Russians Accused of Inferfering in American election

The world’s worst-kept secret, that Democratic party officials made Bernie Sanders’ campaign more difficult than it should have been, has now been confirmed by Russian-based Wikileaks.

The Hillary Clinton campaign wasted no time in tying the leaked emails to Vladimir Putin. And by the way, they ask, why can’t Wikileaks get ahold of Donald Trump’s taxes. This looks like a Russian Watergate.

As usual this is a subject that Hollywood has covered many times. Trump has often been accused of being “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Numerous web sites including CNN, Politico and the Guardian confirmed the investigation. This could become a major problem for Trump, and even be his downfall.

The only difference in the plot is that Moscow’s man had phony medals. Trump, who has fought a day, only has billions. How many we do not know because his taxes are being withheld.

His declarations that Putin is a strong leader do not escape those who grew up in the Cold War.

“What’s disturbing to us is that experts are telling us Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying that the Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of actually of helping Donald Trump,” Mook said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I don’t think it’s coincidental that these emails were released on the eve of our convention,” said Mook.

“This isn’t my assertion — there are a number of experts that are asserting this,” Mook said. “I think we need to get to the bottom of these facts. But that’s what experts are telling us. Experts are telling us it is, in fact, the Russians who hacked these emails.”

The Trump campaign, as it always does, denied any wrongdoing. Trump is already under pressure from America’s foreign supporters and out generals for talking about cutting support for NATO. It is almost as if he wants a nickel forever

None of this has stopped Putin from sending his jets dangerously close to U.S. warships and the military planes and jets of other pro-NATO countries.

Putin
It has been unheard of since the Cold War for a presidential candidate to be praising a Russian dictator.

The Washington Post, in an editorial Sunday, said, “DONALD J. TRUMP, until now a Republican problem, this week became a challenge the nation must confront and overcome. The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament. He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance. To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together. His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation’s two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew.

“Any one of these characteristics would be disqualifying; together, they make Mr. Trump a peril.”

Washington Post

OpEd: Olympics Reduce Russian Ban to Slap on Wrist

Russia's Vladimir Putin will be fielding an Olympic team the country might have been proud of after Stalingrad if size is the issue.

Critics are accusing the International Olympic Committee of virtually endorsed doping, allowing Russia to compete in an announcement days before the games begin in Brazil.

“Olympics officials said on Sunday that they consider all Russian athletes tainted by the country’s state-run doping scheme and that they are not allowed to compete in the coming Rio Games unless they are able to convince individual sports federations that they are innocent.

“The International Olympic Committee said in a statement that “all Russian athletes seeking entry to the Olympic Games Rio 2016 are considered to be affected by a system subverting and manipulating the anti-doping system,” the New York Times reported.

The IOC overruled several international sports bodies. Technically, it says each sporting authority will decide who can compete.

Earlier this week it was disclose that 45 more doping cases had been discovered.

New York Times

Testers, aided by athletes inside the Russian program, found that the Russian government was  itself involved in falsifying tests, which produced many medals, including golds.

The IOC did say any Russian athlete already banned will not be allowed to compete even if his/her ban has expired.

The BBC said athletes from Russia will have to meet strict criteria laid down by the IOC.

Any Russian athlete who has served a doping ban will not be eligible for next month's Olympics.

Russia had complained that no country should be held responsible for doping, even if it was widespread. And it said some athletes from other countries had been caught. But no country has had anywhere near as many athletes involved in doping that has gone on since the Cold War when winning a medal meant communism triumped over capitalism.

Sixty-eight Russians had appealed banning from the Rio de Janeiro games that begin on Aug. 5.

The U.S. was planning on sending 555 athletes, meaning there will be no big Russian splash as in past years. And every Russian athlete will be face testing like never before. It was not clear whether independent testing will be allowed.

In most recent games Russia has from more than 300 to up to 455 at summer games and 113 to 232 at winter games.

Every day of the game there is likely to be talk of the Russian doping. So it may be a phyric victory for President Putin who appears to be able to get anything he wants, even the endorsement of American Republican Presidental candidate Donald Trump as Russian jets dangerously buzz U.S. warships and planes and ships of other nations.

Russian Olympic Athletes

Munich Replicates Columbine and Earlier Massacres

   With Donald Trump raging that he would nuke ISIS off the planet, it turns out that the latest massacre wasn’t ISIS. It was a Columbine Massacre copycat.

