A Welcoming Community
Hey, music lovers and lovers of life. Time for another midweek cafe and lounge. Grooving on a world music vibe at the moment.
Bob Marley was one of several artists I deeply admired back in the day. I still do. At a time when there are evil people who want to build walls and pull us back into a dark age, let’s tear down walls and light up the darkness.
I feel like it’s my birthday with both Bob Brady and Trey Gowdy announcing their retirement. Of course, if Gowdy becomes a judge, my happy times will be short-lived.
Does Qatar Think Zionist Jews Control Congress? | The Forward |
Now, Qatar has set its sights on changing its image among Jews, one Zionist at a time.
“They told me they invited me because they knew me to be the strongest and toughest Zionist in America that they heard about, and they wanted me to say what things bothered them the most, what they need to change, and they said they knew from me they would get the truth, no matter how unpleasant,” Klein told me.
Klein arrived in Doha equipped with “the truth” — a 50-page dossier detailing Qatar’s crimes against the Jews, including its connections with Hamas and the “anti-Semitic” content in Al Jazeera, which is bankrolled by Qatar.
And the emir [young emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani] was receptive to it, “gracious, kind, respectful, sensitive.” He promised to work to combat the flaws that Klein saw in Al Jazeera.
More below the fold …
But there was another reason, too, that Klein believed he had been invited. “They believe like so much of the world believes that we are the most influential group when it comes to Congress,” Klein said.
And they wanted Klein to leverage that power on their behalf. “They asked me to go to congressmen and talk about my trip,” Klein told me. “They asked me to go to Congress to urge them to go to Qatar, to see how they are trying to liberalize. By the way, women are driving. Women are walking alone all over the place. It’s not Saudi Arabia.”
Klein for his part was skeptical about the amount of power strident Zionist Jews have over Congress. “We couldn’t stop the Iran deal,” he reminded me. “Our power, Jewish power in Congress is vastly overrated.”
When Hillary Clinton was the darling of Al Jazeera and President Erdogan of Turkey … Qatar was VERY helpful to fund rebels with arms if Libya to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi and in a similar sweep and flow of shiploads full of munition and arms for the rebels to overthrow Assad in Syria. Both dumb decisions by American neoconservatives in Washington DC, supported by old colonial powers of Great Britain and France through NATO, have turned out just as bad as the invasion of Iraq by George Bush in 2003. The Muslim Brotherhood triangle of Egypt’s Morsi, Turkey and Qatar have been left backfooted by the uneventful events of massacres and tribal twists. As former president Mubarak of Egypt predicted the Iraq War would open Pandora’s Box. The monarch of Saudi Arabia warned president Bush of the consequences and began supporting the Sunni groups in Anbar province with funds and weapons. We all found out the most extremist jihadists groups gained power and formed ISIL which was later renamed itself the Islamic State (IS).
Thanks to the Russian military intervention, the unlimited bloodshed has been curtailed and the civil strife has been cut back. No winners, only losers. The political winners are the populist parties across Europe with its anti-immigration creed, Islamophobia and nationalist views of a Judeo-Christian Europe. Making Western Europe an inhabitable place for minorites and immigrants seeking to sustain their family with a dream of a better life.
My diaries throughout the years on this topic …
○ Emir Al Thani, Sultan Erdogan and HRC Foreign Policy of Revolutions
○ Clinton lauds virtues of Al Jazeera: ‘It’s Real News’ | NPR |
○ Al Jazeera and Qatar: Muslim Brothers’ Dark Empire?
This is the second time recently that someone has zeroed out a comment that I made. This one was on Booman’s most recent Quote of the Day post in response to some things centerfielddj said about me. It’s no big deal and I am not even going to quote the shit…look it up if you have any interest.
Several people here have simply stopped posting comments…drummed out by the ratings attacks and name-calling of the neocenrist Dem loyalists, they prefer to mostly post articles that cannot be zeroed out. Others have left the site in disgust over the censorship tactics of a few people.
