iBankCoin | Reddit and 4chan have been hard at work trying to connect the dots surrounding Rich’s murder.
To that end, a user in Reddit’s ‘the_donald’ forum has found Seth Rich’s Reddit account – ‘MeGrimlock4’ (a Transformers reference) revealing much
about the slain DNC staffer. For the most part, Rich seemed like a
regular kinda guy – into football, dogs, patriotism, riding his bike,
fun clothes, and volunteering at the Washington Humane Society.
Seth Rich’s twitter is @panda4progress,
which follows @Reddit, which led us to believe he was in fact a
redditor. That seems consistent with this reddit account, in that
they’re both in DC and have an interest in bicycles. Edit: not JUST
bicycles. A company named “split” which this account is talking abouthere@Panda4Progress talks to themhere. Also/u/MeGrimlock4is posting about Nebraska football.
Rich was from Omaha. No cornfed midwestern kid from Nebraska isn’t a Huskers fan. THIS IS DEFINITELY SETH RICH’S ACCOUNT
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) May 19, 2017
Here’s where it gets interesting:/u/pandas4bernieand
a tumblr by the same name ALSO stopped posting at the same time as this
account. If that’s Rich, then that proves motive. Rich was a BernieBro.
———-
Which may be why Rich gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails – after they false flagged Bernie…
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) uses an outside software
partner “NGP VAN,” founded by Nathaniel Pearlman, chief technology
officer for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Their
‘VoteBuilder’ software was designed for Democratic candidates (Bernie,
Hillary, etc.) to track and analyze highly detailed information on
voters for the purposes of ‘microtargeting’ specific demographics.
On December 16th, 2015, NGP VAN updated the Votebuilder with a patch
that contained a bug – allowing the Sanders and the Clinton campaigns to
temporarily access each other’s proprietary voter information for
around 40 minutes. Lo and behold, the Sanders campaign National Data
Director, Josh Uretsky, was found to have accessed Clinton’s information and promptly fired.
Uretsky’s excuse was that he was simply grabbing Clinton’s data during the window of vulnerability to prove that the breach was real.
Bernie cried false flag!
Sanders claimed that Uretsky was a DNC plant – “recommended by the DNC’s National Data Director, as well as a former COO of NGP VAN.”
Of note, Seth Rich was not the National Data Director. According to the DNC’s 2016 roster, Seth Rich was the DNC’s “Voter Expansion Data Director” while Andrew Brown was the National Data Director – who Bernie said referred Uretsky.
So Seth Rich, a Bernie supporter, would have known people involved in the ‘hack’ Bernie says was meant to frame him…
It’s easy to speculate how Seth Rich could have become disgruntled
after witnessing the DNC attempt to sabotage the Sanders campaign. As
such, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Rich – a guy with access to
sensitive emails and technical skills, did in fact communicate with
Wikileaks in order to expose and root out the DNC’s misdeeds.
straightlinelogic |If Seth Rich was the source of the
WikiLeaks’ DNC email disclosures and the FBI knew it, then the Russian
hacking story was a fabrication, and James Comey was probably involved
in an attempt to drive President Trump from office.
The biggest story of the entire Russiagate controversy
was published Tuesday. Not the story about President Trump’s alleged
statement to former FBI Director James Comey: “I hope you can let this
go.” A witness is only as good as his or her credibility. If the actual
big story pans out, Comey has none, which is why the mainstream media is
obsessing over Trump’s alleged statement and doing everything it can to
ignore and stifle the other story.
Seth Rich was on the staff of the Democratic
National Committee (DNC). He was gunned down on July 10, 2016. Robbery
has been speculated as a motive for the murder, but his wallet and watch
were not taken. There is also speculation that Rich was the source of
the DNC emails that were released by WikiLeaks twelve days later, to the
consternation and embarrassment of the DNC. Fueling that speculation
was WikiLeaks’ offer of a $20,000 reward for information leading to the
conviction of Rich’s murderer. WikiLeaks has neither confirmed nor
denied that Rich was its source.
The emails appeared to show a concerted DNC
effort to stop Senator Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign for the
Democratic nomination and led to the resignation of party chairperson
Debbie Wasserman Schultz. After WikiLeaks’ DNC disclosure, the DNC
refused to let the FBI investigate its computer servers. Instead, it
allowed a cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, to investigate. It’s
conclusion, subsequently undercut, was that the Russians had hacked the DNC’s server.
Fox News reported
that an unnamed source, almost certainly from the FBI, has seen and
read emails between Seth Rich and the late Gavin MacFadyen, a director
of WikiLeaks. A FBI forensic report on Seth Rich’s computer was
allegedly compiled within 96 hours of his murder. The source said there
were 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between DNC leaders
transferred from Rich to MacFadyen from January 2015 through May 2016.
If this is correct, then within 96 hours
of Rich’s murder, or by July 14, 2016, the FBI knew that Rich had
communicated with WikiLeaks and it knew what he had communicated. That
means that when WikiLeaks subsequently released the DNC emails on July
22, the FBI knew that Rich, not the Russian government, was the source.
That would make the entire “Russia hacked the DNC” story nothing more
than a concocted fabrication.
Mishtalk | Bending to the will of Democrats and mainstream media, Deputy Attorney
General, Rod Rosenstein, cited ‘public interest’ in investigating
Trump’s ties to Russia. As a matter of public interest,, Rosenstein
named former FBI director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel for Russia Probe.
What’s the Real Mission?
Republicans and Trump want to pacify the media and get this nonsense behind them.
Democrats want this to drag on forever.
Peter King is correct in his assessment “These guys go on forever.”
As a byproduct of point number two, numerous witch hunts will take
place as Democrats will want to investigate every lead, no matter how
ridiculous.
The budget is open-ended and there are no time limits. The witch
hunt could conceivably last for the duration of Trump’s presidency.
Much of Trump’s agenda will be on indefinite hold as the progress, or lack thereof, as the story unfolds.
unz |I am somewhat embarrassed to cheer the US
President for doing such minor routine things as firing an FBI director
or meeting with the Foreign Minister of a major state. Next, I’d have to
laud him for eating an apple or washing his hands (“Attaboy!”). But one
feels that the guy needs our encouragement for doing something right.
As the father of three boys, I know: boys need encouragement. And if
there is no great achievement to cheer them for, even washing their
hands before the meal will do.
