Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

I won't post any longer regarding candidates but I will post this. Be forewarned I felt this one coming with his response to France regarding the spy who was poisoned. Putin will take complete advantage of the division within our country, I remember predicting this in discussion with San online weeks ago.

So folks, the game just stepped up a notch, if you care about our country then don't vote for charisma, don't vote for domestic policy alone, don't vote for chemistry or even the party line - vote for competence to handle a possible global stand-off.

JMO, borrowing that from Anna, hope you don't mind.

I absolutely hope everyone is paying attention!!! Putin is nothing more than a KGB thug....

Yes he is.He is very,VERY bad man and a coldded killer.CAt

{{edit - removed by request of Cat}}

Nonesy wrote: So folks, the game just stepped up a notch, if you care about our country then don't vote for charisma, don't vote for domestic policy alone, don't vote for chemistry or even the party line - vote for competence to handle a possible global standoff.

I take that to mean "don't vote for Obama."

So, Nonesuche, can you name anyone who has the competence to handle a possible global standoff. I cannot think of anyone.

I'm not nonesy...

My vote will be based on the individual's stance and problem solving. If that candidate just happens to have charisma, etc., then so be it.

I absolutely DO NOT THINK that NONE was implying anything about Obama or anyone's choices so far....

what I personally read was her saying to us  (paraphrasing what I read and understood here)

be damn, bloody damn sure that you know what and who you are voting for.... don't fall for the spin that we are all going to see and the political tricks of those running for office...

case in point - John Edwards plays the economic card and yet moved into a 28,000 square foot house... who lives like that???  What does he truly know or remember about making ends meet?
Please don't start in flaming me about this one too, it's just an example....

however, I do take what NONE says to heart... this is the battle for our freedoms and way of life.... not since WWII has it been so important that we focus ....

that my dear friends was all she said.... she did not tell anyone who to vote for..... nor did she slam any candiate in her post -

so please, if y'all want less rhetoric on this forum then how about not putting words in people's mouths?   I get so pissed off when I come in here to discuss what is a truly important time in all of our lives and I see a post about a statement that wasn't directed at anyone - which in this case was None's post...  

this is getting to the point where no one will even post... Anna, Tyler, NONE, etc are no longer in here... doesn't that say something? It does to me... .it's like if you don't agree that Obama is the absolute most wonderful canidate ever then you must leave this forum... and that is absolutely not true - I think he would be the worst thing to ever happend to this Country, hell, in my book, he may even make Carter look competent and that my friends is saying something... Carter was the WORST president ever..... it was during his presidency that the terrorist regimes began to rise into power aided by him.  

Unfortunately we have lived with sticking our head in the sand for far too long..... and now we are going to be paying the price in too many dear ways if we are not careful....

BTW, I am NOT trying to make anyone upset... I am just trying to say that if you want to say that we are all mean etc... then please don't upset posters by putting words in their mouths...

If I were NONE that would have felt like an attack to me.... and I am complaining about that only...

please think about it....

we are here to learn from each other  and help missing people when and where we can....

and by in fighting we are only taking the focus off of the issues.....

just my humble $.02

i went baack on this site to apologize for obscene comment about putin,and I guess I went to the wrong place.peace Monkeys,Peace.just vote,we had our civil war once.My family has only been good at war,priests and drinking.I am trying to avoid those right now,at least 2 of them.Putin is the mst dangerous leader in the world today..imo  cat

That's okay, Cat. I did not understand it anyway.  :wink:

Louise,

Honestly, I wasn't thinking of any one candidate, I am terrified that the alliances that can be formed now against us could be insurmountable. I am not even sure that any current candidate can do the job. Many also call Guilliani and Romney as charismatic, haven't you heard?

Please don't put words in my mouth, I would not do so to you.

Mrs is right though, in my experience in work and in my personal life, somehow I'm able to debate important topics and it not be perceived as a personal attack. It is sad that cannot happen here but again, I won't be debating candidates.

Respect would be nice however and a sincere thank you to Mrs for understanding what my post was all about. It is about how very important our votes are and how our life and liberty may well be on the line unlike we have ever seen in our lifetimes to date.

Nonsey,

I can't believe I put words in your mouth too. I'm so sorry. It was not intentional.

Nonsey,
I won't post, either, about specific candidates or much of anything else.  I am just not going to waste my time defending every word I say, not worth it.  There are far more constructive ways to spend my time than defending everything from my opinions, memory and even my avatar.  

But I did want to say that I agree with you completely.  Putin is becoming more bold all the time, having murdered most of his opponents and in very open and daring ways.  Polonium is not something we all just happen to have in our medicine cabinets!  That goes straight back to him and he knows it and is daring the world to do anything about it.

In my most humble opinion, only, of course.

But he is over the line already.  Far over it, for now he is carrying out assassinations outside his own country in Great Britain, no less.  Very bold.  He has given up any semblance of being our friend and I have to wonder why.  

Polonium is the least of what he has at his disposal, an entire nuclear arsenal that was supposed to have been destroyed but I fear we were very very lax in oversight of that.  He still has much of it and needs money.  Has he already sold nuclear weapons and technology to the terrorist?  We know Russians were all over Iraq leading up to the invasion while we fiddled around with the UN like the fools that we have been.  What were they up to there and what has Putin done that is causing him to behave in such a bellicose manner?

I hate to even think about it.  On the outside chance he hasn't already done the dirty deed (I personally think he has) is he trying to work up to it by taking a stance against us on smaller issues?  Trying to pick a fight so to speak?  

I noticed Gates said he would go to Moscow to talk.  I wanted to shout to him Don't Go!  They will poison you like all the others!  I do fear for his safety should he actually go there.   Something slow acting that won't take effect until he returns.  Yes, getting paranoid here but Vlad is not behaving rationally of late.

I wonder if history will call him Vlad the Poisoner, O/T just thinking out loud.

So in addition to the problems we already have, we have the Russians and French over in the corner whispering.   Never a good sign for they have always traded with our enemies every chance they got and made major bucks doing so.

Yes, as never before we will be tested in the coming years.  I do not personally know of a candidate up to the job nor any human being on the face of the earth for that matter.  Some problems are larger than any single person.

And what I see from our own so-called leaders and within our own borders is absolutely chilling.  So many of them are falling all over themselves to accommodate those vowing to kill us all.  Like you, I am very afraid for our children.  I fear their lives are going to be far different than ours have been.  We have no grown ups at home now it seems, just a lot of inflated egos.

"If you see a strong horse and a weak horse, everybody is going to like the strong horse."  Osama bin Ladin.

I only see weak horses.  And this frightens me.  I do pray that God will send us a strong horse.  

Anna

Amen NONE....

