Is Russia Behind a Secession Effort in California?

[km artlu]

Dear liminalOyster

How dare you? What's with this thinking for yourself thing?

There you go collating independent observations; connecting various data points; etc., while there's a full half page of pasta from slad right above for you to read and believe.

This is most disturbing. I may even be triggered now.

[norton ash]

I thought Liminal's piece was a good caution against bright lines and hard sides in assessing this mess.

[82_28]

I thought Liminal's piece was a good caution against bright lines and hard sides in assessing this mess.

I did as well. All I can say is chill the fuck out and don't make shit (virtually) personal. We're all here (Earth) and no gettin' around it for now. As far as we know. . .

[liminalOyster]

I thought Liminal's piece was a good caution against bright lines and hard sides in assessing this mess.

I did as well. All I can say is chill the fuck out and don't make shit (virtually) personal. We're all here (Earth) and no gettin' around it for now. As far as we know. . .

I didn't mean to make it personal. SLAD in particular has clearly done a lot of homework and seems like a pretty sharp shooter so I'm genuinely curious how she integrates the basic Greenwald et al cautions (predictable as those may be) into her own.

[Elvis]

I thought Liminal's piece was a good caution against bright lines and hard sides in assessing this mess.

I agree, and well put, liminal and norton.

I think one big factor is that the United States has abused its overwhelming sole superpower status, "projecting American power" to the point of presenting a clear danger to most of the world (including the U.S. itself), not to mention the massive destruction already wrought by the U.S. in its target countries so far since 2001. Consequently, any number of countries are going to do what they can, as a matter of survival, to weaken the U.S.

A very few people are going to make a lot of money—much of it yours, if you're a U.S. taxpayer—off this new cold war scare militarism.

Just like before. Meet the new boss. "Believe me this time!"

Dick Cheney climbing out of his bunker, peering through the haze: "Is it the end of history yet? My Blackberry's down."


The Trump-Russian money entanglements (a separate issue from the Putin/Russia demonization PR work) are looking pretty juicy. It could help bring down the Trump Gang and I'm all for that.

[PufPuf93]

This thread title is an embarrassment.

Did you read the OP? The thread title is a repeat of the original article. And this doesn't even qualify as a conspiracy theory but a basic reportage of facts. The organization, leadership and base of the California seccession effort is housed in Russia, has free office space donated by the Kremlin, and led by a right-wing activist who has lived in Russia for 10 years. So the answer is YES.
Jeebus, even those involved are probably surprised at the naivete of those knowing this, would still believe Russia isn't behind it. Are they in Russia because it is more convenient to run a US state wide campaign from across the world? I mean what more do you need a video confession? Can someone please argue against what has been reported instead of abstractions "US wants war with Russia!" "Redbaiting!" "The new McCarthyism!" blah, blah, blah, further displaying symptoms of the True Believer Syndrome?

True Believer Syndrome:

True-believer syndrome is an informal or rhetorical term used by M. Lamar Keene in his 1976 book The Psychic Mafia. Keene used the term to refer to people who continued to believe in a paranormal event or phenomenon even after it had been proven to have been staged.[1][2] Keene considered it to be a cognitive disorder,[3][4] and regarded it as being a key factor in the success of many psychic mediums.[2]
The term "true believer" was used earlier by Eric Hoffer in his 1951 book The True Believer to describe the psychological roots of fanatical groups.
In his book The Psychic Mafia, Keene told of his partner, a psychic medium named "Raoul" in the book. Some in their congregation still believed that Raoul was genuine even after he openly admitted that he was a fake. Keene wrote "I knew how easy it was to make people believe a lie, but I didn't expect the same people, confronted with the lie, would choose it over the truth. ... No amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie."[1][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True-believer_syndrome

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?

I read the OP and get a Potemkin Village of Russia mimic of a USA foreign propaganda operation; specifically so ham-handed as to be ludicrous.

Sad to say, the USA at present is starting to resemble a spoof of a 1980s or 1990s spy movie.

I think a much more realistic scenario would be for California to split into two or three states. Along with simultaneous release of national election results, splitting California into multiple states would give better representation in number and choice of California voters.

Rural especially northern internal California is more Red State than Blue.

