Is Russia Behind a Secession Effort in California?

[seemslikeadream]

Is Russia Behind a Secession Effort in California?
The Calexit campaign aims its pitch at progressives, but sports some curious ties to Moscow.


David McNew / Reuters

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF 5:00 AM ET

Last month, I asked Los Angeles Times readers to imagine how they would react if Donald Trump tried to kick California out of the union. After all, if not for the Golden State, he would have won the popular vote, Blue America would lose its biggest source of electoral votes, the Senate would have two fewer Democrats, the House would lose 38 more (along with 14 Republicans), and the U.S. would be a lot less ethnically diverse. It’s easy to imagine some on the alt-right preferring that future, even as most liberals and progressives would recognize it as a catastrophe.

And yet, I observed, the people presently working to bring about a “Cal-exit” by gathering signatures for a 2018 ballot measure that would start the secession process are pitching their efforts in language designed to appeal to the state’s progressives––and tapping into the anger that many Californians feel toward the president. “Californians are better educated, wealthier, more liberal, and value healthcare and education more than the rest of the country,” Marcus Ruiz Evans, one of the leaders of the Yes California Independence Campaign, declared in one op-ed. “Our views on education, science, immigration, taxation and healthcare are different.”

I spent the balance of my op-ed alerting my fellow Californians to the weakness of the substantive case for secession. A post-exit California would not be a stable political entity, and the pro-secession campaign’s arguments don’t pass the laugh test.

Here, I want to observe that their effort doesn’t pass the smell test, either.

The San Jose Mercury News took note of this in a November 26, 2016 article that began:

After a Manhattan billionaire led a wave of working-class discontent to the White House, perhaps it’s fitting that the two men steering a left-leaning movement to get California out of Donald Trump’s America lack liberal bona fides. Louis Marinelli and Marcus Evans were both registered Republicans two years ago when they formed what is now known as Yes California, a homegrown separatist movement. At the time, the 30-year-old Marinelli, who grew up in upstate New York, had spent more years living in Russia than the Golden State.

And Evans, 39, briefly hosted conservative talk radio shows in his native Fresno. In an interview this past week, Evans wouldn’t say if he voted for Trump, but he insisted that he doesn’t fit the bill of a right-wing radio blowhard.

Is the separatist movement “home grown”? I am not so sure. On December 13, 2016, KQED’s The California Report delved deeper into those Marinelli ties to Russia:

On paper, the leader of the California secession movement lives in an apartment complex near San Diego’s Golden Hill neighborhood. But in reality, the Calexit campaign is being run by a 30-year-old who lives and works in a city on the edge of Siberia. Louis Marinelli heads the secessionist group Yes California. Following the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the organization has gone from an unknown fringe group to one discussed seriously in mainstream media.

What has not been discussed as prominently is Marinelli’s deep ties to Russia. A former right-wing activist from Buffalo, New York, Marinelli first moved to Russia almost a decade ago. He studied at St. Petersburg State University, the alma mater of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He returned to the United States to campaign against LGBTQ rights as part of the National Organization for Marriage. Marinelli then returned to Russia. He would marry a Russian citizen, and the couple moved to San Diego, where Marinelli launched a political career based on a platform of California secession.

“I immigrated to California, and I consider myself to be a Californian,” Marinelli says from his apartment in Yekaterinburg, a city of about 1.4 million just east of the Ural Mountains and about 1,000 miles from Moscow.
That brings us to Moscow itself.


On December 18, 2016, Russia Today, a media outlet controlled by the Kremlin, reported that “a campaign calling for the independence of California from the United States has opened an ‘embassy’ in Moscow. The movement, Yes California, is hoping for a ‘Calexit’ break from the US. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Louis Marinelli, leader of the movement, said the embassy will not deal with diplomatic issues, but will act as more of a cultural center that will educate Russians about California's history, boost trade ties and promote tourism.”

How does a fledgling secession movement with little grassroots support afford a Moscow “embassy”? Snopes says a group funded by the Kremlin is letting them use the space for free.

Over the weekend, Marinelli gave a television interview to MSNBC host Alex Witt. “Do you think people might grow skeptical and concerned that this movement is just part of a bigger strategy by the Kremlin to destabilize the West?” she asked.

“Sure, we believe that’s certainly a reasonable skepticism for people to have,” Marinelli said, “but the truth of the matter is that the American government has for a long time tried to rally the American public against Russia no matter what the issue is.”

That wasn’t quite a denial, was it?

“There’s always some kind of common enemy that the American government tries to align our people against and usually that enemy is Russia. So it’s kind of nonsense in my opinion,” he added. “The truth of the matter is that our embassy in Russia is a people’s embassy. It’s a cultural center. We’re going to have an important exhibit there exhibiting the history of California civil rights. And we’re going to be using our California embassy here in Moscow as a platform to demonstrate to the people of Russia our values in California and the story of our history and our culture.”

The odds are against California voting to cleve itself from the United States. “The measure would ask voters to remove a reference in the state’s Constitution to California as an inseparable part of the U.S., and set a second vote, for March 2019, that would ask, ‘Should California become a free, sovereign and independent country?’” The New York Times notes. “But backers need to collect 585,407 valid signatures, a daunting task.”

The odds against the United States permitting the Golden State to exit are even longer.

The secession movement is nevertheless worth watching in a world where Britain is parting ways with the European Union, Trump is the president of the United States, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia would love nothing more than to sow chaos in America’s largest state, regardless of whether the Kremlin is already involved or not.

“People who know the Russian political playbook say winking at these fringe movements—and even giving them a boost—is a part of a very real strategy,” Politico writes. “Not only is this a way of puffing Russia’s domestic claims at turmoil in the U.S., but it fits firmly within the Kremlin’s modus operandi of cultivating fringe groups in the West—most especially those who would fracture the United States in a reprise of the Soviet Union’s demise, over a quarter-century later.” If nothing else, Californians should think long and hard before signing that petition. It may turn out that there are multiple levels of mischief nested inside of it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ia/517890/

[Nordic]

I can't believe you would post such nonsense.

[seemslikeadream]

now you don't like The Atlantic or RT

‘Calexit’: Yes California movement opens ‘embassy’ in Moscow
Published time: 18 Dec, 2016 23:48
Edited time: 19 Dec, 2016 15:04

‘Calexit’: Yes California movement opens ‘embassy’ in Moscow
© / Ruptly

A campaign calling for the independence of California from the United States has opened an “embassy” in Moscow.
The movement, Yes California, is hoping for a “Calexit” break from the US. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Louis Marinelli, leader of the movement, said the embassy will not deal with diplomatic issues, but will act as more of a cultural center that will educate Russians about California's history, boost trade ties and promote tourism.

CA Embassy Moscow @CAEmbRu
Today the Embassy of the Independent Republic of California opens in Moscow. Address: Г. Москва, ул. Клары Цеткин дом 4, Офис 324. #Calexit
2:28 AM - 18 Dec 2016

“We're not requesting military assistance from Russia,” Marinelli explained. “We're certainly going to request recognition of our independence and recognition of our [2019] independence referendum result, as we're going to request that the entire international community recognizes the results.”

The California independence movement gained some traction, particularly on social media, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory in November. It describes itself as a “nonviolent campaign to establish the country of California using any and all legal and constitutional means to do so.”
alexis @herbivorre

I no longer will refer to myself as an American, I am a Californian. #calexit
2:39 AM - 9 Nov 2016 · Los Angeles, CA
2,521 2,521 Retweets 5,644 5,644 likes

On Sunday, Marinelli added that he wishes to "lay the groundwork" for bilateral relations between an independent California and Russia.

#Calexit Leader @LouisJMarinelli
At the opening of the California Embassy @CAEmbRu in Moscow. The theme of the opening highlighted California cities and landmarks. #Calexit
1:23 PM - 18 Dec 2016
14 14 Retweets 10 10 likes

“We're opening up a conversation in Russia and it's [to] a much smaller degree to the Americans when they wanted their independence from the British empire. They went and pursued military assistance and so on and so forth. We're not doing anything like that.”

The campaign hopes to hold a referendum on independence in spring 2019 should they be able to gather the 500,000 signatures required for it to be put to a public ballot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF76-0CLJ_0
Marinelli has previously filed several ballot initiative proposals relating to secession for California. However, none of them has been successful in gathering enough signatures to go to a public vote.
https://www.rt.com/usa/370698-calexit-c ... sy-moscow/

I guess you don't like The Mercury News either?

Meet the founders of California’s separatist movement

Marcus Ruiz Evans, center, of The Yes California Independence Campaign, talks to passersby about California succeeding from the United States and becoming its own nation, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif., . Support for the proposal grew on social media following Tuesday's election of Republican Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
(Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press) Marcus Ruiz Evans, center, of the Yes California campaign, has a conservative background but is pushing a now-liberal cause: separating from Donald Trump’s America.
By MATTHEW ARTZ | martz@bayareanewsgroup.com |
PUBLISHED: November 26, 2016 at 12:00 pm | UPDATED: November 27, 2016 at 2:44 am
After a Manhattan billionaire led a wave of working-class discontent to the White House, perhaps it’s fitting that the two men steering a left-leaning movement to get California out of Donald Trump’s America lack liberal bona fides.

Louis Marinelli and Marcus Evans were both registered Republicans two years ago when they formed what is now known as Yes California, a homegrown separatist movement.

