similar tactics employed during the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections, such as targeting audiences with false information about voting logistics, exacerbating racial tensions, and levying attacks or praise on candidates from either political party."

The full story continues here.?

Americans received a taste of its effectiveness under Donald Trump's presidency when he threatened to withhold NATO funds, tried to extort Ukraine into digging up dirt on Biden, and held secret one-on-one meetings with Putin. Similarly, numerous Republican lawmakers and right-wing media talking heads have expressed their sympathies for policies that would directly benefit Putin.[CRENSHAW BOOED TEX GOP?]

Biden, meanwhile, has been dealt the delicate hand of having to check Putin's nuclear blackmail while maintaining what remains of the post-World War Two order.

---

REF

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/24/republican-gop-pro-russia-pro-putin-ukraine-war-isolationism/

When it comes to isolationism in America, I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that the public — and Congress — still remains largely resistant to the long-discredited “America First” argument that we can hide from the world behind our two ocean moats. The periods in U.S. history when isolationism was resurgent, after 1898, were relatively brief and generally occurred after long wars: the 1920s-1930s (after World War I), the 1970s (after the Vietnam War), the 1990s (after the Cold War), and the 2010s (after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). But invariably a fresh crisis comes along to snap America out of its reverie: Pearl Harbor, the Iranian hostage crisis, 9/11, the rise of the Islamic State, and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Each time that happens, most Americans realize that the costs of abdicating international leadership are greater than the cost of exercising it.

MAGA Republicans aren’t isolationist. They’re pro-Putin.

When it comes to isolationism in America, I have some good news and some bad news.

The Ukrainian crisis has followed that template. A Pew Research Center poll found that 75 percent of Americans support strict economic sanctions on Russia and 71 percent support sending weapons to Ukraine. Roughly a third say we are not providing enough aid — even though Congress has committed a whopping $54 billion since the invasion began. The latest tranche of aid, $40 billion, was just approved by overwhelming majorities — 81 to 11 in the Senate, 368 to 57 in the House. Not a single Democrat voted against the legislation, even though they have a Bernie Sanders-led noninterventionist wing. Every “nay” vote came from Republicans.

That brings us to the bad news: Isolationism — or is it Putinism? — remains disturbingly resilient within Republican ranks. In the Pew poll, more than twice as many Republicans as Democrats said that the United States is providing too much aid to Ukraine. Roughly a quarter of House Republicans and a fifth of Senate Republicans share that view. Some of the influential voices opposing aid to Ukraine include former president Donald Trump, Fox “News” host Tucker Carlson, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Heritage Action for America (the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation), and FreedomWorks (the Koch-supported advocacy organization). --> $

,,,Heritage Foundation), and FreedomWorks (the Koch-supported advocacy organization).

… It’s hard to take the nationalists’ arguments at face value. They claim that we can’t afford to aid Ukraine because we have to deal with pressing problems at home, such as a shortage of baby formula. But all of the U.S. aid to Ukraine represents just 1 percent of the federal budget. Where were all of these supposed fiscal conservatives when Trump was adding $7.8 trillion to the national debt?

Many of the original “America Firsters” in 1940 and 1941 were actually pro-Nazi. Likewise, many of today’s MAGA militants are actually pro-Putin. They favor a hard line against leftist dictatorships such as those in Cuba, Venezuela and China, while advocating de facto appeasement of Russia’s right-wing dictatorship.

In 2018, seven Republican senators and one Republican House member — the Red Square Republicans, my colleague Dana Milbank called them — spent July 4 in Moscow. In 2019, Tucker Carlson said: “Why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.” In February, Trump called Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s preparations for invasion an act of “genius,” “savvy,” and “smart.” In April, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) excused the Russian attack by saying that the Kremlin invades only countries that “were part of Russia.” (Should Alaskans be worried?).[..?]

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Tensions within the party at times got personal. Video posted online showed far-right activists physically accosting U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, calling the conservative Republican “eye-patch McCain” over his criticism of Russia. The group included self-identified Proud Boys and Alex Stein, a social media activist from North Texas. A Navy SEAL veteran, Crenshaw lost his right eye to a bomb in Afghanistan.

---

lara logan and

https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/tucker-carlsons-history-pro-kremlin-anti-ukraine-propaganda

https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/fox-news-has-pushed-pro-russia-talking-points-every-day-invasion

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6 22

propagandists on Russian state television have announced a new objective in President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine – assassinating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Putin's genocidal "special military operation" has slogged on for nearly four months. After failing to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, Moscow has begun intensifying its efforts in the Eastern Russian separatist-controlled regions of Luhansk and Donbas, where they are slowly advancing.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops have died amid fierce resistance by the Ukrainians, who have in turn faced indiscriminate slaughter by Putin's forces. Mass graves outside the flattened Southern port city of Mariupol, for example, have been reported to contain 16,000 victims.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, has pushed the false narrative that Ukraine is a fake country filled with Nazis and that the greater number of its citizens who are massacred, the better. In a recent segment on Russia 1, Putin's stooges expanded on that grim objective, claiming that the only path to victory is to push Russia's borders as far to the West as possible and kill Zelenskyy (who has already survived multiple attempts on his life).

"How far away do we have to move Ukraine? How far away could you move a maniac, a ghoul, who wants to turn everything into dead meat?" propagandist Andrei Sidorchik asked his panel of Zelenskyy. "On which territory will this moment take place, when will this ghoul stop being a ghoul?"

Putin started this war, and that has only emboldened his minions into viciously dehumanizing the Ukrainian population.

"I'm telling you, we're fightingghouls! They mysticallywant to turn everything into dead meat, they announce that openly," Sidorchik continued, which is not true. "We can only stop when they lose the opportunity to kill us. That's why, I'll say it again, the unclean can be stopped only when you drive a stake through it. When a stake is driven through Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then there will be peace. There is no other way."

Professor Vitaly Tretyakov, the Dean of the Higher School of Television at Moscow's Lomonosov State University, agreed.

The translation was provided by The Daily Beast's Julia Davis.

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visits wounded soldiers, over 40 draft?

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/robert-reich-gop-culture-wars/

Former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich posted a new video on Tuesday in which he enumerated the parallels between Russian President Vladimir Putin's propaganda and the messaging emanating from the GOP and its media pundits.

"Why do Putin and the Republican Party sound so much alike? Simple," Reich began. "Their culture wars have similar agendas. Both are trying to distract attention from the economic looting by their respective oligarchies."

Reich explained that figures like ex-President Donald Trump, Fox News stooge Tucker Carlson, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), and the right-wing at large have a vested interest in keeping the American population divided because their ultimate collective goal is total economic domination.

"Sowing racism, homophobia, and transphobia creates life-or-death dangers for many people in our society. For both Putin and the American right, it serves to divert attention from the economic plunder by the ultra-rich," he said "They want people to fear one another rather than unite behind higher wages, better working conditions, and a fairer economy — and against authoritarianism."

Reich then offered some advice on what can be done about it.

"To fight back, we must fight widening inequality while defending marginalized communities from these demagogues’ attacks. The real threat is not diverse identities – it’s corporate greed and political corruption," Reich concluded. "We have to see the culture wars waged by Putin and America’s right for the cynical strategies they are, and build a future in which prosperity is widely shared."

Watch below:

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an 5 22

The head of propaganda outlet Russia Today has proclaimed that there are only two possible outcomes in Ukraine: victory for Russia or the annihilation of the human race.

On Monday, Margarita Simonyan, who has previously expressed her willingness to die in a nuclear war initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, declared on Russia 1 that "things will end badly" for modern civilization if Russia loses its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. Her bluster is an extension of rhetoric spewed by Putin's puppets on state television who dare not dissent from their leader's delusional imperial ambitions, even though Russia is undeniably losing.

The translation has been provided byThe Daily Beast's Juila Davis, the founder of the Russian Media Monitor.

"They all believe that we will lose and that the West will win," Simonyan said of the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union allies, who are historically united in supporting Ukraine. "They don't understand that it's impossible. Either we win or this will end badly for all of humanity."

Simonyan then said that Russian students are better off not being educated in Western institutions and predicted that the tensions between Russia and the West will continue indefinitely.

"When people ask how long this will go on, in terms of our alienation and confrontation with the West, I see only one version of events. People, this is forever. Get used to this new life. I can't stand the whining of 'feeling bad for the children.' Why are you feeling sorry for the children? Some feel bad their children can't study in the West. The brave new world will no longer be open to them. I tell them, 'people, you should be rejoicing,'" she said. "The brave new world is racing straight to Hell. In ten years you'll say, 'thank you very much.' Thank you that my child never studied in the West, because your child will remain a normal person. No matter what happens and how we behave, our confrontation with them is for the rest of our lives."

Watch here.

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5 22 ideol vs provocateur?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-laura-ingraham-calls-aid-ukraine-complete-outrage

https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-claims-ukrainian-border-ill-defined

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/pope-francis-putin-altar-boy/

russ ortho

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an 422 no lnx twt

the New York Times just discovered that Fox News has a Russia problem

Fox News' Tucker Carlson speaking with attendees at the 2020 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Gage Skidmore]

Dartagnan and Daily Kos April 17, 2022

You have to credit the Gray Lady: this is really quite the scoop. And I hesitate even to point it out, lest my mild criticism that follows be misinterpreted. So let me be clear, I’m all for American media outlets policing each other. I think it’s perfectly OK for one media outlet to call out another for bias or dissimulation. That’s what makes journalism such an integral part of our democracy, so much that its inherent value is literally enshrined in the Constitution. “Keeping them honest” should be the watchword governing all journalism.

That being said, you may wish to remain seated, because this is guaranteed to make you faint with shock. Hold onto your hats — here it comes.

As reported by the New York Times’ Stuart A. Thompson:

The narratives advanced by the Kremlin and by parts of conservative American media have converged in recent months, reinforcing and feeding each other. Along the way, Russian media has increasingly seized on Fox News’s prime-time segments, its opinion pieces and even the network’s active online comments section — all of which often find fault with the Biden administration — to paint a critical portrait of the United States and depict America’s foreign policy as a threat to Russia’s interests.

When I read that I was stone-cold flummoxed. Who could have possibly imagined? Oh, wait!

And it seems that Tucker Carlson is a Kremlin favorite. Can you believe that? They even cite examples!

“The U.S. baselessly accused Russia of spreading disinformation about biolabs in Ukraine because they later actually confirmed their existence, TV presenter Tucker Carlson told Fox News,” Radio Sputnik wrote in an article summarizing Mr. Tucker’s lengthy segment for a Russian audience.

But there’s more!

Mentions of Fox News in Russian-language media grew 217 percent during the first quarter of this year compared with the final quarter of last year, as news coverage of Ukraine increased, according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a media tracking company that reviewed social media posts, broadcast media and online websites. CNN, which has about three times the global viewership of Fox News, according to the tracking company Similarweb, was mentioned more often but grew less, by 71 percent.

And the Times really put their nose to the grindstone to break this, having “reviewed nearly 500 Russian-language articles mentioning Fox News between July and late March, sourced from the two largest state news agencies in the country — RIA Novosti and TASS — along with dozens of articles from other Russian-language media.” Talk about due diligence!

The Times has even broken it down by category! They’ve determined that Russia now highlights Fox News stories that tend to “Blame NATO expansion,” “Buttress Conspiracy Theories” (can you imagine???) “Question the West’s goals,” and — get this — “Criticize President Biden.”

I am shocked, shocked, I tell you.

In all seriousness, we didn’t have to wait nearly two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to be told they were making use of Fox News for propaganda purposes. That fact has been a staple in the media for well over a month, if not longer.More importantly, as this article, one of literally dozens from Media Matters, gamely points out, the relationship between Fox and Vladimir Putin has long been a two-way street, going back well into the Trump administration, with Fox echoing Putin’s policy on a fairly repeated basis.

But you won’t find a single word about that in the Times article. No, it’s as if Russia just suddenly discovered it had its own propaganda outlet all along.

And probably even more importantly, Mr. Thompson, for all his analytical skill, doesn’t devote a single sentence to asking why that is. Why did Fox News spend the last five years amplifying Putin talking points?

Exploring that question would be serious journalism. Exploring the uncomfortable question of why the Times ignored something this important, and obvious, for so long, letting relatively small, niche outlets like Media Matters do all the heavy lifting, would be even more serious journalism.

But simply reporting the data without context -- which is all the Times article really does — is not.

---

no lnx twt

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard featured in Russian state television segment pushing disturbing propaganda

Meaghan Ellis March 31, 2022

Fox News' Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) have repeatedly defended Russian President Vladamir Putin and it appears their actions have granted them applause from the Kremlin and Russian state media.

Last week, Gabbard was featured during a segment on Russian state television where her remarks were referenced by renowned Putin supporter, Vladimir Soloviev.

Per Julia Davis, a Russian media analyst and columnist for The Daily Beast,Soloviev referred to Gabbard, a former Democratic U.S. presidential candidate as “our girlfriend Tulsi." The segment then shifted to a clip of Gabbard's recent appearance on Fox News.

Following the clip, one panelist reportedly asked if Gabbard is "some sort of Russian agent?” According to Davis' translation of the Russian discussion, she is.

During her appearance on Fox News on Monday, March 28, Gabbard accused President Joe Biden of attempting a plot to have Putin removed from power as she claimed he was advocating for "regime change in Russia through 'economic warfare.'”

"They are doing so by waging this modern-daysiegeagainst Russia, isolating, containing, destroying their economy, starving the Russian people in the hope that the Russian people or the military will rise up and revolt and overthrow their government and get rid of Putin,” Gabbard said during a portion of the excerpt that aired in Russia.

Gabbard's remarks came shortly after Biden's speech in Poland. On Sunday, March 27, according to Yahoo! News, Biden delivered a speech in Poland saying "that Putin 'cannot remain in power' in off-script remarks during a speech in Poland." However, White House officials swiftly released a statement to offer clarity on Biden's remarks. According to White House officials, the president was not pushing for Russian regime change but insisted that “Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”

However, Gabbard argues that “'it was not a gaffe at all' and Biden is 'lying' about his true motives."

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chris hayes 3/22 no clash of civs with islam, but there is w/ putin authoritariANISM

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tucker ticks off all the phobes boxes now?

no lnx

Tucker Carlson issues weird warning as he aims to protect Putin

Tucker Carlson's story about the NSA spying on him is filled with holes

Meaghan Ellis March 30, 2022

Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently issued a bizarre warning about the possible adverse effects of removing Russian President Vladimir Putin from office.

On Monday, March 28, Carlson expressed concern about the looming discussions during his recent segment of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."The conservative TV host claims he's concerned about the possibility of Islamic extremists seizing Russia's nuclear weaponry and using it on the United States if Putin is removed from power.

“So, Russia has a large and restive population of Islamic extremists. Do we think it’s possible that with no one running the country ― because of course we have no chosen successor to Putin ― is it possible, if we did that, that one of those 6,000 nuclear weapons might wind up in the hands of some anti-American terror group and be used against our civilian population here?” he asked. “A nuclear weapon! Well, it’s not just possible, it’s likely.”

Carlson's latest remarks follow multiple attempts he's made to defend the Russian authoritarian. Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Carlson has echoed talking points from Russian state media circulating Kremlin propaganda. Like other Russian propagandists, Carlson has also made calls for the 25th Amendment to be invoked so President Joe Biden could be removed from office.

:{:{}:

During the same segment, Carlson said, "The joke is over. Too much is at stake. If there ever was a time — if there was in U.S. history ever a time to invoke the 25th Amendment, it is now. As Joe Biden himself put it, 'For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.' For all of our sakes."

Carlson’s bizarre remarks were reportedly in response to Biden's speech made while in Poland. Speaking of Putin, Biden called for Putin to be striped of his presidential powers saying, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/robert-reich-explains-why-vladimir-putin-donald-trump-and-tucker-carlson-use-similar-culture-war-rhetoric/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/these-anti-vaxxers-and-wellness-influencers-have-been-applauding-putins-ukraine-invasion-report/

no lnx

These anti-vaxxers and ‘wellness influencers’ have been applauding Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion: report

Alex Henderson March 25, 2022

Support for Russian President Vladimir Putin is by no means universal on the America right. Many conservatives, from Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah to media Never Trumpers like The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and the Washington Post’s Max Boot, have been blistering critics of Putin — especially during the brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Yet in the MAGA cult, Putin has had his share of apologists — from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to “War Room” host Steve Bannon to former President Donald Trump. And Mother Jones’ Kiera Butler, in an article published on March 24, focuses on a bizarre trend: far-right anti-vaxxers and online “wellness influencers” who have become cheerleaders for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Butler previously reported on pro-Putin anti-vaxxers in a March 2 article, and since then, the Mother Jones journalist stresses,the “overlap” between pro-Putin propagandists and anti-vaxxers “has only grown.”

“(On March 19), the Toronto Star reported a startling correlation between vaccination status and beliefs about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Butler explains. “More than 80% of vaccinated Canadians said they believed their country should help defend Ukraine, compared to less than a quarter of unvaccinated people. This dynamic is especially pronounced in extremist spaces. Some of the anti-mandate trucker convoy chats on Telegram now seem dominated by Putin cheerleading.”

Some online “wellness influencers,” according to Butler, have been claiming that President Joe Biden is “trying to pull a fast one on them by painting Russia as the aggressor” in Ukraine.

“Should social media platforms flag influencers’ content as disinformation,” Butler observes, “it only serves to reinforce their belief that they are being punished for their righteous truth-telling. Some influencers have monetized their self-proclaimed martyrdom by sharing disinformation about Ukraine and hawking their own wellness items.”

twt

Instagram, according to Butler, is one of the social media platforms where pro-Putin anti-vaxxers and “wellness influencers” have been plentiful.

“Beyond the oils and the tinctures, influencers are selling something much more valuable: a sense offierce and uncompromising maternal identity,” Butler observes. “The account bios frequently mention natural childbirth, breastfeeding, and attachment parenting — and their posts and stories tie events in Ukraine back to defending their families from what they see as government overreach.”

Anti-vaxxers who are sympathetic to Putin, Butler writes, are also more likely to be influenced by the far-right pro-Trump conspiracy group QAnon.

“Factions of anti-vaccine groups increasingly embraced COVID denialism and dabbled in QAnon,” Butler notes. “The Russians’ initial plan of dividing Americans had worked better than they could have possibly expected — so that by the time Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, anti-vaccine activists were primed to believe that Putin was the good guy.”

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an 3 22

Conspiracy theorists in the United States and around the world appear to have anew obsession: the "New World Order."

Ever since Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, politicians and political pundits on cable have tossed about the phrase while predicting that Vladimir Putin's war, however it concludes, has reshaped the geopolitical landscape. In their shorthand, that equates to the dawning of a "new world order."

As Vice News points out, President Joe Biden name-checked the “new world order” conspiracy in a mid-March to the Business Roundtable. “Now is a time when things are shifting,” Biden said when asked about the United States’ response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it.”

The “New World Order” is solidly ensconced in American conspiracy theory culture. To those who believe, those three words represent a multitude of dystopian horrors, such as forced depopulation programs, a secretive ruling class of reptiles and “elite globalists” on a satanic mission to bring about the “end times.”

References to the “New World Order” have been frequent on some of the large Telegram channels dedicated to the“freedom convoy” movement that started in Canada in January. “Ukraine falls, and it will, it is the end of the New World Order,” wrote someone on that Telegram channel. “Believe it or not, Putin is a white hat and working to take down Satanists, corruption, bioweapons sites, and the New World Order,” wrote another. “Mainstream media is not your friend.” “Vladimir Putin is a traitor to the NWO!” someone else wrote in another convoy channel. “That's why we like him.”

At least one far-right U.S. politician appears to buy into the theory. Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who was censured by her colleagues for participating in a white nationalist conference, recently listed the names of people she believes are part of “one big happy New World Order club.” Her list, shared to Telegram on Tuesday, included top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, billionaire philanthropist and Holocaust survivor George Soros, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Mark Zuckerberg, the Clintons, and the Bush family. She also called the European Union “New World Order tyranny.”

