US Senators Urge to Prevent Alleged ‘Russian Meddling’ in Mexico’s Election
Sputnik – February 1, 2018
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration should take steps to deter alleged Russian interference in the upcoming presidential election in Mexico and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, US Senators Tim Kaine, Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez said in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and USAID Administrator Mark Green.
“We are deeply troubled by recent news articles that Russia is reportedly using sophisticated technology to meddle in Mexico’s upcoming election,” the letter said on Wednesday. “As such, we believe it is critical that USAID continue to play an active role in providing technical assistance, education and training to support countries’ efforts to strengthen electoral systems.”
The lawmakers fear Russia’s alleged actions in the region will cause instability, especially as six contentious presidential elections will take place this year in the Western Hemisphere, including in Brazil and Colombia, the letter said.
Tillerson is set to visit Mexico City on Friday to meet with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chyrstia Freeland for talks on regional issues.
Russian ambassador to Mexico Eduard Malayan earlier this month dismissed rumors about Russia’s “interference” in Mexico’s forthcoming election as “nonsense.”
Russia has faced numerous accusations of meddling in elections since the 2016 US presidential vote in which then-Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed victory against the odds. The US intelligence community alleged that Trump’s campaign team colluded with the Kremlin to bring him victory in the election.
Similar accusations followed France’s presidential election, Spain’s Catalan referendum and the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote.
Russian officials have repeatedly refuted such accusations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the claims groundless. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed that the accusations of Russia meddling in the elections of foreign states were unsubstantiated.
READ ALSO:
CIA Prediction of Russian Meddling in US Midterm Elections ‘Nonsense’
Top sports court overturns IOC’s ban on 28 Russian athletes in groundbreaking ruling
RT | February 1, 2018
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has cleared 28 Russian athletes and dropped their life-bans over alleged doping. Their results have been reinstated and the athletes are eligible to compete in the 2018 Winter Games.
“Both CAS panels unanimously found that the evidence put forward by the IOC in relation to this matter did not have the same weight in each individual case,” the statement from the Lausanne-based international body said.
According to the ruling, in 28 cases filed by the Russian athletes the evidence was “insufficient” to establish that “an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) was committed by the athletes.”
“With respect to these 28 athletes, the appeals are upheld, the sanctions annulled and their individual results achieved in Sochi 2014 are reinstated,” it said.
CAS also partially upheld the appeals of other 11 Russian athletes as the evidence collected “was found to be sufficient to establish an individual ADRV.”
The ruling said that these 11 athletes were declared “ineligible” for the upcoming PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games, instead of a life ban from all Games.
Among those allowed to participate in the games are Sochi Olympic champion cross-country skiers Alexander Legkov and Maxim Vylegzhanin.
Speed-skater Olga Fatkulina, bobsledders Dmitry Trunenkov and Alexey Negodaylo, and skeleton racer Aleksandr Tretiakov – all of whom won gold or silver medals at the 2014 Sochi Olympics – were given permission to take part in the Games this year.
The CAS decision proves that Russian athletes who were accused of doping violations are indeed “clean,” Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov told journalists. “We are all happy that justice has finally been served,” he said.
On December 5, the IOC Executive Board banned team Russia from the PyeongChang Winter Games due to allegations of state-sponsored doping.
The ruling said that “clean” Russian athletes can only compete under a neutral flag in South Korea.
The decision came after the results of two separate investigations of alleged Russian doping: one regarding individual athletes, the other focusing on alleged institutional violations.
More than 40 Russian athletes, including Sochi Olympic champions, have been slapped with life bans from the IOC and had their Sochi records annulled as punishment for alleged doping violations in Sochi.
The CAS decision doesn’t necessarily mean that these 28 athletes will be invited to the 2018 Games, the IOC said in a statement. “Not being sanctioned does not automatically confer the privilege of an invitation,” the organization added.
According to the Olympic governing body, Russian athletes “can participate in PyeongChang only on invitation by the IOC.”
Russian Olympic Assembly chief Alexander Zhukov called the CAS decision “fair,” adding that these 28 athletes are now able to take part in the 2018 Olympic Games. “From the very start, we’ve insisted that our athletes are not involved in any doping frauds, and now we are happy that the court has restored their name and all rewards were returned to them,” he said.
CIA Boss Claims Russia Poised to Meddle in Yet Another US Election
Sputnik – January 30, 2018
Despite the fact that the ongoing US investigation into the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign has failed to produce any tangible results, a top American intelligence official now says that Moscow “will continue” to try and influence elections in the United States.
Mike Pompeo, Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, has claimed that there has not been a “significant decrease” in Russian activity in the US, and that Moscow may now attempt to interfere with the upcoming congressional midterm elections in November.
“I have every expectation that they [the Russians] will continue to try and do that but I’m confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election [and] that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won’t be great,” Pompeo told the BBC.
The CIA head also claimed that Russia is an adversary rather than an ally, despite the ongoing cooperation between Moscow and Washington in the fight against terrorism.
Earlier in January Pompeo made a similar claim on Face the Nation Sunday, expressing his concerns about the “many foes who want to undermine Western democracy” and insisting that Russia has been allegedly interfering in the American elections “for decades.”