BRAVO Mrs. Red!!  Bravo

?????   huh :wink:

As always a strong thoughtful post Anna!!

Louise,

I am concerned that you cannot handle any examination of your candidate, if you have never genuinely worked in a campaign HQ in your area then I'd like to suggest you do that. They all welcome volunteers and it is a quite an eye-opening experience as well as an education.

Anna, thank you for your post, and for being 'up' on the current affairs and the history, I always learn something new from your posts.

Clinton played a big part in the russion oligarchs (the blue Mafia) rising to power, the oligarchs were and remain Putin's inner circle. It's a shame tyler isn't posting, she can contribute to a greater understanding of this too. I learned more regarding this months ago when Klaas and I were researching a russian reported to have a yacht in Aruba on the night Natalee disappeared. Go google Abramovich, he's quite active in the Caribbean, Joran and Paulus are big fans of his famous London soccer club. Fortune Magazine's russian office head had lunch with him once, he didn't live 24 hours to tell the story.

It's amazing what you can learn if you keep an open mind and do your research. I don't want to miss the forest for the trees, I don't think any of us can afford to. Putin enjoys being the 'bad boy' and is likely to get far worse quite quickly now.

And Louise, as for your references to Kennedy I will say he had been a military leader and served in war, I expect that helped him immensely regarding handling the Cuban missle crisis. Our world is also imminently more complex now as are the threats.

I'd place risk management at the top of my list for our next President.

Sunny, good to see you posting here. A balance of different opinions always makes for greater and more worthy debate.

Klass,you might want take my obscene post off,in case someone does understand it.The kgb shot a college mate and left him to die in the dirt.He did nothing wrong,he was in the correct place by treaty and he was gunned down.I have family members who lost legs to the soviets,but they got their share.Our word for russians is simple"the enemy"I will not and can not trust putin...and I won't.  a serious Cat

CAt, you are right on with this one.
Old kGB man...never changed...opportunist just waiting for his chance to pounce...again.

Hi Nonesy,

I certainly can handle any and all examinations of my candidate. How can you assume I cannot?

I HAVE worked in a Campaign HQ for John Kerry, in person and online. I even hosted a fund rasing party. So I've already had the eye-opening experience and education of supporting a candidate.

So please know that I understand what I'm doing.

*****************************

nonesuche wrote: Louise, I am concerned that you cannot handle any examination of your candidate, if you have never genuinely worked in a campaign HQ in your area then I'd like to suggest you do that. They all welcome volunteers and it is a quite an eye-opening experience as well as an education.

Louise,

Honestly in all the years I've worked on campaigns or with lobbyists or even legislators, you do have the thinnest skin I have ever encountered. That isn't intended as a slam either, it's an honest observation.

Be prepared for Putin to launch a new OPEC for natural gas soon and one of his oligarchs has been quite busy buying up oil reserves in the Carribbean, plus Russia has NO debt now. They owe no one, they are happy to join forces with Iran and South Korea, the next axis of evil for our world.

No candidate should be allowed to avoid answering many questions regarding their approach to dealing with Putin.

Well, that's what happens when one cannot recover from an unrecoverable loss. You may have walked in some shoes but you have never walked in mine. Please grant me some slack.

I cannot believe some of the things you are posting.

unrecoverable loss? your attacks have now taken a new low road.

Will you please leave me alone?

I haven't attacked you Louise, only responded back. I won't respond to it again which is all the control I can exert here - to depart.

Louise..supporting Kerry really had to be an eye opening experience....he only thing I have seen that Kerry did that was good for this country is NOT throw his hat in the ring this time around.

What in the HELL is that supposed to me?  Uncalled for IMO..Slack??  I thought this was the political forum???

Louise surely you do not think you can post the many things you post and no one respond....or do you want a peronal thread  where no one can respond to you???   you need to think before you hit the submit key if you don't want responses to your posts.

Louise,

I have not been posting in the political threads for awhile now. Part of it is due to the way your post have been perceived by me. I know you say you are a crystal adult and I told you there may be others here that are also crystal adults.

I do not know what kind of loss you are suffering but maybe you should post it in the prayer thread rather than here. In fact my opinion only, but since you want to be left alone maybe it would be good for you to leave the political forum alone until you are recovered somewhat from your loss.

Right now you seem to be doing your political candidates a disservice by the way your post are being interpeted. Again my opinion only.

I sent this to Nonesuche by email and thought she might post it but since she hasn't would like to share this information with any interested in Russia and what our friend Putin might be up to these days.  Rather lengthy but at least read the percentage of EU oil/nat gas controlled by Russia.

So I do believe we can no longer count on those countries as allies when Putin holds this kind of control over them all.


The Nashis - intimidating and harrassing
by PETER HITCHENS

I am more scared of Russia now than I ever was in the days of the Cold War, when silly disarmers fanned exaggerated fears of nuclear war.

And so should you be.

Then, we were the respected members of a great and potent alliance that stood united against an economically and politically decrepit Kremlin, whose colossal armies dared not move forward one foot, and whose rockets could only be fired in an act of global suicide.

Now we are a small and lonely country, singled out for the ire and spite of a reborn, vigorous Russian nation: ruthless, aggressive, rich; flushed with a revived national pride and armed with the entirely usable weapons of oil and gas.

Russia's state-controlled gas monolith, Gazprom, is an enormous energy power, second only to Saudi Arabia in the size of its reserves.

It is the biggest extractor of natural gas in the world and the planet's third largest corporation. It is the sole supplier of gas to the three Baltic republics, as well as to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Finland, Moldova and Slovakia. It is by far the biggest gas provider to Turkey, supplying around 65 per cent of that country's needs.

It sells about a quarter of the gas used by the entire European Union. This includes 97 per cent of Bulgaria's gas, 89 per cent of Hungary's, 86 per cent of Poland's, almost 75 per cent of the Czech Republic's, two thirds of supplies to Austria, 40 per cent of Romania's, 36 per cent of Germany's, 27 per cent of Italy's and 25 per cent of France's.

At present it has only two per cent of Britain's gas market but this is expected to rise to 20 per cent during the next few years, and Gazprom is also talking about buying Britain's gas distribution company, Centrica.

Significantly, in recent disputes with Ukraine and Belarus it has been ready to turn off the tap to get its way. Suddenly, it is believable that Russian agents might murder their government's enemies, blatantly and spectacularly, on British sovereign soil - and that we will get no serious help in tracking the culprits.

We are also being treated in general with snorting, bullying contempt designed to let us know just how far we have fallen.

Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to Moscow, Anthony Brenton,who ought to be a figure of status and respect,is subject to a crude and unsubtle campaign of personal harassment, sometimes actually dangerous, and unashamedly winked at by the Moscow authorities.