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new

no lnx twt

Sean Hannity echoed dangerous Kremlin claim pointing figured about the Russian-Ukrainian war

Fox News' Sean Hannity speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Gage Skidmore

Meaghan Ellis March 19, 2022

Fox News' Sean Hannity added to the conservative misinformation dumpster fire when he attempted to criticize President Joe Biden by echoing claims similar to Russian government officials.

On Friday, March 18, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov spoke to a group of reporters where he appeared to share his reaction Biden describing Russian President Vladamir Putin as a "war criminal." Peskov argued that the description is a "personal insult" to the Russian authoritarian.

"We hear and see statements that are actually personal insults to President Putin," Peskov told reporters.

"Given such irritability from Mr. Biden, his fatigue and sometimes forgetfulness ... fatigue that leads to aggressive statements, we will not make harsh assessments, so as not to cause more aggression,” Peskov added.

Later that evening, Hannity highlighted Peskov's words on the screen as he echoed similar sentiments saying, “Like I’ve been saying, Biden’s weakness on the world stage is emboldening bad actors all across the globe."

Hannity's segment also came hours after Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov actually praised Fox News for echoing Russian propaganda. According to Lavrov, Fox News is the only television network focused on presenting an "alternative point of view."

“We know the manners and the tricks that are being used by the Western countries to manipulate media,” said Lavrov. “If you take the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view."

For months now, far-right Republican lawmakers and conservative Fox News hosts have had what is being described as a "lovefest" with Russia. Despite their opposition, the Democrats and Biden administration have made it a point to push back against Putin as his military continues its invasion of Ukraine.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-russian-propaganda

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, continuing to move closer and closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin, says “real Americans” only care about “open borders,” gas prices, and inflation but not Ukraine. She also declared that “COVID doesn’t exist.”

“What real Americans care about is gas prices they can’t afford, inflation that goes up enough to where grocery bills are unaffordable, and they’re very concerned about our out of control open border,” Greene said on the floor of the House Thursday. “Crime is out of control,” she added, ignoring that major crimes like murder are “out of control” mostly in just red states.

“But yet Washington has completely disconnected and seems to care more about sending our sons and daughters to a potential war where they do not belong,” she claimed, saying “we need to focus on our country first.”

“America first” is a Trump-era “policy” that essentially says America first and only, period.

The extremist Republican Congresswoman from Georgia just yesterday,in what she claimed was an “address to the nation”that was carried only on Facebook Live, inaccurately announced “both sides” – Russia and Ukraine – have violated their treaties.

The Washington Post called her Facebook Live speech a “10-minute riff,” noting she repeatedly called Ukraine defending itself from the harmful and dangerous Russian attacks and slaughter “a war they cannot win.”

“False claims, debunked nonsense, echoes of Russian propaganda,” is how the Post describes her remarks from Wednesday, in its piece titled “A layer cake of misinformation, dishonesty and pro-Russia apologism.”

Watch Greene on the House floor today:

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no lnx many twt

How ‘Kremlin-friendly’ MAGA Republicans — and Tulsi Gabbard — became propaganda for Russia’s Ukraine invasion

Alex Henderson March 14, 2022

Some conservative Republicans have been unwavering in their disdain for Russian President Vladimir Putin, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. But in MAGA World, Putin has a long list of apologists — even as thousands of people die during Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. And Never Trump conservative Amanda Carpenter, in an article published by The Bulwark on March 14, takes a look at some of the “Kremlin-friendly” talking points coming from America’s far right.

:{:{}:

“During the Cold War,” Carpenter explains, “the Soviet Union invested heavily in its global disinformation and propaganda efforts. And back in 2016, the Russians had to go to the trouble of creating a troll farm to push their divisive messages to the American audience. But today, they needn’t go to such lengths: Plenty of prominent right-wing media figures in the United States are pushing out Vladimir Putin’s propaganda for him.”

The media figures and politicians that Carpenter slams as “Kremlin-friendly” in her article include Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, the Daily Wire’s Candace Owens, former President Donald Trump, “War Room” host Steve Bannon and Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina. Carpenter notes that these are the sort of MAGA Republicans Cheney has dubbed “the Putin wing of the GOP.”

“It’s all the same people: fringe internet figures, Fox News hosts, Steve Bannon and his acolytes, Marjorie Tayor Greene caucus members, and the millions of people who love them,” Carpenter observes. “Most of these people claim to be free-thinking contrarians, but their accusations, questions, and conclusions about the United States, Russia and Ukraine always seem to go one way: The United States and Ukraine are somehow wrong, and the Russians have their reasons for waging war. If you don’t believe that, it’s only because all the Democrats are lying to you. Well, all the Democrats except for 2022 CPAC special guest Tulsi Gabbard, anyway.”

Carpenter notes that Carlson’s commentary on Fox News has been “so Kremlin-friendly” that according to a Kremlin memo obtained by Mother Jones, Kremlin officials have asked government-run media outlets to feature more clips of him.

:{:{}:

Mother Jones’ David Corn reported, “On March 3, as Russian military forces bombed Ukrainian cities as part of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of his neighbor, the Kremlin sent out talking points to state-friendly media outlets with a request: Use more Tucker Carlson.”

Carlson has promoted the conspiracy theory that the Ukrainian government is manufacturing bioweapons in laboratories and that Putin is merely protecting Russia’s safety by invading Ukraine.

Carpenter comments, “One could have guessed that the same people who blamed Dr. Fauci for the coronavirus might try to find some other government bureaucrats to blame for Putin’s war. This time, according to Carlson, ‘Dangerous biological agents remain, thanks to the Biden Administration, unsecured in a chaotic war zone’…. This is the big story in their minds. Not the Russian invasion and the unfolding humanitarian disaster, but the Russian disinformation about bioweapons, which provides a cudgel for whacking the Biden Administration — no matter how bogus the claims.”

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[[https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/gop-lawmakers-face-barrage-of-questions-over-viral-russian-ad/

[vid]

an 322

Republican Party is being labeled as the "Party of Treason” in a new, scathing political ad chronicling all that has transpired since Russia invaded Ukraine.

According to HuffPost, the ad was released by Really American, a progressive political action committee (PAC). The video highlights Independence Day 2018 when several Republican lawmakers' traveled to Moscow to visit the Kremlin.

With the video, the PAC tweeted, "A day after the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed Russia interfered in our elections, 8 Republicans flew to Russia for a photo-op. Now they're blaming Biden for the invasion of Ukraine while repeating Kremlin talking points."

Although the trip was reportedly intended to address Russian interference, the video notes that Sen.Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), "downplayed said established threat just days later."[twt]

the video's narrator posed a number of compelling questions to Republican lawmakers asking: "why Republicans have 'consistently taken' the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin by, among other things, voting to block election security bills and backing Donald Trump for threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on Joe Biden, misconduct that led to the first impeachment of the former president."

The narrator concluded by saying, “Putin has shown his goal is to destabilize Western democracy from Ukraine to the U.S. We can’t allow his puppets to sink their claws deeper into our government.”

In just a short period of time, the video has gone viral. Since its release on Thursday, March 10, it has received more than 850,000 views as it continues to circulate on social media.

[ron j, shelby, moran, daines, thune, kay granger, john kennedy hoeven

#partyoftraitors

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ref 2

... GOP is slammed as the “#PartyOfTreason” in a new viral ad from progressive PAC Really American.

The group’s spot recalls the visit to the Kremlin that eight Republican lawmakers controversially made on Independence Day in 2018,

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/06/626664156/gop-senators-spend-july-4-in-moscow no names ] a day after the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

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ref july 2018

mADISON –Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is downplaying the threat Russia poses to U.S. elections, saying “these are not the greatest threats to our democracy.”

Johnson was part of a contingent of senators who met with Russian officials in Russia last week. He told reporters Tuesday that over half of their five-hour discussion focused on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Johnson says Russian interference is “unacceptable” and “serious,” but “when you look at threats to this nation I look at much larger threats.”

He says U.S. elections are very difficult to hack and remain secure, while Russia’s interference on social media in 2016 was minimal.

Johnson has been critical of Senate sanctions against Russia, saying they have been ineffective and don’t leave President Donald Trump with enough negotiating room on other issues.]]

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icc investigates war crimes, no russians show up?

tv pix of woman bleeding on stretcher ukraine

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/russia-bombs-ukraine-maternity-hospital/

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https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/tucker-carlsons-history-pro-kremlin-anti-ukraine-propaganda

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an 3 22

The list of far-right MAGA Republicans who have praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 — even in the days leading up to Russian troops’ horrific invasion of Ukraine — is a long one, ranging from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to former President Donald Trump himself. And Lauren Witzke, the QAnon supporter and self-described “Christian nationalist” who lost to Sen. Chris Coons by 22% in Delaware’s 2020 U.S. Senate race, recently praised Putin as a symbol of Christian piety, saying, “I identify more with Putin's Christian values than I do with Joe Biden.”

Trump and opinion hosts at Fox News have had so much praise for Putin that “Saturday Night Live” opened its March 5 broadcast with a skit that brutally mocked their admiration for the Russian strongman. And other Republicans who haven’t outright praised Putin have been reluctant to openly criticize him because they are afraid to say or do anything that might offend Dear Leader Trump.

But one conservative Republican who hasn’t been shy about condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and the Raleigh News & Observer’s editorial board applauds him for taking a stand in an editorial published on March 3.

At a press conference on March 2, Tillis told reporters, “Anybody who compliments Vladimir Putin is complimenting a mass murderer. There are no compliments coming from me or my office.”

In response to Tillis’ comments, the News & Observer’s editorial board writes, “Tillis showed that it’s not hard for Republicans to criticize Russia and Putin the right way. He didn’t dodge or deflect, nor did he taper his criticism by following it up with praise. He was clear: Putin is evil, and his invasion of Ukraine is wrong.”

The publication’s editorial board continues, “It’s not common these days to see Republicans contradict fellow party members, unless their name is Liz Cheney. Too often, they eschew their principles in favor of party loyalty. Even now, as Putin’s war kills innocent civilians and displaces hundreds of thousands more, many GOPers have chosen to focus the bulk of their criticism on President Joe Biden instead…. Tillis called for stiffer sanctions and for Biden to ‘take all steps necessary’ to expel Russia as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”

Although the News & Observer’s editorial board isn’t without criticism of Tillis, it is clearly glad to see him speaking out against Putin forcefully now.

“We wish Tillis had been as outspoken earlier than this, specifically when Trump, as president, buddied up to Putin and attempted to strong-arm Ukraine,” the editorial board writes. “But Tillis was clear and right this week. North Carolinians can be thankful for that.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/russia-ukraine/

thousands arrested

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/pence/

vp ~ djt

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7 yrs for murder, 15 for saying war; alt radio bd TV, only pulitzer prize (last yr) novaya gazetta still running 3/22

mom does not beleive her dtr in ukraine where bombs falling b/c she sees state TV (on all time most homes) swan lake

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/russia-facebook-putin/

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tucker gaslights 180 [later admits errors?]

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kos http://redgreenandblue.org/2022/02/25/fossil-fuel-apologists-blame-everyone-putin-course/

russia invaded Ukraine yesterday, because “President Biden supports transgender rights, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, and like all world leaders, was bent to the incredible power of international energy and climate overlord Greta Thunberg.” That’s the view from denierland, and we honestly wish we were joking or exaggerating or otherwise misrepresenting the online reactions from climate and general rightwing “experts”

By Climate Denier Roundup

So here’s the roundup of reactions from crazytown:

No quicker than you can say “moment of uncertainty ripe for disinformation,” Tucker Carlson (who’sbeen defending Putin) had :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}::{Marc Morano on his show to –what else – blame Biden and climate concern for the Russian invasion.

Matt Walsh, a comedian of sorts who works at Ben Shaprio’s fracker-funded propaganda shop and has written a whole “children’s book” attacking trans people, tweeted that he was “so glad that the west (sic) gave up on energy independence because Greta Thunberg yelled at us.” This is of course exactly backwards. If Greta’s calls for replacing fossil fuels with renewables were heeded, then countries would already be providing clean energy for themselves without needing to rely on Russia’s fossil fuels.

And despite what you may expect, Walsh was hardly the only one attributing Putin’s aggression to Greta Thunberg, as though that makes any sense at all.

Similarly nonsensical is tobacco-shill turned fossil fool Steve Milloy, who claimed Putin’s invasion is just like COVID and climate mandates, also quote-tweeted a story about Ukrainian people in traffic leaving Kyiv, with the comment “imagine you were in this and driving an EV”. As though it would be better to be beholden on the fossil fuels imported from Russia while Russia invades your country, than it would be to merely be reliant on the electricity generated by power plants running on Russian fuels.

While we’re imagining though, imagine having an electric car and clean energy grid to power it, so you’re not reliant on Russian fossil fuels for your car or electricity!

Similarly wrong yet Right was Dan Crenshaw, Texan Republican who has received $689,000 from the oil and gas industry for his campaigns for one of the most obviously gerrymandered districts in the country. He suggested that the Keystone XL pipeline could have replaced the fossil fuels we import from Russia, as though that pipeline was for US consumption (and not the global market it’s already reaching anyway). “Relying on Russian oil is a choice.” he added, “And it’s a stupid one.”

And he’s right! It’d be infinitely smarter to not rely on oil at all!

(But we somehow doubt that’s what he meant.)

(Originally appeared at DailyKos)

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/sanctions/

2 olig ~?

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/ted-cruz-accurately-predicted-ukraine/

===

// birther ex-dem embedded with russia in ukraine

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/the-disturbing-tale-of-how-one-texas-democrat-devolved-into-a-far-right-putin-propagandist/

no lnx

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/pro-putin-anti-gay-qanon-supporter-lauren-witzke-continues-to-be-delawares-most-embarrassing-republican/

Pro-Putin, anti-gay and QAnon: Meet Delaware’s most embarrassing Republican

[Lauren Witzke, from Facebook]

Alex Henderson March 04, 2022

In Delaware, the most famous Democrat is President Joe Biden, who commutes between the White House and his home in that heavily Democratic state. Delaware’s most famous — or infamous — Republican, meanwhile, isfar-right Christian nationalist and QAnon supporter Lauren Witzke, who drew widespread condemnation in late February when she praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a symbol of Christian piety. But Witzke’s praise of Putin is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her extremism and her ability to embarrass the state of Delaware.

During an appearance on the Christian Right program “Cross Talk,” the 34-year-old native of Delmar, Delaware — who suffered a landslide defeat when she ran against Sen. Chris Coons in Delaware’s 2020 U.S. Senate race — made it clear that she supports Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

The QAnon Republican said, “Russia is a Christian nationalist nation…. I actually support Putin’s right to protect his people and always put his people first, but also, protect our Christian values. I identify more with Putin's Christian values than I do with Joe Biden.”

Witzke went on to say, “Christian nationalist countries also are a threat to the global regime — like, the Luciferian regime that wants to mash everything together. But Putin takes care of his people. He looks out for his people.”

Witzke’s comments were slammed by everyone from Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison to Rep. Eric Swalwell of California to Mother Jones’ David Corn, who pointed out that the Delaware GOP “fully supported” her.

Indeed, Delaware Republicans passionately rallied around Witzke when she received the GOP nomination in the state’s 2020 U.S. Senate race. Democrats had their share of disappointments in 2020, losing U.S. Senate races in Maine, Iowa and North Carolina. But Coons, running against Witzke, was reelected by 22%. Nominating someone as extreme as Witzke did not serve Delaware Republicans well.

Witzke gave Coons’ reelection campaign a wealth of material to use against her. She happily accepted the endorsement of White nationalist Nick Fuentes, praised the violent Proud Boys as examples of “patriotic masculinity,”called for a ten-year ban on all immigration to the United States, described Black Lives Matter as “violent terrorists,” proudly said she was a “Christian nationalist,” and called Coons a “Christian-hating baby killer.”

Witzke is vehemently anti-gay and anti-trans, and she has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory — which claims that the United States’ federal government has been taken over by an international cabal of pedophiles, child sex traffickers, Satanists and cannibals and that Donald Trump was elected in 2016 to fight the cabal. QAnon also believes that R&B superstar Beyoncé isn’t really Black, but is only pretending to be Black and is really an Italian woman named Ann Marie Lastrassi who works for billionaire Democrat George Soros.

Delaware Republicans had options other than Witzke in 2020, when she ran against former U.S. Marine James DeMartino in the state’s GOP U.S. Senate primary. But Witzke slammed the conservative DeMartino as a RINO(Republican In Name Only). Although the Delaware GOP endorsed DeMartino during the primary, Delaware Republicans gave Witzke the nomination and got behind her in the general election — which wasn’t enough to save her from losing badly to Coons.

In 2022, Witzke continues to make the Delaware Republican Party look bad every chance she gets — and when she praised Putin during its invasion of Ukraine, Witzke did exactly that.

===

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3 22

Eight days after Russia illegally invaded a sovereign country to overthrow its government, reportedly killing thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians, Vladimir Putin‘s spy chief is now decrying the international sanctions that have crushed the Russian economy.

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service director Sergey Naryshkin, using language that many are staying could have been written by the American far-right, or Fox News, says:

“The masks are off. The West isn’t simply trying to close off Russia behind a new iron curtain. This is about an attempt to ruin our government – to ‘cancel’ it, as they now say in ‘tolerant’ liberal-fascist circles.”

The quote was posted by The Washington Post’s national security reporter Paul Sonne.

It’s important to note that the Soviet Union “built” the “iron curtain” to separate the USSR from the West, so the analogy is historically inaccurate, misleading, and as some suggest, smacks of false victimhood.

Naryshkin was aired around the world last week. Now once again he is being blasted – and widely mocked:

“Cancel culture strikes again,” wrote The Atlantic’s Molly Jong-Fast in response to Naryshkin’s remarks.

“They are really desperate to change the narrative here. If you start a war, you can’t then pretend that YOU are the victim of cancel culture,” a Twitter user replied in agreement.

“This kind of language is exactly the same as the gop messaging from elected officials to tv personalities to online influencers & internet trolls. It’s the same twisting of words and meaning smothered with a thick sauce of contempt. See it?” noted another social media user.

Foreign and defense policy writer, professor of national security and strategy at the U.S. Army War College Steve Metz replied: “No Sergei, the world is trying to cancel your war criminal, nazi like aggression. The world held its nose and tolerated your fascist government before that.”

“We’ve seen claims of “cancel culture victimhood” from bigots, white supremacists, sexual harassers, rapists, public masterbators, and many others, but this one might trump them all (so to speak). Ridiculous,” added another Twitter user.

“Isn’t it interesting that he uses the same language as Fox News?” asked WGN anchor Steve Grzanich.

He was not alone in that observation.

Clemens Wergin, the Chief Correspondent for German news outlet Welt: “Everybody is a Nazi or a Fascist it seems who doesn’t do what Russia’s cleptocratic dictatorship wants.”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/why-far-right-white-evangelicals-are-among-vladimir-putins-strongest-american-supporters-journalist/

---

ingram late to putin party? old cold warrior?

no lnx

https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/one-most-disgraceful-hours-fox-news-history

One of the most disgraceful hours in Fox News history

And that's saying something

WRITTEN BY JOHN WHITEHOUSE

PUBLISHED 02/24/22

trump ingraham invasion 2/23/22

CitationFox News Channel

Late in the night on February 23, nearly an hour after a video of Russian leader Vladimir Putin aired announcing officially that a Russian military “action” would take place, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, addressed an emergency session of the Security Council, confronting the Russian representative repeatedly about Putin’s speech and pushing everyone present to stop the invasion. At one point, Kyslytsya even said they could pause the meeting so the Russian representative could call Moscow and get updated talking points, since the war had started during the meeting.

It was an incredibly dramatic speech in English during prime time hours with an extraordinary confrontation and stakes as high as they get.