At the same time, retired CIA officer turned political activist Ray McGovern has unveiled proof of attempts by members of the US intelligence community to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
In 2017 the US Congress launched four separate probes into the alleged Russian meddling during the election, including the investigations run by the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees and the House’s Intelligence and Oversight panels.
Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations of collusion, while US President Donald Trump described the probe as the “single greatest witch hunt” in US history.
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates were indicted in October for charges unrelated to Trump’s campaign and the election, while former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for lying to the FBI about a meeting he had with a Russian ambassador.
Former policy adviser to the Trump campaign George Papadopoulos was also charged with providing false statements to the FBI regarding his interactions with foreign nationals.
The US intelligence community has also released an assessment alleging they had “high confidence” Russia meddled in last year’s US presidential election. The community’s report claimed that Moscow conspired to get Trump elected as president and to undermine faith in the US democratic process.
READ MORE:
US House Intel Committee Will Release Memo on FBI’s Trump Campaign Surveillance
Tech giants struggle to find ‘Russian meddling’ in written answers to US Senate
RT | January 28, 2018
Twitter, Facebook and Google had a hard time providing evidence of “Russian meddling” on social media, transcripts from the US Senate show. However, they did shockingly reveal that RT America had purchased ads aimed at Americans.
On Friday, the US Senate Intelligence Committee released answers provided by Twitter, Facebook and Google in response to questions concerning Russia’s alleged meddlesome use of social media in the devious pursuit of uprooting American democracy.
The Senate’s questions included breathless demands that the tech giants explain why Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are “allowed” to use their services, as well as more mundane requests, such as asking Google if it can confirm crackpot rumors spread by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. However, it turns out the questions were considerably more sensational and accusatory than the tech giants’ responses, which in some cases even raised doubts about the narratives being promoted by the US government and media outlets.
Why does Twitter allow users to expose US crimes? – curious senator
Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, had by far the most colorful questions for the three tech giants. During his thorough interrogation of Twitter, he asked whether company’s terms of service prohibit “collaboration with Russian intelligence services to influence an election.” (Twitter reassured the good senator that exerting “artificial influence on an election [is] likely to violate any number of Twitter’s rules and policies.”)
But Cotton’s best moment came when he demanded “justification for allowing entities and individuals such as WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden to maintain Twitter accounts.”
Twitter very delicately informed Cotton that “we do not bar controversial figures from our platform or prohibit accounts from posting controversial content … So long as those accounts remain in compliance with our policies, we do not take action against their Tweets or suspend them from the platform.” Undeterred, Cotton asked these same questions to Facebook – and received very similar answers.
RT America bought ads that… ‘focused on’ Americans
In one of the more underwhelming revelations disclosed by the tech giants in the newly-released documents, Twitter reported that “of all of RT’s ad campaigns, 11 were targeted exclusively at English-language speakers, and several others—including all of @RT_America’s seven campaigns—used geographic targeting to focus on US users.”
Twitter also revealed that it had identified nine accounts as being “potentially linked to Russia that promoted election-related, English-language content.” Of these nine nefarious accounts “potentially linked” to Russia, “the most significant use of advertising was by @RT_com and @RT_America. Those two accounts collectively ran 44 different ad campaigns, accounting for nearly all of the relevant advertising we reviewed,” according to Twitter. Once again, Twitter forgot to mention that it pitched a proposal for RT to spend huge sums on advertising for the US presidential election – an offer which RT declined.
However, there is little doubt that before RT was banned from buying Twitter ads, RT America “targeted” Americans.
Facebook can’t trace ‘Russian disinformation campaign’
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia asked Facebook if it could confirm that it was “alerted” by Ukrainian activists and politicians about Russian trolls peddling disinformation on its platform. Unfortunately, Facebook’s response rained on Warner’s anti-Russia parade.
The social media giant explained that most of the “disinformation” reported by Ukrainians was nothing more than Russians calling Ukrainians “khokhol” (a common derogatory term). Facebook also said it received reports of Ukrainians calling Russians “moskal” (another mundane ethnic slur). In some cases, the slurs were deemed hate speech and removed, in accordance with the site’s Community Standards. Facebook was apparently unable to recall any other “Russian misinformation” reported by Ukrainian authorities.
Google questions ‘Ukrainian artillery hack’
In one of many Russia-gate Hail Marys lobbed by Tom Cotton, the Intelligence Committee pressed Google to comment on reports that Russia used malware implanted on Android devices to track Ukrainian artillery units, suggesting that “Russia is not only using your platforms to influence elections, but to gain an advantage on the front lines of a battlefield.”
The question backfired spectacularly, with Google responding: “We are aware of this report and we, although [sic] with others in the industry, have questioned its accuracy.”
The company cited, as one example, that the alleged malware at issue was never distributed through Google’s Play Store.
Scroll on, Russia’s not targeting your FB
Senator Kamala Harris was interested to learn about the types of targeting criteria – “such as demographic, behavioral, lookalike, or email matching” – allegedly used by Russia for its “information operations.” Again, Google’s response did not exactly launch a thousand ships.
“$4,700 of ads attributable to suspected state-sponsored Russian actors were not narrowly targeted to specific groups of users: for example, we found no evidence of targeting by geography (e.g. certain states) or by users’ inferred political preferences (e.g. right or left-leaning),” Google responded. The company added that it was “unaware of any inauthentic accounts linked to Russian information operations flagged by our users.”
Read more:
Is Putin profoundly corrupt or “incorruptible?”
