08/25/16

Skolkovo: Hillary Clinton’s Treasonous Russian Connections

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

One of the most pressing questions we should be demanding of Hillary Clinton is an explanation of Skolkovo and how she profited from making deals over it. Because it looks suspiciously like she helped fund the Russians to develop cyber technology that could be used against us in a time of war, while profiting from what amounts to treason. In essence, Hillary Clinton has allowed trade secrets and professional Russian espionage within the United States.

As I have stated previously, I now believe that whoever wins in this election will bring Russia into the White House. Putin wins no matter what now. In a way, you have to admire the evil machinations that have taken place to make this the case and I’m simply dumbstruck by the utter foolishness of America in allowing it to happen.

The Podesta Group has been neck deep in it with the Russians for fun and profit. John Podesta is Clinton’s campaign chair and his brother is the head of The Podesta Group. Hillary’s entanglement with Putin and the Kremlin go far deeper than that. She’s taken huge donations and made deals with our biggest enemy… she’s also covered it up nicely.

Peter Schweizer has written a report that is stunning: FROM RUSSIA WITH MONEY. It is 40 pages long and a definite must read for national security experts and those that want an insight into Clinton corruption with Russia in mind. It’s in-depth… Schweizer has spent years looking into Clinton’s finances and connections. This one all by itself should keep her out of the White House, but sadly, I doubt it will in today’s Russia-embracing insanity. The uranium deal comes to mind.

John Podesta sat on the board of a Dutch-registered company that had lucrative shadowy dealings with the Kremlin, to the tune of $35 million. It was an obvious Russian front and there is no way to know currently just how much Podesta himself was paid, or what for. But come on… we are not naive here. It can’t be good if it’s the Russians. Podesta broke federal law when he did not disclose his position on that board to the federal government. By law, he is required to. Last time I checked, he’s free as a bird and still making dirty deals.

Clinton and her holdings have profited greatly from her little “Russian reset.” Yep, that was a disaster, but not for her personally. She made a killing in more ways than one, if you get my drift. It resulted in the Russians invading the Ukraine, something that is being lauded on both sides of the political aisle now. The Russians have even had their mitts in the Republican convention plank to soften support for the Ukraine.

Hillary Clinton was instrumental in getting American firms to heavily invest in Russia – specifically our high-tech firms. I give you the Skolkovo Innovation Center. It’s a sprawling complex in Moscow’s western suburbs and was built in 2009. It is their version of Silicon Valley, with an espionage, intelligence and military twist. With the blessings of Clinton’s State Department, Cisco pledge $1 billion in 2010 to Skolkovo. Google and Intel then came on board with heavy investments. I’m sure you will be shocked to know that all three of those tech titans just happen to be major investors in the Clinton Foundation.

28 US companies participated in Skolkovo. 17 of those were Clinton Foundation donors or they had at one time hired Bill Clinton to give speeches. It partially explains the millions in speech fees the Clintons have declared on their tax returns. That and the Chinese and other enemies of the US. There is no way to know exactly how much the Clintons made out of Skolkovo, but Schweizer estimates that it is somewhere between $6.5 million and $23.5 million. Once the Clinton Foundation reveals all its donors, it could be much, much more and I’m betting it is.

In reality, Skolkovo is only like Silicon Valley in appearance. On the inside, you have a Kremlin-driven company that answers directly to Putin and is of high value to the country’s defense and security sector. Largely funded thanks to Hillary Clinton. It is an extension of Russia’s military-industrial complex and their intelligence services. In July 2013, an unclassified study by US European Command that surveyed Skolkovo activities suggested that Russia’s Silicon Valley is “an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage.” This time they didn’t really have to steal our high-tech secrets as they have in the past… we literally handed them over.

In 2014, the FBI made a blunt, public statement warning American firms about dealings with Russian entities, naming the Skolkovo Foundation as a particular source of concern. They called it, “a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial applications.” That seems pretty damn straightforward to me. Skolkovo also has commercial contracts with Kamaz, a Russian defense firm. Their specialty… armored vehicles. “The FBI fears that Kamaz will provide Russia’s military with innovative research obtained from the Foundation’s US partners,” warned the Bureau.

And it gets worse. Skolkovo has deep links to the FSB (Russian Intelligence). It’s the modern day version of the KGB. Schweizer stats, “Skolkovo happens to be the site of the FSB’s security centers 16 and 18, which are in charge of information warfare for the Russian government.” See where this is going? Nowhere good for Clinton. That place ironically houses the hackers that hacked the DNC and stole Hillary’s emails. They turned on her after doling out millions.

None of this is classified information. Neither are assessments by the Pentagon or the FBI and they are being candid about it for those that will listen. “It’s an obvious Kremlin front,” explained a Pentagon intelligence official about Skolkovo. “In the old days, the KGB had to recruit spies to steal Western technology, now they do deals with you. The theft is the same.” A European intelligence official said that they had concluded that several top Skolkovo officials are actually FSB officers: “We’ve seen guys from Skolkovo acting like intelligence collectors, not tech entrepreneurs,” he elaborated.

None of this should ever have been allowed, especially by a sitting US high-profile Secretary of State. The damage done here is immeasurable and deadly. I have absolutely no doubt that the technology provided by Clinton to the Russians will be used in cyberwarfare against us. In layman’s terms… I call that treason.

Congress should demand an accountability from Clinton on her Russian dealings immediately. It’s a matter of national security. Americans have a right to know before they vote in November.

