Zigfeld’s Latest

Over on the powerful and influential American Thinker website, Kim Zigfeld has two recent pieces shedding further light on the outrageous misconduct of the Putin regime.

In the first, she reveals a breathtakingly united barrage of criticism from not one, not two, but three different highly respected international organizations aimed at Putin’s obscene crackdown on the press in his neo-Soviet state.

In the second, she reveals horrifying new evidence of the failure of the Obama “reset” policy towards Russia, including that which indicates the Kremlin knew far more about the Boston attacks than it cared to tell U.S. law enforcement.

 

Time to Blacklist the Russian Duma?

It looks like the honeymoon may be over:  A petition on the U.S. White House’s website asks for signatures in support of adding all the names of the Russian parliamentarians who voted to block adoptions of Russian orphans by American parents to the newly enacted Magnitsky law blacklist. It has already exceeded its goal of 25,000 by more than 1/3 and looks set to go much higher.

The Russian Duma’s Christmas present to Russia’s orphans, denying them U.S. parents and forcing them to remain alone and brutalized by the heartless and barbaric Russian orphanage system, is a new low in the annals of Russian history.  The fact that this measure was taken to pressure the U.S. to repeal the Magnitsky law, and thereby give the Kremlin unfettered power to torture and kill its political foes, indicates that Russia is a nation so sick it may be beyond saving.

And there could be no more emphatic proof of how Barack Obama’s so-called “reset” policy with Russia has failed than that his own government’s website carries a petition calling for virtually the entire body of the Russia parliament to be banned from U.S. shores.  Over on the mighty American Thinker website, LR publisher/founder Kim Zigfeld lays out the gruesome details.

Russia Once again on Fast Track to National Suicide

The speed at which Russia is rushing to destroy itself is truly breathtaking.

Russia is simultaneously launching open war against both the United States and the European Union.

The ink isn’t even dry on the WTO agreement Russia signed and it is already violating it, and spitting poison at the EU rather than comply with its written treaty obligations.

And Russia is responding to the overwhelming passage of the Magnitsky Law in the U.S. Congress with cold-war attacks on the USA instead of reform.

This is the same crazed, blind, self-destructive policy we saw from Russia during the Cold War.  How it is possible for Russia to believe it can afford to provoke and confront both the USA and the EU is far beyond our mortal power of comprehension.

The World is Turning Against Russia

“The Russians don’t qualify for the term ally or friend, I don’t think.”

That was German Constanze Stelzenmueller, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, talking.

She was echoing how, in stunningly bold way, Germany has aggressively turned against Russia. It even published a brutal attack on the Kremlin by the son of Putin’s most hated personal foe, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.  Germany has decided Russian barbarism is so appalling it can no longer be tolerated politely.  It is leading Europe into open revolt against Russia, and not only on the human rights front but also, most crucially, on the energy front.

Meanwhile, in an even more shocking move, France recognized the legitimacy of the rebel forces in Syria and called for arming them, directly flouting Russian policy towards one of its last remaining allies in the Middle East.

Even the U.S. Congress is getting into the act.  Ignoring the agenda of Russia’s best buddy Barack Obama, Congress is pushing forward with the Magnitsky human rights bill, and Russia is screaming bloody murder.

Remember what happened when Russia invaded Georgia and annexed Ossetia and Abkhazia? Remember how not one single nation in Europe recognized the annexation, and how Europe has remained united on that point to this day?  Russia’s barbaric course has unified Europe in horror, and now Russia is going to take the consequences.

Obama Knifes the Radio Liberty Baby

If anyone was hoping that Barack Obama would finally stand up for his country and its values and condemn the Putin Kremlin’s liquidation of USAID, they were stunned and appalled when Obama did the exact opposite, and went Putin one better by liquidating Radio Liberty.

Two brutal condemnations of Obama’s craven actions have been written by Russians, and they are required reading for any American citizen. First, Vladimir Kara-Murza called the Obama policy “ludicrous”  and “a celebration for the enemies of freedom in Russia.”  Then Vladimir Ryzhkov wrote that Obama’s America was guilty of a “cowardly retreat from its democratic principles.”

Obama is the new Chamberlain. He promised us his “reset” policy, a euphemism for appeasement, would cause Russia to stop supporting American enemies like Venezuela and Syria and Iran. Instead, sensing weakness, Putin only redoubled his support for them, and happily took advantage of Obama’s invitation to wipe out the last vestiges of civil society in Russia.  Obama has given America the worst of all possible worlds.

All Americans should bow their heads in shame, and offer their humble apology to brave Russians like Kara-Murza and Ryzhkov who have risked being Politkovskized by Putin in order to fight for American values.  It has never been more clear that Obama must be removed from office so that the rebuilding of America’s reputation can begin before it is irreparably destroyed.

