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Ukraine

2019-11-30T23:25:05Z

JoeyJ: /* World War II: 1939-1945 */

{{Country
|name =''Україна Ukrayina''
|map =Ukraine rel93.jpg
|map2 =Ukrainelocation.PNG
|flag =Flag of Ukraine.png
|arms =Arms of Ukraine.png
|capital =Kiev
|capital-raw =
|government =Parliamentary Democracy
|government-raw =
|language =Ukrainian
|king =
|queen =
|monarch-raw =
|president =Petro Poroshenko
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =Volodymyr Groysman
|pm-raw =
|area =233,090 sq mi
|pop =44,209,733
|pop-basis =2016
|gdp =
|gdp-year =$355.8 billion (2007)
|gdp-pc =$7,832 (2007)
|currency =Hryvnia
|idd =
|tld =.ua
}}
'''Ukraine''' is an Eastern European country which was part of Russia and then the [[Soviet Union]] until its independence in 1991. To the north and east it shares a border with [[Russia]]; it shares a border with [[Belarus]] to the north and [[Poland]], [[Slovakia]] and [[Hungary]] to the west. The counties of [[Romania]] and [[Moldova]] are to the south-west. The [[Black Sea]] is to the south and this offers access to the [[Mediterranean]]. The capital city is [[Kiev]] and the main religion is [[Eastern Orthodox]] Christianity. Ukrainians completely rejects its prior dominance by Russia, to the point of even pronouncing Kiev different from how Russians do (Ki-yeev, not the Russian KEY-ev).<ref>https://www.polygraph.info/a/hey-daily-mail-it-s-ky--yeev-not-keev-/30281142.html</ref>

Ukraine is frequently in the news in the [[United States]] due to attempts by politicians, most notably [[Joe Biden]]'s family, to profit from the country. President [[Donald Trump]] was then criticized by [[liberal]]s for asking Ukrainian leaders to investigate the potential corruption.

Ukraine is run by an oligarchy, with a small group of people amassing enormous fortunes as most of the nation labors in poverty. [[Crisis in Ukraine|In 2014, the Pro-European bloc overthrew the pro-Russian bloc in an attempt to grab power, resulting in massive chaos, the loss of Crimea to Russia, a pseudo civil war and an economic crisis.]] This is in addition to how:
* The worldwide [[Recession of 2008]] hit Ukraine hard and it is seeking international aid.
* Politics has been chaotic recently.
* Russia has used its oil and gas exports to control Ukrainian politics and economics.
* A strong (20%) Russian minority (mostly in the south and east) is campaigning for partition.
* The legal and economic systems are still controlled by powerful and secretive oligarchs.
*Ukraine is neutral in its alliances, but has some limited military links to European Union.

==Geography==
The total area of Ukraine is 603,700 km2 (233,090 sq. mi), making it, after Russia, the second largest country in [[Europe]]. Its coastline is 2,782 km.

The land of Ukraine is mostly [[steppe]]s and plateaus. There are mountains in the west of the country, the [[Carpathian Mountains|Carpathians]], and in the Crimean peninsula in the south. The main rivers in Ukraine are the [[Dnieper]] and the [[Dniester]].

The Ukrainian climate is considered temperate continental, but in the Crimea it is [[Mediterranean]]. The levels of precipitation are highest in the west and north, and lower in east and southeast. The winters vary from cool along the Black Sea to cold farther inland, and the summers are warm across the greater part of the country, and hot in the south.

==Demography==
Ukraine's population is about 46.5 million and falling, with a population density of about 80 per square kilometer (200 people per square mile).

The population is 73% Ukrainian and 22% Russian (with under 1% each of Poles, Jews, Bulgarians and others). Historically the countryside was heavily Ukrainian, while Russians dominated the cities, but in recent decades many Ukrainians have moved to the cities.

The country has been in demographic crisis since the 1980s. The population is shrinking 150,000 a year because of the lowest birth rate in Europe combined with one of the highest death rates in Europe. Life expectancy is falling. The nation suffers high mortality from environmental pollution, poor diets, widespread smoking, extensive alcoholism, and deteriorating medical care.<ref>Hanna H. Starostenko, "Economic and Ecological Factors of Transformations in Demographic Process in Ukraine" ''Uktraine Magazine'' #2 1998 online at [http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/wumag_old/archiv/2_98/economic.htm]</ref>

The phenomenon of lowest-low fertility, defined as total fertility below 1.3, is emerging throughout Europe and is attributed by many to postponement of the initiation of childbearing. Ukraine, where total fertility (a very low 1.1 in 2001), is one of the world's lowest, shows that there is more than one pathway to lowest-low fertility. Although Ukraine has undergone immense political and economic transformations during 1991-2004, it has maintained a young age at first birth and nearly universal childbearing. Analysis of official national statistics and the Ukrainian Reproductive Health Survey show that fertility declined to very low levels without a transition to a later pattern of childbearing. Findings from focus group interviews suggest explanations of the early fertility pattern. These findings include the persistence of traditional norms for childbearing and the roles of men and women, concerns about medical complications and infertility at a later age, and the link between early fertility and early marriage.<ref>Brienna Perelli-Harris, "The Path to Lowest-low Fertility in Ukraine" ''Population Studies'' 2005 59(1): 55-70. Issn: 0032-4728; not online</ref>

The government-imposed famines of the 1930s, followed by the devastation of World War II, comprised a demographic disaster. Life expectancy at birth fell to a level as low as ten years for females and seven for males in 1933 and plateaued around 25 for females and 15 for males in the period 1941-44.<ref>Jacques Vallin; Meslé, France; Adamets, Serguei; and Pyrozhkov, Serhii. "A New Estimate of Ukrainian Population Losses During the Crises of the 1930s and 1940s." ''Population Studies'' (2002) 56(3): 249-264. Issn: 0032-4728 Fulltext in [[Jstor]]</ref>

==Language, Religion, Culture==
Languages spoken in Ukraine include [[Ukrainian]] (70%), [[Russian language|Russian]] (20%), plus 10% miscellaneous, such as Crimean Tartar and also Surzhyk in the southeast (a blend of Russian vocabulary with Ukrainian grammar and pronunciation).

The religion is predominately [[Eastern Orthodox]]. In 1992 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church split into two rival denominations. About 10%, primarily in the west, belong to Uniate churches with eastern rites but affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church of Rome. Poles are Roman Catholics of the Latin rite. The Tatars are Muslims. About 4% are atheists.

Ukraine is widely known for its lively Cossack-style dancing ("hopak") and elaborately batiked Easter eggs ("pysanky")

There are not only clear regional differences on questions of identity but historical cleavages remain evident at the level of individual social identification. Attitudes toward the most important political issue, relations with Russia, differed strongly between L'viv, identifying more with Ukrainian nationalism and the Greek Orthodox religion, and Donetsk, predominantly Russian and favorable to the Soviet era, while in central and southern regions, as well as Kiev, such divisions were less important and there was less antipathy toward people from other regions. However, all were united by an overarching Ukrainian identity based on shared economic difficulties, showing that other attitudes are determined more by culture and politics than by demographic differences.<ref>Oksana Malanchuk, "Social Identification Versus Regionalism in Contemporary Ukraine." ''Nationalities Papers'' 2005 33(3): 345-368. Issn: 0090-5992 Fulltext in [[Ebsco]]</ref>

Important Ukrainian literary figures include Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka.

==Constitution==
Ukraine has a parliamentary-presidential system of government with separate executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The president nominates the defense and foreign ministers, and the Prosecutor General and Chief of the State Security Service (SBU), each of whom must be confirmed by the parliament. Beginning in 2006, the 450-member unicameral parliament (Supreme Rada) names the prime minister, who in turn nominates other ministers. The Supreme Rada initiates legislation, ratifies international agreements, and approves the budget. Its members are elected to five-year terms. Following free elections held on December 1, 1991, Leonid M. Kravchuk, former chairman of the Ukrainian Rada, was elected to a five-year term, and became Ukraine's first president. At the same time, a referendum on independence was approved by more than 90% of the voters.

Shortly after becoming independent, Ukraine named a parliamentary commission to prepare a new constitution, adopted a multi-party system, and adopted legislative guarantees of civil and political rights for national minorities. A new, democratic constitution was adopted on June 28, 1996, which mandates a pluralistic political system with protection of basic human rights and liberties. Amendments that took effect January 1, 2006, shifted significant powers from the president to the prime minister and Supreme Rada.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by law, although religious organizations are required to register with local authorities and with the central government. Minority rights are respected in accordance with a 1991 law guaranteeing ethnic minorities the right to schools and cultural facilities and the use of national languages in conducting personal business. According to the constitution, Ukrainian is the only official state language. In Crimea and some parts of eastern Ukraine—areas with substantial ethnic Russian minorities—local and regional governments permit Russian as a language for local official correspondence.

Freedom of speech and press are guaranteed by law and by the constitution, and authorities generally respect these rights. Prior to the "Orange Revolution," however, authorities sometimes interfered with the news media through intimidation and other forms of pressure. In particular, the failure of the government to conduct a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation into the 2000 disappearance and murder of independent journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, in which then-government officials have been credibly implicated, negatively affected Ukraine's international image. Freedom of the media and respect for citizens’ rights have increased markedly since the government of President Yushchenko took office in January 2005.
==Recent politics==
[[File:Russian language in Ukraine.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Russian language spoken in Ukraine]]
[[File:Ukraine 2010 election.jpg|200px|right|thumb|2010 election results]]
Ethnic tensions in [[Crimea]] during 1992 prompted a number of pro-Russian political organizations to advocate secession of Crimea and annexation to Russia. (Crimea was ceded by the RFSSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, in recognition of historic links and for economic convenience, to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's union with Russia.) In July 1992, the Crimean and Ukrainian parliaments determined that Crimea would remain under Ukrainian jurisdiction while retaining significant cultural and economic autonomy.

Official trade unions have been grouped under the Federation of Trade Unions. A number of independent unions, which emerged during 1992, among them the Independent Union of Miners of Ukraine, have formed the Consultative Council of Free Trade Unions. While the right to strike is legally guaranteed, strikes based solely on political demands are prohibited.

In July 1994, [[Leonid Kuchma]] was elected as Ukraine's second president in free and fair elections. Kuchma was reelected in November 1999 to another five-year term, with 56% of the vote. International observers criticized aspects of the election, especially slanted media coverage; however, the outcome of the vote was not called into question. Ukraine's March 2002 parliamentary elections were characterized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as flawed, but an improvement over the 1998 elections. The pro-presidential For a United Ukraine bloc won the largest number of seats, followed by the reformist Our Ukraine bloc of Viktor Yushchenko (who was then a former Prime Minister), and the Communist Party.

The campaign leading to the October 31, 2004 presidential election was characterized by widespread violations of democratic norms, including government intimidation of the opposition and of independent media, abuse of state administrative resources, highly skewed media coverage, and numerous provocations. The two major candidates—Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leader (and former Prime Minister) Viktor Yushchenko—each garnered between 39% and 40% of the vote and proceeded to a winner-take-all second round. The November 21 runoff election was marred by credible reports of widespread and significant violations, including illegal expulsion of opposition representatives from election commissions, multiple voting by busloads of people, abuse of absentee ballots, reports of coercion of votes in schools and prisons, and an abnormally high number of (easily manipulated) mobile ballot box votes. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Kyiv and other cities to protest electoral fraud and express support for Yushchenko, and conducted ongoing peaceful demonstrations during what came to be known as the "Orange Revolution."

The OSCE International Election Observation Mission found that the November 21, 2004 run-off presidential election "did not meet a considerable number of OSCE commitments and Council of Europe and other European standards for democratic elections…Overall, State executive authorities and the Central Election Commission (CEC) displayed a lack of will to conduct a genuine democratic election process." Other independent observers were similarly critical. On November 24, 2004, the CEC declared Prime Minister Yanukovych the winner with 49.46% compared to 46.61% for Yushchenko. The U.S. and Europe refused to accept the result as legitimate due to the numerous, uninvestigated reports of fraud. European leaders traveled to Kyiv to mediate a political solution between the parties. On November 27, Ukraine's Supreme Rada passed a resolution declaring that the election results as announced did not represent the will of the people. On December 1, the Rada passed a vote of "no confidence" in the government. On December 3, Ukraine's Supreme Court invalidated the CEC's announced results and mandated a repeat of the second round vote to take place on December 26. An agreement mediated by the European leaders resulted in new legislation being passed by the Rada and signed by the President December 8. The electoral law was reformed to close loopholes that had permitted pervasive electoral fraud. The constitution was amended, effective not earlier than September 2005, to transfer power, especially with respect to appointment of ministers, from the president to the cabinet. Yet another law was passed, in first reading, to devolve some powers of the central government to regional councils. In addition, Prime Minister Yanukovych requested and was granted a leave of absence, and Prosecutor General Hennadiy Vasilyev submitted his resignation.

The December 26 re-vote took place in an atmosphere of calm. While irregularities were noted, observers found no systemic or massive fraud. The OSCE Mission noted that "campaign conditions were markedly more equal, observers received fewer reports of pressure on voters, the election administration was more transparent and the media more balanced than in previous rounds…in our collective view Ukraine’s elections have moved substantially closer to meeting OSCE and other European standards." On January 10, 2005, after the CEC and the Supreme Court had considered and rejected numerous complaints and appeals filed by the Yanukovych campaign, the CEC certified the results: Yushchenko had won 51.99% of the votes, with 44.20% for Yanukovych. President Yushchenko was inaugurated January 23, 2005.

Ukraine held parliamentary and local elections on March 26, 2006. International observers noted that conduct of the Rada election was in line with international standards for democratic elections, making this the most free and fair in Ukraine's history. Unlike the first rounds of the 2004 presidential election, candidates and parties were able to express themselves freely in a lively press and assembled without hindrance. There was no systemic abuse of administrative resources as there had been under the previous regime. The Party of Regions and the bloc of former Prime Minister Tymoshenko, whose government the President dismissed in September 2005, finished ahead of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc. Other parties passing the 3% threshold to enter parliament were the Socialist Party of Ukraine and the Communist Party of Ukraine. No party held the majority of Rada seats needed to form a government. Following four months of difficult negotiations, a government led by Prime Minister Yanukovych and including representatives from the Party of Regions, Our Ukraine, and the Socialist Party took office on August 4, 2006. This, the first government formed after the extensive constitutional amendments brokered as part of the Orange Revolution, has been the focus the Prime Minister's growing influence, sometimes at the expense of the President. Amid shifting political alliances, the "Anti-Crisis Coalition" formed by the Party of Regions, Socialist and Communist parties has grown into a "Coalition of National Unity," as some members of the pro-presidential "Our Ukraine" bloc have moved into the Prime Minister's camp. Meanwhile, others have joined forces with Bloc Yuliya Tymoshenko.

==Military and security==
Security forces are controlled by the president, although they are subject to investigation by a permanent parliamentary commission. Surveillance is permitted for reasons of national security.

After independence, Ukraine established its own military forces of about 780,000 from the troops and equipment inherited from the Soviet Union. Under defense reform legislation passed in 2004, Ukraine is strengthening civilian control of the military, professionalizing its non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps, modernizing force structure to improve interoperability with NATO, and reducing troop numbers, all with an eye toward achieving NATO standards. Current force levels are approximately 225,000 (plus 90,000 civilian workers in the Ministry of Defense). The Ministry of Defense plans to continue force reductions by approximately 20,000 personnel per year to reach a final end state of 143,000 by 2011. Ukraine's stated national policy is Euro-Atlantic integration, including with both NATO and the European Union. NATO offered Ukraine an "Intensified Dialogue on Membership Issues" in April 2005. Ukraine had previously signed an agreement with NATO on using Ukraine's strategic airlift capabilities and has been an active participant in Partnership for Peace exercises, in Balkans peacekeeping, and Coalition operations in Iraq. Ukrainian units have been serving in the U.S. sector in Kosovo, and served in the Polish-led division in Iraq. Currently, Ukraine participates in six United Nations peacekeeping missions and has up to 50 troops serving in supporting roles in Iraq.