The Jefferson proposal (where I am a resident and quite close to the federal Jefferson Scenic Byway) is very much oriented toward the idea of Federal lands becoming state or private lands in a conservative wet dream so while I might be for a State of Jefferson I am against the current proponents.

Maybe in the far future there may be a Cascadia ranging from northern California to British Columbia or even SE Alaska? Perhaps even my druthers however unlikely.

[82_28]

That brought to mind Pynchon's Vineland, Puf Puf. . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland

Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection.[1] Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived the sixties in their youth, the story accounts for the free spirit of rebellion of that decade, and describes the traits of the "fascistic Nixonian repression" and its War on Drugs that clashed with it; and it articulates the slide and transformation that occurred in U.S. society from the 1960s to the 1980s.[1][2][3]

Class, I am sure we have all read this right? Just kidding. I didn't really understand it as with anything Pynchon. I just got the "feel" for what he was trying to say.

[PufPuf93]

That brought to mind Pynchon's Vineland, Puf Puf. . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland

Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection.[1] Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived the sixties in their youth, the story accounts for the free spirit of rebellion of that decade, and describes the traits of the "fascistic Nixonian repression" and its War on Drugs that clashed with it; and it articulates the slide and transformation that occurred in U.S. society from the 1960s to the 1980s.[1][2][3]

Class, I am sure we have all read this right? Just kidding. I didn't really understand it as with anything Pynchon. I just got the "feel" for what he was trying to say.

Vineland is my favorite or at least the most accessible and immediate in time and geography Pynchon to me.

Vineland even has the woge of the Yurok Tribe (the Karuk, Yurok, and Hupa Tribe areas meet about 12 miles down the Klamath River from where I type.

(realize that PufPuf is not a Dutch fart nor does it refer to smoking reefer but is the name of the Pacific Giant Salamander in Karuk or alternately the name of an amphibian-like immortal in Karuk stories of creation.)

From page 186, Chapter 9 of Vineland:

"Yuroks"

The native American Yurok tribe lives along the lower 36 miles of the Klamath River, and along the California coast from Wilson Creek to Trinidad Bay. This may provide a clue to the location of Vineland County. Being Indians, the Yuroks are, naturally, preterite in the Pynchon universe. The woge (note lower case) seem to be Yurok thanatoids, therefore ultra-preterite.

woge

Woge is a German word translated as surge, wave, or billows. The tale about the woges here is similar to those of Germanic mythology, & Celtic mythology, in regard to fairy folk, etc.

Woge or wo-ge' is a word in the Yurok language referring to a mythic race of intelligent pre-human beings. They were supplanted by the coming of humans, but somehow remain in spirit. They are invoked in the constitution of the Yurok tribe. See here for more information on the woge in Yurok mythology.

http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/in ... =Chapter_9

Another California (or west coast) exits the USA utopia novel is Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia

I don't think that Ecotopia stands the test of time as literature nearly as well as Vineland.

The thing about Russia being behind a secession effort is that the idea is far from new and has nothing to do with Russia or what Russia wants.

This current organization and even effort to get a vote is minuscule in terms of the idea and whether or when any attempt bears fruit.

That any Russian connected individual ever publicized or champion the concept is nearly meaningless and only convenient to something that is not going to happen soon if ever.

However, recall the Russians were in early Mexican California; think Fort Ross and also the Salmon Mountain area and in the canyons below what is now the Russian Wilderness Area trapping fur and "off" the maps. There is a white Russian refuge community in San Francisco. Maybe?

-----------------------------

Edit to add off topic but about the woges:

Yurok Killers Had to Pay for the Victim

By Gail Fiorini-Jenner • Jun 1, 2015

In the early 1900's, University of California professor A. L. Kroeber collected many stories and myths told by the Yurok Indians and other tribes.  His writings form an important collection of the cultural traditions of California coastal tribes. The tales he related were called tales of the “woge times” – when mythological heroes called woges lived on earth.

Yurok Johnny Shortman, born in 1840, told how killers had to pay for their victims.  In Shortman’s own words, the woge  required “that when a man kills a person, he pays for him. And if the one that killed the other has a sister, he must also give her as part of the payment. And if he who was killed has relatives, one of those relatives will marry the sister. As a result, any children will be like those of the ‘man killed,’ and it will be as if he were alive again. They do this because the woge left these instructions ‘that everything might go well.’ And if they do not pay, it was believed that others would think to themselves, ‘I, too, will kill.’ But since they must pay, everyone is afraid. ‘Therefore few kill.’”