Trump has a huge, Herculean task: to turn the battleship America
away from its collision course when all the important people in all the
important positions are deadly keen to run it full speed ahead. They
think the other ship will turn away first; but the “other ship” is
actually a lighthouse. It is the rock of the World-Island and its
Heartland. Why would so many smart Americans, Brits and Europeans push
their luck by courting war and disaster?
Exactly a hundred years ago, in 1917, Vladimir
Lenin discovered that the present system necessarily produces world
wars. It is not a question of bad guys or good guys, it’s the system,
stupid! He wrote about it a concise book called Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,
radically updating Marx. The idea is that capitalism evolves from
dynamic competitive production to financial capital takeover, while the
financial capital unavoidably leads to wars. If financiers rule, war is
inevitable, he said, because they are insatiable.
Industrialists,
builders, farmers can and will stop at the limits of their territory,
but financiers always want more, and there is no natural limit to their
expansion. They want to colonise more lands, subjugate more nations and
suck up their substance. The only way to save the world from the horrors
of war (remember, Lenin wrote after Verdun and Ypres), is to get rid of
financial capital’s dominance (Jesus came to the same conclusion whens
He expelled the moneychangers from the temple).
That
same year, Lenin made his great experiment to rid his country Russia of
bankers and other exploiters, while earning their eternal hatred (and
volumes of fake news about his bloodthirsty cruelty, in addition).
History has proven him partially right: the countries that followed
Lenin’s path never began a war, and they never colonised other states,
though they did help some to get rid of their leeches and Western
interference. Soviet Russia is an example: it was a donor to all the
other socialist states, from Georgia to Afghanistan. (Perhaps the
communists had been too good for this world. After Russia was
de-communised, Russian income went up, while the incomes of practically
all the ex-Soviet states plummeted, unless subsidised by the EU.) And
they knew no war.
On
the other hand, the states that remained under bankers’ sway went to
war more and more frequently. They colonised or were colonised. Probably
none as often as the US, the home country for the Federal Reserve, for
the dollar and for so many great financial companies.
For
America, the next World War is inevitable, unless the Americans can get
rid of their financiers – and of their servants in the mass media and
other state institutions. My sympathy to President Trump has been based
on his antipathy to the moneymen. When he attacked the Federal Reserve
and Wall Street, he swayed me, and perhaps you, too.
medium |Imagine
working for a corporation that produces a (so far) hidden harm to the
community, in concealing a cancer-causing property which kills the
thousands but with an effect that is not (yet) fully visible. You can
alert the public, but would automatically lose your job. There is a
gamble that the company’s evil scientists would disprove you, causing
additional humiliation. Or the news will come and go and you may end-up
being ignored. You are familiar with the history of whistleblowers which
shows that, even if you end up vindicated, it may take time for the
truth to emerge over the noise created by corporate shills. Meanwhile
you will pay the price. A smear campaign against you will destroy any
hope of getting another job.
You
have nine children, a sick parent, and as a result of the stand, the
children’s future would be compromised. College hopes will evaporate
–you may even have trouble feeding them properly. You are severely
conflicted between your obligation to the collective and to your
progeny. You feel part of the crime and unless you do something you are
an agent: thousands are dying from the hidden poisoning by the
corporation. Being ethical comes at a huge cost to others.
In the James Bond movie Specter,
agent Bond found himself fighting –on his own, whistleblower style –a
conspiracy of dark forces that took over the British service, including
his supervisors. “Q” who built the new fancy car and other gadgets for
him, when asked to help against the conspiracy, said “I have a mortgage
and two cats” –in jest of course because he ended up risking the lives
of his two cats to fight the bad guys.
Society
likes saints and moral heroes to be celibate so they do not have family
pressures and be forced into dilemmas of needing to compromise their
sense of ethics to feed their children. The entire human race, something
rather abstract, becomes their family. Some martyrs, such as Socrates,
had young children (although he was in his seventies), and overcame the
dilemma at their expense.[1] Many can’t.
Heatstreet | No one is buying Marvel’s lineup of social justice-themed comics.
It’s no surprise, given that few readers want politics to be forced down
their throats. Thus liberal darling Ta-Nehisi Coates and Yona Harvey’s Black Panther & The Crew is getting the axe after poor sales, just two issues after its launch. Its cancellation comes just weeks after a Marvel VP revealed that comics with forced messages of “diversity” were responsible for the publisher’s sales slump.
Joined by Luke Cage, Manifold, Misty Knight, and Storm, the titular superhero who entered the limelight with Captain America: Civil War
gathers his all-black crew of superheroes to investigate the death of a
civil rights activist who died in police custody. It has echoes of Sandra Bland’s death.
Set in a near-future Harlem-turned-police state patrolled by robotic
police officers controlled by a private security contractor, the comic
has every element you’d expect from a comic attempting to tell a story
inspired by Black Lives Matter. The cops beat people up for no reason,
too.
Naturally, the social justice superheroes take justice into their own
hands and go to battle against the corrupt system, while learning about
the historical figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Univision-owned
entertainment vertical Gizmodo enthusiastically describes The Crew as one that “[tells a] timely [story] about real world issues, like how police brutality devastates black communities.”
Coates explained to The Verge
that Marvel decided to kill the publication due to poor sales, and that
there wouldn’t be any continuation after the current story arc ends in
its sixth and final issue. The market spoke, and Marvel listened. Fist tap Big Don.
Counterpunch | You would think, for example, that in the heart of the most powerful
military empire that the world has ever seen, that an activist who opposedthe
savaging of other countries by the U.S. military would receive
intersectional support from a broad section of the U.S. left. And
particularly since this activist identified as LGBTQ, the LGBTQ left
would particularly be in her corner.
But no. Years earlier a top official in what is now known as the
National LGBTQ Task Force told me that “we will never” again come out
against a U.S. war, following the Task Force’s public opposition to
President George H. W. Bush’s first war against Iraq. He said that the
Task Force’s coming out against that war had “nearly destroyed” the
organization, as wealthy donors pulled their donations and threatened to
never support it again. And this was with the Task Force, the group
that likes to posture itself as the “hippest” of the big LGBTQ
non-profits.
But it was not the first, nor certainly the last time that LGBTQ
non-profits – rightly derided as “Gay Inc.” – prioritized donors’
dollars to fund their salaries and offices, over alleged adherence to
intersectional principles.