The BBC's Russian service is mysteriously told it can no longer broadcast on the FM band, thanks to alleged licensing difficulties. And now a strange whistling noise is interfering with reception on the AM band as well.

Britain's official cultural arm, the British Council, has been raided by tax inspectors, famous for their selective zeal against those who upset the President.

And, laughably in this country of low safety standards, it has just been fined for breaking fire regulations in its Leningrad office - run, as it happens, by Neil Kinnock's son, Stephen.

It is a new experience for Britain, so long herself a feared power who could behave much as she wished, to be the weaker party in such a quarrel, and with no great hope of getting stronger.

We are, in my view, being warned crudely and bluntly that in future we must treat Moscow with respect, in the street-gangster sense of the word.

There are to be no more grants of political asylum to foes of the Kremlin. There are to be no more lectures on human rights from diplomats or the BBC. Or else.

This is a calculated humiliation. At least America has been tactful as it has quietly deprived us of our empire and reduced us to second-class status.

The new Russia is as tactful as a teenager full of lager. This is a raw, adolescent society. Moscow, once somnolent and repressed, is now Europe's most exhilarating, exotic and expensive city. It glitters with money like a Gulf oil state.

Significantly, its seven great Stalin-era skyscrapers, assertions of overbearing might dating from the last years of the great dictator, have been scrubbed and regilded as an expression of nostalgic national pride.

The Russian rouble, once a sort of joke-money traded in wads, like wastepaper, on the black market and useful only for buying bottles of raw vodka or blue, diseased chickens, is now a petro-currency available from exchange offices in London and accepted by airlines for duty-free goods.

At street level you see other significant signs of brashness, lawlessness and immaturity. Bodyguards, dressed in obligatory black, sit next to hotel lifts guarding their rouble-billionaire clients, or march through the lobbies with their shut, blank faces and that strange, swaying gait. Shops display the gross bad taste of the new rich.

Within the fences that keep out the poor, the expensive women totter about, dressed as if to satisfy the sexual fantasies of 14-year-old schoolboys: no heel lower than five inches, every skirt tight and short.

Amid such scenes I briefly snatched a conversation with Andrei Lugovoi, one of the men suspected of playing a part in the death of Alexander Litvinenko. His two bulging bodyguards loitered, adopting boxers' stances, presumably ready to floor me if I misbehaved.

Mr Lugovoi had until then been ignoring my requests to see him but a Russian colleague tracked him down and bravely blocked his path while I caught up with him. Mr Lugovoi is a slight man in bizarre shoes with long, tapering toes. He bestows on me a disarming smile and twinkles as I try to question him. Will he be returning to London?

"I hope so," he lies merrily before walking off.

If this is a Kremlin hitman, he puts on a good act. But then such a man would, wouldn't he?

Shaped as I was by the Cold War and by two melodramatic years living in Moscow as the old regime collapsed 15 years ago, I had begun my enquiries by meeting Mikhail Lyubimov, now in his 70s but once a real-life KGB hood, expelled from London after he tried to recruit female Whitehall clerks at tea dances.

Compared with Russia's modern hard men, Lyubimov is Santa Claus. He still has a spy's instinct, insisting on sitting in the darkest corner of the pizzeria where we meet.

He remains very much the loyalist, praising President Vladimir Putin as "more sensible than Boris Yeltsin, more sensible than Gorbachev".

He is plainly impressed by the revival of national self-confidence under the ex-KGB agent. "Putin understands the mind of the people. He understands Russian pride."

Lyubimov doubts the reinvigorated Russian state would nowadays kill its enemies on foreign soil.

"The idea that he gave the order to kill Litvinenko, this is rubbish," he says.

In his time, the KGB certainly took stern vengeance in its cellars on such traitors as Oleg Penkovsky. But in a revulsion from the methods of the Stalin era, it was careful about killings abroad.

He recalled: "In the Stalin years, we killed a lot of people abroad."

But he explains this stopped under Khrushchev and never seriously started again.

"I remember there was a decision to kill Oleg Lyalin, the Seventies defector. This was sent to all KGB stations, "If you see this man you must do all in your power to eliminate him."

I imagined I might meet him on the London Tube - what should I do? [Smilingly, he mimes a pushing action] Shove him under the wheels of the train? It was a typical secret service order. They knew it would not be done."

Nor was it. Despite having helped to wreck Russian spy networks in London for a generation, Lyalin died of natural causes in 1995, at an unnamed location in England.

All very comforting. But Alexei Venediktov, one of Russia's leading political commentators, widely believed to have excellent Kremlin access and the ear of influential billionaire Roman Abramovich, suspects things have changed. I spoke to him at the studios of the radio station Echo Moscow, a favourite forum for the capital's politically aware.

He points out that in 2004, two Russian agents were convicted by a Qatari court of killing a Chechen rebel exile in the Gulf state. The pair have since been returned to Russia, supposedly to serve their sentences there, but actually to an official welcome and likely release.

And he draws my attention to a new law signed by President Putin last July, specifically allowing Russian special service agents to kill 'terrorists' abroad.

He also explains that Britain's stock is low in the new Russia.

"Our ruling elite believe Britain is not a country with its own policies, but one which follows American policy, so there is no sense in talking to the British when they can talk to their American bosses."

But it is more than that. There is a specific dispute, and it is personal between President Putin and Anthony Blair. It is caused by an argument over extradition. The treatment of the British Ambassador, Anthony Brenton, has been personally permitted by the Kremlin and is a sign of its displeasure over the asylum given to anti-Putin billionaire Boris Berezovsky and to the Chechen leader Ahmed Zakayev.

Venediktov, referring to Kremlin potentates as "the people from behind the walls," says: "The Russian authorities are also displeased that Berezovsky travels on a British passport under what they regard as the false name of Platon Yelenin.

"They are sure the decision about this asylum was not taken by the courts but by the Home Office, and we know Putin talked to Blair about that. Putin thought Blair was not being helpful. They think, surely, there is a way to overrule the courts in Britain."

Apparently - in a bizarre throwback to old Soviet propaganda ideas about Britain - Putin's advisers believe Ministers and judges belong to the same clubs and communicate with each other privately there.

When I suggest to him that the Russian Embassy in London must surely know this is all wrong, Venediktov replies that Russia now has the sort of government whose foreign envoys tell it what it wants to hear.

The dispute is personal.

"Putin's disbelief of Blair was the start of the sudden cooling of relations with Britain. The Russian government thinks the British Government has not met expectations. Putin thinks Blair fooled him when he promised tight co-operation against terrorism. Putin is very personal in his relations with other political leaders."

He would do them personal favours, and presumably expects the same in return. Boris Berezovsky is regarded by Putin as a sort of terrorist because of his open calls for the overthrow of the Russian government.