Source: Kroeber, Alfred L. Yurok Myths. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. 439-44. Print.

http://ijpr.org/post/yurok-killers-had-pay-victim

[Nordic]

There's so much content-bleed across threads that I'm not sure where to post this so I'll just stick it here since I feel I've already been a bit of a loudmouth.

I'm curious as to how those who seem a bit more credulous about Putin as the head of the octopus integrate the role that Russia played in smearing our progressive-Left brethren last year. First, Jill Stein being trashed for her appearance at an RT anniversary dinner seated with Putin (and of course all the rather noxious speculation that progressive figureheads on RT are simply being used/duped.) Second, while Bernie was mostly tied to the historical USSR, there was clearly a potential campaign to red-bait him being whispered in the wings (honeymoon to Burlington's sister-city in the USSR, softball team named after the "People's Republic of Vermont," etc) - what if Bernie had won; then how would all this be shaking out? To me it seems extremely plausible that Bernie would also have been attacked as somehow (and ridiculously) in bed with Putin, no? Third, probably least consequentially but most intriguingly, I still think that Pussy Riot appearance on House of Cards really really reeks. I mean, realistically, we're being told that there's a multiple-decade long geopolitical strategy to promote internal dissent in the US to strengthen Russia and yet there would seem to be evidence of the inverse - Pussy Riot being fucking Hollwood darlings, appearing with HRC et al, and the very word pussy becoming rather closely associated with the most visible movement against Trump? Pussy Riot, Pussy Grabs Back, Pussy Hat, etc.

I'm just curious about the degree of conviction I'm witnessing here WRT the Russia-show. I certainly don't feel I'm defending Putin - would anyone in their right mind defend Putin? - or diminishing the extent that nasty nation-states play dirty on all sides. But does anyone here really question that we're rather suddenly being spoon fed a slick and calculated presentation intended to deflect from the real issues that were at stake during the election? Am I really just simple-minded or still haunted by a kind of idiotic proto-Leninism from my faded adolescence for buying the line that we've been experiencing an ongoing referendum on neoliberalism that offered us a series of Faustian decisions around the world (Scotland, Brexit, Trump, Bernie, etc) and the answer has usually seemed rather clear time and again?

A few years ago, while traveling through Colorado, I met a guy who had just come from the Aspen Institute which he'd attended in the role of infosec expert of some sort. He told me an anecdote - which I intuitively believed - about having earlier interned for MI6 and paper-shredding now declassified documents. One was a general threat assessment that ranked categories of events of social concern. Climate Change and Terrorism ranked high but the top of the list was Civil Unrest due to Economic Disaster. Assuming he was telling the truth, this seems relevant in so far as it makes me feel that the organs of social control have dramatically doubled down. To those - SLAD and Brekin esp. - who seem much more credulous about the big picture here ( I think but could be wrong - and also fully respect you've parsed much more material than me ), I'm curious how you integrate what seem to me like persistent disjuncts in the overall narrative arc?

edit: part of me really muses if the current PR campaign is nothing but a setup for creating the only single grounds on which HRC could run ever for president again in 2020: as the wronged prodigal daughter come home to usurp her stolen throne. Teaser: http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/01 ... ders-stein

A friend posted this today on FB:

Let's not forget the republican agenda to wreck the country.

1. HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
2. HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education
3. HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education
4. HJR 69 Repeal Rule Protecting Wildlife
5. HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act
6. HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood
7. HR 785 National Right to Work (this one ends unions)
8. HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill
9. HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”)
10. HR 808 Sanctions against Iran

So by talking non-stop about Trump/Russia even to the point of appointing a prosecutor so that this one story can be the ONLY story in the US for years, we are not talking about the above.

Which is the corporatocracy's actiual agenda.

And Dems and Repubs and the "news media" are well-rewarded members of the corporatocracy.

In answer to another thing you mentioned:

I'll defend Putin. What's not to defend. Can you lead Russia out of Yeltsin/US destroyed Russia without being a ruthless boss? Of course not.

Has Putin "made Russia great again"? Undoubtedly.

Has he brilliantly out-played the transnational gangsters of The West, who have tried to not only destroy him but lure him into a suicidal hot war? Absolutely.