==Foreign Relations==
The government has declared Euro-Atlantic integration to be its primary foreign policy objective and has sought to maintain good relations with Russia. The European Union's Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Ukraine went into force on March 1, 1998. After the 2004 round of EU expansion, the EU did not signal a willingness to consider Ukraine for an association agreement, as Ukraine had hoped for, but instead included it in a new "neighbor" policy, disappointing many Ukrainians. An agreement on intensified cooperation is possible after Ukrainian WTO accession. On January 31, 1992, Ukraine joined the then-Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe—OSCE), and on March 10, 1992, it became a member of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Ukraine signed a Charter Agreement with NATO in 1997, sent troops to Kosovo in close cooperation with NATO countries, signed an agreement for NATO use of Ukrainian strategic airlift assets, and has declared interest in eventual membership. It is the most active member of the Partnership for Peace (PfP). In April 2005, NATO offered an "Intensified Dialogue on Membership Issues" to Ukraine.

Ukraine maintains peaceful and constructive relations with all its neighbors, though there are some unresolved maritime issues along the Danube and in the Black Sea with Romania; it has especially close ties with Poland and Russia. Relations with Russia are complicated by differing foreign policy priorities in the region, energy dependence, payment arrears, disagreement over compliance with the 1997 agreement on the stationing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and a dispute over bilateral boundaries in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. Ukraine co-founded the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on December 8, 1991, but in January 1993 it refused to endorse a draft charter strengthening political, economic, and defense ties among CIS members. Ukraine was a founding member of GUAM (Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova) and has taken the lead with Georgia to promote cooperation among emerging democracies in the Community for Democratic Choice, which held its first summit meeting December 1–2, 2005 in Kyiv.

In 1999-2001, Ukraine served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Soviet Ukraine joined the United Nations in 1945 as one of the original members following a Western compromise with the Soviet Union, which had asked for seats for all 15 of its union republics. Ukraine has consistently supported peaceful, negotiated settlements to disputes. It has participated in the five-sided (now "5+2") talks on the conflict in Moldova and under President Yushchenko has actively boosted efforts to seek a resolution. Ukraine has also promoted a peaceful resolution to conflict in the post-Soviet state of Georgia and has advocated a return to democracy in neighboring Belarus. Ukraine has also made a substantial contribution to UN peacekeeping operations since 1992.

==Economy==
With rich farmlands, a well-developed industrial base, highly trained labor, and a good education system, Ukraine has the potential to become a major European economy. After eight straight years of sharp economic decline from the early to late 1990s, the standard of living for most citizens declined more than 50%, leading to widespread poverty. Beginning in 2000 economic growth has averaged 7.4% per year, reaching 12.1% in 2004 and 7.0% in 2006. Personal incomes are rising. The macro economy is stable, with the hyperinflation of the early post-Soviet period now reduced to just over 11.6% (2006). Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, was introduced in September 1996 and has remained stable despite a small nominal appreciation in April 2005. While economic growth continues, Ukraine's long-term economic prospects depend on acceleration of market reforms. The economy remains burdened by excessive government regulation, corruption, and lack of law enforcement, and while the government has taken steps against corruption and small and medium enterprises have been largely privatized, much remains to be done to restructure and privatize key sectors such as energy and telecommunications and to allow the free sale of farmland.

Ukraine is rich in natural resources. It has a major ferrous metal industry, producing cast iron, steel, and steel pipe, and its chemical industry produces [[Coke from coal|coke]], mineral fertilizers, and sulfuric acid. Manufactured goods include airplanes, turbines, metallurgical equipment, [[Diesel fuel system|diesel]] locomotives, and tractors. It also is a major producer of grain, sunflower seeds, and sugar and has a broad industrial base, including much of the former U.S.S.R.'s space and rocket industry. Although proven onshore and offshore oil and natural gas reserves are small, it has important energy sources, such as coal, and large mineral deposits, and is one of the world's leading energy transit countries, providing transportation of Russian and Caspian oil and gas across its territory.

Ukraine encourages foreign trade and investment. The foreign investment law allows Westerners to purchase businesses and property, to repatriate revenue and profits, and to receive compensation in the event that property were to be nationalized by a future government. However, complex laws and regulations, poor corporate governance, weak enforcement of contract law by courts and particularly corruption have discouraged broad foreign direct investment in Ukraine. While there is a functioning stock market, the lack of protection for minority shareholder rights severely restricts portfolio investment activities. Total foreign direct investment in Ukraine was approximately $21.2 billion as of January 1, 2007. At $447 per capita, this was one of the lowest figures in the region.

While countries of the former Soviet Union remain important trading partners, especially Russia and Turkmenistan for energy imports, Ukraine's trade is becoming more diversified. Europe is now the destination of over one third of Ukraine's exports, while around one quarter of Ukraine's exports go to Russia and the CIS. Exports of machinery and machine tools are on the rise relative to steel, which constitutes over 30% of exports. Ukraine imports over 80% of its oil and 73% of its natural gas. Russia ranks as Ukraine's principal supplier of oil and Russian firms now own and/or operate the majority of Ukraine's refining capacity. Natural gas imports come from Russia and Turkmenistan, which deliver the gas through a pipeline system owned and controlled by Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas monopoly. In 2005 and 2006, Ukraine switched from barter to cash payments for gas imports. Ukraine controls the gas pipelines on its territory that are also used to transit Russian gas to Western Europe. The complex relationship between supplier, transporter, and consumer has led to some tensions, including Russia's decision to cut off gas supplies for three days in January 2006.

The Government of Ukraine's 12-month $605 million precautionary standby agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expired in March 2005, and Ukraine currently does not receive IMF financing. In Article IV Consultations, the IMF recommends fiscal discipline and structural reforms, particularly of Ukraine's pension system. In July 2005, the World Bank approved a $250 million Development Policy Loan (formerly a Programmatic Adjustment Loan) to support reforms to improve the investment climate, public administration and financial management, and social inclusion. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) project outlays more than doubled in 2005 to 530 million Euros, bringing its portfolio to 2.2 billion Euros.

In 1992, Ukraine became a member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It is a member of the EBRD but not a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Ukraine applied for membership in the WTO in 1995. Progress on its application had been slow but picked up momentum in 2006. The government has made accession to the WTO a priority in 2007.

===Economic data===

Ukraine is classified as a lower middle-income nation, evolving into a post-soviet developing economy.

Approximate economic statistics are as follows:
* Ukraine's GDP is $103 billion ($103,000,000,000), and has been growing at a rate of 6% fairly consistently.
* Per capita GDP is $2,200, with per capita purchasing power at $7,700.
* Foreign debt is 7% of GDP, and foreign investment is 2% of GDP.
* Average monthly salary is 200 euros per month.
* Commercial prime lending rate is 15%.
* The inflation rate is currently 10%.

The Ukrainian currency is the hryvnia (worth about 20 cents, in $USD), which was introduced 1996 to stabilize runaway inflation (and is currently trading at 5:1 for United States dollars, and at 6:1 for European Union euros).

Taxation rates are as follows:
* Personal income tax is 15%.
* Corporate income tax is 25%.
* Value-added tax (VAT) is 20%.
* Social insurance tax is 30%.

Import/export goods include:
* Metals (35%)
* Machinery (25%)
* Fuel & chemicals (10%)
* Agricultural (10%)
* Other (20%)

Mining includes fuel ores of coal, oil, and natural gas, and metal ores of iron, manganese, titanium, magnesium, nickel, and mercury.

Major trade partners are Russia (25%), then about 5% each for [[Germany]], [[Poland]], Italy, [[Turkey]], and [[China]], and others.

===Environmental Issues===
[[Image:Chornobyl radiation96.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Radiation-affected areas from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as of 1996]]
Ukraine is interested in cooperating on regional environmental issues. Conservation of natural resources is a stated high priority, although implementation suffers from a lack of financial resources. Ukraine established its first nature preserve, Askania-Nova, in 1921 and has a program to breed endangered species.

Ukraine has significant environmental problems, especially those resulting from the [[Chernobyl]] nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 and from industrial pollution. In accordance with its agreement with the G7 and European Commission in 1995, Ukraine permanently closed the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in December 2000. Urgent measures for radiation and worker safety as well as structural improvements to the "sarcophagus" erected by the Soviet Union are largely complete, and the contract for construction of the new shelter to be built around the sarcophagus is expected to be awarded in 2007.

Ukraine also has established a Ministry of Environment and has introduced a pollution fee system, which levies taxes on air and water emissions and solid waste disposal. The resulting revenues are channeled to environmental protection activities, but enforcement of this pollution fee system is lax. Ukraine ratified the Kyoto Protocol in April 2004.

Construction of a shipping canal through a UN-protected core biosphere reserve in the Danube Delta, which began in May 2004, is an environmental issue of international interest.

==History==
The name "Ukraine" literally means "Borderlands".
===Early history to 1100AD===
Beginning in the first millennium B.C., the territory of what is now Ukraine was populated by Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, and other nomadic peoples. Ancient Greek colonists set up city-states in southern Ukraine. Eastern Slavic tribes settled in Ukraine in the sixth century A.D. [[Kiev]] was established in the sixth or seventh century and was taken by the Varangian prince Oleg of Novgorod in 882 A.D.. Well located at the intersection of major trade routes, Kiev soon developed into the center of a mighty state, Rus'. At its height under grand princes [[Vladimir I]] (980-1015) and [[Yaroslav I the Wise]] (1019-1054), Kievan Rus' was the largest state in Europe in terms of area. Vladimir I adopted Christianity in 988; Yaroslav the Wise codified the laws; he married his daughters advantageously to the kings of France, Hungary, and Norway.

Although Russian historians identify Rus' as the progenitor of modern Russia, it was also the progenitor of Ukraine and Byelarus. Ukrainian scholars are divided whether the Rus' comprised a loosely organized conglomerate of diverse peoples, or whether it was a more homogeneous nation of Ukrainians. Following the Communist collapse in 1992, two schools of historiography regarding Kievan (Kyivan) Rus' have competed, the Ukrainophile and the East Slavic. The Ukrainophile school promotes an identity that is "mutually exclusive" of Russia. It has come to dominate the nation's educational system, security forces, and national symbols and monuments, although it has been dismissed as nationalist by Western historians. The East Slavic school, an eclectic compromise between Ukrainophiles and Russophilism, has a weaker ideological and symbolic base, although it is preferred by Ukraine's centrist former elites.<ref>Taras Kuzio, "Nation Building, History Writing and Competition over the Legacy of Kyiv Rus in Ukraine." ''Nationalities Papers'' 2005 33(1): 29-58. Issn: 0090-5992 Fulltext: in [[Ebsco]]</ref>

===Decline of Rus'===
Feudal fragmentation caused the decline of Kievan Rus' in the 12th century. In 1169 Kiev was sacked by Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky of Vladimir; in 1240 it was virtually destroyed by the [[Mongols]] under Batu Khan. The Principality of Galicia-Volhynia continued as the successor state of Kievan Rus' in what is now Ukraine until the 14th century, when it was annexed by [[Poland]] and [[Lithuania]]. In the 13th and 14th centuries the Ukrainian people developed a distinct culture.

===Cossacks===
[[Image:Vyshnevetsky.jpg|right|thumb|300px|[[Dmytro Vyshnevetsky]] Hetman in 1550]]

Peasant refugees from Polish landlord rule escaped to the steppes of Ukraine in the 15th and 16th centuries, where they became frontiersmen called [[Cossacks]]. Their main center was Zaporizhska Sich, a wild town on the lower [[Dnieper]] River. Outlaws and frontiersmen, fighters and pioneers, the Cossacks seized the Ukrainian imagination. They ranged the steppe in covered wagons, pulling them into tight squares to face a Tatar attack. Urged on by Polish subsidies, they launched lucrative raids on the ports of Poland's enemy Turkey, using sixty-foot‐long double-ruddered galleys. The men boasted splendid moustaches, red boots and wide baggy trousers as they danced, sang and drank horilka in heroic quantities.<ref>Reid (2000) p. 30</ref> Some Cossacks aligned with Poland; others led rebellions against the Poles in 1591, 1595, 1625, 1635 and 1637.
[[File:166px-BChmielnicki.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Bohdan Khmelnytsky]] led the famous revolt against the Polish Commonwealth in 1648-1654]]

The rebellions climaxed in 1648-1654 in a popular uprising, accompanied by widespread pogroms against Jews, led by the Cossack hetman (general) [[Bohdan Khmelnytsky]] (1595-1657).<ref>He is called Bogdan Khmelnitsky in Russian and Bogdan Chmielnicki in Polish.</ref> Khmelnytsky's victory over Poland led to a Cossack "state," the hetmanate.<ref>The Cossacks formed a military regime but most historians say the hetmanate was not a fully formed state, as it lacked borders, stable laws, an administrative apparatus or an ethnic population base. Apart from Russia it did not seek diplomatic recognition through the exchange of ambassadors.</ref> As the creator of the first quasi-independent Cossack state in the 16th century, Khmelnitsky became immortalized in Ukrainian national sentiment. In the Communist era Moscow bolstered his status. The exploits of Khmelnitsky and the Cossacks became the focus of numerous ceremonial acts, exhibitions and dedications. Since 1991, however, Ukrainian scholars are more divided over the issue of whether he sold out the national interest to Russia.<ref>Serhii Plokhy, "The Ghosts of Pereyaslav: Russo-Ukrainian Historical Debates in the Post-soviet Era." ''Europe-Asia Studies'' 2001 53(3): 489-505. Fulltext: [http://www.jstor.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/view/09668136/ap030066/03a00050/0 in Jstor]; Zenon E. Kohut, "In Search of Early Modern Ukrainian Statehood: Post-Soviet Studies of the Cossack Hetmanate." ''Journal of Ukrainian Studies'' 1999 24(2): 101-112. Issn: 0228-1635 not online</ref>

===Polish and Russian control===
In 1657-1686 came "The Ruin," a devastating 30-year war between Russia, Poland, Turks and Cossacks for control of Ukraine. For three years Khmelnytsky's armies controlled present-day western and central Ukraine, but deserted by his Tatar allies, he suffered a crushing defeat at Berestechko, and turned to the Russian Czar for help. In 1654, Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereiaslav, forming a military and political alliance with Russia that acknowledged loyalty to the Czar. The wars escalated in intensity with hundreds of thousands of deaths. Defeat came in 1686 as the "Eternal Peace" between Russia and Poland gave Kiev and the Cossack lands east of the Dnieper over to Russian rule and the Ukrainian lands west of the Dnieper to Poland. In 1709 Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1687-1709) sided with Sweden against Russia in the [[Great Northern War]] (1700-1721). Mazepa, a member of the Cossack nobility, received an excellent education abroad and proved to be a brilliant political and military leader enjoying good relations with the Romanov dynasty. After [[Peter the Great]] became czar, Mazepa as hetman gave him more than twenty years of loyal military and diplomatic service and was well rewarded. Eventually Peter recognized that in order to consolidate and modernize Russia's political and economic power it was necessary to do away with the hetmanate and Ukrainian and Cossack aspirations to autonomy. Peter refused to assist Cossack forces in protecting Ukraine from imminent attack by Sweden, thus abrogating treaty obligations between Russia and Ukraine. Mazepa accepted Polish invitations to join the Poles and Swedes against Russia. The move was disastrous for the hetmanate, Ukrainian autonomy, and Mazepa. He died in exile after fleeing from the [[Battle of Poltava]] (1709), where the Swedes and their Cossack allies suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Peter's Russian forces

The hetmanate was abolished in 1764; the Zaporizhska Sich abolished in 1775, as centralized Russian control became the norm. With the partitioning of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795, the Ukrainian lands west of the Dnieper were divided between Russia and Austria. From 1737 to 1834 expansion into the northern Black Sea littoral and the eastern Danube valley was a cornerstone of Russian foreign policy.