CitationFrom the February 23, 2022, meeting of the UN Security Council as streamed by The Washington Post

It was also a moment that Fox News viewers missed. The network skipped over most of the speech to instead let host Laura Ingraham gab with former President Donald Trump – fresh off praising Putin’s moves – about trivial nonsense in the face of what is likely to be a very deadly war.

That wasn’t all.

Ingraham also used the hour to mock Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for what she called a “pathetic” display giving a speech urging peace between Ukraine and Russia. She also linked the Mueller investigation to the invasion. This is in addition to all of Tucker Carlson’s well-documented and ongoing propaganda about Russia and Putin.

Fox is so busy trying to blame President Joe Biden for the war and its consequences that they’re skipping right over telling their audience how said war is happening.

Fox cannot be trusted with the news. In just the recent past, we’ve seen the network embrace COVID/vaccine lies, election lies, and now propaganda in the place of covering war.

Even worse, we’re all paying for this – literally. Fox is overwhelmingly funded by cable subscription fees paid by millions of Americans who never watch Fox. And while cable companies can, for now, foist that cost on the American people, they can at least spare us the bullshit of putting Fox in their news category. That’s perhaps the biggest lie of them all.

---

many fox BS

hegsdeth BS logic pretzel trump troll press

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/steve-bannon-mocks-nato-us-military-promote-russian-propaganda-reel

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https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/how-oan-covered-lead-russias-invasion-ukraine

many lnx vids

ow OAN covered the lead-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine

OAN on the Ukraine crisis: Everything Biden does shows weakness but is also a carefully engineered distraction. And this is all green energy’s fault.

WRITTEN BY BOBBY LEWIS

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BEATRICE MOUNT & EMMA MAE WEBER

PUBLISHED 02/25/22

OAN host Dan Ball expressively shrugging mid-sentence. Chyron reads "Putin orders troops into eastern Ukraine"

This week, the Russian government launched an invasion of Ukraine, eight years after the Russian annexation of Crimea and the beginning of an ongoing pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

On One America News Network, much like the rest of right-wing media, most coverage of the lead-up to the Russian invasion loosely orbited around criticism of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for their supposed weakness, or for allegedly using the crisis to distract from policy failures.

Other, less-common but still notable commentary on OAN mainly coalesced around three narratives: criticizing Ukrainian sovereignty, incorrectly predicting that Russia would not invade, and blaming European dependence on “green energy.”

Complaining that President Biden looks “weak”

Perhaps the largest single topic of OAN’s pre-invasion commentary was a wide array of complaints that Biden and the United States looked “weak,” as opposed to the alleged strength of former President Donald Trump.

OAN’s Dan Ball: “You see poor Joe, obviously in cognitive decline, are you going to take him seriously when you're a former KGB killer like Putin, or are you just going to do whatever the hell you want?” Ball predicted that “it’s going to be open season” on U.S. allies who fear an attack from powerful enemies because “we look weak as hell with this man in the White House.”

CitationFrom the February 22, 2022, edition of OAN's Real America with Dan Ball

OAN’s Stephanie Hamill: “Obviously our enemies see weakness in the White House, and that is Biden.” The host of In Focus complained that another example of this “weakness” was Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which she suggested emboldened Putin to invade. Her guest, Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA), concurred that Putin took advantage of “the weakness in the White House.”

OAN’s Natalie Harp: “Putin has respect for President Trump … . On the other hand, Biden is weak and ineffective. And Putin knows that as well.” The former Trump advisory board member and host of The Real Story suggested that Trump’s “ability to stand behind his word” somehow prevented an earlier invasion, while also complaining that Vice President Kamala Harris’ “desperate attempts to be relevant … continue to undermine American authority.”

Harp: “Afghanistan started all of this. Because once all of these leaders saw the way that Biden totally botched that … it just opened the door to all of this.” Harp complained that Russian aggression in Ukraine “all goes back to Afghanistan. We’ve shown weakness, and everybody is alerted to it now and they’re taking advantage of that.” Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) concurred that the Afghanistan withdrawal “shows weak leadership and emboldens our enemies.”

Hamill complained that a photo of the National Security Council wearing masks was so “unserious” as to undermine confidence in the U.S. response. Hamill claimed that “they issued that official tweet to show strength, but … it did the opposite.” As Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) further explained, the NSC’s “face diapers” showed that “they’re trying to project fear at the same time they’re trying to project strength.”

Complaining that Biden is “distracting from policy failures”

Nearly as common as the weakness attacks were claims that Biden used the crisis in Ukraine to distract Americans from any number of “policy failures,” notably including the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

OAN’s Dan Ball: “It’s a pageant, folks. That’s what we’re witnessing.” Ball elaborated that “this is political theater at its best, or actually, its worst,” comparing Biden’s Ukraine response to the 1997 film Wag the Dog, about a president who decides to “fake a war” to distract the media from his scandals. Ball predicted that “Joe’s plan to divert attention away from his total failure as liar in chief isn’t going to fly with the American public.”

CitationFrom the February 2, 2022, edition of OAN's Real America with Dan Ball

A regular OAN guest called Biden’s responses “propaganda” because “his ratings are in the toilet. … Of course there’s got to be some kind of scapegoat.” Shea Bradley-Farrell, a regular panelist on host Christina Bobb’s Weekly Briefing, appeared to be claiming that Biden made Putin into a “scapegoat” for inflation and high gas prices.

OAN guest: “The Biden administration wants to distract from their domestic policy failures.” Jake Bequette, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, claimed that Putin “sees Biden as a weak and feckless commander-in-chief — that’s obviously one of the main consequences of last year’s Afghanistan debacle,” before going on to complain about NATO allies’ contributions to military defense.

OAN guest: Biden is “trying to pin all the country’s disasters that are going on right now on this impending, self-created Ukraine crisis. I mean, this is basically their distraction.” Gavin Wax, president of the New York Young Republican Club, told Tipping Point that Western leaders were “looking for anything, anything, to get the public’s attention off of them and on to something else, and if it means a war, it means a war. This is how they think in D.C.”

Criticizing Ukrainian sovereignty

A handful of OAN’s pre-invasion commentary undermined Ukrainian sovereignty, either by promoting Putin’s supposed “legitimate claim in the region” against NATO, or by simply denying that Ukraine is anything more than a place for western elites to launder money -- in the latter case, suggesting that nobody should care.

OAN host Dan Ball: Putin has “a legitimate claim to that region.” Citing discussions with Russian Americans, Ball qualified his statement by saying that he’s “not trying to make [Putin] seem like the good guy here, but he does have a legitimate claim to that region” with regard to self-defense against NATO “encroaching” on Russian territory.

OAN guest: “Ukraine is not a real country, by the way,” just “a giant money-pot laundering scheme for the elites.” The Federalist’s Josiah Lippincott complained that “ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, the Ukraine turned into a giant money-pot laundering scheme for the elites … a source of all kinds of problems” and “bizarre, international, just bizarre stuff,” therefore “we need to stay out.”

Incorrectly predicting there would be no Russian invasion of Ukraine

Some OAN guests made the prediction that Russia was not interested in invading Ukraine, but only in taking advantage of the regional instability. These predictions proved false.

Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told OAN that “Putin has no interest in invading Ukraine.” Papadopoulos claimed that Putin would be “fine” with NATO influence in western Ukraine, and Russian influence in the east. “This is going to prevent a war,” Papadopoulos said. OAN reporter Chanel Rion did note that “while Putin may not be interested, that doesn’t nix the possibility that Russia may still invade.”

CitationFrom February 19, 2022, coverage on One America News Network

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told OAN, “This is just Putin trying to flex his strength and muscle.” After host Stephanie Hamill asked “who do we believe” about conflicting reports of Russian military buildups or withdrawals, and Nehls told her that Putin is “doing a lot of saber rattling here ... exploiting President Biden and his weakness.” Nehls did not appear to believe an invasion was likely, though he said “we certainly hope that Russia does not go into the Ukraine.”

Blaming “green energy” for emboldening Russian aggression

Some OAN commentary focused on German dependence on Russia for natural gas, which network employees and guests call “green energy.” Although the German government officially considers natural gas plants with emissions below a certain threshold “green,” natural gas is a fossil fuel that has become a driving force of climate change.

OAN guest: “If Germany didn’t go completely head over heels over green energy, things would be a lot different.” Sumantra Maitra, an occasional contributor for The Federalist, told OAN’s Tipping Point that “Germany is one of the primary countries which is responsible” for the Ukraine crisis, for deciding to “destroy their own nuclear energy sector” and fall in love with “green energy” -- a reference to Russian-supplied natural gas.

CitationFrom the February 22, 2022, edition of OAN's Tipping Point

OAN’s Chanel Rion: “This green energy plan has ironically rendered Germany more reliant on foreign oil.” Reporting on U.S. attempts to leverage the since-canceled Nord Stream 2 pipeline against Russia, Rion reported that Germany’s shutting down of nuclear and coal power plants left the country in need of Russian oil -- “a need President Trump warned NATO against three years ago.” Rion concluded that German refusal to threaten the pipeline “did not bolster de-escalation hopes.”

OAN guest Fred Fleitz: “After this terrible year of the disastrous withdraw from Afghanistan, Biden's ridiculous foreign policy that’s focused on climate change … all of our enemies are watching this.”

---

putin pivot to xi china as ukraine sanctions hit

2 22

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/hillary-clinton-gop-gaslighting-ukraine-2656792503/

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/tulsi-gabbard-continues-her-move-to-the-far-right-with-cpac-2022-appearance/

putin invade praise

---

~ biden

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/lindsay-graham/

---

an 2 22

Fox News' Tucker Carlson is still defending his support of Russian President Vladamir Putin while dismissing the importance of Ukraine. However, key Republican voters appear to have a different opinion on the critical topic.

On Monday, February 21, the conservative political commentator fired back at Democratic critics during his segment of "Tucker Carlson Tonight." In response to the disapproval of his desire to speak with Putin, he said:

“We won’t be quiet, and not just because this is a news organization,” Carlson said on Monday evening. “Because we’re Americans, and we can talk to anyone we want. We can have any opinion we feel like having. That is not treason, it is not un-American. It’s the whole point of America."

Despite Carlson's claims, Politico is shedding light on a key group of Republican voters who strongly disagree with Carlson. Per Politico, Andrew Futey, who serves as the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America president and an active voice in Republican politics, explained the perspective of Ohio Ukrainians.

"Ohio’s Ukrainians are well-organized and politically active — a Midwestern constituency with a strong working-class element that actually votes in part on foreign policy, and punches above well above its size in their state’s politics, according to many Ukrainian Americans I recently spoke to in Ohio. There aren’t specific polls on Ukrainian voting patterns in the state, but traditionally these voters made up a “Reagan Republican-like community,” says Andrew Futey, president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a nonpartisan national nonprofit that advocates for Ukrainian-American interests."

Futey also noted that “isolationism absolutely, absolutely is not something the community grasps or will ever support."

Andy Fedynsky — the director of the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland Ohio — also argues otherwise. Speaking to Politico, he refuted Carlson's arguments explaining why Ukraine is far more important than the conservative commentator realizes.

“Most of the history of Ukraine is never a history of taking someone else’s land, but rather defending its own,” said Bohdan Danylo, the bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, St. Josaphat Cathedral.

“If we, as a birthplace of democracy — and this democracy that is still standing, United States of America … if we think that today those principles are not defended by peace-loving and freedom-loving Ukrainians, we are mistaken,” Danylo also said.

Lubomir Zhybak, a Ukrainian pastor in Youngstown, Ohio had also sounded off about Carlson's rhetoric. In a letter he reportedly sent via Fox News' "Viewer Feedback" platform, he wrote, "The reason why I am writing to you is to express my disdain at your seemingly biased anti-Ukrainian statements that you recently made on your shows regarding the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia. I think your comments not only offend us, Ukrainians, but also the millions of Ukrainian people who have been murdered by the Soviets and Russians throughout the course of history."

As a critical battleground state for the Republican Party, candidates have to consider how the Ukrainian controversy could impact the midterm elections for the party. Although Carlson is a dominant voice among conservatives, he could be doing more harm than good with his relentless dismissal of Ukraine.

---

eve of probable ukraine invasion

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/trump-putin/

"tough, smart"

---

wingnuttery

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/fox-news-wild-wednesday/

an 2 22

no lnx vid

Fox News descended into utter insanity on Wednesday

Maria Bartiromo ignorantly asks Kevin McCarthy to 'look at the 25th Amendment' to remove Biden

Brandon Gage February 16, 2022

Today has been a wild one over in Fox News propaganda land, even by their standards. This morning, anchor Jesse Watters urged the United States to annex Canada to save it from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom Watters suggested is a communist. And he was serious.

“We have to finish the wall and build a fresh one in the north if this keeps up. Or we could just liberate the Canadians from their dictatorship,” said Watters. “It’s not like America hasn’t done that before. There’s room for a few more stars on the flag.”

Good luck with that.

The full eight-minute segment is below:

Watters: Trudeau getting his chance to play dictator

youtu.be

Meanwhile, on Mornings with Maria on Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo accused President Joe Biden of manufacturing the crisis between Russia and Ukraine as a “ruse” to yank attention away from – who else? – Hillary Clinton.

Bartiromo expressed skepticism predicated on what “some Congressmen were telling me over the weekend” that Russian President Vladimir Putin would want to invade Ukraine, given the vast amount of control he has over Europe’s energy resources.

Those conversations, Bartiromo explained, were “why I questioned whether or not the whole thing was a ruse, with Jake Sullivan coming out so hysterical over the weekend telling us to get out of Ukraine, and Russia’s gonna invade today. Obviously, in retrospect, he was trying to change the conversation from Hillary Clinton and her bad behavior and her dirty tricks against Donald Trump.”

Right-wingers have baselessly convinced themselves that Clinton spied on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and presidency, citing a report from former Special Counsel John Durham in which he made no such allegation and explicitly stated that there was no evidence of that happening.

Bartiromo’s guest, Gristedes and D’Agostino Foods Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Catsimatidis, insisted that “Putin was never going to invade Ukraine” and that Putin “withdrew the troops” out of fear that Biden “would do something stupider.”

Putin has not withdrawn any of his forces, and Ukraine remains surrounded by 150,000 Russian troops.

Catsimatidis also believes that Biden has overblown the situation with Russia to get “inflation prices” and “Mexico” off the “front page of The New York Times.”

Bartiromo agreed.

“Yeah, it takes off the front page inflation and it takes off the front page Hillary Clinton and Jake Sullivan pushing the Russia collusion hoax for so many years,” she said.

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined in his 2019 report that it was not a hoax.

Watch below:

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apple and ggle pull navalny vote aggregator caved

---

kid killer teen suicide?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/facebook-teen/

salon

It's been a rough week for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Ire against the 37-year-old Harvard dropout and his social media platform has been one of the rare points of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill this week as revelation after revelation about Facebook's pitfalls continues to trickle out, many from a series of internal documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

Lawmakers are now calling for Zuckerberg to testify in front of Congress, in particular about a number of internal reports cited by the Journal that determined Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, had a marked negative impact on young women.

Researchers for the company reportedly found in March of 2020 that "32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse." In another study, Facebook found that more than 40% of teenage Instagram users in the U.S. and U.K. reported feeling "unattractive", and said the feeling began on the app.

This information was allegedly shared with Zuckerberg personally last year during a presentation — though he didn't mention any of those findings at a Congressional hearing just a few months ago on the impacts of social media on children, saying simply, "Social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits."

When asked point-blank whether Facebook researches the effects of social media he added, "I believe the answer is yes."

A group of Democrats, including Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Reps. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., and Lori Trahan, D-Mass., wrote a letter to Zuckerberg asking him to scrap plans to roll out a version of Instagram specifically for children.

Another bipartisan group of Senators, announced a probe of told CNBC Tuesday they are "in touch with a Facebook whistleblower and will use every resource at our disposal to investigate what Facebook knew and when they knew it — including seeking further documents and pursuing witness testimony."

The head of public policy at Instagram, Karina Newton, responded to the allegations in a blog post highlighting research by Pew Internet on teens in the US that stated "81% of teens said that social media makes them feel more connected to their friends, while 26% reported social media makes them feel worse about their lives." Newton also said the company is researching ways to shift users away from repeatedly looking at certain topics that might "contribute to negative social comparison."

Among the other pitfalls the Journal uncovered at Facebook include reports that cartel activity on both Facebook and Instagram has gone unchecked, and that worldwide, the response to posts that are against the terms of use is "inadequate" at best and at worst, is non-existent. Other reports found that while Zuckerberg himself wanted to use Facebook to get America vaccinated, the platform was a breeding ground for anti-vaxxers, who "swarmed" the WHO and UNICEF pages with comments against the vaccine. The MIT Technology Review also obtained an internal report that foreign troll farms were able to reach more than 140 million Americans a month with misinformation leading up to last year's election, a development that surely had an effect on the millions of Americans who still believe, without any real evidence, that President Joe Biden's victory was somehow illegitimate.

The news also highlights how the ownership structure of Facebook essentially allows Zuckerberg to rule by decree — despite the protests of others both within and outside the publicly traded company. Zuckerberg holds 57.9% of the voting power at the company and is both chairman of the board and CEO, meaning there's not much anyone else can do to promote greater transparency or big-picture changes that they believe may be better for society.

"At Facebook, the annual general meeting is largely just theater," Robert Bartlett, a law professor at UC Berkeley who teaches securities regulation and corporate finance, told Marketwatch this week.

But even without voting power, shareholders of the company are still pushing the company to make changes that would benefit society as a whole — part of a trend that has seen "activist investors" take greater control over behemoth companies that have long operated with one goal and one goal only: profit.

The most high profile example came earlier this year when an "activist" hedge fund managed to win three seats on the board of ExxonMobil — the result of continued backlash against the company for the role it plays in climate change.

It remains unclear whether Mark Zuckerberg will make any changes at Facebook as a result of this week's news.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/putin--trump-kremlin-documents/

Joe Biden may be president, but in too many ways the Age of Trump marches on. American political and civic life continues to resemble a spy thriller, a horror movie or a science fiction dystopia that keeps spawning sequels. Most Americans want to escape the theater, but the doors are locked. Those who remain in their seats love these movies and can't get enough of their charismatic star.

The ending of this saga has been obvious since the beginning: Donald Trump is a malevolent force, with no loyalty to the United States and its people; yet his followers worship him as a god and nothing can tear them away from the cult.

Almost every day there are new plot twists. As reported last week, the highest-ranking officers and civilian leaders of the U.S. military were concerned that Trump might try to stage a military coup after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, considered a plan to resist such a move through mass resignations, a last-ditch effort to save democracy.

As detailed in Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker's new book "I Alone Can Fix It," Trump became so enraged after losing to Joe Biden that some feared he would stage a "Reichstag fire" incident, in the mode of Adolf Hitler, that might allow him to seize absolute power. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even asked Milley to ensure that Trump would not launch a nuclear attack and use the ensuing crisis as an excuse to suspend the Constitution and remain in power.

More "revelations" have followed: Last Thursday the Guardian reported that it had obtained classified documents from a 2016 meeting where the Russian government launched its secret campaign in support of Trump:

Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a "mentally unstable" Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia's national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.

The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.

They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow's strategic objectives, among them "social turmoil" in the US and a weakening of the American president's negotiating position.

Russia's three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin's signature.

Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.

The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking.

At this purported Kremlin meeting, Putin and the Russian intelligence services concluded that Trump could be easily manipulated to serve Russia's strategic goals because he is an "impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex." This document concludes, "It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate [Trump's] election to the post of US president."

The Guardian further concludes that the Kremlin's internal report was likely the work of Vladimir Symonenko, a senior Kremlin official who "provides Putin with analytical material and reports, some of them based on foreign intelligence." He discussed various "American weaknesses" Russian agents could exploit, including "a 'deepening political gulf between left and right," the U.S. 'media-information' space, and an anti-establishment mood under President Barack Obama."

The Guardian report has been met with considerable skepticism, some of it from the usual suspects who continue to claim — despite an abundance of known and proven facts — that the scandal sometimes dubbed "Russiagate" was all a hoax, or at least grossly exaggerated. But it's also fair to say that some respected national security experts are suspicious about the timing of the Guardian story, and the authenticity and provenance of the documents in question.