Should we all be thankful Putin exists? Yes. He shut down a truly evil US/Saudi/Israeli terrorist overthrow in Syria, did it with brilliant efficiency and aplomb, and has called out the US on their dangerous and reckless belligerence. Putin is the only thing in the world stopping the US from becoming the Empire of Earth, subjugating it all under the yoke of corporate dictatorship. And so far he has prevented WW3 from possibly killing you, me, and anyone reading this (or those who never will).

Is he perfect? Name one person who is.


Was Pussy Riot's cameo on Sesson 3 of House of Cards offensive? Fuck yeah, that entire season played like it was written by the Obama State Department. Despicable propaganda. Victor Petrov as a Vladimir Putin impersonator? They even cast an actor who closely resembles Putin. It was so bad they almost made the Frank Underwood character look heroic. WHO THE FUCK WAS IN CHARGE OF THAT SEASON, especially considering that a Season 4 was fucking brilliant again, especially the last ten seconds?!

[km artlu]

Thank you Nordic for your defense of Putin. I listened to or I read, depending on the mode of translation, very many of his discussions and presentations last year. All of that left me with impressions consistent with your own. (including his imperfection, duh)

To those who may find this view misguided, or even repugnant, I respectfully suggest for you some measure of that more direct means of assessing him. You may find the cognitive dissonance refreshing.

I also invite you to notice the aggregate of sources who vilify Putin in an orchestrated way. Who they are; what they stand for; what intentions they manifest. These are not trustworthy people.

[seemslikeadream]

Tea Pain‏ @TeaPainUSA 8h8 hours ago
BREAKING: Tonight an angry & unhinged @RogerJStoneJr admitted previously denied contacts with Julian Assange - then immediately deleted it.

The Kremlin Pedophile


Andrey Artemenko claims his Trump-Russia co-conspirator Alex Oronov was killed because of it


Putin Worth $200 Billion, Was 'Stealing As Much Money As He Could' Says Investor


How a Russian Steel Oligarch and Putin Ally Is Profiting from the Keystone XL Pipeline


Trump reverses pledge to mandate U.S. steel for Keystone Pipeline. A direct beneficiary is a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin

Malcolm Nance Retweeted
George Takei‏Verified account @GeorgeTakei 10h10 hours ago
Trump made $60mil in a home sale to this Russian oligarch. Now it seems his plane was many places Trump was in 2016.

6 Russian diplomats have died recently, and 4 of the dead Russian diplomats are in the Trump Steele dossier.

Who Poisoned Alexander Litvinenko? Radioactive thallium link


Litvinenko is best known in the West as the author of Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within. In his book, co-authored with the Russian historian Yuri Felshinsky, Litvinenko accuses the FSB of planting bombs in several Moscow apartment buildings in 1999 as part of a plot to blame the explosions on Chechen terrorists. The wave of bombings sparked the Second Chechen War. In 2004, two Chechens, Adam Dekushev and Jusuf Krymshankhalov, were convicted by a Moscow court of planting the explosives in the apartment blocs. Russian prosecutors claimed that the bombers were trained by the Saudi jihadist Ibn Khattab, who was later killed by Russian security forces. In a 2002 interview with Echo Moskvy radio, Litvinienko claimed that he had been in contact with a third Chechen suspect wanted for his alleged role in the attacks, Achemez Gochiyayev. According to Litvinenko, Mr. Gochiyayev affirmed his innocence and blamed FSB agents for the bombings.

Something else Litvinenko wrote recently

The Kremlin Pedophile

July 5 2006

By Alexander Litvinenko

A few days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin walked from the Big Kremlin Palace to his Residence. At one of the Kremlin squares, the president stopped to chat with the tourists. Among them was a boy aged 4 or 5.

'What is your name?' Putin asked.

'Nikita,' the boy replied.

Putin kneed, lifted the boy's T-shirt and kissed his stomach.

The world public is shocked. Nobody can understand why the Russian president did such a strange thing as kissing the stomach of an unfamiliar small boy.

The explanation may be found if we look carefully at the so-called "blank spots" in Putin's biography.