California out? State’s flirtation with secession highlights disconnect
At the time, the 30-year-old Marinelli, who grew up in upstate New York, had spent more years living in Russia than the Golden State. And Evans, 39, briefly hosted conservative talk radio shows in his native Fresno.
In an interview this past week, Evans wouldn’t say if he voted for Trump, but he insisted that he doesn’t fit the bill of a right-wing radio blowhard.

“I live in the (Central) Valley,” he said. “It’s conservative. I’m not.”

His brief stint behind the mic at 1680 AM in Fresno, he said, helped him speak “in a way that conservatives will hear you.”

Marinelli, who Evans said wasn’t available for a phone interview, also doesn’t fit the bill of a liberal weeping over Trump’s victory. In fact, Marinelli and the president-elect appear to have another thing in common — abiding respect for Russia.

According to his Wikipedia page, Marinelli moved to Russia to teach English in 2007 and considered renouncing his U.S. citizenship to remain in the country.

He moved to the San Diego area in 2011 and ran for state Assembly this year as a member of the fledgling California National Party, which is dedicated to the state’s independence. He won 6 percent of the vote.


While fighting for California nationalism, Marinelli also remains a proponent of Russian nationalism. In July, he authored a Yes California blog post bemoaning the “hypocrisy and bias against the Russian Federation” inherent in an effort to ban Russian athletes from the Summer Olympics for systemic doping violations.

He also announced that he would attend a conference on international self-determination scheduled to take place last September in Moscow. In an interview with the website Pravda Report leading up to the conference, Marinelli compared California independence to the process that restored the Crimea region of Ukraine to Russia. Although Crimea voters backed secession, the vote came after Russian military officials infiltrated the territory – a move that sparked Western sanctions.

An independent California would “need international recognition of our voting in the future,” Marinelli told the Russian news source. “We count on the Russian authorities to support us within this issue as the Crimea also separated from Ukraine due to a referendum.”
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/26/c ... -movement/

[Rory]

I can't believe you would post such nonsense.

In an ocean of risible redbaiting nonsense, this angle has to be the most ridiculous. Desperate, straw clutching stuff.

[seemslikeadream]

MOTHER RUSSIA IS A RACIST


How Russia surpassed Germany to become the racist ideal for Trump-loving white supremacists
Russian ultra-nationalists march during a demonstration on the outskirts of Moscow, November 4, 2010. Russia marks the Day of People's Unity on November 4 when people celebrate the defeat of Polish invaders in 1612 and replace a communist celebration of the 1917 revolution.
Nationalists unite. (Reuters/Mikhail Voskresensky)

WRITTEN BY

Casey Michel
OBSESSION

2016
December 22, 2016
For America’s white nationalists, there is only one nation—and one leader—worth emulating. And it has nothing to do with lederhosen or Wagner.
Richard Spencer, the current face (and haircut) of US’s alt-right, believes Russia is the “sole white power in the world.” David Duke, meanwhile, believes Russia holds the “key to white survival.” And as Matthew Heimbach, head of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, recently said, Russian president Vladimir Putin is the “leader of the free world”—one who has helped morph Russia into an “axis for nationalists.”
For those Americans who are just now familiarizing themselves with Russia’s current political proclivities—due to the recent, high-profile Russian hacking allegations, say, or the brutal military campaign in Aleppo—Moscow’s transformation into a lodestar for America’s white supremacists is enough to cause whiplash. After all, just a few decades ago Moscow was a beacon for the far-left, and its influential Communist International provided material and organizational heft for those pushing Soviet-style autocracy around the world. Over the past few years, however, the Kremlin has cultivated those on the far-right end of the West’s political spectrum in the pursuit, as Heimbach told me, of reifying something approaching a “Traditionalist International.”
Moscow’s appeal to the American far-right is, in a sense, understandable, if no less worrying. The links between Russia and America’s white nationalists and domestic secessionists have both expanded and deepened over the past few years. And the Kremlin, as with its invasion and occupation of swaths of Ukraine, has gone to only minimal lengths to obscure such ties.
Following the chaos of the Soviet dissolution in the 1990s, Putin’s kleptocracy has restored the state to domestic primacy. Moreover, Putin has positioned Russia as a leader for those in the West attempting to roll back liberal policies, from abortion and LGBT rights to dissolving the distance between church and state. Meanwhile, Moscow has been busily cultivating relationships with far-right groups in Europe, from radical right-wingers in Hungary to Marine LePen, one of the front-runners for the upcoming French presidency.
But links between Moscow and America’s white supremacy movement are far deeper than approving rhetoric. Spencer, for instance, who has said that he “admire[s]” Putin and who has called to break up NATO, also helped organize a 2014 conference in Hungary that was slated to feature, of all people, Alexander Dugin. A political philosopher, Dugin is both an erstwhile Kremlin confidant and the progenitor of modern “Eurasianism,” which places, in part, Russia as the center of global anti-liberalism. Dugin, whose Foundations of Geopolitics continues to be assigned to every member of Russia’s General Staff Academy, was unable to attend the conclave in Hungary due to Western sanctions. But Spencer nonetheless remains married to one of Dugin’s English translators.
Traditionalist Worker Party leader Heimbach—who has led rallies featuring both Confederate and Russian imperial flags flying side-by-side—has yet to visit Russia, but was planning on attending a recent conference in St. Petersburg that would have gathered together heads of the assorted neo-Nazi and white supremacist contingents across the West. The conference, postponed until March, was organized by a group with ties to Russia’s deputy prime minister, and would have been the second iteration of the gathering. The 2015 conference featured both “race realist” Jared Taylor and former KKK lawyer Sam Dickson. All the while, Heimbach has continued expanding the reach of the TWP in the US. The party’s 2015 launch included, of all things, a Skyped-in speech from none other than Dugin.
David Duke, meanwhile, sees Russia as a country that “presents an opportunity to help protect the longevity of the white race,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. And a few years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center detailed Duke’s close personal ties with another American neo-Nazi, Preston Wiginton, who has made Moscow his adopted home.
Thus far, no smoking gun financial links have been uncovered between the Kremlin and those who would fracture the US in pursuit of a whites-only enclave. The same can’t be said, however, of ties between Moscow and those who would pursue more traditional means of secession. A few months ago, the Kremlin helped finance a secessionist conference in Moscow, bringing together contingents from Ireland, Spain, and Italy—as well as those from Texas, Puerto Rico, and California. Indeed, the head of the main group pushing California secession, Louis Marinelli, not only lives in Russia, but opened an “Embassy of the Independent Republic of California” in Moscow on Sunday. As Marinelli told a Russian interviewer last month, “In Russia, we have partners who are ready to support us in our aspiration.”
These secessionists, as the California movement indicates, aren’t solely of a far-right bent. But like the white nationalists undergirding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, they all share the same goal: the fragmentation of the United States. And the Kremlin—alongside its hacking campaigns, and in tandem with its push to undercut Western alliance structures—has been only too happy to cultivate rhetorical, financial, and organizational support for these movements.
As 2017 dawns, there’s little likelihood these movements, and these ties, are going to fade during the Trump administration. If anything, the ranks of white nationalists emboldened by Trump’s success will almost certainly swell—as will those who would seek to crack the US under the auspices of secession. And, now, these individuals have found a common foreign backer, and in some cases, foreign financier.
As Heimbach recently said, “Russia’s our most powerful ally. Imagine what could happen to our party when Russia takes interest.” It’s clear, by now, that Russia has taken interest—and with the Trump administration approaching, we may not longer have the luxury of simply imagining just what the fallout of such relationships will be.
https://qz.com/869938/how-russia-surpas ... remacists/

[seemslikeadream]

Why Russia Loves the Idea of California Seceding
Once again, Moscow is winking at a long-shot breakaway movement in the U.S.
By CASEY MICHEL January 15, 2017

On a sunny late September day, a trio of tourists gathered on Moscow’s Red Square. Well-dressed, carrying a Russian flag, the visitors bunched in front of the Kremlin’s walls to snap a selfie. Like so many others before, the man taking the photo, Louis Marinelli, took to his Twitter account, and shared the shot for the world.

But Marinelli wasn’t your average American tourist, and neither were his friends. That weekend, Marinelli was ensconced in a conference room in the capital, where he delivered a speech for an unusual cause: the secession of California from the United States. “As not only a representative of the nation of California, but also as the founder and the leader of the independence movement as recognized by the state of California itself, it is my honor to speak on behalf of my people at this conference on the right of self-determination,” Marinelli told his audience. “Our campaign exists to explain why we should free ourselves from the shackles of statehood, and instead embrace the freedoms of nationhood.”


Marinelli, 30, was an unlikely messenger for the “Calexit” cause. He doesn’t live in California. He lives in Yekaterinburg—about 1,000 miles from Moscow—with his Russian wife. But it was not surprising that he had found a platform for his YesCalifornia movement in Moscow. Secession is a popular topic here—as long as it’s from someone else’s country. The Dialogue of Nations Conference, which attracted separatist-minded contingents from Ireland, Spain and Italy, was hosted by a man named Alexander Ionov, whose group had used money from the Kremlin to pay the travel expenses of one of Marinelli’s pals from Red Square: Nate Smith. Smith is one of the leaders of Texas Nationalist Movement that’s pushing to—you guessed it—break away from the United States.

The strategic advantage of making an argument for the secession of an American state to an audience in central Moscow is hard to gauge; after all, it’s voters in the States who would decide this matter. But the value to Russian interests seems more obvious, at least in the estimation of the leader of a separate and competing California secession movement, who actually lives in the state.