Lithuanians and Poles controlled vast estates in Ukraine, and were a law unto themselves. Judicial rulings from Cracow were routinely flouted. Heavily taxed peasants were practically tied to the land as serfs Occasionally the landowners battled each other using armies of Ukrainian peasants. The Poles and Lithuanians were Roman Catholics and tried with some success to covert the Orthodox lesser nobility. In 1596 they set up the "Greek-Catholic" or Uniate Church, under the authority of the Pope but using Eastern rituals; it dominates western Ukraine to this day. Tensions between the Uniates and the Orthodox were never resolved, and the religious differentiation left the Ukrainian Orthodox peasants leaderless, as they were reluctant to follow the Ukrainian nobles.<ref>Reid (2000) p 27-30</ref>

The Cossack-led uprising called Koliivshchyna that erupted in the Ukrainian borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1768 involved ethnicity as one root cause of Ukrainian violence that killed tens of thousands of Poles and Jews. Religious warfare also broke out between Ukrainian groups. Increasing conflict between Uniate and Orthodox parishes along the newly reinforced Polish-Russian border on the Dnepr River in the time of Catherine II set the stage for the uprising. As Uniate religious practices had become more Latinized, Orthodoxy in this region drew even closer into dependence on the Russian Orthodox Church. Confessional tensions also reflected opposing Polish and Russian political allegiances.<ref>Barbara Skinner, "Borderlands of Faith: Reconsidering the Origins of a Ukrainian Tragedy." ''Slavic Review'' 2005 64(1): 88-116. Fulltext: in [http://www.jstor.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/view/00376779/sp060001/06x0162f/0 Jstor]</ref>

===Origins of Ukraine: 19th century and World War I===
In the 19th century the Ukrainian was a rural area largely ignored by Russia and Austria. With growing urbanization and modernization, and a cultural trend toward nationalism inspired by romanticism, a Ukrainian intelligentsia committed to national rebirth and social justice emerged. The serf-turned-national-poet [[Taras Shevchenko]] (1814-1861) and the political theorist [[Mykhailo Drahomanov]] (1841-1895) led the growing nationalist movement. Nationalist and socialist parties developed in the late 19th century. Austrian [[Galicia]], which enjoyed substantial political freedom under the relatively lenient rule of the [[Hapsburgs]], became the center of the nationalist movement. The first Ukrainians were Carpathian Russians in [[Austria-Hungary]] who denounced [[Orthodox Christianity]] for [[Roman Catholicism]] in 1893.<ref>https://russian-faith.com/persecution/struggle-russian-christian-faith-europe-carpatho-russians-n1122</ref> Defeat in [[World War I]] and the Russian revolutions of 1917 destroyed the Hapsburg and Russian empires. The Ukrainian elite declared statehood: the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed at Kiev on Nov. 20, 1917, becoming independent on Jan. 22, 1918. The West Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed at Lviv on Nov. 1, 1918. A rival Ukrainian Soviet Republic was established at Kharkiv on Dec. 24, 1917. On Jan. 22, 1919, the two people's republics united. By then, however, the military situation was desperate, as Polish and Bolshevik armies pressed the Ukrainian nationalists from west and east and the peasant anarchists led by Nestor Makhno took control of large areas. Lenin expanded it's territory, making it an artificial state in the style of the [[EU]].<ref>https://russophile.org/is-ukraine-an-artificial-state-popular-youtuber-says-yes/</ref><ref>https://orientalreview.org/2017/08/21/ukraines-misunderstanding-lenin-helps-explain-americas-fight-re-invented-historical-statues/</ref><ref>https://russian-faith.com/persecution/struggle-russian-christian-faith-europe-carpatho-russians-n1122</ref><ref>https://www.sott.net/article/391652-The-history-of-Ukraine-as-an-artificial-state</ref> Because communist theory denies the existence of race as the adherents flip flop to favor one group over another, Lenin made the Soviet Union autonomous republics so not one ethnic group will have too much power.

===Soviet era to 1939===
The war in Ukraine continued for another two years; by 1921, however, most of Ukraine had been taken over by the Soviet Union, while Galicia and Volhynia were incorporated into independent Poland.

A powerful underground Ukrainian nationalist movement rose in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s, led by the Ukrainian Military Organization and the [[Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists]] (OUN). The movement attracted a militant following among students and harassed the Polish authorities. Legal Ukrainian parties, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, an active press, and a business sector also flourished in Poland. Economic conditions improved in the 1920s, but the region suffered from the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The situation in Soviet Ukraine under Communist control were sharply different. The communists gave a privileged position to manual labor, the largest class in the cities, where Russians dominated. The typical worker was more attached to class identity than to ethnicity. Although there were incidents of ethnic friction among workers (in addition to Ukrainians and Russians there were Poles, Germans, Jews, and others in the Ukrainian workforce), industrial laborers had already adopted Russian culture and language to a significant extent. Workers whose ethnicity was Ukrainian were not attracted to campaigns of Ukrainianization or de-Russification in meaningful numbers, but remained loyal members of the Soviet working class. There was no significant antagonism between workers identifying themselves as Ukrainian or Russian; however, anti-Semitism was widespread.

Moscow encouraged a national renaissance in literature and the arts, under the aegis of the Ukrainization policy pursued by the national Communist leadership of Mykola Skrypnyk (1872-1933).

===Famine===
see [[Ukrainian Famine]]

With [[Stalin]]'s change of course in the late 1920s, however, Moscow's toleration of Ukrainian national identity came to an end. Systematic state terror of the 1930s destroyed Ukraine's writers, artists, and intellectuals; the Communist Party of Ukraine was purged of its "nationalist deviationists"; and the peasantry was crushed by means of collectivization, resulting in the [[Great Famine]] or "Holodomor" (Голодомор) of 1932-1933, which claimed some 3-7 million lives as crops failed and remaining food wtocks were forcibly removed by the government. Besides Ukraine, [[Kazakhstan]] and the Volga region were also hit by the famine. Stalin had full knowledge of the destructive force of the famine. It was a by-product of his war on the peasantry that began with collectivization and dekulakization and as an attempt to eradicate peasant culture in its entirety. Ellman explains the causes for the excess deaths in rural areas of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan during 1931-34 by dividing the causes into three groups: objective nonpolicy-related factors, like the drought of 1931 and poor weather in 1932; inadvertent result of policies with other objectives, like rapid industrialization, socialization of livestock, and neglected crop rotation patterns; and deaths caused intentionally by a starvation policy. The Communist leadership perceived famine not as a humanitarian catastrophe but as a means of [[class struggle]] and used starvation as a punishment tool to teach peasants to work well in the collective farms.<ref>Michael Ellman, "The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934." ''Europe-Asia Studies'' 2005 57(6): 823-841. Issn: 0966-8136 Fulltext in [[Ebsco]]</ref>

It was largely the same groups of individuals who were responsible for the mass killing operations during the civil war, collectivization, and the Great Terror. These groups were associated with Efim Georgievich Evdokimov (1891-1939) and operated in Ukraine during the civil war, in the North Caucasus in the 1920s, and in the Secret Operational Division within General State Political Administration (OGPU) in 1929-31. Evdokimov transferred into Communist Party administration in 1934, when he became Party secretary for North Caucasus Krai. But he appears to have continued advising Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov on security matters, and the latter relied on Evdokimov's former colleagues to carry out the mass killing operations that are known as the Great Terror in 1937-38.<ref>Stephen G. Wheatcroft, "Agency and Terror: Evdokimov and Mass Killing in Stalin's Great Terror." ''Australian Journal of Politics and History'' 2007 53(1): 20-43. Issn: 0004-9522 Fulltext in [[Ebsco]]; Robert Conquest, ''The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet collectivization and the terror-famine'' (1986). Mark B. Tauger, "The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933" ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 70-89, notes the harvest was unusually poor. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-6779(199121)50%3A1%3C70%3AT1HATF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H online in JSTOR]; R. W. Davies, M. B. Tauger, S. G. Wheatcroft, "Stalin, Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933," ''Slavic Review,'' Vol. 54, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 642-657 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-6779(199523)54%3A3%3C642%3ASGSATF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7]; online in JSTOR; Michael Ellman. "Stalin and the Soviet famine of 1932-33 Revisited," ''Europe-Asia Studies,'' Volume 59, Issue 4 June 2007 , pages 663-93.</ref>

===World War II: 1939-1945===

In 1939, after Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, Galicia and Volhynia were annexed to Soviet Ukraine. Northern Bukovina, formerly part of Romania, was incorporated into Ukraine in 1940, as was formerly Czechoslovakian Subcarpathian Ruthenia (the Transcarpathian Oblast) in 1945.

By mid-1941, the Ukrainian SSR had the largest population of Jews in Europe. The addition of the eastern provinces of Poland in late 1939 as well as the seizure of sections of Romanian territory in June 1940 led to some 2.7 million Jews living within the borders of the newly enlarged republic. About 85% lived in cities. By 1944, 1.6 million of these Jews had died at the hands of the Germans and their allies and auxiliaries. Unlike the majority of the [[Holocaust]]'s victims who died in the industrialized mass murder of the death camps, the overwhelming bulk of Ukraine's Jews died in mass shootings during the initial stages of the war.
[[File:SBandera.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Ukrainian nationalist hero [[Stepan Bandera]].]]
The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was welcomed by many Ukrainians at first; the [[Stepan Bandera|OUN]] even attempted to establish a government under German auspices. Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946) considered Ukraine a strategically important region that should be occupied through capturing the hearts and minds of the Ukrainians. According to Rosenberg, everything should have been done to make the Ukrainians view the Germans as liberators. Though he presented his views on different occasions, [[Adolf Hitler]]'s anti-Slavic racial views prevailed and overrode strategic considerations, leading to a harsh occupation. Very soon the realization that Nazi policies were brutal toward all the Ukrainians, and not only the Jews and Communists, drove most Ukrainians into opposition to the Nazis. Germany forced many Ukrainians to work within the so-called Reichskommissariat Ukraine (RKU) on tasks such as agriculture, road and railway building, and the construction of fortifications. The German authorities soon faced a serious local labor shortage, especially among skilled workers, as a result of Soviet evacuations before the invasion, the ongoing murder of the Jewish population, and the brutal recruitment, arrest, and deportation of other groups, usually with the cooperation of the local civilian, military, and police authorities. The pool of labor was further reduced as the Germans lost territory in the later stages of the conflict. Nazi administrator Fritz Sauckel's labor recruitment measures strained relations with local officials responsible for selecting the deportees, leading to bribery and corruption. The Kiev area was the main focus for recruitment and deportation, along with the Vinnitsa region of central Ukraine. Over a million locals and prisoners of war were forced into labor in the Ukrainian coal mines in the Donbas region (Donets Basin). The forced laborers endured fines, starvation, imprisonment, beatings, and hanging, but also had better chances for more food, money, and mobility.

In Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia the first stage of partisan development, from 1941 to the fall of 1942, was uncoordinated and resulted in a great many losses. The second stage, late 1942 to 1944, was better coordinated; partisan groups were better defined, and relatively large-scale operations were carried out, often in cooperation with the Red Army. Organized leadership and cadres were created, various forms of actions (such as diversions, sabotage, and direct attacks) were developed; the Germans responded with vicious punitive activities against the partisans. In all, more than 1.3 million partisans took part in actions in Germany's rear in 6,200 units; more than 300,000 received decorations for their actions. The OUN created a nationalist partisan fighting force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA); many Ukrainians also joined the Soviet partisans and fought in the Soviet Army against the Germans. After World War II, the OUN and the UPA continued a hopeless guerrilla struggle against Soviet rule until 1953. The devastation caused by the war included major destruction in over 700 cities and towns and 28,000 villages.

===1945 to 1991===
Reconstruction proceeded rapidly in the late 1940s and the 1950s, as the Soviets n\eeded the food and raw materials of Ukraine. Political repression of nationally conscious Ukrainians also intensified. The widespread acculturation and assimilation of the Soviet Jews by the 1930s led Stalin to consider the "Jewish question" as settled; he now viewed the Jews as a national rather than a religious group. With the influx of Jews into the Ukraine and Russia from Poland, the Baltic states, Bessarabia, and Bukovina following the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, there followed an intensification of Jewish religious activity, and the reopening of many synagogues. However, political unrest preceding the creation of the state of Israel unleashed Stalin's massive repression against Jews during the "black years" of 1948-53. Suspected of Zionism and cosmopolitanism, Jews were systematically removed from positions of leadership in culture, science, medicine, politics, and economics. The anti-Semitic campaign ended only with the death of Stalin in March 1953.

In 1948, the CIA report NSC 20/1, section 4: “US objectives with respect to Russia” warned that separating Ukraine from Russia will not work.<ref>http://www.sakva.ru/Nick/NSC_20_1.html</ref>

Stalin's death finally brought relief in many ways. The thaw initiated by [[Nikita Khrushchev]], who had served as Ukrainian party chief in the 1930s, led to the emergence in the late 1950s and the early 1960s of the "sixties generation" of writers, artists, and intellectuals. Following Khrushchev's downfall in 1964, Moscow, under [[Leonid Brezhnev]] initiated a series of crackdowns on Ukrainian dissidents, including [[Ivan Dziuba]] (b. 1931), the author of Internationalism or Russification?; Vyacheslav Chornovil (b. 1938), the editor of the underground ''Ukrainian Herald''; and Valentyn Moroz (b. 1936), the author of stinging attacks on Soviet policy. In 1972, Petro Shelest, the national-Communist Ukrainian party chief, was replaced by hardliner Volodymyr Shcherbytsky.

The Number Four reactor at Chernobyl exploded during a routine power test in April 1986. Radioactive contaminants from the [[Chernobyl disaster]] fell on northern Ukraine and several neighboring countries, reaching as far as Japan and the United States, causing casualties, sparking a major embarrassment for the Soviet Union, and inciting fears of nuclear energy.<ref>Jim T. Smith, and Nicholas A. Beresford, ''Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences.'' Springer, 2005. 310 pp.</ref>

The arrival of [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] in 1985 started a slow revolution. The [[Chernobyl]] nuclear accident in 1986 undercut trust in Moscow. "Glasnost" permitted Ukrainian intellectuals to discuss the "blank spots" in their history, and growing political liberalization led to the reemergence of dissident groups and the emergence of nationally minded cultural organizations. A major turning point occurred in late 1989, with the founding of Rukh and the removal of Shcherbytsky from power.

===Independence, 1991- ===
In 1990 [[Leonid Kravchuk]], formerly in charge of ideology in the CPU, was appointed chairman of the presidium of a revamped supreme soviet, one fourth of whose deputies were nationalists and "democrats" elected in the semifree elections of 1990. On July 16, 1990, Ukraine proclaimed its sovereignty, an ambiguous formula that meant independence to the nationalists and autonomy to the Russian minority. On Nov. 21, 1990, Ukraine and Russia signed a treaty recognizing each other's sovereignty and promising not to interfere in each other's affairs.

As the Communist system collapsed in 1991, Ukraine, Russia, and the other republics engaged in lengthy negotiations with Gorbachev over the form of a new union. In August 1991 an abortive coup by committed KGB operatives in Moscow destroyed Gorbachev's strength and impelled the republics to go their own way. The Ukraine national assembly declared independence on Aug. 24, 1991. Several days later the CPU was suspended and its property was confiscated. A popular referendum on independence was held on December 1, and over 90 percent of the voters supported the declaration. Most of the countries of the world recognized the new Republic of Ukraine in the months that followed. Ukraine became a member of the Council on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Monetary Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and after much controversy a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) program in 1994. As a consequence of the autonomous republics system, Ukraine became a second [[Yugoslavia]] following.<ref>https://orientalreview.org/2014/09/15/eight-reasons-why-ukraine-is-new-yugoslavia/</ref>

The nominal successor to the Soviet Union was the Commonwealth of Independent States; Ukraine joined on Dec. 8, 1991. Serious tensions soon emerged with Russia as Moscow took possession of the [[Black Sea]] fleet anchored at Sevastopol, while some Russian politicians wanted the Donbas and the Crimea; the latter, being in Russian hands since 1783, had been transferred to Ukraine by the Soviet authorities without referendum or self-determination of peoples in 1954. The Ukrainian government responded by taking steps to create its own army and navy. Crimean secessionists elected Yuri Meshkov as president of the Crimea in early 1994. The Kiyv government established closer economic and political ties with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Ukrainian nationalists fears of Russia led it to postpone action on its earlier promise to give up strategic nuclear missiles, prompting concern in the West. After the signing the Budapest Memorandum by the presidents of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States in early 1994, Ukraine began shipping these weapons to Russia. Thereafter, Ukraine's relations with the United States and western Europe improved.