After graduating from the Andropov Institute, which prepares officers for the KGB intelligence service, Putin was not accepted into the foreign intelligence. Instead, he was sent to a junior position in KGB Leningrad Directorate. This was a very unusual twist for a career of an Andropov Institute's graduate with fluent German. Why did that happen with Putin?

Because, shortly before his graduation, his bosses learned that Putin was a pedophile. So say some people who knew Putin as a student at the Institute.

The Institute officials feared to report this to their own superiors, which would cause an unpleasant investigation. They decided it was easier just to avoid sending Putin abroad under some pretext. Such a solution is not unusual for the secret services.

Many years later, when Putin became the FSB director and was preparing for presidency, he began to seek and destroy any compromising materials collected against him by the secret services over earlier years. It was not difficult, provided he himself was the FSB director. Among other things, Putin found videotapes in the FSB Internal Security Directorate, which showed him making sex with some underage boys.

Interestingly, the video was recorded in the same conspiratorial flat in Polyanka Street in Moscow where Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Skuratov was secretly video-taped with two prostitutes. Later, in the famous scandal, Putin (on Roman Abramovich's instructions) blackmailed Skuratov with these tapes and tried to persuade the Prosecutor-General to resign. In that conversation, Putin mentioned to Skuratov that he himself was also secretly video-taped making sex at the same bed. (But of course, he did not tell it was pedophilia rather than normal sex.) Later, Skuratov wrote about this in his book Variant Drakona.

cache of chechenpress.co.uk

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/view ... f=8&t=9355

Oronov. But he’s the eighth person to drop dead during the Trump-Russia scandal who was either part of the conspiracy, or part of the effort to expose the conspiracy, or a prominent member of the Russian government.

Andrey Artemenko claims his Trump-Russia co-conspirator Alex Oronov was killed because of it
By Bill Palmer | March 4, 2017 | 0

The bodies keep dropping in and around Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, with two Russian intel officers dying under suspicious circumstances in Moscow and two Russian diplomats dropping dead in New York, among others. But for the first time, one of the known conspirators in the Trump-Russia scandal is specifically claiming that his co-conspirator is dead as a result of his involvement becoming public knowledge.

Andrey Artemenko (alternately translated as Andrii Artemenko and Andriy Artemenko) is a Kremlin-controlled Ukrainian politician who is currently facing potential treason charges in Ukraine for his role in the Trump-Russia scandal. Artemenko conspired with Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen and Trump’s mafia connected former business associate Felix Sater to craft a plot which involved Trump blackmailing the Ukrainian president out of power and installing Artemenko in his place. The meeting was first arranged by Cohen’s brother’s father-in-law, Ukrainian businessman Alex Oronov — who just dropped dead. And Artemenko insists Oronov dead because of the Trump-Russia scandal.



Alex Oronov is definitely dead. We’ve even managed to dig up his memorial service announcement in New York. We’ve also confirmed that he lived in a Donald Trump-owned building in Hollywood, Florida. Andrey Artemenko has made a long, rambling and angry Russian-language Facebook post in which he asserts that Oronov is dead because the New York Times recently outed the Ukraine blackmail plot and its participants.



Artemenko doesn’t state Oronov’s cause of death; we’re still working to track this down. Nor does he accuse anyone by name of killing Oronov. But he’s the eighth person to drop dead during the Trump-Russia scandal who was either part of the conspiracy, or part of the effort to expose the conspiracy, or a prominent member of the Russian government. Considering Vladimir Putin’s habit of killing his opponents, it feels like Artemenko is accusing Putin of murdering Oronov. This story is still developing.
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/art ... lled/1791/

Trump reverses pledge to mandate U.S. steel for Keystone Pipeline. A direct beneficiary is a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin

Peter Lance
Peter Lance is a five-time Emmy winning former correspondent for ABC News now writing books for HarperCollins website http://www.peterlance.com http://www.investigatingtrump.com

nvestigating trump.com March 4th, 2017. After green lighting the continuation of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline in an executive order January 24th, President Trump declared as recently as last week that the pipeline had to use American made steel “or we’re not building one.”

But on Friday, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that the directive would apply only to new pipelines or those currently undergoing repair.


That sharp reversal now paves the way for the use of a stockpile of steel manufactured in Canada by a subsidiary of Evraz, a company in which Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich owns nearly a one/third stake.

Abramovich, estimated to be worth $8.9 billion, who ranks No. 151 on Forbes list of the 500 wealthiest people in the world, has longstanding personal and political ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom President Trump has repeatedly praised.