Read: FROM RUSSIA WITH MONEY

08/20/16

Rick Gates, Paul Manafort and the ‘European Center for a Modern Ukraine’

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Viktor Yanukovych with Vladimir Putin

“Political consultants are generally leery of registering under it [the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act], because their reputations can suffer once they are on record as accepting money to advocate the interests of foreign governments — especially if those interests conflict with America’s.” Associated Press, August 18, 2016

Trump surrogates Rick Gates and Paul Manafort (The Count of Monte Cristo) both worked to promote the pro-Russia, anti-Western communist: Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych even after he fled Ukraine in 2014 though an organization called the “European Center for a Modern Ukraine.”

Manafort is no longer working for the Trump campaign, but Rick Gates “will be taking over as the campaign’s liaison to the RNC based in Washington.”

Rick Gates will be taking over as the campaign’s liaison to the RNC based in Washington.

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) August 19, 2016

If one was to devise a textbook example of what a front group’s name should look like, the ‘European Center for a Modern Ukraine’ fits the bill in all of it’s vague, euphemistic glory. The name struck this author as indicative of the type of flowery name often assigned to communist front groups such as “Peace Action,” or “Grassroots Global Justice Alliance,” or “Causa Justa.”

Read more here…

08/15/16

Paul Manafort Gets Caught With His Paw In The Russian Till

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: Renee Nal – New Zeal

If anyone dares to tell me they are shocked by this, I may have to trout smack them into oblivion. Just sayin’.

Donald Trump’s #1 guy, Paul Manafort seems to have got caught with his paw in the Russian till. Secret ledgers have been discovered that show him receiving millions of bucks from the Russkies. Wonder if corruption was a prerequisite for being Trump’s campaign manager?

And you know who tweeted this first? Corey Lewandowski.

Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief https://t.co/7bh7iIHHaY

— Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) August 15, 2016

I would have sworn that Lewandowski was a plant for Trump, but this wasn’t very Trumpesque. Unless of course the point was to get back at Manafort and create an opening so he could return to the fold and give Paul the boot. Who knows?

From The National Review:

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials…

Anti-corruption officials there say the payments earmarked for Mr. Manafort, previously unreported, are a focus of their investigation, though they have yet to determine if he actually received the cash. While Mr. Manafort is not a target in the separate inquiry of offshore activities, prosecutors say he must have realized the implications of his financial dealings.

Gee, Manafort denied that any of this happened. Imagine that. Looks like he lied… so not surprised. It also appears that he was not only taking legitimate payments from political parties in the Ukraine, he was getting paid under the table clandestinely. One wonders why Manafort would be getting paid off the books… exactly what did he do to warrant this secretive payment of funds?

He came unglued over The New York Times exposing his income streams: “I have never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia.” Right. I have seen far more than enough evidence to know that denial is utter bullcrap. This guy is a political consultant and a lobbyist. He’s parsing his words there. Notice how he chose them carefully… that doesn’t mean he didn’t work for an oligarch or a political party… or even Putin himself. It means he didn’t ‘directly’ work for one of those governments. Words matter, especially when dealing with sleazy shadowy political figures.

As previously noted at National Review:

Manafort’s friends describe his relationship with Yanukovych as a political love connection, born out of Yanukovych’s first downfall when he was driven from power by the 2004 Orange Revolution. Feeling that his domestic political advisers had failed him, Yanukovych turned to a foreign company, Davis Manafort, which was already doing work for the Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. The former Ukrainian PM and Manafort, the Georgetown-educated son of a Connecticut politician, hit it off.

Manafort’s firm had a set of international clients and produced an analysis of the Orange Revolution that Yanukovych found instructive, according to one operative involved in Yanukovych’s political rehabilitation. Manafort became, in effect, a general consultant to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, shaping big-picture messaging, coaching Yanukovych to speak in punchy, American-style sound bites and managing teams of consultants and attorneys in both Ukraine and the United States ahead of an anticipated Yanukovych comeback. While it’s difficult to track payments in foreign elections, a former associate familiar with Manafort’s earnings say they ran into the seven figures over several years.

After Yanukovych’s 2010 victory, Manafort stayed on as an adviser to the Russia-friendly president and became involved in other business projects in Eastern Europe.

Russian-friendly doesn’t quite get it here. It went much deeper than that and I’m sure that Manafort was well aware of that fact. Manafort claims: “My work in Ukraine ceased following the country’s parliamentary elections in October 2014.” Well duh. Yanukovych was overthrown and that tends to put a damper on your corrupt connections. In February 2014, Yanukovych was whisked away by Russian special forces to a safe haven in Russia. And I sincerely believe the relationship with Manafort did not end there.

Criminal prosecutors are also looking into a group of offshore shell companies that helped members of Yanukovych’s inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles, including a palatial presidential residence with a private zoo, golf course and tennis court. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin. Very, very interesting.

As for Manafort saying that he quit working for Yanukovych in 2014, I find it curious that he had an office in Kiev until May of this year with furniture and personal items that were still there. Tie to that the documents just uncovered that suggest he was involved in looting Ukrainian assets and influencing elections and Manafort starts to look like a thug, if not an asset for the Russians.

The US has always viewed Russia as a threat and an enemy. Especially during the Reagan Administration. And they still should be viewed as such. But during the Republican Convention this year, things went sideways in an alarming way. Donald Trump and Paul Manafort did not oppose anything in the GOP plank… except for one item. They changed the platform to not call for arming the Ukrainians against the Russians. What does that tell you? Does it speak of Russian interests when the one thing that Trump focused on was a plank that supports the Russians directly? Hmmm? His campaign manager worked for those against the Ukraine and for Russia. Gee… usually the answer is the most obvious one and that one puts Trump and Manafort squarely in Putin’s camp. Since the convention there have been statements by Trump saying that he actually favors Russia annexing Crimea.