But other national security and intelligence experts believe the Guardian story is true and the Kremlin documents are authentic. Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer and author of several bestselling books who serves as an intelligence and security analyst for CNN, believes the Kremlin document is legitimate and was likely leaked to the Guardian by British intelligence.

In a recent conversation with journalist Ian Masters, Baer said that Donald Trump may indeed have served as a "useful idiot" on behalf of Russian interests, sent into the heart of American democracy as a "Trojan horse to cause problems." He suggests that Russian intelligence used the technique of "framing a guilty man" to muddy the waters around Trump and make him a more effective chaos agent.

Writing at Esquire, Charles Pierce explains how he reconciles concerns about the veracity of the Kremlin papers:

Are experts within the Western intelligence agencies divided about the authenticity of the documents, and did someone who believes them to be the smoking gun leak them in order to force the action? I'd certainly want to know more about their provenance than I do now.

Frankly, my impulse is to believe what The Guardian reported. The revelations certainly seem believable given some of the otherwise inexplicable actions of the previous president* and his administration*, and they also conform to the methods of ratfcking Russia has used in other democracies in Europe. (What up, Estonia?) And they also track with what we've learned recently about the former president*'s rabid-badger attempts to stay in power after he'd clearly lost the election — and, for that matter, his continued attempts to undermine confidence in this country's electoral system.

But my innate caution against leaping to conclusions based on leaks from intelligence services of any kind makes me cautious about this being a conclusive Eureka moment. Too many shadowy people have too many shadowy agendas for me to accept anything emerging from those shadows too readily. But there is one conclusion I will stand by, based on the Guardian story and its conformity to what a lot of us suspected was true about the previous president*: We simply have got to get rid of the Electoral College. Now.

Whatever one concludes about the authenticity of these Kremlin papers, one conclusion is obvious: Their observations about Donald Trump, and about the vulnerability of American society to disinformation and subversion, are correct.

Both Robert Mueller's report and the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the 2016 election (the latter completed under Republican leadership) have conclusively shown that Russia interfered to help Donald Trump win as a way of advancing its strategic goals. Moreover, it is a matter of public record that Trump's inner circle included at least one Russian agent.

At almost every key juncture in his presidency, Trump made decisions that advanced Russia's interests to the disadvantage of the United States. In both public and private, he was strikingly submissive and deferential to Putin. Whether that reflects blackmail and control, or simply hero worship and admiration, is an unsettled question.

Even members of Trump's administration and Republican elected officials questioned his loyalty to the country, especially after the astonishing Helsinki summit of 2018.

In the end, Russia's strategy would prove to be brilliant: Trump left the White House with the U.S. a weakened world power, gripped by a plague that has killed at least 600,000 people, along with a neofascist insurgency that shows no signs of dying out. Right-wing terrorism and other violence is escalating, and the nation has become irreparably polarized by the increasing radicalism of Republicans and the right.

In recent weeks I have reflected a great deal on my 2019 conversation with the late Dr. Jerrold Post, the founding director of the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior. In Post's long and distinguished career, he served as the CIA's head psychological profiler under five presidents of both political parties. He described Donald Trump this way:

If one were to subtract from the ranks of political leaders all those with significant narcissistic personality features, the ranks would be perilously impoverished. I see Donald Trump as representing the quintessential narcissist. Using that phrase, though, is not to make a diagnosis, but to say he has a preponderance of these traits. Someone such as Donald Trump with that trait has no capacity to empathize with others, no constraints of conscience. Donald Trump also demonstrates a paranoid orientation. Whenever anything goes wrong, there is someone to blame.

There is also unconstrained aggression. This is very important. Never apologize, never admit you're wrong. That is part of Donald Trump's political style. But negotiating foreign policy is different from negotiating how to buy a skyscraper. Donald Trump also shows through his behavior a deep underlying insecurity. His grandiosity aside, Donald Trump is extremely fragile, and that trait is associated with extreme sensitivity.

Post also warned, nearly two years before it happened, that Donald Trump was unlikely to leave office peacefully:

In the last chapter of my new book I quote one of my favorite poems, which is, "Do not go gentle into that good night, but rage, rage at the dying of the light." I do not believe that Donald Trump will go gentle into that good night. In a close election, there is a very real hazard in terms of both potential outcomes. Should Trump win, as he did in 2016, he will make it a much bigger win and talking about the fraudulent election support on the Democratic side. But should Trump lose narrowly, I think we can be assured that he will not concede early. Trump may not even recognize the legitimacy of the election.

How will the American people deal with these continuous "revelations" about Trump and his regime? To this point, the response seems to be impotent rage. Because Trump and his inner circle are almost entirely rich white men, they will face no serious punishment for their crimes and other wrongdoing. Many Americans feel justifiable rage about a system which has one set of rules and laws for the rich and powerful (who are white) and another set for everyone else.

America is not just experiencing a democracy crisis caused by the Trump movement and the Jim Crow Republicans. The problem goes much deeper: America's political and social institutions are experiencing a legitimacy crisis, in which Trumpism is one symptom of a much larger disease.

The American people must decide whether their rage can be turned to productive or regenerative possibilities, or whether they continue to live in a state of learned helplessness, shrugging their shoulders as even more of the Trump regime's crimes are revealed. On that decision rests the future of democracy.

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fbi 250K$ reward for KK?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/trump-russia-campaign/

max Boot, a Russian-American author and historian and a fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations, says the U.S. Intel Community's just-released report on Russia's attack on the 2020 presidential election is "evidence of cooperation" – at least – between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

The report details that Russian President Vladimir Putin once again interfered in the election, again to help President Donald Trump, and to hurt now-President Joe Biden.

"I would say this is certainly evidence," Boot says, "it may be evidence of collusion, but it's definitely evidence of cooperation and congruence between the Russians and the Trump campaign."

Boot praised the Biden administration for authorizing the release of the report, which he says Americans would not have seen under the Trump administration, while singling out Acting Trump DNI and DNI Rick Grinnell and John Ratcliffe, who "consistently tried to minimize and downplay Russian election interference."

Importantly, Boot notes the report shows "just how closely the Russian messaging during the election echoed the messaging of the Trump campaign of Fox News and this kind of whole right wing media industrial complex."

"It's fascinating to see the extent to which the Russians were pushing the same messages about alleged Biden corruption, about his supposedly corrupt son, about you can't trust mail-in ballots, that the Democratic Party is trying to interfere with the election. These were the things that Trump was saying, but these were also the things that the Russians were saying, and in fact, the report highlights the close ties between Russian agents of influence like Andrii Derkach from Ukraine. Ukraine and Rudy Giuliani the president's lawyer, Konstantin Kilimnik is another one, who is a former business partner of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, so these ties are a copious and disturbing and to use a word we haven't heard in a few years, I would say this is certainly evidence. If not, it may be evidence of collusion, but it's definitely evidence of cooperation and and congruence between the Russians and the Trump campaign."

Watch...

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trump keeps extending invites, G7 etc? Putin envy

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221

jails navalny for not showing for parole while in coma?!, big protests

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chat like old pals

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/trumps-hidden-calls-and-private-conversations-with-putin-are-now-in-bidens-hands-report-says/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/former-cia-official-reveals-why-intel-officers-are-terrified-to-brief-trump-on-russia/

U.S. intelligence officers responsible for briefing President Donald Trump on the country's potential threats are reportedly "terrified" to brief him on anything Russian-related due to concerns about his possibly explosive reaction.

During an interview with GQ magazine, former CIA official Marc Polymeropoulos weighed in on Trump's perplexing affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to like him. At this point, Polymeropoulos insists no one is willing to brief the president on anything involving Russia.

"No one's going to brief anything on Russia to the president," Polymeropoulos told GQ correspondent Julia Ioffe. "They're terrified of doing that. I know that from the briefers. Because he'll explode and the whole thing will get derailed, because he has this weird affinity for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin."

When Polymeropoulos was asked why the subject of Putin and Russia are such delicate issues in the White House, insisted Trump "wants Putin to like him."

According to Polymeropoulos, the issue is sensitive for Trump because: "He doesn't want to be embarrassed in front of Putin, that's part of the dilemma. Polymeropoulos went on to recall how Trump interacted with the Queen as he noted that the president insists on being connected to people who have "glamour and cachet."

"Just look at how he behaves with the Queen. That's how he behaves with everyone who has any glamour and cachet," Polymeropoulos continued, adding, "Putin has everything he doesn't have."

The latest news comes as intelligence reports warn of the possibility of Russian election interference as election day fast approaches. In 2016, the former Soviet republic was accused of running disinformation campaigns in an effort to sway the election in Trump's favor. Now, reports suggest Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani may be Russia's new target to help circulate disinformation campaigns on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in a manner similar to the attacks on former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has repeatedly refused to address situations involving Putin.

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1020 tom d

In an all-too-literal fashion, The Donald is indeed proving to be history's "fire and fury" president.

And don't for a moment think that there was no warning about the over-the-top burning now underway in this country. After all, in 2019, parts of Australia were singed to a crisp in a way never before seen, killing at least 25 humans and possibly more than a billion animals. And that country, too, was headed by a climate-change denier, a man who once brought a piece of coal to parliament and handed it around while soothingly telling other legislators, "Don't be afraid, don't be scared." In addition, in recent years, the Arctic (of all places) has been smoking and burning in an unprecedented fashion, heating its permafrost and releasing staggering amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Oh, and this June, the temperature in a small town in Siberia crossed the 100-degree mark for the first time.

By the way, Russia, too, is run by a leader who until recently was a climate denier. I mean, what is it about the urge of so many of us in such a crisis to support those dedicated to quite literally destroying this planet as a livable place for... well, us? (Hey there, Jair Bolsonaro!)

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1020

trump ‘is aiding and abetting Putin’s efforts’: HR McMaster

Sky Palma Raw Story

During an appearance on MSNBC this Thursday, former National Security advisor to President Trump, H.R. McMaster, was asked if President Trump is posing a greater threat to the 2020 election than Vladimir Putin.

McMaster said that he agrees Trump is "aiding an abetting

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also fresh air

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-putin-soul-crushing-summit-showed-muellers-team-russia-benefited-from-the-2016-election-report

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents for special counsel Robert Mueller's Department of Justice (DOJ) office were left reeling after President Donald Trump publicly sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the Helsinki summit in 2018, according to memoir written by former Mueller prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann.

The memoir titled, "Where Law Ends[tyranny begins, enscribed on doj/ bldg]: Inside the Mueller Investigation" details the timeline of events that transpired just days after Mueller's office 12 Russian military intelligence officers were indicted for their alleged role in the alleged "hack and dump" leak operative carried out against Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Despite the charges and evidence presented to support the indictments, Trump defended Putin as he insisted the president simply said that his country was not responsible.

"I have President Putin," Trump said at the time. "He just said it's not Russia I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."

"By this time, Trump not only had the conclusions of the original intelligence assessment, but the incontrovertible proof" from Mueller's team "to expand on and corroborate it," Weissmann wrote. "Still, Trump said, Putin 'was extremely strong and powerful in his denial,' and that was apparently enough for him."

According to the memoir, prosecutors in Mueller's office saw Trump's remarks as "surreal" and "soul crushing." Many found Trump's remarks to be relatively alarming.

"It was like they'd built up a mountain of incriminating evidence only to watch the prosecutor suddenly decide to call off the case and go home, just because the defendant said he wasn't guilty," Weissman added.

Weissmann continued, "The scene in Helsinki should have been stunning to the average American viewer, but for those within our office who'd poured energy into pinning down these facts, it was profoundly alarming. Here was our own president kowtowing to Putin, denying the election interference he had perpetrated on our nation and siding with a bloody dictator over a bipartisan consensus in the Senate and the nonpartisan conclusions of the IC that Putin had attacked our democracy."

Weissman's memoir, "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation" was released on Tuesday, September 29.

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https://www.rferl.org/a/putinfellas-russia-putin-mafia/27713771.html

5/16

as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin spent a lot of time with gangsters.

He collaborated with the infamous Tambov and Malyshev organized crime groups to gain control of St. Petersburg's gambling industry.

He used his office to help launder mafia money and to arrange foreign travel for known mobsters.

And security for the Ozero dacha cooperative he co-founded with some of his former KGB pals was provided by a company run by the Tambov gang, whom Putin also helped secure a monopoly over the city's fuel distribution network.

Putin was, in fact, an important liaison between the local government and the criminal underworld, Karen Dawisha writes in her highly acclaimed book Putin's Kleptocracy.

And when he moved into the Kremlin, Putin put his old mafia contacts to use as key tools of Russian statecraft.

"A significant part of Russian organised crime is organised directly from the offices of the Kremlin," the International Business Times quoted Ben Emmerson, a prominent British attorney who represents the family of slain Russian defector Aleksandr Litvinenko, as saying.

Likewise, Russian organized crime expert Mark Galeotti noted in a recent lecture at the Hudson Institute that Putin's Russia is "not so much a mafia state as a state with a nationalized mafia."

Putin's Kremlin has used organized crime to carry out the tasks it wants to keep its fingerprints off, be it arms smuggling, assassinations, raising funds for black ops, or stirring up trouble in the former Soviet space.

Moscow relied heavily on local organized crime structures in its support for separatist movements in Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, and the Donbas.

In the conflict in eastern Ukraine, organized crime groups served as agents for the Kremlin, fomenting pro-Russia unrest and funneling arms to rebel groups.

Putin's weaponization of the mafia stems from his political education in the gangsters' paradise that was St. Petersburg.

"In genealogical terms, Putin is the product of the KGB. But in sociological terms, he is the product of the new class that emerged in the Darwinian conditions of the 1990s: business-minded, ambitious, nationalistic, and coldly utilitarian about norms and rules," veteran Russia-watcher James Sherr of Chatham House wrote in a recent report.

But now, thanks to Spanish Judge Jose de la Mata, the mask is coming off Putin's mafia statecraft in a big way.

Judge de la Mata has issued international arrest warrants for a dozen reputed Russian gangsters from the Tambov and Malyshev gangs, including current and former Russian government officials.

On the wanted list are Interior Ministry official Nikolai Aulov, Vladislav Reznik, a member of the ruling United Russia party who is deputy head of the State Duma's Finance Committee, and former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sobolevsky.

Other officials linked to the gangs, but not subject to warrants, include two longtime Putin confidants: former Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and current Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak.

Also named are former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and former Information Technology Minister Leonid Reiman.

The charges -- which include complicity in assassinations, weapons trafficking, extortion, fraud, forgery, bribery, drug smuggling, and money laundering -- are based on a decade-long investigation and stem from a 488-page complaint filed by Spanish prosecutors Juan Carrau and Jose Grinda in May 2015.

In 2010, Grinda briefed U.S. officials in Madrid about the investigation, informing them that the Kremlin used "organised crime groups to do whatever the government of Russia cannot acceptably do as a government."

According to a classified cable from the U.S. embassy that was published by Wikileaks, the prosecutor told the American officials that Putin's Russia was a "virtual mafia" state where it was impossible to distinguish between the government's activities and those of organized crime groups.

In terms of countering the threat Putin's Russia poses to the West, the Spanish investigation is no less important than NATO's moves to rotate four brigades through the alliance's frontline states in Eastern Europe.

The alliance's decision to beef up defenses on its eastern flank should create a credible deterrent to the kinetic threat from Moscow.

But dealing with the more insidious non-kinetic threat, the one stemming from Moscow's weaponization of organized crime, is a job for law-enforcement.

NOTE: This post has been updated to reflect correct and clarify information regarding the arrest warrants.

https://warontherocks.com/2018/11/a-tangled-web-organized-crime-and-oligarchy-in-putins-russia/

mark Galeotti, The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia. (Yale University Press, 2018).

The vory, the professional elite of Russian organized crime, have roots that go far back into the days of the tsars. While many historians trace the origins of organized crime to the emergence of the mafia in Sicily in the mid-19th century, a new book by Mark Galeotti suggests that professional criminals were an important component of Russian society as much as a century before that. Like the Sicilian mafia, they developed customs and rituals, codes of conduct, and even their own language and song.

The Russian criminal world, and the vory who presided over it, endured despite concerted efforts by the authoritarian tsarist state to wipe out the bandits. With these failures, professional criminals became entrenched in Russian life and society. As Galeotti points out, Joseph Stalin worked closely with professional criminals, both as a bank robber and a pirate, in the Caucasus region in the early 20th century — the final years of the Russian Empire. But Stalin was careful to cover up this past by physically eliminating his previous criminal associates. Notwithstanding the execution of Stalin’s fellow bandits, Russia’s professional criminals largely survived the Soviet revolution. Subsequently, however, many were rounded up and placed in labor camps, where many of them preyed on the political prisoners with whom they were often confined. Galeotti draws on the memoirs of survivors of long-term incarcerations, such as Varlam Shalamov, a great raconteur of the labor camp environment, who wrote after his release, “the criminals were not human.”

During the Soviet era, true vory refused to cooperate with the state, ensuring that their children did not attend school or serve in the military. But as Galeotti explains, the political calculus of the criminal world changed in the final days of the Soviet Union, setting organized criminals on a trajectory that would lead them to assume political influence and wealth at the end of the Soviet period and in the tumultuous transitional period that followed. The Vory provides a fine framework to understand the strong links between crime and politics that characterized the end of the Soviet era.

The book’s excellent historical analysis shines a light on Russian organized crime at the organizational and tactical level. It doesn’t tackle more contemporary strands of organized crime, such as the real-estate dealings linked to President Donald Trump or the links between Russian organized crime and the heights of Russian oligarchical power. However, the book effectively analyzes the vory in the protection business and the emerging economy of the early post-Soviet era, when state property was privatized. In this way, Galeotti lays the basis for understanding the shifting relationship between crime and politics in contemporary Russia, where wealth and power are highly concentrated around President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle.

The links between Russian state power and organized crime persist today, impacting global economics and politics. Galeotti does not trace these relationships to the highest levels of American power. Two recent books by Seth Hettena and Craig Unger, on the other hand, explore in detail Trump’s ties with Russian professional criminals who have laundered their money into his properties and even conducted a high-level gambling operation out of Trump Tower. Between the two, Hettena more clearly documents these relationships and explores their important implications for democracy. Still, both books provide a useful supplement to Galeotti’s work, in many ways picking up where he leaves off to examine the more contemporary and transnational reverberations of modern Russian organized crime.

In his chapter “New Times, New Vory,” Galeotti takes us through the dramatic transformation of Russian organized crime after the collapse of the Soviet Union.After the regime’s demise, many new states emerged, but the crime links of the Soviet period continued. Organized criminals were key actors in the waning years of Soviet power, and they emerged with great visibility and potency after the old government had fallen. Soviet authorities had stamped out private enterprise, but the entrepreneurial character of many vory, combined with their willingness to use extraordinary violence, positioned them to assume a vital economic role in the early post-Soviet period — what Galeotti calls a “gangsterisation of business.” The criminal world benefited greatly from the privatization of state property, and organized criminals became arbiters of disputes in the absence of a functioning state.

The Vory accurately explains that post-Soviet organized crime was not based on the more common forms of transnational crime, but rather was much more a product of the privatization of former state property. Furthermore, these criminals were key sellers of security and protection services. But the purchase of these services was far from voluntary, as those who refused to pay for this “protection” found themselves driven out of business or exposed to brute and sometimes terrifying force.

However, as the Russian state began to reassert its authority under Putin, members of organized crime became less important than the oligarchs whom they had helped ascend to wealth and power. Today, Putin controls the oligarchs, and together they control and exploit the criminal world to their mutual advantage.....

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/this-passage-from-a-russian-dissident-reads-as-an-haunting-warning-for-the-united-states-in-2020/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-alexei-navalny-revolutionized-opposition-politics-in-russia-before-his-apparent-poisoning

no lnx vid

the harrowing videos of Alexei Navalny, a blogger who has captured popular frustration in Russia, screaming in agony on Aug. 20, 2020 before being removed unconscious from a plane to a waiting ambulance, demonstrate the Kremlin’s increasing reliance on coercion to control dissent.