I will do neither. I am going to continue to comment when I feel like it, but from now on I will keep copies of the comments and repost them in context as a standalone if they are zeroed.
I will not be censored!!!
As Lenny Bruce…who was driven to a drug-induced death by the same sorts of people…once said:
If you can’t say “fuck,” you can’t say “Fuck the government.”
Well…fuck the government and fuck the censors.
Cowards all.
Over and out.
AG
John Fitzgerald is the son of former Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald and a distinguished economist in his own right. Now semi-retired, he writes the occasional commentary of the performance of the Irish economy. He has an interesting take on the transformative effect of EU membership on national economic performance generally.
The economic crisis that began in 2008 affected EU members in many different ways. One of the most important was a loss of confidence among many citizens in the ability of the EU to improve their living standards.
However, even a cursory examination of the data shows that membership of the EU has helped transform the living standards of a huge number of its people.
Beginning with the 1973 accessions of Ireland, the UK and Denmark, successive waves of EU enlargement have shown similar patterns of impact for members. Initially, significant adjustment costs may have arisen. However. in the long run, access to the EU market has allowed new members to grow rapidly and to gradually catch up with the living standards of existing members.
In Ireland’s case, positive impacts of EU membership were delayed by the lost decade of the 1980s, which was brought about by domestic policy failures rather than our EU accession.
However Irish incomes, which had long hovered at about 60 per cent of the EU average, rose rapidly from 1990, and brought us to above the EU15 average by the start of the 2000s. Our membership of the EU was vital in supporting this outcome. Our recovery, following the 2008 economic collapse, leaves us about 10 per cent above average living standards for the EU15.
Spain and Portugal joined in 1985. Even after the difficult years of the Great Recession, Spain’s living standard has risen from 70 per cent of the EU15 average on accession, to 90 per cent today. For Portugal, pre-accession incomes of 55 per cent of the EU15 average have risen to 70 per cent today. This represents solid progress, if less spectacular than Ireland’s performance.
The Central European countries that joined in 2004 and 2007 have replicated Ireland’s convergence. For them, adaptation began as soon as the Berlin Wall fell and progress was apparent before they formally joined.
Twenty five years ago, these countries had a standard of living ranging between 25 per cent (Romania) and 65 per cent (Slovenia) of the EU15. Today their living standards ranges between 45 per cent (Bulgaria) and 85 per cent (Czech Republic) of the average. In terms of the distance travelled, Poland has been the star performer of this group.
For these more recent members, the economic crisis did not derail progress. All of them have improved their position relative to the EU15 since 2007.
Greece is the exception to this picture of accelerated growth and the gradual catching-up with EU living standards after countries join. Failure by successive Greek governments to adapt the economy to benefit from the opportunities that EU membership afforded it has led to lacklustre progress.
While EU structural funds have played a role in this convergence process, it has been rather a walk-on part. For Ireland in the 1990s, the EU structural funds were considered a key national interest. However, research shows that their contribution to the rapid convergence in living standards in the 1990s was quite limited relative to the huge progress actually made.
Probably more valuable than the funding itself was the governance attached. This involved guidelines and advice to government on its investment strategy, and accountability for results, which improved domestic decision-making.
For the Central European economies, a crucial factor in their progress has been their integration into the EU supply chain. For example, the more labour-intensive aspects of car manufacturing have moved from Germany to Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.
This analysis is interesting because it diverges from the more traditional left wing and nationalist criticisms of EU austerity policies and interference in national decision making. The indirect effects of integration into the EU Single Market seem to outweigh the benefits of direct transfers through structural and social funds.
In the case of Ireland, the benefits of tax competition induced FDI and the effects of progressive internal labour market legislation and dispute resolution mechanisms have also been considerable when compared to the decades prior to EU accession. While there have been costs of transition, the prohibition on state aids have forced many semi-state and previously near monopoly local utilities to become much more efficient and cost competitive.
