(from https://thinkprogress.org/trump-believes-western-liberalism-literally-means-liberals-on-the-west-coast-b9f8e2ac6fe0/?fbclid=IwAR1kDG7dOVfw7mXP8Rm-G1nIc8tHik0CJrMKmV-_lDZXp-uf5Ib3UdG7fMI)
". . . When asked by The New York Times about Russian president Vladimir Putin’s comments about Western liberalism being “obsolete,” Trump took that to mean literally liberals living on the west coast of the United States. . . “He’s sees what’s going on, I guess, if you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look, and what’s happening in San Francisco and a couple of other cities, which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people,” Trump told the Times. . . “I don’t know what they’re thinking,” he added. “But when you look at Los Angeles, when you look at San Francisco, when you look at some of the other cities — and not a lot, not a lot — but you don’t want it to spread.”. . ."
(from https://crooksandliars.com/2018/07/maddow-official-helsinki-video-and)
". . . The White House literally deleted this question and the corresponding answer from the official record: Reuters reporter, Jeff Mason asked Putin: "Did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?". . . Putin responded: “Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S./Russia relationship back to normal,.". . . THE WHITE HOUSE IS LITERALLY TRYING TO ERASE HISTORY. . . As George Orwell said in his dystopian novel, 1984: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes & ears. It was their final, most essential command" - Orwell, "1984". . . "
. . . in his shoes before you judge (a person). . . Many foreign policy problems would be eliminated if this proverb was sincerely put into practice. . .
(from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60098-2005Feb28.html - way back in 2005)
". . . "It's not clear how well Putin understands the controversy that led to the dismissal of four CBS journalists over the discredited report on Bush's National Guard service. Yet it's all too clear how Putin sees the relationship between Bush and the American media -- just like his own. Bush's aides have long feared that former KGB officers in Putin's inner circle are painting a twisted picture of U.S. policy. So Bush explained how he had no power to fire American journalists. It made little difference. When the two presidents emerged for their joint press conference, one Russian reporter repeated Putin's language about journalists getting fired. Bush (already hot after an earlier question about his spying on U.S. citizens) asked the reporter if he felt free. . ."
". . . Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., has for years been working to overturn the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 U.S. law that barred Russian officials suspected of human rights abuses. . . is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer and auditor who in 2008 untangled a dense web of tax fraud and graft involving 23 companies and a total of $230 million linked to the Kremlin and individuals close to the government. Magnitsky was the target of investigations, arrested by authorities and kept in jail without charges. He was beaten and later died under mysterious circumstances in jail just days before his possible release. . . The Magnitsky Act was signed by President Barack Obama in December 2012 as a retaliation against the human rights abuses suffered by Magnitsky. The law at first blocked 18 Russian government officials and businessmen from entering the United States, froze any assets held by U.S. banks and banned their future use of U.S. banking systems. The act was expanded in 2016, and now sanctions apply to 44 suspected human rights abusers worldwide. . ."
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder)
". . . William Felix Browder (author of Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice)is an American-English financier, the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, an investment firm that at one time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. . . After the death in prison in 2009 of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer and auditor who had represented his company and conducted an investigation into massive tax fraud related to it, Browder lobbied for Congress to pass the "Magnitsky Act", a law to punish Russian human rights violators. . ."
. . . of the plan . . . now that he's helped make America 'great again' (meaning distracting us by encouraging squabbling about football players, civil war statues, transgender folks in the service etc.), Putin is getting on with what is important to him. . .
(from http://www.theweek.co.uk/89872/how-vladimir-putin-became-the-middle-east-s-power-broker)
". . . Vladimir Putin has staked his claim to be a Middle East power-broker after pushing world leaders to agree a lasting peace in Syria.
The Russian president hosted his Syrian counterpart and ally Bashar al-Assad in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday. The meeting with Assad, only the second time the Syrian leader has travelled abroad since the civil war started more than six years ago, “was apparently staged carefully to show off Putin’s claim to be the new power-broker in the Middle East”, says The Times.
SEE RELATED
A brief guide to who supports who in Syria
Syrian Civil War: Six years on
Russian state-media says the Russian president will talk to international leaders with influence over the conflict, among them US President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and the leaders of Iran and Turkey in the next 48 hours.
Today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose countries back opposing sides in the Syria conflict, will travel to Russia for a three-way meeting with Putin.
This is a remarkable turn-around for Assad, who has faced intense international pressure to stand down, and a triumph of diplomacy and military strength from Putin.
Russian forces, who began their invention in Syria two years, have been widely credited as turning the tide in Assad’s favour and to underscore their importance Assad praised military leaders in Sochi for “defending the territorial integrity of [his] country”. . ."
(from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-g-20-summit-trump-appeared-agreed-russia-did-not-n780961)
". . . According to U.S. and Russian officials, the two leaders have agreed to create a "working group" that would jointly monitor cyber threats and prevent election interference in future elections in both countries and abroad. . . Putin said he hopes the joint project will quell the allegations of Russian hacking. . . "I hope we'll be able to set this scheme up and this will put an end to all the speculation on this subject," he said. . .' . . . of-fucking-COURSE he does!!!???
(http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-challenged-about-putin-says-our-country-s-so-innocent-n716906)
". . . When O'Reilly said "Putin's a killer," Trump responded: "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country's so innocent?". . ."