This attack is not the first Navalny has endured. In 2017, he was doused with a green antibiotic that compromised his vision. In 2019, while in jail for organizing protests, he suspected he had been poisoned. Navalny has also been wrongly convicted on charges of financial wrong-doing three times. Although he was released to prevent him from becoming a national martyr, his brother and co-defendant, Oleg, served three-and-a-half years in jail.

Throughout this period, the Kremlin worked to discredit Navalny without making him a martyr.

My book “Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability: Russia 2008-2020,” reveals the nature of Navalny’s threat to the Kremlin – one strong enough to make the claims that he has been poisoned credible.

Focus on corruption

When he came onto the national stage 2010, Navalny brought a new type of opposition to Russian politics. He is in tune with popular concerns and able to find common ground across nationalist and liberal activists. He calls for removing President Vladimir Putin through elections, while articulating a new vision for Russia.

Navalny’s importance is not about popularity. The Kremlin’s arrests and disinformation campaigns have raised enough suspicions among voters that polling shows he would not win a national election, even in the unlikely event of a fair fight.

Instead, Navalny’s challenge to Putin’s regime rests on his innovative ideas and organizing strategies that have made him a force in Russian politics.

He began as a lawyer, challenging the large Russian energy companies by buying stock and thus gaining the right to attend shareholders’ meetings. He used his access to defy corporate leadership and release documents to demonstrate malfeasance.

He established The Anti-Corruption Foundation – now labeled a “Foreign Agent” by the Kremlin – which collected citizens’ reports of corrupt practices. His RosYama project, literally “Russian Hole,” allows citizens to go online to report potholes – a widespread, chronic problem in Russia – and track the government response.

Navalny amplified his anti-corruption fight in 2011, when he labeled Putin’s political party, United Russia, the “Party of Crooks and Thieves”. When these efforts contributed to mass protest against electoral fraud, Navalny was at the fore. Addressing an unprecedented crowd in 2011, he said, “I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and [Government House] right now but we are peaceful people and won’t do that just yet.”

He joined the movement’s Coordination Council and forged ties across the diverse opposition with the goal of reforming Putinism.

His canny use of social media has given thousands of Russians – both old and, especially, young – new insight and ways to protest against their government.

New model of opposition

Navalny drew on the resources of these protests – activists, themes, online fundraising strategies and new coalitions – to build an opposition strategy that links elections and a variety of forms of protest. He brought together an impressive team of young activists who challenge the regime at every step of the election process, from party formation to candidate registration and vote counting.

Volunteers go door-to-door or accompany candidates to meet voters on their daily commutes or in apartment courtyards. They build temporary structures, called “cubes,” on busy streets, where they educate voters about policy. Campaign leaders urge activists to share online messages offline with those who do not use the internet.

New electoral technologies

When he fell ill, Navalny was campaigning on behalf of a new generation of local candidates.

By demonstrating that Russian elections are little more than performances of the state’s capacity to manufacture votes, the Navalny team reveals the lack of choice and accountability in the system.

In summer 2019, this strategy led to significant protests after the regime barred almost all of the opposition candidates in Moscow’s municipal elections. When the government cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators, Navalny’s team built a web-based way to identify any candidate who shared its values and urged voters to support that candidate – even if the candidate was in a party that they detested.

Recent work by political scientists Mikhail Turchenko and Grigorii Golosov demonstrate that Navalny’s “Smart Vote” strategy made a real difference in Russias’s 2019 local elections, helping to defeat nearly a third of Putin-aligned candidates in Moscow. Navalny’s team was gearing up to do the same thing in the September 2020 vote.

Social media innovation

Navalny’s creative use of new media is not limited to pothole repairs and voting apps. Beginning in 2006, he wrote a popular blog on the Live Journal social networking service. When the Kremlin shut down his blog in 2012, he reinvented his social media presence.

The Anti-Corruption Foundation produced a short film, “Don’t Call Him Dimon,” that lampooned former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev by showing his vast sneaker collection and flying a drone over his duck pond. Like ducks, sneakers became symbols of the opposition. The expose revealed the myth of Medvedev as an honest leader.

The exposes have continued on Navalny’s YouTube channel. His broadcasts have probed Russian intervention in U.S. elections, the Kremlin’s failure to provide COVID-19 relief and rigged Russian elections. These stories challenge the narrative presented in Russian state media, combating the regime’s systematic disinformation campaign.

Navalny narrates this video about the corruption of former Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. There are English subtitles.]

Inspiring a new generation

Navalny’s efforts have captured the imagination of young Russians and demonstrated the effects of generational change. Following “Don’t Call Him Dimon,” tens of thousands of young people took to the streets, shocking a country that believed Putin’s opposition was played out. Months later, they flocked to join Navalny’s presidential campaign organization.

Navalny knew the dangers of being the face of opposition to the Putin regime. The day before he fell ill, he joked with young supporters that his death would do more harm to the Kremlin than his activism.

It’s clear that Russians – who have taken to Twitter to urge him to hold on – don’t want to test that hypothesis

.The Conversation

Regina Smyth, Professor, Indiana University.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/vladimir-putin-is-on-the-ballot-in-november/ wa mo

Vladimir Putin is on the ballot this November.

You won’t see his name or watch his ads. But make no mistake, Putin has a lot riding on this election and he’s counting on your vote.

What will a vote for Putin mean?

First, Putin is looking to reshape the world order in a way that benefits Moscow, builds his personal power and establishes him as the world’s toughest leader capable of outrageous cunning, manipulation and disruption.

a successful outcome—meaning President Trump is re-elected—means his Russia will be able to wantonly throw its weight around globally. He will assertively create unseen but ever-present fear and dependence in neighboring nations including Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Georgia. Russia’s renewed and enhanced influence also will be felt in countries farther away and immediately affected by America’s acquiescence to Putin’s newfound power. Countries such as Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

Putin’s victory would usher in a world that would be unimaginable to those Americans who endured the Cold War and continue to suffer the 21st century Middle East conflicts fought for oil and influence.

This already was a watershed year for Russia’s President-for-Life Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin—“Vova” for short. He consolidated his domestic power with a sneaky recent referendum that gave him both symbolic and vital constitutional changes.

On the symbolic front, he played up family values and nationalist sentiment with laws against same-sex marriage and a codified “belief in God.” On the substantive side, new constitutional reforms give primacy to Russian law over international norms. One more thing: Term limits changed to allow Putin the presidency through 2036.

Constitutional reforms mean he no longer needs to practice new jiu-jitsu political moves. In the past, Putin had to horse-trade his presidential role for the prime ministership. No more. He can now reside in gilded presidential palaces forever and a day.

Tragically, Putin has mobilized a military and militia around a neo-nationalism that satisfies a popular thirst for pride. While his regime fails to deal with improving his people’s lot, it overcompensates for its economic and material failings by freely pouring the emotion-stirring libations of Russian exceptionalism and nostalgia for a deceptively reclaimable empire.

By drowning—or poisoning and defenestrating—opposition voices like Alexei Navalny, Putin deprives his citizens freedom of speech and choice. Russians are left with little to show for their industrious and inventive nature, feeling impoverished despite their abundantly rich culture and overflowing natural resources. What they are left with is Putin.

Secure in his position at home, Putin now shifts his roving eye around the world to spy where he can assert his parasitic power—which is where November’s election could play into Putin’s hands.

American voters can decide how much of a free ride to give Moscow. Putin already got away with interfering in the 2016 U.S. election, collaborating with the winning campaign as the Senate revealed this week. Putin continues his interference, no longer relying on Wikileaks or Facebook to peddle and amplify divisively toxic narratives. He’s hard at work.

If Putin wins again this cycle, prepare for renewed global adventurism. The carte blanche he received these last few years allowed him to stick around Crimea and stick it to Ukraine. He bleeds American soldiers in Afghanistan. While Congress tried to exact a toll for the illegal Crimean invasion and occupation, the war in Ukraine’s Donbass and for paying bounties to kill our troops, crickets is the only thing we hear from the executive, the perfect soundtrack for an ambitious dictator.

The 2020 election campaign will focus foreign-policy debates on which side will be tougher on China. One candidate will try to pin the other as being soft on China and suggest that Xi Jinping is on the ballot.

China policy differences are a legitimate political target, and the policies of both sides should be viewed with discerningly cold, critical eyes. Beijing seeks regional hegemony in and around the South China Sea and everywhere else in its neighborhood. It has cracked down at home in Hong Kong and it threatens Taiwan. Xi and China do have global ambitions.

Xi, however, is not on this year’s ballot in the United States. There is a strong bipartisan American consensus on the China threat. Both parties are on the same page. They may not agree on how to deal with the threat—are tariffs effective?—but are clear-eyed about China’s intentions and capabilities.

Not so with Russia or Putin. The two parties diverge dramatically. Somehow, a party that was once the most vocal, moral and aggressively determined to counter Moscow has now embraced Putin and his posse. What happened?

Putin is on this year’s ballot, so think twice before marking mail-in ballots or donning masks to go pull a lever. The vote you cast counts in both Moscow and the world.

funny how RW keeps accusing Clintons of murder, but have no problem when putin actually does?!

https://theconversation.com/how-alexei-navalny-revolutionized-opposition-politics-in-russia-before-his-apparent-poisoning-144830

german doctors offered to treat, russians made excuse to delay plane, in coma on plane?!

8/20 sen intel report 5 final says meddling 2016 and now

an 820

Rusal, a Russian aluminum company, has invested heavily in a mill that the North American company Braidy Industries has planned for Eastern Kentucky — and according to a Senate Intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Rusal is a “proxy for the Kremlin.”

In 2019, journalist Morgan Watkins reports in the Louisville Courier Journal, Rusal agreed to invest $200 million in Braidy’s mill. And the bipartisan Senate Intelligence report, released on August 18, describes Russian oligarch and Rusal co-owner Oleg Deripaska’s ties to the Kremlin.

According to the report, “Deripaska’s companies, including Rusal, are proxies for the Kremlin, including for Russian government influence efforts, economic measures and diplomatic relations.”

Watkins notes that according to a Securities and Exchange Commission report that Braidy filed in June, Rusal had provided $75 million for the mill as of December 31, 2019 but had discontinued contributions until Braidy could secure another $300 million in funding.

the U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Rusal, but Kentucky’s two Republican senators — Sen. Rand Paul and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — have voted against keeping the sanctions in place. Watkins notes that on August 19, the Kentucky Democratic Party “questioned McConnell’s decision to support lifting the sanctions on Rusal in light of the Senate Intelligence Committee report’s identification of Rusal as a proxy for the Kremlin.”

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wapo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-intelligence-trump-russia-report/2020/08/18/62a7573e-e093-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html

no lnx

National Security

Trump’s 2016 campaign chair was a ‘grave counterintelligence threat,’ had repeated contact with Russian intelligence, Senate panel finds

Karoun Demirjian and

Ellen Nakashima

August 18, 2020

President Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman posed a “grave counterintelligence threat” due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Moscow’s government and intelligence services.

In its report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee states that Trump’s then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer “on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,” including the idea that purported Ukrainian election interference was of greater concern.

It found that a Russian attorney who met with Manafort, along with the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in 2016, had “significant connections” to the Kremlin. The information she offered them was also “part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part with elements of the Russian government,” the report stated.

But the panel also concluded that the FBI’s handling of Russian threats to the election was “flawed” and that the bureau gave “unjustified credence” to allegations about Trump’s Russia ties made in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, “based on an incomplete understanding of Steele’s past reporting record.”

Document: Read the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election]

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s three-and-a-half year investigation stands as Congress’s only bipartisan examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The panel, significantly, agreed that the FBI overestimated Steel’s reliability and that Manafort and other aides exposed the campaign to undue Russian influence. But its leaders were noticeably divided along party lines in how they interpreted the report’s significance, and several committee members — including its acting chairman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — endorsed dissenting conclusions about Trump’s own culpability.

The partisan divisions are a sign that the panel’s tome likely will not put to rest the political wrangling over how seriously to treat foreign interference in U.S. democracy as the country heads into its most divisive election in modern history.

“After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion,” a group of six panel Republicans, including Rubio, wrote in a statement instead accusing the Democratic Party of coordinating with foreign actors to produce Steele’s dossier.

“In 2016, the Democratic Party, using a series of arm’s length transactions, hired a foreign citizen to seek out dirt on a political opponent, provided by foreign sources,” the Republicans wrote, attacking the FBI for “sloppy work and poor judgment.”

Five Democrat senators — including Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), the party’s 2020 vice-presidential nominee — asserted the report “unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected.” Referring specifically to their findings on Manafort, the Democrats wrote, “This is what collusion looks like.”

The intelligence committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who did not sign onto the Democrats’ dissenting views, noted “a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections,” and he encouraged “all Americans to carefully review the documented evidence of the unprecedented and massive intervention campaign waged on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump by Russians and their operatives and to reach their own independent conclusions.”

The committee’s past chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who oversaw the bulk of the investigation and also steered clear of the GOP’s dissent, struck a position in the middle.

“One of the Committee’s most important — and overlooked — findings is that much of Russia’s activities weren’t related to producing a specific electoral outcome, but attempted to undermine our faith in the democratic process itself,” he said in a statement. “Their aim is to sow chaos, discord, and distrust. Their efforts are not limited to elections. The threat is ongoing.”

Senate panel told Justice Dept. of suspicions over Trump family members’ Russia testimony

Burr and Warner launched the committee’s probe before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 and sustained the bipartisan investigation over the following three and a half years, even as other Congressional investigations into the same matter faltered along partisan lines. Since the Senate Intelligence Committee began its probe, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III also released a 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election — and Trump was impeached and acquitted after Democrats accused him of coercing Ukrainian leaders to interfere in the 2020 election.

Though the committee’s probe covers much of the same turf as Mueller’s investigation, it was different in nature. Mueller was running a criminal probe; the Senate committee was conducting an intelligence investigation — a distinction that helps to explain some of nuanced differences between their conclusions.

The Senate panel’s probe, which was mostly driven by the committee’s bipartisan staff, included more than 200 witnesses and considered evidence relating to Russian disinformation, Trump’s personal, business and campaign contacts with Russians and the transition period following the 2016 election.

At one point, the document all but concludes that Trump aides were duped and manipulated by Russian interests they were too callow to understand.

“Russian officials, intelligence services, and others” acting in concert with the Kremlin “were capable of exploiting the transition team’s shortcomings,” the report concluded. “Based on the available information, it is possible — and even likely — that they did so.”

The report also presents a damning portrait of the Trump campaign’s hasty move in March 2016 to assemble a foreign policy team, asserting that it had recruited inexperienced people without thoroughly vetting them and thus potentially exposed itself to Russian influence.

“Ultimately,” the committee wrote, “the foreign policy team exposed the Trump Campaign to significant counterintelligence vulnerabilities.”

The committee pointed to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who attempted to secure a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin through “highly suspicious” contacts with people close to the Russian government. Ultimately, investigators concluded, Papadopoulos “was not a witting co-optee of the Russian the Russian intelligence services. The panel also found that while Russia seemed to show an interest in campaign adviser Carter Page, investigators “found no indication that Page had useful Campaign information for the Russian intelligence services to extract, nor meaningful influence for them to exploit.”

The committee did find however that Putin personally directed the 2016 hack-and-leak campaign targeting the Democratic Party, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Clinton campaign. The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks “actively sought and played a key role in the Russian campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort,” the report stated, surmising that a Russian military spy agency, known as the GRU, transferred hacked emails to WikiLeaks likely because it offered a more effective platform for publicity than the GRU’s own methods.

Yet investigators could not “reliably determine the extent of authentic, nonpublic knowledge” Trump’s friend Roger Stone had about WikiLeaks’s coming releases and shared with the campaign.

The panel noted that its investigation was hampered by several witnesses’ refusing interviews and to produce documents, citing Fifth Amendment rights that protect against self incrimination. These included Stone, Manafort and Rick Gates, the campaign’s deputy chair at that time. The panel’s request to interview Julian Assange was rebuffed.

The committee also outright accused Blackwater founder and Trump supporter Erik Prince of stonewalling its investigation, saying that it was “hampered by a lack of cooperation” and that his account of a controversial 2017 meeting in the Seychelles alongside a Russian official was “brief and deceptive.”

The committee previously released other volumes detailing aspects of its inquiry. Those reports focused on U.S. election security, Russia’s use of social media in disinformation campaigns, the Obama administration’s response to the perceived threat in 2016 and the intelligence community’s joint assessment that Russia had interfered in an attempt to tip the scales in Trump’s favor.

Yet the panel’s effort to maintain a bipartisan approach has not saved it from partisan scrutiny. Last year, the panel came under fire from Senate Republicans after issuing a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr. to come in for a second round of testimony.

After his testimony, Trump Jr. was one of several witnesses that the panel referred to the Justice Department for closer scrutiny over discrepancies between their testimony and that of Gates, the ex-deputy campaign chair who was a key witness in Mueller’s probe.

Earlier this year, Burr stepped aside as panel chairman after coming under scrutiny over stocks he sold in industries hit badly by the coronavirus pandemic. Rubio has been serving as acting chairman in his place.

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russians wd be stupid not to use Qanon?

720 srch: russia putin GRU qanon disinformation active measures

Search Results

Web results

Putin's Goal Is to Bring Down American Democracy - The ...www.theatlantic.com › magazine › archive › 2020/06

The Russians were expecting the election of Hillary Clinton—and preparing to immediately declare it a fraud. The embassy in Washington had attempted to ...

Missing: qanon ?| Must include: qanon

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/putin-american-democracy/610570/

[long]

...#democracyrip was both the hashtag and the plan. The Russians were expecting the election of Hillary Clinton—and preparing to immediately declare it a fraud. The embassy in Washington had attempted to persuade American officials to allow its functionaries to act as observers in polling places. A Twitter campaign alleging voting irregularities was queued. Russian diplomats were ready to publicly denounce the results as illegitimate. Events in 2016, of course, veered in the other direction. Yet the hashtag is worth pausing over for a moment, because, though it was never put to its intended use, it remains an apt title for a mission that is still unfolding.

Russia’s interference in the last presidential election is among the most closely studied phenomena in recent American history, having been examined by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his prosecutors, by investigators working for congressional committees, by teams within Facebook and Twitter, by seemingly every think tank with access to a printing press. It’s possible, however, to mistake a plot point—the manipulation of the 2016 election—for the full sweep of the narrative.

Events in the United States have unfolded more favorably than any operative in Moscow could have ever dreamed: Not only did Russia’s preferred candidate win, but he has spent his first term fulfilling the potential it saw in him, discrediting American institutions, rending the seams of American culture, and isolating a nation that had styled itself as indispensable to the free world. But instead of complacently enjoying its triumph, Russia almost immediately set about replicating it. Boosting the Trump campaign was a tactic; #DemocracyRIP remains the larger objective.

[From the April 2020 issue: George Packer on how Trump is winning his war on American institutions]

In the week that followed Donald Trump’s election, Russia used its fake accounts on social media to organize a rally in New York City supporting the president-elect—and another rally in New York decrying him. Hackers continued attempting to break into state voting systems; trolls continued to launch social-media campaigns intended to spark racial conflict. Through subsidiaries, the Russian government continued to funnel cash to viral-video channels with names like In the Now and ICYMI, which build audiences with ephemera (“Man Licks Store Shelves in Online Post”), then hit unsuspecting readers with arguments about Syria and the CIA. This winter, the Russians even secured airtime for their overt propaganda outlet Sputnik on three radio stations in Kansas, bringing the network’s drive-time depictions of American hypocrisy to the heartland....