The Ukrainians are bluntly stating that Manafort had to know of the corruption. I’m sure he did… in fact, I’m certain he was in the middle of it waist deep. More and more of this will be uncovered as time goes by trust me. Manafort has his attorneys aggressively denying any of this, but it looks to me like they have found concrete proof of corruption.

I’m just wondering if Trump approached Manafort, or did Manafort approach Trump? That’s important. Manafort’s biggest clients have been Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Yanukovych… both deposed in popular uprisings. Exactly what does that tell you about Donald Trump?

What has surfaced now is the “black ledger.” Basically a book that has about 400 pages of scribbled entries that are combined from books once kept at the Party of Regions headquarters in Kiev. In that headquarters were two safes that were stuffed with $100 bills, said Taras V. Chornovil, a former party leader who was also a recipient of the money at times. He said in an interview that he had once received $10,000 in a “wad of cash” for a trip to Europe.

“This was our cash,” he said, adding that he had left the party in part over concerns about off-the-books activity. “They had it on the table, stacks of money, and they had lists of who to pay.”

Manafort’s name appeared 22 times in those documents over a five year period. He allegedly received $12.7 million in payments. Since the entries are pretty much chicken scratch, there is no way to tie them to a bank. He covered his tracks very well. There’s also no way to know what he did to earn that money. Not yet anyway. These accounting records just surfaced this year. Bad timing for Manafort.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau, whose government funding is mandated under American and European Union aid programs and which has an evidence-sharing agreement with the FBI, has investigatory powers, but cannot indict suspects. No documents have been sent to prosecutors on Manafort, so he’s not part of a criminal case just yet. Make no mistake… this is corruption and that money is dirty.

Manafort also benefited and profited from business deals and connections through political consulting. One of those involved a network of offshore companies that government investigators and independent journalists in the Ukraine have said was used to launder public money and assets purportedly stolen by cronies of the government. These shell companies had owners who were shielded by the secrecy laws of the offshore jurisdictions where they were registered, including the British Virgin Islands, Belize and the Seychelles.

Manafort is tied to a now defunct investment fund called Pericles Emerging Markets. He started the fund with several partners back in 2007. Here’s the kicker. The major backer was Deripaska, a Russian mogul who has supposed ties to organized crime… the Russian mob. See where this is going?

Deripaska agreed to commit as much as $100 million to Pericles, so it could buy assets in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe, including a regional cable television and communications company called Black Sea Cable. But corporate records and court filings show that it was hardly a straightforward transaction. The Black Sea Cable assets were controlled by offshore companies that led back to the Yanukovych network, including, at various times, Milltown Corporate Services and two other companies well known to law enforcement officials, Monohold A.G. and Intrahold A.G.

From The New York Times:

Mr. Deripaska would later say he invested $18.9 million in Pericles in 2008 to complete the acquisition of Black Sea Cable. But the planned purchase — including the question of who ended up with the Black Sea assets — has since become the subject of a dispute between Mr. Deripaska and Mr. Manafort.

In 2014, Mr. Deripaska filed a legal action in a Cayman Islands court seeking to recover his investment in Pericles, which is now defunct. He also said he had paid about $7.3 million in management fees to the fund over two years. Mr. Deripaska did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Manafort’s lawyer, Mr. Hibey, disputed the account of the Black Sea Cable deal contained in Mr. Deripaska’s Cayman filings, and said the Russian oligarch had overseen details of the final transaction involving the acquisition. He denied that Mr. Manafort had received management fees from Pericles during its operation, but said that one of Mr. Manafort’s partners, Rick Gates, who is also working on the Trump campaign, had received a “nominal” sum.

Court papers indicate that Pericles’ only deal involved Black Sea Cable.

Manafort has not dissolved his company in the Ukraine and his aids have been there this year. Does that sound like he is not involved with the Russians anymore? Nyet.

There is far too much Russian influence around Donald Trump and Paul Manafort is the most prominent one and closest to him. His actions speak of a close relationship with Russian interests no matter what they claim. Does it matter if Manafort took dirty money from the Russians? Hell yeah, it does. And does it matter who Trump surrounds himself with? Even more so.

07/25/16

The Trump-Sanders Coalition

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

You know the terms “left” and “right” are losing meaning when left-wing websites are praising the Republican presidential candidate and attacking the Democrat, and Russia seems to be intervening in favor of the GOP.

The Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA), which has been pulling for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race, has sent out an advisory entitled, “What Trump is Right About: NATO.” On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton’s pick for her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), has been depicted by the same group as a creature of Wall Street.

The IPA is not alone. Journalism Professor Jeff Cohen, co-founder of RootsAction.org and communications coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network, has been quoted as saying that Kaine is a “corporatist,” or stooge of Big Business. Cohen’s colleague, Norman Solomon, calls Kaine a puppet of the “oligarchy.”

At the same time, WikiLeaks has released an email database from the Democratic National Committee, demonstrating that the DNC intervened in the primary contest against Sanders and in favor of Clinton. Since Russian hackers obtained the DNC emails, it means that Moscow wants to cause mischief on the Democratic side just as Hillary is getting the presidential nomination this week in Philadelphia.

An explanation for this interesting series of events may be found in the IPA news release on Trump and NATO, quoting Professor David N. Gibbs as saying that “Trump’s recent criticisms of the NATO alliance are reasonable.” He adds, “Trump is right to question NATO’s value in promoting U.S. security, and also to raise the issue of the enormous financial cost of this alliance to the U.S. taxpayer.” Gibbs has appeared on RT, the Russia Today propaganda channel.