But the Kremlin had got used to that.

The incident that really damaged relations was the granting of asylum last summer to executives from Yukos, the oil company now effectively seized by the Russian state but once owned by Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently doing time in a remote jail for supposed tax offences. Russian prosecutors were livid that they were prevented from extraditing the Yukos men.

And soon afterwards the troubles of Ambassador Brenton began. To some extent they are his own fault. He spoke at a meeting of opposition groups under the umbrella of an organisation called Another Russia, which he was absolutely entitled to do.

But among these groups was the repellent National Bolshevik Party, led by Eduard Limonov, a creepy writer of dirty books, accused by his enemies of being an open supporter of discredited Stalinist and National Socialist ideas. Certainly his party's symbols are startlingly - and intentionally - similar to those used by Hitler's Nazis.

But this cannot be the reason why Mr Brenton has since been singled out and harried, as we shall shortly see. Two American diplomats spoke at the same gathering and the French ambassador was present, but nothing has happened to them.

Venediktov says the treatment of Mr Brenton is the first of its kind since a dangerous frontier quarrel between the old USSR and China in 1969. Then, an officially sponsored demonstration was unleashed against the Chinese embassy. Since then, there has been no action comparable to this by a Moscow government. But the pursuit of Mr Brenton is obviously happening with official support.

"There is no doubt they are acting on the orders of the Kremlin," Venediktov says.

Who can doubt he is right about that?

The organisation that pursues Mr Brenton is a supposed patriotic youth movement called Nashi, which means, roughly, 'Our thing'. Nashi is as spontaneous as North Korea. If it is a popular youth movement, why is its Moscow headquarters bare of any indication of who operates within? Why have its leaders met President Putin three times? Why are its finances such a mystery?

Nashi's campaign against our man in Moscow is an elaborate, malicious and sometimes risky tease, which in my view could not have been dreamt up by a few teens and which clearly has official sanction and help. Mr Brenton called for a "civil society" in Russia, with freedom of expression. And that is what he is getting.

Youths, including 19-year-old computer student Tikhon Chumakov, have been demonstrating outside the British Embassy and wherever Mr Brenton goes. They are mysteriously well informed about his movements. They even follow his official car through the hellish Moscow traffic, which can be dangerous. How do they do it?

I spoke to Chumakov, a slim fair-haired character who looks a little as the young Putin must have done. He is slightly vague about how the protests began or how he came to be involved but he now has a personal grudge after being thumped by a (Russian) security guard during a protest outside the Ambassador's beautiful residence just across the river from the Kremlin.

The Ambassador has since said sorry for this excess of zeal. But Chumakov wants a broader apology for associating with the "fascists" of the National Bolsheviks. He is currently planning a trip to London during which he hopes to appeal to the Queen about the matter.

He claims to be outraged. But he is curiously passionless as he says he is motivated by disgust at the National Bolsheviks and similar types.

"We in Nashi think such people are just scum. Since we are an anti-fascist youth movement, we were outraged."

He asks: "Can you imagine the Russian ambassador to London going to an IRA conference, or the Russian ambassador in Washington at a Ku Klux Klan rally?"

Mr Brenton has offered to have tea with Nashi representatives to explain his position but they have responded by displaying banners saying: "We don't want your tea." Chumakov says they want a proper apology, not a nice meeting. "I will carry on pursuing him until he either apologises or leaves the country."

Surely, I asked him, Nashi is a front organisation for Putin?

He replies: "We do support the ideas of the President. But to say that my actions are ruled or ordered by the Kremlin is untrue. I am doing it on my own."

He admits he has been given some travelling expenses when he has pursued Brenton to distant cities such as Samara but says only small sums are involved.

He is, obviously, only a footsoldier in someone else's army. I get a more subtle explanation of how the group works from Anastasia Suslova, 21, a Nashi official.

While unable to say where Nashi gets its money (it is said to come from pro-Putin businessmen, as it happens), she explains that: "In 2005, with the 'orange' and 'rose' revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, we realised we needed a young generation which would understand that Russia is equal to the other European nations, and we would need a young generation that would not blindly follow such revolutions.

"Our job is to bring up young patriots from the generation of people who grew up to survive the failure of democracy in Russia."

That phrase 'failure of democracy', is very important. The Gorbachev-Yeltsin years are seen as a time of chaos and national humiliation. Many refer to it in Russian as "Dermokratiya", which translates rather unpleasantly as "The rule of s***".

"Our ideas and tasks coincide with what Putin wants from youth. We support the political goals of the President," adds Anastasia. Which is a very happy coincidence for Mr Putin, who was severely shaken by the outbreaks of "people power", in neighbouring countries, seeing them - with some justice - as the manipulation of crowds and public opinion to overthrow authoritarian governments much like his own.

Had such a thing happened in Moscow, I think we would have seen hordes of Nashi supporters holding gigantic counter-demonstrations and waving their symbol: a combination of the Tsarist St Andrew's Cross and the old Soviet red flag, which is a good summary of Putin's view of Russia.

Putin, aided by his brilliant spin doctor Vladislav Surkov, has shown some skill in creating or backing - at arm's length - political movements that serve his purpose at the time, and dumping them later.

Nashi is just the latest and Britain is its present target. Once we have learned to do as we are told when Russia wants to extradite someone, the outrage over Mr Brenton's behaviour will mysteriously die away.

At approaching elections, President Putin rather wittily plans to back two parties at once: United Russia to get the patriotic vote and Just Russia to pick up support from the old Communists.

Real opposition parties will disappear or get tiny totals. The battle will be so hollow it will make our own bloodless contest between New Labour and Cameron Toryism look like a real struggle for the soul of the nation.

Under the leadership of this clever, secret police-trained cynic, the new Russia will go on getting stronger, more authoritarian, more confident; casting a longer shadow over a Europe which has yet to realise the size of the threat that this new oil and gas state poses, or of the resentment it feels over the way it was humbled by a triumphalist West at the end of the Cold War.

Now it is getting its own back. There will be worse to come.



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


Find this story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=433567&in_page_id=1770
©2007 Associated New Media

Anna, I'm sorry I didn't get it posted, still working on orders and the website so at my PC but haven't had time to read all of my email  :oops:

that's a good piece, thank you !

Oh, I fully understand, None, no critique on you.  Just wanted you to know it was the same article as it is so long.

And it is rather complicated.  The author has lived in Russia off and on for years so much easier for him to understand the players and the new movements.  I doubt I retain much of this but is good to know we can find the information should we want to brush back up on it in the future.

