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The myth of Russian media influence

Larry C. Johnson
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Thu, 27 Jun 2019 19:16 UTC
Colin Powell Russian hackers
Republicans and Democrats, along with almost all of the media, have accepted the lie that the Russians engaged in unprecedented "interference" in the 2016 Presidential election. It is a ridiculous proposition and is based on a presumption rather than actual evidence. The Intel Community said it is true so, by definition, it must be true.

Let's focus on the actual numbers. How much money did the Russians spend? According to Robert Mueller, $1.25 million per month. If you start that money clock in May of 2016, that means those pesky Rookies spent $8.75 million. But let us be generous and add on the previous four months, essentially starting the clock in January 2016 before the first primary votes. That brings the total to $13 million.

Hillary and Donald, by contrast, spent over $81 million on Facebook alone. According to TechCrunch:
Russian information troll farm the Internet Research Agency spent just 0.05 percent as much on Facebook ads as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's campaigns combined in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, yet still reached a massive audience. While there might have been other Russian disinformation groups, the IRA spent $46,000 on pre-election day Facebook ads compared to $81 million spent by Clinton and Trump together, discluding political action committees who could have spent even more than that on the campaigns' behalf.
Trump and Clinton, when you factor in their various political action committees, spent millions more.
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Bad Guys

US to sanction any country that imports Iranian oil, says special envoy

Guy Faulsonbridge
Reuters
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:44 UTC
Brian Hook
© REUTERS/Simon Dawson
Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative for Iran, attends a news conference in London, Britain June 28, 2019.
The United States will sanction any country that imports Iranian oil and there are no exemptions in place, the U.S. special envoy for Iran said on Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top Iranian officials with sanctions on Monday, taking an unprecedented step to increase pressure on Iran after Tehran's downing of an unmanned American drone last week.

"We will sanction any imports of Iranian crude oil," Brian Hook said when asked about the sale of Iranian crude to Asia, adding that the United States would take a look at reports of Iranian crude going to China.
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NPC

May tells Putin UK has no interest in fixing ties with Russia - 'because Skripal'


RT
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 19:04 UTC
putin may
© Sputnik / Mikhail Klimentyev
Outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May once again produced a little bit of déjà vu as she told Vladimir Putin there won't be any hope of restoring UK-Russia ties unless Moscow stops being "an irresponsible and destabilizing" actor.


Comment: The political equivalent of "when you stop beating your wife".


During a tense one-to-one exchange with Vladimir Putin in Osaka, Theresa May said "there cannot be a normalization of our bilateral relationship until Russia stops the irresponsible and destabilizing activity." Predictably, the outgoing British Prime Minister then jumped to her well-worn allegations about the Skripal poisoning affair.

According to her spokesperson, May naturally mentioned "the use of a deadly nerve agent on the streets of Salisbury," claiming again that the UK has "irrefutable evidence that Russia was behind the attack."


Comment: 'Highly likely' irrefutable evidence! The best and most reliable kind.


Returning to the future of UK-Russia ties, May said that "we remain open to a different relationship, but for that to happen the Russian government must choose a different path."


Comment: Um, thanks but no thanks?


Putin, however, believes all this is the opposite of the truth. The scandal surrounding the Salisbury incident did sour relations between Russia and the UK, thus damaging economic ties, he had earlier told the Financial Times.

Comment: Putin spoke more sense in the FT interview:
"I think that both Russia and the UK are interested in fully restoring our relations. At least I hope that a few preliminary steps will be made," Putin told the Financial Times newspaper.

The Russian leader noted that UK companies were eager to work with Russia.

"We know that businesses in the UK (by the way, I had a meeting with our British colleagues in this same room), they want to work with us, they are working with us and intend to continue doing so. And we support this intent," he said.


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Snakes in Suits

Tillerson recounts rocky tenure at State Dept, frustrations with Kushner, Sec of State experience humbling - an honor

Nahal Toosi
Politico
Thu, 27 Jun 2019 01:00 UTC
Rex Tillerson
© 1 Former Sec. of State Rex Tillerson, Alex Wong/Getty Images
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was having dinner at a local restaurant when the owner came over to tell him that Mexico's foreign secretary happened to be eating at the same place. Would he like to say hello?

Tillerson was surprised, he recently recounted to congressional aides, because he hadn't been informed that his Mexican counterpart, Luis Videgaray Caso, was in Washington, D.C. He walked over to find that Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, was dining with the foreign diplomat.