Trump’s pro-Russian outlook has caused great consternation among conservatives who see the Vladimir Putin regime as the aggressor in Europe and interfering in the Middle East. Trump’s allies vetoed tough language in the Republican platform urging heavy weapons for Ukraine to fight Russian aggression. Instead, the Trump forces inserted language about providing “appropriate assistance” to Ukraine.

By contrast, the Democratic platform is tough on Russia and attacks Trump’s position on NATO. It says, “Russia is engaging in destabilizing actions along its borders, violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and attempting to recreate spheres of influence that undermine American interests. It is also propping up the Assad regime in Syria, which is brutally attacking its own citizens. Donald Trump would overturn more than 50 years of American foreign policy by abandoning NATO partners — 44 countries who help us fight terrorism every day — and embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin instead. We believe in strong alliances and will deter Russian aggression, build European resilience, and protect our NATO allies.”

These words sound great, except for the fact that, as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton had an opportunity to be tough with the Russians and blew it. Her Russian reset led to the invasion of Ukraine. It also masked the uranium deal highlighted in the movie “Clinton Cash,” based on the book, a deal in which the Russians bought 20 percent of America’s uranium production as millions of dollars flowed to the Clinton Foundation and hundreds of thousands of dollars went to Bill Clinton personally.

Has Hillary Clinton changed her mind on Russia? That’s what the platform would suggest. If so, it would be a big opening for Trump to pounce on her flip-flops. But he hasn’t done so. Instead, he refuses to take on Russian aggression in Europe or the Middle East.

In his speech, however, Trump openly appealed to Sanders supporters, saying they “will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and wealth.”

Trump’s appeal to Sanders supporters is based on trade. But it appears that his pro-Russian foreign policy has some appeal to them as well. If the Sanders supporters perceive Hillary Clinton to be a hawk on foreign policy, as Sanders himself suggested during the campaign, it’s possible they could either sit out the race or vote for the New York billionaire.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

04/30/16

Trump Promises “Peace in Our Time”

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

David Horowitz has decided to throw in the towel in the presidential contest. The former New Leftist turned conservative activist and deep thinker has apparently concluded that Donald J. Trump will be the GOP nominee and that conservatives have to rally behind him. But one strange omission in Trump’s “reassuring” speech continues to cause controversy and reverberations around the world. Trump failed to even mention Russian aggression in Ukraine.

How could Trump not mention the one country in Europe, Ukraine, which has been recently invaded by Russian forces and a part of which is under foreign occupation? Even if you are so callous as not to care about the freedom of the people of Ukraine, what about the fact that this is the country in which pro-Russian forces fired a missile that brought down a civilian airliner, Malaysian flight MH17, killing all 283 passengers on board? The blood on Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s hands was apparent when his nationvetoed a United Nations proposal to prosecute the perpetrators.

No wonder Trump boasted that Putin has called him a genius. The New York businessman can sound tough while articulating a policy of pandering to, and appeasement of, Russia. And some conservatives are buying it. This is not genius but deliberate deception.

Continue reading →

04/5/16

The Panama Papers – In The Beginning There Was Putin

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Looks like Vlad got caught big time with his mitts in the cookie jar. In the largest financial data leak in history, we are getting to see just how corrupt Vladimir Putin and his inner circle of cronies are. It’s revealing to say the least. It’s a dirty dozen of world leaders who are using offshore tax havens to hidey hole their wealth. But as in all things secret, the light of day is shining into the buried coffers of power brokers. Good times.

And Putin is far from alone… a cadre of celebrities, sports stars, British politicians and the uber wealthy of the planet are all mired in this scandal. Welcome to the Panama Papers. This is a collection of 11 million files or so that contain data to kill for. It makes Edward Snowden look like a rank amateur by comparison. But this wasn’t a hack… it was a mass collection of documents and data.

The leak is originating from one of the world’s most secretive entities… the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca. In the dirt dug up, the firm is exposed for helping clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade taxation. Among their clientele are megastars Jackie Chan and Lionel Messi who have invested their millions offshore. Chan is a big fan of communist China. The whole story is like a movie come to life… it’s also revealed that 26 million pounds that was stolen during the Brink’s Mat robbery in 1983 was possibly funneled into an offshore company set up by this firm.

Continue reading →

01/12/16

Ukraine Still Fights for Freedom

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

With the 88th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles approaching, freedom lovers are cheering for the Netflix film, “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” which is being considered for an Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign Documentary. “Winter on Fire” is an inspiring story of a former Soviet republic resisting incorporation in the new Russian empire and seeking membership in the Free World. It’s a story whose ending is still in doubt.

The trailer captures the intensity of the entire film, as a young boy is shown putting his life on the line and calling home, telling his mom, “I love you.” He did not know whether he would live or die in the face of the regime’s armed thugs, and the security police beating and killing peaceful protesters.

Vladimir Putin’s puppet, Viktor Yanukovych, had won election as president of Ukraine by promising close ties to the West—but he secretly negotiated a deal to bring the former Soviet republic back into Moscow’s sphere of influence. The people of Ukraine were betrayed, and then revolted in a series of protests that will go down in history as the Ukrainian revolution of 2014. It is also known simply as Euromaidan, named for the pro-European tilt of the protests and the central square in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, where the demonstrations began.

The film shows people of all ages and backgrounds taking to the streets, wearing pots and pans as helmets, filling sandbags with snow and ice to make barricades to keep the regime’s forces at bay. There are graphic scenes of the injured and dead. Still, the demonstrators kept coming back, day after day. The people had nothing but will and determination to be free of Russian influence. In the end, after 93 days of protest, at least 125 people were killed, 65 were missing and 1,890 had been injured.