For all their talk of “grassroots organizing” – another phrase that’s
become hackneyed thru repeated misuse – Gay Inc. organizations are
staff-driven at best, and at worst, controlled by self-selected boards
chosen for their ability to tap contributions from wealthy donors. In
this way the wealthiest LGBTQs control the political agenda of what
passes for our movement, a pink version of the class stratification
talked about in straight society, but rarely mentioned in the movement.
Some
say that the reason for this conservatism is Gay, Inc.’s affection for
“heteronormativity” – the aping straight people. This is said to explain
their recent emphasis on winning equal marriage rights, for example.
But this interpretation doesn’t adequately explain where
“heteronormativity” itself comes from, and it also radically mis-reads
the chronology of how the marriage issue became center-space in our
movement.
RT | Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is ready to provide
records of the recent meeting between US leader Donald Trump and Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to dispel the "political schizophrenia"
around the allegations that state secrets were leaked.
"If
the US administration deems it possible, we are ready to provide the
Senate and Congress with the transcript of the conversation between
Lavrov and Trump," Putin said at a press conference, following a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Wednesday.
It comes after the Washington Post claimed that Trump had “revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister [Sergey Lavrov] and ambassador in a White House meeting” on May 10.
Trump maintains that the data he shared with Lavrov concerned flight safety and terrorism, and that he had the "absolute right" to provide the information at an openly scheduled White House meeting.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova issued a mocking response to the claims, posting on Facebook:
“Have you guys been reading American newspapers again? Don’t read them.
They can be used in many different ways, but one shouldn’t read them –
recently it has become not only harmful, but dangerous.”
"We are seeing in the US a developing political schizophrenia," Putin said.
"There is no other way I can explain the accusations against the acting US president that he gave away some secrets to Lavrov."
Those who "are
destabilizing the internal US political situation using anti-Russian
slogans either don't understand that they are bringing this nonsense in
on their own side, and then they are just stupid, or else they
understand everything, and then they are dangerous and corrupt people," Putin said.
"Anyway, this is a US matter, and we don't want and don't plan to interfere," the Russian president said.
Putin
promptly followed his statements about the Trump-Lavrov meeting by
saying he did share some secrets with the Italian prime minister.
"As for the message I delivered to Mr. Prime Minister, it is of a secret nature, I cannot tell you about it," Putin said with a smile.
While
much discussed by the media, the alleged state secret leaks appear not
to have damaged Washington's overseas alliances. UK Prime Minister
Theresa May has vowed to continue sharing intelligence data with the US.
therealnews | But why is so much of
the American foreign policy establishment, the political class, the
military leadership, the vast majority of that whole stratum wants to
maintain a very antagonistic position towards Russia, and why?
ROBERT
ENGLISH: You know, four or five reasons that all come together, pushing
in this Russophobic direction. We've always had sort of unreconstructed
Cold Warriors, people who never were easy with the new Russia, right?
Zbigniew Brzezinski and people of that ilk, who wanted to just push
Russia in a corner, take advantage of its weakness, never give it a
chance. Then you have people in the military-industrial complex, for
lack of a better term, whose vested interests lie in a continued
rivalry, and continued arms-racing, and continued threat inflation. You
have other people who normally would be liberal progressive, but they're
so angry at Hillary Clinton's loss, they're so uncomprehending of how
someone they see as vulgar and unqualified as Trump could get elected,
that they're naturally unwilling to let go of this "the Russians hacked
our election, the Russians got Trump elected" theme, and therefore,
Russia is even bigger enemy than they would be otherwise. These and
other strains all come together in a strange way. Some of this is the
hard right, all right? Some of it is from the left, some is from the
center. And across the board, we have ignorance. Ignorance of Russia.
PAUL
JAY: Now, in an article you wrote recently, you went through some of
the history, and we're going to do another segment that digs into this
history more in depth, but when you look at the history of the '90s, and
Yeltsin, and the whole role of the United States in helping bring down
the Soviet Union, the whole point of bringing down the Soviet Union, and
standing Yeltsin up, and interfering in Russian elections to make sure
Yeltsin wins, and so on, was to open Russia for privatization for
American oligarchs. I don't think the idea was to do it for Russian
oligarchs, but that's how it turned out. Is that part of what is making
this section of the American oligarchs so angry about it all?
ROBERT
ENGLISH: You know, when people look at Russia today, they try to
explain it in terms of one evil man, Putin, and that sort of conceals an
assumption that if we could just get rid of Putin, everything would be
better, and that Putin is the way he is — anti-American — because he's
from the KGB. You don't need to go back to his youth or his time in
intelligence to understand why he's very skeptical, why we have bad
relations with Putin and all those around him. You don't have to go back
to the '50s or '40s. You can go back just to the '90s, when we
interfered in Russia, when we foisted dysfunctional economic policies on
them, when we meddled in their elections repeatedly, and basically for
an entire decade, we were handmaidens to a catastrophe — economic,
political, social — that sowed the seeds of this resentment that
continues to this day. It's a-
PAUL JAY: Yeah, you mention in your
article that the consequences of the '90s depression in Russia far
surpassed anything in the '07-'08 recession in the United States.
ROBERT
ENGLISH: They far surpassed that. They even far surpassed anything in
our own Great Depression of the early 1930s, of '29, '30, '31 — you
know, the Great Depression, under Hoover and then Roosevelt. At that
time, our economy contracted by about a quarter, and the slump lasted
about three years before growth resumed. Russia's economy contracted
almost by half, and the slump lasted an entire decade, and it resulted
not just in widespread poverty, but millions of excess deaths, of
suicides, of people dying of despair, of heart disease, of treatable
illnesses caused by the strains, the ... This deep, unbelievable misery
of that decade. It's no wonder that there is deep resentment towards the
US, and this underlies a lot of the Putin elites' attitudes towards us.
It's not something pathological, Putin being a bad guy. If you got rid
of Putin tomorrow, the next guy who came along, the person most Russians
would probably elect in democratic elections, wouldn't be so different.
It wouldn't be another Yeltsin or pro-Western liberal, believe me.
PAUL
JAY: Well, even if everything they say about Putin is true, and I doubt
and ... Quite sure not everything is true. If he is such a dictator,
United States foreign policy has never had any trouble with dictators,
as long as they're our dictators, so the thing drips with hypocrisy.
