Tag Archives: vladimir

An old coal-fired plant in North Dakota is trying to go green.

by Karen31Uvt Posted on February 20, 2018

“The relationship that I had with Putin spans 18 years now,” the secretary of state said during a 60 Minutes interview with CBS’ Margaret Frank. “It was always about what I could do to be successful on behalf of my shareholders, and how Russia could succeed.” A true deal-maker.

But as U.S. secretary of state, the ex-CEO of ExxonMobil is supposed to put the United States’ interests first. That should ostensibly put some pressure on the relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tillerson, which was commemorated with a Russian friendship medal in 2013 after ExxonMobil signed deals with Rosneft, the state-owned Russian oil company.

Russia is one of the world’s top exporters of both oil and gas. As Alex Steffen and Rebecca Leber have written, the country stands to benefit from procrastinating on climate change action that would limit fossil fuel extraction.

In the 60 Minutes interview, Tillerson recounted his first meeting with the Russian president after becoming U.S secretary of state. “Same man, different hat,” is how he recalls reintroducing himself.

“What he is representing is different than what I now represent,” Tillerson elaborated. “And I said to him, ‘I now represent the American people.’”

Convincing! And now, on to the SNL skit that apparently made Tillerson laugh out loud:

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An old coal-fired plant in North Dakota is trying to go green.

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Rex Tillerson is caught in a love triangle with Russia and the U.S.

by PSZLinneap Posted on February 20, 2018

“The relationship that I had with Putin spans 18 years now,” the secretary of state said during a 60 Minutes interview with CBS’ Margaret Frank. “It was always about what I could do to be successful on behalf of my shareholders, and how Russia could succeed.” A true deal-maker.

But as U.S. secretary of state, the ex-CEO of ExxonMobil is supposed to put the United States’ interests first. That should ostensibly put some pressure on the relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tillerson, which was commemorated with a Russian friendship medal in 2013 after ExxonMobil signed deals with Rosneft, the state-owned Russian oil company.

Russia is one of the world’s top exporters of both oil and gas. As Alex Steffen and Rebecca Leber have written, the country stands to benefit from procrastinating on climate change action that would limit fossil fuel extraction.

In the 60 Minutes interview, Tillerson recounted his first meeting with the Russian president after becoming U.S secretary of state. “Same man, different hat,” is how he recalls reintroducing himself.

“What he is representing is different than what I now represent,” Tillerson elaborated. “And I said to him, ‘I now represent the American people.’”

Convincing! And now, on to the SNL skit that apparently made Tillerson laugh out loud:

Taken from:

Rex Tillerson is caught in a love triangle with Russia and the U.S.

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The Photo That May Help Unlock the Trump-Russia Scandal

by KelleyGresswell Posted on May 23, 2017

Mother Jones

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On Monday, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) announced that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has documents indicating that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn appears to have lied in the process of obtaining top-level security clearance to be President Donald Trump’s national security advisor. The disclosure was made in a letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) that urged the committee chairman to issue subpoenas for additional documents related to Flynn’s brief tenure at the White House. “We need to know what the President, the Vice President, White House Counsel, and other top officials knew about General Flynn—and when they knew it,” Cummings wrote. Flynn resigned in mid-February after it became public that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kisylak.

Cummings’ letter focused on Flynn’s trip to Russia in December 2015 for a conference and dinner celebrating the 10th anniversary of RT, the Kremlin-backed news channel. Little noticed at the time, Vladimir Putin’s guests that night included Flynn and future Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein—an odd couple who reflected the Russian president’s efforts to court fringe figures on both the right and the left and otherwise meddle in US politics. (Also at the table were Putin’s spokesman, chief of staff, and deputy chief of staff.)

Stein said the soiree was “a great opportunity to lay out some of my foreign policy proposals and get Russian reactions to them.” Flynn, who commanded a $45,000 fee to speak at the event, said he didn’t ask to be seated next to Putin. “I found it a great learning opportunity,” he told the Washington Post.

According to Cummings’ letter, Flynn told security investigators that “I didn’t take any money from Russia” in connection with the event. Yet Cummings wrote that his committee has documents showing how the $45,000 payment was transferred from RT to Flynn’s lobbying firm, as well as an email in which an RT official states, “We will be covering the payment of General Flynn’s fee.”

Flynn downplayed his dinner with Putin during his security check, telling investigators that during his foreign trips he “had only unsubstantial contact with foreign nationals.” Cummings wrote, “It is difficult to understand how General Flynn could have believed that his dinner with Russian President Vladimir Putin was an ‘insubstantial contact.'”

The White House has refused to provide the House oversight committee with any documents related to its vetting, hiring, and firing of Flynn. Flynn has refused to comply with a subpoena from the Senate intelligence committee, citing the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.