However, there have also been negatives. The privatisation of the previous state monopoly telecommunications business has resulted in a succession of asset striping commercial makeovers and the underdevelopment of the national broadband infrastructure. If there is anything to be learned from that debacle, it is that a private sector monopoly is much worse than a public sector one, and there are some infrastructural services and public goods – such as public housing provision and waste collection and processing – which are better treated as strategic state infrastructural services that should never be privatised.
John Fitzgerald’s dismissal of Greece’s failure to improve it’s economic position relative to the EU average as being due to domestic policy failures is perhaps also too trite and convenient. Certainly, Greece’s fraudulent terms of entry and subsequent failure to challenge local monopolistic enterprises and services to become more efficient and competitive contributed to the problem: But the EU’s ruinous interest regime on loans and insistence on fire sale disposal of valuable national assets hardly helps.
Those who despair of the anti-democratic, autocratic, and dictatorial tendencies in eastern European member states now would do well to remember the Irish experience of membership: a transformation from a dirt poor economic and social backwater dominated by a reactionary Catholic Church and a local bourgeoisie intent on protecting it’s local semi-monopolistic economic franchises from competition to a much more open, economically successful and socially progressive polity now.
Direct transfers from the EU via structural, regional, cohesion and agricultural funds were important, but far more so where the benefits of economic and social development led by EU directives and foreign, mostly US, multinationals locating in Ireland as a means of accessing the single market. These businesses led the development of an internationally focused and globally literate workforce and management cadres which have also spawned the development of many locally owned businesses.
The “domestic sector” of locally owned businesses still lags the success of the foreign own sector and is still disproportionately dependent on the Irish and UK markets – and thus exposed to Brexit. But that dependence has been reducing all the time and Brexit may well force the greater internationalisation of that sector.
Ireland’s economic model of dependence on FDI attracted by low corporate tax rates is also now living on borrowed time. While taxation remains a national competence the departure of our biggest ally from the EU will make it increasingly difficult to maintain that policy. At the very least, 12.5% must become the baseline, as opposed to the maximum tax rate. This, combined with corporate tax reductions in the US and UK will make it increasingly difficult for Ireland to maintain its current share of FDI, even with the departure of the UK. A much greater reliance on domestic innovation and entrepreneurship will be required. For many analysts, this is a greater long term challenge for the Irish economy and polity than Brexit itself.
Brexiteers in the UK have often expressed astonishment at what they see as a slavish Irish commitment to continued EU membership. They clearly have not seen the astonishing transformation of the Irish economy and society in the last 40 years of EU membership, particularly when compared to N. Ireland and the rest of the UK. While not all of this can be ascribed to Ireland’s enthusiastic embrace of the EU, it has been the major factor.
For most Irish people, the fact that Ireland is now a net contributor to the EU is a source of pride rather than anger or regret. We are more than happy to see newer, less well off, members benefit from membership as we have done. That does, however, require that they embrace the opportunities that EU membership offers, which includes accepting democratic norms and independent checks and balances on autocratic power.
But we must also be patient. It took us more than a generation to achieve average EU living standards and quality of life, and the reform process is ongoing. Current opinion polls indicate an almost 2:1 majority in favour of liberalising Ireland’s prohibition on abortion in the teeth of conservative and Church opposition. And this follows on from the resounding victory of the progressive side in the marriage equality referendum.
Sadly, John Fitzgerald does not extend his analysis to the UK’s economic experience of EU membership. My memories of the UK pre-EU is of an empire in terminal decline, rampant industrial disputes, and “the English disease” of poor investment, productivity and product quality. A de-industrialisation only latterly, partially, (and asymmetrically) off-set by a burgeoning services sector benefiting from access to EU markets. While there has been much focus on the UK’s net contribution to the EU budget, little attention has been paid to the role of the EU in transforming the UK economy from the basket case of Europe.