“YesCalifornia isn’t a Californian movement,” said Jed Wheeler, the general secretary of the California National Party. “YesCalifornia is a movement whose optics are all designed for a Russian audience to reinforce [Vladimir] Putin, by talking about…how terrible America is, and reinforcing [the idea that] Putin is this great guy who is admired all over the world.”

While the conference was going on, of course, the Kremlin-led hacking campaign against the Democratic National Committee was having its effect on the American presidential election, a provocation that has unwound relations between Moscow and Washington (with the exception of the president-elect) to their lowest levels since the pre-Gorbachev days. Since the election, while Washington (again with the exception of the president-elect) debates what the response should be for Russia’s meddling in the American political process, Marinelli and his handful of supporters are flaunting their ties with Russia, or at least the ones they hope to build. To that end, in mid-December, Marinelli held a news conference, helpfully covered by the state-run RT television station, declaring the opening of a “California Embassy” in Moscow.

It would be easy to dismiss all this as nonsense driven by publicity-hungry amateurs, but people who know the Russian political playbook say winking at these fringe movements—and even giving them a boost—is a part of a very real strategy. Not only is this a way of puffing Russia’s domestic claims at turmoil in the U.S., but it fits firmly within the Kremlin’s modus operandi of cultivating fringe groups in the West—including, most especially, those who would fracture the United States in a reprise of the Soviet Union’s demise, over a quarter-century later.

***

Marinelli is by no means the first North American separatist who’s caught Moscow’s eye. In the late 1960s, the Kremlin considered cultivating Quebec separatists to further its own geopolitical ends, but eventually opted for more conventional means during the Cold War. For the past few years, however, those close to Moscow—including those whose books remain assigned to students at Russia’s General Staff Academy—have been constructing ties with white ethno-state separatists: the same brand that backed Donald Trump with such fervor in the presidential election. Recently, Russia’s gaze has fallen primarily upon Texas. As POLITICO Magazine found in mid-2015, actors tied to the Kremlin had begun cultivating links with higher-ups at the Texas Nationalist Movement, the most prominent separatist group in Texas. Russian backing for the cause ranges from meetings in St. Petersburg to chat about secession to Russian bots tweeting exhortations to “Free Texas!” There are even instances of local Russian officials barking calls to arm Mexico ­to reclaim territory lost to the U.S. (The second-most-popular Texas secessionist Facebook page, with its mangled English and Russian grammatical constructs, may well be a Kremlin Astroturf operation.)

But where the Texas Nationalist Movement has sought to blur its links in Moscow—you’ll find little public information about Smith’s visit to Russia in September—Marinelli hasn’t been nearly so coy about his Russian ties. Not only does Marinelli readily acknowledge he lives in Russia, but he has compared his planned California independence referendum with a Crimean “referendum” that was recognized by only a handful of tin-pot dictatorships. Marinelli has further compared his appeals to the Kremlin to, curiously, American revolutionaries’ pleas to Paris, positioning himself—or his Russian contacts—as something of a redux of Marquis de Lafayette.

But Marinelli’s rise to the forefront of the YesCalifornia campaign over the past few months has been unexpected for a handful of other reasons. Up until a few years ago, Marinelli—who, along with other YesCalifornia supporters, did not return multiple requests for comment from POLITICO Magazine—placed himself firmly on the theologically conservative end of the spectrum, working with the National Organization for Marriage to oppose same-sex marriage. Homophobia certainly has its supporters in the upper reaches of the Kremlin, but Marinelli has since recanted his views, making him far more palatable as an advocate for secession in one of the most liberal states in America.

That’s not the only puzzling thing in Marinelli’s background. He’s originally from New York, and up until 2014 he’d spent more years living in Russia than living in California. When he first latched onto the California independence movement, other members of the secession push quickly butted heads with Marinelli and his beliefs. Marinelli “seemed like bad news,” the California National Party’s Wheeler told POLITICO Magazine. “At the point where Louis Marinelli came out as an anti-vaxxer—he believes that vaccines are a federal government conspiracy—I said, ‘I want nothing to do with you—you’re freakin’ radioactive.’” While the California National Party, which models itself on the Scottish National Party, maintains a raft of progressive policies, ranging from infrastructural upkeep to universal health care, party higher-ups quickly realized that Marinelli’s views didn’t gel with the group’s political ends. Marinelli, after all, claims he supported Bernie Sanders’ candidacy during the 2016 Democratic primaries but admits that he voted for President-elect Trump in the general election. As Wheeler said, “Louis used [Hillary Clinton’s candidacy] as his excuse to say, ‘Oh, well I’m Bernie or bust, and this is my bust—and I’m moving to Russia.”’

Marinelli’s official reason for moving to Yekaterinburg, according to interviews he’s given to Russian media, stems from immigration issues for his wife, who is a Russian national. (“That’s bullshit,” Wheeler said, pointing out Marinelli’s inability to find a job in California.) Marinelli made the move sound like it was more principle than paycheck, telling Kremlin-funded RT that he “could no longer live under an American flag.”

Whatever the reason for the move, Marinelli quickly found a welcome in Russia from Ionov, the 20-something head of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, a group that describes its mission as “support[ing] countries and peoples who are opposing the dictates of a unipolar world and seeking an alternative agenda.” Ionov also maintains ties to Rodina, a group founded by Kremlin Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, and sits on the board of the Anti-Maidan organization, a group led by one of Putin’s friends that seeks to squelch anti-Kremlin rhetoric.

Ionov has organized at least two secessionist conferences in Russia since 2015. (For Ionov and his group, there’s apparently little difference between pushing secession in the West and advocating nominally anti-globalist positions.) The first conference featured representatives from Puerto Rican, black nationalist and Hawaiian independence movements—the latter of which was led by a convicted felon who’d spent 13 years in prison for stealing more than half a million dollars—alongside Irish splinter groups and Catalonians from Spain. This year, though, Ionov managed to land tens of thousands of dollars in Kremlin financing, enough to help expand his secessionist roster.

The Russian flag flies at half mast at the Consulate-General of Russia in San Francisco, California on Dec. 29, 2016.
The Russian flag flies at half mast at the Consulate-General of Russia in San Francisco, California on Dec. 29, 2016. | Getty
In September, sitting next to their counterparts from Italy’s far-right Northern League and Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region, Smith and Marinelli offered their spiels for their Russian audience. (At this point, the only U.S. secession movements, out of about half a dozen notable ones, that lack any clear Kremlin links are the so-called Cascadian (West Coast liberals who are toying with a bid to join Canada) and Alaskan groups.) In an interview with Salon following the conference, a representatives from the Texas Nationalist Movement offered the first, firm tie between Kremlin monies and American separatists, admitting that Ionov’s group helped finance the Texans’ travel to Moscow.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Ionov feigned surprise that those in the West would view his conferences—and his funding from the Kremlin—as cause for concern. “We’re working within the frame of international laws, and don’t want to violate international laws,” Ionov said. “I don’t understand why Western media says I want to destroy the West, or make U.S. states secede from the country.”

The notion, he said, that he’s a “Kremlin puppet, sent by Putin to destroy the West, is ridiculous.” (As Vice’s Alec Luhn found, Ionov’s office features a letter from Putin, thanking him for his “work to strengthen friendship between people.”)

Of course, Putin’s attaboy hasn’t stopped Ionov from offering his services to Western secession movements—while completely ignoring Russian separatists from places from Karelia or Siberia, who continue to be fined and jailed for their views. That’s because, for Ionov, such Russian separatist movements don’t actually exist.

“Nowadays,” Ionov told me via email over the summer, “the so-called Russian secession movements were artificially created by US intelligence in order to destabilize [the] political situation. … The western secession movements exist as an opposition to US imperialism, violence and hatred. And all of them love us, Russians, because we are good, kind and beautiful:))).”

***

Indeed, the notion that Russia is guiding American secessionist movements is, on its face, farcical; such movements, especially in Texas’ case, predate both Putin and post-Soviet Russia alike. But that doesn’t make the links—financial and otherwise—any less glaring. If anything, these ties are only growing. While a Trump victory may have taken the wind out of the sails of those who would like to return Texas to nationhood, interest in California’s independence push has spiked following the November election. Trump booster and Silicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel told the New York Times last week he is a proponent of secession. (“I think it would be good for California, good for the rest of the country,” Thiel said. “It would help Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.”) And thanks to the efforts of both Marinelli and Ionov, California now has its first, if unofficial, “embassy” abroad—located in, of all places, Moscow.

Backed by photos of Putin, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Muammar Qadhafi, Marinelli and Ionov officially unveiled the “embassy” in mid-December, pitching it as “bridge between California and Russia” and a way to “gain Russian support for California independence.” While the “embassy” won’t be issuing passports or visas anytime soon, the sham operation represents the most formal tie between Russia and those who’d wish independence for California. For good measure, Ionov sent me a photo of an “activist” wearing an Obama mask, ironing a tablecloth in front of a sign welcoming visitors to the “Embassy of the Independent Republic of California.”

And the action in this strange drama isn’t confined only to Russia.

A few weeks ago, members of YesCalifornia, meeting in San Francisco, attempted to hang a one-story-high banner highlighting the Kremlin’s support for their movement. (Their efforts were thwarted by an “undercover police officer,” a YesCalifornia rep later said.) As featured on a Russian propaganda outlet, the banner, unfurled by a pair of Marinelli’s colleagues, declared that “California and Russia will always be friends!”—and included, at the top, a larger-than-life shot of Putin, winking at those passing by.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... ing-214632

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzsPb1d-huM





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[seemslikeadream]

I can't believe you and Breitbart the KING OF NONSENSE but you go ahead keep lecturing me

I can't believe you would post such nonsense.

