11 October 2013. Snowden’s Still in Russia… US Government Slammed it in the Door and Nobody’s Sad… They WERE Caught Doing Naughty Things, After All

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The father of American intelligence leaker Edward Snowden said that he believes that Russia, where he arrived on Thursday with the aim of meeting with his son, is the only country in which his fugitive son can feel safe. On arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, Lon Snowden told reporters that he doubted his son would return to the USA. Edward Snowden’s future and exact current whereabouts remain shrouded in mystery, but his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena says the former US intelligence contractor wasn’t in talks to seek asylum in any other countries and received several employment offers.

Kucherena, speaking to Rossiya-24 news channel alongside Lon Snowden, said that Edward Snowden would be open to extending his one-year asylum status in Russia. Lon Snowden said that he’s received a multi-entry Russian visa and that he plans to visit the country several times. He said that he had no information about what his son plans to do. He said in comments on state-owned news channel RT, “I have no idea what his intentions are, but ever since he’s been in Russia, my understanding is that he’s simply been trying to remain healthy and safe and he’s nothing to do with future stories”. No one saw Edward Snowden at the airport. Kucherena said that other relatives of Edward Snowden might come to visit Russia too, but he declined to provide details. Snowden, a computer specialist and former employee of the US National Security Agency, fled the USA as he leaked classified evidence of US government surveillance programmes to the media. In August, Russia granted him asylum, after he spent several weeks in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport.

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On Thursday, WikiLeaks said that US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden met with former US security officials who now campaign against what they call the misuse of state secrecy. The meeting with former officials from the US Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency (NSA), the FBI, the US Department of Justice, and WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison, took place in the Russian capital on Wednesday. WikiLeaks tweeted a link to a Getty Images photo of Snowden, Harrison, and the group, which identified the others as US government whistleblowers who were in Moscow to present Snowden with the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award. Coleen Rowley, Thomas Drake, Jesselyn Radack, and Ray McGovern, who formerly worked with the FBI, NSA, DoJ, and CIA respectively, gave an interview to the RT TV after the meeting.

Snowden, a computer specialist and former contractor for the US National Security Agency, was the focus of international attention over the summer after he leaked classified evidence of US government surveillance programmes to the media. He fled to Hong Kong, and, then, to Moscow, where he was granted temporary asylum in Russia in late July despite repeated extradition demands from Washington. The US leakers interviewed on RT were unanimous in their praise for Snowden… for both the man and his actions. Jesselyn Radack said Snowden “looked great, he seemed very centred and brilliant, smart, funny […],” whilst McGovern called Snowden “an extraordinary person” who “has made his peace with what he did, is convinced that what he did was right”, and is ready to face “whatever the future holds for him”.

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The USA shrugged off the arrival Thursday in Moscow of fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden’s father and denied that he was carrying any message from Washington for his son, who’s been charged with espionage. US State Department spokesman Marie Harf told reporters hours after Edward Snowden’s father, Lon Snowden, arrived at the same Moscow airport where his son was sequestered for weeks last summer, “The father really isn’t our concern, and even the father meeting the son really isn’t our concern. Our concern really is Edward Snowden returning to the United States. He’s accused of very serious charges here. He’ll be accorded full due process and protections applicable under US law”. Asked if Snowden had had any contact with American officials in Moscow, Harf said he that hadn’t. In response to a question on whether Snowden’s father informed US authorities on the specifics of his Russia travel plans or if he was carrying any message for his son, she added, “Not to my knowledge”.

Speaking to Russian media earlier Thursday after arriving in Moscow, Lon Snowden said that he believed Russia was the only place where his son was safe now and stated that he had no idea about his son’s plans. In August, Russia granted Edward Snowden temporary one-year asylum after he arrived in Moscow on a flight from Hong Kong, where he fled after leaking reams of sensitive documents on US intelligence electronic surveillance programmes to the media. Many civil rights activists in the USA and around the world described Snowden as a whistleblowing hero. However, US officials described Snowden’s actions as extremely damaging; they said that the media’s mischaracterised some of the information in the leaked documents.