The connection between the oligarch and the steel already produced for the pipeline was first reported by Desmogblog.com, a Canadian website TIME Magazine named to its list of “25 best blogs of 2011.”

According to the report:

“40 percent of the steel created so far was manufactured in Canada by a subsidiary of Evraz, a company 31-percent owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who is a close ally of Putin and a Trump family friend. Evraz has also actively lobbied against provisions which would mandate that Keystone XL’s steel be made in the U.S.

“Abramovich is described in the 2004 book Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere by British journalists Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins as ‘one of the prime movers behind the establishment of the only political party that was prepared to offer its undiluted support to Putin when he fought his first presidential election in late 1999. When Putin needed a shadowy force to act against his enemies behind the scenes, it was Abramovich whom he could rely on to prove a willing co-conspirator.’

“Evraz describes itself as ‘among the top steel producers in the world based on crude steel production of 14.3 million tonnes in 2015.’”

According to a January 2016 piece in The Daily Mail, Abramovich, who also owns the UK’s Chelsea Football Club, gifted Mr. Putin with a 187-foot yacht worth 25 million British pounds after he became Russian President.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tru ... 65b844b451

How a Russian Steel Oligarch and Putin Ally Is Profiting from the Keystone XL Pipeline
By Steve Horn • Monday, February 13, 2017 - 16:27

By Steve Horn and Itai Vardi

Believe it or not, there's a key connection to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, in the fight over North America's controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions in office was to sign an executive order on January 24 expediting the approval of the Keystone XL. Owned by TransCanada, this tar sands oil pipeline was halted by former President Barack Obama in November 2015. Trump signed another order on January 24, calling for steel for U.S. pipelines to be made in the U.S. to the “maximum extent possible,” and two days later TransCanada filed a new presidential permit application for Keystone XL with the U.S. Department of State.

Critics, such as John Kemp of Reuters, pounced on the caveat language in Trump’s steel order and noted that it appears “designed to preserve lots of wiggle-room.” In fact, a DeSmog investigation reveals that much of the steel for Keystone XL has already been manufactured and is sitting in a field in rural North Dakota.

DeSmog has uncovered that 40 percent of the steel created so far was manufactured in Canada by a subsidiary of Evraz, a company 31-percent owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who is a close ally of Putin and a Trump family friend. Evraz has also actively lobbied against provisions which would mandate that Keystone XL's steel be made in the U.S.

Abramovich is described in the 2004 book Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere by British journalists Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins as “one of the prime movers behind the establishment of the only political party that was prepared to offer its undiluted support to Putin when he fought his first presidential election in late 1999. When Putin needed a shadowy force to act against his enemies behind the scenes, it was Abramovich whom he could rely on to prove a willing co-conspirator.”

Evraz describes itself as “among the top steel producers in the world based on crude steel production of 14.3 million tonnes in 2015.”

DeSmog's findings comes as Trump is under scrutiny from Congress, U.S. intelligence agencies, and others for his personal and presidential campaign team's ties to Russia. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded in January that Russian state-sponsored actors had hacked into the email databases of both the Democratic National Committee and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign in order to influence the election in favor of Trump.

Meet Roman Abramovich

After helping launch Putin’s presidency in Russia, Abramovich also was instrumental in the vetting and picking of Putin’s cabinet, according to Midgley and Hutchins in their book. They also reveal that Abramovich was instrumental in the creation of Putin’s political party, Unity.

Embed from Getty Images

Abramovich bought a 41 percent stake in the steel producer Evraz in 2006. Prior to that, he owned a 72 percent stake in the Russian state-owned oil company Sibneft, which was eventually purchased for $13 billion by the state-owned company Gazprom and became known as Gazprom Neft.

Before this, however, Sibneft merged in 2003 with the company Yukos, then owned by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in an attempt to create what was envisioned as a competitor to the likes of ExxonMobil. Had it materialized, the resulting company, called Yukos-Sibneft, would have been at that point the fourth largest oil producer in the world.

Under pressure from Putin, however, and with what was reported as the helping hand of Abramovich, the deal was called off, and Khodorkovsky ended up arrested and then jailed for eight years for alleged tax evasion and fraud. Abramovich's personal wealth doubled as a result of the later Sibneft-Gazprom merger.