ROBERT
ENGLISH: Hypocrisy and double standards all around are what Russians
see, okay? I mean, where do you begin? Look at the recent ... The vote,
the referendum in Crimea to secede from Ukraine, and of course, then
Russia annexed it into Russian territory, and we find that outrageous, a
violation of international law, and the Russians say, "Yeah, and what
did you engineer in Kosovo? You yanked Kosovo out of Serbia, you caused
Kosovo to secede from Serbia with no referendum, no international law.
How is that different? Right? When it's your client state it's okay, but
when it's ours, it's not?" And of course the list is a long one; we
could spend all afternoon going through them. So the first thing we need
to do is stop the sanctimony, and deal with Russia as an equal great
power. But, you know, can I say one more thing about the '90s
that connect it with what's going on today? In 1991, we had George
Herbert Walker Bush in the White House. It was still the Soviet Union,
Gorbachev was still in power for the rest of the year, and a warning
came from our ambassador in Moscow, Jack Matlock, which was passed on to
the White House. He had inside information from sources, from
confidential sources, that a coup attempt was being planned. And, by the
way, of course it happened in August of that year. That information
came from our Ambassador Matlock, from his sources in Moscow, to the
White House. George Bush had been instructed that this was highly
sensitive, do not reveal the source of the information, keep it
confidential. Bush fouled up, and within hours, he got on the phone to
Moscow, a line that was open, monitored by the KGB, trying to reach
Gorbachev, and he revealed the information, and he revealed the source,
which went straight to the KGB. This was an unbelievable breach of
confidentiality, dangerous, potentially deadly results, and the greatest
irony is that George Herbert Walker Bush had been Director of the CIA
before. Now, why am I telling this story? Obviously, my first
point is, presidents have fouled up, and have declassified unwittingly,
or sometimes for political purposes, highly sensitive information all
the time. I'm not excusing what Trump did — it looks like he was very
sloppy — but the first thing to note is it's not unusual, this happens a
lot. The second thing, and let's talk about this, is sharing
information intelligence with the Russians. Guys, we've been doing this
for nearly 20 years. After 9/11, the Russians offered us valuable
intelligence on the Taliban, on Afghanistan, to help us fight back
against bin Laden, and we've been exchanging intelligence on terrorists
ever since. A lot of people wish we'd exchange more information; we
might have prevented the Boston bombing. So this hysteria about sharing
intelligence with our adversary, no, we are cooperating with Russia
because we have a common enemy.
PAUL JAY: Now, I said in the
beginning that I thought we should separate Trump's intent from a
policy, which seems more rational, not to treat Russia as such an
adversary, and try to work both in Syria and other places, negotiate
more things out. But when you do look at the side of intent, I don't
think you can negate or forget about the kind of historic ties that
Trump has with Russian oligarchs. Some people suggest Russian Mafia.
Tillerson's energy play, they would love sanctions lifted on Russia, and
I'm not suggesting they shouldn't be lifted, but the motive here is
they want to do a massive play in the energy sector. So it's not ... I
don't think we should forget about what drives Trump and his circle
around him, which is they have a very big fossil fuel agenda and a
money-making agenda. On the other hand, that doesn't mean the policy
towards Russia isn't rational. I mean, what do you ... I don't know if
you agree or not.
unz |There is a growing Washington consensus that
consists of traditional liberals and progressives as well as Democratic
globalist interventionists and neoconservatives who believe that Donald
Trump must be removed from office no matter what it takes. The
interventionists and neocons in particular already control most of the
foreign policy mechanisms but they continue to see Trump as a possible
impediment to their plans for aggressive action against a host of
enemies, most particularly Russia. As they are desirous of bringing down
Trump “legally” through either impeachment or Article 25 of the
Constitution which permits removal for incapacity, it might be termed a
constitutional coup, though the other labels cited above also fit.
The
rationale Trump haters have fabricated is simple: the president and his
team colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election in his favor,
which, if true, would provide grounds for impeachment. The driving
force, in terms of the argument being made, is that removing Trump must
be done “for the good of the country” and to “correct a mistake made by
the American voters.” The mainstream media is completely on board of the
process, including the outlets that flatter themselves by describing
their national stature, most notably the New York Times and Washington
Post.
So
what is to be done? For starters, until Donald Trump has unambiguously
broken a law the critics should take a valium and relax. He is an
elected president and his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama
certainly did plenty of things that in retrospect do not bear much
scrutiny. Folks like Ray McGovern and Robert Parry should be listened to
even when they are being provocative in their views. They are not, to
be sure, friends of the White House in any conventional way and are not
apologists for those in power, quite the contrary. Ray has been strongly
critical of the current foreign policy, most particularly of the
expansion of various wars, claims of Damascus’s use of chemical weapons,
and the cruise missile attack on Syria. Robert in his latest article
describes Trump as narcissistic and politically incompetent. But their
legitimate concerns are that we are moving in a direction that is far
more dangerous than Trump. A soft coup engineered by the national
security and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to our
democracy than anything Donald Trump can do.
ibankcoin | Steven Cohen, Professor of Russian studies at Princeton and NYU (an
obvious Russian spy) was besides himself tonight, in sheer disbelief
over the with hunt of gigantic nothing-burgers that are being used to
assault the Presidency of Donald Trump.
He declared, “today, I would say (the greatest threat to national
security) is this assault on President Trump. Let’s be clear what he’s
being accused of is treason. This has never happened in America, that we
had a Russian agent in the White House. Cohen believes Flynn did
nothing wrong by talking to the Russian ambassador, describing it as
‘his job’ to do so.
He then illuminated the indelible fact that there is a 4th branch of
government, the intelligence community, who have been meddling in
American foreign affairs, obstructing the other 3 branches of
government.
“In 2016, President Obama worked out a deal with Russian
President Putin for military cooperation in Syria. He said he was gonna
share intelligence with Russia, just like Trump and the Russians were
supposed to do the other day. Our department of defense said it wouldn’t
share intelligence. And a few days later, they killed Syrian soldiers,
violating the agreement, and that was the end of that. So, we can ask,
who is making our foreign policy in Washington today?”
Professor Cohen added, “you and I have to ask a subversive question,
are there really three branches of government, or is there a 4th branch
of government? These intel services. What we know, as a fact, is that
Obama tried, not very hard but he tried for a military alliance with
Putin, in Syria, against terrorism and it was sabotaged by the
department of defense and its allies in the intelligence services.”
wikipedia |Systema (Система, literally meaning The System) is a Russian martial art.[1]
Training includes, but is not limited to: hand-to-hand combat,
grappling, knife fighting, and firearms training. Training involves
drills and sparring without set kata.