It’s easy to pick holes in John Fitzgerald’s brief analysis here. He makes no mention of increased regional inequalities in many national economies – for instance in rural Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. There is also no analysis of income inequalities growing more generally as part of the globalisation and Europeanisation process. The EU still relies too much of national tax, social services, and income redistribution policies to address these issues, and when that fails – as in the UK – it is the EU itself which is put at risk by populists anxious to deflect the blame from national elites.
If there is a bigger long term lesson to draw from Brexit, it is that social, generational, regional and national inequalities are too big an issue to be left to national polities alone. Aggregate national economic growth can be great, but it is growing inequalities which drive political tensions. The EU needs an EU wide redistribution strategy if growing economic inequalities are not to lead to increasingly fissiparous political tensions within the Union.
Melania Trump took a separate car to the State of the Union because she now knows that her husband had an affair with a porn star right after the birth of their child and then paid over a hundred grand in blackmail cash to keep the other woman from talking to the press.
Still, she showed up and smiled, which is awfully big of her.
The speech itself was so flat and monotonous that I’d forgotten most of it before he even finished.
He took credit for things he’s not responsible for and lied about a bunch of numbers, but he really didn’t propose much. The GOP has no idea where to go from here. So, I guess they’ll just fuck with the FBI and the Justice Department and pretend that they can pass things without any Democratic votes, like an infrastructure bill that they won’t pay for.
As for the Dreamers, as much as I’m concerned for them, it’s not a good idea to pay a ransom for them. Trump has set this up as a way to fundamentally alter our entire immigration system in a very unfair and racist way, and that’s not a trade worth making for hostages that the GOP does not want to deport en masse while television cameras capture the indefensibly sad and outrageous stories. A bluff must be called here. I hate to say it, but it’s the right thing to do in these circumstances.
So, if that means a shut down, that’s fine with me. And if that means the DACA protections lapse, that’s a price the Democrats have to be willing to pay. It’s right on the politics and it’s right on the merits. We have a legal immigration program that’s under assault and it can’t be reformed the way that Stephen Miller wants to reform it.
I also object strenuously to the idea of spending tens of billions of dollars on a stupid wall that will be a symbol of racism visible from space running along our southern border. This should not be done just to help Trump save face. It would be a blot on the country and a stain on the record of everyone who votes to fund it.
The offer to Trump should be sensible border protection and enforcement investments rather than unrealistic boondoggles. He’s tying to play the bully here but he doesn’t have the cards to win this hand.
Rather than asking what Trump needs to rescue the DACA recipients, the Dems should be demanding funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before they’ll even consider funding anything else.
Made this a stand-alone diary to keep focus on topic …
Previous diary – G W F and McCarthyism In A Digital Age – Part 1.
Part 2 is almost ready and will be posted shortly.
Russian Actions and Methods against the United States and NATO
Maj. Collins Devon Cockrell, U.S. Army
Article published on: 22 September 2017Russia has worked to upend the post-Cold War European order through an aggressive campaign of information warfare in recent years–so much so that the 2017 European Command Posture Statement identifies Russia as the primary threat, stating that “Russia seeks to undermine this international system and discredit those in the West who have created it.” In January 2017, retired Gen. James Mattis, then the nominee for U.S. secretary of defense, stated that Russia was the number one threat to the United States and was engaging in a continuing effort to “break the North Atlantic alliance.”
President Vladimir Putin’s speech at Munich in 2007 [video] declared that Russia would execute a foreign policy that no longer recognized a U.S.-led, unipolar system.
More below the fold …
Putin stated publically that the West, specifically the United States, was attempting to make Russia a weak “vassal” state and was preventing Russia from reclaiming its role as the inheritor of the Soviet Union’s counterbalance role in the world. The hyperbolic and confrontational worldview of the Russian ruling elite can be summarized in reported comments by Andrey Krutskikh, a senior advisor to President Putin, at a February 2017 Moscow conference:
You think we are living in 2016. No, we are living in 1948. And do you know why? Because in 1949, the Soviet Union had its first atomic bomb test. And if until that moment, the Soviet Union was trying to reach agreement with [President Harry] Truman to ban nuclear weapons, and the Americans were not taking us seriously, in 1949 everything changed and they started talking to us on an equal footing.