By Sharon Tennison | CCI | April 2017
As the Ukraine situation has worsened, unconscionable misinformation and hype is being poured on Russia and Vladimir Putin. Journalists and pundits must scour the Internet and thesauruses to come up with fiendish new epithets to describe both. Wherever I make presentations across America, the first question ominously asked during Q&A is always, “What about Putin?” It’s time to share my thoughts which follow:
Putin obviously has his faults and makes mistakes. Based on my earlier experience with him, and the experiences of trusted people, including U.S. officials who have worked closely with him over a period of years, Putin most likely is a straight, reliable and exceptionally inventive man.
He is obviously a long-term thinker and planner and has proven to be an excellent analyst and strategist. He is a leader who can quietly work toward his goals under mounds of accusations and myths that have been steadily leveled at him since he became Russia’s second president.
I’ve stood by silently watching the demonization of Putin grow since it began in the early 2000s –– I pondered on computer my thoughts and concerns, hoping eventually to include them in a book (which was published in 2011). The book explains my observations more thoroughly than this article.
Like others who have had direct experience with this little known man, I’ve tried to no avail to avoid being labeled a “Putin apologist”. If one is even neutral about him, they are considered “soft on Putin” by pundits, news hounds and average citizens who get their news from CNN, Fox and MSNBC.
I don’t pretend to be an expert, just a program developer in the USSR and Russia for the past 30 years. But during this time, I’ve have had far more direct, on-ground contact with Russians of all stripes across 11 time zones than any of the Western reporters or for that matter any of Washington’s officials.
I’ve been in country long enough to ponder on Russian history and culture deeply, to study their psychology and conditioning, and to understand the marked differences between American and Russian mentalities which so complicate our political relations with their leaders.
As with personalities in a family or a civic club or in a city hall, it takes understanding and compromise to be able to create workable relationships when basic conditionings are different. Washington has been notoriously disinterested in understanding these differences and attempting to meet Russia halfway.
In addition to my personal experience with Putin, I’ve had discussions with numerous American officials and U.S. businessmen who have had years of experience working with him––I believe it is safe to say that none would describe him as “brutal” or “thuggish”, or the other slanderous adjectives and nouns that are repeatedly used in western media.
I met Putin years before he ever dreamed of being president of Russia, as did many of us working in St.Petersburg during the 1990s. Since all of the slander started, I’ve become nearly obsessed with understanding his character. I think I’ve read every major speech he has given (including the full texts of his annual hours-long telephone “talk-ins” with Russian citizens).
I’ve been trying to ascertain whether he has changed for the worse since being elevated to the presidency, or whether he is a straight character cast into a role he never anticipated––and is using sheer wits to try to do the best he can to deal with Washington under extremely difficult circumstances.
If the latter is the case, and I think it is, he should get high marks for his performance over the past 14 years. It’s not by accident that Forbes declared him the most Powerful Leader of 2013, replacing Obama who was given the title for 2012. The following is my one personal experience with Putin.
The year was 1992
Putin with Anatoly Sobchak, Mayor of St. Petersburg, early 1990s. Putin was one of Sobchak’s deputies from 1992-96
It was two years after the implosion of communism; the place was St.Petersburg.
For years I had been creating programs to open up relations between the two countries and hopefully to help Soviet people to get beyond their entrenched top-down mentalities. A new program possibility emerged in my head. Since I expected it might require a signature from the Marienskii City Hall, an appointment was made.
My friend Volodya Shestakov and I showed up at a side door entrance to the Marienskii building. We found ourselves in a small, dull brown office, facing a rather trim nondescript man in a brown suit.
He inquired about my reason for coming in. After scanning the proposal I provided he began asking intelligent questions. After each of my answers, he asked the next relevant question.
I became aware that this interviewer was different from other Soviet bureaucrats who always seemed to fall into chummy conversations with foreigners with hopes of obtaining bribes in exchange for the Americans’ requests. CCI stood on the principle that we would never, never give bribes.
This bureaucrat was open, inquiring, and impersonal in demeanor. After more than an hour of careful questions and answers, he quietly explained that he had tried hard to determine if the proposal was legal, then said that unfortunately at the time it was not. A few good words about the proposal were uttered. That was all. He simply and kindly showed us to the door.
Out on the sidewalk, I said to my colleague, “Volodya, this is the first time we have ever dealt with a Soviet bureaucrat who didn’t ask us for a trip to the US or something valuable!”
I remember looking at his business card in the sunlight––it read Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
1994
U.S. Consul General Jack Gosnell put in an SOS call to me in St.Petersburg. He had 14 Congress members and the new American Ambassador to Russia, Thomas Pickering, coming to St.Petersburg in the next three days. He needed immediate help.
I scurried over to the Consulate and learned that Jack intended me to brief this auspicious delegation and the incoming ambassador.
I was stunned but he insisted. They were coming from Moscow and were furious about how U.S. funding was being wasted there. Jack wanted them to hear the”good news” about CCI’s programs that were showing fine results. In the next 24 hours Jack and I also set up “home” meetings in a dozen Russian entrepreneurs’ small apartments for the arriving dignitaries (St.Petersburg State Department people were aghast, since it had never been done before––but Jack overruled).
Only later in 2000, did I learn of Jack’s former three-year experience with Vladimir Putin in the 1990s while the latter was running the city for Mayor Sobchak. More on this further down.
