Category Archives: common core education

Obama’s War on Israel

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There is no denying, Obama has declared diplomatic war on Israel. Today, Senator Ted Cruz called for a full investigation.

Obama Administration Unloads On Israeli Ambassador Dermer   The recent rift between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu has become more contentious lately and by all appearances, will only grow wider. Netanyahu seems determined defy Obama and speak in front of congress. Standing alongside Netanyahu is the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, and he is drawing as much fire from the White House and Bibi’s critics as his boss.

For perhaps the first time, Israel has become a strongly partisan issue in Washington. An axiom that has rung true in American politics since the Liberty Bell cracked is that Jews vote Democrat. In the 2012 election, the Republicans tried to wrest the Jewish vote away from Obama by claiming that his administration did not support Israel.  Those efforts failed, but Congress is strongly divided and with his State of the Union Address, the president set out his battle lines on the issue of sanctions against Iran.

The Israeli ambassador has been walking through this minefield since he was appointed in July 2013. This speech will place Bibi firmly in the crossfire between Democrats and Republicans, on Capitol Hill. There are many who are angered by a foreign leader pushing his way into the middle of what most consider to be a strictly Washington affair. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, normally a strong advocate of Israel and Netanyahu, said that he was offended by the way the Israeli prime minister inserted himself into a domestic debate between the White House and Congress over America’s Iran policy and called it “wicked”. Netanyahu’s speech could be construed as foreign meddling, with Bibi taking the side of Obama’s opponents. Given Bibi’s blatant support of Mitt Romney in the last US election, it could hardly be the first time that Bibi could be accused of this.

The White House is blaming the Israeli Ambassador for the recent blowout with Israel, according to the NY Times. John Boehner extended the invitation to Netanyahu via Dermer, so he is certainly involved and if blame is to be allocated, he deserves a share. An unnamed White House official blamed Dermer for putting Netanyahu’s personal political fortunes above the relationship between the United States and Israel.  This claim sounds convincing since Dermer is considered to be one of Netanyahu’s closest advisers. At the very least, he has been accused of a breach of protocol, by facilitating his Prime Minister’s visit without going through or even informing the White house.

When Mr. Boehner extended the invitation, Mr. Dermer relayed the invitation to Mr. Netanyahu. He did not contact the White House. In a subsequent meeting with John Kerry, Dermer still did not raise the issue of Netanyahu’s speech in front of congress.

White House has called the invitation a breach of diplomatic protocol and announced that Mr. Obama would not meet with Mr. Netanyahu when he visits. In addition, they maintain that the decision not to meet with Netanyahu was due to a policy of not meeting with world leaders close to their elections. This is to avoid the appearance of influence. That policy has been ignored in the past, including one meeting between Clinton and Shimon Peres just before he ran against Netanyahu during which an anti-terror agreement was signed, to much fanfare.

Dermer responded to these issues:

“I have no regrets whatsoever that I have acted in a way to advance my country’s interests. My understanding was that it was the speaker’s prerogative to do, and that he would be the one to inform the administration. The prime minister feels very strongly that he has to speak on this issue. That’s why he accepted the invitation, not to wade into your political debate or make this a partisan issue, and not to be disrespectful to the president.”

This conflict brings into question Mr. Dermer’s performance of his duties.

“He’s a political operative, he’s not really an ambassador,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former United States ambassador to Israel. “What he did was totally unacceptable from a standpoint of diplomacy. To think about going behind the back of a friendly country’s administration and working out this kind of arrangement with the parliament or the Congress — it’s unheard-of.”

Mr. Kurtzer said while it was unlikely the Obama administration would take the extraordinary step of declaring Mr. Dermer “persona non grata” — the official method for a foreign diplomat to be ousted from a country — it could request that Mr. Dermer by reprimanded or removed.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of J Street, a Democratic-aligned pro-Israel group agrees with that assessment. “To be an ambassador, you need to be a representative of your country to the entirety of the other country, and that has not been his role to date.”

There are those who disagree and feel that ron Dermer has performed his duties well.

“He’s more direct than they are, he’s less judicious with his words, but he makes it up with principle,” said Mr. Luntz, who taught Mr. Dermer at the University of Pennsylvania before hiring him in 1993. “He’s got tremendous courage and he’s prepared to take a principled risk. I don’t know anyone who is as focused on a specific goal and is prepared to walk through brick walls to get there.”

Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, agrees. “He’s been extremely strong and successful at his most important tasks, which are to represent Israel’s interests and defend Mr. Netanyahu’s prerogatives at a critical time for Israel’s security. This administration has repeatedly sought to both undermine and embarrass this prime minister, and the same Democrats who now profess to be so outraged by this have been notably silent. When the dust settles on this — and the dust will settle — I think that he’ll continue to be effective”

*** But there is more:
Enter Jeremy Bird of One Voice: Operation V15 or Victory 2015 is the Obama team dispatched to torpedo the elections in Israel.
The Obama Administration, through the state Department, is funding a group that is helping an Israeli leftist group to oust Israeli Prime Minister N=Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Washington Free Beacon. One Voice international, which garnered two grants from the State Department last year, and writes on its website that it is a “partner” with the state Department, is teaming with V15, a leftist Israeli group which coyly avoided naming Netanyahu, but stated, “We say ‘replace the government,’ it’s not directed at specific individuals. There have been many years of right-wing governments during which little happened, it’s time to change course and give people hope.”Jeremy Bird, the national field director for Obama’s 2012 campaign and a co-founder of 270 Strategies, is now working with V15, according to the Daily Caller, which interviewed Lynda Tran, co-founder of 270 Strategies She acknowledged that her organization and Bird are indeed working with One Voice. Bird is virulently anti-Netanyahu; after Netanyahu was invited by Speaker John Boehner to speak before Congress, Bird tweeted that the invitation was a suck-up to Jewish Republicans, writing, “What do you think Adelson promised GOP in exchange for this insane BiBi House visit?” Bird wrote on Twitter. “Blatant attempt to bolster Israeli PM before elections.”

OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler would only admit that her organization would help V15 with voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, claiming that the efforts would be non-partisan. She told the Beacon, “We’ve formed a partnership with [V15], but it’s important to know we’re absolutely nonpartisan. Our biggest emphasis and focus right now is just getting people out to vote.”

Taler protested that One Voice used the State Department funding for other activities, not the Israeli election. She said that the funding was used to “build public campaign support for the [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations” that Secretary of State John Kerry attempted in 2014.

Yasser Mahmoud Abbas, the son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, sits on the advisory board of One Voice.

Russians Funding the Green Energy Agenda

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Foreign Firm Funding U.S. Green Groups Tied to State-Owned Russian Oil Company

Executives at a Bermudan firm funneling money to U.S. environmentalists run investment funds with Russian tycoonsA shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president of a London-based investment firm whose president until recently chaired the board of the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.

In addition to those roles, Hoskins is a director at a company called Klein Ltd. No one knows where that firm’s money comes from. Its only publicly documented activities have been transfers of $23 million to U.S. environmentalist groups that push policies that would hamstring surging American oil and gas production, which has hurt Russia’s energy-reliant economy.

With oil prices plunging as a result of a fracking-induced oil glut in the United States, experts say the links between Russian oil interests, secretive foreign political donors, and high-profile American environmentalists suggest Russia may be backing anti-fracking efforts in the United States.

The interest of Russian oil companies and American environmentalist financiers intersect at a Bermuda-based law firm called Wakefield Quin. The firm acts as a corporate registered agent, providing office space for clients, and, for some, “managing the day to day affairs,” according to its website.

As many as 20 companies and investment funds with ties to the Russian government are Wakefield Quin clients. Many list the firm’s address on official documentation.

Klein Ltd. also shares that address. Documents filed with Bermuda’s registrar of companies list just two individuals associated with the company: Hoskins, Wakefield Quin senior counsel and managing director, and Marlies Smith, a corporate administrator at the firm.

According to documents filed with Bermuda’s registrar of companies, Klein Ltd. was incorporated in March 2011 “exclusively for philanthropic purposes,” meaning “no part of the net earnings … inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.”

“The company does not propose to carry on business in Bermuda,” the documents stated.

The only publicly available documentation of any business conducted by Klein Ltd. were two Internal Revenue Service filings by the California-based Sea Change Foundation, which showed that Klein had contributed $23 million to the group in 2010 and 2011. Klein Ltd. was responsible for more than 40 percent of contributions to Sea Change during those years.