[[Leonid Kravchuk]], the most powerful politician, became Ukraine's first popularly elected president, with over 60 percent of the vote, on Dec. 1, 1991. His authority, like that of the legislature, declined precipitously, however, as he proved unable to solve the country's mounting economic difficulties. In contrast to Rukh, which had split into pro-Kravchuk and anti-Kravchuk factions in 1992, the former Communists remained strong, controlling many local government councils, industrial plants, and collective farms. The CPU was officially reconstituted as a powerful political force in late 1993. Ukrainian [[neo-Nazi]]s also become more prominent. Elections for the supreme soviet in March 1994 yielded a legislature in which the CPU and its left-wing allies were the strongest bloc, followed by the center-right nationalists grouped about what remained of Rukh and the centrist pro-government "independents." Kravchuk ran for reelection in the presidential election in June 1994. No candidate won a majority, so a second round was held in July, pitting Kravchuk against former premier [[Leonid Kuchma]]. Kuchma won the election with 52 percent of the vote.
[[File:Ukraine-12-13-2004.jpg|thumb|280px|Canadian news magazine reports, Dec. 13, 2004]]
The national goal was the creation of a market-oriented economy and the establishment of stable democratic institutions and a system of laws. However the goals were partly frustrated by political deadlock, inexperience, an inefficient state apparatus, a collapsing economy, internal anti-Russian [[xenophobia]], and external tensions with the Russian Federation. The Soviet culture of corruption continued after independence, and rampant criminality became even more widespread in the mid-1990s. In the latter 1990s, [[Viktor Yushchenko]], as chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, tamed rampant inflation and introduced responsible economic controls. From 1999 to 2004, Ukraine's GNP nearly doubled.

===Orange Revolution: 2004===
Kuchma's second term in office as president (1999-2004) was characterized by the collapse of the national democratic-centrist alliance, the "Kuchmagate" crisis, the rise of a non-Communist opposition in the 2002 elections, and the election of [[Viktor Yushchenko]] in 2004 following the [[Open Society Foundations]]' [[Orange Revolution]]. The deep divisions that have become evident under Yushchenko had their origins in Ukraine's regionalism, the "Kuchmagate" crisis, antiregime protests, and different attitudes to dealing with the past. The country is divided by linguistic and regional cleavages that appear sharply in regional polarization in national elections. These divisions have led to constant questioning of the viability of the Ukrainian state and predictions of violence and civil war. Secessionist movements have made few inroads, however, and violence has been nonexistent. Because the Russian "minority" group in Ukraine is actually quite large, it has immense influence in the state without resort to regional autonomy or secession. The balance of power between Ukraine's regions and ethnic groups has ensured that neither side has dominated. This does not make for rapid reform.

===Ukrainian Crisis: 2014/2015===
:''See main article: [[Crisis in Ukraine]]''
[[File:Azov Battalion.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Ukrainian nationalists in the [[Revolution of Dignity]]. Left: the NATO flag. Right: the Swastika. Center: Azov battalion combining the Nazi Black Sun and emblem of the SS Division Das Reich.<ref>https://www.salon.com/2014/02/25/is_the_us_backing_neo_nazis_in_ukraine_partner/</ref>]]
2010 [[Viktor Yanukovych]] and his pro-Russian "Party of Regions" won the elections. 2013 the Ukrainian People protested against Yanukovych and wanted a pro-European course by the government.<ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/vladimir-tismaneanu/ukrainian-people-power/</ref> These protests were called "EuroMaidan".<ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/putin-vs-pro-west-ukrainians/</ref> The key figures of the opposition were [[Yulia Tymoshenko]], [[Vitali Klitschko]] and [[Oleh Tyahnybok]]. As a result, prime minister Mykola Azarov resigned<ref>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25932352</ref> and Yanukovich was discontinued on February 22, 2014 by the parliament.<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/22/ukrainian-protesters-claim-control-over-capital/</ref>

In response to armed fascists in the Maidan coup of a democratically elected regime, Russian soldiers landed in Crimea the same month. Because many of the people living in Crimea are ethnic Russians, there was a dispute whether Crimea belongs to Ukraine or to [[Russia]].<ref>https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-warns-russia-over-military-moves-crimea</ref> On March 11, 2014, Crimea declared its indepence from Ukraine.<ref>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578160/Ukraines-fugitive-president-blasts-bandit-regime-says-country-heading-civil-war.html</ref> On March 16, 2014, Russia sponsored a referendum in Crimea about joining Russia. The United States and the [[European Union]] called the referendum "illegal".<ref>https://www.voanews.com/content/eu-crimea-referendum-illegal/1865590.html</ref> Because the referendum gave voters only two choices: join Russia now or later, experts already declared that most Crimeans will vote for the connection to Russia.<ref>http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/europe/2014/03/experts_russia_will_take_crimea</ref> As a result of it 95.5% of voters supported joining Russia.<ref>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26599776</ref> Since March 18, 2014, Russia claims Crimea as a part of its territory.<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/18/russia-moves-to-annex-crimea-laughs-at-us-sanctions/</ref> [[Afghanistan]], [[Cuba]], [[Nicaragua]], [[North Korea]], [[Russia]], [[Syria]] and [[Venezuela]] recognized Crimea as a part of Russia.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/world/asia/breaking-with-the-west-afghan-leader-supports-russias-annexation-of-crimea.html?ref=asia&_r=1</ref> On March 27, the U.N. General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution (100 in favor, 11 against and 58 abstentions) declaring Crimea's referendum invalid.<ref name="CHARBONNEAU AND DONATH">{{cite news|lcoauthors=Charbonneau M and Donath L|title=U.N. General Assembly declares Crimea secession vote invalid|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-ukraine-crisis-un-idUSBREA2Q1GA20140327|newspaper=Reuters|date=Mar 27, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Felton and Gumuchian">{{cite news|coauthors=Marie-Louise Felton and Alex Gumuchian|title=U.N. General Assembly resolution calls Crimean referendum invalid|url=https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/|newspaper=CNN|date=March 27, 2014}}</ref><ref name="un.org">{{cite news|title=Backing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, UN Assembly declares Crimea referendum invalid|url=https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47443&Cr=ukraine&Cr1=|newspaper=UN News Center|date=27 March 2014}}</ref><ref name="foxnews.com">{{cite news|title=UN General Assembly approves referendum calling Russia annexation of Crimea illegal|url=https://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/27/un-general-assembly-votes-yes-on-ukraine-unity/|newspaper=Associated Press|date=March 27, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Ukraine: UN condemns Crimea vote as IMF and US back loans|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26776416|newspaper=27 March 2014|date=BBC}}</ref> In response, the United States and Europe imposed the [[Magnitsky Act]] sanctions sponsored by Sen. [[John McCain]] against Russian trade. In February 2017 [[President Trump]] accused Russia of taking Crimea by force and asked whether Obama was too soft on Russia.<ref>[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-russia-latest-tweet-accuse-crimea-obama-too-soft-distance-campaign-team-white-house-a7581511.html Donald Trump accuses Russia of taking Crimea by force in attempt to distance himself from campaign allegations]</ref>
[[File:Kiev mall in 2014.jpg|right|300px|thumb|[[Swastika]] on display in a Kiyv mall , February 2019.<ref>https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Ukraine-mall-displays-Nazi-swastika-on-staiFile:Bandera-in-ss-uniform%20(1).jpgrcase-581065</ref>]]
As a result of the annexation of Crimea, the Russian-backed so-called "[[Donetsk People's Republic]]" and the "[[Lugansk People's Republic]]" declared their independence and created an confederation called "[[Novorossiya|Federal State of Novorossiya]]".<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20140607011548/http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_24/Donetsk-Lugansk-Peoples-Republics-unite-in-Novorossiya-1012/</ref> Novorossiya was dissolved in May 2015. The Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics however still exist. In June 2014 [[Petro Poroshenko]] was elected as new president of Ukraine<ref>http://news.yahoo.com/poroshenko-sworn-ukraines-president-073208251.html</ref> and [[Arseniy Yatsenyuk]] became prime minister. Since then the Ukrainian government tries to defend its territorial integrity and fights the separatist forces. In December 2017 the Trump administration approved the export of lethal small arms to Ukraine, including a multimillion-dollar sniper rifle deal – something the Obama Administration refused to do – ramping up its support for the country in the simmering conflict with Russia-backed separatists.<ref>Betz, Bradford (December 21, 2017). [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/21/trump-administration-oks-sale-lethal-arms-to-ukraine.html Trump administration OKs sale of lethal arms to Ukraine]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved February 2, 2018.</ref>

===Ukrainian collusion: 2016===
:{{Main article|Ukrainian collusion}}
Nine days after the U.S. presidential election, the Russian Federation sponsored a U.N. Resolution entitled ''Combating glorification of [[Nazism]], Neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of [[racism]], racial discrimination, [[xenophobia]] and related intolerance'' aimed at condemning the neo-fascist groups openly displaying Nazi symbols and regalia in Ukraine and Donbas. The [[Obama administration]] voted against the resolution.<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-votes-against-anti-nazi-resolution-at-united-nations/</ref>

===Historiography===
The scholarly study of the Ukraine's history emerged from romantic impulses in the late 19th century. The outstanding leaders were Volodymyr Antonovych (1834-1908), based in Kiev, and his student Michael Hrushevsky (1866-1934).<ref>Serhii Plokhy, ''Unmaking Imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History'' (2005)</ref> For the first time full-scale scholarly studies based on archival sources, modern research techniques, and modern historical theories became possible. However, the demands of government officials—especially Soviet, but also Czarists and Polish—made it difficult to disseminate ideas that ran counter to the central government. Therefore, exile schools of historians emerged in central Europe and Canada after 1920.<ref>KubijovyČ, ed. ''Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia'' (1963) 1:559-74</ref>

Strikingly different interpretations of the medieval state of Kievan Rus' appear in the four schools of historiography within Ukraine: Russophile, Sovietophile, Eastern Slavic, and Ukrainophile. The Sovietophile and Russophile schools have become marginalized in independent Ukraine, with the Ukrainophile school being dominant in the early 21st century. The Ukrainophile school promotes an identity that is mutually exclusive of Russia. It has come to dominate the nation's educational system, security forces, and national symbols and monuments, although it has been dismissed as nationalist by Western historians. The East Slavic school, an eclectic compromise between Ukrainophiles and Russophilism, has a weaker ideological and symbolic base, although it is preferred by Ukraine's centrist former elites.<ref>Taras Kuzio, "National Identity and History Writing in Ukraine," ''Nationalities Papers'' 2006 34(4): 407-427, online in [[EBSCO]]</ref>

Many historians in recent years have sought alternatives to national histories, and Ukrainian history invited approaches that looked beyond a national paradigm. Multiethnic history recognizes the numerous peoples in Ukraine; transnational history portrays Ukraine as a border zone for various empires; and area studies categorizes Ukraine as part of Eurasia, or more often as part of East-Central Europe. Plokhy (2007) argues that looking beyond the country's national history has made possible a richer understanding of Ukraine, its people, and the surrounding regions.<ref>Serhii Plokhy, "Beyond Nationality" ''Ab Imperio'' 2007 (4): 25-46,</ref>

After 1991, historical memory was a powerful tool in the political mobilization and legitimation of the post-Soviet Ukrainian state, as well as the division of selectively used memory along the lines of the political division of Ukrainian society. Ukraine did not experience the restorationist paradigm typical of some other post-Soviet nations, including the Baltic states, although the multifaceted history of independence, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Soviet-era repressions, mass famine, and World War II collaboration were used to provide a different constitutive frame for the new Ukrainian nation. The politics of identity (which includes the production of history textbooks and the authorization of commemorative practices) has remained fragmented and tailored to reflect the ideological anxieties and concerns of individual regions of Ukraine.<ref>See Andryi Portnov, "Exercises with history Ukrainian style (notes on public aspects of history's functioning in post-Soviet Ukraine)," ''Ab Imperio'' 2007 (3): 93-138, in Ukrainian</ref>

==See also==
* [[Ames Brothers]]
* [[Nuclear target structures]]
*[[Ukraine collusion]]
*[[Ukrainian collusion timeline]]

==Bibliography==
[[File:Ukraine-Subtelny.jpg|thumb|250px]]* ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (University of Toronto Press, 1984–93) 5 vol; from [http://www.utoronto.ca/cius/webfiles/eu.htm Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies], partly online
* ''Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia.'' ed by Volodymyr E. KubijovyČ; University of Toronto Press. 1963; 1188pp [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=58069636 online at [[Questia]]]
* Dalton, Meredith. ''Ukraine'' (Culture Shock! A Survival Guide to Customs & Etiquette) (2001)
* Evans, Andrew. ''Ukraine'' (2nd ed 2007) The Bradt Travel Guide [https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1841621811/ref=sib_dp_pop_ex/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&p=S00T#reader-link online excerpts and search at Amazon.com]
* Johnstone, Sarah. ''Ukraine'' (Lonely Planet Travel Guides) (2008) [https://www.amazon.com/Ukraine-Country-Guide-Sarah-Johnstone/dp/1741044812/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256224034&sr=1-7 excerpt and text search]
* Helbig, Adriana et al. ''Culture and Customs of Ukraine'' (2008) [https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Customs-Ukraine-Europe/dp/0313343632/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256898664&sr=8-17 excerpt and text search]

===Recent (since 1991)===
* Aslund, Anders, and Michael McFaul.''Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough'' (2006)
* Aslund, Anders. '' How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy'' (2009)
* Birch, Sarah. ''Elections and Democratization in Ukraine'' (2000) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98201086 online edition]
* Kubicek, Paul. ''The History of Ukraine'' (2008) [https://www.amazon.com/History-Ukraine-Greenwood-Histories-Nations/dp/0313349207/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256898525&sr=8-7 excerpt and text search]
* Kuzio, Taras. ''Ukraine: State and Nation Building'' Routledge, 1998 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102997170 online edition]
* Whitmore, Sarah. ''State Building in Ukraine: The Ukrainian Parliament, 1990-2003'' (2004) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=108557869 online edition]
* Wilson, Andrew. ''Ukraine's Orange Revolution'' (2005)
* Wilson, Andrew. ''The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation,'' 2nd ed. 2002; [https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0300093098/ref=sib_dp_pop_ex/104-1795140-9172706?ie=UTF8&p=S00L#reader-link online excerpts at Amazon]
* Wolczuk, Roman. ''Ukraine's Foreign and Security Policy 1991-2000'' (2002) [https://www.amazon.com/Ukraines-Foreign-Security-1991-2000-European/dp/0700717404/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256898525&sr=8-11 excerpt and text search]
* Zon, Hans van. ''The Political Economy of Independent Ukraine.'' 2000 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98833788 online edition]

===Historical===
* Brandon, Ray, and Wendy Lower, eds. ''The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization.'' (2008). 378 pp. [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24078 online review]
* Kohut, Zenon E.; Nebesio, Bohdan Y.; and Yurkevich, Myroslav. ''Historical Dictionary of Ukraine.'' (2005). 854 pp.
* Berkhoff, Karel C. ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule.'' (2004). 448 pp.
* Dimarov, Anatoliy et al. ''A Hunger Most Cruel: The Human Face of the 1932-1933 Terror-Famine in Soviet Ukraine'' (2002) [https://www.amazon.com/Hunger-Most-Cruel-1932-1933-Terror-Famine/dp/096838997X/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256224123&sr=1-19 excerpt and text search]
* Gross, Jan T. ''Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia'' (1988).
* Hrushevsky, Michael. ''A History of Ukraine'' (1986)
* Kubicek, Paul. ''The History of Ukraine'' (2008) [https://www.amazon.com/History-Ukraine-Greenwood-Histories-Nations/dp/0313349207/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256898525&sr=8-7 excerpt and text search]
* Luckyj, George S. ''Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine: An Anthology of Ukrainian Thought from 1710 to 1995.'' (1996)
* Lower, Wendy. ''Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine.'' U. of North Carolina Press, 2005. 307 pp.
* Magocsi, Paul Robert. ''A History of Ukraine'' (2nd. ed. 2009)
* Redlich, Shimon. ''Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945.'' Indiana U. Press, 2002. 202 pp.
* Reid, Anna. ''Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine'' (2003) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=96969196 online edition]
* Subtelny, Orest. ''Ukraine: A History'' (3rd ed. 2009), 800pp; the best history in English
* Yekelchyk, Serhy. ''Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation'' (2007), 20th century history
* Zabarko, Boris, ed. ''Holocaust in the Ukraine.'' Vallentine Mitchell, 2005. 394 pp.

