"The Americans are taking away properties again and closing down general consulates. In other words, the Americans have taken away five facilities that were our property. Five of them enjoyed diplomatic immunity. The office of the trade mission in New York that we leased was another one. In all, they took away six facilities - the five we owned and another one we leased. It's a raider seizure. We'll think over to how we'll respond," Ushakov said.Lavrov says Moscow will assess the situation before responding:
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"They do not only take properties away but also hinder the operation of our embassy and diplomatic offices. We will consider a response. At the same time it is very undesirable to have a clash, because somebody should display common sense and put an end to the grave condition of our bilateral relations," Ushakov said.
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"The US administration continues to damage bilateral relations, presumably with no regard to consequences not only for our countries, but for the global security as well," Ushakov said. "It can only cause regret and disappointment," the Russian presidential aide noted. ... "It means that tensions in bilateral ties will rise further. We regret it and we are going to calmly consider our response," Ushakov added.
"We will respond as soon as the assessment is complete," he added. "I would like to point out it was not us who initiated this exchange of sanctions, but the Obama Administration. They sought to rupture Russian-US relations and prevent US President Donald Trump from putting forward any constructive proposals," the Russian top diplomat stressed.
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"What US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told me yesterday [in a telephone call - TASS] was explained in the note that we received," Lavrov says. "I have an ambivalent feeling that they somehow wanted to cite our statement that 455 diplomatic personnel mean parity. Based on the parity logic, the United States has cut the number of our consulates since we had them in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Houston," he added.
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"When the Soviet Union collapsed, we proposed that they open a fourth consulate general in Russia but they said 'no, thank you, three is enough for us'. In this case, we can speak about parity, but it is a specific parity since they have counted the personnel of the Russian mission to the United Nations as diplomats," he added.
Lavrov noted that two days had been given to Russia to close its Consulate-General in San Francisco. "We gave the Americans time to cut the number of their diplomatic staff in order to match the number of Russian diplomats in the United States, while 35 Russian diplomats and their family members were expelled within two days.
"Though they said that the personnel of the Consulate General and other two facilities did not need to leave but could be transferred to other diplomatic annexes."
Lynn wrote that the EC's decision was key to "protecting the free flow of information and commerce upon which all democracies depend." He also called on US federal authorities to bring antitrust litigation against Google.New America has received $21 million from Google and Schmidt. Schmidt is the chairman of New America's board.
And, according to Lynn, he was fired as a direct result of Schmidt voicing his displeasure to Slaughter over Lynn's anti-Google article, possibly threatening to withhold funds. "Google is very aggressive in throwing its money around Washington and Brussels, and then pulling the strings," Lynn told the New York Times. "People are so afraid of Google now."
Lynn added that this wasn't the first time he had been redirected away from criticizing Google. During a 2016 conference organized by Open Markets on the dangers of tech monopolies, Slaughter sent an email to Lynn urging him to not criticize Google during the conference.
"We are in the process of trying to expand our relationship with Google on some absolutely key points," Slaughter wrote. " ... just THINK about how you are imperiling funding for others."
Most of Google's search algorithm is secret, meaning interested citizens or watchdog groups cannot know why results are being filtered out unless Google decides to tell them. "A little bit of it is known generally speaking, but the vast majority of this is just hidden. It's all secret ... [the internet is] a world that needs to be regulated, that is the bottom line. Google and some of these other big tech companies must be regulated. Google should be made a public utility," said [Robert Epstein, former editor in chief of Psychology Today].
Declare George Soros a terrorist and seize all of his related organizations' assets under RICO and NDAA lawIt can be signed here
Whereas George Soros has willfully and on an ongoing basis attempted to destabilize and otherwise commit acts of sedition against the United States and its citizens, has created and funded dozens (and probably hundreds) of discrete organizations whose sole purpose is to apply Alinsky model terrorist tactics to facilitate the collapse of the systems and Constitutional government of the United State, and has developed unhealthy and undue influence over the entire Democrat Party and a large portion of the US Federal government, the DOJ should immediately declare George Soros and all of his organizations and staff members to be domestic terrorists, and have all of his personal an organizational wealth and assets seized under Civil Asset Forfeiture law.
"It is an interesting turnaround. Americans want to declare the man who threw his money about around the world to fuel color revolutions a domestic terrorist. It is not unlikely that the 100,000 signatures necessary for the petition to be considered by the White House will be collected by September 19, but things are unlikely to go any further. Officially declaring George Soros a terrorist and seizing all his property and assets would actually mean undermining the foundations of the United States itself," Klintsevich stressed.Update 4 Sept
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According to Klintsevich, President Trump, "despite his dislike for the billionaire, will not resort to such a move, although that would be the best confirmation of the US president's remarks that his country will no longer export democracy." "Anyway, the petition to declare Soros a terrorist is a signal, and not to him alone," the senator's press service quotes him as saying.
WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations.Pompeo said that in April. Fast forward a few months, and let's take a look at what the U.S. Senate is up to.
It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is - a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence-the GRU-had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia's primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.
Comment: See also: Will Israel go to war with Iran?