The foundation passed those millions along to some of the nation’s most prominent and politically active environmentalist groups. The Sierra Club, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Food and Water Watch, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Center for American Progress were among the recipients of Sea Change’s $100 million in grants in 2010 and 2011.

Neither Wakefield Quin nor Sea Change responded to multiple requests for more information about their relationships with Klein Ltd.

“None of this foreign corporation’s funding is disclosed in any way,” the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wrote of the company in a report last year. “This is clearly a deceitful way to hide the source of millions of dollars that are active in our system, attempting to effect political change.”

The Sierra Club, which received nearly $8.5 million from Sea Change in 2010 and 2011, launched its “Beyond Natural Gas” campaign the following year. The effort has become one of the largest and best-funded environmentalist campaigns combating fracking and the extraction of natural gas in general.

Sea Change’s “skeletal staff quietly shovels tens of millions of dollars out the door annually to combat climate change. And that’s pretty much all it does,” noted Inside Philanthropy, which awarded the foundation its “sharpest laser focus in grantmaking” award last year.

Nathaniel Simons and his wife run the foundation and are, except for Klein Ltd., its only donors. Simons, a hedge fund millionaire who commutes to work across San Francisco Bay aboard a 50-foot yacht, also runs a venture capital firm that invests in companies that benefit from environmental and energy policies that Sea Change grantees promote.

Simons himself has ties to Klein Ltd. Several Wakefield Quin attorneys are listed as directors of hedge funds that his firm manages, and in which Sea Change has assets.

Senior counsel Rod Forrest was listed on documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a director of two investment funds, Medallion International Ltd. and Meritage Holdings Ltd., in which Sea Change had tens of millions invested while it received money from Klein Ltd.

Simons’ company runs the Meritage Fund. The Medallion Fund is run by Renaissance Technologies, the hedge fund management firm run by his father, billionaire and Democratic mega-donor Jim Simons. Both funds listed Wakefield Quin’s Hamilton, Bermuda, address on SEC filings.

Wakefield Quin’s Hoskins and Smith, as well as a number of other employees of Wakefield Quin, have worked in some capacity for companies or investment funds owned by or tied to Russian state-owned corporations and high-level officials in the country.

Hoskins, Forrest, and another Wakefield employee named Penny Cornell were all listed as executives of Spectrum Partners Ltd., a fund with offices in Moscow, Cypress, and Bermuda, Cornell at the address of Wakefield Quin’s offices.

According to a performance report for one of Spectrum Partners’ funds, its portfolio consisted of “Russian and CIS [former Soviet state] securities and securities outside of Russia or CIS but having significant economic or business involvement with Russia and/or CIS.”

As of 2008, more than half of the fund’s holdings were in the oil and gas sectors.

Numerous executives at Wakefield Quin have ties to Russian oil and gas companies, including Rosneft, which is majority-owned by the Russian government and in 2013 became the largest oil company in the world.

Hoskins is the vice president of a London-based company called Marcuard Services Limited, and a member of the firm’s board, according to its website.

The company’s president, and the chairman of its parent company, Bermuda-based Marcuard Holding Limited, is Hans-Joerg Rudloff. Rudloff is also a former vice-chairman of the Rosneft’s board.

Hoskins is also a director at a Bermuda-based subsidiary of Russian investment bank Troika Dialog. That firm organized an initial public offering for Timan Oil & Gas, which is run by Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev.

The Environmental Policy Alliance, which provided the Washington Free Beacon with a copy of an upcoming report on Klein Ltd.’s Kremlin ties, said Wakefield Quin’s ties to environmental financiers and Russian oil barons merit closer scrutiny.

“The American public deserves to know whether environmentalists are attacking US energy companies at the behest of a Russian government that would like nothing more than to see their international competition weakened,” Will Coggin, a senior research analyst at the EPA, said in an emailed statement.

“In the face of mounting evidence, environmental groups are going to have to start answering hard questions about their international funding sources,” Coggin said.

The overlap between executives at firms with ties to Russian oil interests and a multi-million-dollar donor to U.S. environmentalist groups has some experts worried that Russians may be replicating anti-fracking tactics used in Europe to attack the practice in the United States.