Russia and its Icepick

There is only one real truth about Russia:  If you try to befriend it, Russia will stick an ice pick in your back when you are not looking.

Barack Obama and Michael McFaul learned that lesson recently when, despite their “reset” policy followed by four years of Chamberlain-style appeasement, Russia booted USAID out of the country, falsely accusing it of seeking to rig Russian elections.

It was an epic humiliation for Obama and McFaul, who previously have watched slack-jawed as Putin and Russia, despite their unilateral concessions on issues like missile defense and their feckless betrayal of the forces of democracy in Russia, have sided with every anti-U.S. dictatorship throughout the Middle East, from Egypt to Syria.  Russia has staunchly defended each and every one of the, up to and including the maniacal regime in Iran, from U.S.-led international pressure to be democratic, exactly what Obama claimed the reset would avoid.

And now Russia has spit in the face of Obama and McFaul by liquidating the primary engine of American philanthropy in Russia, without warning or reason, in simple knee-jerk display of anti-American hatred.  It has made clear that it intends to launch a whole new round of neo-Soviet crackdowns, and that Obama and McFaul have been suckered the exact same way Hitler suckered Chamberlain.

Fortunately for Americans, they will soon have the opportunity to show Obama and McFaul the way to the exits, and the ash heap of history. Unfortunately for Russians, they face a Putin who will be “president” for life, in the manner of Stalin and Brezhnev, and misguided U.S. policy has contributed mightily to that costly hardship.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Traitor

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Vladivostok and told the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin that he would have two magnificent gifts under his Christmas tree this year:  First, America would bestow additional trade benefits on Russia, and second it would ignore Putin’s outrageous human rights record and would do all it could to block legislative efforts in the USA from confronting Putin about them.

And how did Putin thank Clinton for her shameless appeasement?   He soundly repudiated any possibility that Russia would assist the United States in grappling with the forces of dictatorship and terrorism in Syria and Iran. This forced Clinton to conclude the U.S. would have to work outside the purview of the United Nations if it wanted to stand up for democracy and peace in those two rogue states.

Clinton is, of course, in full reelection mode, in cowardly fashion doing the bidding of her lord and master Barack Obama. So she will lie, cheat, steal, do whatever it takes to make that happen.  And if she needs to throw American interests, democracy and world peace under the bus in order to make that happen, so be it.

These are the wages of appeasement. The world saw what happened with the likes of Hitler were treated in this way by the Chamberlain government, and it cannot expect anything different from Putin.  The craven Obama regime is inviting Putin to obliterate democracy within Russia and support terror and dictatorship throughout the Middle East, as long as it helps Obama maintain the pretense that he has “reset” relations with Russia.  This is misconduct for which the USA will pay a heavy price in the future, just as Chamberlain’s Britian did during the blitz.

The Coveted Russian Dictator Endorsement

Over on Pajamas Media, Kim Zigfeld reveals that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has expressed a clear preference for Barack Obama’s reelection over the candidacy of Mitt Romney. Guess what that means Americans should do at the polls in November! For good measure, Putin also throws in his “thoughts” on Pussy Riot and group sex.

Romney Roars on Russia

Here’s what Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had to say about Russia in his acceptance speech last week:

President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro’s Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia’s President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone. We will honor America’s democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan. And under my presidency we will return to it once again.

That’s pretty awesome, heartening stuff, and goes to show how radically American foreign policy can be transformed by an election.  Not once in Russia’s entire history has the pathetic country ever transferred power between ideological opposites like Obama and Romney, while America has done it over and over again, most recently moving from George Bush to Obama.  You know how right Romney is from Russia’s frenzied reaction.

Romey has it exactly right on Russia, as he has done from the start.  While Obama has done nothing but lie about Putin’s malignant regime, Romney and other Republicans like Marco Rubio have been working on a responsible policy based on American moral leadership.  They see the clear threat posed by the Putin dictatorship to American interests, and they are prepared to take dramatic action to reverse the failed and cowardly policies of Barack Obama.

It’s about time.  For too long, America has betrayed its values in Russia, turning its back on the opposition movement and watching that movement disintegrate and wither as its leaders are murdered or jailed.  For too long, America has been unwilling to stand up to Russian barbarism because its craven president wanted to claim he had “reset” relations with Russia and turned an enemy into a friend. For too long, America has pursued the policies of Neville Chamberlain where the polices of Ronald Reagan were wanted.

It’s about time for America to turn out the cowards of the Obama regime and tender power to leaders who will make America rise up and live out the true meaning if her creed.

The Failed Policies of Obama and McFaul send Navalny to Siberia

Over on Pajamas Media, Kim Zigfeld explains how the totally failed policies of Barack Obama and Michael McFaul have led to the prosecution of leading opposition figure Aleksei Navalny, who is now facing exactly the same fate as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the last man who tried to directly challenge Putin for power.