The American director, Evgeny Afineevsky, was born in Russia but won’t be returning there anytime soon because of the obvious danger to his life. He emigrated to Israel, where he was raised and educated, before coming to the United States. “I haven’t been to Russia for a couple of years and I am not planning to go there at the moment,” he says. “I am probably not a welcome guest there. But there are filmmakers everywhere and all of us deserve freedom of expression and freedom of speech.”

Of course, the story of the anti-Soviet/Russian protests in Ukraine does not have a completely happy ending. Putin responded with a Russian invasion of Ukraine, a struggle that continues as the Ukrainian government continues to plead for weapons for self-defense. President Obama has turned a deaf ear and blind eye to their pleas.

Putin’s invasion had to be based in part on the knowledge that if a revolution could depose his crony in Ukraine, it could also happen to him. Indeed, it was an opportunity for the U.S. government, if Obama had been so inclined, not only to support Ukraine’s bid for independence but to seek regime-change in Moscow. Instead, Obama continued his soft-on-Russia policy that has also led to Russian military intervention propping up the Syrian dictatorship.

Nevertheless, the protests have pushed forward a process of “de-communization” in the parts of Ukraine not under Russian occupation. Volodymyr Viatrovych, the historian who serves as director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory,spoke about the process last November at the Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center, outlining a series of laws that have been passed by the new Parliament and signed by new President Petro Poroshenko to eliminate communist and totalitarian influence in society. The laws honor the memory of Ukrainian freedom fighters, authorize access to the archives of the communist regime, and ban the use of both communist and Nazi symbols. As a result, the Communist Party of Ukraine has been outlawed.

Hundreds of Lenin monuments or statues have been torn down, with Viatrovych noting that Ukraine had been the “most Leninized” part of the old Soviet Union. One statue of Lenin was converted into Darth Vader. Streets, squares and state enterprises named after communist figures are being renamed as part of this process.

Beyond tearing down communist statues and removing Soviet symbols, the Ukraine Crisis Media Center has published an infographic on communism’s victims, estimated at 100 million, and asking for a “Nuremberg-2,” a follow-up to the original Nuremberg tribunals that exposed the Nazis for their crimes and brought them to justice. This time, the hope is that communists will be brought to justice, including figures such as Vladimir Putin, the former Soviet KGB spy who continues to celebrate Russia’s Soviet past. Another infographic demonstrates how Ukraine’s neighbors have succeeded or failed to overcome their communist pasts. In Russia, for example, the Communist Party was banned in 1991, then restored, and is now a major force in the Russian parliament. It maintains friendly relations with Putin’s United Russia Party.

Tragically, both Republican and Democratic administrations in the U.S. have accepted the fiction that Putin was a new and modern Russian leader. It was that flawed bipartisan approach that gave Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations status in 2012.

The estimated number of people killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion has now exceeded 8,000. In addition to this carnage, pro-Russian terrorists shot down a Malaysian airplane over eastern Ukraine, killing nearly 300 people.

David J. Kramer, former president of Freedom House, says, “Congress has passed several pieces of legislation by large bipartisan majorities calling for the provision of lethal arms to Ukraine, and virtually every member of the Cabinet as well as his vice-president support such a step; President Obama is the lone holdout…”

By this point, the explanation for this state of affairs is an old story. As a young man in Hawaii, Obama was mentored by a pro-Russian communist, Frank Marshall Davis, who taught him that “Red Russia” was a savior of the world’s oppressed peoples. Obama mocked 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for calling Russia a geo-political threat.

If anything, Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner in the 2016 contest, is to the left of Obama. He told a Ukraine conference in September that their nation was invaded because “there is no respect for the United States” and “Putin does not respect our president whatsoever.” He also insisted Ukraine was a European problem. The comments were considered so weak, in terms of pledging American support for Ukraine’s freedom and independence, that Trump was named by one Ukraine website as a “Kremlin agent.” This was before AIM disclosed Trump’s business connections to the Putin regime.

Perhaps Trump can take some time off the campaign trail to watch “Winter on Fire.”

12/19/15

Trump Seeks to Make Russia Great Again

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Donald Trump has hired an attractive young woman to spin the news in his favor. But it’s a difficult job, especially when a cold-blooded killer endorses your candidate. On CNN on Thursday night, Katrina Pierson attempted to soften the impact of the Russian president’s endorsement of—or high praise for—Trump for U.S. president.

“This wasn’t an endorsement,” she said. “This was simply just a powerful man recognizing someone in the United States running for president who is also a powerful man. It was not an endorsement.”

That “powerful man” in Russia is a former KGB spy whose regime is murdering innocent people in Ukraine and Syria. It is the same regime whose terrorists in Eastern Ukraine shot down a Malaysian airplane and killed almost 300 people.

Putin said about Trump, “He is a very flamboyant man, very talented, no doubt about that…He is the absolute leader of the presidential race, as we see it today. He says that he wants to move to another level of relations, to a deeper level of relations with Russia. How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it.”

It certainly sounded like something approaching an endorsement.

Trump provided a statement to ABC News saying, “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.” Trump went on: “I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect.”

Highly respected? Does Trump not understand how the Kremlin manipulates the media and eliminates opposition political figures and independent journalists?

Trump’s reaction was more embarrassing than the news that “Bolshevik Bernie” Sanders, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, had honeymooned in the old Soviet Union. Based on his praise for Putin, who ran one of the successor agencies to the KGB before he became Russian president, Trump may turn out to be another billionaire more comfortable with the policies of the Democratic Party.