"I could see the color go out of the face of the foreign secretary of Mexico as I very - I smiled big, and I said: 'Welcome to Washington,'" Tillerson told the staffers. "And I said: 'I don't want to interrupt what y'all are doing.' I said: 'Give me a call next time you're coming to town.' And I left it at that."

According to Tillerson, the Mexican diplomat had thought that the Secretary of State was fully aware that he was meeting with Kushner. Apparently, however, Kushner hadn't looped in the State Department.

The anecdote was one of the most vivid that Tillerson shared with bipartisan representatives of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 21, according to a partially redacted transcript of the private conversation released Thursday.

Comment: See also:

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Bizarro Earth

Ellen Brown: Facebook makes an audacious bid for global monetary control

Ellen Brown
Web of Debt Blog
Thu, 27 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
Libra
© Facebook/Yahoo Finance/KJN
Payments can happen cheaply and easily without banks or credit card companies. This has now been demonstrated - not in the United States but in China. Unlike in the US, where numerous firms feast on fees from handling and processing payments, in China most money flows through mobile phones nearly for free. In 2018 these cashless payments totaled a whopping $41.5 trillion; and 90% were through Alipay and WeChat Pay, a pair of digital ecosystems that blend social media, commerce and banking. According to a May 2018 article in Bloomberg titled "Why China's Payment Apps Give U.S. Bankers Nightmares":
The nightmare for the U.S. financial industry is that a technology company - whether from China or a homegrown juggernaut such as Amazon.com Inc. or Facebook Inc. - replicates the success of Alipay and WeChat in America. The stakes are enormous, potentially carving away billions of dollars in annual revenue from major banks and other firms.
That threat may now be materializing. On June 18, Facebook unveiled a white paper outlining ambitious plans to create a new global cryptocurrency called Libra, to be launched in 2020. The New York Times says Facebook has high hopes that Libra will become the foundation for a new financial system free of control by Wall Street power brokers and central banks.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

Dems cave, pass Senate version of border bill 'for the children'


RT
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 00:24 UTC
Migrant detention center
© Reuters/Carlo Allegri
Migrant detention center
The Democrat-led US House has grudgingly voted to approve an emergency $4.6 billion border funding bill after the Republican-majority Senate threatened to table any amended version of the measure.

"The children come first. At the end of the day, we have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said in a letter on Thursday prior to the vote, vowing to "reluctantly pass the Senate bill" lest "the children" go without aid one second longer.

Pelosi had initially promised not to accept the bill approved on Wednesday by the Republican-led Senate, with Democrats arguing it lacked sufficient protections for migrant children. A lengthy conversation with Vice President Mike Pence produced an administrative compromise of sorts, however: Congress will be notified within 24 hours if a child dies in custody, and no child will be kept in "emergency facilities" for more than 90 days.

The Senate version of the bill ultimately passed 305-102 in the House, with 95 Democrats expressing their dissatisfaction with the compromise. The bill allots $2.88 billion to Health and Human Services for safe shelter and care for detained children, $1.1 billion to Customs and Border Protection to build more processing facilities, $220 million to the Justice Department to process immigration cases and equip US Marshals at detention facilities, and $145 million for various military operations on the border.
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Target

New Rules: Trump's Twitter posts that violate new platform standards may be hidden or labeled as such


RT
Thu, 27 Jun 2019 19:05 UTC
Trump
© www.carbonated.tv
President Donald Trump versus the tweet patrol
President Donald Trump may soon find himself hidden or throttled by Twitter, according to the mainstream media interpretation of the platform's new rules for certain posts that "violate rules" but remain of "public interest."

There are "certain cases where it may be in the public's interest to have access to certain Tweets, even if they would otherwise be in violation of our rules," Twitter said on Thursday, trying to shed some light on when and how they will deal with them going forward.

For accounts to be given this leeway they must represent a government official or someone running for public office or awaiting confirmation, have over 100,000 followers, and be verified ("blue checkmark"). A team of Twitter officials will make the determination in each case.

The problematic tweet will not be removed from the platform, but it [will] be slapped with a notice, "feature less prominently" on Twitter, and not appear in searches, recommended tweets, notifications, or timelines under certain conditions, amounting to what has been commonly called a "shadowban."