As a direct reflection of this, Russia is intervening in political systems across Europe in order to destabilize established and newer democratic states. Putin’s stated goal is the restoration of “Great Russia.” This paper briefly overviews United States and NATO information operations (IO) doctrine and contrasts those with current analysis of Russian concepts of information warfare. This overview is intended to orient readers to important distinctions in doctrine, capacity, and purpose so that Western actors have a firm understanding from which to make decisions.
U.S. doctrine defines information operations as “the integrated employment, during military operations, of IRCs [information-related capabilities] in concert with other lines of operation to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.” These IRCs include military information support operations (MISO), cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, military deception, civil military operations, and public affairs.9 As a coordinating function within the realm of disseminating and shaping information, IO is a critical part of all offensive, defensive, and stability operations. In U.S. doctrine, the main effort of influencing foreign target audiences is by psychological operations (PSYOP) forces performing MISO. PSYOP forces are doctrinally tasked to …
Not so strange the feeling about NATO’s aggressive stance, see the often quoted phrase from former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder making Russia a pariah state. What do you expect from a regional power, a proud nation with a land mass covering halfway across planet earth.
THE ILLUSIONS OF A U.S. ARMY COMMANDER SPEAKING INSIDE THE BUBBLE OF A SOLE SUPERPOWER
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
STATEMENT OF GENERAL CURTIS M. SCAPARROTTI
COMMANDER
UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMANDMarch 28, 2017
II. THEATER ASSESSMENT – RISKS AND CHALLENGES
Over the past year I have highlighted three signature issues facing us in this dynamic security environment: Russia, radicals or violent extremists, and regional unrest – leading to refugee and migrant flows. At the same time, managing the political, economic, and social challenges posed by refugees and migrants is a consuming concern of our allies and partners.
Russia
Russia’s malign actions are supported by its diplomatic, information, economic, and military initiatives. Moscow intends to reemerge as a global power, and views international norms such as the rule of law, democracy, and human rights as components of a system designed to suppress Russia. Therefore, Russia seeks to undermine this international system and discredit those in the West who have created it. For example, Russia is taking steps to influence the internal politics of European countries, just as it tried to do in the United States, in an attempt to create disunity and weakness within Europe and undermine the transatlantic relationship. Furthermore, Russia has repeatedly violated international agreements and treaties that underpin European peace and stability, including the Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) and the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), and it is undermining transparency and confidence building regimes, such as the Vienna Document and Open Skies, which provide greater transparency of posture and exercises
in the region.Russia’s political leadership appears to be seeking a resurgence through the modernization of its military. Russia is adjusting its doctrine, modernizing its weapons, reorganizing the disposition of its forces, professionalizing its armed services, and upgrading capabilities in all warfighting domains. Russia desires a military force capable of achieving its strategic objectives and increasing its power.
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, including occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea, and actions in Syria underscore its willingness to use military force to exert its influence in Europe and the Middle East. In Ukraine, Russia’s willingness to foment a bloody conflict into its third year through the use of proxy forces in the Donbas and elsewhere is deeply troubling to our allies and partners, particularly Russia’s closest neighbors. In Syria, Russia’s military intervention has changed the dynamics of the conflict, bolstered the Bashar al-Assad regime, targeted moderate opposition elements, compounded human suffering, and complicated U.S. and coalition operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Russia has used this chaos to establish a permanent presence in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean.
AN EXCELLENT PIECE OF REVISIONISM OF HISTORY – WTF!