During the 2012 campaign, in the final presidential debate, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Russia “a geopolitical foe.” President Obama mocked him, saying Romney was stuck in the past. The Obama/Hillary Clinton policy was the Russian “re-set,” which was supposed to increase trade and political cooperation with the Putin regime. Instead, it set the stage for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Before that, in 2008, Russia had invaded its former Republic of Georgia.

Trump seems not to understand how the Obama/Clinton Russian policy failed.

In the current campaign, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has been strongly critical of Putin, calling him a “gangster” and “an organized crime figure who controls the government and a large territory.”

That territory is growing.

As a businessman himself, Trump should know that property rights are not respected in Russia and that most of the important business is concentrated in the hands of Putin’s former KGB associates and cronies. That makes his comments about developing a trade relationship with Putin even more incomprehensible.

Businessman Bill Browder, who ran an investment fund in Russia called Hermitage Capital Management, was forced to flee Russia after his assets were stolen. His lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was tortured and murdered, and his death has become an international symbol of human rights violations in Russia.

The evidence shows that Putin and his group of former KGB officers are looting Russia, consolidating their power, and eliminating through torture and murder anyone who gets in their way. Browder’s book, Red Notice, tells the story in detail. His website, Russian Untouchables, names the names of the Russian officials involved in the case.

A film that was shown on December 15 at the Newseum, “From Russia with Cash,” explains how Russian government figures seek to steal and launder their money abroad through real estate transactions involving shell companies.

Pierson told CNN that Trump’s acceptance of the Putin endorsement was made “in the context of fighting terrorism, fighting ISIS in the Middle East.” She said, “Vladimir Putin has stepped up. Many people do respect him for that, including Americans who may not like Vladimir Putin but they like the fact that he’s stepping up and taking action against ISIS.”

Pierson is a victim of the Russian propaganda operations being waged in the U.S. and other countries by such Kremlin outlets as Russia Today (RT).

Putin has “stepped up” to save the long-time Soviet/Russian client state of Syria. The other guest on the show, radio host Ben Ferguson, pointed out, “Putin is propping up Assad. You should understand that, so should Donald Trump.” But Trump apparently does not.

What’s more, the evidence indicates that Putin’s military has been targeting anti-Assad pro-Western rebel groups, not ISIS. In fact, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond says pro-Assad military strikes have allowed ISIS “to seek advantage on the ground.” He said, “The majority of Russian air strikes continue to target Syrian opposition forces.”

ISIS itself has confirmed in one of its own publications that Russia is mainly targeting other groups, declaring that Russia is bombing “the allies of America” and that its intervention in Syria has “confused American analysts, think tanks, intelligence, and policy-makers.”

Trump has to be considered in the ranks of the “confused.”

In the wake of Trump’s gaffe during the recent debate, when he demonstrated ignorance about the nuclear triad, his acceptance of Putin’s endorsement may put this businessman in the ranks of official Russian dupes. In effect, the leading GOP presidential candidate has become captive to Moscow’s propaganda.

Once the voters understand how Trump has emerged as a stooge of Putin in the presidential race, his days as a serious candidate will be numbered.

“I’m like a really smart person,” Trump has said. This is the candidate who accepts praise from Vladimir Putin and returns the compliment, but says he doesn’t want Jeb Bush’s endorsement “because he is a low energy person and he does not represent strength, power and stamina, which are qualities our country desperately needs.”

It may be too late, considering the damage his comments have caused to his campaign and reputation, but Trump ought to devote some of his own energy to understanding how the Kremlin is waging a war of propaganda and disinformation regarding subjects like the wars in Ukraine and Syria. He should also read businessman Bill Browder’s book on corruption in Russia.

10/19/15

Ukraine Rebels Give Rise to a ‘New Cult of Stalin’

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

History is repeating itself in all its murderous glory in Russia. While the world swoons over Vladimir Putin taking charge in Syria and offing a bunch of blood-thirsty Islamists who are in his way and serve as bloody propaganda for his next moves into the Baltics, the Middle East and Europe, Putin is getting the old band back together a la the Soviet Union. He is using nationalism to stoke the hatred of America… blaming all of Russia’s ills on the US. You see this play out in Donetsk, Ukraine, where three giant portraits of the former Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, are proudly displayed in the center of the city. It is the rebel capitol of eastern Ukraine and separatists are fueling Soviet nostalgia there.

The young have no clue what a monster Stalin really was. They seem proud of the portraits and feel that they engender Russian pride. “I think the portraits of Stalin are a good thing. It’s our history and a lot of people have forgotten he even existed,” said Yekaterina, a 22-year-old student. Did you also forget the atrocities that Uncle Joe committed? Soviet customs are being revived to cement the rebels’ Moscow-backed rule.

The Stalin portraits feature a quote from the wartime leader: “Our cause is just. The enemy will be routed. We will claim victory.” Sounds a lot like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, doesn’t it? Under the glorified butchery of Stalin, approximately five million Ukrainians were starved to death in the Holodomor.

The Holodomor, or extermination by hunger, occurred in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 and it killed an estimated 2.5–7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country. Scholars believe it was a long term plan of Joseph Stalin’s… an attempt to eliminate the Ukrainian independence movement. Actions such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs and restriction of population movement confer intent, defining the famine as genocide. The massive loss of life has been compared to the Holocaust. The horrors of Stalin’s repressions and the deaths of Ukrainians in the 1930’s due to famine caused by forced collectivization go unmentioned.