==External links==
*[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/up.html CIA Factbook]
*[https://www.economist.com/countries/Ukraine/ Ukraine page at The Economist]
*[http://www.ukraine.org/ www.ukraine.org]
* [http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/wumag_old/archiv/index.html ''Ukraine'' magazine, English edition]
* [http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2003/450303.shtml "Between Hitler and Stalin: Ukraine in World War II,"] a 2003 Canadian film produced and directed by Slavko Nowytski and narrated by Jack Palance.
* [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3211.htm U.S. State Department ''Background Note: Ukraine'' (2008)], the source for several sections of this text

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:Ukraine]]
[[Category:Former Soviet Countries]]
[[Category:Christian-Majority Countries]]
[[Category:Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Nuclear Defense]]

Stepan Bandera

2019-11-30T23:24:33Z

JoeyJ: This image is fake. Bandera never wore nazi uniforms.

[[File:SBandera.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Stepan Bandera]]
'''Stepan Bandera''' (January 1, 1909 – October 15, 1959) was a controversial [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] nationalist. He led a rebel army, called the [[Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists]] (OUN), that fought against the [[Red Army]]. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Bandera wanted to create an independent Ukrainian state. Bandera was held as a political prisoner in the German concentration camp at Sachsenhausen until late in the war, and his organization was absorbed into the [[SS]] under command of German officers.

The OUN committed atrocities against [[Jewish]], [[Russian]] and [[Poland|Polish]] civilians. During the [[Second World War]] the OUN welcomed the [[German]]s as liberators from [[communism]] and fought alongside them. [[Hitler]]'s anti-[[Slavs|Slav]] racial policies denied them independence or any leadership roles.

After the war, Bandera lived under a false name in [[Munich]], [[Germany]], and his organization continued armed resistance against the Soviet Union in the Ukraine under [[CIA]] sponsorship until 1954. He was assassinated by a [[KGB]]-agent in 1959.<ref>https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/15000-nationalists-march-kiev</ref>

Stepan Bandera was honored by the Ukrainian president [[Viktor Yushchenko]] as a "Hero of the Ukraine" in 2010.<ref>http://rt.com/politics/bandera-ukraine-court-crimea/</ref> The next president [[Viktor Yanukovych]] withdrew the honor. Today there are still many monuments in Western Ukraine honoring him.

==OUNb==
George Eliason of ''Washingtonsblog:'' reported:<ref>[https://washingtonsblog.com/2017/01/crowdstrikes-russian-hacking-story-fell-apart-say-hello-fancy-bear-2.html Why Crowdstrike’s Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear], George Eliason, ''Washingtonsblog, January 3, 2016.</ref>

The OUNb worked hard to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the ''Ukrainian Weekly'' in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, “Other statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for”… What is OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed in the 1930’s by Stepan Bandera. When these people go to a '''[[Holocaust]] memorial they are celebrating both the dead and the OUNb [[SS]] that killed.'''<ref>http://www.infoukes.com/galiciadivision/</ref> There is no getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an [[authoritarian]] [[fascism]].

[[Alexandra Chalupa]]- According to the ''Ukrainian Weekly'',<ref>http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/2014-ukrainians-in-the-u-s-advocates-for-ukraine/</ref>
{{quotebox|… “The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms. Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko and others.” The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine’s chubby nazi, Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during [[Euromaidan]] and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The “Sniper Massacre” on the Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the “heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached to it because it ended in a coup.}}
Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a ''Huff Post'' article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine’s important “dreamers.” He is a young activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn’t say is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh’s spokesman just after Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in [[Kiev]].

In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found out.

At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh’s spokesman and can be seen either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an appointment with Yurash.

Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash’s Euromaidan Press which is associated with Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.

Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine’s propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.

According to Robert Parry’s article<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/22/washingtons-new-lock-step-march-of-folly/</ref> At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the '''[[Atlantic Council]]'''. Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was “Are you willing to go to war with Russia?” Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.

What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike’s investigation. Trump’s campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security?

When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it opens up criminal conspiracy.

If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri Alperovitch’s case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a crime.

Alperovitch’s relationship with Andrea Chalupa’s efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
[[File:Alperovitch-hacker-friends-400x118 (1).jpg|right|300px|thumb|Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other.]]
When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch’s twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine’s Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.

Crowdstrike’s product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service Crowdstrike offers?

In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA.<ref>http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/11/02/ukraine-hackers-cyberhunta-surkov-putin-ruh8-cyberalliance/</ref> They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency.”
[[File:Surkov-leaks-with-Crowdstrike-390x400.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source.]]
[[File:Osint-image-and-tweet-400x117.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it’s the official twitter account for Ukraine’s Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.]]
Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his “Peacemaker” site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the past.

Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine’s Information Ministry (UA Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister’s following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch’s story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch’s victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.

These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and with to promote the story of Russian hacking.

When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article, one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh’s Pravy Sektor members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.

Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let’s understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA… I don’t know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don’t think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics.”

What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state-sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts.

The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.

According to the Esquire interview “Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. “A lot of people who are born here don’t appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they’ve never had it any other way,” he told me. “I have.”

While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. '''Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine’s interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he’s a patriot. He isn’t serving US interests. He’s definitely a Ukrainian patriot.''' Maybe he should move to Ukraine.

The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President-Elect the suspect of rumor.

==See also==
*[[USS Bandera]]
*[[Cold War]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jacKwoEHpaw Stepan Bandera! Hero or Nazi?]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bandera, Stepan}}
[[Category:Ukrainian People]]
[[Category:War Criminals]]

Obamagate timeline 2015

2019-11-30T23:14:21Z

JoeyJ: /* September 2015 */

<center>''This page chronicles an ongoing event and is updated regularly;'' 
''for the current version see '''[[Muellergate timeline 2019]]''';'' 
''please link back as the story unfolds.''</center>
[[File:The U.S. Nomanklatura.jpg|right|650px|thumb|Important movers in the new U.S. [[revolutionary vanguard]] [[progressive]] [[police state]]: [[Sally Yates]] (left), [[Andrew Weissmann]] (center), and [[John Carlin]] (left).]]
What [[Nixon]] contemplated - misuse of the FBI and CIA against domestic opponents - but failed to accomplish yet was nevertheless forced from office, Obama achieved beyond anyone's wildest expectations. The post-[[Watergate]] reform [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]] to supervise [[Executive Branch]] power was systematically and wantonly circumvented to harass political opponents in an attempt to dictate the outcome of the [[2016 presidential election]], and [[blackmail]] the winner with illegally gathered evidence should the Obama coterie of conspirators fail.

'''Obamagate timeline 2015 - the progressive police state''' documents how the [[Leftist]] [[authoritarian]] [[utopia]] under [[President Barack Obama]] was firmly in place to cover-up the [[crimes]] of [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]], compromise whomever the 2016 [[GOP]] nominee would be, and rig the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton. This assault on American [[democracy]] is indisputable.

The origins of intelligence lures, FBI [[provocateur]]s or Spygate. [[Sally Yates]] terminates independent Inspector General oversight of the [[DOJ]]-National Security Division. [[Nellie Ohr]] hired as an FBI contractor to begin illegal [[FISA]] 702 surveillance on [[Michael Cohen]] and others. [[Papadopoulos]] set up.

Comey gives immunity to Clinton cronies who destroyed evidence under Congressional [[subpoena]].

During a period of November 2015 through April 18, 2016, Justice Department political insiders and outside political contractors, including [[FusionGPS]], accessed the [[NSA]] and FBI database using FISA-702(17) “About Queries”. They gathered information on political opposition of candidate [[Hillary Clinton]], including Donald Trump campaign officials and affiliates. NSA Director Mike Rogers suspected illegal abuse and instructed the NSA compliance officer to conduct a full [[FISA]] audit. The NSA began querying [[DOJ]] and [[FBI]] activity.<ref>https://youtu.be/CIJGH9RS2Fc</ref>

The unlawfully obtained [[FISA]] intelligence information ended up with Fusion GPS. The key personnel in FusionGPS are husband and wife [[Glenn Simpson]] and [[Mary Jacoby]]. Mary Jacoby’s relationship with the Clintons’ goes back to the Rose Law Firm.<ref>
Hillary Clinton was the intellectual property lawyer for Systematics. According to The ''American Lawyer'', July 1992: "[Hillary] Clinton also was attracted to intellectual property litigation. 'We did not have any intellectual property expertise when she joined us,' says [[Vince Foster]], who adds that Clinton got involved in this area through her work for the firm client, Systematics Inc., a company based in Little Rock that provided computer systems for financial institutions. 'She became sort of self-taught in all of this,' explains Foster. 'And you don't find a lot of intellectual property subspecialists in Arkansas. Quite frankly, the rest of us here thought of it as a foreign language.'"

Part of this "intellectual property" would involve a banking transaction software system based on the stolen PROMIS software. A federal bankruptcy court had ruled in 1987 that the US Justice Dept. 'stole' the PROMIS software from a small company called [[Inslaw Inc]] when the DOJ refused to pay Inslaw for it. US intelligence took the PROMIS software and added a hidden "backdoor" for monitoring banking transactions and money laundering. Systematics was the marketing firm the [[National Security Agency]] (NSA) was using to get the PROMIS software with the hidden backdoor into the hands of banks worldwide. The intellectual property that Hillary handled, and that Systematics was marketing, had been stolen from Inslaw.

Systematics was founded in 1968 by University of Arkansas graduate Walter Smiley, who learned of the high software costs and other difficulties faced by small banks in trying to use data processing software from his experiences working with IBM and in the banking industry. Smiley recognized a niche that could be filled for medium-sized banks in this space, and sought funding to start his own company. http://walton.uark.edu/abhf/walter-v-smiley.php Through Jon Jacoby, Smiley was introduced to the Stephens family, who agreed to invest $400,000 in Smiley and Systematics in return for 80% equity stake. http://www.stephensgroup.com/our-portfolio-partners/case-studies Jon Jacoby is the father of Mary Jacoby, wife of [[Glenn Simpson]], http://library.fora.tv/speaker/6818/Glenn_Simpson the founder and owner of FusionGPS.</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Color key
|-
|[[Ukrainian collusion]] in blue
|}
==2009-2014 vanguardism==
:''See : '''[[Obamagate timeline 2009-2014]]'''''
[[File:Bill-clinton-moscow-speech.jpg|right|thumb|350px|Pay day: Bill Clinton in Moscow to pick up a $500,000 bribe for his wife Hillary Clinton's approval of the Russian purchase of an American uranium mining company. Clinton recieved [[Vladimir Putin]]'s personal thanks.]]
The [[Obamagate|Obamagate scandal]] refers to several scandals during President Barack Obama tenure, notably the misuse of government agencies, [[Uranium One bribery scandal]],<ref>https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/355749-fbi-uncovered-russian-bribery-plot-before-obama-administration</ref> media manipulation, illegal wiretaping, and domestic spying on American citizens to harass political opponents and critics.

Seven large scale scandals have tainted the [[Barack Obama|Obama]] legacy:
*Misuse of the [[IRS scandal|IRS targeting political opponents]];
*[[Operation Fast and Furious]] illegal arms selling;
*[[Uranium One bribery scandal]];
*[[Benghazi massacre]];
*Squashing [[Project Cassandra|Iranian drug trafficking investigations]] to gain the [[Iranian nuke deal]];
*[[Obstruction of justice]] in the [[Clinton email whitewash]];
*[[Russia collusion hoax]].

''Circa'' reported "As his presidency drew to a close, Barack Obama’s top aides routinely reviewed intelligence reports gleaned from the National Security Agency’s incidental intercepts of Americans abroad, taking advantage of rules their boss relaxed starting in 2011 to help the government better fight terrorism, espionage by foreign enemies and hacking threats. ...Among those cleared to request and consume unmasked NSA-based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens were Obama’s national security adviser [[Susan Rice]], his CIA Director [[John Brennan]] and then-Attorney General [[Loretta Lynch]]."<ref>http://circa.com/politics/barack-obama-changed-how-nsa-intercepts-of-americans-like-donald-trump-could-be-shared</ref>

The abuses came to light when [[Mark Levin]] cited mainstream press reporting of [[Obama administration]] leaks about government agencies spying on the presidential campaign of [[Donald Trump]] and surrogates, including then U.S. Senator [[Jeff Sessions]], who is presently the Attorney General of the United States.<ref>[https://spectator.org/investigate-obamagate/ Investigate Obamagate], ''The American Spectator''</ref>

==2015 progressive police state==
===January 2015===
*'''January.''' The new Republican Senate requested that the White House produce all communications it has had with the IRS since 2010.<ref>{{cite news |last=Bade |first=Rachael |date=January 20, 2015 |title=Repatriation? Not so fast—Letters galore bring bad news for IRS—Kasich proposes tax cuts |url=https://www.politico.com/morningtax/0115/morningtax16932.html |newspaper=Politico |access-date=January 31, 2015 }}</ref>
*'''17 January.''' Feinstein slams CIA's internal review of hacking and interference with Congressional Oversight, the ''Panetta review'', as a whitewash.<ref>https://thehill.com/policy/technology/230857-feinstein-slams-report-clearing-cia-of-spying-on-senate</ref>

*'''29 January.''' ''Washington Times'' publishes audio recordings of wiretaps from 2011 of Congressman [[Dennis Kucinich]] and other [[Pentagon]] officials refuting Secretary of State [[Hillary Clinton]]'s claim a [[Libyan War#French aid to rebels|genocide was about to take place in Libya]] and US intervention was needed.<ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/listen-tapes-libya-clinton/</ref>

===February 2015===
----
*'''2 February.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' Sarawak Report: HEIST OF THE CENTURY - How Jho Low Used PetroSaudi As "A Front" To Siphon Billions Out Of 1MDB!<ref>http://www.sarawakreport.org/2015/02/heist-of-the-century-how-jho-low-used-petrosaudi-as-a-front-to-siphon-billions-out-of-1mdb-world-exclusive/</ref>
----
*'''3 February.''' A Euro-Maidan protest was held in [[New York]] with people waving the Ukrainian flag, where [[Wladimir Klitschko]] arrived and spoke at the scene. The event was organised by the [[Atlantic Council]]’s Adrian Karatnycky, and was attended by Andrea Chalupa, who urged people to become Maidan activists through [[Twitter]].<ref>https://worldpolicy.org/2014/02/07/a-digital-movement-protests-in-ukraine-go-global/</ref>
*'''9 February.''' U.S. Senate forms Ukrainian caucus to further Ukrainian interests. Sen. John McCain is a member.
*'''10 February.''' [[Lisa Monaco]], White House Homeland Security Advisor, announced the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center.
[[File:Mass beheading of Christians in Libya.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Libya was an ally of the US against the jihadis until Obama armed the jihadis to overthrew the government. One of their first acts was the mass beheading of Christians.]]
*'''12 February.''' 21 [[Coptic]] [[Christian]]s mass beheaded in Libya after Obama liberated the country for "humanitarian" purposes.