I am appalled how people who consider themselves feminists can selectively ignore incidents of mass sexual assault because it's not PC to pay attention to immigrants sexually assaulting teenage girls as young as 12.

This is how people's preconceived notions of proper political views have become more important to them than actual reality.

http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/04/dozens-of ... l-5985131/

Dozens of teens ‘sexually assaulted by foreign youths’ at popular music festival

Tanveer Mann for Metro.co.uk
Monday 4 Jul 2016 7:21 pm

Swedish police have received 35 complaints from young women after "foreign young men" went on an apparent two day rampage at a popular music festival, sexually assaulting young girls they found there. The actual number of girls attacked during the weekend festival are thought to be much higher, as within many of the 35 reports received by police, there are thought to be multiple complainants. Police started to receive reports from young women during the Kalstad 'Putte i Parken' (Party in the Park) on Friday and Saturday night, reports Svenska Dagbladet, with 24 received during the festival and another 11 coming afterward. karlstad Festival


Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/04/dozens-of ... z4ZO7HmFsz

So much wrong here.

The Metro? We're getting our news from British tabloid papers now? And the Metro's source? The Daily Mail !

"Police have received 35 complaints" and we basically have one "witness," if she is a real person:

Alexandra Larsson


If anyone can connect this photo with the Facebook account of a real person (I can't), post it here?

The whole article is based on her story, along with some other august news sources like Expressen (a Swedish taboid!) and—get this—Breitbart.

But in the Breitbart story the account is attributed to an unnamed "15 year old girl."

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/07 ... years-old/

Breitbart's most-cited source in its article is of course Breitbart. Along with more Swedish tabloids, including Expressen and another Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet, which Breitbart disingenuously calls Sweden's "best-selling newspaper" to lend it credibility, and which one of its own reporters says regards "the love life of Swedish tabloid celebrity Linda Rosing as equally important to the war in Iraq."

Breitbart helpfully points out that one of the first papers to report the "mass sex attacks" was Fria Tider ("Free Times"), a "Swedish immigration critical online magazine" (that's from the first sentence in the Wikipedia article, translated here) known as "libertarian conservative" and "part of the radical right-wing populist line environment," and "says it is inspired by paleoconservatism and paleolibertarianism." https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fria_Tider

Can we suppose there's a tiny chance that Fria Tider might exaggerate and sensationalize, if not fictionalize, such matters?

Lastly, in one paragraph Breitbart cites, for a measure of authority, an unnamed "police source."

Breitbart naturally claims the "actual number of girls attacked during the weekend festival are thought to be much higher" than thirty-five. Surely there are at least a dozen cell phone videos, I might look later. Yet only two arrests were made—16 year old and 17 year old boys.

And really, is "groping" the same as a "sex attack"? (—excuse me, dozens of sex attacks.) I really should go search those videos. They must be all over Swedish TV.

So we're basically getting all this through some yellow Swedish tabloids and a couple of rightwing online newspapers, Breitbart being one.


But wait! There's more!

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7577/sweden-migrants-sexual-assault


Sweden: Sexual Assaults at Swimming Pools
by Ingrid Carlqvist

March 7, 2016 at 5:00 am

Young male asylum seekers have turned Sweden's public swimming pools into ordeals of rape and sexual assault.

Swedish politicians seem convinced that some education on "equality" will change the ways of men, who, since childhood, have been taught that it is the responsibility of women not to arouse them -- and therefore the woman's fault if the man feels like raping her.

More and more Swedes are now avoiding public pools altogether.

Staff at Malmö's Hylliebadet family adventure pool were given strict instructions not to report certain things, and above all, never to mention the ethnicity or religion of those who cause problems at the pool.

"What the Afghans are doing is not wrong in Afghanistan, so your rules are completely alien to them. ... If you want to stop Afghans from molesting Swedish girls, you need to be tough on them. Making them take classes on equality and how to treat women is pointless. The first time they behave badly, they should be given a warning, and the second time you should deport them from Sweden." — Mr. Azizi, manager of a hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan

The Gatestone Institute?!

The Gatestone Institute, formerly Stonegate Institute and Hudson New York, is a nonpartisan, right-wing not-for-profit international policy council and think tank based in New York City with a specialization in strategy and defense issues

Gatestone was founded in 2012 by Nina Rosenwald, who serves as its president

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Board of Regents for the Center for Security Policy, and a former board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Rosenwald

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton is its chairman.
...
Gatestone publicizes the writings of authors, such as Alan Dershowitz, Robert Spencer, David Horowitz , Khaled Abu Toameh, Harold Rhode,[11] and Sebastian Gorka. [look up any of those guys to see who they hang with]
...
The Gatestone Institute has been accused of being islamophobic, and of promoting falsehoods and paranoia.

[You don't say!]
...

Max Blumenthal ...quoted Center for American Progress' report which claims that Rosenwald and her family have donated more than $2.8 million since 2000 to “organisations that fan the flames of Islamophobia”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatestone_Institute

Are these the people we're supposed to trust now?

and Rory so nice you have a reason to post here isn't it? If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have much to say...seems like I am doing you a favor I'll see if I can keep helping you with that for sure

I can't believe you would post such nonsense.

In an ocean of risible redbaiting nonsense, this angle has to be the most ridiculous. Desperate, straw clutching stuff.

[brekin]

I can't believe you would post such nonsense.

In an ocean of risible redbaiting nonsense, this angle has to be the most ridiculous. Desperate, straw clutching stuff.

Why don't you two quote something explicitly from the stories and debate the merits of what is said?
The US destabilizes countries like this all the time using such methods.
So does Russia.
Why wouldn't one do it to the other?
The "Russian blind spot/crush" on this board, combined with the incessant "US hawks ringing the bell for WWIII" is pretty one sided.
I hope you two have been at least promised "hot Russian brides", because this shilling for Putin for free is kind of strange.

[Nordic]

Because it's stupid propagandistic bullshit and isn't worth anyone's time.

We're supposed to take every claim seriously?

Don't be an idiot.

Go shill for CNN and the CIA somewhere else. This is supposed to be an anti-fascist board.

[seemslikeadream]

Putin’s Plot to Get Texas to Secede

For Moscow's right-wingers, payback means teaming up with a band of Texas secessionists.
By CASEY MICHEL June 22, 2015

Nathan Smith, who styles himself the “foreign minister” for the Texas Nationalist Movement, appeared last Spring at a far-right confab in St. Petersburg, Russia. Despite roaming around in his cowboy hat, Smith managed to keep a low-key presence at the conference, which was dominated by fascists and neo-Nazis railing against Western decadence. But at least one Russian newspaper, Vzglyad, caught up with the American, noted that TNM is “hardly a marginal group,”and quoted Smith liberally on the excellent prospects for a partial breakup of the United States. Smith declared that the Texas National Movement has 250,000 supporters—including all the Texans currently serving in the U.S. Army—and they all “identify themselves first and foremost as Texans” but are being forced to remain Americans. The United States, he added, “is not a democracy, but a dictatorship.” The Kremlin’s famed troll farms took the interview and ran with it, with dozens of bots instantly tweeting about a “Free Texas.”

For Russians, this was delicious payback. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union two decades ago, many Russians have come to blame the United States for their plight; a seething resentment over U.S. culpability in the loss of Russian national power is one of the reasons Vladimir Putin is so popular. It has only worsened since the United States has led an international effort to isolate and sanction Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and incursions into eastern Ukraine. Thus, over the past 15 months there has been a sudden, bizarro uptick of Russian interest in and around the American Southwest, most notably Texas, where secessionist sentiment never seems to entirely die out (TNM’s predecessor group, the “Republic of Texas,” disbanded after secessionist militants took hostages in 1997). In a rehash of the Soviet Union’s fate, numerous Russian voices have taken to envisioning an American break-up, E Pluribus Unum in inverse—out of one, many.


Nor is Texas the lone region for which Russia has cast secessionist support since the Crimean seizure. Venice, Scotland, Catalonia—the Russian media have voiced fervent support for secession in all these Western allies . (Of course, Moscow’s mantra—secession for thee, but not for me—means you’d be hard-pressed to find any Russian official offering support for Siberian, Tatar, or Chechen independence.) “Since the destabilization of the West is on Russia’s agenda, they may try to reach out to the U.S. separatists,” Anton Shekhovtsov, a researcher on Moscow’s links to far-right movements in Europe, told me. Russia wants a “deepening of social divisions in the American society, destabilizing the internal political life.” And certain Texans, rather than running from the taint of an authoritarian backing, have reciprocated.

As a political tack, none of this is completely new. Nearly a century ago, British codebreakers presented the American ambassador with a decrypted cable that came to be known as the Zimmermann Telegram, helping to cajole a recalcitrant United States into the Great War. And understandably so: In the deciphered text, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann alerted the Mexican government that, should the U.S. enter the war, “we shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer her lost territory of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona.” President Woodrow Wilson’s pledge to forgo war evaporated overnight.

