Republicans and Putin

Doesn't this beat all? Remember when the Russian Bear was our worst nightmare and there was a Commie under every bed according to J.E. Hoover, Joe McCarthy etc.? Now I guess the folks who follow the Trump train just love their leader's choice in heads of state he admires. I think they like the fact that Putin too is a strong man and has helped their guy Donald win the WH? This is just Amazing.




As Syria’s bloody civil war grinds on, Putin has supported Syrian leader Bashar Assad and the pro-government forces that are reportedly slaughtering civilians in the battle for the city of Aleppo. Speculations over Putin’s involvement in U.S. politics and the 2016 election have been in the spotlight as well.

A CIA assessment released this week found evidence that Russia did in fact interfere with the U.S. presidential election to help Trump win. Back in July, the Democratic National Committee email leaks were attributed to Russian hackers.

Among Americans who believe the Russian government is responsible for hacking into the DNC, 68 percent believe the motive was to help elect Trump, according to the YouGov/Economist poll. Another 25 percent believe the purpose was to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vladimir-putin-popularity-republicans_us_58518a3ce4b092f08686bd6e

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-putin-and-exxonmobil-team-up-to-destroy-the-planet-fb88650acfa1#.llh3lvpwm

Trump, Putin, and ExxonMobil team up to destroy the planet

Pick of Exxon CEO for Secretary of State clarifies why Putin wanted Trump elected: a $500 billion oil deal killed by sanctions





The aligning interests between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s choice for U.S. president (Donald Trump), and Big Oil represents the gravest threat to humanity (and democracy) since the rise of the Axis powers in the 1930s.

That’s because while Trump may not be able to destroy global climate action and the landmark 2015 Paris climate deal all by himself — as he pledged to do during the campaign — he probably could do that with help from Russia and the trillion-dollar oil industry.

So much is explained by Trump’s Secretary of State choice. Media reports now say it will be Rex Tillerson, CEO of oil giant ExxonMobil, which had made a $500 billion oil deal with Putin that got blocked by sanctions.

Stalling the biggest oil deal ever did not just “put Exxon at risk,” as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2014. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explained last week this deal was so big it was “expected to change the historical trajectory of Russia.”

This deal could explain why Putin appears to have interfered in U.S. elections in favor of a Trump victory. Recently, “the C.I.A. altered its formal assessment of Russia’s activities to conclude that the government of President Vladimir V. Putin was not just trying to undermine the election,” as the New York Times reported Saturday, “but had also acted to give one candidate an advantage.”

You can certainly make a plausible case, as many have, that Putin had enough motivation to interfere simply to undermine the legitimacy of U.S. elections.
On the other hand, it was always a little puzzling that Putin seemed to so admire a guy who had pledged to fully open the on-shore and off-shore spigots of U.S. domestic oil (and gas) drilling. After all, the end result of those policies would inevitably be a lower price for oil and gas, which compose the single biggest source of revenue for Russia. That’s why we saw headlines from January like, “Oil Price Collapse Pushing Russia’s Economy To The Edge” and from October like, “Why U.S. Oil Production Trumps Any Russian-OPEC Deal.”

But for Putin and the kleptocrats who benefit from his rule, little matters more than enriching coffers right now. It is no coincidence that just last week, Putin revealed Russia had sold a 19.5 percent stake in the Kremlin-controlled oil giant Rosnet for $11.3 billion to Qatar and others, “confounding expectations that the Kremlin’s standoff with the West would scare off major investors,” as Fortune reported in a must-read piece that connects major pieces of this puzzle.

“Just a few weeks ago, most industry watchers had written off the chances of a foreign investor being found for Rosneft,” Fortune reports. But this deal, the biggest oil deal of 2016, “pointed to a possible reassessment by foreign investors of the risks of dealing with Russia, at a time when the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president has heightened expectations of a thaw between Moscow and Washington.”

And how does Putin benefit? That $11.3 billion goes to the Kremlin, not Rosneft. No wonder “Russian officials were jubilant that Rosneft had pulled off a deal which will deliver a large chunk of the cash they need to fill gaps in the state budget caused by an economic slowdown and sanctions” (per Reuters).

Kleptocracy — and apparently meddling with a foreign an election — looks like it pays very well.

And if the sanctions are lifted — something a new Secretary of State could help make happen — it would pay off big time for Exxon. As Bloomberg explained in an October piece, “Exxon Faces Collateral Damage From a New Cold War,” the company’s “project queue for 2018 onward is weighted to resources challenged by low prices or higher costs, such as LNG and oil sands.”

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opening up more oil reserves only hurts Iran and Russia. Some things just do not make sense in some of these conspiracy theories. I think espionage is a constant. We do it. The Chinese do it. The Russians do it. When information is released from the same, it usually has a purpose. I do not think bringing more oil into the world market when the ruble fell to half its value because of sanctions and dropping oil prices makes absolutely no sense. Retaliation for the economic sanctions makes sense. However, proving the same is quite different than speculation.

2seaoat wrote:opening up more oil reserves only hurts Iran and Russia.  [Word Salad]

Not true, it hurts every other oil producer in the world. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Norway, Mexico and on, and on, and on.

Why are you afraid of us becoming energy independent?