December 31, 1999
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin leaves the Kremlin on the day of his resignation, December 31 1999. Prime Minister Putin (second left) became acting president.
With no warning, at the turn of the year, President Boris Yeltsin made the announcement to the world that from the next day forward he was vacating his office and leaving Russia in the hands of an unknown Vladimir Putin.
On hearing the news, I thought surely not the Putin I remembered––he could never lead Russia. The next day a NYT article included a photo.
Yes, it was the same Putin I’d met years ago! I was shocked and dismayed, telling friends, “This is a disaster for Russia, I’ve spent time with this guy, he is too introverted and too intelligent––he will never be able to relate to Russia’s masses.”
Further, I lamented: “For Russia to get up off of its knees, two things must happen: 1) The arrogant young oligarchs have to be removed by force from the Kremlin, and 2) A way must be found to remove the regional bosses (governors) from their fiefdoms across Russia’s 89 regions”.
It was clear to me that the man in the brown suit would never have the instincts or guts to tackle Russia’s overriding twin challenges.
February 2000
Almost immediately Putin began putting Russia’s oligarchs on edge. In February a question about the oligarchs came up; he clarified with a question and his answer:
What should be the relationship with the so-called oligarchs? The same as anyone else. The same as the owner of a small bakery or a shoe repair shop.
This was the first signal that the tycoons would no longer be able to flaunt government regulations or count on special access in the Kremlin. It also made the West’s capitalists nervous.
After all, these oligarchs were wealthy untouchable businessmen––good capitalists, never mind that they got their enterprises illegally and were putting their profits in offshore banks.
Four months later Putin called a meeting with the oligarchs and gave them his deal:
They could keep their illegally-gained wealth-producing Soviet enterprises and they would not be nationalized …. IF taxes were paid on their revenues and if they personally stayed out of politics.
This was the first of Putin’s “elegant solutions” to the near impossible challenges facing the new Russia. But the deal also put Putin in crosshairs with US media and officials who then began to champion the oligarchs, particularly Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The latter became highly political, didn’t pay taxes, and prior to being apprehended and jailed was in the process of selling a major portion of Russia’s largest private oil company, Yukos Oil, to Exxon Mobil. Unfortunately, to U.S. media and governing structures, Khodorkovsky became a martyr (and remains so up to today).
March 2000
I arrived in St.Petersburg. A Russian friend (a psychologist) since 1983 came for our usual visit. My first question was, “Lena what do you think about your new president?” She laughed and retorted, “Volodya! I went to school with him!”
She began to describe Putin as a quiet youngster, poor, fond of martial arts, who stood up for kids being bullied on the playgrounds. She remembered him as a patriotic youth who applied for the KGB prematurely after graduating secondary school (they sent him away and told him to get an education).
He went to law school, later reapplied and was accepted. I must have grimaced at this, because Lena said:
Sharon in those days we all admired the KGB and believed that those who worked there were patriots and were keeping the country safe. We thought it was natural for Volodya to choose this career.
My next question was:
What do you think he will do with Yeltsin’s criminals in the Kremlin?
Putting on her psychologist hat, she pondered and replied:
If left to his normal behaviors, he will watch them for a while to be sure what is going on, then he will throw up some flares to let them know that he is watching. If they don’t respond, he will address them personally, then if the behaviors don’t change–– some will be in prison in a couple of years.
I congratulated her via email when her predictions began to show up in real time.
Throughout the 2000s
St.Petersburg’s many CCI alumni were being interviewed to determine how the PEP business training program was working and how we could make the U.S. experience more valuable for their new small businesses. Most believed that the program had been enormously important, even life changing. Last, each was asked:
So what do you think of your new president?
None responded negatively, even though at that time entrepreneurs hated Russia’s bureaucrats. Most answered similarly, “Putin registered my business a few years ago”.
Next question:
So, how much did it cost you?
To a person they replied, “Putin didn’t charge anything”. One said:
We went to Putin’s desk because the others providing registrations at the Marienskii were getting ‘rich on their seats.’
Late 2000
Into Putin’s first year as Russia’s president, US officials seemed to me to be suspect that he would be antithetical to America’s interests––his every move was called into question in American media. I couldn’t understand why and was chronicling these happenings in my computer and newsletters.
Year 2001
Jack Gosnell (former USCG mentioned earlier) explained his relationship with Putin when the latter was deputy mayor of St.Petersburg. The two of them worked closely to create joint ventures and other ways to promote relations between the two countries. Jack related that Putin was always straight up, courteous and helpful.
When Putin’s wife, Ludmila, was in a severe auto accident, Jack took the liberty (before informing Putin) to arrange hospitalization and airline travel for her to get medical care in Finland. When Jack told Putin, he reported that the latter was overcome by the generous offer, but ended saying that he couldn’t accept this favor, that Ludmila would have to recover in a Russian hospital.
She did––although medical care in Russia was abominably bad in the 1990s.
A senior CSIS officer I was friends with in the 2000s worked closely with Putin on a number of joint ventures during the 1990s. He reported that he had no dealings with Putin that were questionable, that he respected him and believed he was getting an undeserved dour reputation from U.S. media.
Matter of fact, he closed the door at CSIS when we started talking about Putin. I guessed his comments wouldn’t be acceptable if others were listening.