The Telegraph (UK) reported that Abramovich met with Putin before the Yukos-Sibneft deal was tossed to the curb.

“The revelation of the meeting will fuel suggestions that the Kremlin is closely involved with the fate of the two companies,” The Telegraph wrote at the time. “Many industry commentators saw [the] decision to halt the merger as a government-backed effort to further weaken Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former chief executive of Yukos and its largest shareholder.”

Abramovich’s influence would continue in the years ahead. The 2010 book The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession, written by Richard Sakwa, further describes Abramovich as someone “whose wealth in the Putin years increased at least tenfold, and he remained one of Putin's closest confidants” while Putin carried out his first term as president.

“It was Abramovich who in the first place had recommended Putin to [Boris] Yeltsin as successor and Putin took his advice” when Putin was succeeded by Dmitry Medvedev, according to Sakwa, a professor at the University of Kent (UK).

Dmitry Skarga, former head of Russian state-owned shipping company Sovcomflot, told BBC in its documentary, Putin's Secret Riches, that he personally oversaw the transfer of a yacht worth $35 million from Abramovich as a gift to Putin (see video below beginning at 12:28).



Today, Abramovich is perhaps best known as the owner of the English Premier League soccer team, Chelsea Football Club. Abramovich has a net worth of $9.2 billion and sits in 151st place among the world's wealthiest people, according to Forbes.

In 2015, Abramovich also announced plans to invest $15 million in the company Propell Technologies Group, to do what OilPrice.com described as “'clean' hydraulic fracturing,” or “fracking.”

“This will not merely be a $15 million investment,” a source with knowledge of the deal told OilPrice. “You have to read between the lines here. Abramovich doesn’t do anything small. He’ll get the infrastructure in place and then look to acquire a significant position in the US oil sector at today’s fire sale prices. We’ll probably be looking at hundreds of millions in investment at the end of the day.”

Operators use fracking to tap into North Dakota's Bakken Shale, the most productive oilfield in the U.S. TransCanada's presidential permit application submitted to the State Department says that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline will also have a Bakken on-ramp called the Bakken Marketlink, which would feed the field's oil into the pipeline as a companion to the tar sands crude coming from Alberta, Canada.

Ivanka’s Kinship

Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, maintains her own ties to Abramovich. Ivanka’s circle of friends includes Dasha Zhukova, the wife of Abramovich.

Jake Sherman, a reporter for Politico, tweeted that Zhukova attended Trump’s presidential inauguration at the invitation of Ivanka. The two have appeared in public on several occasions, most recently during the U.S. Open tennis tournament, which Ivanka attended with her husband and top Trump aide, Jared Kushner.

Also sitting with them in the stands at the U.S. Open was Zhukova’s friend, model Karlie Kloss, who is dating Jared Kushner’s brother, Joshua Kushner. Zhukova, as it turns out, was a donor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, giving $2,700 to the campaign and another $33,400 to the Democratic National Committee for its 2016 electoral efforts.

Zhukova's father is Alexander Zhukov, a Russian oil magnate.

“Pipe To Be Made”

Evraz owns three steel mills in the U.S., but the company chose to manufacture the pipe for the Keystone XL project in its Regina mill in Saskatchewan, Canada. By 2015, that mill had produced 550 miles of steel pipe for the line.

Though TransCanada’s presidential permit application says nothing about where its steel will be (or has already been) manufactured, it does detail that the steel used for the pipeline will meet industry standards set by the American Petroleum Institute.



Image Credit: U.S. Department of State

While TransCanada has paid for the pipe already produced by Evraz, according to TransCanada spokesperson Terry Cunha, the continued construction of the Keystone XL pipeline could lead to even more profits for Abramovich's company, whether it manufactures the steel in its Canadian or U.S. factories.

Cunha told DeSmog that the company is waiting for final regulatory details from the U.S. Department of Commerce about how implementing the steel manufacturing executive order may impact Keystone XL's pipes. Commerce Department officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

When Obama nixed Keystone XL, Evraz issued a statement declaring its intent to stand by TransCanada for the long haul on the project.