While the document does not mention President Donald Trump by name, mainstream media outlets like CNN and Voice of America immediately jumped to the conclusion that he would find himself on the receiving end of the new policy.
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Attention

Western intel hacked 'Russia's Google' Yandex in late 2018 to spy on accounts

Christopher Bing, Jack Stubbs, Joseph Menn
Reuters
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 02:21 UTC
Yandex
© REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
Russian 'Google' Yandex
Hackers working for Western intelligence agencies broke into Russian internet search company Yandex in late 2018 deploying a rare type of malware in an attempt to spy on user accounts, four people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The malware, called Regin, is known to be used by the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the sources said. Intelligence agencies in those countries declined to comment.

Western cyberattacks against Russia are seldom acknowledged or spoken about in public. It could not be determined which of the five countries was behind the attack on Yandex, said sources in Russia and elsewhere, three of whom had direct knowledge of the hack. The breach took place between October and November 2018.

Yandex spokesman Ilya Grabovsky acknowledged the incident in a statement to Reuters, but declined to provide further details. "This particular attack was detected at a very early stage by the Yandex security team. It was fully neutralized before any damage was done," he said.
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Arrow Up

Putin asks BRICS nations to increase national currencies in trade


RT
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 10:11 UTC
BRICS Money
© Unknown
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) to develop settlements in national currencies instead of the commonly used currencies like the US dollar.

"Cooperation in terms of developing the use of our national currencies in international settlements seems very promising," Putin said in Osaka, Japan at a meeting of BRICS leaders in advance of the G20 summit.

Five-nation bloc BRICS represents more than 40 percent of the world's population. The five countries have a combined nominal GDP of US$18.6 trillion, which is about 23 percent of the gross world product.

According to International Monetary Fund estimates, member states are responsible for more than half of the global economic growth of the last 10 years.

According to the Russian president, the integration of payments systems and the establishment of an independent channel on information exchange could facilitate the stability of the banking systems of the five countries. "I think this is extremely important today," he said.

Comment: More from RT: Russia & China agree to increase use of the ruble and yuan
Moscow and Beijing have inked an intergovernmental agreement to switch to national currencies in bilateral trade and boost cross-currency settlements up to 50 percent as they ramp up efforts to move away from the US dollar.

The document was signed by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and the head of the People's Bank of China, Yi Gang, earlier in June, Izvestia reports.

Moscow and Beijing are currently developing new mechanisms of cross-border payments between Russian and Chinese businesses, the newspaper said, citing a letter from Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak to Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the financial market committee of the State Duma (lower chamber of Russia's parliament). The two sides may settle payment gateways between their domestic alternatives to the traditional SWIFT system, Russia's System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) and China's Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payments System (CIPS).

The two countries will have to develop ruble and yuan financial instruments to boost cross-currency trade and mitigate risks of exchange rate fluctuations, according to Aksakov. He added that in the coming years, the share of settlements in national currencies between Russia and China could increase fivefold - from 10 to 50 percent.

The mechanism of payments in national currencies is set to be developed by next year. At first, major companies with state participation from sectors such as energy and agriculture will switch to it. The yuan-ruble payments will also be made on existing contracts which stipulate settlement in dollars.


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Russian Flag

Trump invited to Moscow for 2020 Victory Day celebrations bodes to be Russiagaters' darkest hour!


RT
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 13:51 UTC
Victory Day Parade
© Sputnik/Alexey Kudenko
Russian Victory Day
'Russiagate' theorists and Trump haters may soon have their worst nightmare come true - the US President hinted that he could travel to Moscow next year to mark Victory Day alongside Vladimir Putin.

Mueller fans are probably shaking in their boots, as Donald Trump "responded very positively" to an invitation to come to Moscow for the 75th anniversary of victory in the World War II, Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters during the G20 summit in Osaka.

The two Presidents discussed their countries' involvement in the war, mentioning "the Soviet contribution to that victory."

If that comes true, the liberal Twitterati will surely collapse in full-on meltdown, but Trump will not be the first US president to have visited the Victory Day parade in Moscow. George W. Bush was on the Red Square in 2005, while his Democratic successor, Barack Obama, declined the invitation to came to the commemorative parade in 2010.

Instead, the US sent 76 troops from the Army's 18th Infantry Regiment which had taken an active part in the 1944 D-Day offensive in Europe. The US personnel paraded through Red Square alongside British and French soldiers, as well as troops from former Soviet republics.
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