Just a few months ago, a cousin of the Zimmermann Telegram was delivered by a Russian government official, directed squarely at an American government once more waffling about military intervention in the European theater. The speaker of Chechnya’s parliament, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, warned that should the U.S. increase its supply of arms to Kyiv, “we will begin delivery of new weapons to Mexico” and “resume debate on the legal status of the territories annexed by the United States, which are now the U.S. states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.” As to the putative destination for the weapons, Abdurakhmanov cited unspecified “guerrillas.” (Sealing his screed, Abdurakhmanov inexplicably cited Joe Biden as the creator of the current Ukrainian government.)

If his comment existed in a vacuum, Abdurakhmanov’s histrionics could be laughed off, another sign of Moscow’s ferment sapping logical discourse. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

***

It’s unclear just how high up these propaganda efforts go in the Kremlin. But it can hardly be an accident that last December, in the midst of the ruble’s parlous plummet, Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at putative Western hypocrisy. “As soon as they succeed in putting [our bear] on a chain, they will rip out his teeth and his claws,” the president growled. “We have heard many times from officials that it’s unfair that Siberia, with its immeasurable wealth, belongs entirely to Russia. Unfair, how do you like that? And grabbing Texas from Mexico was fair!” No matter that the U.S. never wrested Texas from Mexico. No matter that such annexation took place under the 19 th-century aegis of expansion and empire. The parallels, to Putin, are too good to pass up.

Russian state media, of course, took the Crimea-as-Texas analogy and sprinted off with it. According to Sputnik, the ballot-by-bayonet “referendum” in Crimea saw its historical precedent in Texas. “If one accepts the current status of Texas despite its controversial origin story, then they are more than obliged to recognize the future status of Crimea,” the outlet wrote. Again, if you overlook the reality that land grabs and forced annexations exist in a Victorian firmament, rather than a post-modern international order, then, sure, a faded parallel can emerge, but only if you squint past the prior 170 years of statecraft.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... ion-119288

Racists, Neo-Nazis, Far Right Flock to Russia for Joint Conference
The “fringe of the fringe” gathered in St. Petersburg on Sunday to rail against Freemasons, LGBT people, and “Zionist puppet filth.”

posted on Mar. 22, 2015, at 3:38 p.m.
Max Seddon

German far-right leader Udo Voigt speaks at the International Russian Conservative Forum in St. Petersburg on Sunday. Dmitry Lovetsky / AP
ST. PETERSBURG — A Scottish anti-abortion campaigner named Jim Dowson was railing against “Nazi fascists in the EU” in a hotel conference room when an image of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin riding a bear galloping through the Siberian wilderness appeared behind him.
“The salvation of my generation is the great Russian people, because Vladimir Putin understands that the rights of the majority should be put before the whims and perversions of the minority,” Dowson said. “Obama and America — they’re like females! They’re feminized men. You have been blessed by a man who is a man! And we envy that.”
Russia’s appeal to Europe’s fringe was on full show Sunday at the International Russian Conservative Forum, a conference organized by a pro-Kremlin ultranationalist party to cement far-right ties, as one participant put it, “from Gibraltar to Vladivostok.” United by their hatred of Washington, the European Union, and LGBT people, about 200 far-right politicians and activists from across Europe gathered in St. Petersburg’s Holiday Inn to rail against liberal tolerance and implore Russia to lead the fight for Christian morality.
“Constantinople has been and gone,” said Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party until last year. “Rome and the persons who came from Rome have gone the same way. It’s absolutely inevitable that in the lifetimes of most of the people in this room, Western Europe will either become an Islamist caliphate or there will be a terrible civil war or perhaps both. Which makes the survival of Christendom absolutely impossible without the rise of the Third Rome: Moscow.”
Since returning to Russia’s presidency in 2012 on the heels of unprecedented protests against him, Putin has sought to recast Russia as a bulwark of conservative values. Though designed to shore up political support at home, measures like bans on offending religious believers and “gay propaganda” have also struck a chord with many on the European right who now see the Kremlin as an ideological fellow traveler. Leaders of anti-immigrant parties across Europe have received enthusiastic welcomes in Moscow. Others have visited Crimea and rebel-held eastern Ukraine to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to separatists votes there as observers.
Russia has responded in kind. RT, the Kremlin’s foreign-language propaganda network, gives heavy airtime to insurgent European parties and rolling coverage to anti-EU demonstrations. A Russian bank gave France’s Front National — whose leader, Marine le Pen, is an open admirer of Putin’s — an $11.7 million loan last year. Many in Bulgaria saw a Russian hand in anti-fracking protests that helped reverse a shale gas deal with Chevron. One lawmaker from Hungary’s ultranationalist Jobbik party is even under investigation on charges of being a Russian intelligence agent.
Sunday’s conference aimed to formalize the relationship. Its program was adorned by a line from remarks Putin made in 2013 accusing Europe of backing away “from the Christian values at the foundation of European civilization.” Rodina, the party that organized the conference, caucuses with Putin’s United Russia party and enjoys the patronage of Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister who once led the party.
The very fact that the conference was happening at all suggested the Kremlin’s tacit approval, if not outright support. Last December, police repeatedly disrupted a streamed speech in the same venue by exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, arguably Putin’s top critic, then ended it by turning off the hotel’s electricity. Former Kremlin spin doctor Stanislav Belkovsky had to move a lecture for Khodorkovsky’s foundation in St. Petersburg twice after similar harassment on Saturday. Eight members of a small crowd that gathered outside the Holiday Inn to protest the conference were arrested.

Dmitry Lovetsky / AP
Rhetoric at the conference, however, outstripped — and sometimes contradicted — Russia’s official line. Of the three members of the European Parliament there, one, Germany’s Udo Voigt, has described Adolf Hitler as a “great German statesman.” The other two hail from Greece’s Golden Dawn, whose logo is a barely disguised swastika. “It’s a bizarre lineup,” Jared Taylor, an American “racial realist,” told BuzzFeed News. “It’s the fringe of the fringe.” Speakers railed, variously, against Freemasons; the corrupting influence of Hollywood; “Nazi fascists in the EU”; a “global cabal” of “bloodsucking oligarchs”; non-white immigrants practicing “alien traditions”; “fags and dykes”; and “Zionist puppet filth.”
This may have proved a bit much in Russia, where Putin frequently rails against “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine and has raised rhetoric over World War II to levels unseen since Soviet times. Rodina’s leader, lawmaker Alexei Zhuravlev, had been scheduled to open the conference, but mysteriously failed to appear. “I have to go to Donbass immediately,” he tweeted on Friday, using a Russian name for the conflict zone in east Ukraine. “It’s an urgent matter. No further details.” Igor Morozov, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, also dropped out. State TV crews were conspicuously absent.
Conference speakers insisted their critics had it all wrong. “Everything that’s happening in the Donbass is anti-fascism. Everything that Ukraine does is fascism. There’s no other fascism in the world,” said Alexei Zhivov, leader of an obscure organization called the Battle for Donbass. Others tried to outdo each other in their fealty to Russia and Putin personally. “It is striking how cleverly and subtly President Putin is avoiding armed conflict,” said Voigt, the German far-right leader. Kris Roman, a Belgian man who runs a “think tank” called Euro-Rus that appears to consist solely of himself, listed several Kremlin critics who were murdered or died suspiciously. “I know where they live,” he said. “They live in hell.”
The irony of denouncing fascism and Nazism while espousing essentially the same views seemed to be lost on some participants. Dowson, the anti-abortion campaigner, called Obama a Nazi. “I don’t find it derogatory to be called a fascist,” Roberto Fiore, a former European lawmaker from Italy, told BuzzFeed News — apparently having forgotten that he signed an “anti-fascist memorandum” in Crimea last August. Russian nationalists who have fought alongside separatists in Ukraine handed out patches embossed with a kolovrat, a Slavic pagan equivalent to the swastika. “They have no idea,” Taylor, the American, said. “Well, they have an idea, but it’s a wrong idea.”
The conference, slated to last for eight hours, was forced to end early after the hotel reported a bomb threat. Organizers announced that it was a hoax and shepherded participants away to sign a joint resolution on the next steps for the movement, then awkwardly milled around when it emerged that none of them had actually read it.
The flurry of press attention alone seemed to justify the price of admission — attendees paid for their own flights — for many. Griffin said he hoped that the conference was just the start of more help from Russia. “If someone offered you a pot of money, would you take it?” he said.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/euro ... .amoR0RNqO

Despite roaming around in his cowboy hat, Smith managed to keep a low-key presence at the conference, which was dominated by fascists and neo-Nazis railing against Western decadence. But at least one Russian newspaper, Vzglyad, caught up with the American, noted that TNM is “hardly a marginal group,”and quoted Smith liberally on the excellent prospects for a partial breakup of the United States. Smith declared that the Texas National Movement has 250,000 supporters—including all the Texans currently serving in the U.S. Army—and they all “identify themselves first and foremost as Texans” but are being forced to remain Americans. The United States, he added, “is not a democracy, but a dictatorship.”

«У нас нет причин оставаться в составе США»


«Мы хотим, чтобы по утрам в школах Техаса поднимался флаг Техаса. Мы хотим, чтобы Техас был Техасом», – заявляет представитель техасского националистического движения Натан Смит 23 марта 2015, 08:36
Фото: из личного архива
Текст: Юрий Богданов
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«Нам нужна независимость, потому что мы другие. Мы абсолютно не согласны с политикой федерального правительства США», – заявил в интервью газете ВЗГЛЯД глава штаба «Националистического движения Техаса» Натан Смит. Представитель техасских сепаратистов, прибывший в Москву, пояснил: лидер движения Дэниэл Миллер приехать не смог, поскольку власти Вашингтона запретили ему выезд из страны.