“Like TransCanada, Evraz believes that Keystone XL is in the best interest of Americans and Canadians and we will support TransCanada’s continuing efforts toward getting the pipeline built,” the company said in November 2015. “We will also continue to work with pipeline partners on other pipeline projects in process across North America that will increase energy security and support economic vitality.”

Bill Edwards, president of United Steelworkers union Local 5890 — which represents 900 workers at the Regina facility — told the British publication Metal Bulletin in November 2011 that the delay for Keystone XL had led to 250 job layoffs and shuttering of line pipe productions. Edwards said Evraz would continue production once TransCanada gets the needed permits.

“There is a bunch (of pipe) on the ground waiting to be installed. But there is still a pile (of pipe) to be made,” Edwards told the Bulletin.

Evraz Lobbies Against “Buy America”

Perhaps an indication of Evraz's stance on the Trump steel executive order, Evraz lobbied in the first quarter of 2015 against what it called the “Buy America” amendment proposed by U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) for the Keystone XL Pipeline Act (S.1) of 2015 introduced by U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND). The company also lobbied for “Amendments to US Trade laws to improve steel industry enforcement.”

Buy America Steel Keystone XL

Image Credit: Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives

Franken’s amendment, which did not pass, was similar to Trump’s order. It stated that “to the maximum extent consistent with the obligations of the United States under international trade agreements, none of the iron, steel, or manufactured goods used in the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and facilities approved by this Act may be produced outside of the United States.”

Neither Evraz nor its lobbyist John Stinson provided a comment for this story, with Evraz pointing DeSmog to its January 24 press statement.

“EVRAZ North America applauds the Trump administration for advancing the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines,” reads the statement. “As the North American leader in large diameter pipe production with assets in the United States and Canada, we look forward to working with our customers and the Administration to make these projects a reality.”

Call for Investigation

Given a summary of DeSmog's findings, Tyson Slocum, energy program director for Public Citizen, a Washington, DC-based consumer watchdog and advocacy group, has called for an investigation.

“An investigation into communications between Trump and his Administration and Abramovich and Russian Federation officials is needed to determine whether Trump’s Keystone executive order was influenced by personal financial relationships,” Slocum told DeSmog.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/02/13/a ... e-xl-steel

Putin Worth $200 Billion, Was 'Stealing As Much Money As He Could' Says Investor

A foreign investor and former Putin supporter pegs the Russian leader's worth at $200 billion, says he was stealing for years.

Bill Browder is the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund and asset management firm with offices in the UK and Russia. He formerly was Russia's largest foreign investor – and he formerly supported President Vladimir Putin.

But now he says Pres. Putin is the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $200 billion. To put that in perspective, Microsoft founder Bill Gates is believed to hold that title, with $76 billion to support it. Or, to put it another way, Putin, according to Browder, is worth more than the Koch Brothers ($80 billion), Warren Buffet ($58 billion) and GOP political campaign financier Sheldon Adelson ($38 billion) combined.

How did the Russian President amass so much wealth? Browder on Saturday told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that "the first eight or 10 years of Putin's reign over Russia, it was about stealing as much money as he could. And some people, including myself, believe that he's the richest man in the world, or one of the richest men in the world, with hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth that was stolen from Russia."

Asked by Zakaria what Putin's net worth is, Browder replied, "I believe that it's $200 billion. After 14 years in power of Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on, all that money is in property, bank - Swiss bank accounts, shares, hedge funds, managed for Putin and his cronies."
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... s_investor

[Rory]

I thought Liminal's piece was a good caution against bright lines and hard sides in assessing this mess.

I did as well. All I can say is chill the fuck out and don't make shit (virtually) personal. We're all here (Earth) and no gettin' around it for now. As far as we know. . .

I didn't mean to make it personal. SLAD in particular has clearly done a lot of homework and seems like a pretty sharp shooter so I'm genuinely curious how she integrates the basic Greenwald et al cautions (predictable as those may be) into her own.

We'll thanks for going to the trouble of writing a cogent post on the matter. Shame it's pointedly ignored, indicated by the steady stream of garbage copypasta, war machine propaganda

[seemslikeadream]

I know that's all you got but

quit the personal attacks....Rory

or I am get personal and bring out my personal red crayon for you again

[Rory]

quit the personal attacks

Quit behaving like a copy pasta automaton

[seemslikeadream]

I am not breaking the rules here unlike you

read up this is an anti-fascist board