“I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations—environmental organizations working against shale gas—to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, formerly NATO’s secretary general, said last year.

It is unlikely that the Kremlin is directly involved in doing so in the United States, according to Ron Arnold of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

“If anybody in Russia is behind all the secretive Bermuda investment house and law firm action, it’s most likely some oligarch bidding against U.S. competition,” he said in an email.

Arnold, the author of Undue Influence: Wealthy Foundations, Grant Driven Environmental Groups, and Zealous Bureaucrats That Control Your Future, said that the opacity of Klein Ltd.’s involvement with the Sea Change Foundation exemplifies attempts to shield the source of donations to such groups.

“In my experience of trying to penetrate offshore money funnels for U.S. leftist foundations and green groups, I have found that Liechtenstein, Panama and Bermuda are the Big Three green equivalents of the Cayman Islands for hedge fund managers—totally opaque and impervious to my specially designed research tools,” Arnold said.

Will Hillary Really Do It?

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She is lining up the sun the moon and the stars, especially the progressive stars to make her run. Why exactly? Power. Most interesting is Hillary has ordered the State Department to not cooperate with FOIA requests from media on the successes during her reign as SecState. What is she hiding beyond the obvious?

Many news agencies and advocacy groups have been trying to get State Department documents about Clinton with little success, leading to accusations that the stonewall is politically motivated.

The AP reported in December 2014 that it had several outstanding FOIA requests on Clinton’s schedule, calendar, and other records from her four years as secretary of state. One of those requests was over four years old. The state department also rejected the AP’s request for expedited processing—a fast-track for FOIA requests afforded to journalists working on newsworthy stories in the public interest.  It would perhaps be prudent for media to file FOIA request on Cheryl Mills, Hillary’s Chief of Staff.

THE POLITICO’s Mike Allen has given us inside look at the nascent Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Allen’s piece is the latest in a long line of stories explaining how formidable the 2016 operation will be, and assuring us that Hillary has learned from her disastrous failure in 2008. Here are five things we’ve learned about the campaign thus far:

1. Hillary loves power even more than she loves money

Allen reports that Clinton “never really hesitated” in deciding to run for president again. The likelihood that she will run reportedly went from 98 percent to 100 percent late last year.

The decision is somewhat puzzling, given Hillary’s well-document obsession with making money, and “getting houses.” She has made millions on the public speaking circuit since quitting her job at the State Department, and has even scoffed at public university students who have protested the use of taxpayer funds to pay her exorbitant speaking fees. (After all, she already offers universities a special discounted rate of $300,000.)

Her decision to forgo millions in future speaking fees is a curious one, which can only be explained by an even greater obsession with power and self-aggrandizement.

2. So many white bros

The Daily Beast’s Tim Mak notes that some Democrats are beginning to express concern about the conspicuous male whiteness of Hillary’s campaign. Pretty much everyone she has hired for a top role is a white dude:

One operative quipped that the top levels of the campaign are in danger of looking like “white dudefest 2016.”

“If Hillary doesn’t begin hiring well-respected African-American or Hispanic political aides in top positions,” said a senior African American Congressional aide, “I would imagine that people will really start to wonder if she is serious about covering her left flank. If that is the case they will look for a candidate who is eager to demonstrate that senior level inclusiveness is a high priority.”

Allen’s report notes that the campaign is already beginning to discuss potential running mates, and at the moment, two white dudes—Sens. Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) and Tim Kaine (D., Va.)—are “dominating the early speculation.”

Canada DEM 2016-Clinton

3. Hillary is obsessed with Hillary, and afters decades in politics, still has thin skin

Allen reports that Hillary 2016 is determined to have a better relationship with the reporters, people she has previously described as having “big egos and no brains.” At the very least, Allen writes, she wants “to have a ‘good cop’ role to help her get off on a better foot with the journalists who will help shape her image.”

That may be easier said than done, given how obsessed Hillary seems to be with reading (and nitpicking) stories about herself:

Advisers know that Clinton doesn’t like or trust the press – and feels that it’s mutual. She remains a voracious consumer of news about herself, occasionally complaining about an article’s tone or omissions.

One of the few top campaign positions yet to be filled is that of communications directors. Potential hires include Karen Finney, whose MSNBC show “Disrupt” was cancelled last year.