Another former U.S. official who will go unidentified, also reported working closely with Putin, saying there was never any hint of bribery, pressuring, nothing but respectable behaviors and helpfulness.
I had two encounters in 2013 with State Department officials regarding Putin:
At the first one, I felt free to ask the question I had previously yearned to get answered:
When did Putin become unacceptable to Washington officials and why??
Without hesitating the answer came back:
The knives were drawn’ when it was announced that Putin would be the next president.”
I questioned WHY? The answer:
I could never find out why––maybe because he was KGB.”
I offered that Bush #I, was head of the CIA. The reply was
That would have made no difference, he was our guy.
The second was a former State Department official with whom I recently shared a radio interview on Russia. Afterward when we were chatting, I remarked, “You might be interested to know that I’ve collected experiences of Putin from numerous people, some over a period of years, and they all say they had no negative experiences with Putin and there was no evidence of taking bribes”. He firmly replied:
No one has ever been able to come up with a bribery charge against Putin.”
From 2001 up to today, I’ve watched the negative U.S. media mounting against Putin …. even accusations of assassinations, poisonings, and comparing him to Hitler.
No one yet has come up with any concrete evidence for these allegations. During this time, I’ve traveled throughout Russia several times every year, and have watched the country slowly change under Putin’s watch. Taxes were lowered, inflation lessened, and laws slowly put in place. Schools and hospitals began improving. Small businesses were growing, agriculture was showing improvement, and stores were becoming stocked with food.
Alcohol challenges were less obvious, smoking was banned from buildings, and life expectancy began increasing. Highways were being laid across the country, new rails and modern trains appeared even in far out places, and the banking industry was becoming dependable. Russia was beginning to look like a decent country –– certainly not where Russians hoped it to be long term, but improving incrementally for the first time in their memories.
My 2013/14 Trips to Russia:
In addition to St.Petersburg and Moscow, in September I traveled out to the Ural Mountains, spent time in Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Perm. We traveled between cities via autos and rail––the fields and forests look healthy, small towns sport new paint and construction. Today’s Russians look like Americans (we get the same clothing from China).
Old concrete Khrushchev block houses are giving way to new multi-story private residential complexes which are lovely. High-rise business centers, fine hotels and great restaurants are now common place––and ordinary Russians frequent these places. Two and three story private homes rim these Russian cities far from Moscow.
We visited new museums, municipal buildings and huge super markets. Streets are in good repair, highways are new and well marked now, service stations look like those dotting American highways. In January I went to Novosibirsk out in Siberia where similar new architecture was noted. Streets were kept navigable with constant snowplowing, modern lighting kept the city bright all night, lots of new traffic lights (with seconds counting down to light change) have appeared.
It is astounding to me how much progress Russia has made in the past 14 years since an unknown man with no experience walked into Russia’s presidency and took over a country that was flat on its belly.
So why do our leaders and media demean and demonize Putin and Russia???
Like Lady MacBeth, do they protest too much?
Psychologists tell us that people (and countries?) project off on others what they don’t want to face in themselves. Others carry our “shadow” when we refuse to own it. We confer on others the very traits that we are horrified to acknowledge in ourselves.
Could this be why we constantly find fault with Putin and Russia?
Could it be that we project on to Putin the sins of ourselves and our leaders?
Could it be that we condemn Russia’s corruption, acting like the corruption within our corporate world doesn’t exist?
Could it be that we condemn their human rights and LGBT issues, not facing the fact that we haven’t solved our own?
Could it be that we accuse Russia of “reconstituting the USSR”––because of what we do to remain the world’s “hegemon”?
Could it be that we project nationalist behaviors on Russia, because that is what we have become and we don’t want to face it?
Could it be that we project warmongering off on Russia, because of what we have done over the past several administrations?
Some of you were around Putin in the earlier years. Please share your opinions, pro and con …. confidentiality will be assured. It’s important to develop a composite picture of this demonized leader and get the record straight. I’m quite sure that 99% of those who excoriate him in mainstream media have had no personal contact with him at all. They write articles on hearsay, rumors and fabrication, or they read scripts others have written on their tele-prompters. This is how our nation gets its “news”, such as it is.
There is a well known code of ethics among us: Is it the Truth, Is it Fair, Does it build Friendship and Goodwill, and Will it be Beneficial for All Concerned?
It seems to me that if our nation’s leaders would commit to using these four principles in international relations, the world would operate in a completely different manner, and human beings across this planet would live in better conditions than they do today.
As always your comments will be appreciated. Please resend this report to as many friends and colleagues as possible.
Sharon Tennison ran a successful NGO funded by philanthropists, American foundations, USAID and Department of State, designing new programs and refining old ones, and evaluating Russian delegates’ U.S. experiences for over 20 years. Tennison adapted the Marshall Plan Tours from the 40s/50s, and created the Production Enhancement Program (PEP) for Russian entrepreneurs, the largest ever business training program between the U.S. and Russia. Running several large programs concurrently during the 90s and 2000s, funding disappeared shortly after the 2008 financial crisis set in. Tennison still runs an orphanage program in Russia, is President and Founder, Center for Citizen Initiatives, a member of Rotary Club of Palo Alto, California, and author of The Power of Impossible Ideas: Ordinary Citizens’ Extraordinary Efforts to Avert International Crises. The author can be contacted at sharon@ccisf.org
US expands sanctions on Russian firms, individuals
Press TV – January 26, 2018
The United States has expanded its sanctions against Russia by adding more individuals and companies to its blacklist because of what Washington calls Moscow’s continued interference in Ukraine.