Vasil Kiseliev, deputy mayor of the eastern Ukrainian town of Stakhanov

Now, the rebels have become nostalgic for the good ole days of the Soviet Union. The Donetsk rebel leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, told AFP how he regretted the break-up of the Soviet Union. “The Soviet Union was a great country and it was a huge mistake that it was destroyed by the CIA and other secret services,” said the 39 year-old former field commander, who seems to have a thing for camouflage gear. “Europe and other countries were scared stiff of us.”

In eastern Ukraine, the rebel separatists have killed more than 8,000. In their offices, stylish posters of Uncle Joe adorn their dens. Stalin was a fascist dictator draped in Communist attire. The Donetsk rebels’ Deputy Defence Minister Eduard Basurin wears a badge with Stalin’s profile on his uniform.

A Soviet Union flag flutters as people attend the unveiling of a Lenin statue in the town of Novoazo.

At one time, the coal mining city of Donetsk was known as Stalino. In the early 1960s, the city was renamed after Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev seized power after Stalin died and vociferously and aggressively condemned Stalin’s cult of personality.

It’s a different story in Kiev’s pro-western government. Last May, they made it illegal to display Soviet symbols, just as it is illegal to display Nazi swastikas. They pulled down and destroyed Stalin monuments. They renamed streets, towns and establishments that had Soviet names. Lenin statues were toppled across the Ukraine, which incensed the rebels. The Donetsk rebels’ culture minister, Alexander Paretsky, condemned “vandalism and barbarism” while the leader of the Lugansk rebel region, Igor Plotnitsky, warned of a “moral genocide.” In the town of Novoazovsk on the Azov Sea, the rebels ceremonially restored a Lenin statue to its pedestal after taking control from Ukrainian forces.

Soviet symbols of the hammer and sickle in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol (AFP Photo)

This is the revived Soviet nationalism that Putin has brought back. That and the Russian Orthodox Church. In hearkening back to pre-collapse days, a fierce Russian pride of the motherland is being reignited. This is the new face of the rebels.

The rebels’ territories are called “people’s republics,” echoing the Soviet-era names of Communist satellites such as Bulgaria, Mongolia and Romania. Lugansk People’s Republic has a new emblem featuring sheafs of corn and a red star, just like those of the USSR’s communist republics.

The rebels are also bringing back the Soviet-era Young Pioneer youth group. Think Boy Scouts for communists.

A portrait of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin displayed in Donetsk, the rebel capital of eastern Ukraine.

I especially like what they have named their security agency… the Ministry of State Security or MGB. Does that sound familiar? It should… it’s the same name given to Stalin’s secret police from 1946 to 1953. And just to keep it authentic, if you are put on trial there, I wouldn’t count on an acquittal. Not in a Russian court. “It’s the Soviet model of the prosecutor’s office that we adopted in Donetsk,” said Andrei Spivak, the official charged with overhauling the system.

An additional exhibition of paintings pays homage to the Soviet hero “shock worker” Alexei Stakhanov, who achieved record coal production levels at a mine in the Lugansk region in the 1930s. Historians now see Stakhanov’s feats as carefully choreographed by the authorities as a propaganda tactic to push up norms. Always with the propaganda.

Young and old alike are romanticizing Russia’s past – remembering what they see as better, more prosperous times when they were a world power, as opposed to what has now become of Russia. If they can have that back, they’ll take the monsters with it. “Things were better back then. It was a totally different life,” says Galina, a 73-year-old.

With propaganda comes the whitewashing of history as well. In August, the Donetsk rebel authorities decided to pull down a monument to victims of the Stalin-orchestrated 1930’s famine in the Ukraine. Donetsk State University removed a monument to Ukrainian dissident Vasyl Stus, a poet and campaigner for national culture, who spent decades in jail and died in a prison camp in 1985 at the age of 47. “That was a criminal act,” said Maria, a pensioner — but her views seemed to be shared by very few.

In the last year alone, Russia and its proxies have begun a systematic campaign of harassing religious minorities in the Ukraine. The Department of State just released its annual report on International Religious Freedom. In it, it was noted that the conditions for religious minorities in the Ukraine and Crimea had severely deteriorated, thanks to the Russian-backed separatists. Those are the rebels. “In the areas they control, the separatists have kidnapped, beaten, and threatened Protestants, Catholics, and members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, as well as participated in anti-Semitic acts,” the report said.

Rebels declared the primary religion to be the Christian Orthodox faith of the Russian Orthodox Church.

From the Washington Free Beacon:

Armed assailants in Donetsk, calling themselves the Russian Orthodox Army, abducted Tykhon Kulbaka, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest, last July.

According to the report, “His captors reportedly subjected him to repeated mock executions and took away his medication, threatening him with a ‘slow death’ unless he joined the Russian Orthodox Church. He also sustained physical injuries before his release July 14.”

Donetsk authorities also detained Fr. Pawel Witek, a Roman Catholic priest, last May and accused him of being a sniper. The separatists blindfolded him, tied his arms and hands, and guarded him in a basement before eventually releasing him.

Other churches that were targeted include God’s Church of Ukraine, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, and a variety of Protestant denominations.

In a statement last July, the heads of the Evangelical Protestant Churches of Ukraine said that militants had subjected their members to “abduction, beating, torture, murder threats, and damage to houses of worship, seizure of religious buildings, and damage to health and private property of the clergy.”

One pro-Russian group also placed anti-Semitic pamphlets near the Donetsk synagogue and threatened to force Jews to register with a local commissioner and pay a fee.

Russia’s occupation authorities used “harassment, intimidation, detentions, and beatings” against members of minority Christian denominations and Muslim Tatars, the report said. Russian forces prevented some priests from entering their churches, raided mosques, and sponsored a new Muslim organization to supplant the local leadership body for Tatars.