In Systema, the body has to be free of tensions, filled with endurance,
flexibility, effortless movement, and explosive potential; the "spirit"
or psychological state has to be calm, free of anger, irritation, fear,
self-pity, delusion, and pride.[2]
Systema focuses on breathing, relaxation, and fluidity of movement,
as well as utilizing an attacker's momentum against him and controlling
the six body levers (elbows, neck, knees, waist, ankles, and shoulders)
through pressure point
application, striking, and weapon applications. As a discipline, it is
becoming more and more popular among police and security forces and it
is taught by several practitioners inside and outside Russia.
wikipedia | The Russian girya (ги́ря, a loanword from Persian غران girān "heavy") was a type of metal weight, primarily used to weigh crops, in the 18th century. The use of such weights by circus strongmen is recorded for the 19th century. They began to be used for recreational and competition strength athletics in Russia and Europe in the late 19th century. The birth of competitive kettlebell lifting or girevoy sport
(гиревой спорт) is dated to 1885, with the foundation of the founding
year of the "Circle for Amateur Athlethics" (Кружок любителей атлетики).[2]
Russian kettlebells (Russian: ги́ри giri, singular ги́ря girya) are traditionally measured in weight by pood, corresponding to 16.38 kilograms (36.1 lb).[3] The English term kettle bell has been in use since the early 20th century.[4]
Similar weights used in Classical Greece were the haltere, comparable to the modern kettlebell in terms of movements. Another comparable instrument was used by Shaolin monks in China.
NYTimes | China,
India and Russia were among the countries most affected by the
ransomware attack, according to the Moscow-based computer security firm
Kaspersky Lab. The three countries are also big sources of pirated
software. A study last year by BSA, a trade association of software vendors,
found that in China, the share of unlicensed software reached 70
percent in 2015. Russia, with a rate of 64 percent, and India, with 58
percent, were close behind.
Zhu
Huanjie, who is studying network engineering in the city of Hangzhou,
blamed a number of ills for the spread of the attack, like the lack of
security on school networks. But he said piracy was also a factor. Many
users, he said, did not update their software to get the latest safety
features because of a fear that their copies would be damaged or locked,
while universities offered only older, pirated versions.
“Most
of the schools are now all using pirate software, including operation
system and professional software,” he said, adding: “In China, the
Windows that most people are using is still pirated. This is just the
way it is.”
On
Monday, some Chinese institutions were still moving to clean out
computer systems jammed by the attack, which initially struck on Friday
and spread across the world.
Prestigious research institutions like Tsinghua University were
affected, as were major companies like China Telecom and Hainan
Airlines.
China’s
securities regulator said it had taken down its network to try to
ensure it would not be affected, and the country’s banking regulator
warned lenders to be cautious when dealing with the malicious software,
which locked users out of their computers and demanded payment to allow
them back in.
Police
stations and local security offices reported problems on social media,
while students at universities reported being locked out of final thesis
papers. Electronic payment systems at gas stations run by the state oil
giant PetroChina were cut off for much of the weekend. Over all,
according to the official state television broadcaster, about 40,000
institutions were hit. Separately, the Chinese security company Qihoo
360 reported that computers at more than 29,000 organizations had been
infected.
If
those behind the ransomware attack profited from the hacking, they may
have figured out how to do something that has been beyond Microsoft:
making money from Windows in China. Microsoft and other Western
companies have complained for years that a large majority of the
computers running their software are using pirated versions.
Telegraph |Vladimir
Putin has blamed the US for causing the global cyber attack. He said
Russia had "nothing to do" with the cyber attack, adding that the US had
indirectly caused it by creating the Microsoft hack in the first place.
"Malware created by intelligence agencies can backfire on its creators," said Putin, speaking to media in Beijing.
He added that the attack didn't cause any significant damage to
Russia. Russian security firm Kaspersky said hospitals, police and
railroad transport had been affected in the country. Another report
suggested Russia was one of the worst hit locations.
Putin said:
As regards the source of these threats, I believe that the leadership
of Microsoft have announced this plainly, that the initial source of
the virus is the intelligence services of the United States.
Once they're let out of the lamp, genies of this kind, especially
those created by intelligence services, can later do damage to their
authors and creators.
So this question should be discussed immediately on a serious
political level and a defence needs to be worked out from such
phenomena.
nbcnews | President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday targeting
the federal government's notorious vulnerability to cyber threats,
mandating one set of standards and making the heads of each government
agency responsible for security.
"The United States invented the internet and
we need to better use it," Tom Bossert, Trump's homeland security
adviser, said at a briefing on the order for reporters. "There will
always be risk, and we need to address that risk."
The new order puts responsibility for cybersecurity squarely on the
shoulders of the director of every federal agency, making it more
difficult for executives to pass the buck to their information
technology staffs every time a new breach is discovered.
"Risk management decisions made by agency
heads can affect the risk to the executive branch as a whole," according
to the order. "Effective risk management requires agency heads to lead
integrated teams of senior executives with expertise in IT, security,
budgeting, acquisition, law, privacy and human resources."
Drafts of the order have been widely circulated for months, but the
version Trump signed Thursday includes a major and unexpected
initiative: moving as much of the government's cyberdefense system to
"the cloud" as possible.
That provision effectively establishes a single structure centralizing all federal IT networks.
"We've got to move to the cloud and try to
protect ourselves instead of fracturing our security posture," Bossert
said, adding: "If we don't move to shared services, we have 190 agencies
all trying to develop their own defenses against advanced collection
efforts."
Specifically, the order directs all federal
agencies to adopt cybersecurity policies drawn up by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology — policies that were issued years
ago but that the government itself has never adopted.
"From this point forward, departments and agencies shall practice what we preach," Bossert said.
Microsoft | This attack demonstrates the degree to
which cybersecurity has become a shared responsibility between tech
companies and customers. The fact that so many computers remained
vulnerable two months after the release of a patch illustrates this
aspect. As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, there is simply no
way for customers to protect themselves against threats unless they
update their systems. Otherwise they’re literally fighting the problems
of the present with tools from the past. This attack is a powerful
reminder that information technology basics like keeping computers
current and patched are a high responsibility for everyone, and it’s
something every top executive should support.
