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Russia Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 11, 2016 33 Comments
Since the night of the election, when media coverage of election night went from joyous to stunned to near-weepy, the progressive left has been in a self-righteous lather about President-elect Trump's victory.  They are pulling out all stops in an effort to undermine President-elect Trump and his presidency.  Indeed, they seem intent on seeing that he not take office at all. Blaming everything and everyone but themselves and their candidate (with a few notable exceptions), the left took to the streets to riot, they took up their pens to advocate the end of the Electoral College, they bully and harass electors attempting to sway their votes, and they've recently landed on Russian involvement in the elections.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 22, 2016 8 Comments
When Wikileaks released Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails in July, people immediately pointed fingers at Russia and cried that the Kremlin wanted to influence the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, who won by a large margin over Hillary Clinton. But National Security Agency (NSA) Director Mike Rogers dashed those conspiracy theories this past weekend:
“I don't think in the end it had the effect that [the hackers] had hoped it might,” Rogers said during a panel at the Halifax International Security Forum.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 02, 2016 17 Comments
Keith Olbermann left MSNBC a few years ago then went to ESPN for a while where he somehow still managed to report left wing politics. Now he's working for GQ and appears to be broadcasting out of what looks like a middle school gymnasium. In his most recent report, Olbermann embraces his inner Carville and sounds the alarm about Donald Trump who is, like the Manchurian Candidate, a plant for a secret takeover of Washington, DC by Russia.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 21, 2016 12 Comments
Russian officials asked three states if they could attend polling stations during the Nov. 8 election while Kremlin propaganda sites like Russia Today reported that Russia's Central Elections Commission even asked the State Department for permission to watch the polls. The State denied a request even came through:
"Any suggestion that we rejected Russia's proposal to observe our elections is false," Toner said, noting that allowing foreign observers is up to individual states. Russian officials could have participated in an observer delegation through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Toner added, but declined to do so, making their new complaints "nothing more than a PR stunt."

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 20, 2016 9 Comments
Holy cow, this story keeps going back and forth. I'm getting whiplash. First, Wikileaks said Ecuador cut Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's internet access at its embassy in London. Then the anti-secrecy website said sources claimed Secretary of State John Kerry did it. Today the Ecuadorian government said it cut the internet to stop the website from influencing the presidential election since Wikileaks has been publishing Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails. Now NBC reports that the U.S. did have a hand in the internet outage "after U.S. officials conveyed their conclusion that Assange is a willing participant in a Russian intelligence operation to undermine the U.S. presidential election."

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 14, 2016 18 Comments
Green Party candidate Jill Stein is no fan of Donald Trump, but she's apparently more concerned about the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency. During a recent appearance on C-Span, Stein suggested that Hillary would use nuclear weapons in a war with Russia. Transcript via Real Clear Politics:
Jill Stein: Trump Is Less Dangerous Than Clinton; She Will Start Nuclear War With Russia It is important to not just look at the rhetoric but also look at the track record and the reality is the lesser people and greater people is a race to the bottom, and even Donald Trump in the right wing extremism grows out of the policies of the Clintons, in particular Nafta, which sent our jobs overseas and Wall Street deregulation, which blew 9 million jobs up into smoke.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 12, 2016 37 Comments
Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta has told the media he blames Russia for the hack into his emails, which Wikileaks has been releasing in troves for the last few days. He even said that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump knew about the hack and the leaks:
“I’ve been involved in politics for nearly five decades,” Mr. Podesta told reporters aboard the Clinton campaign plane. “This definitely is the first campaign that I’ve been involved with in which I’ve had to tangle with Russian intelligence agencies,” he added, “who seem to be doing everything that they can on behalf of our opponent.”
The FBI confirmed its agents have started an investigation into the hack.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 09, 2016 17 Comments
President Barack Obama's administration has officially blamed Russia for the recent hacks to influence the 2016 presidential election. Fingers have longed pointed fingers at Russia whenever hackers posted emails from the Democratic National Committee and phone calls with Democrats, but now U.S. intelligence agencies have enough confidence to put the blame on Russia:
“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement said. The agencies said some state election systems have been recently scanned and probed and that this action originated from servers operated by a Russian company. But the statement stopped short of definitively blaming the Russian government for that activity.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 28, 2016 10 Comments
International prosecutors have concluded that a Buk missile from Russia shot down Malaysia Airlines MH17 over east Ukraine in July 2014, killing all 298 people on board. Russia has constantly denied any involvement in the incident, which came months after Ukraine spiraled into a civil war after parliament ousted Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych. East Ukraine split from the pro-Europe west and pledged allegiance to Russia.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 17, 2016 9 Comments
The Syrian army is claiming that the U. S. bombed them in support of ISIS, reportedly killing as many as 80 soldiers and wounding a hundred more. Reuters reports:
Syria's army general command said warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition bombed a Syrian army position at Jebel Tharda near Deir al-Zor airport on Saturday, paving the way for Islamic State fighters to overun it. The air strike killed Syrian soldiers and was "conclusive evidence" that the U.S. and its allies support the jihadist group, the Syrian army said in a statement, noting that the strike was "dangerous and blatant aggression". The U.S.-led coalition has been conducting air strikes against Islamic State since September 2014. In December Damascus accused the coalition of striking an army camp near Deir al-Zor, but Washington said it was done by Russian jets. A strike list issued by the U.S. on Saturday said it had carried out a strike at Deir al-Zor against five Islamic State supply routes, as well as strikes near Raqqa and elsewhere in Syria.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 14, 2016 20 Comments
The hacker Guccifer 2.0 released more documents from the DNC through a person at The Future of Cyber Security Europe conference in London. The documents show evidence of pay to play with donors in order to become ambassadors and staging TV protests. Guccifer also wanted to use this information to show the vulnerabilities within the system. Guccifer shot to fame over the summer when he released documents that showed the DNC conspiring against presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as chairwoman right before the DNC convention.