In one incident last June, unmarked Russian forces stormed into a Ukrainian Orthodox Church and “verbally abused the parish priest and beat his pregnant wife and daughter, who suffered from cerebral palsy.”

“The occupation authorities refused to investigate the incident,” the report said. “The church was since closed.”

Authorities also denied residency permits to Turkish imams within the Tatar community and priests in the Greek Catholic Church.

Putin has an alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. It is the State-sanctioned church. Of course he denies anything to do with all of this and the rebels. Here’s my shocked face… because Putin never lies. Meanwhile, Moscow has continued to supply the rebels with advanced weapons systems such as a multiple rocket launchers.

Russia is creating an illiberal coalition to oppose NATO and the West, a theory consistent with the rising tide of nationalism and Soviet nostalgia in Russia. In the end, this all leads to war, which is what Russia wants. They feel it will reinvigorate the Russian bear economically and nationally. Plus, they are just itching for a fight with the US now that her military has been gutted by Obama. They will use Syria as a springboard into the Middle East and as a doorway for seizing territory in the Baltics. Europe is on the brink of war and doesn’t even seem to realize it. Looks like Stalin is back from the dead.

10/16/15

Obama Plans Takedown of Another U.S. Ally

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

President Obama failed to take out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but now he’s going after Canada’s Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a big supporter of Israel and opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It’s a story the U.S. media won’t cover. But Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press has been documenting how Obama is planning the “fundamental transformation” of Canada by taking down Harper’s government and bringing to power a progressive majority assembled from Canada’s Liberal Party and New Democratic Party (NDP), an affiliate of the Socialist International.

In a dispatch earlier this year, McLeod provided the facts about the interference of Obama campaign operatives in the Canadian elections scheduled for October 19. “In Canada, Obama’s campaign team is guiding the election campaigns of both the Liberals and the NDP,” she wrote. She urged the Harper government to investigate.

She explained why Obama is targeting Canada: “To the U.S., Canada is the country next door, to Obama it’s home of the architects of the maligned Keystone XL Pipeline and home to the world’s Number One elected defender of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Indeed, for the last seven years Harper has not only been supporting Israel but functioning as the leader of the Free World, in the face of Obama’s deal-making with America’s enemies and adversaries. In 2014, at the summit of G20 nations, Harper famously told Russian President Putin that he needs “to get out of Ukraine.” Putin replied with a lie, saying the Russians weren’t in Ukraine.

Harper has declared, “Israel is the front line of free democratic nations, and any who turn their back on Israel or turn a blind eye to the nature of Israel’s enemies do so in the long run at their own peril.”

In a recent speech to the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, he said, “Those who hate democracy and freedom, tolerance and openness, having been plotting attacks against Western nations, beginning with Israel, for decades, seeking to destroy our rare and precious way of life. We were told for years to just ignore the erosion of freedoms and the growing aggression of Putin’s Russia. Look where that has taken the world.”

Canada used to have a conservative cable channel, Sun News Network. But it went out of business earlier this year when the channel failed to get enough distribution to pay for expenses. Cable companies in Canada were carrying foreign channels such as Al Jazeera and Putin’s Russia Today, but wouldn’t carry Sun News. Brian Lilley, a former host on the network, said that the cable companies “didn’t like the message.” He explained, “They didn’t like that we were brash, we were very conservative. We were pro-business, pro-family, pro-oil, pro-Israel. We were pro-America…They decided to shut us down.”

Lilley and his former colleagues have formed TheRebel.media as a replacement, with special news coverage of national and international news. The group’sYouTube channel, with 1,500 videos, is the place to go for conservative coverage of the Canadian elections and other news. Their videos have already attracted millions of views. A report by Ezra Levant on the election describes reporters at Canada’s state broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), as “liberals with press credentials.” Lilley has been leading a campaign to have the government, which provides about $1 billion to the CBC, sell the broadcasting entity to the private sector. Visitors can also get access to podcasts, columns and blogs, and contribute financially to maintain and expand this important site for news and information.

While the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau campaigns for legal dope and injection centers for drug addicts, and the New Democratic Party proposes Bernie Sanders-style socialism for Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada has been on the side of individual freedom, traditional values and free enterprise. Harper has taken on the jihadists who want to destroy Western civilization and has spoken eloquently about the stakes for the Free World, such as in a 2014 speech to the Tribute to Liberty Dinner in Toronto. The topic on this occasion was the need to establish a Memorial to Victims of Communism in Canada.

“During the 20th century, communism’s poisonous ideology and ruthless practice slowly bled into countries all around the world, on almost every continent,”Harper said. “The result was nothing short of catastrophic. More than one hundred million souls were lost, an almost incomprehensible number. We must never forget that these are not numbers, they are not statistics. They were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors. Their futures, their potential, their hopes and dreams, were stolen from them. Our hearts break for those who suffered and we mourn for those who were crushed.”

After affirming Canada’s solidarity with Ukraine, in the face of Russian aggression, Harper described another current threat, international Islamic terrorism, and said, “…whatever it calls itself—Nazism, Marxist-Leninism, today, terrorism—they all have one thing in common: the destruction, the end of human liberty. My fear is this: as we move further into the 21st century, Canadians, especially new generations, will forget or will not be taught the lessons hard learned and the victories hard earned over the last 100 years. That they will fall even further in love with ease and convenience. And that they will not understand that their rights and their advantages, their peace and their security, were won by people willing to live and die for what is good and right.”

Harper, in power since 2006, has truly been the leader of the Free World over the last seven years. He is a reminder of what an American president should be standing for in the world. No wonder Obama wants to finish him off.