But I see every thread in politics is still taken personally with someone or other trying to pick a fight.   :roll:

Well, no one has the right to say what I may post or what I may not post regardless of their illusions of grandeur to the contrary.  If anyone doesn't like my posts, just don't read them.  End of problem.

.

ANNA Personally, I LOVE your posts. Always very informative.
Right now, I am not jumping into the political forum since I can't seem to wrap my brain around some things I'd like to respond to in a lady like manner.  :wink:
So, I read And I want to let you know I am so pleased you are continuing to post.  Always thoughtful, always intelligent.
You go, girl!

I am also missing TylerGal. Is she okay? Please tell her I said hi if you hear from her!

Okay, please enlighten me. WHAT is a Crystal Adult??????????
This inquiring mind would LOVE to know. :shock:

I was wondering the same thing!

 :lol:  :lol:  :shock:

ANNA,  
I am so grateful when you bring articles and your vast wealth of knowledge in here... please continue to do so.

TYLER>.. we need you back!!!!

ABSOLUTELY, Mrs. Red.

ANd, I also love reading what you write, Mrs. Red.
Of course, it helps that I agree with all of it as well! :wink:

Oh my we are political today.My feeling is simple like as a cat,Putin take everything and destroy the rest if they can.They are not to be trusted,but we must attempt to watch and study them.They are chessmasters.Clancy was wrong about our weapons always being best.They invented in the 1960's a ceramic plates to combine with reactive armor.Made antitank weapons worthless.Just a random thought,but a very strong one based on history.A tornado warning for 30 miles away,so if you see a cat flying,say hello.If I see the wizard,I will say hello.CAT

CAt, you be careful. Flying cats are hard to catch in a strong wind! :lol:

I have a woman friend...unassuming antique collector...but not really, heehee...who had intimate knowledge of the workings of Putin. When he got in she immediately said to me.."Watch this man. he is evil. He will never be anything but KGB. Trust me, watch and learn. "
She is right.
As always.

I am sorry I do not even know if this will work. I am also sorry for not bringing a link to the page. What I did was bring over a post of Louise's from the thread in the lounge under what is possible? It is no longer on the front page of the lounge it is on page 2 of the lounge threads.Hope this helps.


LouiseVargas



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Location: LA Woman Living in a Hollywood Bungalow, City of Light, City of Night
 Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:58 pm    Post subject:    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
pdh3,

My ears are perked up! I'm an Indigo elder, one of the forerunners. My daughter is not Indigo but she thinks she is and that I am not. My oldest grandchild Joe is a Crystal. I don't usually bring this up because it is beyond most people's grasp and they think I'm nuts.

http://www.metagifted.org/

http://indigochild.com/

http://tinyurl.com/ocp2

You Monkeys didn't know you had a new age person on your hands, did you?
_________________
Be Kinder Than Necessary Because Everyone You Meet is Fighting Some Kind Of Battle.

 

Is Obama really a one-man sleeper cell, come to wreak havoc on our precious nation?

WEll, I sort of assumed.
When I lived in California as a young girl I was into many metaphysical persuasions.. :lol:

Well I don't mind reading stuff that I don't agree with.... I mean I have read AL FRANKEN's book and I constantly read stuff like that... when I have formed an opinion I have read and researched as much as I can before I think it....  

but yes, ArtColley... we do agree and thank you for the compliment!!

Art,
The first requisite is a very high IQ, tested over 140 which I highly doubt many here have.  Indigo children are supposed to be the next level of evolution with crystals following the indigos.  I understood there were no crystals before 1996 and have been told my middle child is likely an Indigo to explain his very high intelligence and yet lack of social skills as indigos frequently are not into that sort of thing.

Frankly, I do not believe in any of it and think it is yet another way to justify bad behavior especially on his part.  He doesn't think so either but we all agree he may have slight case of Asperger's syndrome instead to explain his rages about certain things as well as OCD and total germ/chemical phobias.  He is bright enough that the university he attends held his seat in med school for a year while he took off to deal with this and his eating disorder, something they do not normally do.  Yet in his social skills, there is much lacking as he is overly blunt, rude at times and seems to care little the effect this has on others.  He is not unfeeling, just highly impatient with others and has a very low tolerance for people who are not his intellectual equal which is just about everybody.  He reacts with anger sometimes because they cannot think on the level that he can and he is truly flabbergasted and seems to think it often deliberate on their part.

But back to Indigo Children and crystals, New Age, unproven and usually something one allows others to say about one as a sort of compliment.  It's the sort of thing that one shouldn't have to tell others, it should be self-evident when one is special with more and better insights as these people are alleged to have.

Sorry, but if one has to tell others that one is one, then you are likely not.  :D It's the sort of thing that is very obvious to others.  This is not directed at any one person in particular just my thought on this claim to be more evolved than the rest of us.  If you truly were, someone would have noticed.  Just as superior intelligence is always evident after enough contact, this would be as well.  

And for the purpose of posting of a forum, we must all assume we are just equals.  There are none special among us who is allowed to attack and insult with impunity.  Just doesn't lend itself to this sort of thing well.  At the least, they are going to receive some very negative feedback from other posters.  Just the way it works.

And I for one would post more if every thread didn't get hijacked by somebody needing personal attention or trying to make themselves some sort of victim.  For example, I thought this thread was about Vladimir Putin and his recent rant against the U.S.   :roll:

Silly me!

.

Anna, Thank YOu!


I agree with all the above that you wrote...right down to the part about the truly gifted and special..they do NOT have to tell a soul. It is apparant.

You have much patience, Anna , Far more than me right now.

I so appreciate your posts and enjoy reading them. I do hope you continue to post, there are those of us that just appreciate you so much.

HOpefully, I'll get my articulation back to the point where I can join in more!  In the meantime, I content myself by reading more than posting! :lol:

In an effort to get another thread back on track post crystal children sidetracking and the like...........this column by Charles Krauthammer reviews my concerns regarding Putin's move to the public offensive quite well.

Take the time to read this and note Putin's alliances:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501282.html

The Putin Doctrine
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A23

Vladimir Putin -- Russia's president, although the more accurate title would be godfather -- made headlines last week with a speech in Munich that set a new standard in anti-Americanism. He not only charged the United States with the "hyper-use of force," "disdain for the basic principles of international law" and having "overstepped its national borders in . . . the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations." He even blamed the spread of weapons of mass destruction, which the United States has been combating with few allies and against constant Russian resistance, on American "dominance" that "inevitably encourages" other countries to acquire them.

There is something amusing about criticism of the use of force by the man who turned Chechnya into a smoldering ruin; about the invocation of international law by the man who will not allow Scotland Yard to interrogate the polonium-soaked thugs it suspects of murdering Alexander Litvinenko, yet another Putin opponent who met an untimely and unprosecuted death; about the bullying of other countries decried by a man who cuts off energy supplies to Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus in brazen acts of political and economic extortion.
 