The US Treasury Department announced on Friday it had added 21 people and nine companies to the sanctions list, including some that had been involved in the delivery of Siemens gas turbines to Crimea. According to the statement, Russian Deputy Energy Minister Andrey Cherezov was in the black list.
“Today’s action is part of Treasury’s continued commitment to maintain sanctions pressure on Russia,” the department said in a statement.
“This action underscores the US government’s opposition to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and firm refusal to recognize its attempted annexation of the peninsula,” it added.
The latest sanctions have also affected some power and energy companies, including Techno-prom-export engineering company and multiple subsidiaries of oil producer Surgut-nefte-gaz.
On Thursday, the US called on the EU to follow in the footsteps of the US by blacklisting more Russian oligarchs in line with a US sanctions review.
The US has also blacklisted dozens of Russian individuals and companies over what Washington calls Russia’s interference in Ukraine and its meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The US and its allies had already levied broad economic sanctions against Russia over its alleged support for pro-Russia separatist forces in eastern Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia after a referendum in 2014.
Social media giants crack down on RT under Senate pressure
RT | January 26, 2018
Facebook, Google and Twitter are taking action against RT in response to pressure from the Senate Intelligence Committee, but have found very little to indicate ‘Russian meddling’ in the 2016 elections, new documents show.
Google Search, for example, has labels “describing RT’s relationship with the Russian Government” and the company is “working on disclosures to provide similar transparency on YouTube,” according to a letter sent to the committee by Google’s VP and general counsel Kent Walker.
Twitter has “off-boarded” RT and Sputnik “and will no longer allow those companies to purchase ad campaigns and promote Tweets on our platform,”said the letter from the company’s acting general counsel Sean Edgett.
The letters were provided following the October 31, 2017 hearing at which the senators grilled social media executives on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election via their products and services.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) was interested to know whether any of the companies accepted advertising from RT or Sputnik. Unlike Twitter, Facebook and Google continue to carry ads from both outlets. Google’s Walker wrote that such ads remain subject to “strict ads policies and community guidelines,” and that “to date, we’ve seen no evidence that they are violating these policies.”
Walker added that Google took RT out of its Preferred Lineup on YouTube. In November, Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, told an international forum that he planned to “de-rank” RT and Sputnik in displayed search results.
Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch wrote that RT and Sputnik can “use our advertising tools as long as they comply with Facebook’s policies, including complying with applicable law.”
Committee chairman Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) asked whether any of the companies provide any data to the Russian government. Twitter said it had received requests for data, but did not comply with any of them. Facebook said it had received 28 requests for data between 2013 and 2017, but that it “did not provide any data in response.”
Google said it had “not complied with every request” but declined to provide any specifics, referring the senators to its Transparency Report. RT’s analysis of that data shows that Google received 237 requests in the first half of 2016 and provided responses in 7 percent of cases. Another 234 requests came in the second half of the year, with a 15 percent response rate. There were 318 requests in 2017 with a 10 percent response rate.
Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) was very interested to hear what the social media companies are doing with the revenue supposedly earned from “Russian” advertising. Edgett’s letter confirmed Twitter’s commitment to donate the $1.9 million that RT had spent globally on ads to “academic research into elections and civic engagement.” He did not specify the organizations that would benefit from this funding.
Although Stretch said that revenue from ads running on pages managed by the Internet Research Agency (IRA, usually described in the Western press as the “St. Petersburg troll farm”) was “immaterial,” he revealed that Facebook has contributed “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to the Defending Digital Democracy Project, an outfit based at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government “that works to secure democracies around the world from external influence.”
Furthermore, the investments Facebook has made to “address election integrity and other security issues” have been so significant that “we have informed investors that we expect that the amount that we will spend will impact our profitability,” Stretch added.
Google said the total amount of revenue from “Russian” ads amounted to $4,700, while the company has contributed $750,000 to the the Defending Digital Democracy Project.
The outfit is run by Eric Rosenbach, former assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration. According to the Belfer Center at Harvard University, Rosenbach recruited Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager Robby Mook and Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager Matt Rhoades to co-chair the project.
Among the project’s advisers is Marc Elias of Perkins Coie, the law firm that has represented Clinton and the DNC, and was revealed to have paid for the notorious “Steele Dossier.” Another member of the project’s senior advisory group is Dmitri Alperovitch, CEO of Crowdstrike, the private company hired by the DNC which originated the accusation that Russia hacked into the party’s emails. Alperovitch is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank associated with anti-Russian reports and partially funded by the US military, NATO, and defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
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US Democrats’ Accusations Against Russia Distract Public From Real Problem
Sputnik – 26.01.2018
US Democrats have asked Facebook and Twitter for evidence of Russia’s involvement in an online campaign to release a politically charged memo.
The move comes as Congressional Republicans have been calling for the public release of a four-page classified memo they claim reveals reported abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the Obama administration, which approved surveillance against Trump’s team on behalf of the Clinton campaign.
