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Russia Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 16, 2017 2 Comments
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a trip to Germany. Tillerson said the U.S. will only "work with Russia when mutual cooperation is beneficial." He promised to put American interests first, though, if the two countries "do not see eye to eye." At the same time, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis soundly "rejected any kind of military collaboration with Russia." Russian President Vladimir Putin asked for more cooperation between the U.S. and NATO.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 13, 2017 43 Comments
President Donald Trump's national security advisor Michael Flynn has resigned after he came under fire over his contacts with Russian officials. The resignation comes after the Justice Department announced that officials had "warned the Trump administration last month that Flynn misled administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians."

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 09, 2017 14 Comments
Yesterday, during the Senate's debate on Attorney General Jeff Sessions's confirmation, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) mentioned he wouldn't be surprised if Russia made a move to help the Taliban against us and NATO. It appears he was onto something because Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia wants to "legitimize the Taliban" in Afghanistan as a way "to undermine the United States and NATO. From The Hill:
“The Russian involvement this year has become more difficult,” Gen. John Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “First, they have begun to publicly legitimize the Taliban. This narrative that they promote is that the Taliban are fighting Islamic State and the Afghan government is not fighting Islamic State and that therefore there could be spillover of this group into the region. This is a false narrative.” “I believe its intent is to undermine the United States and NATO,” he later added.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 05, 2017 12 Comments
So the left lost its mind because President Donald Trump said America isn't so innocent after Fox News's Bill O'Reilly stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a killer. I don't blame them. Putin is a killer. He's a schemer that will do anything to grab what he wants. But where was this outrage in 2008 when then-presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama wanted to start over with Russia? Where was this outrage when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a reset button?

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 02, 2017 29 Comments
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings (MD) erupted into a fight at a hearing on Thursday over possible Russian interference in our election. The fight started when the two sides discussed a possible Oversight investigation into the phishing schemes against the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Democrats argued it must happen:
“It’s clear that politics have prevented this committee from being willing or able to do the necessary objective and nonpartisan oversight on the Russian attack,” said Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.).

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 15, 2017 7 Comments
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, President-elect Donald Trump said he may lift the Russian sanctions and has no commitment to the One China policy:
“If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?” he said.
Trump also said the One China policy remains up in the air "until he saw what he considered progress from Beijing in its currency and trade practices." Yeah, needless to say, those comments did not please Beijing.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 14, 2017 21 Comments
Trolls gonna troll and who owns the title as World's Biggest Troll? Russian President Vladimir Putin! And the troll strikes again. Russia has invited President-elect Donald Trump's administration to participate in Syrian peace talks with Turkey and Iran later this month. I can hear everyone's head explodes as they use this as more evidence of a cozy relationship between him and President-elect Donald Trump. Or Putin has simply just latched onto the hysteria and wants to cause even more problems.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 08, 2017 27 Comments
Rick Santelli, the CNBC analyst whose glorious rant led to the creation of the Tea Party movement, created another memorable TV moment today. On Meet the Press, reacting to reports that the Russians were happy on Election Night because Trump won, Santelli said to Andre Mitchell: "on Election Night, I never saw you so unhappy. You pick sides. Everybody picks sides." An indignant Mitchell, protecting her [illusory] reputation for objectivity, shot back: "That's not true, Rick. That's just not true." Sure, Andrea.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 06, 2017 39 Comments
So the American intelligence community has declassified a report that supposedly shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to influence the election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump. However, the report includes circumstantial evidence. They provided no concrete evidence that shows Putin sat down with his Kremlin cronies to orchestrated a campaign to make Hillary Clinton lose. They also concentrated on RT, formerly known as Russia Today, with a brief mention of the phishing schemes that led to Wikileaks publishing emails from the DNC and Hillary campaign chair John Podesta.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 05, 2017 15 Comments
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has gained influence in Europe as Chancellor Merkel further isolates Germany with her open borders policy. According to British newspaper Daily Express, "Angela Merkel is losing her grip on power as European leaders openly side with Vladimir Putin." Despite months of back-channel European diplomacy, Merkel and top E.U. officials have failed to impose tougher sanctions against Russia aimed at forcing Putin to stop supporting Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad. Merkel's inability to unite European states could be attributed mainly to her refugee policy. Poland, Hungary and almost all the eastern European states have rejected Merkel’s call to follow Germany's example and open their borders to uncontrolled migration from Arab and Muslim countries.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 02, 2017 24 Comments
Whatever happened to those 'Question Authority' and 'Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism' bumper stickers that flourished on liberals' cars during the dark days of George W.'s administration? Now, in the waning days of a Dem presidency, a touching trust in the judgment of the president is in evidence on the left. On today's Morning Joe, Prof. Eddie Glaude Jr., chair of Princeton's African-American studies department, said he is "struck" that anyone would question President Obama's judgment that sanctions against Russia are warranted. After all, argued Glaude, the president "has sworn to protect this country."