Less amusing is the greater meaning of Putin's Munich speech. It marks Russia's coming out. Flush with oil and gas revenue, the consolidation of dictatorial authority at home and the capitulation of both domestic and Western companies to his seizure of their assets, Putin issued his boldest declaration yet that post-Soviet Russia is preparing to reassert itself on the world stage.

Perhaps the most important line in his speech was the least noted because it seemed so innocuous. "I very often hear appeals by our partners, including our European partners, to the effect that Russia should play an increasingly active role in world affairs," he said. "It is hardly necessary to incite us to do so."

Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko once boasted that no conflict anywhere on the globe could be settled without taking into account the attitude and interests of the Soviet Union. Gromyko's description of Soviet influence constitutes the best definition ever formulated of the term "superpower."

And we know how Putin, who has called the demise of the Soviet Union the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century, yearns for those superpower days. At Munich, he could not even disguise his Cold War nostalgia, asserting that "global security" was ensured by the "strategic potential of two superpowers."

Putin's bitter complaint is that today there remains only one superpower, the behemoth that dominates a "unipolar world." He knows that Moscow lacks the economic, military and even demographic means to challenge America as it did in Soviet days. He speaks more modestly of coalitions of aggrieved have-not countries that Russia might lead in countering American power.

Hence his increasingly active foreign policy -- military partnerships with China, nuclear cooperation with Iran, weapon supplies to Syria and Venezuela, diplomatic support as well as arms for a genocidal Sudan, friendly outreach to other potential partners of an anti-hegemonic (read: anti-American) alliance.

Is this a return to the Cold War? It is true that the ex-KGB agent occasionally lets slip a classic Marxist anachronism such as "foreign capital" (referring to Western oil companies) or the otherwise weird adjective "vulgar" (describing the actions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which infuriated Putin by insisting upon a clean election in Ukraine). He even intimated that he might undo one of the unequivocal achievements of the late Cold War era, the so-called "zero option" agreement of 1987, and restore a Soviet-style, medium-range ballistic missile force.

Nonetheless, Putin's aggressiveness does not signal a return to the Cold War. He is too clever to be burdened by the absurdity of socialist economics or Marxist politics. He is blissfully free of ideology, political philosophy and economic theory. There is no existential dispute with the United States.

He is a more modest man: a mere mafia don, seizing the economic resources and political power of a country for himself and his (mostly KGB) cronies. And promoting his vision of the Russian national interest -- assertive and expansionist -- by engaging in diplomacy that challenges the dominant power in order to boost his own.

He wants Gromyko's influence -- or at least some international acknowledgment that Moscow must be reckoned with -- without the ideological baggage. He does not want to bury us; he only wants to diminish us. It is 19th-century power politics at its most crude and elemental. Putin does not want us as an enemy. But at Munich he told the world that, vis-à-vis America, his Russia has gone from partner to adversary.

Thanks for bring that article, None.

I fear that too many people are not listening... and it's scary. The cold war was just that, cold but this new threat isn't.  It's as white hot as it gets... and for the first time (maybe it's age) I am really concerned that our way of life is going to be adversely affected.

I fear that too many people are just listening to NBC nigthly news and believing every word that they spout.  They have become about as Anti American as it gets to my way of thinking.

People somehow think that this is the first time we are hated in the world... that it's Bush's fault, but the truth is the US has always been hated by those that want us to become as ineffectual as they are.

We have Leslie, a Canadian, that stated either in this thread or another that the US has too much power and she fears that we do as we wish (words are paraphrased) but when was the last time we attacked Mexico or Canada to annex them?

Mrs Red-

We agree and your analogy of white hot is very accurate, this is the latest installment of Putin's efforts to install a strategy pointing toward all predicted in this latest article. Is anyone listening ? I am worried they are not, I also hope someone puts every presidential candidate out there on the line immediately with questions regarding their strategy on how to contend with this new reality and offensive by Russia?

Ivanov is another comrade who came up through the KGB with Putin  :shock:

FYI, Ivanov was 'in charge' as Minister of Defense in this last year as several in the military dared to report they were sexually and physically abused while under his watch? So if this is how he treats his own military, does anyone in North America think he and Putin will respect our way of life?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/world/europe/16russia.html

Putin, Promoting an Ally, Fuels Speculation Over Successor

MOSCOW, Feb. 15 — President Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday added intrigue to the unsettled but widely debated question of who might succeed him as Russia’s leader in 2008 when he promoted his minister of defense in an unexpected cabinet tinkering.

Sergei B. Ivanov, a former K.G.B. officer who became the first civilian to lead the country’s military in 2001, will now serve as a first deputy prime minister, giving him expanded duties. He will have the same rank in government and title as another closely watched contender, Dmitri A. Medvedev.

The two men, who are friends and close aides from Mr. Putin’s hometown, St. Petersburg, have emerged as the leading candidates to replace Mr. Putin when he completes a second and — by law — final term after presidential elections scheduled for March 2008.

The move, which went largely unexplained like most of Mr. Putin’s actions, is certain to intensify speculation over which of the two might have the upper hand for Mr. Putin’s endorsement. That would be a virtual guarantee of election, given his popularity and the centralized control of politics here.

Since Mr. Putin’s last significant cabinet reshuffling in November 2005, Mr. Medvedev had nominally been Mr. Ivanov’s superior in the government. Mr. Medvedev also serves as chairman of the Russian energy giant, Gazprom.

“I think it is the formulation of the two candidates for the presidency of the Russian Federation in 2008,” said Sergei A. Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies, who works closely with the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin also moved to settle a struggle for control of Chechnya, the southern republic where Russian forces have largely crushed a separatist movement in two wars since 1994. Appearing on television later Thursday night, Mr. Putin accepted the resignation of Chechnya’s president, Alu D. Alkhanov, and appointed him a deputy justice minister.

With Mr. Alkhanov’s departure, Ramzan Kadyrov, the republic’s prime minister and a man whose fighters have been broadly accused of rampant human rights violations, becomes the acting president. Mr. Kadyrov and Mr. Alkhanov have quarreled openly in recent weeks, prompting so many rumors of intrigue and betrayals that Mr. Alkhanov had declared that he had no intention of leaving office.

Mr. Kadyrov is the son of Mr. Alkhanov’s predecessor, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated by rebels in 2004. The younger Mr. Kadyrov turned 30 last year, reaching the minimum age for the republic’s presidency, and was widely assumed to be waiting in the wings for the top post.