*'''19 February.''' White House summit on violent extremism opens with Muslim call to prayer.<ref>https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/white-house-summit-violent-extremism-opens-muslim-prayer-no-other-faiths</ref>

*'''22 February.''' British Secretive Court rules NSA-UK sharing of bulk metadata before December 2014 was illegal, however, after the Snowden leaks, now that the practice is publicly known, US-UK intelligence metadata sharing is legal.<ref>https://leaksource.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/ipt-rules-nsa-gchq-intel-sharing-illegal-prior-to-december-2014-legal-now-since-its-not-secret-anymore-huh/comment-page-1/</ref> Legal intelligence sharing with foreign agencies is a convenient way for law enforcement in both countries to circumvent constitutional restrictions and obtain information without [[probable cause]] or a search warrant. Under a reciprocal agreement, the US can ask the UK to spy on a US citizen or vice-versa (as in the case of [[Diana, Princess of Wales|Lady Diana Spencer]]) as a national security prerogative. The UK doesn't need a warrant in the US, nor the US in the UK, and a person's [[civil rights]] may be "legally" violated under this loophole. The practice was originated by President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in 1938 by [[Executive Order]] allowing British intelligence to [[wiretap]] American citizens that Britain feared were monitoring ships leaving harbor in New York and New Jersey, making them vulnerable to [[U-boat]]s.<ref>Counterintelligence Reader, World War II, Chapter 3, p. 249</ref>

*'''25 February.''' Obama ordered James Clapper to form the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center officially.

*'''Late February.''' In discussions, the State Dept. informs the House Benghazi Committee that Clinton did not have a government email address, and that it had never had possession of her emails until her attorney first turned them over—in paper form—to the State Dept. in Dec. 2014.

===March 2015===
*'''2 March.''' ''New York Times'' discloses former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton's illegal use of private email server while Sec. of State.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html</ref>

*'''3 March.''' Congressional committee sends a written preservation request to Clinton's lawyers for Clinton's emails held on the Platte River Networks ([[Paul Combetta]]) server.

*'''4 March.''' Congressional committee issued subpoena to Hillary Clinton for her emails held on Platte River Networks server relating to Benghazi events.

*John Podesta emails Cheryl Mills to suggest that Clinton's “emails to and from [[President of the United States|potus]]" should be “held” — i.e., not disclosed — because “that’s the heart of his [[Executive Privilege|exec privilege]].”<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6391 </ref>

*Dimitry Firtash establishes the Agency for Modernization of Ukraine in [[Vienna]].<ref> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23745118.2016.1154646</ref>

*'''5 March.''' Office of Inspector General (OIG) sends report to Congress titled ''Open and Unimplemented IG Recommendations''. It lays the Obama administration bare before Congress - illustrating among other things how the administration was wasting $67 billion by ignoring the recommendations made by the OIG.<ref>https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Staff-Report-Open-Unimplemented-IG-Recs.pdf</ref>

*'''6 March.''' German government expresses concern over Obama warhawks aggressive stance toward resolving crisis in Eastern Ukraine, accuse Obama's NATO commander of using false data to inflate and exaggerate size of "Russian threat".<ref>http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/germany-concerned-about-aggressive-nato-stance-on-ukraine-a-1022193.html</ref>

*'''7 March.''' Obama tells ''CBS News'' that he had found out about Clinton's use of personal email to conduct State Department business “the same time everybody else learned it through news reports.” Obama communicated with Clinton about 20 times on the illegal server. Right after the interview aired, Clinton campaign secretary Josh Scherwin emailed [[Jennifer Palmieri]] and other senior campaign staffers, stating: “Jen you probably have more on this but it looks like POTUS just said he found out HRC was using her personal email when he saw it on the news.” Scherwin's alert was forwarded to Cheryl Mills. Shortly afterwards, an Mills emailed John Podesta: {{Quotebox|“We need to clean this up — he has emails from her — they do not say state.gov.” (That is, Obama had emails from Clinton, which he knew were from a private account since her address did not end in “@state.gov” as State Department emails do.)<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/article/455696/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-emails-key-decision-not-indict-hillary</ref>}}

*FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe meets with [[Virginia]] Governor [[Terry McAuliffe]], a longtime, close associate of the Clintons—along with his wife, Dr. McCabe. McAuliffe recruited Dr. Jill McCabe, who had not previously run for any political office, to be the Democratic candidate for a Virginia state senate seat. Dr. McCabe agreed, and Governor McAuliffe's political action committee gave nearly $500,000 to her campaign while the FBI's investigation of Secretary Clinton was ongoing. The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts control, also donated over $200,000 to Dr. McCabe's campaign.<ref>https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-examines-potential-conflicts-top-fbi-official’s-role-russia-collusion</ref>

*'''9 March.''' Cheryl Mills emails [name withheld by FBI] at Platte River Networks and referenced Congress’ preservation request.

*'''12 March''' Senate Homeland Security, Foreign Relations, Intelligence Cmtes. request State Department Inspector General to investigate Hillary Clinton use of a private email server and missing documents. Senate Cmtes. begin investigations.

*'''25 March.''' According to the FBI, employees at Platte River Networks, which managed Clinton's server after it was removed from her basement, “held a conference call with President Clinton’s staff.” The FBI reports that a PRN staffer “sometime between March 25–31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server” with BleachBit.<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/09/hillary-clinton-obstruction-of-justice-email-server-deletion-was-crime/ </ref>

*'''31 March.''' According to the FBI "at the time [the PRN staffer] made the deletions in March 2015, he was aware of the existence of the preservation request and the fact that it meant he should not disturb Clinton’s e-mail data on the [PRN] server.” PRN staffers held a March 31, 2015, conference call with David Kendall and Cheryl Mills, Hillary's State Department chief of staff. PRN's attorney instructed its employee “not to comment on the conversation with Kendall based upon the assertion of attorney-client privilege.”

*'''March.''' FBI Dep. Dir. Andrew McCabe orders FBI agents to stand down on Clinton email investigation after Obama discussion.<ref>https://youtu.be/hStEVre1xww </ref>

===April 2015===
[[File:Pied Piper strategy.png|right|250px|thumb|DNC email outlining Pied Piper strategy to manipulate the RNC nomination.]]
*'''7 April.''' DNC email outlining Pied Piper strategy.

*'''8 April.''' Full list of [[mainstream media]] anchors, reporters, journalists, and interviewers sent out for dinner at John Podesta's house.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12063</ref>

*'''12 April.''' Clinton announces candidacy for President.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uY7gLZDmn4&feature=youtu.be</ref> John Podesta serves as her campaign chairman; Brian Fallon, former DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director, serves as her campaign spokesman; and [[Jennifer Palmieri]] serves as her Director of Communications.
[[File:Robyngritz.png|left|250px|thumb|'''Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz.''' Gritz was driven out of the FBI by its [[bigot]]ed leadership. Gritz filed a [[sex discrimination]] lawsuit against Andy McCabe and others in the FBI leadership. Gritz received support from Gen. Michael Flynn who was willing to testify against McCabe.]]
*'''15 April.''' Nearly two years after Congress first issues subpoena for Accountability Review Board (ARB) documents, the State Dept. produces 1,700+ pages; an additional 2,500 pages are produced eight days later.

*[[NPR]] reports on the [[Robyn Gritz]] case: {{quotebox|Retired [[Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn]], who led the Defense Intelligence Agency, worked closely with Gritz to find [[terrorist]]s overseas. He says it's a shame the FBI let go of someone with years of top [[national security]] experience. "She was one of the really, to me, bright lights and shining stars early on that just kinda got it when it came to the kind of enemy that we were facing and the relationship that was necessary between law enforcement and the military ... and I just thought she was really a real pro," Flynn says.<ref>https://www.npr.org/2015/04/15/399853577/former-fbi-agent-speaks-out-i-was-not-protected </ref>}}

*'''17 April.''' Former Hillary Clinton Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Jose Fernandez emails John Podesta: "I would like to do all I can to support Secretary Clinton, and would welcome your advice and help in steering me to the right persons in the campaign." Fernandez was State Dept. principal representative to CFIUS in 2010.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails//emailid/2053</ref>

*'''20 April.''' Podesta Group lobbying firm filing for Uranium One.<ref>soprweb.senate.gov"</ref>

*'''22 April.''' Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon writes memo to the ''New York Times'' declaring "Jose Fernandez has personally attested that 'Secretary Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter',” not disclosing Fernandez agreed to work for the Clinton campaign five days earlier.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/press-release</ref>

*'''23 April.''' Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) for the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) [[Peter Kadzik]] emails Brian Fallon asking for a job for his son with the Clinton campaign.

*''''24 April.''' [[Victoria Nuland]] met with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at Arlington National Cemetery.

*'''25 April.''' Hillary Clinton camp now paying online trolls to attack anyone who disparages her online.<ref>https://archive.fo/wn6Lg </ref>

*'''28 April.''' Obama hosted a State Dinner for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe which featured attendees such as Joe Biden, Ashton Carter, James Clapper, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Lisa Monaco, [[Shailagh Murray]], [[Neil Kin]]g, Ellen Nakashima, [[Samantha Power]], [[Ben Rhodes]], Susan Rice and [[Paul Ryan]].

*'''30 April.''' Brian Fallon of the Clinton campaign emails Peter Kadzik of the DOJ asking for Kadzik's son's resume and stating that Jennifer Palmieri would be reviewing resumes over the weekend. Kadzik replies, sending his son's resume and noting that Kadzik's wife and Palmieri went to college together.

*'''Spring.''' Obama administration finishes secret negotiations on Iran nuclear deal that will return billions of dollars in frozen assets to the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism in return for promises from that country. It's later reported that Obama intel officials secretly recorded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private discussions about the Iran deal, which he opposes.

*''New York Times'' reports “since 2009, six current or former government employees and two government contractors have been indicted or prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking information to the public. There were only three such prosecutions under all previous U.S. presidents combined since 1917” when the law was created.

*Longtime [[Democrat]]ic operative Mary Anne Marsh says Obama investigation into Trump and associates begins in Spring of 2015.<ref>https://twitter.com/DagnyDelinquent/status/847870731530665984</ref>

===May 2015===
*'''May.''' [[James H. Baker (DOD)]] replaces Andrew Marshall as Director of the [[Office of Net Assessment (ONA)]].<ref>[https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-baker-a616a96 Jim Baker, Director of the Office of Net Assessment – LinkedIn]</ref>

*Former CIA employee Jeffrey Sterling convicted on espionage charges for leaks to ''New York Times'' reporter James Risen. ''[[The Nation]]'' says of the case,<ref>https://www.thenation.com/article/government-war-against-reporter-james-risen/</ref>
{{Quotebox|standard media narratives about Risen and Sterling have skipped over deep patterns of government retaliation against recalcitrant journalists and whistleblowers. Those patterns are undermining press freedom, precluding the informed consent of the governed and hiding crucial aspects of US foreign policy. The recent announcement of Eric Holder’s resignation as attorney general has come after nearly five years of the [[Obama administration]] extending and intensifying the use of the Justice Department for retribution against investigative journalism and whistleblowing.}}

*[[James Rybicki]] appointed [[Chief of Staff]] to [[FBI]] Director [[James Comey]].<ref>https://heavy.com/news/2017/06/jim-rybick-fbi-chief-of-staff-biography-james-comey/ </ref> Rybicki has transferred from the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).

*'''5 May.''' Kadzik's son emails Podesta his resume and asks for a job with the Clinton campaign. Podesta forwards the email to Palmieri, who replies that Kadzik's wife had contacted her and that she told Kadzik's wife that there were currently no openings with the campaign but positions might become available in July. (Email released by WikiLeaks).

*'''11 May.''' Intelligence seminar at the University of Cambridge. [[Stefan Halper]] arranged for the former head of [[Russia]]'s [[SVR]], Vyacheslav Trubnikov to attend. Halper has also tapped Trubnikov to contribute to a study Halper did for the Pentagon’s [[Office of Net Assessment]] (ONA).<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/16/steele-dossier-sources-state-department/</ref>
:*On October 11, 2016, [[Christopher Steele]] told [[Kathleen Kavalec]] at the State Department that Trubnikov was the source of the 'pee memo' in the ''[[Steele dossier]]''.
:*Halper later set up [[George Papadopoulos]] for the FBI.
:*Halper attempted to set up [[Gen. Michael Flynn]] in February, 2014.<ref>https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/31/lawsuit-exposes-media-deep-state-hatched-russiagate-hoax/</ref>

*'''12 May.''' ''Washington Post'' reports that [[David Brock]]’s Correct The Record would work directly with the [[2016 Clinton campaign]], “testing the legal limits” of campaign finance “by relying on a 2006 [[Federal Election Commission]] regulation that declared that content posted online for free, such as [[blog]]s, is off-limits from [[regulation]].” Brock's PAC wiol be “disseminating information about Clinton on its Web site and through its [[Facebook]] and [[Twitter]] accounts, officials said."<ref>https://archive.fo/RXUfB#selection-1561.82-1561.222</ref><ref>https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-16/muellers-investigation-farce-files-joke-indictment-against-russian-trolls </ref>

*'''18 May.''' DOJ files a proposed schedule for the release of the Clinton emails with the court in the FOIA litigation. Politico reports on the DOJ FOIA filing and proposed schedule for the release of the Clinton emails.

*'''19 May.''' [[Peter Kadzik]], Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs, sent John Podesta "Heads up" email which included information concerning a DOJ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation and a congressional oversight hearing. <ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150 </ref> Kadzik resigned January 2017.<ref>https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/justice-department-private-account-emails-233742 </ref> Kadzik was attempting to secure his son a position with the 2016 Clinton campaign.

*'''21 May.''' Internal Hillary Clinton Podesta email reads, {{quotebox|"With the help of the research team, we killed a [[Bloomberg]] story trying to link HRC's opposition to the [[Magnitsky bill]] to a $500,000 speech that WJC [Bill Clinton] gave in Moscow."<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/303#efmANkAQP</ref>}} The [[Magnitsky Act]] is the Russian Sanctions bill. The emails refers to a half-million bribe the Clinton's received for Sec. Clinton's approval of the transfer and sale of Uranium One, an American mining company to Russian interests.

*'''27 May.''' DOJ indicted 9 FIFA officials and 5 corporate executives for racketeering conspiracy and corruption. The charges were announced by Loretta Lynch and James Comey.

===June 2015===
:{{See also|FISA abuse timeline}}
*'''2 June.''' Senate voted to pass the USA Freedom Act, at a vote of 67–32. [[John Carlin]] — informed the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] that the USA Freedom Act would allow for the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance to continue for another six months as part of a transition period, despite the fact that it had ‘officially’ shut down on May 30, 2015.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/02/congress-surveillance-reform-edward-snowden</ref>
:*Eric Ciaramella meets with Alexandra Chalupa at the White House. Also present were Alexandra Sopko, who at the time was a special assistant and policy advisor to the director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, which was run by [[Valerie Jarrett]], and Alexa Kissinger, a special assistant to Jarrett.<ref>https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/judicial-watch-white-house-visitor-logs-detail-meetings-of-eric-ciaramella/</ref>

*'''4 June.''' Facebook Chief Operations Officer Sheryl Sandberg emails John Podesta, "I still want HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can."<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/19070#efmACIAD6</ref>
[[File:2thumb-5-1-300x202.jpg|right|300px|thumb|As Trump rode the escalator to announce his candidacy, polls showed Hillary Clinton's collusion with Russia over the [[Uranium One deal]] was her biggest vulnerability. Deputy Attn. Gen. [[Sally Yates]] was taking steps to ban the Inspector General from oversight of the DOJ-National Security Division and hide [[FISA abuse]].]]
*'''8 June.''' [[Maria Butina]] approaches [[Patrick Byrne]], CEO of Overstock.com, at the [[Las Vegas]] Freedom Fest.
*''New York Times'' publishes leak that thwarts efforts to locate Caliph [[Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi]].<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/world/middleeast/us-raid-in-syria-uncovers-details-on-isis-leadership-and-finances.html</ref>
*'''9 June.''' Obama lawyers asked [[FISA court]] to ignore public court's decision on spying.<ref>https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/obama-fisa-court-surveillance-phone-records </ref>
*'''11 June.''' Obama denies lethal aid to Ukraine.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/defying-obama-many-in-congress-press-to-arm-ukraine.html</ref>
*'''16 June.''' Donald Trump announces candidacy for president.
*Sidney Blumenthal deposes behind closed doors by House Benghazi Committee for nine hours over several days.