4. Hillary possesses an “instinctive insularity,” according to dozens of close aides who won’t stop speaking to the press anonymously

One of the reasons why Team Clinton wants to hire a media-friendly liaison is to serve as “a counterweight to the instinctive insularity of Hillaryland.” This information was relayed to Allen via a number of anonymous aides close to Hillary who have spoken to a number of different reporters over the past several weeks about how awesome Hillary 2016 is going to be.

5. Why she’s running

Actually, the rationale for Hillary’s campaign remains unclear, beyond the fact that she became a grandmother last year, and that made her think a lot about the future. According to Allen, now that a campaign architecture is in place, Team Hillary finally get work “developing her message,” whatever that may be.

*** There is much more you need to know. Hillary has a spy unit and it was created a few years ago. What kind of spy unit? Well American Bridge is an intel army, spying on all of her opposition.   “American Bridge PAC spent last week spying on the private conversations of attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

The group also plans to spy on the private lives of GOP delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention wherever the convention is located, but Politico reports ABPAC has issued the following threat if the GOP selects Las Vegas as its host city. American Bridge has set up this website at “SinCityGOP” and announces (bold print supplied):

While the Republican Party debates where to hold the Republican National Convention in 2016, American Bridge is preparing our team of researchers and trackers to capture the action no matter what city they choose.

In making their selection, Republicans would do well to remember that Las Vegas is already the city with the most cameras per capita of anywhere on the planet. What’s another two or three dozen American Bridge trackers added to the mix?

And if the RNC does choose Las Vegas, this is the site for all the action. What happens in Vegas… will go right here.

American Bridge was founded by Clinton ally David Brock and is funded by longtime Clinton supporter and billionaire George Soros. American Bridge PAC president Brad Woodhouse boasted that the group’s “trackers” at CPAC had been “in the hallways capturing conversations and that kind of thing.” Meaning? Meaning Hillary’s American Bridge is about invading privacy. CPAC’s today, someone else’s tomorrow. Yours.

The news of “capturing” private conversations at CPAC follows on the heels of multiple congressional investigations into the Obama-run IRS, which has been using the government to ask Tea Party groups about the contents of their members’ prayers, what books they read, and the contents of private phone calls and media interviews. A second controversy has erupted over the NSA collection of “metadata”—including the phone numbers of all Americans.

The news of Clinton’s high tech spies peering into private conversations at CPAC and set to peer into the private lives of GOP delegates comes as the privacy of American citizens has erupted as a major political issue in both the 2014 and 2016 campaigns.” More here.

 

Putin has mobilized…

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(Reuters) – Federal prosecutors in New York unveiled criminal charges on Monday against three men for their alleged involvement in a spying scheme for Russia’s foreign intelligence service.

According to a criminal complaint, Evgeny Buryakov, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy conspired in the United States to gather intelligence on behalf of Russia and to recruit New York City residents to help.

The conspiracy ran from 2012 to the present, and during that time, Buryakov worked at a bank, Sporyshev was a Russian trade representative, and Podobnyy was an attaché to Russia’s mission to the United Nations, the complaint said.

Buryakov was arrested on Monday in the Bronx borough of New York City, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara for the Southern District of New York.

The status of the other defendants was unclear, and it was unclear whether the defendants had hired lawyers. *** Ah but read on it gets more chilling. Russian state owned media was used for cover. *** Security service of Ukraine has evidence of committing so-called militants. “DND” and Russian military crimes against humanity — against the peaceful population of Donbass. It said the head of the SBU Valentyn Nalyvaichenko during a briefing.  January 24th, an aggressor has committed a crime against humanity – Russian artillery Division shot the peaceful population of Mariupol with dostavlenoï from the territory of Russia especially dangerous artillery weapons, said the head of the SBU.

The direct instructions of Russian officers was carried out 5 bombardment of peaceful districts of the city, which stopped only after receiving information that the shelling goes OSCE mission.

As a result of the shelling of Mariupol Russian “Mortared” killed 30 and wounded more than 100 residents. The Russian battery, which was pounding, was near the village of Noname-on territory controlled by terrorists “DND”.