6
В пятницу, 20 марта, в Москву из Хьюстона прибыл один из лидеров малоизвестной в России организации «Националистическое движение Техаса» (НДТ) Натан Смит. Всем известен феномен техасского сепаратизма, и многие слышали, что «Техас хочет или когда-то хотел отделиться от США». Так вот, НДТ является крупнейшей и основной организацией в Америке, которая выступает за независимость Техаса.

«Если посмотреть и просто посчитать, сколько мы отдаем федеральному правительству, то все становится ясно»

Центральный офис НДТ находится в столице Техаса – Остине. Отделения организации сепаратистов есть по всему штату, от уже упомянутого самого крупного города Техаса – Хьюстона – и до маленьких городков.
Натан Смит является третьим человеком в организации НДТ и занимает должность начальника штаба, также ответственного за международные связи (в гипотетической самопровозглашенной республике он стал бы главой МИДа) и за казну организации. Всю свою жизнь Смит состоит в националистическом техасском движении и является ярым сторонником отделения Техаса. Мечта 35–40 летнего американца – иметь паспорт Республики Техас, по которому «он мог бы ездить к друзьям».

К слову, по словам Смита, президента «Националистического движения Техаса» Дэниэла Миллера из США не выпускают. Техасцу просто-напросто не выдают паспорт. Он не раз обращался в компетентные органы и даже писал заявление, но все тщетно: как объяснил Натан Смит, Миллер невыездной, что, по утверждению Смита – прямое подтверждение того, что федеральные власти воспринимают сепаратистов всерьез.

Заметим, что идея независимости Техаса – не такая уж «ненаучная фантастика». У одного из самых богатых штатов есть опыт собственной государственности. Причем не мятежно-сепаратистской (как в случае с Конфедерацией времен гражданской войны), а международно признанной.

Как известно, исторически территория Техаса, так же как и Калифорнии, Нью-Мексико и в целом всего Юго-Запада нынешних США, входила сначала в состав испанских владений, а впоследствии – в состав Мексики. В начале XIX века территория Техаса начала активно заселяться колонистами из соседних США, чье количество быстро превысило численность мексиканских поселенцев. К 1830-м годам выходцы из США начали требовать автономии. После того как правительство мексиканского диктатора Антонио де Санта-Анны попыталось жестко подавить движение сторонников автономизации, 2 декабря 1835 года народное ополчение Техаса начало войну за независимость. США не вмешивались в конфликт, но тысячи добровольцев из Штатов активно принимали участие в войне на стороне ополченцев, в том числе и на командных должностях.

Даже краткая справка о Техасской войне потребовала бы отдельной статьи. Достаточно лишь упомянуть, что оборона крепости Аламо (которую защищало от 183 до 250 ополченцев под руководством добровольца из США полковника Джеймса Боуи против 2,5 тыс. мексиканцев под командованием лично президента Санта-Анны) вошла не только в техасскую, но и в общеамериканскую историю как хрестоматийный пример воинской храбрости. А имена первого командира ополчения Стивена Остина и первого президента сампопровозглашенной республики Сэма Хьюстона носят, соответственно, столица штата и самый крупный город.

НА ЭТУ ТЕМУ
США достигли установленного законом лимита госдолга
Хиллари Клинтон пытаются завалить письмами
"Википедия" обвиняет США в глобальной слежке
ЦРУ начинает перестройку внутри себя
Санкции США нужно рассматривать как вечные
Ключевые слова: США, сепаратизм, интервью, США и Россия
После того, как 1836 году ополченцы разбили мексиканскую армию и взяли в плен главнокомандующего, президента Санта-Анну, Мексика была вынуждена признать независимость Техасской республики. И лишь десятилетие спустя, после того как Мексика потерпела поражение уже в войне с Соединенными Штатами (и США присоединили к себе территорию современных Калифорнии, Нью-Мексико, Аризоны, Невады и Юты), суверенная Техасская республика вошла в состав США – и сразу на правах штата, а не территории. Сторонники независимости Техаса – и в том числе движение «Республика Техас», существующее с 1950-х годов – утверждают, что решение о вхождении в союз было подтасованным, государство было незаконно аннексировано и, следовательно, находится под американской оккупацией. Отметим, что НДТ сложно назвать маргинальной группой. По утверждению руководства движения, в данной организации состоит более 250 тысяч человек. Интересно, что члены организации есть не только в штате Техас. Сепаратистов поддерживают в 254 округах (самая крупная территориальная единица штата в США – прим. ВЗГЛЯД) и во всех 50 штатах США.
Натан Смит прибыл в Москву, как он сказал, по приглашению друзей. Привез его лидер «Антиглобалистского движения России» Александр Ионов. «Американский и европейский сепаратизм набирает обороты. Различные делегации из США и Европы, которые отстаивают право своих наций на самоопределение, тесно сотрудничают друг с другом. Каталонцы, фламандцы и теперь техасцы собираются провести конференцию в ДНР в 2015 году», – сказал Ионов.

«Техас – это второй по величине штат США. С другой стороны, организация в 250 тысяч человек – это все-таки совершенно другой разговор», – уверен Ионов.

Техасца было просто узнать – на нем была традиционная ковбойская шляпа-стетсон. Газета ВЗГЛЯД встретилась с Натаном Смитом в ресторане с говорящим названием «Страна, которой нет» и поговорила о настоящем и будущем Техаса.

ВЗГЛЯД: Зачем вы приехали в Москву?

Натан Смит: Я приехал в Москву по приглашению моих друзей из «Антиглобалистского движения России». Я собираюсь встретиться с рядом общественных организаций, которые близки нам по духу и имеют с нами общие ценности. Я приехал к друзьям.

ВЗГЛЯД: Вы часто ездите по миру?

Н. С.: Нет, у техасцев нет такой традиции. Это моя вторая поездка за границу и второй раз, как я приехал в Россию.

ИНТЕРВЬЮ / ПОЛИТИКА

Александр Ослон: Фейк – это самый большой вызов для нашей работы
Сергей Фомченков: Все хотят освобождения всех земель Новороссии
Ричард Спенсер: Мы нередко называли Трампа «богом-императором»
Джульетто Кьеза: От всех европолитиков требуется мысленная перестройка
Анатолий Саватеев: У Джамме возникали серьезные симпатии к ИГИЛ
ВЗГЛЯД: Цель вашей организации – независимость для штата Техас. Культурная, политическая и экономическая независимость. ВВП Техаса превышает 1 трлн долларов США. Это второй показатель среди всех штатов Америки. Экономически Техас можно сравнить с Канадой. Зачем вам нужна независимость, если у вас и так все хорошо?
Н. С.: Нет, все совсем не хорошо. Ответ прост: нам нужна независимость, потому что мы другие. Техас – это огромная территория, это отдельная страна со своей уникальной культурой и бытом. Мы хотим иметь свои паспорта. У нас совершенно иное видение мира и взгляды на политику. Мы абсолютно не согласны с политикой федерального правительства США. У нас совершенно другой образ жизни.

У нас высоко развито скотоводство. Оно и дает нам основную массу продукции. Этого нет ни в одном другом штате США. У нас ковбойский стиль жизни. Ковбои имеют культурную традицию активно перемещаться по стране крупными группами. Более того, у Техаса есть все для того, чтобы существовать в качестве независимого государства. Скажите мне, если мы другие и у нас есть все, зачем нам быть в составе США? Зачем нам быть в составе союза, который нам ничего не дает, а только забирает?

ВЗГЛЯД: Известно, что огромное количество военнослужащих США – это выходцы из Техаса. Эти люди сражаются за Америку. С другой стороны, как вы сами говорите, ваша организация насчитывает 250 тысяч человек и выступает за отделение от США. Как эти два факта уживаются вместе?

Н. С.: Да, это правда, армия США укомплектована как минимум на 20 процентов жителями Техаса. Но эти люди идентифицируют себя в первую очередь как техасцы – и только после этого как американцы. Это распространено в нашем штате – мы техасцы. У нас нет ненависти к США. Но основная причина существования нашей организации состоит в том, что мы не есть США, мы есть Техас.

Что касается службы в армии, есть много причин, почему техасцы активно служат в американской армии. Людям нужна работа, в армии им платят. После службы в армии можно получить стипендию для учебы в колледжах и университетах США. Здесь нет конфликта интересов. Техасец может служить в армии и в то же время поддерживать независимость Техаса.

Я знаю большое количество таких военных, да, они воюют за США в Ираке, Афганистане, в других местах, но у каждого на это есть свои личные и семейные причины. Одновременно с этим они поддерживают независимость своей родины. Более того, многие не знают, но в Техасе есть своя армия – Техасская национальная гвардия. Федеральное правительство специально создало такие условия, что в ней нельзя сделать карьеру, там платят низкие зарплаты, поэтому многие и идут в армию США.

ВЗГЛЯД: Техас – богатейший штат. Всем известно, что Техас – кладовая энергоресурсов. Почему у многих экономическая необходимость идти на службу в армию?

Н. С.: Потому что федеральное правительство больше забирает, нежели дает Техасу. Понимаете, в этом и проблема. Это мы и пытаемся объяснить всем. Техас ничего не получает от федерального правительства США. Ровным счетом ничего. А все наши богатства идут на благоустройство других штатов. Вся экономическая система США в огромной опасности. Правительство не контролирует расходы.