*'''22 June.''' House Benghazi Committee releases 60 emails sent to Clinton by Blumenthal, including some regarding Libya.

*'''26 June.''' [[IC]] Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified James Clapper and the Senate of the potential leak of classified information from May 22, 2015, when one of Hillary Clinton's e-mails released by the State Department should have been marked as classified.<ref>https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/Hillary%20R.%20Clinton%20Part%2004%20of%2032/view</ref>

:*Hillary Clinton internal polling reports: {{quotebox|Secretary Clinton's top vulnerability tested in this poll is the attack that claims as Secretary of State she signed off on a deal that gave the Russian government control over twenty percent of America's uranium production, after investors in the deal donated over one hundred and forty million dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Half of all likely voters (53%) are less likely to support Clinton after hearing that statement and 17% are much less likely to support her after that statement.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails//get/818</ref><ref>https://medium.com/@brandondegraff/did-russia-meddle-in-the-us-elections-eb272533afb4</ref>}}

*'''28 June.''' Tony Podesta relays invitation to [[John Podesta]] to attend “Spirit Cooking dinner” from Marina Abramovic.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15893</ref> Abramovic is the author of “Spirit Cooking with Essential Aphrodisiac Recipes” using “ingredients” such as “fresh breast milk with fresh sperm milk.” Another recipe calls for “fresh morning [[urine]]."<ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/4/wikileaks-john-podesta-invited-to-spirit-dinner-ho/</ref> Tony Podesta heads a lobbying firm with close ties to the Democratic party and the Obama administration.<ref>Elliott, Justin (January 28, 2011) [https://web.archive.org/web/20110903140357/https://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/01/28/egypt_in_washington/index.html Who's doing Mubarak's bidding in Washington?], ''[[Salon.com]]</ref>

*'''30 June.''' Sen. Chuck Grassley writes to member agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) regarding the acquisition of Uranium One, an owner of U.S. based uranium assets, by Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ), which is a subsidiary of Russia's state energy corporation, Rosatom. “Reports further indicate that between 2008 and 2010, Uranium One and Former UrAsia investors donated $8.65 million to the [[Clinton Foundation]]. During this period of time, Uranium One’s legal hold on the [[Kazakhstan]]-based uranium deposits was in doubt. Allegedly, Uranium One executives contacted U.S. Embassy officials in Kazakhstan to help ensure the validity of their mining licenses. According to the ''New York Times'', the [[State Department]] cable explaining the circumstances was copied to Secretary Clinton, among other individuals. In 2009, when the validity of the mining licenses was at issue, the Chairman of Uranium One, Mr. Ian Telfer, donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation via his family charity called the Fernwood Foundation. In the same year, ARMZ acquired a 17% state in Uranium One and the parties sought an initial CFIUS review. In June 2010, Rosatom, via ARMZ, sought majority ownership in Uranium One. According to news reports, Mr. Telfer donated $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation during this crucial time. In total, Mr. Telfer donated over $2 million through 2013."
[[File:Chalupa-ciaramella.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Democrat operative [[Alexandra Chalupa]] (left) Deep State informant [[Eric Ciaramella]] (right).<ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/10/huge-cia-whistleblower-eric-cairamella-worked-with-dnc-operative-alexandra-chalupa-in-creation-of-trump-russia-collusion-hoax/</ref>]]
*'''June.''' [[George Papadopoulos]] reaches out to [[Corey Lewandowski]] for job in Trump Campaign.
*'''June.''' Obama receives first briefing on Trump ''per'' Mary Anne Marsh on ''Justice with Judge Jeanine'', 31 March 2017.<ref>https://youtu.be/R1XIUv7IYiA </ref>
*'''Summer.''' [[Mitch McConnell]], [[John Boehner]], [[Richard Burr]], [[Devin Nunes]], [[Harry Reid]], [[Nancy Pelosi]], [[Dianne Feinstein]] and [[Adam Schiff]] allegedly informed by FBI of Russian spearfishing of the DNC.<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-democrats-hack/exclusive-congressional-leaders-were-briefed-a-year-ago-on-hacking-of-democrats-sources-idUSKCN10N00D?utm_source=applenews</ref>

*'''Summer.''' CIA officer Eric Ciaramella specializing in Russia and Ukraine detailed over to the [[National Security Council]] working under National Security Advisor Susan Rice and closely with Vice President Joe Biden.<ref>[https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/10/30/whistleblower_exposed_close_to_biden_brennan_dnc_oppo_researcher_120996.html]</ref>

*'''June or July.''' '''[[Sara Carter]]:''' U.S. Amb in Ukraine allegedly told Prosecutor to handle ‘Biden investigation with white gloves’<ref>https://saraacarter.com/u-s-amb-in-ukraine-told-the-prosecutor-to-handle-biden-investigation-with-white-gloves/</ref>
:*[[Shokin]] attempted to continue the investigations into [[Hunter Biden]] but on or around June or July of 2015, the U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatt told him that the investigation has to be handled with white gloves, which according to Mr. Shokin, that implied do nothing. Shokin was fired in April 2016, and his case was “closed by the current Prosecutor General [[Yuriy Lutsenko]].”

===July 2015===
Ten days after Hillary Clinton was referred to the FBI for investigation of her emails, Deputy AG Sally Yates issued a legal opinion barring Inspector General oversight of the DOJ-National Security Division.
*'''July.''' [[Citizens United]] calls on Attn. Gen. Loretta Lynch to appoint a special counsel in the [[Hillary Clinton email scandal]] and related matters, including the Uranium One bribery scandal.
*FBI hired [[CrowdStrike]] for a 1-year contract for a total of $150,000.00.<ref>https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article131308584.html</ref>
*'''6 July.''' Charles McCullough makes Section 811 referral to FBI for classified leak of Hillary Clinton's emails.
*'''10 July.''' FBI begins Hillary Clinton email investigation based on report from the Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough III finding of Chinese hackers;<ref>https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/Hillary%20R.%20Clinton%20Part%2001%20of%2032/view</ref> [[Andrew McCabe]] is “running the FBI’s Washington, D.C., field office, which provided personnel and resources to the Clinton email probe.” People assigned to the [[Midyear Exam investigation]] included [[Sally Moyer]], [[Peter Strzok]], [[Lisa Page]], [[Kevin Clinesmith]], [[Randall Coleman]], [[James Rybicki]], [[Joseph Pientka]], [[Trisha Anderson]], [[James A. Baker (DOJ)]], [[Jonathan Moffa]], [[David Laufman]], [[Bill Priestap]], [[Carl Ghattas]] and [[Michael Kortan]].

*'''14 July.''' Obama announces [[Iran nuke deal]].

*'''20 July.''' DOJ Dep. Attn. Gen. [[Sally Yates]] issues 58 page legal explanation denying the Office of Inspector General and Michael Horowitz oversight of the DOJ National Security Division.<ref>https://t.co/b2VmsRhQ42</ref><ref>https://www.ignet.gov/sites/default/files/files/OLC%20IG%20Act%20Opinion%20-%207-20-15%20.pdf</ref> DOJ IG [[Michael Horowitz]] raised concerns that his office would be required to seek the Department's permission. That procedure is “inconsistent with the Inspector General Act, impairs the OIG’s independence, and fails to account for the over 20 year record of Department and FBI compliance with OIG document requests,” according to the OIG's report.<ref>http://www.pogo.org/blog/2015/06/20150624-watchdog-barks-for-access-to-fbi-records.html </ref>
----
*'''22 July.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' DuSable and [[Frank R. White, Jr.]] cash out, filing for closure with a total stated remaining capital of $76 million, the lion's share appearing to be the $69 million payment from 1MDB.<ref>https://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/iapd/content/viewform/adv/Sections/iapd_AdvScheduleDSection.aspx?ORG_PK=168041&RGLTR_PK=&STATE_CD=&FLNG_PK=047347DC0008017F03829710059535F5056C8CC0</ref> DuSAble and White appear to have run a foreign influence peddling and [[dark money]] scam to benefit Democratic campaigns.
:*The firm continues operating as a private non-SEC regulated entity.
----
*'''23 July''' ''New York Times'' reports that two Inspectors General have asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether Clinton mishandled sensitive government information.

*'''31 July.''' The federal judge in a [[Judicial Watch]] [[FOIA]] suit, Emmet Sullivan, orders State Dept. to request that Clinton and top aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin confirm, under penalty of perjury, that they have produced all government records in their possession, return any other government records immediately, and describe their use of Hillary Clinton's email server to conduct government business.

===August 2015===
*'''3 August.''' Several news reports say Hillary Clinton FBI email investigation is a criminal probe.<ref>http://nypost.com/2015/08/05/fbi-investigation-of-hillarys-emails-is-criminal-probe/</ref>

*Inspector General Mike Horowitz notifies Congress of Obama DOJ's refusal to abide by existing law: {{quotebox|The [DOJ Office of Legislative Counsel] OLC opinion’s restrictive reading of the IG Act represents a potentially serious challenge to the authority of every Inspector General and our collective ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner. Our concern is that, as a result of the OLC opinion, agencies other than DOJ may likewise withhold crucial records from their Inspectors General, adversely impacting their work. The only means to address this serious threat to Inspector General independence is for Congress to promptly pass legislation that affirms the independent authority of Inspectors General to access without delay all information and data in an agency’s possession that an Inspector General deems necessary to execute its oversight functions under the law.<ref>http://1yxsm73j7aop3quc9y5ifaw3-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/CIGIE-Letter-to-HSGAC-HOGR-8-3-15.pdf</ref>}}

*'''5 August.''' State Dept. sends letter to Clinton including Judge Sullivan's order.

*'''6 August.''' Cheryl Mills’ attorney tells Judicial Watch it has instructed Mills to “delete any and all electronic copies [of potential federal records] in her possession” after her anticipated production of records on Aug. 10. Judicial Watch files an emergency request to block the destruction.

*'''7 August.''' Facebook CEO [[Mark Zuckerberg]] emails Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, "I enjoyed spending time with you yesterday and our conversation gave me a lot to think about...I hope it’s okay if I reach out as my thinking develops to get your ideas and reactions. If there are any other folks you think I should talk to, please let me know. Thanks again. I look forward to continuing our conversation."<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/50406#efmAP8AQAAQCAQRAQ0AQ4ARCARQARdARfARiARuAUhAV-AXzAZLAZMAba</ref>

:*''Kiev Post Op-ed:'' '''[[Olga Bielkova]]:''' Biden’s candidacy would be good news for Ukraine.<ref>https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/olga-belkova-bidens-candidacy-would-be-good-news-for-ukraine-395281.html</ref>

*'''27 August.''' Quinnipiac Poll: Biden runs better than Clinton against top Republicans while Clinton lead shrinks,<ref>https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2274</ref> as ''New York Times'' is investigating Biden links to Ukraine.

*'''11 August.''' Inspector General report to the Senate contradicts Clinton claims; some Clinton emails, says the IG, contained information that was classified at the time.

*FBI takes custody of Clinton server and thumb drives.

*'''12 August.''' Clinton campaign strikes back as her poll numbers falter, including using the [[Media Matters]] blog to print her talking points attacking news reports on [[NBC]] and [[Fox]]. The blog uses other left-wing Astroturf outlets such as “[[Vox]]” as supposed support for its claims.

*'''15 August.''' ''[[National Review]]'' publishes ''Planned Parenthood’s Commissioned Video Review Proves the Authenticity of Its Employees’ Ghoulish Statements.'' [[Planned Parenthood]] had been accused of harvesting body-parts from late term [[abortion]] victims. FusionGPS, the same firm that later produces the ''Steele dossier'', hired to refute charges.<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/article/423246/planned-parenthoods-fusion-inc-videos-review</ref>

*'''19 August.''' Clinton's personal lawyer tells a Senate committee that all data, including emails, was erased from her server prior to it being turned over to the FBI.

*'''20 August.''' State Dept. tells Judge Sullivan Clinton did not use State Dept. issued or secure Blackberry device; Blackberries used by Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin were likely destroyed.

*'''26 August.''' Agreement reached between DNC and Hillary Clinton. Donna Brazile described the agreement: {{quotebox|that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics and mailings.}}

*'''27 August.''' Quinnipiac Poll: Biden runs better than Clinton against top Republicans while Clinton lead shrinks,<ref>https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2274</ref> as ''New York Times'' is investigating Biden links to Ukraine.

*'''28 August.''' FBI agent sends notification to preserve records to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; [[United States Department of the Treasury|U.S. Dept. of Treasury]]; Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI James Clapper); National Counter Terrorism Center; and the [[United States Department of Energy|U.S. Department of Energy]] (DoE),<ref>[https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/Hillary%20R.%20Clinton%20Part%2015%20of%2015/view Hillary Clinton emails, FBI Vault, Part 15, page 7.]</ref> agencies is involved in the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) approval process of the Uranium One deal.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/katica-foia-1.jpg</ref>

*'''31 August.''' State Dept. publicly releases 7,000 pages of Clinton emails. Among other revelations, they show that Freedom of Information (FOIA) was violated since responsive emails had not been provided earlier under various FOIA requests.

*Vadim Mikerin allowed to plead guilty to lesser charge.<ref>https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/russian-nuclear-energy-official-pleads-guilty-money-laundering-conspiracy-involving</ref>
[[File:Peter-strzok-and-lisa-page.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|Peter Strzok (left) and [[Lisa Page]] (right), prime low level suspects in the Obama administration's conspiracy to influence US elections and later overthrow President Trump. Many Progressives appointed by Obama are at war with democracy and view themselves as an enlightened elite anointed to lead the ignorant unwashed masses.]]
*'''August.''' FBI lawyer Lisa Page texts FBI Counterintelligence investigator [[Peter Strzok]], "I just saw my first [[Bernie Sanders]] bumper sticker. Made me want to key the car." Strzok replies, "He's an idiot like Trump. Figure they cancel each other out."
*[[Roger Stone]] quits Trump campaign.

===September 2015===
[[Nellie Ohr]] was hired by Fusion in September 2015.<ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/nellie-ohr-testimony-confirms-her-work-for-the-cia_2836812.html</ref><ref>https://dailycaller.com/2018/08/30/bruce-ohr-dossier-fbi/</ref>
----
*'''2 September.''' FBI special agent sends second notification for preservation of records to the same CFIUS agencies involved in the sale of Uranium One approval process and adds the [[National Security Agency]] (NSA – [[Admiral Mike Rogers]]) and the [[United States Secret Service]] (USSS).<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/katica-foia-2.jpg</ref>
*'''3 September.''' FBI special agent submits a supplemental notification for preservation of records to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Department of Defense in relation to Hillary Clinton email scandal.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/katica-foia-3.jpg</ref><ref>
https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/katica-foia-4.jpg</ref> All member of the CFIUS group necessary for approval of the Uranium One deal have now been notified to preserve documents for the Hillary Clinton email criminal investigation.

*'''10 September.''' Former Clinton campaign staffer and State Dept. official [[Bryan Pagliano]], who helped set up Clinton's personal server, pleads the Fifth Amendment before Congress and refuses to testify.