Tanya Lokshina, a prominent rights campaigner who travels to the region frequently, said Mr. Alkhanov’s removal cemented Mr. Kadyrov’s control over Chechnya’s affairs, underscoring the Kremlin’s disregard for complaints about Mr. Kadyrov’s tactics. “There’s not even a nominal president who was protesting what Kadyrov is doing,” she said, calling him a feudal leader. “That’s what Alkhanov was doing.”

On the national level, Mr. Putin has not signaled that he has a preferred candidate to replace him, as Boris N. Yeltsin tipped Mr. Putin to be his successor shortly after appointing him prime minister in August 1999. Four months later, on New Year’s Eve, Mr. Yeltsin resigned and made Mr. Putin acting president.

Mr. Putin announced the changes in televised meetings, the first with his ministers and later with leaders of the Ministry of Defense. Mr. Medvedev was absent from at least the televised portions of the meetings, and Mr. Putin did not mention him.

The president said he was expanding Mr. Ivanov’s duties to include “a part of the civil sector of the economy,” as well as the military industries that have undergone a significant consolidation under Mr. Putin. “I hope that what positive has been done in the military-industrial complex will extend to the civil sector, as well,” he said.

Mr. Medvedev, 41, has overseen economic and social issues, a portfolio he will now have to share with Mr. Ivanov.

“Ivanov is an equal of Putin,” said Olga V. Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who studies Russia’s leaders, calling him “successor No. 1.” “He is no less clever. Ivanov should show himself as a strong figure, capable of making firm decisions. But of course, he could not just work on defense. He had to operate wider. This is the next step.”

Mr. Markov, by contrast, said the undeclared race remained wide open, though he said the move could help Mr. Ivanov by distancing him from the military, which, despite an aggressive effort to rearm and rebuild, remains scarred by accusations of corruption and a brutal system of hazing young draftees.

Mr. Ivanov, 54, faced unusual public criticism last year after a particularly egregious hazing episode that left a private maimed. The appointment, Mr. Markov said, “liberated him from the not quite convenient theme of the Russian military.”

Mr. Ivanov’s replacement as defense minister is Anatoly E. Serdyukov, a former army officer and furniture manufacturer who has served as a tax inspector since Mr. Putin became president in 2000. Since July 2004, he has served as the head of the Federal Tax Service, an agency that has streamlined itself significantly but that remains a feared bureaucracy, one that critics say has been used selectively to punish opponents.

At a news conference this month, Mr. Putin faced repeated questions about his successor, but refused to answer them directly.

“Everyone who should be is already working in his proper place,” he said, apparently not hinting at the shuffle announced Thursday. “And what we should do is not to make a fuss about future elections but, as I have said, provide the citizens with an opportunity to make a free and democratic choice.”

Andrew Kramer contributed reporting.


Oh and this was reported also in the Canadian papers and I think the rhetoric used and the slams made against the US can give us both some insight into why Leslie is convinced she should fear the US? Interesting in that should Canada ever be under fire or fearful of impending invasion, the first force to assist her would be the US? Amazing.....perhaps the US should not move to assist Canada but rather allow those fine French to do so?

Some of us in the US might not agree with every aspect of the war in Iraq at least I do not, but I do agree that our entire world must fight back against terrorism, so what has been Canada's strategy other than to allow a flood of extremists into Canada and then to sneak into the US? Do tell....glass houses as they say IMO

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/02/16/3637380-sun.html

Fri, February 16, 2007

Putin kicks up Cold War rhetoric
By PETER WORTHINGTON

     
 

What everyone seems to have missed in Vladimir Putin's "Cold War" assessment of America last weekend, is that he had a point.

Speaking to an international security conference that included American Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Sen. John McCain and others, the Russian President ditched diplomatic niceties and savaged America's foreign policy as intruding and interfering into the affairs of other countries, pushing NATO to expand its role, and using their military might as a blunt instrument of persuasion.

In short, behaving like the world's only superpower.

In essence, when America can't persuade others to do what it considers is the right thing, it just does it alone. In some ways, Putin's criticisms were reminiscent of the Democrats objections to President Bush.

On the other hand, what Putin was accusing America of doing is what Russia used to do when it was the Soviet Union -- and what Putin would like to do today if he were able.
 

Putin has increasingly solidified harsh control in Russia. As his domestic strength grows, the less his patience is for the rituals of "democracy." He doesn't shrink from using oil and gas reserves to pressure or blackmail Belarus and other states into conforming -- while blaming America for financially aiding his opposition.

To Gates, Putin was reviving Cold War rhetoric, while to McCain he was being "needlessly confrontational." To casual observers, Putin's severe language invokes fear of collision between the U.S. and Russia.

Unlikely. Overlooked in Putin's remarks was that he sees Bush as "a decent man with whom one can do business." He recalled Bush saying that Russia and the U.S. will never be enemies.

"And I agree," he added.

So what about Putin's criticisms of American policies?

It's understandable that he sees the U.S. fixation on developing continental missile defence (rejected by Canada) as threatening. Equally understandable is that he wants to develop a Russian version of an anti-missile shield (that will be costlier and less efficient than an American one).

Putin's concern about America's destabilizing influence in the Mideast since 9/11 -- all in the name of advancing democracy -- is justified only because America has basically failed. Militarily, the U.S. has been phenomenally successful; diplomatically and socially -- disastrous.

Putin himself has shown Bush-like stubbornness trying to tame Chechnya. He interferes in the affairs of Georgia, Belarus, the Caucasuses. In the U.S. and Russian cases, had either or both succeeded, criticism would have been muted. For both, success is the only virtue; failure the cardinal sin.

We in the West may deplore Putin's undemocratic impulses, but what else should be expected from a former KGB servant of Soviet tyranny? Putin is not a nutbar, like Kim Jong Il in North Korea. He speaks for many when he says in today's world, America is the "one centre of power ... uncontained hyper use of (military) force ... (and) has overstepped its national borders in every area ... " And so on.

DOESN'T OBJECT TO FORCE

Putin doesn't object to force being used domestically.

That's what he does. Nor does he hesitate to crush terrorist movements that the old Kremlin once supported, but now oppose him. Had the U.S. succeeded in subduing Iraq, Putin would have yielded. But in America's failure, he sees opportunity. That's the Russian way.

But world peace is not threatened by Putin. The danger will be how the next U.S. president behaves -- and how he/she is perceived by this cold-eyed, cold-hearted, calculating and competent new Czar of Russia.

Not only that, but I just saw a documentary last week about the Chezenaen (sp) rebels that killed all those children in the school.  OMG... they are headebd back to the old Soviet Union I fear...

and I do not believe that this is Bush's doing... this has been building since way before he was in office.  Unfortunately there have been those to use the Oval Office as their private playground and have let sleeping dogs lie too long..... so we were "loved" when we refused to stand up for ourselves and sold secrets to the Chinese or the highest bidder....I really fear where we are headed.  I think it's been in the making for way too long..... and unfortunately we have to stop it now...