  From the day it happened, I remember parents, psychologists, SWAT team members and others at the high school warning that too much coverage would result in copycat killings.

  Of course I cannot say why an 18-year-old decided to go homicidal other than that he was mentally ill. One thing I am sure of though, is that Trump won’t stop it.

  Here are three things, just for the sake of argument, that we might do in addition to expanding our mental health care system.

  Have more effective gun control, stop the sale of violent video games and urge Hollywood to stop making violent movies its major cash cow.

  Gun control is out of the question.

  Some will say there is no proof video games make kids violent. Perhaps not _ yet. The documentary “Merchants of Doubt” shows how scientists were paid to lie about the deadly effects of cigarettes. They killed both my parents. The Army hooked my father. “Smoke ‘em if you got them.” Humphrey Bogart, a great actor, and others, made them fashionable.

  I am sure I will be long dead before we find out how much harm violent video games cause. Imagine a scientific community that outlaws marijuana while opiods and alcohol are killing millions.

  Movies, at least, can do good. And as long as violent movies make fortunes they will be among the Star Wars.

  In the lastest killings, in Munich, were led on rollercoaster path that started with the assumption that it was ISIS. Then it was linked to rightwing fascists.

  Now we find out the killer had books on Columbine, including one on why they did it. Back in the 1960s Herbert Marcuse complained that even books that should help end up spreading the plague of violence and capitalism.

   Imagine the killer examining himself to see if he fit the bill of the Columbine killers. I guess he passed.

  And he was up-to-date, using Facebook to  lure victims.

Guardian

Merchants of Doubt

Mystery of One Missing Malayasian Airliner Possibly Solved

While it is widely conceded that Russian-backed Ukrainian rebels likely shot down one missing Malaysian airliner, the fate of another remained a mystery.

Six years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean it now is known that the pilot may have taken the plane on a suicide flight, according to a confidential police investigation document obtained by New York magazine.

The magazine did not make clear where or when the document was discovered, showing that the pilot had practiced taking the Boeing 777 on a flight that wound end somewhere in the water. It said Malaysian officials and officials of other countries involved in the search had met this week.

New Yorker

The plane disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people aboard en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. This week officials said their search would be suspended soon if no signs of the plane were found.

The New York magazine article doesn’t prove that the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah actually flew the plane into the ocean, but the fact that officials kept his suicide practice a secret may mean it is now known what happened.
One unanswered question is what the co-pilot was doing all the hours this flight took.

New York said the suicide practice plans were found by the FBI not long after the plane disappeared when hard drives from the airline’s flight simulator were handed over to it.

The article does not say when the magazine found the documents.

Many media outlets have reported Zaharie was considered a suspect in the disappearance. But there was nothing in his personal files to suggest he would launch a suicide mission.

The magazine said 42,000 square miles have been searched for the plane at a ost of $130 million.

A Freedom of Information request filed by the state of California seeking all U.S. files on the flight was denied.

Colorado Farm Town Water Contaminated with Marijuana

A small farm-ranch town of Hugo near the Colorado-Kansas border is giving people bottled water because its supply is contaminated with THC, the element of marijuana that gets people stoned.

The Denver Post said residents – there are about 730 – have been told not to even give tap water to their pets.

Numerous tests have been conducted with varying results. No one has become ill, said Capt. Michael Yowell of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.

“I wouldn’t be doing my job for my community if we just wrote this off,” Yowell said.

The FBI has joined the probe.

There are possibilities someone had polluted a well, and one well has been closed. Marijuana is legal in Colorado and many people grow it.

Mayor Tom Lee told the Post: “We’ll figure it out. It just blew my mind.”

THC is cannabis ingredient that gets people high. CBD, also from weed, is widely used in medicines.

Hugo, a former stage coach stop that was built near the western-moving railroadline, is not far from the junction of state roads 287 and 59 about 75 miles from Burlington, Kansas on Interstate 70.

It is about 200 miles to the Rocky Mountains to the west, and they are visible on some days.  It is 160 miles to Denver.

The area can be hell during blizzards that sometimes close the interstate. The elevation is 5,039 feet with few trees.

Tourists rarely visit the area. One winter I had to go off the Interstate because it was closed by snow. The only lights were in Hugo. I was wearing a sweatshirt that said “Alcatraz Swim Team.”

The very gracious man running the gas pump said: “What’s it like there in Alcatraz?”

Wikipedia Hugo