The attack was carried out by the artillery Division of the terrorist organization “DND” comprising 4 artillery batteries, armed TANK DESTROYER “Tulip” and “Grad” installations.   The fire was discovered by an officer of the RUSSIAN FEDERATION with the callsign of “Highlander”.  After the bombardment, artillery batteries were hidden in the village of Markìne, then the surviving Russian military and technology team that came from the southern military district of RUSSIAN FEDERATION, in order to hide crimes were bred on the territory of Russia by the FSB border service of the Russian Federation.

«SBU publishes so called password «Ryazan-Astrakhan “, followed on 24 January this year Russian border guards and military obscured on the territory of RF tools of crime – equipment, armament, Russian Gunners”,-told Nalivaychenko.

Further proof that the crime involved Russia, is to use during planning and committing the bombardment of Mariupol sophisticated satellite communication systems 5 generations of “Bêloz′or”, which are only in the Russian Federation.

The Foundation has presented evidence of involvement of Russian military in crime against the civilian population.

Apprehended by SBU koriguval′nik fire artillery terrorists Kirsanov, 1975, n., nicknamed “Gaìšnìk” said that the mass killing of civilians of Donbass was Russian artillery battery commanded by Russian officer with the callsign “Pepel”.

Have other members of the criminal group. Among them is a citizen of Ukraine Ponomarenko, 1977 Ph.d., nicknamed “Terrorist” is the leader of one of the gangs in the so-called. “army of novorossiya,” known in criminal circles recidivìst.

SBU Counterintelligence was intercepted by conversations that show that “Terrorist” appealed to the action “Peplu” with a request to carry out a bombardment using reactive artillery. After the adoption of the criminal mind and Russians the bloody crime scene, the results caused damage koriguval′nik Kirsanov reported first Russian soldiers, and then Ponomarenku in Donetsk.

After stepping up hostilities in Donbas in the second half of January 2015, more evidence of the participation of Russian citizens that militate against Ukraine. January 23, 2015 after confronting an armed attack on defensive positions of Ukrainian military were able to establish the identity of an enemy reconnaissance and diversionary groups was zneškodženij. It turned out to be a citizen of the RUSSIAN FEDERATION Emelyanov, 1974 n. Victim was dressed in camouflage clothing from ševronom “Maps kazačij Regiment with the Grand Don Vojska Donskogo IM. Platova. ”

Slavic mìs′krajonnim Court sentenced to 8 years imprisonment of a citizen of the Russian Federation Korčagìna Nikolay Viktorovich, 06.12.1974, n., for active participation in the activities of Russian illegal military formation of a terrorist organization “DND”.

The head of the SBU reported today that all the ambassadors who are working in Ukraine, including Russian, will be given the evidence base of the involvement of terrorists “DND” and the Russian military to commit crimes against humanity.

The security service operates on the principles of dokazovostì, humanity and humanity. In cooperation with other law enforcement authorities, we will continue to publish, with the permission of investigators, documentary evidence, facts and names, in order to stop the referral on our territory of Russian terrorists and diversantìv», – said the head of the SBU. *** NATO just held a meeting.  We have just held an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. The meeting was held at Ukraine’s request.

We condemn the sharp escalation of violence along the ceasefire line in eastern Ukraine by Russia-backed separatists.

This comes at great human cost to civilians. We express our condolences to the Ukrainian people for these tragic losses. Thirty civilians were killed and around a hundred were injured in the attack launched on residential areas of Mariupol. The attack was launched from territory controlled by separatists backed by Russia. More here.

What you Need to Know About the Greek Elections

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It was 2011 that Greece erupted in epic protests over economic conditions and government imposed austerity programs. Since that time, Greece has moved to recover yet that recovery has not proven effective. Chancellor Angela Merkel has threatened Greece with several conditions including removing Greece from the European Union.  Over the weekend, Greece completed their election cycle with the an anti-austerity party known as the Syriza party prevailing. It is important to know that Greece is in a tailspin as noted by the party that placed third in the number of votes. A very dangerous new contour is emerging in Greece and it is filtering through Europe, the Golden Dawn Party.

Extreme right party headed for 3rd place in Greek election

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The specter of Neo-Nazism is no longer haunting Greece. It looks like it is here to stay.                               