У США огромный госдолг, который превышает ВВП страны. И самое важное здесь – у сегодняшней экономической ситуации нет решения, они просто печатают деньги и распространяют их по штатам. У нас нет причин оставаться в составе США. Союз только забирает у нас и ничего не дает взамен.

ВЗГЛЯД: Хорошо, вы, техасцы, другие. У вас другая культура и обычаи, вы не похожи на других жителей американских штатов. Но зачем вам независимость? В США живет огромное количество разных национальностей, представителей различных культур. Разве вашу культуру и быт кто-то притесняет?

Н. С.: Возьмем хотя бы систему образования. Федеральное правительство хочет учить наших детей таким образом, каким считает нужным для США. У нас другой взгляд на вещи. Мы не хотим, чтобы наши дети были такими, какими их делает американское образование. Мы хотим, чтобы наши дети изучали историю Техаса. Никто не против США или истории США, ее мы тоже будем преподавать.

Федеральное правительство искусственно пытается создать американскую идентичность. Мы этого не хотим. Они учат, что национализм – это плохо. Почему плохо? Разве плохо быть патриотом своего края? С другой стороны, они подгоняют всех под единые рамки, учат детей быть американскими националистами. Быть националистом Техаса – это плохо, а быть националистом мифического союза штатов – хорошо. Это не для техасцев. Вот и все. Мы хотим, чтобы по утрам в школах Техаса поднимался флаг Техаса. Мы хотим, чтобы Техас был Техасом.

ПОПУЛЯРНЫЕ МАТЕРИАЛЫ
Сергей Худиев: Один из секретов успеха Запада
Переехавшая из Германии из-за уроков «сексуального просвещения» семья сбежала из России
Белоруссия обнаружила свою тысячелетнюю государственность
Безвизовый режим для Украины содержит в себе скрытую ловушку
Андрей Бабицкий: Бархатная деприватизация – тест на осуществимость
Яндекс.Директ
Новости с Борисом Кольцовым
etvnet.com
Аналитический взгляд на основные события недели в Северной Америке.
Объявление скрыто.
ВЗГЛЯД: Если предположить, что Техас когда-то, в далеком будущем, обретет независимость, техасцы будут жить лучше, чем сейчас?
Н. С.: Именно. У нас нет никаких сомнений в этом. Если посмотреть и просто посчитать, сколько мы отдаем федеральному правительству, то все становится ясно. Посмотрите хотя бы на военные расходы США. Зачем они? Какой смысл простым техасцам платить из своего кармана за поддержку астрономического военного бюджета? Мы не согласны с этой политикой.

Сегодня в США есть три уровня власти: городское правительство, правительство штата и федеральное правительства США. Это слишком много (смеется). Людям не нужно столько правительств. Более того, давайте посмотрим на власть. Сегодня во власти просто-напросто нет людей, которые бы представляли интересы техасцев. Житель Техаса может поехать в столицу штата, в Остин, и встретиться с представителями местной власти. Но встретиться, хотя бы в составе группы, с федеральным сенатором, представляющим интересы жителей штата, абсолютно невозможно. Мы просто не знаем, чем они занимаются. У них нет на нас времени. Соответственно, и нам это просто не нужно. И одновременно с этим мы платим налоги, которые идут в Вашингтон. Скажите, зачем нам это?

ВЗГЛЯД: У вас, у техасцев, были свои президенты. Вспомнить хотя бы семейство Бушей. И все равно вы считаете, что ваши интересы никто не представляет?

Н. С.: Да, именно так мы считаем. Например, Джордж Буш-младший родился в штате Коннектикут. Он не техасец. Да, он был губернатором Техаса. Скажу вам честно, некоторые консервативные черты его правления нравились жителям Техаса, но в целом – нет, это не то, что нам нужно. Он продолжил увеличение военных расходов, вел войны за счет техасцев, поднимал налоги. Система образования осталась такой же, какой была. Техас от его правления не получил ничего хорошего. Кстати, нынешний президент США, Барак Обама, делает то же самое, что делал Джордж Буш-младший. Более того, мы все наблюдаем, как власть федерального центра усиливается, а мнение штатов никто не слушает. Обама даже не спрашивает законодательную власть, он просто издает указы президента. Это не демократия, это диктатура. Это плохо для страны, и самое важное для нас – это плохо для Техаса.
http://vz.ru/politics/2015/3/23/735599.html

[semper occultus]

The US destabilizes countries like this all the time using such methods.
So does Russia.
Why wouldn't one do it to the other?

....this shilling for Putin for free is kind of strange.

...."all the time" being the operative term....( Zinoviev Letter anyone ? ) ...the sudden relentlessly co-ordinated spinning of this theme NOW is ofcourse not related to anything remotely novel that state agencies are actually doing but is everything to do with inverted neo-McCarthyism aimed to smear & discredit a now sizeable & electorally consequential minority of pissed off people as we start to hove into view of the second decade of the new post-2008 "normal" - pointing this out doesn't constitute shilling in my view

[liminalOyster]

It's always struck me that the big truth of the cold war is best found in a kind of plebeian psychologism - our propaganda of the enemy is the best barometer of the truth of ourselves. So if I'm learning anything right now, it's that I can be a little more confident when talking down my skepticism about the degree of nefarious involvement that the US maintains at all levels of foreign nation's business.

Seems like most of what's being argued about here is whether or not all this activity comprises the flutterings of a new cold war (re-containment of 9/11 as genie in the bottle that wrought the new middle east) or a new hot war (some sort of scary shock doctrine stuff as yet unwitnessed.)

Is it ever OK anymore to simply find solidarity across political difference in the "We are so so fucked" refrain?

[0_0]

The whole idea that Russia "hacked the elections" is so preposterous.. did they hack the voting machines? Hypnotize the voters? Did all the people who voted Trump did so against their will? Claiming russia hacked the elections is basically saying around half of the american voters are somehow "unfit" to vote, which is a very undemocratic position. Not saying Trump (or Russia) is any better and i guess that's the "we're all so fucked" part.

All these other minor "russia did it" spins coming out now (russia is behind califexit, russia is behind texodus, russia misplaced my socks) are just extensions of this "russia hacked the elections" ... meme. Goodluck keeping sane in 2017!

[Nordic]

Right, Russia magically works a hypnotic mind-control on the American citizenry.

But CNN and the entire onslaught of the American media industry does not.

Ok.

If you believe that, the Americans have done their job FRIGHTENINGLY well.

[seemslikeadream]

Playtime is over


The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."

In the United States:

Russia should use its special forces within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism. For instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."

United Kingdom should be cut off from Europe.

Russia needs to create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey

Playtime is over

By Charlie Stross

So I've had a week now for the outcome of last Tuesday's US election to sink in, and I've been doing some thinking and some research, and my conclusion is that either I'm wearing a tinfoil hat or things are much, much worse than most people imagine.

Nearly four years ago I wrote about the Beige Dictatorship, and predicted:

Overall, the nature of the problem seems to be that our representative democratic institutions have been captured by meta-institutions that implement the iron law of oligarchy by systematically reducing the risk of change. They have done so by converging on a common set of policies that do not serve the public interest, but minimize the risk of the parties losing the corporate funding they require in order to achieve re-election. And in so doing, they have broken the "peaceful succession when enough people get pissed off" mechanism that prevents revolutions. If we're lucky, emergent radical parties will break the gridlock (here in the UK that would be the SNP in Scotland, possibly UKIP in England: in the USA it might be the new party that emerges if the rupture between the Republican realists like Karl Rove and the Tea Party radicals finally goes nuclear), but within a political generation (two election terms) it'll be back to oligarchy as usual.

Well, I was optimistic. The tea party radicals have gone nuclear, but I wasn't counting on a neo-Nazi running the White House, or on the Kremlin stepping in ...

Let me explain.

A few years ago, wandering around the net, I stumbled on a page titled "Why Japan lost the Second World War". (Sorry, I can't find the URL.) It held two photographs. The first was a map of the Pacific Theater used by the Japanese General Staff. It extended from Sakhalin in the north to Australia in the south, from what we now call Bangladesh in the west, to Hawaii in the east. The second photograph was the map of the war in the White House. A Mercator projection showing the entire planet. And the juxtaposition explained in one striking visual exactly why the Japanese military adventure against the United States was doomed from the outset: they weren't even aware of the true size of the battleground.

I'd like you to imagine what it must have been like to be a Japanese staff officer. Because that's where we're standing today. We think we're fighting local battles against Brexit or Trumpism. But in actuality, they're local fronts in a global war. And we're losing because we can barely understand how big the conflict is.

(NB: By "we", I mean folks who think that the Age of Enlightenment, the end of monarchism, and the evolution of Liberalism are good things. If you disagree with this, then kindly hold your breath until your head explodes. (And don't bother commenting below: I'll delete and ban you on sight.))

The logjam created by the Beige Dictatorship was global, throughout the western democracies; and now it has broken. But it didn't break by accident, and the consequences could be very bad indeed.

What happened last week is not just about America. It was one move—a very significant one, bishop-takes-queen maybe—in a long-drawn-out geopolitical chess game. It's being fought around the world: Brexit was one move, the election and massacres of Dutarte in the Philippines were another, the post-coup crackdown in Turkey is a third. The possible election of Marine Le Pen (a no-shit out-of-the-closet fascist) as President of France next year is more of this stuff. The eldritch knot of connections between Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Da'esh in the wreckage of Syria is icing on top. It's happening all over and I no longer think this is a coincidence.