Tsarnaev sentenced. . . the Pope says you're not a Christian if you have a gun. . . white supremacist kills nine innocent people in a church. . . serious consideration is given to removing confederate flags from government facilities. . . heavy summer thunderstorms. . . prison seamstress smuggled saws to prisoners inside raw meat. . . Putin marches on. . . Kurdish forces say they seized a military base from ISIS fighters just 30 miles from the self-declared caliphate's capital city in Syria. . . both sides of the political spectrum accuse each other of using the South Carolina Church shooting for political motives . . .
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
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Two Siberian tigers, released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin, are eating goats and chickens in China. Farmers are upset. But the Chinese authorities say tigers are protected in China and are concerned that the animals may end up getting shot.
Social media in China wants the tigers hunted down but the more level-headed citizens see it for what it is, f a Kremlin conspiracy, a spying mission across a border that used to be hotly disputed.
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
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With my newfound interest in and empathy for Vladimir Putin, at least for his desire to serve his countrymen and for his lack of duplicity in things political, drove me to learn that he is a musician. Well, not a professional musician nor maybe even not a terribly exceptional one. But he is, with little doubt, a sincere music lover. Now how can you dislike a music lover no matter how many countries he invades?
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
Read an interesting take on Putin recently in a shipping trade
magazine (Andrew J. Lawler, Global Trade) that said 'Putin, right or
wrong, sees himself as the best candidate to restore Russia's sense of
national pride, world stature and its economy.' Futhermore, acquiring
territory has not historically been a neat, clean, up-and-up kind of
business of which Putin is well aware. Hawaiians, Native Americans and
Mexicans can well attest to the that in terms of the United States'
conduct. Mr. Lawler also says that Putin is smart to align himself with
the Russian Orthodox Church as opposed to the atheists that preceded him
in leadership positions there. The church connection helps him to win
hearts, and subsequently minds. He is a folk hero to his people. . .
a point of view certainly not "Officially Sanctioned" nor one you will hear much about in the mainstream media.
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
The Baltimore Sun's Nilay Saiya brings up a valid point. . .
(From http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-putin-pov-20140406,0,6960703.story)
". . . The White House has responded to Russian actions in Crimea by taking a number of steps against Moscow: It has ramped up sanctions, verbally denounced the Kremlin's flouting of international law, effectively kicked Russia out of the G8 and given rhetorical support to Ukraine's new government. Such measures, however, are likely to deepen and prolong the crisis, not resolve it.
The conventional view in Washington is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a belligerent authoritarian intent upon expanding Russia's borders and confronting the West. What the White House refuses to acknowledge, however, is that the Russian leader is simply acting in what he believes to be his country's best interest.
A more holistic and accurate picture emerges when one considers things from the Russian perspective. After the end of the Cold War, NATO began expanding eastward to include countries that had previously been in the Soviet sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Croatia. In the last six years, NATO has attempted to expand its membership right up to the Russian border by enticing Georgia and Ukraine to join the institution.
For their part, Russian leaders question why the West seeks to move NATO — a military alliance designed for the specific purpose of containing Soviet power — closer to its borders. While Russia might have been willing to accept some limited NATO expansion, it drew a clear red line when it came to its immediate neighbors, Georgia and Ukraine. To make matters more complicated, some in Washington have spoken openly about their desire to deploy missile defense systems in Europe.
With respect to the current crisis, Washington kept no secrets about which side it supported in Ukraine when American diplomats backed the protesters who overthrew pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovich and lent immediate support to the new government in Kiev. It was at this point that Moscow intervened in Crimea for the express purpose of reclaiming what it sees as a strategically vital ally, to which American policymakers responded with shock and indignation.
American attempts to portray Mr. Putin as a power-hungry, war-mongering tyrant conveniently ignore how America itself has acted under similar conditions. When pro-American leaders were removed from power or Soviet-leaning leaders came to power in places like Iran, Guatemala and Panama during the Cold War, the U.S. either directly intervened or supported anti-communist rebels to defend its national interests. As recently as 1994, it deployed troops in Haiti to reinstate President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who had been removed from office in a coup.
Yet the U.S. continues to demonstrate a remarkable ability to whitewash its own motivations and actions in its foreign relations with other states, while ignoring the legitimate security concerns of rival countries. Political scientist Robert Jervis pointed out nearly 50 years ago that the inability to put oneself in another's shoes constitutes a key source of "misperception" in international politics. On the other hand, the skill to consider events from an opponent's perspective demonstrates strategic and sophisticated thinking — a necessary component of effective and informed decision making.
It would have been helpful, for instance, for the Obama team to have considered how it might have reacted if the friendly governments in Canada or Mexico were suddenly replaced with regimes hostile to American interests. From such a perspective, is it any wonder why Mr. Putin has fought so hard to salvage Russia's ally in Ukraine?
What, then, should the U.S. do? To start, President Obama should recognize three things. First, he should understand that Mr. Putin is acting less like a madman and simply doing what any leader of a major power would do in his place. Second, the president should also recognize that "punishing" Russia will likely lead to further reprisals by Moscow, thus deepening the crisis. Russia might also retaliate on issues of key issues of concern for American foreign policy where Russian cooperation is needed like Syria and Iran. Finally, the president should acknowledge that both Russia and the U.S. have a mutual interest in regional stability and Ukrainian neutrality.
To this end, the U.S. should reverse course on Ukraine. It should renounce any desires to incorporate Russia's immediate neighbors into NATO and not interfere in Ukraine's internal politics. It should also demand that Moscow do the same. Some pundits might criticize this approach as self-defeating. On the contrary, it is a strategic way to recognize Russia's security concerns and secure American interests in the region, while avoiding the possibility of another unnecessary war. Unfortunately, such an approach is unlikely to materialize so long as American policymakers refuse to consider things from the Russian point of view. . ."
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
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