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The Photo That May Help Unlock the Trump-Russia Scandal

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Reuters: Putin-Controlled Think Tank Created Plan to Interfere With US Election

by locuridemuncainconstanta Posted on April 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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Reuters reports that Vladimir Putin personally directed RISS, a Russian think tank, to develop plans to interfere with the US election:

A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters.

….The first Russian institute document was a strategy paper written last June that circulated at the highest levels of the Russian government but was not addressed to any specific individuals. It recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the seven officials said.

A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said.

According to Reuters, there’s no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded in this. It was purely a Russian operation. Nor did the RISS plans say anything about the release of hacked emails. “The officials said the hacking was a covert intelligence operation run separately out of the Kremlin.”

So we have the RISS plan. We have the email hacks, which were far more extensive than initially reported. We have the RT cable network and the Sputnik news agency, which specialized in anti-Clinton stories. We have the Russian troll factory in St. Petersburg writing pro-Trump tweets under hundreds of aliases. We have thousands of Russian Twitter bots to make sure the tweets went viral. We have Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear and dozens of other covert Russian operations. We have Guccifer 2.0. We have DCLeaks.com. And finally, Russia appears to have used Wikileaks—either wittingly or unwittingly—for maximum exposure of all its hacks.

That’s a pretty big operation. Did it work? We’ll never know, but given how close the election was, the answer is probably yes.

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Reuters: Putin-Controlled Think Tank Created Plan to Interfere With US Election

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The New Yorker’s Next Cover Says Everything You Need to Know About Trump and Russia

by RaquelZ868662379 Posted on February 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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While Republicans continue to duck calls to investigate President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, the New Yorker is putting the issue front and center of its next cover with a brilliant illustration:

The scathing cover will accompany an investigation featured in the next issue that explores Russian President Vladimir Putin’s influence on the presidential election, and the frightening return of a Cold War the United States is at risk of losing. The issue comes in the wake of a bombshell report on Thursday that cited White House officials requesting the FBI dispute evidence Trump aides communicated with Russian officials during the election. According to CNN, the FBI rejected that request.

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The New Yorker’s Next Cover Says Everything You Need to Know About Trump and Russia

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NYT: Trump Team Had "Repeated Contacts" With Russian Intelligence During the Presidential Campaign

by KathieZxckyniu Posted on February 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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ZOMG!

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee….The intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin….The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump.

….Officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, which Russian intelligence officials were on the calls, and how many of Mr. Trump’s advisers were talking to the Russians.

This is from Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo at the New York Times. If Trump thought that firing Michael Flynn was going to stop the recent bloodletting, he thought wrong.

Just to make this clear: At the same time that Russian intelligence was hacking various email accounts in order to sabotage Hillary Clinton, multiple members of the Trump team had repeated phone calls with senior Russian intelligence officials. And during this entire time, Trump himself was endorsing a foreign policy that appeared almost as if it had been dictated to him by Vladimir Putin.

As a number of people have pointed out, the American intelligence community has all but declared war on Trump since his inauguration. I hardly need to spell out why this is dangerous. At the same time, it’s sure becoming a lot clearer why they’re so alarmed by the guy.

And by the way, I shouldn’t miss this chance to flog my favorite hobbyhorse again: FBI Director James Comey, who knew all about this, pushed hard not to make it public during the campaign. Instead he considered it more important to inform Congress that he had discovered additional copies of Hillary Clinton’s emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Priorities.

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NYT: Trump Team Had "Repeated Contacts" With Russian Intelligence During the Presidential Campaign

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It Turns Out Rex Tillerson Is Just Another Member of the Swamp

by Mark Q Manning Posted on December 10, 2016

Mother Jones

Now that ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson seems to be a likely choice for Secretary of State, I got to wondering: where did his name come from in the first place? Obviously not from Trump himself. Well, I asked, and Twitter delivered. Here is Politico:

Tillerson was brought into Trump Tower for an interview with Trump at the recommendation of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who count Exxon among their private consulting clients, according to two sources familiar with the conversations. His name was first publicly floated for the job in early December and he met privately with Trump on Tuesday. Rice sat down with the President-elect in late November, and Gates followed her three days later.

So Tillerson pays Gates and Rice for “consulting,” whatever that means, and they in turn recommend him to Trump for the State Department. Welcome to the swamp, ladies and gentlemen.

And while on we’re on the subject of the Secretary of State, National Review editor Rich Lowry says that Tillerson, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney all have problems that ought to disqualify them:

The natural pick here has always been John Bolton, who endorsed Trump early, who fits broadly within the Trump worldview that you might characterize as muscular realism, and actually has substantial foreign policy experience.