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 31, 2016 15 Comments
For crying out loud. More fake news by the media. First outlets claim that Russia hacked the election and now they say that Russian hackers penetrated a Vermont power grid. Look at this Washington Post headline:
Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say.
NO. That is NOT what happened. The fact that the Post did not even bother contacting Burlington Electric makes this even worse.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 30, 2016 24 Comments
On Thursday, President Barack Obama passed sanction against Russia for allegedly interfering with our presidential election. This includes expelling 35 diplomats and closing down two compounds. Two weeks ago, Politifact ran an article to call President-elect Donald Trump a liar about his doubts on Russia and accusing Obama of not acting against Russia until after Clinton lost. On Twitter, @neontaster pointed out evidence that contradicts Politifact's "facts." It turns out, the administration has known for months about Russian involvement and did absolutely nothing because they thought Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump. No concerns about our national security because they thought their candidate would win.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 30, 2016 20 Comments
Oh, Russia. President Vladimir Putin remains the biggest troll in the world. Of course the Kremlin promised retaliation against America after President Barack Obama slammed them with new sanctions for allegedly trying to interfere with our presidential election. The sanctions included expelling 35 diplomats and their families and closing down two Russian compounds. Putin claimed he would do the same, but backed off and decided to take a road to help renew American-Russian relations. (Yeah right!)

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 29, 2016 42 Comments
President Barack Obama has placed more sanctions against Russia and expelled intelligence operatives from America for allegedly interfering with our 2016 election. The sanctions include expelling 35 Russian intelligence officers and closing two Russian compounds. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security found some information that Russians may have phished into the Democratic National Committee over the summer. (Before I go on, I need to correct the media. NO ONE hacked the election. Saying Russia hacked the election implies Russians invaded our voting booths and physically changed votes. That did NOT happen.)

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 28, 2016 19 Comments
U.S. senators have traveled to NATO nations to perform their typical lip service, promising America stands behind the organization and the nations involved. NATO nations have grown concerned over America's role since Donald Trump won the election in November:
“I am convinced and certain that our relations, and the American relationship with NATO, will remain the same,” Mr. [John] McCain said at a news conference with Estonia’s new prime minister, Juri Ratas.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 23, 2016 10 Comments
It was the strangest of settings for some very serious breaking news. There was Mika Brzezinski, cuddled up in her flannels on Morning Joe's special Christmas set. In the previous segment, Joe Scarborough had grilled Sean Spicer, whom President-elect Trump yesterday named as his White House spokesman, over Trump's tweet of yesterday in which he said that the US needed to greatly strengthen its nuclear arsenal. Spicer repeatedly refused to say that the Trump tweet came in response from a statement by Vladimir Putin, just hours earlier, announcing Russia's intention to strengthen its own nuclear arsenal. When the show returned after a break, Spicer was gone, but Mika and Joe announced that during the break Spicer had been on the phone with Trump, that Mika had posed a question about the nuclear tweet, and that in response Trump told her: "let it be an arms race because we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."
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