The Russians have learned much about American weaknesses, and how to exploit them. Having probed state voting systems far more extensively than is generally understood by the public, they are now surely more capable of mayhem on Election Day—and possibly without leaving a detectable trace of their handiwork. Having hacked into the inboxes of political operatives in the U.S. and abroad, they’ve pioneered new techniques for infiltrating campaigns and disseminating their stolen goods. Even as to disinformation, the best-known and perhaps most overrated of their tactics, they have innovated, finding new ways to manipulate Americans and to poison the nation’s politics. Russia’s interference in 2016 might be remembered as the experimental prelude that foreshadowed the attack of 2020....

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PROPAGANDA BACKFIRE: The Kremlin's Conspiracy ...bylinetimes.com › 2020/06/02 › propaganda-backfire-t...

Jun 2, 2020 - By supporting theories aimed at destabilising the US during the Coronavirus pandemic, Kseniya Kirillova reports on how Putin has opened up ...

Russian troll accounts purged by Twitter pushed Qanon and ...www.nbcnews.com › tech › social-media › russian-troll...

Feb 2, 2019 - The accounts' tweets featured the hashtag #MAGA, usually in support of President Trump, almost 38000 times — the most of any hashtag.

Missing: GRU ?active ?measures

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/russian-troll-accounts-purged-twitter-pushed-qanon-other-conspiracy-theories-n966091

no lnx pix

new batch of troll accounts identified by Twitter as having ties to Russia’s propaganda operation revealed an emphasis on promoting far-right conspiracy theories such as Qanon to Americans.

Twitter announced Thursday the removal of 418 accounts tied to the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, the disinformation group whose employees were indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller last February for attempted election interference.

The accounts’ tweets featured the hashtag #MAGA, usually in support of President Donald Trump, almost 38,000 times — the most of any hashtag. #ReleaseTheMemo, a social media campaign pushed by allies of the president last year that aimed to discredit some members of the FBI, was tweeted 37,583 times.

In all, the 400-some accounts tweeted more than 900,000 tweets.

At the time, close allies of Trump brushed off suggestions that #ReleaseTheMemo, which trended on Twitter, was boosted by Russian influence. "Russian trolls have nothing to do with releasing the memo. That was a vote of the intelligence committee,” counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said last February.

[Related

BUSINESS

Like the fringe conspiracy theory Qanon? There's plenty of merch for sale on Amazon]

Some now-purged users spammed Twitter with tweets repeating the hashtag “#ReleaseTheMemo.”

When removing the spam-style messages that included multiple hashtags, the second-most tweeted topic for the Russian troll accounts was #Qanon, a baseless conspiracy theory that claims Mueller and Trump are secretly working together to take down a global pedophile ring run by celebrities and Democratic politicians.

#GreatAwakening and #FollowTheWhiteRabbit, which are catchphrases for #Qanon followers, also featured prominently in the Russian trolls’ tweets.

Nina Jankowicz, a global fellow at the Kennan Institute focusing on Russia and technology, told NBC News that Qanon’s often outlandish narratives about a secret global cabal fueled by the United States fits well with Russian propaganda’s larger narrative.

“One of the Kremlin’s favorite tactics is to inspire confusion and doubt to sow distrust in government. Qanon certainly does that,” Jankowicz said.

“Amplifying the conspiracy theory also makes it look like it has more supporters, distracting from more substantive issues in the online discourse.”

[Related

TECH

What is Qanon? A guide to the conspiracy theory taking hold among Trump supporters]

Qanon, a more elaborate offshoot of the "pizzagate" conspiracy theory, came to prominence when several Trump supporters showed up at the president’s rally in Tampa, Florida, this past August carrying “Q” signs and wearing T-shirts supporting the conspiracy.

In the last year, believers in the conspiracy have also been in armed standoffs with the police in Arizona, and one blocked the Hoover Dam demanding the “Release of the OIG Report,” a Qanon-based conspiracy theory loosely derived from the success of #ReleaseTheMemo.

All of the 30 most-used hashtags pushed by the suspected Russian troll accounts focused on either support for Trump, conspiracy theories that targeted his political opponents or a separate — but sometimes overlapping — trolling campaign that meant to demean Muslims.

The hashtags #IslamIsTheProblem, #StopImportingIslam and #BanShariaLaw were each tweeted more than 15,000 times by the 481 Russian troll accounts.

The accounts attempted to emulate Americans on both sides of the political aisle.

One account identified by Twitter as a Russian troll account, @QuartneyChante, posed as an African-American woman. One of her tweets received more than 66,000 retweets.

“Dear White People. It’s a privilege to learn about racism instead of experiencing it your whole life,” the tweet read.

The account was even featured in several news articles, including a Mashable story dubbed "Dear white women: Here's how to step up for women of color.”

Jankowicz said the widespread dissemination of the tweets is a good reminder not to trust everything you read on social media.

“That account was created fairly recently and gained a lot of traction quickly, it seems,” Jankowicz said. “It’s pretty sad, but unless accounts use a plausible name and personal photo on Twitter, I’d advise users against interacting with them.”

Ben Collins

Ben Collins covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News.

Image: Joe Murphy

Joe Murphy

Joe Murphy is a data editor at NBC News Digital.

---

https://theconversation.com/trumps-use-of-religion-follows-playbook-of-authoritarian-leaning-leaders-the-world-over-140050

It was a striking moment: Donald Trump, Bible in hand, posing for photos in an apparent moment of political theater made possible by the dispersal of protesters through the use of tear gas.

The president’s visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church, known as “the Church of the Presidents,” came immediately after giving a Rose Garden speech framing himself as “your president of law and order” and threatening to send federal troops to “restore security and safety in America.” The next day, Trump made another high-profile visit to a place of worship, this time Washington’s St. John Paul II National Shrine.

Coming at a time of social turbulence, critics accused Trump of following authoritarian-leaning world leaders by sidling up to religion to reinforce an image as a strongman defending a particular brand of tradition. Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington Mariann Budde said as much, commenting that Trump used the Bible at St. John’s “as if it were a prop or an extension of his military and authoritarian position.”

As a scholar who has researched the interaction of politics and faith for decades, I know how potent religion can be as a political tool.

A powerful tool

Religion creates meaning in our lives by articulating values about how we relate to one another. But just as it can unite us, religion can also be a source of division – used to “other” people who are not of the faith and don’t share the same traditions and rituals.

When enough people perceive – or can be convinced – that traditional elements of the social fabric are at risk, religious signaling through the use of symbols and images can help would-be authoritarians cement their power. They present themselves as protectors of the faith and foes of any outsider who threatens tradition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sunbathes with a cross on display over his bare chest. Alexey Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images]

In Russia, this phenomenon is seen in President Vladimir Putin’s forging of a strategic alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. For his part, Putin presents himself not just as a commanding leader, but also as a devoutly religious Russian. When he appears shirtless, for example, the large cross he wears around his neck is always visible. Meanwhile, the Church promotes traditional moral values and maintains a distance from the rest of the worldwide Orthodox Christian community, thereby separating the “truly Russian” from the outsider. In their most recent collaboration, Putin and the Church proposed amendments to the Russian constitution that would enshrine Russians’ faith in God, define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and, tellingly, proclaim “the great achievement of the [Russian] people in defense of the Fatherland.” These changes, all of which are intended to reinforce Putin’s base of support, would be jarringly nationalistic additions to the constitution.

Putin benefits from this insider-outsider dynamic in advancing his goal of restoring Russia to his vision of its past territorial glory. In justifying the Russian incursion into Crimea, Putin argued that the region had “sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism.” Defending and expanding Russian territory is a much easier sell if it is framed as the defense of the holy.

Religious imagery

We see a similar dynamic in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s grip on power relies in large part on his embrace of a version of Hindu nationalism that elevates Hindus as “truly Indian” insiders and singles out Muslims as outsiders.

Like Putin, Modi wraps himself in religious imagery. He makes high-profile visits to remote Hindu temples while electioneering and never wears green because of its association with Islam.

Then-prime minister candidate Narendra Modi visits a shrine on horseback while electioneering in 2014. Strdel/AFP via Getty Images

Modi’s Hindu nationalism cements his popularity among devout Hindus and builds public support for anti-Muslim policies, such as stripping the only majority-Muslim state in India of its autonomy and enacting a controversial new law preventing Muslim migrants from attaining Indian citizenship.

Trump as savior

Trump has stumbled in attempts to portray himself as personally devout, declining to name a favorite passage from the Bible and stating that he has never sought forgiveness from God for his sins.

Nevertheless, public opinion polls have consistently shown that white Christians comprise the core of Trump’s base, although there are recent signs of a dip even among this key group.

And while it is important to note that many white Christians do not support Trump, 29% of evangelicals go so far as to say they believe he is anointed by God.

Where Trump succeeds is in presenting himself as a Christian nationalist, much as Putin and Modi style themselves as the stout defenders of their countries’ dominant religions.

One way Trump achieves this end is by making statements such as this one on the campaign trail earlier this year: “We’re going to win another monumental victory for faith and family, God and country, flag and freedom.”

In their new book “Taking America Back for God,” sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry contend that many of Trump’s white Christian supporters see him as their long-awaited savior – not just the protector of traditional religion, but also the defender of a bygone way of life.

In that imagined past, white men ruled the roost, families went to church every Sunday and outsiders knew their place. A deep-rooted desire for a return to that past may have been why Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan has proved so potent. As Yale scholar Philip Gorski has argued, that phrase can be interpreted to mean “making white Christianity culturally dominant again.”

As such, we should not be surprised that in the current moment of crisis Trump is attempting to use religion to reinforce differences between his supporters and his opponents. Like Putin, he is posing as the defender of a particular version of a glorious past. And echoing Modi, he is doing this by building support through the denigration of the outsider.

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aha: abortion turned xian anti-gubmint; in 80's RR televangelists had TV programs/stations; Rove courted (organized) for Bush 43; now drollinger cabinet and GOTV network (AI/digital tracking?); scary overlap with militias?! patriot prayer

putin cozied up to? thus US xians gave him pass on collusion, plus if true delegitimatizes trump, who delivers anti-abortion judge and SCOTUS w/ mcconnell

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s/

...

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trumps-tragic-clowning-and-his-global-surrender-to-china-and-russia-have-exposed-america-as-a-declining-empire

xi putin

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Moscow Silently Expands Surveillance of Citizens

The system is ostensibly to help in the fight against COVID-19 as facial recognition cameras are being used to ensure that everyone placed under self-quarantine stays off the streets.

3/20 bktv not vetted

JANUARY 17, 2020

Between Two Fires

Joshua Yaffa, Moscow correspondent for the New Yorker, looks at life in Russia under Vladimir Putin.

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putin up for 36 yr term, into 80's, ast female cosmo also in 80's?

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saudis targeting russian, frackers collateral damage!?

NB DESMOG TRACKING IMPENDING BANKRUPTCY? KEPT AFLOAT BY BANKS?

aha ish // disaster cap'l, never waste a crisis to dustoff wishlist

Will an oil tycoon who donated $500,000 to support Trump’s re-election get bailed out by his administration?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/will-an-oil-tycoon-who-donated-500000-to-support-trumps-re-election-get-bailed-out-by-his-administration

no lnx

Will an oil tycoon who donated $500,000 to support Trump’s re-election get bailed out by his administration?

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon March 12, 2020

With oil prices plunging during the coronavirus outbreak, the Trump administration is weighing a federal bailout for oil and natural gas companies, according to a new report.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted a fracking boom under his administration, but oil and gas companies have seen profits drop amid an oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“Alarmed” by the prospect that some of these companies, many of which are already in debt, [see desmog] could go out of business, White House officials have pushed for a federal bailout in the form of low-interest government loans, The Washington Post reported.

Among those pushing for the bailout is Harold Hamm, a billionaire Trump adviser who owns Continental Resources, an energy company which lost half of its market value Monday.

Hamm told The Post that although he had not made “direct” contact with the president, he advised the administration to consider “any action that the administration might take to protect and preserve American interests at this time from being unfairly disadvantaged.”

Hamm has given more than $500,000 to support Trump’s re-election effort since 2017, the government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington noted.

Some Trump advisers told The Post that the administration was eyeing “targeted assistance” for the companies. Though under consideration, another official warned that “political blowback over the idea may eventually lead campaign advisers and others in [the] administration to talk Trump out of it.”

Chris Rupkey, the chief economist at MUFG Union Bank, told the outlet that he expects significant political backlash.

“It’s difficult when governments selectively target individual industries,” he said. “And there’s going to be pushback on it, because it’s political and may be tied to the administration’s contacts and the people it knows.”

Cornell University professor Robert Hockett, who has advised Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on economic policy, added that it was ridiculous to look out for big fracking companies while millions need relief.

“We are in the midst of a crisis where people are literally having to skip work and may miss paychecks or face medical debt,” he said. “The idea you would look to help out shale companies now is like something out of a satire or a bad movie. It’s absurd.”

Trump also said that he was looking at bailing out airlines, cruise lines and the hospitality industry Tuesday, as they reel from the impact of COVID-19, the disease spread by the novel coronavirus. But the bailout proposals have received public pushback from Republicans.

an 220

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/opposition-urges-russia-without-putin-in-rally-for-slain-liberal/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/william-barr-promotes-christian-tyranny-in-latest-speech/

no lnx

William Barr promotes Christian tyranny in latest speech

Written by Chrissy Stroop / Religion Dispatches February 29, 2020

I’ve said it before, and if you’re reading this, you’ve very likely heard the same thing darkly muttered among liberals and progressives if you haven’t said it yourself: I never thought anything could possibly make me miss Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. And yet, with his willingness to throw away our norms, checks, and balances, to politicize the Justice Department, to sacrifice the rule of law itself on the altar of Trump—current Attorney General William Barr has done it. As authoritarian as he was, invoking Romans 13 to defend the Trump administration’s indefensibly inhumane policy of caging children separated from their asylum-seeking parents, Sessions had at least enough genuine concern for the rule of law to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation, against the tweeter-in-chief’s explicit wishes.

In other ways, however, Sessions and Barr are clearly cut from the same cloth. Sessions, a Methodist, has asserted that without belief in God it is impossible to believe in truth, suggesting that non-believers are unfit to serve in government. In recent months, Barr, a Catholic, has expounded the same views much more forcefully and at much greater length, including in a speech he delivered Wednesday at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville. NRB is an international evangelical organization whose board members include John Fuller of far-right powerhouse Focus on the Family and Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, a Southern Poverty Law Center designated anti-LGBT hate group.

Featuring predictable dog whistles about “federalism” (i.e., “states’ rights”) and “the corporate—or ‘mainstream’—press,” Barr’s speech to NRB was divided into sections focusing on “religion, the decentralization of government power, and the free press,” all of which, Barr claims, have “have eroded in recent decades.” But today I’ll focus largely on Barr’s view of religion and its ideal place in society and the public sphere.

Barr’s exposition weaves together a variety of reactionary tropes, many of which have roots in the nineteenth century. (While it would be impossible to tease them apart and trace their relationships and genealogies in a short commentary, for those interested in an academic unpacking of Barr’s rhetoric, “The Russian Origins of the So-Called Post-Secular Moment: Some Preliminary Observations,” which I wrote for State, Religion and Church, will provide a helpful overview.)

The attorney general’s speech was likewise full of so many tensions, contradictions, and weak arguments that it resembles the “Gish gallop” style of debate, making it difficult to believe that they were all offered in good faith. In typical Christian nationalist form, Barr quoted American Founding Father John Adams: “We have no government armed with the power which is capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

Asked to comment, Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Andrew Seidel, author of The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, maintained, “Barr is misreading Adams.” To substantiate the point, he observed, “Adams, like the other founders, thought religion and morality were two separate entities; Barr thinks they are one and the same. The founders thought religion could be a substitute for morality. We now know that they were wrong on this point.”

What Seidel means here, as he details in his book, is that as Enlightenment elites, the Founding Fathers believed that they were educated and cultivated enough to be moral without religion, but that the masses were too uncultivated to do the same. The masses would therefore require religion. Seidel maintains that the founders were wrong on this point, and we can admit as much while still admiring their positive achievements.

Seidel adds, “If the founders believed that religion was important to ensure moral behavior for the masses but not for themselves, that means that the founders were moral without religion. It also means they founded the American government on their own morality, not religion,” concluding that “Barr is inadvertently refuting his entire argument by trying to co-opt Adams.”

Seidel’s work can also help us see that Barr is twisting Tocqueville in his attempt to marshal the nineteenth-century French observer of American democracy in support of his view that moral behavior is impossible without religion. A claim, by the way, that is entirely fact-free.

And Seidel is certainly correct that Sessions and Barr go much further than the Founding Fathers in claiming, as Barr did in his NRB speech, that moral values “must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.” Despite Barr’s whiggish praise of “the Anglo-American political system” and his espoused disdain for Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his views on the necessity of an external, transcendent source of morals in order for humans to achieve virtue is much more prominent in Continental European thought than in the English-speaking world.

But Barr is a smooth gaslighter, and he represents his argument for theocratic authoritarianism as a defense of “liberal democracy.” Barr’s European (and sometimes American) antecedents were often more honest, admitting that they viewed liberal democracy, due to its supposed godlessness and concomitant lack of truth, as a failure that would have to be replaced with either “totalitarianism” (the “ersatz religions” of fascism or Communism) or “a religious society.”

Indeed, Barr’s claim that “the right way to transform the world is for each of us to focus on morally transforming ourselves” is almost a direct quote from the early twentieth-century anti-Communist Nikolai (Nicholas) Berdyaev, who might well have influenced the attorney general, if not directly, then through Berdyaev’s profound influence on late Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom he cites. While Solzhenitsyn’s bravery in exposing the brutal Soviet GULAG system of prison camps should never be forgotten, Solzhenitsyn was no fan of the West.

In 1978, he gave a famous speech lambasting the West’s supposed decline in terms that would surely be congenial to Sessions and Barr. And later Solzhenitsyn, who had been expelled from the USSR, voted with his feet, accepting Russian citizenship from Vladimir Putin’s government and returning to his homeland, pleased with the way that Christian nationalist authoritarianism had replaced Communism as the Russian state’s guiding ideology. The closeness of Putinist Russians and American right-wingers that has come to light in recent years should not surprise us. But we should be very clear that what both parties want is neither democracy nor pluralism, however much Barr may claim to support both.

Barr claims he supports separation of church and state, but the claim is clearly disingenuous: “While most everyone agrees that we must have separation of Church and State, this does not require that we drive religion from the public square and affirmatively use government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” The tell here is that the attorney general conflates the idea of a religiously neutral public square with “using government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” The notion that there’s no religious neutrality, and that therefore, if public institutions are not promoting religion, they are promoting secular humanist ideology by default, is a hallmark of dominionist Christian thinking. His NRB audience would have no trouble getting the message.

Like authoritarians, narcissists, and abusers of all kinds, Christian extremists seek to paint themselves as victims, and Barr’s speech is a prime example of this powerful rhetorical tactic. In it, the attorney general blames supposedly nefarious secularists for the contentious state of American politics when, in fact, data shows us that precisely the opposite is true—America’s polarization has been driven by our radicalized, mostly Christian, Right.

Trump’s toady of an attorney general may wax poetic about his fear of the potential tyranny of a secular majority, but he is transparently trying to promote Christian tyranny, only in the guise of “liberal democracy.” It doesn’t take much digging beneath the surface to see that Barr’s authoritarian approach to religion derives from a very dark view of human nature. Authentic supporters of democracy, by contrast, understand that despite our human limitations—which are quite real but not nearly so severe as those posited by the toxic doctrine of “original sin”—it’s possible to build a society around a shared social contract grounded in the simple recognition of our shared human condition, and on that basis to foster functional institutions and a healthy respect for pluralism.

ref

https://www.academia.edu/5949640/The_Russian_Origins_of_the_So-Called_Post-Secular_Moment_Some_Preliminary_Observations

The Russian Origins of the So-CalledPost-Secular Moment: Some PreliminaryObservations

Christopher Stroop

—

Senior Lecturer at the Russian Presidential

Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow,

Russia). cstroop@gmail.com

This piece argues that there are a number of paths through which we might investigate Russian connections to the emergence of post-secularism, with the collapse of the

USSR

and the post-Soviet revival

of Russian Orthodoxy representing only the most obvious. A thus far less developed but important approach involves unravelingan intellectual-historical trajectory by focusing on the influenceof anti-Bolshevik Russian religious philosophers in the West. The

article shows that after the founding of the Soviet Union, the anti-Bolshevik Russian emigration emerged as a signi?cant vehicle forthe transmission of Russian ideas in the West, contributing to thedevelopment of an anti-secular discourse with roots in the 20?th

century that was able to achieve some prominence thanks to theCold War. This discourse associated religiosity with freedom andatheism with unfreedom. Stroop argues that this discourse, in thedevelopment of which Russian intellectuals played an important role, emerged in reaction against the perceived cultural threat of

nihilism, and he suggests that it is a similar concern over the possible

consequences of nihilism that has led to the emergence of the post-secular moment.