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On Thursday, the New York Times reported on its website that the top US spy agency raised red flags about the behaviour of Edward Snowden in 2009, but nonetheless the fugitive intelligence leaker gained access to details of secret government surveillance programmes that he disclosed to the media this year. A veteran law enforcement official said about a negative report written by Snowden’s supervisor at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), “It slipped through the cracks”. the Times cited two senior American officials speaking on condition of anonymity as saying that the CIA suspected that Snowden was attempting to access classified computer files that he wasn’t authorised to see. In 2006, the CIA hired Snowden for a technology job; later, he worked under the cover of the US State Department in Genève, Switzerland. In June, Snowden told the Guardian that much of what he saw in Geneva “really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good”. Apparently, the negative report by Snowden’s CIA supervisor wasn’t passed on to the US National Security Agency (NSA), which later hired him as a contractor and gave him access to troves of classified documents about the US government’s widespread electronic surveillance of American citizens.

10/11 October 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131010/184045684/Snowdens-Father-Flies-Into-Moscow.html

http://en.ria.ru/world/20131010/184056940/Snowden-Has-Secret-Moscow-Meeting-with-US-Leakers.html

http://en.ria.ru/world/20131011/184060758/US-Shrugs-Off-Snowden-Fathers-Russia-Trip.html

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131011/184078163/CIA-Warned-About-Snowden-4-Years-Before-Leaks–Report.html

Editor’s Note:

Widespread spying on Americans, illegal detention at Guantánamo, torture at black sites in Eastern Europe, and two pointless wars (and here) on the Asian mainland, a financial meltdown caused by feckless economic boondoggles favouring the rich… that’s the legacy of the Republican Party. If you tell me that such greedy and barbaric crud are standard-bearers of “traditional morality”, I DO beg to differ.

Oh, yes… I’m NOT alone… most ethnic Orthodox voted for the Prez, not for Wet Willy and his Cayman Islands Millions (and for Ayn Rand-worshipping Paul Ryan. Catholic? Only in the most tenuous sense of the word…). Do keep an eye on loud Republicants such as John Whiteford and Paffhausen… their fawning worship of American Exceptionalism means that they’re enemies of the Orthosphere, as well as being enemies of decency and social well-being for all.

BMD

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US Democrats Believe Republicans Painted Themselves into a Corner

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William Galston, holder of the Ezra K Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former policy advisor to President Clinton talked with VOR.

VOR    

Let’s start with Boehner‘s complaints that “nothing is on the table”. Why aren’t Republicans and Democrats negotiating, prolonging the shutdown, which has already cost the USA around 2.5 billion dollars (81 billion Roubles. 2.6 billion CAD. 2.65 billion AUD. 1.9 billion Euros. 1.6 billion UK Pounds)?

Galston

Well, it’s a very complicated situation with historical roots. As you may recall, President Obama and Speaker Boehner had long unsuccessful negotiations in similar circumstances two years ago, in 2011. That destroyed the bounds of trust between those two men. More recently, the Senate passed a budget resolution, then, it asked the House of Representatives for negotiations to resolve the differences between the two houses of Congress. Senate Democrats requested those negotiations repeatedly over a period of six months, but they never began. Therefore, there isn’t a lot of confidence that the call for negotiations right now is sincere. Many Democrats believe that the Republicans painted themselves into a corner and are now looking desperately for a way out. Eventually, there’ll be talks, but President Obama’s position is that he won’t conduct those talks with a gun to his head.

VOR

Well, that makes sense. Some people liken the Republicans to terrorists. In fact, I’ve read in different newspapers that you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Therefore, it makes sense that Obama doesn’t want to negotiate with the Republicans in this sense.

Galston

Firstly, I’m not calling Republicans terrorists, maybe, other people are. Secondly, the irony is that many governments do negotiate with terrorists, including governments who say that they never will. Therefore, it’s a complicated situation.