Ok, this all really scares me.

It does me as well Dihannah and I am relieved I am not alone, thank you for realizing the stakes are so high in this next election, we cannot afford on-the-job-training for our next President - they must come ready to handle the challenges.

Well in reading here... http://english.pravda.ru/russia/kremlin/16-02-2007/87515-putin_government-0

it seems to me that Putin is not going to allow anyone or anything to alter his plans.


Putin starts political intrigue linked with Russia’s new president in 2008
Front page / Russia / News from the Kremlin
16.02.2007 Source:            
 
 
Pages: 1
 
New appointments, which Putin made in the Russian government yesterday, do not mean that the president decided to seriously reconsider his views and preferences on the threshold of elections. Putin made the reshuffle to strengthen the structure of power which the president apparently prefers at the moment. However, Russian scientists of politics were shocked with yesterday’s news from the Kremlin.

 
 
Putin prepares for 2008 election year
 
 
 BREAKING NEWS
 
 Putin to make his political will during Kremlin press conference
 
   
Putin signed the decree to appoint Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov for the position of the first vice prime minister in the government. Now there are two fist PMs: Dmitry Medvedev was appointed for the position too when he left the Kremlin administration. The position of the defense minister has been taken by Anatoly Serdyukov, who previously chaired the Federal Tax Service. Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the governmental administration was appointed for the post of the vice prime minister.

Sources from the Kremlin say that Putin made the new appointments after a detailed conversation with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. When Putin was holding the press conference for Russian and foreign journalists in the Kremlin, a reporter asked the president if possible candidates for presidency were supposed to have an experience of working on high-ranking positions. “All of them already work on their positions,” Putin stated. Yesterday’s decision apparently dotted all i’s at this point.

The two central candidates for presidency – Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev - have thus been equalized in their status. The position of the defense minister was not really good for Ivanov: the minister had to make numerous excuses for incidents of hazing in the Russian army. Such activities were obviously earning him ill reputation. Now Ivanov and Medvedev take similar positions in the Russian government, which means that attempts to use army crimes to defame Ivanov as a presidential candidate will be taken to no avail.

Putin said that he decided to expand Sergei Ivanov’s responsibility in the government. “In addition to the defense complex, Mr. Ivanov will be in charge of a certain part of the civil sector of the economy,” Putin said.

The new appointments in the government may guarantee that there will be no fierce battles in Putin’s team during the election year 2008. The president trusts the two first vice prime ministers. To crown it all, Medvedev and Ivanov maintain warm and friendly relations with each other.

Vremya Novostei

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
Pravda.ru

yep, the KGB rules Russia now ! forgive my cynicism !

I do not like putin...I haexpressed this quite plainly.i am Dancingbear of the catamount clan,also known as cat.I do not but I could climb well and did.i do not have great amounts brains,I really dance like a bear,and I find many things amusing.i wish I could climb,like before,but life is funny.I still do not like or trust Putin.My wife is a little wind in the dark forrest,from the city of bears.Her name for putin,is the enemy.CAT

Has Putin Struck Again -- This Time In US?
Have the defenders of Vladamir Putin's name gone beyond gunfire in Moscow and Polonium in London in their retaliation against Putin's critics and brought their violence to the US? The National Terror Alert reports:


FBI agents say they are assisting police in suburban Washington who are investigating the shooting of a Russian expert a man who spoke out on “Dateline NBC” last weekend and strongly suggested that remnants of the KGB were responsible for the bizarre poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.

Officials said Paul Joyal was walking up his driveway on Lackawanna Street at about 7:30 p.m. when he was confronted by two men and shot. He was taken to an area hospital in serious condition.

Neighbors said police responded quickly to the shooting.

Nothing appears to have been taken from Joyal and a witness claimed to have heard one of the men tell the other man to go ahead and shoot Joyal.

Earlier, at about 6 p.m., Joyal met his friend, Oleg Kalugin, at the Spy Museum. Kalugin, an ex-KGB general, is an advisory director of the museum. After he was shot, Joyal told his wife to call Kalugin to tell him about the shooting, sources told Collins.



Joyal was an acquaintance of Polonium victim Alexander Litvinenko, so conclusion-drawing is good sport in this story. In its report, Al Jaaz comes even closer to implicating Putin:


In an interview broadcast last Sunday on 'Dateline NBC', Joyal had accused the Russian government of trying to silence its critics.

"A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you, and we will silence you - in the most horrible way possible," Joyal said.
The National Terror Alert report also mentions that another participant in the Dateline story has died suddenly and unexpectedly:

In a strange twist, another man who also appeared on the “Dateline” broadcast died of a heart attack last month. Reporter Daniel McGrory of the Times of London, who has written about the Litvinenko case, died Feb. 20, before the “Dateline” segment was broadcast. He was 54. His family said he “died suddenly at home."
There's a lot left to be investigated in this story, but how long will leaders of the West continue to treat Putin, who WaPo described in an editorial today as a "Gangster President," as a peer and not the leader of the world's foremost Mafiacracy?

http://tinyurl.com/2fdkvn


 :shock:  :shock:  :shock:

it's terrifying but once again, our own citizens don't seem to care that Putin can send out his blue mafia to any country and play hit man  :roll:

apathy..........I am beginning to think liberal is synonymous with apathy

it is...
and all the poliltical correctness crap is killing this country...and the other thing I notice when a liberal person is on tv being a talking head, it's all about "feelings" not cold hard facts.... and they never just answer the questions with anything other than to scream racist, or homophobe... or someother speech quelling thought...

and people still allow that as well.... why?  we really need to wake up.

First smoking is illegal and now donuts... tell me what's next.... and you are all intelligent enough that I don't have to expound on this thought... :wink:

22 Russians made Forbes billionaire list of 100 this year, Roman Abramovich made the top ten, the very same individual who had lunch with Paul Klebinov just hours prior to Klebnikov being gunned down and killed in the street outside his Forbes office in Moscow in 2004. Klebnikov was then head of the Russian Forbes operation and it has been speculated that Abramovich's mentor Berezovsky ordered the killing. Abramovich is also quite close to Putin and remains quite close to Putin, his other mentor.

So ironic, it all comes full circle with Abramovich now on the Forbes top ten list.  :roll:

Roman best watch his drink.  Putty Putin will make him a lethal cocktail and confiscate his wealth, either before or after the cocktail.  Communism cannot support its own, it must be able to take down those with wealth, regardless of whether they earned it or obtained it illegally.  Communism nipping around the edges.  Before long, the world will have to recognize Putin for what he is, just a sleezy hack for the KGB.