Keywords:

religious, secular, post-secularism, nihilism, atheism,

Communism, Russian Orthodoxy, Russian religious philosophy, Russia

and the West, Sergei Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Lev Shestov, Russian emigration, Cold War, anti-secular discourse...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/ag-barr-and-betsy-devos-rail-against-secularism-and-a-culture-of-disbelief-at-religious-broadcasters-convention/

no lnx

AG Barr and Betsy DeVos rail against secularism and a ‘culture of disbelief’ at religious broadcasters convention

Written by Alex Henderson February 27, 2020

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no no direct connect to vlad, but interview mention vfb? bank, and a russia bank in cyprus?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/the-million-dollar-question-finance-editor-breaks-down-dojs-bizarre-abandonment-of-a-russian-money-laundering-case-against-deutsche-bank/

no lnx

‘The million-dollar question’: Finance editor breaks down DOJ’s bizarre abandonment of a Russian money laundering case against Deutsche bank

Written by Alex Henderson February 18, 2020

When other banks weren’t making generous loans to Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, Deutsche Bank was. David Enrich, finance editor of the New York Times and author of the new book, “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and an Epic Trail of Destruction,” discussed Deutsche’s relationship Trump and a seemingly abandoned U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against the bank during a Monday night, February 17 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Maddow, noting that Trump “probably owes hundreds of millions of dollars to this one institution,” asked Enrich “whatever happened to” a possible U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against Deutsche Bank that involved a “Russian money laundering scandal.” And Enrich responded, “That is the million-dollar question.”

Enrich explained that during the final months of the Obama Administration, the DOJ was “close” to bringing a “criminal case” against Deutsche Bank “for its involvement in Russian money laundering” — but after Trump became president, the case fell by the wayside.

“Deutsche Bank executives became convinced that this was just too hot to handle for the Trump Administration,” Enrich told Maddow. “They did not want anyone in the Administration to bring more public attention to the very close relationship between Deutsche Bank and Russia on the one hand and Deutsche Bank and Trump on the other hand.”

Maddow asked Enrich what Deutsche Bank has told him about either the Trump Administration or the bank’s ties to Russia. And Enrich responded, “They’ve publicly refused to speak (or) say much of anything in public about their client. They acknowledge that Trump is a client. Trump has disclosed, in his limited White House disclosures, the amounts that he owes and what those loans are.”

Enrich went on to say, “They are trying to — desperately, I think — make this very bad situation, where they are kind of the public face of Donald Trump’s finances…. go away.”

https://theconversation.com/american-influence-could-take-the-hit-as-putin-zelenskiy-try-to-make-peace-in-ukraine-127500

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/putin-told-me-ex-white-house-officials-reportedly-said-trumps-view-of-ukraine-was-poisoned-by-the-russian-president

n o lnx

‘Putin told me’: Ex-White House officials reportedly said Trump’s view of Ukraine was poisoned by the Russian president

Written by Cody Fenwick December 19, 2019

Though the Ukraine scandal suddenly burst on to the scene of American politics in September and quickly led to President Donald Trump’s impeachment this week, its origins have been festering for much longer, a new report from the Washington Post found on Thursday.

Multiple former White House officials told the Post that Trump’s negative view of Ukraine was influenced directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Based in part on discussions he had with Putin, these officials said, Trump came to believe that Russia didn’t interfere in the 2016 election, but Ukraine had instead.

It was this conspiracy theory that Trump referenced in his infamous July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump pushed Zelensky to conduct two investigations. One, which has received the most attention, was of Joe Biden and his son. But the other referenced the cybersecurity company Crowdstrike and a “server” from the 2016 election, the subject of a baseless conspiracy theory about Ukraine.

Fiona Hill, who served under Trump’s former nationals security adviser John Bolton on the National Security Council as an expert in Russia, testified to Congress that this conspiracy theory is a myth intentionally propagated by Russian intelligence in order to deflect blame for its crimes and to undermine Ukraine. Reports have found that lawmakers have been briefed by U.S. intelligence officials on these findings, as well.

While some White House officials only inferred that Trump’s belief in the Ukraine conspiracy came from Putin, others had more direct evidence, according to the report. The Post explained:

One former senior White House official said Trump even stated so explicitly at one point, saying he knew Ukraine was the real culprit because “Putin told me.”

Two other former officials said the senior White House official described Trump’s comment to them.

The report also found that many White House officials tried to disabuse Trump of this false notion, but they failed. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, has publicly bought into these theories.

In July 2017, when Trump had his much-discussed first meeting with Putin at the G-20, the pair spoke for a total of about three hours. One hour-long informal meeting at a dinner during that time was not initially disclosed by the White House.

The Post story continued:

Three former senior administration officials said Trump repeatedly insisted after the G-20 summit that he believed Putin’s assurances that Russia had not interfered in the 2016 campaign. The officials said Kelly, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson all tried to caution Trump not to rely on Putin’s word, and to focus on evidence to the contrary that U.S. intelligence agencies had collected.

Over the next several months, Trump privately told aides on several occasions that he believed Ukraine had interfered and tried to help Clinton win the White House, former officials said.

“The strong belief in the White House was that Putin told him,” one former official said.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/russia-and-the-republicans-vladimir-putins-american-subsidiary

Russia and the Republicans: Vladimir Putin’s American subsidiary

Russians went looking for allies on the American left for…

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/former-cia-officer-putins-long-game-is-to-destroy-western-democracies-and-the-gop-is-helping-him/

n olnx

Former CIA officer: Putin’s ‘long game’ is to ‘destroy western democracies’ — and the GOP is helping him

Written by Alex Henderson December 10, 2019

As articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump move forward in the U.S. House of Representatives, pro-Trump Republicans continue to insist that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election — a claim that foreign affairs expert Fiona Hill described as total nonsense during her testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last month. Regardless, Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina recently told an NBC News reporter that in 2016, “Every elected official in the Ukraine was for Hillary Clinton. Is that very different than the Russians being for Donald Trump?” And former CIA officer Alex Finley, in a December 10 article for Just Security, explains why Burr’s assertion is a “false equivalence” that “completely and dangerously mischaracterizes the threat we are facing” from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In 2016, Finley explains, some “Ukrainian officials publicly expressed a dislike for candidate Trump” and “looked to hold” some “corrupt” associates of former President Viktor Yanukovych “accountable” — and one of those associates “happened to be Trump’s campaign chairman” (Paul Manafort). But, Finley quickly adds, “Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, is aiming to destroy western democracies.”

Those who think that statement about Putin sounds “overblown,” Finley asserts, should consider what Putin told the Financial Times: “The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.”

Putin, Finley stresses, is opposed to the very ideal of liberal democracy.

“Russia has been running, and continues to run, a covert intelligence operation aimed at duping westerners and inflaming internal divisions, in order to break down our democratic institutions,” Finley observes. “Putin aims to bring down the western liberal order, which — with the United States at the helm — has generally brought peace and stability to the west for 70 years.”

Republicans, Finley warns, “should ask themselves why Putin sees them as a good partner” in his anti-U.S. goals.

Finley goes on to list some things that the Russian government under Putin’s leadership did in 2016, from hacking Democratic e-mails to running an “influence campaign” through websites like WikiLeaks to infiltrating “the NRA and GOP circles with Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin.”

Moreover, Finley writes, Putin’s government is not only trying to undermine western liberal democracy in the United States, but also, in Italy, France, Germany and other countries that have long been U.S. allies.“Congressional Republicans have become pansies of Putin in a much larger game,” Finley warns. “This is not about one election or even two elections. Putin is playing a long game aimed at changing the international system in his favor, and Republicans are aiding and abetting him. Does the party of Ronald Reagan really want to be an accomplice to the destruction of the U.S.-led liberal world order?”

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/military-leaders-at-the-pentagon-panicked-as-us-troop-affinity-for-russia-grows-report/

no lnx deriv

Military leaders at the Pentagon panicked as US troop affinity for Russia grows: report

Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story December 8, 2019

According to a report from Voice of America, military leaders at the Pentagon are growing increasingly concerned with the popularity of Russian President Vladimir Putin within the military ranks due to the influence of Russian propaganda and Donald Trump’s boosterism.

The report states, “While most Americans still see Moscow as a key U.S. adversary, new polling suggests that view is changing, most notably among the households of military members. The second annual Reagan National Defense Survey, completed in late October, found nearly half of armed services households questioned, 46%, said they viewed Russia as ally. Overall, the survey found 28% of Americans identified Russia as an ally, up from 19% the previous year.”

That same survey links Putin’s increasing popularity to the election of President Donald Trump.

“Pollsters found the positive views of Russia seemed to be ‘predominantly driven by Republicans who have responded to positive cues from [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump about Russia,’ according to an executive summary accompanying the results,” VOA reports.

At the same time, Washington Monthly reports, “Now, due to purely partisan interests, the nation’s military is being warped into supporting the hostile foreign power–against our own values, geopolitical interests, and intelligence services It’s like the plot from a bad spy novel, except that it’s happening right out in the open. This is the situation as it stands between Trump, Russia, the Republican Party and Ukraine.”

“U.S. defense and security officials have told VOA that Russia has been targeting U.S. military personnel, specifically, with a ramped-up influence campaign, as far back as 2017 in preparation for the November 2018 midterm elections,” VOA reports. “Russia’s goal, they said, was not so much to swing the result of the elections but to seed U.S. military personnel with the right type of disinformation so that they would be predisposed to view Russia and its actions in a more favorable way in the future.”

You can read more here.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/how-trump-is-aligning-the-us-military-with-the-russian-white-supremacist-criminal-syndicate/

no lnx

How Trump is aligning the US military with the Russian white supremacist criminal syndicate

Written by David Atkins / Washington Monthly December 8, 2019

Whether you’re a fervent nationalist or citizen-of-world internationalist, this story should inspire some alarm:

Russian efforts to weaken the West through a relentless campaign of information warfare may be starting to pay off, cracking a key bastion of the U.S. line of defense: the military.

While most Americans still see Moscow as a key U.S. adversary, new polling suggests that view is changing, most notably among the households of military members.

The second annual Reagan National Defense Survey, completed in late October, found nearly half of armed services households questioned, 46%, said they viewed Russia as ally.

Overall, the survey found 28% of Americans identified Russia as an ally, up from 19% the previous year.

So a significantly larger portion of the military–nearly half!–sees Russia as an ally than does the general public. If your first reaction is that this is part of a tribalistic Trump effect on a constituency that leans conservative overall, you would be right.

Generally, the pollsters found the positive views of Russia seemed to be “predominantly driven by Republicans who have responded to positive cues from [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump about Russia,” according to an executive summary accompanying the results.

While a majority, 71% of all Americans and 53% of military households, still views Russia as an enemy, the spike in pro-Russian sentiment has defense officials concerned.

It’s easy to sound the alarm over this for basic national security reasons. From a traditional Westphalian perspective, it is clearly dangerous for the people we entrust to secure the country’s self-defense to be much more favorable to our fiercest geopolitical foe than the public. It should be the other way around. It is beyond alarming when put in the proper context: one of the country’s two major political parties was just assisted in the previous election by its greatest foe; the president who was elected by a minority of voters with that rival’s help has continued to run interference for that rival, has been weirdly obsequious to its dictatorial leader, has refused to accept his own intelligence services’ findings about the criminal theft of opposition documents in the election, and is to this day extorting and undermining a nation in a hot war with that same rival power in an effort to fabricate dirt on a political rival for the next election and, amazingly, to frame the victim of the extortion for the crimes of its rival aggressor.

The president has embroiled his personal lawyer, his Attorney General, his Vice President and his Secretary of State in the conspiracy as well. And all of this is occurring even as the president rules under a cloud of suspicion about his own personal and business financial ties to the same rival power.

And now, due to purely partisan interests, the nation’s military is being warped into supporting the hostile foreign power–against our own values, geopolitical interests, and intelligence services It’s like the plot from a bad spy novel, except that it’s happening right out in the open. This is the situation as it stands between Trump, Russia, the Republican Party and Ukraine. And no one can do anything about it because the Republican Party sees itself as locked into a demographic death spiral as it sheds support from every demographic except the declining share older, white, exurban evangelicals, and is therefore willing to defend even the most abominable behavior in exchange for nominating a slew of extremist radical judges who they hope will derail any progressive priorities for the next several decades.

But even this understates the cause for alarm. Because Russia isn’t just a geopolitical foe: it is also the global leader of white supremacy and fossil fuel kleptocracy. It is an international criminal syndicate operating as a government, and it is actively recruiting allies and henchmen all around the world. As I said last year, it’s not so much that the United States lost or is losing the Cold War (we didn’t lose it), as much as that racist plutocrats won it:

In order to pacify the populace during this process, Putin and allies used the standard timeless conservative tactics: they allied themselves with rural and socially conservative religious elements, ramped up hostile rhetoric toward supposedly corrupt outsiders, leveraged racist and sexist sentiments against domestic minorities and women’s rights groups, and portrayed themselves as the only ones who could make Russia great again.

It was unsurprising, then, that a Russian government aligned with racist, sexist and plutocratic principles would find an easy friend in Donald Trump and the American Republican Party. They are natural allies. It is less that America became Russia’s client state, than that the conservative movements in both America and Russia made a semi-secret criminal global compact that neither could acknowledge publicly. Since Trump’s election, their wealthy patriarchal white supremacist movement has sought and encouraged allies in Britain, Europe, Brazil and elsewhere, seeking to align the world against socially inclusive economic progressivism in favor of plutocratic ethnonationalism.

The American white supremacist movement has long looked to Russia and Putin as friends and allies. They see Western Europe as engaged in destruction of the white race through liberal immigration policies, of male dominance through embrace of feminism, of rural fossil fuel power through embrace of policies designed to fight climate change, and of conservative Christianity through cultural secularization. They see America as destined to follow along on the same path, and they see Russia (as well as a few former Eastern Bloc countries like Poland and Hungary) as the only major world power to be moving in the other direction, asserting the privileges of wealth, patriarchy, orthodox fundamentalism, and fossil fuel extraction industries. There is nothing they would like better than for an America in a conservative counterrevolution to abandon NATO and align wholeheartedly with Putin. Trump’s hostility to Merkel and Macron is seen as a feature, not a bug: his subservience to Putin an advantage.

In this sense, Trump is not just pushing the military toward favoring a rival nation-state that is actively sabotaging our own for his own personal and political benefit. He is attempting to align the military with a global white supremacist, patriarchal fossil fuel-backed mafia syndicate. It’s almost certain that he is also hoping that in a Constitutional crisis pitting Western secular liberal values against said syndicate, that the military will help overthrow democracy itself on the syndicate’s behalf.

We aren’t there yet. But another four years of Trump in the White House could have very dark consequences for the entire world. It can happen here.

booktv 1119

Rachel Maddow, "Blowout"

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow argued that the gas and oil industry are weakening…

rachel bktv 11/19

putin solve for pattern; nat gas makes $ but also divides/disrupts; Fitrash deal as middleman (not needed) 800m$ in one year 2007 [but can be siphoned and directed to diff purposes; gazprom itlself loses some $;

2006 Putin back Party of regions Manafort; ~ Orange Yulia Tymo; she undid sweetheart deal, got rid of middleman firtsh 2009; she was arrested under anti-corruption by prosecutor [appt by Yut, charged by parl?]

Firtash gets new deal 4 bill$ profit one year?! w/ help of US PR firm?

Yano 180 on camp pledge to get closer to EU, putin offers 15 bill$ ukr, ppl don'r fall for it; 9/21/12 small # ppl grows fast Maidan revo 100k ppl; pots for armor; Cops harass, putin thinks cold will drive them home but no, embaraa sochi olympics; 2/18/18? slingshots; KIa; ring of fire as defense; snipers, machine guns: we will give our lives to be free, not slaves; yano called off force (lost nerve?) and fled to east (regions safehouse?)

Biden had made mult visits, said wd protect ukr vs russia; said russia "withering" clinging to past, could not cope w/ new changing world; [150m ppl, biggerst geo, gdp less than s korea or italy;

Rudy says firtash a pal, client...

resource curse: decline democ, follow $; FF corps make "own weather"; saudi: better to discover water; OPEC devil's excrement"

Activ meas 2016 a wild pitch; why take huge risk (HC a russia hawk; she could easily find out]

putin desperate to get rid of sanction b.c petrostate; he and rex made deal for 1/4 billion$ (#1 in industry if not history)

Rex had no clue he wd be offered SoS (never met trump, thot they wanted advice on energy)

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11/19

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50264747

no lnx pix

Powerful 'Putin's chef' Prigozhin cooks up murky deals

4 November 2019

The wealthy Russian businessman nicknamed "Putin's chef" - Yevgeny Prigozhin - has his fingers in lots of pies.

He made his fortune running catering businesses in the 1990s - hence the nickname. And he joined President Vladimir Putin's elite circle when the Russian leader started dining at his luxury floating restaurant in St Petersburg, called New Island, in 2001.

Like many other Russian oligarchs, Mr Prigozhin, 58, has branched out into various businesses, uses shadowy offshore firms and enjoys a lavish jet-set lifestyle.

But the US government is trying to clip Mr Prigozhin's wings: it has stepped up sanctions against him and his businesses because of his alleged meddling in US elections.

Investigations by Western journalists and think tanks also link Mr Prigozhin to a Russian mercenary group called Wagner, accused of pursuing Russian state interests in war-torn Syria and Libya, as well as hotspots in sub-Saharan Africa.

Who are Russia's shadowy mercenaries fighting in Syria?

He has denied the Western allegations, but his business ventures remain very opaque.

He came to prominence in St Petersburg, Mr Putin's home city, but was not in the original group of Putin allies, who formed a dacha (country-house) club called Ozero.

In his twenties, before becoming a hot-dog salesman and successful caterer, he was jailed for nine years for robbery and fraud.

Russia's "shock therapy" capitalism of the 1990s created many business opportunities for criminals, as they could call on friends to fend off aggressive rivals.

Mr Prigozhin has kept a low profile for years, but in 2011 he told a St Petersburg newspaper about a children's tale he once wrote, which featured midgets defending a king against enemies.

How did he get involved in US politics?

The US Treasury announced new sanctions against Mr Prigozhin on 30 September, accusing him of steering Russian efforts to influence the US 2018 mid-term elections.

He was implicated again through the infamous Internet Research Agency (IRA), identified as a St Petersburg "troll factory" which, US authorities say, used fake internet accounts and fake news to influence US voters in the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Prigozhin, his Concord Catering firm, business associates and IRA were indicted by a US Grand Jury in February 2018 over that election interference.

The charges were drawn up by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating alleged Russian attempts to help Donald Trump's election campaign.

Mr Prigozhin shrugged off the indictment, saying: "Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see. I'm not at all upset that I'm on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him."

US election tampering charge for Russians

The tactics of a Russian troll farm

Russia-Trump troll suspect defends role]

The latest sanctions target Mr Prigozhin and some of his luxury assets over "influence operations" linked to the US 2018 mid-term elections.

Once again, the US government says, his IRA used "fictitious personas on social media and disseminated false information". The activities are not thought to have distorted the US election results.