Dr. Jeanne Zaino, American political analyst and professor of Political Science at Iona College told Radio Sputnik in an interview that by asking for an investigation into allegations that Russian bots are behind #releasethememo, US Democrats are drawing the public’s attention away from the real question. That question is whether the memo actually exposes severe surveillance abuses, Zaino said, noting that Republicans claim the explosive content of the memo could upend special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and collusion with the Trump campaign.
“They are saying that this push to release the memo is being conducted by Russian bots. Whether that is the case or whether it is not the case… it is almost beside the point, because the real question — particularly in a democracy where we value transparency — should be what does the memo contain,” Zaino told Radio Sputnik.
She pointed out that while the FBI and the Justice Department have been blocking the memo’s release saying it would violate national security, whether that is actually the case should be decided in a court of law.
“They simply cannot keep information and materials top secret just because they think it might embarrass them or embarrass the administration, embarrass Congress or whoever this memo might embarrass,” the analyst said. “I really think that the Democrats are trying to have us look left when in fact we should be looking right and saying what in fact does the memo contain and is it really something that we need to protect for national security reasons.”
Zaino stressed that she doesn’t know whether the memo “shows abuse of the government surveillance program by the Obama administration”, as is being claimed, but if the question is raised, the memo should be released if it is not protecting national security.
“You cannot just classify [the memo] that way. We have an overclassification problem in this country where almost everything is classified as top secret,” Zaino said. “The Democrats are asking us to focus on the bots, that’s fascinating and interesting, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the question which is what does this memo show and did we see an abuse of the government surveillance programs under the Obama administration.”
Twitter dismisses Russian interference in Brexit referendum
RT | January 26, 2018
A university study that ‘proved’ Russia’s influence over the 2016 EU referendum has been thrown out by Twitter. The social media giant said one percent of the bots used during the lead up to the Brexit vote were actually Russian.
The data compiled in a City University study, published in October last year, claimed that some 13,000 bots were tweeting about Brexit before and after the referendum, has now been put into question.
In a letter to UK legislators trying to ascertain the extent of Russian interference – if any – in the Brexit referendum, Twitter largely dismissed the study.
Head of policy for Twitter in the UK Nick Pickles said the bots weren’t evidence of direct Russian meddling in the referendum.
In his letter to the Commons digital culture, media, and sport committee, Pickles said: “In reviewing the accounts identified by City University, we found that 1 percent of the accounts in the dataset were registered in Russia.”
“While many of the accounts identified by City University were in violation of the Twitter rules regarding spam, at this time, we do not have sufficiently strong evidence to enable us to conclusively link them with Russia or indeed the Internet Research Agency.”
In aid of an Electoral Commission investigation, last month Facebook announced that a grand total of 70p ($0.97) had been spent by a Russian-based company called ‘Internet Research Agency’.
The paid adverts were found to have reached just 200 Facebook news feeds, pouring cold water on claims that the Kremlin helped swing last year’s EU referendum.
This is the second time that Twitter has had to respond to UK MPs calling on social media companies to investigate the influence of Russian bots on the outcome of the 2016 referendum.
Even though both Facebook and now Twitter have insisted that Moscow-based social media accounts had little if anything to do with the Brexit vote, Chair of the Commons Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee Damian Collins is determined to find proof of Russian meddling.
Responding to Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey, Collins said: “I’m afraid there are outstanding questions from the DCMS committee that Twitter have not yet answered,” demanding to know “how many other accounts were being controlled from [sic] agencies in Russia, even if they were not registered there.”
Continuing, “I’m afraid that the failure to obtain straight answers to these questions, whatever they might be, is simply increasing concerns about these issues, rather than reassuring people.”
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Brexit vote.
Russia ‘could kill thousands and thousands and thousands’ with cyber attack on UK
Press TV – January 26, 2018
The British defense secretary says Russia could kill “thousands and thousands and thousands” of Britons with a cyber attack that could cripple infrastructure and energy supply and cause panic and chaos across the United Kingdom.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson claimed Moscow had been researching the UK’s critical national infrastructure to know how to damage the British economy and energy supply. He offered no proof.
He said Moscow was “trying is to spot vulnerabilities, because what they want to do is they want to know how to strike it, they want to know how they can kill infrastructure and by killing that infrastructure, that means hurting Britain and the British people. Damage its economy, rip its infrastructure apart, actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths, but actually have an element of creating total chaos within the country.”
He made the remarks a couple of days after the head of the British army said the country needed to “keep up” with Russia’s growing military strength or see its ability to take action “massively constrained.”
While NATO member countries — including the UK — have long harbored Russophobe tendencies, it was unclear what prompted the specific remarks by Williamson.
NATO has recently accused Russia of seeking to attack countries in Eastern Europe, using that allegation to build up forces near Russian borders — NATO’s “eastern flank.” Russia, perceiving that buildup as unprovoked and a threat to its security, has in recent years taken action to strengthen its defenses along its western borders.
“Too Big To Believe” – Massive Scandal Is Brewing At The FBI
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 24, 2018
As the Potemkin Village walls of The Left’s ‘Trump Collusion’ narrative crash and burn along with special counsel Mueller’s credibility, The New York Post’s Michael Goodwin sees far more wide-ranging problems ahead for America’s ‘intelligence’ agencies as the anti-Trump ‘secret society’ and lovers-texts-gate debacles threaten the core of the Deep State.