I think the answer here is pretty obvious: Bolton doesn’t like Russia, and he has no qualms about saying so loudly and persistently. Trump obviously values an appreciation of Vladimir Putin’s talents more highly than he does even loyalty to Trump. Plus there’s the mustache.

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It Turns Out Rex Tillerson Is Just Another Member of the Swamp

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The Scriptwriter for “The Trump Show” Needs to Get a Grip

by GuadalupeWentche Posted on December 10, 2016

Mother Jones

From the Wall Street Journal:

Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Rex Tillerson has emerged as the leading candidate to become President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, according to two transition officials, marking the latest twist in a multiweek search for a top diplomat.

….Among those considered for the post, Mr. Tillerson has perhaps the closest ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, having negotiated a 2011 energy partnership deal with Russia that Mr. Putin said could eventually be worth as much as $500 billion. In 2012, the Kremlin bestowed the country’s Order of Friendship decoration on Mr. Tillerson.

Oh come on. Trump is planning to nominate a wealthy, inexperienced fossil-fuel mogul whose only qualification—literally—is that he’s sort of chummy with Vladimir Putin? And Republicans are expected to confirm him?

Who’s writing the script for this show? No one’s going to believe these plot twists. I gave up on Designated Survivor after a couple of episodes, and it was more realistic than this.

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The Scriptwriter for “The Trump Show” Needs to Get a Grip

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Russia Is Paying a Price for Vladimir Putin’s Napoleon Complex

by FRXJaneen858603 Posted on November 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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Russia says its pilot received no warning before Turkey shot down one of its fighters on Tuesday. Turkey says it gave plenty of warning. Here’s the New York Times today:

A United States military spokesman, Col. Steven Warren, confirmed on Tuesday that Turkish pilots had warned the Russian pilot 10 times, but that the Russian jet ignored the warnings….At the emergency NATO meeting, Turkish officials played recordings of the warnings Turkish F-16 pilots had issued to the Russian aircraft. The Russian pilots did not reply.

The fact that the US says this doesn’t automatically make it true. On the other hand, I wouldn’t believe Vladimir Putin without checking for myself if he told me the sky was blue. So while it’s entirely likely that both sides have been testing each other for the past couple of weeks, my best guess at this point is that Russia has flown over the Hatay peninsula repeatedly and been warned about it, but continued doing it anyway. This kind of provocation is pretty common in Putin’s Russia. This time, though, he did it to a country headed by a guy much like himself, and he paid the price for it.

So what happens now? “We’re not going to war against Turkey,” the Russian foreign minister said today, but Russia will probably announce some kind of symbolic reprisal soon. And that will be that. Putin is discovering to his sorrow that Syria is not quite the same as Crimea or South Ossetia. It’s all great when you can show off your shiny new cruise missiles on the nightly news, but this isn’t a war that will be over in a few weeks because there’s nobody to fight back. It’s a never-ending quagmire, and there’s not really much in it for Russia.

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Russia Is Paying a Price for Vladimir Putin’s Napoleon Complex

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Russia drops Greenpeace piracy charges, alleges activists are hooligans

by KathiIvest Posted on October 24, 2013

Russia drops Greenpeace piracy charges, alleges activists are hooligans

By

Shutterstock / katatonia82

Hooligans are known for lighting flares and brawling at soccer games. Protesting offshore drilling? Not so much.

A hooligan is a violent young troublemaker. That’s what Russian prosecutors are now calling the Greenpeace activists and the journalists who approached and in some cases scaled Russia’s first offshore Arctic oil platform last month, bringing worldwide attention to the country’s drilling plans.

The good news is that the prosecutors have finally dropped piracy charges against the activists. Those piracy allegations could have landed them in jail for up to 15 years.

The bad news: Now they’re all being charged with hooliganism, which could result in a maximum sentence of seven years.

Greenpeace had been irate about the piracy charges and now it’s irate about the hooliganism charges. The group described them as wildly disproportionate and vowed to fight them in court. “The Arctic 30 are no more hooligans than they were pirates,” Vladimir Chuprov of Greenpeace Russia said in a statement. “They are both fantasy charges that bear no relation to reality.”

The activists and journalists are being held without bail. They come from 18 countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, so their arrest has triggered international denunciation, but Russia doesn’t seem to care.

Well, we’re glad to hear that Greenpeace won’t be boarding our boats any time soon, looting our gold-laden treasure chests. But we sure wouldn’t want to run into any of their activists at a European soccer game.


Source
Russia drops Greenpeace piracy charges, Al Jazeera
Greenpeace International responds to hooliganism charge, Greenpeace

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Russia drops Greenpeace piracy charges, alleges activists are hooligans

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