The US believes he funds the agency via Concord Catering.

The US Treasury posted this photo of Mr Prigozhin's yacht St Vitamin

The US sanctions name three private jets and a luxury yacht allegedly used by Mr Prigozhin, his family and associates - luxuries registered in the Seychelles and Cayman Islands offshore tax havens.

US individuals and firms are now prohibited from doing business with him or providing services for his jets and yacht, called St Vitamin. The jets have flown many times to destinations in Africa, the Middle East and Europe in recent years, the US statement says.

Concord Catering has now been ordered by a Moscow court to pay compensation to parents over a food poisoning outbreak.

Mr Prigozhin's firm provides meals for Moscow's schools, but last December about 130 kindergarten children fell ill with dysentery.

The oligarch's African cookbook

Research by Facebook and internet specialists at Stanford University points to opinion-forming operations on social media in Africa, linked to Mr Prigozhin.

On 30 October Facebook said it had suspended three networks of Russian internet accounts aimed at covertly influencing events in several African countries.

The Russian origins of the "inauthentic" behaviour were masked by using local nationals, it said.

The first network targeted: Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.

The second network targeted Sudan and the third focused on Libya.

A BBC investigation found that at least six candidates were offered money by Russians in Madagascar's 2018 presidential elections.

Mr Prigozhin dismissed the Facebook allegations, saying the US media giant was "indulging in PR for itself".

A year ago Russia sent 175 military instructors to the Central African Republic (CAR) - a country racked by militia violence - to help the army of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra.

Wagner mercenaries are reported to be active in CAR, where Russia has won gold and diamond mining concessions. France, CAR's former colonial master, also has a military presence in the country.

It was while trying to investigate a suspected link between the mines and the mercenary group that three Russian journalists were shot dead in an ambush in 2018. Nobody has been charged in connection with it.

A CNN investigation unearthed a CAR government mining contract with Lobaye Invest, a Russian firm run by Yevgeny Khodotov, another St Petersburg businessman reported to be linked to Mr Prigozhin's network.

But Lobaye Invest is shrouded in secrecy, and Mr Prigozhin has denied any link to it.

Russian soldiers belonging to an outfit called Sewa Security are protecting President Touadéra. It is suspected of being a front company for Wagner.

In August 2018 Russian soldiers and diplomats were seen close to the CAR president

Last month President Putin hosted 43 African leaders in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, underlining Russia's new global ambition. He is keen to revive Moscow's Soviet-era ties with African countries, challenging the West.

What are Putin's intentions in Africa?

What else has Mr Prigozhin been doing?

His alleged link to Wagner is through his military catering business: under President Putin he won a big deal to feed the Russian armed forces.

The US Treasury has put Wagner on the sanctions list too, saying it "sent soldiers to fight alongside separatists in eastern Ukraine".

It says Mr Prigozhin "has extensive business dealings" with the Russian defence ministry.

The oligarch's latest venture is similarly aligned with Mr Putin's agenda.

He is heading a new pro-Kremlin media group called Patriot. The group says it will counter "anti-Russia" media that "do not notice the good things that are happening in the country".

It brings together four news websites based in St Petersburg: RIA FAN news agency, Narodnye Novosti, Ekonomika Segodnya and Politika Segodnya.

Its combined audience is reckoned to be greater than that of state news agency Tass or pro-Kremlin broadcaster RT.

Mr Prigozhin said he was glad to head Patriot's board of trustees.

Research by the BBC's Laurence Peter

---

aha:

DERI BUILDS ALUM PLANT IN MOSCOW MITCH'S DEPRESSED APPALACHIAN STATE AFTER COAL REVIVAL FAILS; MCCONN BLOCKS ALL EFFORTS TO DEFEND 2020 ELECTIONS?!

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gates gave polling data to Deri pal of putin; another oligarch pal funds IRA; trolls need info on US elections to weaponize DNC server hacked info; active measures are mostly about delegimatize US elections, but hillary has been tough/hawkish [who went for reset button?] but trump kissing putin's ass since...? Putin can kill rivals and press, but needs economy to stay in power? [sanctions could kick off recession). he has no economy, minor petro state, so sanctions matter (deal with exxon Rex biggest in history?)

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TRUMP REPEATS PUTIN LINE THAT CRIMEA WANTS TO BE RUSSIAN

MANAFORT WAS UNEMPLOYED AND THUS OFFERED TO WORK FOR TRUMP CAMP FOR FREE (but owed millions to deripaska oligarch, so feed info; why wd that be worth millions unless putin could use it to get trump aND RID of sanctions, even early crimea ones could set off russian recession?!

impeach BS BO gave blankets while trump gave javelins (actually extortion)

maidan revo 20124, YaNU dic fled to russia 2/22/14; replaced in election by poroshenko

invaded 2014; RNC convention 2015, trump back channels to putin kremlin multiple, NRA, blackwater...

The Ukrainian revolution of 2014 (also known as the Euromaidan Revolution or Revolution of Dignity; Ukrainian: Революція гідності, Revoliutsiia hidnosti) took place in Ukraine in February 2014, when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the capital, Kiev, culminated in the ousting of the elected Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, MANAFORT and the overthrow of the Ukrainian Government.[34]

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2014 Ukrainian revolution - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › 2014_Ukrainian_revolution

Jump to

Advance toward Maidan - The Ukrainian revolution of 2014 (also known as the Euromaidan Revolution or Revolution of Dignity; Ukrainian: Революція гідності, Revoliutsiia hidnosti) took place in Ukraine in February 2014, when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the capital, Kiev, culminated in ...

List of people killed during the ... · ‎Berkut (special police force) · ‎Arseniy Yatsenyuk

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...mma

Beyond social media, the claims first popularized by ZeroHedge were also featured on disreputable right-wing conspiracy theory websites Infowars and The Gateway Pundit as well as smaller such platforms including The Federalist Papers, WayneDupree.com, [your]News, The Daily Coin, and MAGA Daily Report. (Hannity and Fox “straight news” program Fox News @ Night later covered the Reuters report as well, while featuring pictures and a discussion of Hunter Biden.)

The source of ZeroHedge’s story appears to be an article from Interfax-Ukraine that repeated unsubstantiated claims about illegal payments from Burisma to Biden made by Ukrainian Members of Parliament Andriy Derkach and Oleksandr Dubinsky at a press conference they held at the news agency, where they did not offer evidence to back their claims. Interfax-Ukraine’s parent company is a Russian business, Interfax, that was recently praised by Vladmir Putin as making “a major contribution to strengthening the authority and prestige of journalism.” Derkach’s claim about the payments isn’t new. As Time reported, in recent months Derkach has repeatedly made public statements alleging improper payments from Burisma to Biden. Those statements failed to catch on in the way the statements made at the press conference on Wednesday did. Other Ukrainian lawmakers have accused Derkach -- who does not belong to a political party and, according to Time, “studied in the early 1990s at Russia’s top intelligence academy” -- of advancing the interests of Russia, which is currently waging a war against Ukraine. According to Kyiv Post, Derkach has made separate accusations about Biden receiving improper payments in an offshore account while providing “no evidence to support these accusations.” According to Ukraine experts interviewed by NBC News, Derkach and Dubinsky are “not credible” and likely held the press conference to boost Trump.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/thank-god-putin-is-gloating-that-political-battles-in-the-us-are-putting-accusations-of-election-interference-on-ukraine/

ukraine vis impeach?

...interesting timing on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s part. In an economic forum in Moscow Wednesday, Putin remarked that he’s pleased that “political battles” in the United States have distracted from Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

“Thank God,” he told the gathering, “no one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore; now they’re accusing Ukraine.”

Yes, that is very handy for him, isn’t it. It would sure be good to know if he and Donald Trump discussed just how convenient for everyone it would be if Trump could get Ukraine to take the blame for it all.

But that’s pure speculation. Putin’s trolling of the U.S., however, is very real.

djt exonerates on skip poisioning 1019 london embassy

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/the-national-plot-against-american-global-leadership/

no lnx wa mo

nat'l plot against American global leadership

Written by Washington Monthly September 30, 2019

America is looking inward, resembling a sullen, sometimes confused navel-gazing couch-potato. It’s tired of going outside and bored with the world.

The president of the United States went to the United Nations last week to let foreign leaders know we were picking up our marbles and going home. He just told the entire world that globalism is dead. Long-live insular, parochial patriotism!

National pride, defense, and attention to domestic issues are keenly important, of course. But America’s two wide oceans and friendly neighbors do not divorce us from the rest of the world’s trade, economy, or politics, even if our national “Netflix and Chill ” attitude makes foreigners seem distant and irrelevant.

As America sits in darkness, twiddles its thumbs and fiddles with its video-game controller, our country is also desperately trying to figure out how to reckon with our failed overseas adventures. How do we extract ourselves from our foolish foreign wars. Recent steps forward seem instead to take us down a notch. We’re still trying to reconcile how we spent such unjustifiable amounts of our nation’s blood and treasure in places we bombed and occupied, uninvited, after 9/11.

During this expensive 18-year distraction and our current global withdrawal, the rest of the world has taken advantage of our insecurity and division, recognizing that this is the moment for our adversaries to grow their influence and stretch their borders—a chance to build their global futures.

China is busy constructing islands to expand its territory, Russia is building bridges to physically tether its illegally occupied neighbor to the motherland. America’s strategic power competitors are actively developing, squatting or usurping land to grow their power and presence beyond their current boundaries. They are sparing no expense to buy and bully their way further onto the world stage.

What about the United States? Under the current leadership, it’s still trying to get Mexico to sign an IOU to build a border wall with a “big beautiful door.” Instead of bridges, America is building walls.

America’s new foreign policy lens is a monocle focused on China’s meteoric growth and insatiable ambition. Our policymakers should instead be wearing bifocals. Better yet, progressives should see the whole picture, because as America actively tries to ground a high-flying China, it has lost sight of a Russia quietly spreading its wings.

Russia’s recent 12-mile, $4 billion dollar bridge to its occupied and annexed Crimean peninsula is the most obvious of connectors to an expanded future. Less visible are Moscow’s growing military and economic ties to various nations around the world.

In Ukraine and Georgia, Russia’s presence is increasingly permanent. From Syria to Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, Moscow’s strategic and regional interests are an exercise in thuggish petro-politics. Its unstated “Energy First” security policy is driving its aggressive meddling in Venezuela. Most concerning, the Kremlin’s relationship with Beijing is warming up.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping now are besties who conduct joint military exercises and form a U.N. Security Council veto bloc. With Russia economically sanctioned and China in the U.S. penalty box, these two nations are accommodating each other’s needs and finding common cause. They are witnessing a fracturing, anti-globalist and increasingly insular West ready to forsake the world entirely. New Russian relationships may seem like ephemeral convenient alliances, but Putin wants to make them enduring and permanent, beyond just friends with benefits.

President Trump may think his personal touch, Russian outreach, and Putin praising is going to entice Moscow to help contain Beijing, but this scenario is a policy fantasy. Russia pursues its raw economic and security interests in a cynical zero-sum game. It supports authoritarians and ignores abuses of human rights, press freedom, and democratic norms. This suits many world leaders perfectly.

Erdogan, Orban, Sisi, Assad, Xi—a rogues’ gallery of authoritarians and assassins make up Moscow’s expanding universe. These nations together seek to challenge the previously stable Western-dominated world order and are maneuvering to limit Washington’s influence.

The Trump administration favors bilateral agreements over multilateral institutions and alliances, hoping for weaker partners and better deals by dumping allies to pursue an America First folly. This practice allows Russia both to build bridges and destroy American inroads. It helps give Xi a boost when America threatens his economy. It keeps Nicolás Maduro in power—despite Vice President Mike Pence forcefully telling Caracas he must go.

China and Russia are going for broke in this great game by building ports, dams, roads, railways, pipelines, communications infrastructure, and political partnerships around the world—and, eventually, all the way up to America’s borders. They may be making an expensively bad geopolitical bet. Or not.

Trump doesn’t really care. Instead of countering or matching our adversaries’ expansionist global strategy, America’s developer-in-chief wants to build only one permanent thing: a solid, reliable, and exclusively nativist political movement at home.

Markos Kounalakis, Ph.D. is a foreign affairs columnist for McClatchy News, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and President and Publisher emeritus of the Washington Monthly.

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"This is spy movie stuff’: Rachel Maddow worries Putin may assassinate — inside America

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow on Friday worried that Russian President…

if russia basically has no economy, at least exports except oil, why is it not more involved in denial?]

trms

https://www.c-span.org/video/?461371-2/fall-books-2019-preview-author-discussion

my new book. which is called blowout.some of you may know, i have this t.v. show where i get to -- you guys still have tvs! [laughter] for most of you very soon it will be a phone show. but right now it's a t.v. show where i get to cover the news in my own way and is my choice as to which stories i cover and how and at what length. for that show, i read several thousand words a day. and as long as there are no swearwords among them and as long as i abide by nbc news rules and standards are pretty much can say all the words i write on my own terms on t.v. every night. which means i have the greatest job on earth. but that may also make you wonder why on top of that, i would be so greedy as to want an additional outlet. yet to further express myself and give my take on what i think is going on in the world. in the abstract, i don't. but in 2012 and i wrote my first book, drift, and this past year when i started working on blowout, i really felt like i ended up book rating almost despite myself because in the course of my day job, i found myself repeatedly getting stuck. just in doing my regular work trying to explain the days news, trying to make sense of larger dynamic in which the new cycle was unfolding. both in 2012 and this past year. i kept feeling like i was getting caught in an intellectual bottleneck. there was this process that i could see at work in the world. a dynamic that came to think was pretty important for explaining the news on any given day. but it is an idea that's a couple of hundred pages long idea.

although i took incessantly a couple of hundred page long idea does not fit into my daily work. it is the same thing for me that happens in 2012. if any of you remember drift also the book when it came out it was about the use of american military power becoming unmoored from democratic decision-making. wars that never end and that the public never notices. and congress never votes on. i felt compelled to write drift because i felt that it was a tellable story about where it all came from. a fairly recent story and i felt it was a way to point out over a couple hundred pages why it didn't have to be that way forever. that was my first book.

my new book, blowout, came from a realization i had that sort of had me in the same way. which is that there is a fairly simple that i think uniquely destructive dynamic at work behind a bunch of news that we are living through right now. and it has to do with the oil and gas industry. it is a couple hundred pages long so it had to be a book. but the basic idea is that the democratic system of government and competent governance overall, both at home and abroad, they have a really potent and unrelenting enemy and not one industry. and oil and gas industry is a rich and dangerous sector of the business world but i think it also ought to be recognized as a political entity.

one has a track record of gobbling down even seemingly strong government and spitting out the bumps. part of the books subtitle is the phrase, rogue state russia. you may know that in my day job i have spent a -- amount of time on the russian attack on the 2016 election and its implications and aftermath. this book is not a book about that attack per se. but it does let me get off my chest a thing that i hope americans could better understand about why russia would have wanted to do a thing like that. and why they chose those weird methods. i think russia mounted the attack on our election from a position of profound economic and strategic weakness. for me, coming to understand that has been revelatory in terms of thinking about what they did but also what they've done since the attack and why and what makes for success in their own eyes when they mount these kinds of operations.

just one last point. i recognize that the oil and gas industry is a big bold committed thing. it is made up of many companies that are run by many executives that have many employees and many shareholders. each of whom is a person like who came from a mother. it is very nice. [laughter] i don't think the oil and gas industry is bad because it is made up of bad people. i think the story here is that it is a uniquely destructive entity particularly to our democracy and democracies abroad because of its inherent purpose and because of the profoundly cynical but rational expectations that industry has built for itself in terms of the way it does business. as you know, when used as directed, this is an industry whose products are in the process of ending the world. and sooner than we were really say expecting. but even before we get to the climate apocalypse, that's a ministry in the meantime really is doing its best to undermine our ability to govern ourselves effectively. and to make good group decisions about how to handle all of our challenges, including the ones that we get from them. so, i know, cheery, right?

there's a lot of oklahoma city, there are some siberia and equatorial guinea. there's a very talented -- there seats in hell -- there is a little bit of xena the warrior princess. some radioactive milk, and a comically terribly failed spy ring it up of terrible, terrible spies. and i know the cover, under the covers a little apocalyptic. actually briefly lobbied for the statute -- the statue of liberty to have a clown nose. my mother told me based on the cover she is afraid to read it. i will admit it is sort of about the end of the world. but i also think it is kind of a funny story. [laughter] so, in any case i hope that you like it. i want to thank you for this time. i want to thank you in advance. free interest, as i say it comes out on october 1.

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Putin warned US before drone was shot down not to attack Iran

https://nypost.com/.../putin-warned-us-before-drone-was-shot-down-not-to-attack-iran...

Jun 20, 2019 - Putin warned US before drone was shot down not to attack Iran ... Putin acknowledged that US and EU sanctions had cost Russia an estimated ...

Under pressure from Trump, OPEC embraces Putin - Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/...putin.../under-pressure-from-trump-opec-embraces-putin-i...

1 day ago - Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh initially expressed outrage about Russian President Putin's pre-announcement of the extended output cuts.

Iran–Russia relations - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Russia_relations

Relations between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Persian Empire (Iran), officially ..... Following the JCPOA agreement, President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban in 2015 and the delivery of the S-300 missile defense system to Iran was agreed ...

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...Unlike previous years in which Iran's air fleet were entirely western made,

Iran's Air Force and civilian air fleet are increasingly becoming domestically and Russian built as the US and Europe continue to maintain sanctions on Iran.[28][29][30] In 2010, Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment led the UN to pass a new resolution, number 1929 to vote for new sanctions against Iran which bans the sale of all types of heavy weaponry (including missiles) to Iran. This resulted in the cancellation of the delivery of the S-300 system to Iran:[31] In September 2010 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree banning the delivery of S-300 missile systems, armored vehicles, warplanes, helicopters and ships to Iran.[32] This may cause the loss of $13 billion in arms sales to Iran and force Iran to depend on China for arms in the future according to Igor Korotchenko.[33] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also criticised Russia for kowtowing to the United States.[34] As a result of the cancellation, Iran brought suit against Russia in Swiss court and in response to the lawsuit Russia threatened to withdraw diplomatic support for Iran in the nuclear dispute.[35]

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Iran and Russia have become the Syrian government's principal allies in the conflict, openly providing armed support. Meanwhile, Russia's own relations with the West plummeted due the Ukraine crisis, the 2018 Skripal poisoning incident in Great Britain, and alleged Russian interference with Western politics, prompting the U.S. and Europe to retaliate with sanctions against Russia. As a result, Russia has shown a degree willingness to ally with Iran militarily. Following the JCPOA agreement, President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban in 2015 and the delivery of the S-300 missile defense system to Iran was agreed to[36]. The delivery was completed in November 2016 and was to be followed by a $10 billion deal that included helicopters, planes and artillery systems.[37]

See also: Russia–Syria–Iran–Iraq coalition

Trade

[38] In July 2010, Iran and Russia signed an agreement to increase their cooperation in developing their energy sectors. Features of the agreement include the establishment of a joint oil exchange, which with a combined production of up to 15 million barrels of oil per day has the potential to become a leading market globally.[39] Gazprom and Lukoil have become increasingly involved in the development of Iranian oil and gas projects.

In 2005, Russia was the seventh largest trading partner of Iran, with 5.33% of all exports to Iran originating from Russia.[40] Trade relations between the two increased from US$1 billion in 2005 to $3.7 billion in 2008.[38] Motor vehicles, fruits, vegetables, glass, textiles, plastics, chemicals, hand-woven carpet, stone and plaster products were among the main Iranian non-oil goods exported to Russia.[41] According to Reuters (Wed Apr 2, 2014), Iran and Russia have made progress towards an oil for goods deal sources said would be worth up to $20 billion.[42][43]

Relations between Russia and Iran have increased as both countries are under U.S. sanctions and are seeking new trade partners. The two countries signed a historic US$20 billion energy deal in 2014.[44][45]

Eurasian Economic Union