9 October 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_10_09/US-democrats-believe-that-republicans-have-painted-themselves-into-corner-expert-4078/

Editor’s Note:

The Republicans’ poll numbers keep dropping… only 24 percent of the general population favour them, whereas 72 percent of the “Tea Party faithful” want them to go even further. Firstly, this means that the Tea Party, at most, has the support of one-third of the electorate. To cater to this group, the GOP must piss off the rest of us. In short, it’s a débâcle of 1964 proportions in the making. The Republicans will win in heavily-Born Again districts in the South, but not much else. That is, the Republican Party may become a permanent minority party… that’s what happens when you cater to a minority of the population. White Anglo Proddies aren’t the majority in this country… haven’t been for a long time, thank God.

Oh, yes… the ethnic Orthodox people in the last election went heavily for the Prez… I guess that the open and noxious Republican racism was just a tad too thick (but the konvertsy loons went for Romney… why doesn’t that surprise anyone?)…

BMD

11 October 2013. Insist on the “Seamless Garment”… Otherwise, It Ain’t of Christ

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Don’t criticise abortion, nor homosexuality, nor the usurious economy, nor those who lash out at the Church; especially, when the critics pose as victims of “the system”.

Fr Vsevolod Chaplin

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There’s much muck on the internet masquerading as “Orthodoxy”. All too often, it’s just Republican or sectarian claptrap adorned with a Patristic quote or two, a misunderstood canonical citation, and (probably) some rubbishy aphorism from a controversialist such as Seraphim Rose or Aleksandr Schmemann. Look carefully at the above quote (click here for the full article; I haven’t time to translate it all). Note well that most of the “Orthodox” poseurs on the ‘net are silent on the economy… yet, Fr Vsevolod thinks it important (do remember WHO Vsevolod Anatolyevich is… the closest confidant to HH). That is, rapacious Neoliberal capitalism is evil. Yet, all of the konvertsy gush over it and praise it.

Let’s keep this simple and focused… if you claim that you’re “Pro-Life”, but you support Free Market Capitalism, you’re NO PRO-LIFER. You’re a supporter of Satan’s own ideology. The Republicans want to dismantle government regulation because they’re criminals at heart who want to steal more than their fair share of this world’s goods (their forebears wern’t called “robber barons” for nought, kids). Ergo, if you claim to be “Orthodox”, yet support the fanatics who just shut down the government… I’d rather associate with an honest atheist… they, at least, aren’t mocking God.

We DO have a choice. Which side are YOU on?

BMD

Poll Sez Russians More Negative About the West

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According to a new survey, Russians’ attitudes towards the USA and the EU dramatically worsened since 1997. The poll results, released on Friday by the Levada Centre, showed that the number of Russians regarding the USA “in general poorly” rose to 36 percent this year, up from 31 percent last year and just 12 percent in 1997. A further 13 percent this year said they regarded the US “very poorly”. The survey showed that only 3 percent of Russians regarded the USA “very well”, down from 12 percent in 1997. That was slightly better than in 2008, when positive opinions of America reached a record low, with only 1 percent giving that answer. Similarly, Russians’ attitudes towards the EU also worsened, with 24 percent regarding it “in general poorly” last month, whilst a decade ago the figure was just 9 percent. The survey, conducted between 20-24 September, interviewed 1,600 people in 130 towns and cities, with a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percent.

11 October 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131011/184071789/Russians-More-Negative-About-the-West–Poll-.html

Editor’s Note:

Most of all, Russians hate America‘s greed and aggression… two vile twin brothers who always seem to march together. It’s interesting to see American Born Agains claim credit for Russia’s return to traditional morality. This year, we celebrated the 1,025th anniversary of Orthodoxy in Russia… all the American sects arose after 1800… I seem to see a SLIGHT difference there. We owe NOTHING to such people (or to loudmouthed konvertsy either)… it’s one of the reasons why Russians regard America so poorly. After all, what adult enjoys being lectured to by an arrogant upstart smarkacz? ‘Nuff said…

BMD