Part of it is about the geopolitics of climate change (and mass migration and water wars). Part of it is about the jarring transition from an oil-based economy (opposed by the factions who sell oil and sponsor denial climate change, from Exxon-Mobil to the Kremlin) to a carbon-neutral one.

Part of it is the hellbrew of racism and resentment stirred up by loss of relative advantage, by the stagnation of wages in the west and the perception that other people somewhere else are stealing all the money—Chinese factories, Wall Street bankers, the faceless Other. (17M people in the UK have less than £100 in savings; by a weird coincidence, the number of people who voted for Brexit was around 17M. People who are impoverished become desperate and angry and have little investment in the status quo—a fancy way of saying they've got nothing to lose.)

But another big part of the picture I'm trying to draw is Russia's long-drawn out revenge for the wild ride of misrule the neoconservatives inflicted on the former USSR in the 1990s.

Stripped of communism, the old guard didn't take their asset-stripping by neoliberals during the Clinton years lying down; they no more morphed into whitebread Americans than the Iraqis did during the occupation. They developed a reactionary playbook; a fellow called Alexander Dugin wrote The Foundations of Geopolitics, and it's been a set text in the Russian staff college for the past two decades. A text that proposes a broad geopolitical program for slavic (Russian) dominance over Asia, which is to be won by waging a global ideological war against people like us. "In principle, Eurasia and our space, the heartland Russia, remain the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution. ... The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us. This common civilizational impulse will be the basis of a political and strategic union."

I don't want to sound like a warmed-over cold warrior or a swivel-eyed conspiracy theorist. However, the authoritarian faction currently ascendent in Putin's Russia seem to be running their country by this book. Their leaders remember how the KGB (newly reformed last month) handled black propaganda and disinformation, and they have people who know how new media work and who are updating the old time Moscow rules for a new century. Trump's Russian connections aren't an accident—they may be the most important thing about him, and Russia's sponsorship of extreme right neo-fascist movements throughout Europe is an alarming part of the picture. China isn't helping, either: they're backing authoritarian regimes wherever they seem useful, for the same reason the US State Department under Henry Kissinger backed fascists throughout central and south America in the 1970s—it took a generation to fix the damage from Operation Condor, and that was local (at least, confined to a single continent).

Trying to defeat this kind of attack through grass-roots action at local level ... well, it's not useless, it's brave and it's good, but it's also Quixotic. With hindsight, the period from December 26th, 1991 to September 11th, 2001, wasn't the end of history; it was the Weimar Republic repeating itself, and now we're in the dirty thirties. It's going to take more than local action if we're to climb out of the mass grave the fascists have been digging for us these past decades. It's going to take international solidarity and a coherent global movement and policies and structures I can barely envisage if we're going to rebuild the framework of shared progressive values that have been so fatally undermined.

We haven't lost yet.

But if we focus too narrowly on the local context, we will lose, because there is a de facto global fascist international at work, they've got a game plan, they're quite capable of applying the methods of Operation Condor on a global scale, and if we don't work out how to push back globally fast there will be nobody to remember our graves.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... -over.html

About the Foundations of Geopolitics by Alexander Dugin (via wikipedia, my bold):

Germany should be offered the de facto political dominance over most Protestant and Catholic states located within Central and Eastern Europe. Kaliningrad oblast could be given back to Germany. The book uses the term a "Moscow-Berlin axis".[1]
France should be encouraged to form a "Franco-German bloc" with Germany. Both countries have a "firm anti-Atlanticist tradition".[1]
United Kingdom should be cut off from Europe.[1]
Finland should be absorbed into Russia. Southern Finland will be combined with the Republic of Karelia and northern Finland will be "donated to Murmansk Oblast".[1]
Estonia should be given to Germany's sphere of influence.[1]
Latvia and Lithuania should be given a "special status" in the Eurasian-Russian sphere.[1]
Poland should be granted a "special status" in the Eurasian sphere.[1]
Romania, Macedonia, "Serbian Bosnia" and Greece – "orthodox collectivist East" – will unite with the "Moscow the Third Rome" and reject the "rational-individualistic West".[1]
Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "“Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.[1]

In the Middle East and Central Asia:

The book stresses the "continental Russian-Islamic alliance" which lies "at the foundation of anti-Atlanticist strategy". The alliance is based on the "traditional character of Russian and Islamic civilization".
Iran is a key ally. The book uses the term "Moscow-Tehran axis".[1]
Armenia has a special role and will serve as a "strategic base" and it is necessary to create "the [subsidiary] axis Moscow-Erevan-Teheran". Armenians "are an Aryan people … [like] the Iranians and the Kurds".[1]
Azerbaijan could be "split up" or given to Iran.[1]
Georgia should be dismembered. Abkhazia and "United Ossetia" (which includes Georgia's South Ossetia) will be incorporated into Russia. Georgia's independent policies are unacceptable.[1]
Russia needs to create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey. These can be achieved by employing Kurds, Armenians and other minorities.[1]
The book regards the Caucasus as a Russian territory, including "the eastern and northern shores of the Caspian (the territories of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan)" and Central Asia (mentioning Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirghistan and Tajikistan).[1]

In Asia:

China, which represents a danger to Russia, "must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled". Dugin suggests that Russia start by taking Tibet-Xinjiang-Mongolia-Manchuria as a security belt.[2] Russia should offer China help "in a southern direction – Indochina (except Vietnam), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia" as geopolitical compensatation.[1]
Russia should manipulate Japanese politics by offering the Kuril Islands to Japan and provoking anti-Americanism.[1]
Mongolia should be absorbed into Eurasia-Russia.[1]

The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."

In the United States:

Russia should use its special forces within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism. For instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."[1]

The Eurasian Project could be expanded to South and Central America.[1]

A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump

Has the bureau investigated this material?
David Corn Oct. 31, 2016 6:52 PM

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey set off a political blast when he informed congressional leaders that the bureau had stumbled across emails that might be pertinent to its completed inquiry into Hillary Clinton's handling of emails when she was secretary of state. The Clinton campaign and others criticized Comey for intervening in a presidential campaign by breaking with Justice Department tradition and revealing information about an investigation—information that was vague and perhaps ultimately irrelevant—so close to Election Day. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government…The public has a right to know this information."

Reid's missive set off a burst of speculation on Twitter and elsewhere. What was he referring to regarding the Republican presidential nominee? At the end of August, Reid had written to Comey and demanded an investigation of the "connections between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign," and in that letter he indirectly referred to Carter Page, an American businessman cited by Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers, who had financial ties to Russia and had recently visited Moscow. Last month, Yahoo News reported that US intelligence officials were probing the links between Page and senior Russian officials. (Page has called accusations against him "garbage.") On Monday, NBC News reported that the FBI has mounted a preliminary inquiry into the foreign business ties of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chief. But Reid's recent note hinted at more than the Page or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.

Does this mean the FBI is investigating whether Russian intelligence has attempted to develop a secret relationship with Trump or cultivate him as an asset? Was the former intelligence officer and his material deemed credible or not? An FBI spokeswoman says, "Normally, we don't talk about whether we are investigating anything." But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.

In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) "It started off as a fairly general inquiry," says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."

This was, the former spy remarks, "an extraordinary situation." He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was "sufficiently serious" to share with the FBI.

Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him." It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on "bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls."

The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was "shock and horror." The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump's inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. "It's quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on," he says.

"This is something of huge significance, way above party politics," the former intelligence officer comments. "I think [Trump's] own party should be aware of this stuff as well."

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding the memos. In the past, Trump has declared, "I have nothing to do with Russia."

The FBI is certainly investigating the hacks attributed to Russia that have hit American political targets, including the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton's presidential campaign. But there have been few public signs of whether that probe extends to examining possible contacts between the Russian government and Trump. (In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous online reports that a computer server related to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia. On Monday, a Slate investigation detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, "We don't yet know what this [Trump] server was for, but it deserves further explanation." In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, "The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.")

According to several national security experts, there is widespread concern in the US intelligence community that Russian intelligence, via hacks, is aiming to undermine the presidential election—to embarrass the United States and delegitimize its democratic elections. And the hacks appear to have been designed to benefit Trump. In August, Democratic members of the House committee on oversight wrote Comey to ask the FBI to investigate "whether connections between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests may have contributed to these [cyber] attacks in order to interfere with the US. presidential election." In September, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrats on, respectively, the Senate and House intelligence committees, issued a joint statement accusing Russia of underhanded meddling: "Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election." The Obama White House has declared Russia the culprit in the hacking capers, expressed outrage, and promised a "proportional" response.

There's no way to tell whether the FBI has confirmed or debunked any of the allegations contained in the former spy's memos. But a Russian intelligence attempt to co-opt or cultivate a presidential candidate would mark an even more serious operation than the hacking.

In the letter Reid sent to Comey on Sunday, he pointed out that months ago he had asked the FBI director to release information on Trump's possible Russia ties. Since then, according to a Reid spokesman, Reid has been briefed several times. The spokesman adds, "He is confident that he knows enough to be extremely alarmed."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... nald-trump

John Crazy Ass NeoCon Bolton questions if Russian hacks were ‘false flag’
http://thehill.com/homenews/309897-bolt ... false-flag

Trump Mystery Man in Moscow Carter Page,....Ukraine, Crimea coverage is example of ‘fake news’
https://www.rt.com/news/369828-russia-a ... p-advisor/