At the same time, we have a clear understanding of the complexity and
diversity of today’s IT infrastructure, and how updates can be a
formidable practical challenge for many customers. Today, we use robust
testing and analytics to enable rapid updates into IT infrastructure,
and we are dedicated to developing further steps to help ensure security
updates are applied immediately to all IT environments.
Finally, this attack provides yet another example of why the
stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem. This is
an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the
CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the
NSA has affected customers around the world. Repeatedly, exploits in the
hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused
widespread damage. An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons
would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen.
And this most recent attack represents a completely unintended but
disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity
threats in the world today – nation-state action and organized criminal
action.
The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up
call. They need to take a different approach and adhere in cyberspace to
the same rules applied to weapons in the physical world. We need
governments to consider the damage to civilians that comes from hoarding
these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits. This is one reason
we called in February for a new “Digital Geneva Convention”
to govern these issues, including a new requirement for governments to
report vulnerabilities to vendors, rather than stockpile, sell, or
exploit them. And it’s why we’ve pledged our support for defending every
customer everywhere in the face of cyberattacks, regardless of their
nationality. This weekend, whether it’s in London, New York, Moscow,
Delhi, Sao Paulo, or Beijing, we’re putting this principle into action
and working with customers around the world.
We’ve documented that the intelligence services intentionally create digital vulnerabilities, then intentionally leave them open … leaving us exposed and insecure.
Washington’s Blog asked the highest level NSA whistleblower ever* – Bill Binney – what he thinks of the attacks.
Binney told us:
This is what I called short sighted finite thinking on the part of the Intelligence Community managers.
This is also what I called (for some years now) a swindle of the tax
payers. First, they find or create weaknesses then they don’t fix these
weaknesses so we are all vulnerable to attack.
Then, when attacks occur, they say they need more money for cyber security — a total swindle!!! [Indeed.]
This is only the second swindle of the public. The first was terror
efforts by saying we need to collect everything to stop terror — another
lie. They said that because to collect everything takes lots and lots
of money.
Then, when the terror attack occurs, they say they need more money,
people and data to stop terror. Another swindle from the start. [The war
on terror is a “self-licking ice cream cone”, because it creates many more terrorists than it stops.]
And, finally, the latest swindle “THE RUSSIANS DID IT.” This is an
effort to start a new cold war which means another bigger swindle of US
tax payers.
For cyber security, I would suggest the president order NSA, CIA and
any others to fix the cyber problems they know about; then, maybe we
will start to have some cyber security.
The bottom line is that our intelligence services should start concentrating on actually defendingus, rather than focusing their resources on offensive mischief.
theduran | A widespread computer virus attack known as ‘WannaCry’ has been
compromising computers with obsolete operating systems across the world.
This should be the opening sentence of just about every article on this
subject, but unfortunately it is not.
The virus does not attack modern computer operating systems, it is
designed to attack the Windows XP operating system that is so old, it
was likely used in offices in the World Trade Center prior to September
11 2001, when the buildings collapsed. Windows XP was first released on
25 August, 2001.
Furthermore, early vulnerabilities in modern Windows systems were
almost instantly patched up by Microsoft as per the fact that such
operating systems are constantly updated.
The obsolete XP system is simply out of the loop.
A child born on the release date of Windows XP is now on the verge of his or her 17th birthday. Feeling old yet?
The fact of the matter is that governments and businesses around the
world should not only feel old, they should feel humiliated and
disgraced.
With the amount of money governments tax individuals and private
entities, it is beyond belief that government organisations ranging from
some computers in the Russian Interior Ministry to virtually all computers in Britain’s National Health Service,
should be using an operating system so obsolete that its manufacturer,
Microsoft, no longer supports it and hasn’t done for some time.
arstechnica | A highly virulent new strain of self-replicating ransomware shut down
computers all over the world, in part by appropriating a National
Security Agency exploit that was publicly released last month by the
mysterious group calling itself Shadow Brokers.
Wcry is reportedly causing disruptions at banks, hospitals,
telecommunications services, train stations, and other mission-critical
organizations in multiple countries, including the UK, Spain, Germany,
and Turkey. FedEx, the UK government's National Health Service, and
Spanish telecom Telefonica have all been hit. The Spanish CERT has called it
a "massive ransomware attack" that is encrypting all the files of
entire networks and spreading laterally through organizations.
The virally spreading worm was ultimately stopped when a researcher who uses the Twitter handle MalwareTech and works for security firm Kryptos Logic
took control of a domain name that was hard-coded into the
self-replicating exploit. The domain registration, which occurred around
6 AM California time, was a major stroke of good luck, because it was
possible only because the attackers had failed to obtain the address
first.
The address appeared to serve as a sort of kill switch the attackers
could use to terminate the campaign. MalwareTech's registration had the
effect of ending the attacks that had started earlier Friday morning in
other parts of the world. As a result, the number of infection
detections plateaued dramatically in the hours following the
registration. It had no effect on WCry infections that were initiated
through earlier campaigns.
WaPo | It is true, as I pointed out in a Post op-ed in October,
that Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, after her tarmac meeting with
Bill Clinton, had left a vacuum by neither formally recusing herself nor
exercising supervision over the case. But the remedy for that was for
Comey to present his factual findings to the deputy attorney general,
not to exercise the prosecutorial power himself on a matter of such
grave importance.
Until Comey’s testimony last week,
I had assumed that Lynch had authorized Comey to act unilaterally. It
is now clear that the department’s leadership was sandbagged. I know of
no former senior Justice Department official — Democrat or Republican —
who does not view Comey’s conduct in July to have been a grave
usurpation of authority.
Comey’s
basic misjudgment boxed him in, compelling him to take increasingly
controversial actions giving the impression that the FBI was enmeshed in
politics. Once Comey staked out a position in July, he had no choice on
the near-eve of the election but to reopen the investigation when new
evidence materialized. Regrettably, however, this performance made Comey
himself the issue, placing him on center stage in public political
discourse and causing him to lose credibility on both sides of the
aisle. It was widely recognized that Comey’s job was in jeopardy
regardless of who won the election.