British 77th Brigade (SAG) – Force for Psychological Warfare or in academic term “Soft Power”
Battles are not not won by just hard aggressive force but also through information deception or the loose term of “psychological warfare”. In proper academic circles, it is the usage of “soft power”
○ What does the secretive 77th Brigade do?
○ British Army 77th Brigade – Influence and Outreach
Where it all started at the center of military power in Europe: NATO led by the United States and bullying generals in the mindset of the Cold War … wanting to kick ass and no room for diplomacy. This caused continued interference from the Pentagon and NATO HQ in Brussels with any attempt to reach a political settlement with Russia after the eight Bush years after 2008 – the Orange Revolution that ultimately fell short in the Ukraine and the confrontation in Georgia that led to a brief military conflict with Russia.
A Report by CEPA’s Information Warfare Project
in Partnership with the Legatum InstituteThis report, “Winning the Information War: Techniques and Counter-Strategies in Russian Propaganda,” is produced under the auspices of the Center for European Policy Analysis’ (CEPA) Information Warfare Initiative. Co-authored by CEPA Senior Vice President Edward Lucas and Legatum Institute Senior Fellow Peter Pomerantsev, it is part of an ongoing effort at CEPA to monitor, collate, analyze, rebut and expose Russian propaganda in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
Previous publications in this series provided an analytical foundation for evaluating the methods and aims of Russian propaganda. This report extends that research, examining how Russian propaganda is being employed across the CEE region, the perils it presents and actionable counter-strategies for addressing it.
In preparing this report, the authors conducted an extended assessment of the existing record of Russian, English and Baltic language literature on the subject of information warfare. They solicited written inputs from, and conducted interviews with, members of the scholarly, academic and expert community who are investigating specific dimensions of Russia’s “new” propaganda. Additionally, the authors solicited written and conceptual inputs through practitioner workshops with CEE media specialist, area experts and journalists – individuals who are on the frontlines of the Western response to Russian disinformation campaigns.
Special recognition is owed to the invaluable contributions of Anne Applebaum (CEPA and Legatum Institute), Paul Copeland, Marina Denysenko (Ukrainian Institute in London), Peter Doran (CEPA), Michal Harmata (CEPA), Sanita Jemberga (Baltic Centre for Investigative Journalism), Andis Kudors (Centre for East European Policy Studies in Riga), Ben Nimmo (Institute for Statecraft), Wiktor Ostrowski (Krzyżowa Academy), Alistair Shawcross (Legatum Institute), Hanna Shelest (UA: Ukraine Analytica), Ivana Smoleňová (Prague Security Studies Institute), Virgis Valentinavičius (Mykolas Romeris University), Magda Walter (UK-based media consultant) and Kazimierz Wóycicki (Krzyżowa Academy).
Magda Walter is a media consultant based in London. She advises international organizations on media and communications strategies, and trains journalists in emerging democracies. She was the NBC News Bureau Chief in Moscow in the late 1990s. In the past five years she has served as the Regional Editor for East and Central Europe for the Mapping Digital Media Study of the Open Society Foundation, and Media Adviser to the feasibility study on Russian language media options conducted by the European Endowment for Democracy. She has contributed to CEPA’s StratCom Program and participated in past events focusing on Russia’s strategy of disinformation. Currently, she acts as Principal Development Adviser to the Baltic Centre for Media Excellence.
Finally, the authors would like to thank the invaluable inputs and insight provided by the monitors and media experts at CEPA’s Information Warfare Initiative, including Dalia Bankauskaite, Urve Eslas, Martins Kaprans and Andrzej Poczobut.
More reading on this topic …
○ Dubai-backed institute Legatum setting the tone for Brexit | The National – UAE |
○ Legatum: the Brexiteers’ favourite think tank. Who is behind them?