Goodwin writes that, during the financial crisis, the federal government bailed out banks it declared “too big to fail.” Fearing their bankruptcy might trigger economic Armageddon, the feds propped them up with taxpayer cash.
Something similar is happening now at the FBI, with the Washington wagons circling the agency to protect it from charges of corruption. This time, the appropriate tag line is “too big to believe.”
Yet each day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America’s premier law enforcement agency. The reports, which feature talk among agents of a “secret society” and suddenly missing text messages, point to the existence both of a cabal dedicated to defeating Donald Trump in 2016 and of a plan to let Hillary Clinton skate free in the classified email probe.
If either one is true — and I believe both probably are — it would mean FBI leaders betrayed the nation by abusing their powers in a bid to pick the president.
More support for this view involves the FBI’s use of the Russian dossier on Trump that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It is almost certain that the FBI used the dossier to get FISA court warrants to spy on Trump associates, meaning it used the opposition research of the party in power to convince a court to let it spy on the candidate of the other party — likely without telling the court of the dossier’s political link.
Even worse, there is growing reason to believe someone in President Barack Obama’s administration turned over classified information about Trump to the Clinton campaign.
As one former federal prosecutor put it, “It doesn’t get worse than that.” That prosecutor, Joseph diGenova, believes Trump was correct when he claimed Obama aides wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower.
These and other elements combine to make a toxic brew that smells to high heaven, but most Americans don’t know much about it. Mainstream media coverage has been sparse and dismissive and there’s a blackout from the same Democrats obsessed with Russia, Russia, Russia.
Partisan motives aside, it’s as if a scandal of this magnitude is more than America can bear — so let’s pretend there’s nothing to see and move along.
But, thankfully the disgraceful episode won’t be washed away, thanks to a handful of congressional Republicans, led by California Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. After he accused the FBI of stonewalling in turning over records, the bureau relented, at least partially.
The result was clear evidence of bias against Trump by officials charged with investigating him and Clinton. Those same agents appear to have acted on that bias to tilt the election to Clinton.
In one text message, an agent suggests that Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew while the investigation was still going on that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton.
How could she know unless the fix was in?
All roads in the explosive developments lead to James Comey, whose Boy Scout image belied a sinister belief that he, like his infamous predecessor J. Edgar Hoover, was above the law.
It is why I named him J. Edgar Comey last year and wrote that he was “adept at using innuendo and leaks” to let everybody in Washington know they could be the next to be investigated.
It was in the office of Comey’s top deputy, Andrew McCabe, where agents discussed an “insurance policy” in the event that Trump won. Reports indicated that the Russia-collusion probe was that insurance policy.
The text was from Peter Strzok, the top investigator on the Trump case, and was sent to Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer and also his mistress.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 . . . ” Strzok wrote.
It is frightening that Strzok, who called Trump “an idiot,” was the lead investigator on both the Clinton and Trump cases.
After these messages surfaced, special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok and Page from his probe, though both still work at the FBI.
Strzok, despite his talk of an “insurance policy” in 2016, wrote in May of 2017 that he was skeptical Mueller’s probe would find anything on Trump because “there’s no big there there.”
Talk about irony. While Dems and the left-wing media already found Trump guilty of collusion before Mueller was appointed, the real scandal might be the conduct of the probers themselves.
Suspicions are hardly allayed by the fact that the FBI says it can’t find five months of messages between Strzok and Page, who exchanged an estimated 50,000 messages overall. The missing period — Dec. 14, 2016 through May 17, 2017 — was a crucial time in Washington.
There were numerous leaks of classified material just before and after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
And the president fired Comey last May 9, provoking an intense lobbying effort for a special counsel, which led to Mueller’s appointment on May 19.
Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, has emerged from his hidey hole to notice that the FBI has run amok, and said Monday he would “leave no stone unturned” to find the five months of missing texts.
Fine, but the House is racing ahead of him. Nunes has prepared a four-page memo, based on classified material that purportedly lays out what the FBI and others did to corrupt the election.
A movement to release the memo is gaining steam, but Congress says it might take weeks. Why wait? Americans can handle the truth, no matter how big it is.
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Who Runs Our World?
Netanyahu addresses US Congress
By Richard Hugus | January 4, 2019
Our world is run by oligarchs, the holders of vast wealth from monopolies in banking, resource extraction, manufacturing, and technology. Oligarchs have such power that most of the world doesn’t even know of their influence over our lives. Their overall agenda is global power — a world government, run by them — to be achieved through planned steps of social engineering. The oligarchs remain in the background and have heads of state and entire governments acting in their service. Presidents and prime ministers are their puppets. Bureaucrats and politicians are their factotums.
Who are politicians? Politicians are people who work for the powerful while pretending to represent the people who voted for them. This double-dealing involves a lot of lying, so successful politicians must be good at it. It’s not an easy job to make the insane agenda of the powerful seem reasonable. Politicians can’t reveal this agenda because it almost always goes against the interests of their constituents, so they become adept at sophistry, mystification, and the appearance of authority. For example, wars for Israel have been part of the agenda of the powerful for years. Since 2001, wars for Israel have been sold as “the war on terror” and lots of lies had to be made up as to why the war on terror was a real thing. The visible faces promoting the war on terror were neoconservatives in the US, almost all of whom were advocates for Israel, or Zionists. Zionists are not the only members of the oligarchy, but they seem to be its lead actors. ... continue
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