Posted by edgeofthesandbox on September 03, 2016 1 Comment
The announcement of passing of Uzbekistan's veteran dictator Islam Karimov came as surprise to no one in the Russian-speaking world.  The rumors of his death, following a stroke that his younger daughter announced on her Instagram account, had been circulating for days when, in a situation similar to a true Soviet leader's demise:
The Uzbek government did not confirm the reports at first but played funeral music on state channels. [Put yourself in their shoes: How does one break the news like that to the population?] Later on Friday the government eventually released a statement saying the 78-year-old president had died.
Soviet leaders' state of health was never discussed in press, death announcements -- delayed. Western Kremlinologists and ordinary Russians alike had to crack their heads to figure out what was going on. The lack of transparency gives an edge to the strongmen: Recall the Vladimir Putin's pointed disappearance last March prompting speculations of the Russian president's death.  If Putin was only playing with our heads, Karimov was for real.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 30, 2016 16 Comments
Iran has deployed the Russian-made S-300 missile system to fortify its underground nuclear facility at Fordo. Tehran’s decision to deploy the missile system at the site should set alarm bells ringing for the Obama administration. Prior to the Nuclear Deal, the installation at Fordo was used by Iran to enrich Uranium, vital component for building a nuclear bomb. The enrichment process was to be halted at the location under the Obama-sponsored agreement. According the deal, Iran was required to repurpose the centrifuges at Fordo and turn one of its major nuclear installation into a ‘medical research facility’, dedicated to ‘medical imaging’. Deploying missile system that fires rockets twice as big as the average patriot missiles, makes Iran's Fordo clearly the best protected 'medical facility' in the world. For those waiting to hear the thunderous sound of that ‘snap back’ promised by President Obama in the run-up the Iran Deal -- please don't hold your breath.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 25, 2016 57 Comments
Believe me, I'm sympathetic to Russian conspiracy claims. I grew up reading John le Carre novels. No joke, I first read The Spy Who Came in From The Cold while riding the Moscow Metro back and forth from my dormitory on the outskirts to the classrooms in the center. When studying in the Soviet Union I learned that everyone was paranoid -- and justifiably so! The fire detectors on the ceilings of our dorm were really listening devices, a Hungarian student who hated the Soviets whispered to me. I couldn't prove it or disprove it. But based on circumstantial evidence of Soviet spying elsewhere, it certainly could have made sense. I had random, but minor, brushes with obvious KGB types.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 24, 2016 65 Comments
The Wikileaks release of hacked Democratic National Committee emails threatens to set the Democratic National Convention on fire this week. Whether the leaks prove the election was fixed is one thing; that it is perceived that way is beyond doubt. Already Debbie Wasserman Schultz has resigned as DNC Chair. Not enough. Bernie supporters are furious, and are demanding he withdraw his endorsement of Hillary. That's highly unlikely to happen, which will shut close a possible relief valve. The left wing of the left wing of the Democratic Party is ready to bust a gasket, and go full #NeverHillary and mean it. It will only take a few percent of Democrats to stay home or run to Green Party candidate Jill Stein for Hillary to be damaged in the general election. The media cannot let that happen. So expect several narratives to permeate the convention coverage.
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