It is not surprising that
Trump would be inclined to make a fresh start at the bureau and would
consult with the leadership of the Justice Department about whether
Comey should remain. Those deliberations could not begin in earnest
until the new deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to whom Comey
would report, was confirmed and in a position to assess Comey and his
performance. No matter how far along the president was in his own
thinking, Rosenstein’s assessment is cogent and vindicates the
president’s decision.
Rosenstein made clear in his memorandum
that he was concerned not so much with Comey’s past arrogation of
power, as astonishing as it was, but rather with his ongoing refusal to
acknowledge his errors. I do not dispute that Comey sincerely believes
he acted properly in the best interests of the country. But at the same
time, I think it is quite understandable that the administration would
not want an FBI director who did not recognize established limits on his
powers.
It is telling that none of the president’s critics are
challenging the decision on the merits. None argue that Comey’s
performance warranted keeping him on as director. Instead, they are
attacking the president’s motives, claiming the president acted to
neuter the investigation into Russia’s role in the election.
The
notion that the integrity of this investigation depends on Comey’s
presence just does not hold water. Contrary to the critics’ talking
points, Comey was not “in charge” of the investigation.
Sputniknews | In his recent Davos speech, Kissinger reiterated that the global order the US and EU were familiar with is fading away.
"One of the key problems of our period is that
the international order with which we were familiar is disintegrating
in some respects, and that new elements from Asia and the developing
world are entering it," Kissinger pointed out Friday.
In light of this, it is no surprise that Kissinger sees Trump's approach toward Russia largely as a step in the right direction.
Kissinger as Trump's 'Informal Foreign Policy Adviser'
Citing information obtained by Western European intelligence
from Trump's transition team, the German newspaper wrote in late
December that Kissinger has repeatedly met with Trump in the past couple
of months and that the White House is likely to go for "constructive
cooperation" with the Kremlin.
In early January 2017, citing officials with Trump's transition team, Eli Lake of Bloomberg disclosed
that since the election, the veteran diplomat has been counselling
incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his team, citing
officials with Trump's transition team.
But that's half the story. According to Lake, it was Kissinger who
urged Trump to nominate Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and
recommended his former assistant K.T. McFarland to be Flynn's deputy.
"Kissinger is one of the few people in Trump's
orbit who can get him on the phone whenever he wants, according to one
transition adviser," Lake noted.
theautomaticearth | Take a step back and oversee the picture, and you’ll find that Trump
is not the biggest threat to American democracy, the media are. They
have a job but they stopped doing it. They have turned to smearing,
something neither the NYT nor the WaPo should ever have stooped to, but
did.
Democracy is not primarily under threat from what one party does, or
the other, or a third one, it is under threat because parties have
withdrawn themselves into their respective echo chambers from which no
dialogue with other parties is possible, or even tolerated.
None of this is to say that there will be no revelations about some
ties between some Russian entities or persons and some Trump-related
ones. Such ties are entirely possible, and certainly on the business
front. Whether that has had any influence on the American presidential
election is a whole other story though. And jumping to conclusions
because it serves your political purposes is, to put it mildly, not
helping.
The problem is that so much has been said and printed on the topic
that was unsubstantiated, that if actual ties are proven, that news will
be blurred by what was insinuated before. You made your bed, guys.
A lot of sources today talk about how Trump was reportedly frustrated
with the constant focus on the alleged Russia ties, but assuming those
allegations are not true, and remember nothing has been proven after a
year of echo-chambering, isn’t it at least a little understandable that
he would be?
Comey was already compromised from 10 different angles, and many
wanted him gone, though not necessarily at the same time. The same
Democrats, and their media, who now scream murder because he was fired,
fell over themselves clamoring for his resignation for months. That does
not constitute an opinion, it’s the opposite of one: you can’t change
your view of someone as important as the FBI director every day and
twice on Sundays without losing credibility.
And yes, many Republicans played similar games. It’s the kind of game
that has become acceptable in the Washington swamp and the media that
report on it. And many of them also protest yesterday’s decision.
Ostensibly, it all has to do not with the fact that Comey was fired, but
with the timing. Which in turn would be linked to the fact that the FBI
is investigating Trump.
But what’s the logic there? That firing Comey would halt that
investigation? Why would that be true? Why would a replacement director
do that? Don’t FBI agents count for anything? And isn’t the present
investigation itself supposed to be proof that there is proof and/or
strong suspicion of that alleged link between Russia and the Trump
election victory? Wouldn’t those agents revolt if a new director threw
that away with the bathwater?
Since we still run on ‘innocent until proven guilty’, perhaps it’s a
thought to hold back a little, but given what we’ve seen since, say,
early 2016, that doesn’t look like an option anymore. The trenches have
been dug.
These are troubled times, but the trouble is not necessarily where
you might think it is. America has an undeniable political crisis, and a
severe one, but that’s not the only crisis.
theatlantic | The Russians clearly understood what the visit and its timing meant,
which is why it was so prominently covered by the Kremlin media. The man
investigating Russian meddling in the election had just been fired by
the man whose campaign was under investigation. Which to the Russians
meant Trump essentially agreed with their reaction to the alleged
election interference—as Lavrov put it in his American press conference:
“Guys, you cannot be serious.” It is why he praised this administration
for being “business-like” and for “wanting to make deals,” which in
Russian has a few other shades of meaning. The word Lavrov used was dogovarivatsya,
meaning to come to an understanding and come to agreements; it’s a key
word both in Russian business and politics. At its heart is ruthless
pragmatic compromise. There is no room for feelings and values, and
certainly not for law. Only for interests and nebulous, subjective
notions of fairness. “For us, fairness is above the law, including
international law,” one Russian close to the Kremlin told me. “When it’s
advantageous for us to appeal to the law, we do it. When it’s not, we
ignore it.” It is why Lavrov said that he welcomed these talks with an
administration who wanted to dogovarivatsya, people “who were free of the dogmatism of the Obama administration.”
It
was all too perfect, starting with the idea of having Tillerson meet
with Putin in the Kremlin—which created an obvious opportunity for
Lavrov to reciprocate by meeting Trump in the White House—and ending
with the choice of music piped in to the American journalists waiting for Lavrov’s presser (“All I’m asking is for a little respect.”)
publicpool | The White House summoned the press pool just after 11:20 a.m. for
what some had assumed would be a spray of President Trump's meeting with
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Pool was ushered into the
Oval Office at 11:26 a.m., but Trump was instead seated beside former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The meeting with Kissinger was not
on Trump's public schedule today.