○ Khodorkovsky – The Interpreter – Henry Jackson Society (UK)
This is pretty good, from Rick Wilson:
“The Republican Party’s head first dive into breathless conspiratorial fantasies in defense of Donald Trump is a brand-defining moment as the Party of Lincoln morphs into the Party of LaRouche. Listening as members of Congress, the Fox/talk-radio world and the constellation of batshit crazy people drawn to Esoteric Trumpism adopt increasingly baroque theories to protect The Donald isn’t just depressing, it’s tragic. A diseased slurry of fake news, post-Truth Trumpism and Russkie agitprop infects the Republican Party. It’s an Ebola of wild-eyed MK-ULTRA paranoiac raving, spreading to every organ of the Republican body politic. This loon-centric new world of crazy talk has dissolved the old ideological skeleton of the GOP and reduced it from the Conservative Party of Ideas to the Crackpot Party of Infowars.”
Sometimes shit happens … you miss a deadline! 😉
White House says there’s no need for new Russia sanctions | WaPo – Jan. 29, 2018 |
The Trump administration, under fire from lawmakers for not punishing Moscow over election meddling, said Monday it will not implement Russia-related sanctions mandated by Congress last year because the threat itself is acting as a “deterrent.”
The decision was made public after nightfall on deadline day for implementing sanctions against those who do business with Russian defense and intelligence firms, as required under a 2017 law.
Since the law took effect six months ago, said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, “We estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions.”
The decision was less concrete than some lawmakers envisioned when the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act passed last summer. Though also mentioning Iran and North Korea, the law was billed as a U.S. response to Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
More below the fold …
…
More details were provided to Congress in classified briefings, and some Democrats were angered. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was “fed up” with the administration’s failure to punish Russia over election interference.
US releases list of Russian oligarchs, political figures | CNN – Jan. 30, 2018 |
The US Treasury Department has released a list of prominent Russians with close ties to the Kremlin but has stressed it is “not a sanctions list.”
Released shortly before a midnight deadline, the list includes 114 senior foreign political figures with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and 96 oligarchs, with a net worth of $1 billion or more.
The list includes senior members of the Russian Cabinet, ministers and other senior political leaders, including the leaders of the State Duma and Federation Council, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
It added the list was compiled “based on objective criteria drawn from publically available sources,” and those on it would not be subject to further restrictions.
Russia warned the release of the list could “jeopardize relations” and have “very, very serious consequences.”
“This is another step, which, obviously, leads to further escalation of tensions,” Aleksey Chepa, deputy chairman of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, told official news agency RIA Novosti.
“While it is too early to talk about this, but if the situation escalates further it can lead to this. The American leadership itself does not see the consequences of these actions, they jeopardize relations in the world between countries, and this can have very, very serious consequences.”
○ Kremlin Alleges U.S. ‘Oligarchs List’ Aims To Influence Election | RFERL |
○ US issues ‘Putin list’ of Russian politicians, oligarchs | AP/CNBC |
FBI’s Andrew McCabe leaving deputy director job, will retire in March
McCabe’s departure has been expected for some time, though the exact date was uncertain. The Washington Post reported in December that he planned to retire in March . At that time, people close to McCabe said he would probably use accrued vacation time to get him to the retirement date.
A person close to the matter confirmed that McCabe will still formally retire in March, but is leaving the deputy director position now, and plans to use leave time to fill out his remaining time at the FBI.
Trump’s dislike of McCabe dates back to October 2016, when news stories revealed McCabe’s wife had run as a Democrat for the Virginia state legislature, aided with nearly $500,000 in donations from the political action committee of then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close ally of Hillary Clinton, and that McCabe had gone on to oversee probes involving Clinton.
In recent months, McCabe has been harshly criticized by congressional Republicans who challenge the FBI’s rationale for opening the Russia probe back in July 2016.
FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe reportedly steps down early | The Guardian |
McCabe himself was a registered Republican as recently as 2016, when he voted in the Republican primary election in Virginia, CNN reported.
McCabe’s retirement plans first became known in December, after the deputy director sat for closed-door interviews before three congressional committees that Democrats described as poisonously partisan, with Republicans following Trump’s lead in attacking McCabe.