 

The extreme right, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party, which has Nazi roots, appears headed for a third-place finish in Sunday’s election. Its showing comes despite the fact that the party’s leader and most of its lawmakers are behind bars, facing charges of participating in a “criminal organization” accused of murders, brutal attacks on migrants and others, extortion and arson.

With more than 90 percent of the voting precincts reporting, Golden Dawn was receiving 6.3 percent of the vote, narrowly leading the centrist Potami (“River”) with 6.04 percent. Both parties exceeded the 3 percent minimum required to gain seats in the 300-member parliament — with each forecast to win 17 seats.

Its share of the vote doesn’t match the 9.39 percent it received in last June’s European Parliament election in which Golden Dawn also finished third. It also trails the 6.92 percent won in the previous national election, in June 2012.

But considering the exposure of a series of crimes allegedly committed by its members, including the Sept. 2013 murder of a leftist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, the result obtained Sunday may be even more significant. This is no longer merely an angry protest vote, a one-off voters’ tiff with “corrupt politicians.” This is an established vote and a hardened electorate.

“They can no longer plead ignorance. They have dipped their hands in blood,” Communist lawmaker Liana Kanelli commented on Sunday’s result.

Golden Dawn leader Nikos Mihaloliakos and his top lieutenants were not free to campaign ahead of the election, since they were behind bars. They were free to stand as candidates because they have not yet gone to trial. Some of them, including Mihaloliakos, may soon be set free when their 18-month maximum pre-trial detention limit is reached.

In a taped statement Sunday, Mihaloliakos celebrated his party’s performance.

“We achieved this great victory despite the fact that we could not be guaranteed an equal and so-called democratic election as the regime likes to call it, shunned by all (media), facing mudslinging and slander from all sides … having to campaign through a payphone. We have a fresh mandate … everyone fought to keep Golden Dawn away and they lost. Golden Dawn won,” Mihalioliakos said in his taped message.             

In a further twist, if the radical left Syriza party, the winner of the election, fails to achieve an outright majority, a prospect still possible early Monday, it might fail to form a government and return the mandate, given to it by the President of the Republic. In that case, the second party takes up the mandate and, if it fails in turn, the third party does. The prospect of a handcuffed Mihaloliakos, escorted by police to meet the Greek president to be asked to try to form a government, sends jitters throughout the political class. And, if it gets the chance, Golden Dawn is certain to exploit the occasion for maximum effect to ridicule the democracy they despise and whose benefits they are trying to exploit. *** Syriza ran on a single issue: reversing Greece’s reforms, which had been the quid pro quo for the assistance Greece has received from the IMF, EC and ECB (known collectively as the “troika”) over the past several years. It is hard to see how Mr. Tsipras could change course dramatically and say that he is planning to honor Greece’s promises to the troika. Attention will now shift to the response of the troika to Syriza’s victory and its policy reversal.

Will the troika respond with a suspension of future assistance and a refusal to roll over existing subsidized debts? Judging from the statements of Mr. Draghi and European political leaders, it appears so. All current indications are that the troika will not accede to a reversal on Greek promises, which will mean an unavoidable Greek government default in a matter of two months. ECB refusal to roll over debt is also likely to produce a Greek banking crisis, as depositors recognize that the withdrawal of ECB assistance to Greece’s banks will mean that Greek banks will be unable to continue to operate at their current debt levels. In anticipation of the withdrawal of troika support, economic theory suggests that depositors should begin to run Greek banks preemptively. How much immediate pressure depositors bring to bear on Greek banks is hard to know.

Mr. Tsipras has said that he wants to stay in the euro zone, but if the troika refuses to continue sending money his way, then he is likely to have no choice but to suspend Greek banks’ convertibility into euros, default on Greek debt payments (more than three-quarters of which are owed to the troika), leave the euro zone to finance his deficits by printing a new domestic currency, and re-denominate bank deposits, loans and contractual wages into that new domestic currency (otherwise, mass insolvencies of borrowers, employers, and banks would result, as euro-denominated obligations will be much harder to fulfill). And if Greek depositors become sufficiently uneasy, Mr. Tsipras may not even have the chance to climb down from his pre-election rhetoric, even in the unlikely event that he comes to his senses; after all, once a run on the banks occurs, Greece could be forced out of the euro within a matter of hours rather than months.