POTUS, wearing a dark suit and red striped tie, said he met with Kissinger to talk "about Russia and various other matters."
"We're
talking about Syria and I think that we're going to do very well with
respect to Syria and things are happening that are really, really,
really positive," Trump added. "We're going to stop the killing and the
death."
POTUS then said he had a "very, very good meeting" with FM
Lavrov. He said both sides want to end "the killing -- the horrible,
horrible killing in Syria as soon as possible and everybody is working
toward that end."
The Lavrov meeting was closed to the press and
the only visual account we have of it thus far is via handout photos
from the Russian government.
Those images show Trump also met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Trump
circled back and said it was "an honor" to discuss the issues with
Kissinger because "he's been a friend of mine for a long time."
bloomberg | Sergei Lavrov's official job is foreign minister of Russia, but his
visit to Washington Wednesday won't be remembered for any diplomatic
breakthrough -- just for Lavrov's dripping irony and skill at provoking
adversaries. Lavrov's style, which mirrors that of his boss, Vladimir
Putin, is often criticized as unfit for a diplomat. But I'd argue that
Lavrov knows exactly what he's doing and that the medium is the message
here.
In Washington, Lavrov feigned astonishment for a U.S.
reporter who asked about Tuesday's firing of Federal Bureau of
Investigation chief James Comey: "Was he fired? You're kidding! You're
kidding!"
He also smuggled a photographer from the state-owned news agency,
TASS, into his meeting with President Donald Trump as his official
photographer. TASS immediately published photos of Trump beaming at his
Russian visitors, Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, who are
obviously delighted by the reception. With the U.S. press kept out,
these happy photos from their Russian propaganda source created an
uproar.
Sarcasm, provocation, a desire to throw interlocutors off
balance always bubble just below the surface of Lavrov's communications.
He regularly stuns Western conversation partners with crude or
offensive comments.
At a recent meeting of North Atlantic Treaty
Organization ministers, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson quipped,
"You cannot tango with Lavrov because he's not allowed to dance that
one." He meant that President Vladimir Putin determined policy in Russia
and Lavrov wouldn't be authorized to make deals. "My mother used to
tell me: always be a good boy, don't ever dance with other boys," the
Russian foreign minister responded.
In this, Lavrov's style mirrors that of his boss. In 2006, Putin memorably told Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to say hi to then-president Moshe Katsav,
accused of raping and sexually harassing women: "He turned out to be a
strong man, raped 10 women. I never would have expected it of him. He
has surprised us all, we all envy him." The Kremlin, whose communication
was a little more self-conscious back then, had to explain that Putin
didn't condone rape and that his words were meant as a hard-to-translate
joke.
Putin's crude jokes are often written off as a product of his
childhood on the streets of St. Petersburg. He's only as polished as an
intelligence officer who served in the former East Germany needed to
be. Lavrov, however, is a highly professional diplomat. He knows the
protocol, speaks three languages besides Russian, and is sophisticated
in his tastes and interests. Even his verse, while not touched by genius, is competent and far less embarrassing than the poetic efforts of many other Russian officials.
Lavrov
knows well how his remarks sound to Western ears. He is also aware that
sarcasm and taunts are often considered unprofessional and seen as a
sign of bad manners in the English-speaking world, especially in the
U.S. And yet he keeps saying things that would have gotten any Western
diplomat fired, playing out barbed comedy routines and engaging in
practical jokes worthy of a college student.
His style is the message: Russians won't play by others'
rules, it says. But this isn't about touting Russia's size and its
nuclear arsenal; it's more of a mischievous enticement, a dare.
Putin's
Russia has allied itself with Western populist forces, whose stand
against political correctness and the constant self-censorship that
comes with it constitutes a strong voter appeal. During the election
campaign in the U.S. last year, I was told many times that Trump's
penchant for uncensored speech was his most attractive quality. The
Dutch say the same of Geert Wilders, the French of Marine Le Pen. The
freedom to say whatever one wants without wondering if it could be
construed as misogynist, racist, homophobic or offensive in a myriad
other ways is, to many voters, a bonus.
Post-Soviet Russians have
relished their freedom to say whatever they want, to be sarcastic, crude
and informal, to be provocative and thus project confidence. Cursing in
the workplace, a lack of respect for propriety and protocol, an absence
of linguistic and ideological constraints were prizes to a society that
had just cast off the Communist straitjacket.
QZ | Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger may be in his nineties, but
he’s continuing to play a key, globe-spanning role in one of the most
substantive foreign policy negotiations of the US presidency so far.
Kissinger, who brokered a ground-breaking detente between the US and
China’s Communist Party’s in 1972, has served a valued go-between for
the two nations for more than four decades, earning him the nickname of
“old friend of the Chinese people.” It’s privilege he has shared with at least 600 people, although Kissinger may be the living person who has held the nickname the longest.
As recently as December, when then US president-elect Donald Trump
threatened upheaval between the world’s most powerful nations, by
accepting a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen, Kissinger was already in Beijing
with Chinese president Xi Jinping, reassuring him that “overall, we
hope to see the China-US relationship moving ahead in a sustained and
stable manner.” (A Bloomberg report suggested that Xi may have turned to the venerable diplomat
to better understand Trump, telling Kissinger he was “all ears”
regarding what he had to say about the future of US-China relations.)
Kissinger met with the incoming Trump administration soon after the
election, and helped to connect Chinese politicians with the US
president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the Washington Post reports—connections that ultimately led to this week’s meeting.
In doing so, he’s opened up a now familiar controversy in the US—who does Kissinger work for, exactly, and whose side is he on?
Kissinger is “representing China’s interests and trying to influence
American foreign policy,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs
lobbyist for Public Citizen, a nonpartisan group that advocates for
citizens’ rights in Congress. “That crosses the threshold for FARA,” he
said, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Rejuvenation Pills
-
No one likes getting old. Everyone would like to be immorbid. Let's be
careful here. Immortal doesnt include youth or return to youth. Immorbid
means you s...
Death of the Author — at the Hands of Cthulhu
-
In 1967, French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes wrote of
“The Death of the Author,” arguing that the meaning of a text is divorced
from au...
9/29 again
-
"On this sacred day of Michaelmas, former President Donald Trump invoked
the heavenly power of St. Michael the Archangel, sharing a powerful prayer
for pro...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
-
Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
-
sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