*'''18 September.''' United Nation's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights condemns cover-up of the mass murder of 48 Ukrainians at the [[Odessa]] Union Trades Building (see 2 May 2014).<ref>http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16460&LangID=E</ref>

*'''Fall.''' Radicals linked to [[Hezbollah]], the Lebanese militant group, stashed thousands of disposable ice packs containing ammonium nitrate - a common ingredient in homemade bombs. Hezbollah is an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, directly under control of Iran.
:*The plot was uncovered by MI5 and the Metropolitan Police, just months after the UK signed up to the Iran nuclear deal.
:*Three metric tonnes of ammonium nitrate was discovered - more than was used in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and damaged hundreds of buildings.<ref>https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/09/iran-linked-terrorists-caught-stockpiling-explosives-north-west/</ref><ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/hezbollahs-london-bomb-making-plot-the-iran-nuclear-deal-and-bruce-ohr_2958118.html</ref>
:*[[Bruce Ohr]] is "the head of OCDETF [Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force], was directly involved with [[Project Cassandra]], the interagency investigation spearheaded by the [[DEA]] [Drug Enforcement Administration] that tracked a massive international [[drug]] and [[money-laundering]] scheme allegedly run by Hezbollah.”<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-official-who-concealed-meetings-with-trump-dossier-figures-loses-another-job-title</ref>

*'''25 September.''' AP reports Obama administration has found work emails between Clinton and Gen. [[David Petraeus]] that she did not turn over. The dates call into question Clinton's claim that she turned over all work related emails from her home system.

*State Dept. says it's sending the House Benghazi Committee 925 more Clinton Benghazi and/or Libya-related emails that were not previously turned over.
[[File:Natalia-veselnitskaya.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Natalia Veselnitskaya. Veselnitskaya told [[NBC News]] she has never been contacted by the [[Mueller team]].<ref>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russian-lawyer-trump-tower-meeting-says-mueller-hasn-t-called-n798781</ref>]]
*[[Natalia Veselnitskaya]] granted Immigration Parole Status by Loretta Lynch's office to enter the United States to settle the Prevezon Holdings [[asset forfeiture]] case on behalf of the Russian Katsyv family. While in the United States, Veselnitskaya hires [[FusionGPS]] to do opposition research on [[Bill Browder]].

*'''27 September.''' Hillary Clinton lies on ''Meet the Press'': {{quotebox|CHUCK TODD: Well, that perhaps the reason you wanted to have a private server and not a government server is that you might have been running for president in the future, and you wanted to make it a little more difficult for congressional investigators to subpoena your government emails and a little more difficult for [[Freedom of Information Act]] requests. Is that a fair theory or not? HILLARY CLINTON: It's totally ridiculous. That never crossed my mind. And in fact, since more than 90% of my work-related emails were on the system, they are subject to FOIA or any other request. That's how the Benghazi committee got the emails even before we, you know, went through our exhaustive process.<ref>https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-september-27-2015-n434466 </ref>}}

*'''29 September.''' [[Evelyn Farkas]] resigns from Pentagon.<ref>https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/pro-defense-farkas-wrightewing-214223</ref> Farkas serves on the Atlantic Council alongside Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of [[CrowdStrike]].
*'''30 September.''' Michael Glassner informs Papadopoulos that the Trump campaign is not currently hiring foreign policy advisers. Papadopoulos goes to work for [[Ben Carson]] campaign. Carson's campaign is run by Barry Bennett, a DC political consultant partnered with Dick Cheney's daughter Mary Cheney “BKM Strategies”

*'''September.''' According to [[David Ignatius]] of ''[[WaPo]]'', {{quotebox|"[[Christopher Steele|Steele]] and [[Bruce Ohr|Ohr]] helped arrange a meeting in New York between [[Deripaska]] and FBI officials. This was at the time of the U.N. General Assembly meeting, and Deripaska was traveling as part of the Russian official delegation....The meeting was part of a project the Justice Department called Operation Outreach, to try to recruit Russian sources."<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-gop-spin-on-the-russia-probe-reads-like-a-noir-thriller--but-doesnt-add-up/2018/09/25/1b940c92-c0ca-11e8-be77-516336a26305_story.html</ref>}}

*FusionGPS begins covert opposition research on Donald Trump;<ref>https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/how-the-explosive-russian-dossier-was-compiled-christopher-steele</ref>

*Papadopoulos again reaches out to Corey Lewandowski.

*FBI agents and [[Bruce Ohr]] — in a meeting arranged by Bruce Ohr and [[Christopher Steele]] — meet with [[Oleg Deripaska]] as a part of “Operation Outreach” to recruit Deripaska as a source during the UN General Assembly.<ref>https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/404061-russian-oligarch-justice-department-and-a-clear-case-of-collusion</ref>

===October 2015===
From October 2015 through February 2016, while Peter Strzok headed the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, Strzok and a handful of other officials had expired counterintelligence polygraph tests.

They were notified that their polygraph tests were out of scope — meaning they had either failed them or their tests were expired — and they quickly completed new ones. But Strzok's access to high-level Sensitive Compartmented Information, or SCI — which is segregated to reduce the potential scope of a security breach — was never suspended.<ref>https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/beneath-politics-house-gop-quietly-touts-legitimate-oversight-fbi-doj</ref>
----
*'''11 October.''' Obama interferes in ongoing FBI investigation, says on ''60 Minutes'' regarding Clinton illegal use of unsecure email server: {{quotebox|"this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered.<ref[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/president-obama-60-minutes-syria-isis-2016-presidential-race/ Steve Kroft questions President Obama on topics including Russia's incursion in Syria, ISIS and the 2016 presidential race]</ref>}} In fact, Clinton emailed Obama from the territory of Russia where the FBI determined her unsecured server in all probability was hacked. Furthermore, Obama knew of her activities outside federal law and State Department regulations and the FBI covered up Obama's complicity in the illegal scheme.<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/01/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-emails-key-decision-not-indict-hillary/ </ref>

*'''12 October.''' FBI Director Comey replaces head of FBI Counterintelligence Division at New York Field Office with Louis Bladel.

*'''13 October.''' Hillary Clinton lies in Democrat presidential debate: {{quotebox|"What I did was allowed by the State Department."<ref>https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/oct/16/democratic-debate-clinton-says-private-email-use-w/</ref>}}
*Mikk Marran was nominated to the position of Director General of the Estonian Information Board by Defence Minister Hannes Hanso.

*'''18 October.''' DOJ Inspector General Mike Horowitz writes op-ed in the ''Washington Post'' reacting to the Obama DOJ's denial of OIG access to the DOJ-NSD: {{quotebox|For decades, there was no controversy over what the words “all records” meant. But that changed in 2010 when FBI attorneys suggested, soon after several critical reports by my office as inspector general at the Justice Department, that “all records” might not include some records the FBI was seeking to withhold. This was the first time anyone in the department had asserted that the broad powers of the IG Act did not apply fully to our oversight.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/give-inspectors-general-access-to-the-records-they-need-to-do-their-jobs/2015/10/18/54942f30-738a-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html?utm_term=.afe8e03d032e </ref>}}

*'''19 October.''' ''Albany Times Union'' reports Seagram's heiress [[Clare Bronfman]] allegedly implanted a "key logger" virus on the computer of her late father, Edgar Bronfman Sr., so the sex cult NXIVM could hack his email exchanges with Hillary Clinton and world leaders.<ref>https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Records-NXIVM-hacked-billionaire-s-emails-with-6576310.php</ref> Bronfman is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.<ref>https://nypost.com/2007/10/01/hillarys-30000-fans-are-her-cult-following/</ref>

*'''21 October.''' Joe Biden won't run for president<ref>https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/21/politics/joe-biden-not-running-2016-election/index.html</ref> while ''New York Times'' investigation into Biden links to Ukraine continues.

*Wikileaks reveals John Brennan also used private email server.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/cia-emails/</ref>

*'''22 October.''' Hillary Clinton testifies before the House Select Committee on Benghazi that 90 to 95 percent of her emails “were in the State’s system” and “if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been able to do so.”<ref>https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-federal-court-ordered-hillary-clinton-to-answer-additional-email-questions-under-oath/</ref> In response to a question from Rep. [[Jim Jordan]], Clinton responds, {{quotebox|"There was nothing marked classified in my emails either sent or received."}}

*'''23 October.''' John Podesta meets for dinner with a small group in New York including top Justice Department official [[Peter Kadzik]].

*'''27 October.''' John Brennan, Admiral Mike Rogers, Deputy Director David Cohen, James Clapper, Lawfare's [[Benjamin Wittes]], [[David Ignatius]], Director Bernard Bajolet and John Sawers attended the 2nd The Ethos and the Profession of Intelligence Conference, hosted at Georgetown University by the Central Intelligence Agency.<ref>https://medium.com/@the_war_economy/spygate-part-4-foreign-intelligence-921c0accb9c2</ref>

*'''28 October.''' 44 Members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Lynch requesting the appointment of a Special Counsel in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, citing Obama's comments about the investigation on ''60 Minutes'' as evidence that he had prejudged the investigation. The letter stated that a special counsel was warranted to ensure that the investigation was conducted free of undue bias from the White House.
*CIA's Open Source Center was re-designated as the Open Source Enterprise and incorporated into the Directorate of Digital Innovation.<ref>https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2015/10/osc-ose/</ref>

*'''October.''' U.S. Attorney's office in New York lets Natalie Veselnitskaya into the US from Russia on a grant of immigration parole until early January 2016. Veselnitskaya is representing Prevezon Holdings Ltd. and Russian businessman Denis Katsyv in a civil asset forfeiture case.<ref>https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/341788-exclusive-doj-let-russian-lawyer-into-us-before-she-met-with-trump</ref>

*Special Agent Adrian Hawkins contacted the Democratic National Committee repeatedly and left numerous voice mail messages for Yared Tamene, which were then ignored.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html</ref>
*[[Anthony Ferrante]] left his position as Chief of Staff of the Cyber Division at FBI headquarters as was hired as Director For Cyber Incident Response and Cybersecurity Policy at the [[White House]] [[National Security Council]].<ref>https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyjferrante/</ref><ref>https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/12/former-senior-fbi-official-is-leading-buzzfeeds-effort-to-verify-trump-dossier/</ref>

===November 2015===
[[File:Fisa-abuse-error-rate.jpg|right|350px|thumb|From November 1, 2015, to May 1st, 2016, thousands of illegal search queries were conducted. Nellie Ohr was employed by FusionGPS at the time this [[FISA abuse]] was detected.]]
Nellie Ohr had “contractor access” to the FISA database (NSA and FBI) as a result of her prior and ongoing clearance relationship with the CIA and open source research group. Nellie, Bruce and Glenn Simpson worked together previously in 2010. From the time Nellie Ohr began working for Fusion GPS in late 2015, through April 2016 there were thousands of unlawful FISA database queries and extractions; 85% of them were unlawful.
----
*'''1 November.''' Minimisation requests started to be carried out in relation to [[FISA]]s, although they did not match the applicable minimisation procedures, at the National Security Agency.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/08/30/dots-connecting-quickly-bruce-ohr-worked-with-andrew-weissmann-while-nellie-ohr-worked-for-fusion-gps-in-2015/</ref>
*'''5 November.''' Michael Lesin, founder of the Russian television network [[RT]], found beaten to death in [[Washington D.C.]] hotel room.<ref>https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-28/fbi-releases-docs-claiming-rt-founder-beat-himself-death-his-hotel-room</ref>
*'''9 November.''' Eric Ciaramella invites Alexandra Chalupa into the White House.<ref>https://archive.usukraine.org/coalition/report-wh-press-conf-events.shtml</ref><ref>http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/wp-content/uploads/current-pdf/The_Ukrainian_Weekly_2015-47.pdf</ref>
----
*'''15 November.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' Money paid by 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) to the US company DuSable Capital Management found its way into the 2013/14 election campaigns of at least 7 [[Democrat]]s. DuSable is headed by [[Frank White]],<ref>https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0882477D:US</ref> who was Obama's chief fundraiser during the 2012 re-election campaign. 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) is a Malaysian strategic development company, wholly owned by the Malaysian Minister of Finance. The company has been under heavy scrutiny for suspicious transactions, [[money laundering]], [[fraud]], and [[theft]].
:*''Bloomberg'' reported DuSable is one of “a small group of money managers founded by former political figures and public officials, who have sought to parlay their connections to invest in industries that rely on direct or indirect government support”.<ref>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-10/obama-fundraiser-said-to-seek-1-billion-for-private-fund</ref> This raises questions about indirect funding of American election campaigns by Malaysia in expectation of gaining influence.<ref>http://www.sarawakreport.org/2015/11/1mdb-sleaze-spreads-to-us-democrats-on-eve-of-obama-visit-investigation/</ref>
:*A lawsuit filed by US Justice Department alleged that at least $3.5 billion has been stolen from Malaysia's state-owned 1MDB fund.
:*1MBD and the Government of Malaysia is DuSable's only client.
:*DuSable registered as a foreign agent.
:*DuSable paid $25,000 to the campaign of Gov. [[Terry McAuliffe]] of [[Virginia]] in late 2013 and $5,200 each to Democrat Senate candidates [[Dick Durbin]], [[Mark Begich]] and Michelle Nunn in 2014. The campaigns of [[Ro Khanna]], Don Beyer and Kevin Strouse also received money.<ref>http://www.sarawakreport.org/cache/2/1/9/d/5/219d54d76ef12728657447c587fb3f0a3090412d.jpg</ref>
----
*'''17 November.''' ''[[Bloomberg]]'' reports "In a call with senior Obama administration officials Tuesday evening, several [[governor]]s demanded they be given access to information about [[Hillary Clinton Foreign Policy#Syria|Syrian refugees]] about to be resettled by the federal government in their states. Top White House officials refused."<ref>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-11-18/states-press-white-house-for-details-on-syrian-refugees</ref> A reported 85,000 have been resettled in the [[United States]].

*'''22 November.''' ''Daily Caller'' reports extensive donations from Gulenist organizations to Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign and the Clinton Foundation. With an estimated 8 million followers and $50 billion in assets, Gulenists hope to influence both the U.S. and Turkish political system through a worldwide network of businesses, nonprofit organizations, media companies and charter schools.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2015/11/22/followers-of-a-mysterious-turkish-islamic-cleric-have-donated-heavily-to-hillarys-campaign-and-family-charity/</ref> The FBI and the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education have investigated whether charter employees working in this country on H1-B visas are kicking back part of their salaries to a Muslim movement Gulen founded known as Hizmet, or "Service."<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20110409212809/http://articles.philly.com:80/2011-04-04/news/29380536_1_charter-schools-fethullah-gulen-truebright-science-academy/2</ref>

*'''26 November.''' Strzok and Lisa Page texted each other about Strzok's potential opportunity to join the Senior Executive Service (SES).<ref>https://www.scribd.com/document/371002694/Senator-Ron-Johnson-Appendix-C-Documents-and-Text-Messages</ref>

*"[t]he speaker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Artem Shevchenko said that there are no criminal proceedings in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in which businessman Dmitry Firtash is being held as a suspect."<ref>https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2015/11/28/7090554/ 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Google translate]</ref>

*'''29 November.''' Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov said that upon arrival in Ukraine, the oligarch Dmitry Firtash would be detained by the National Police if the US Department of Justice filed such a petition.<ref>https://news.pn/ru/criminal/149552 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Google translate] Also see https://archive.is/lAVHg</ref>

*'''November.''' Department of Justice (DOJ), replies to Sen. Chuck Grassley's inquiry into the Rosatom/Uranium One deal. “The Department of Justice's National Security Division (NSD) reviewed this transaction in consultation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and CFIUS agencies. In accordance with standard procedure, NSD evaluated the factors listed in section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended, and ultimately communicated to CFIUS the Department's clearance of this transaction.”<ref>https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2017-10-12%20CEG%20to%20OSTP%20(Uranium%20One%20Follow%20up).pdf p.2 fn.4.</ref>
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*FBI lawyer Lisa Page texts Clinton email investigator Peter Strzok saying she hopes [[Republican]] [[House Speaker]] [[Paul Ryan]] “falls and crashes in a blaze of glory.” Strzok replies: “Yes, And me too. At some point the Rep party needs to pull their head out of their *ss. Shows no sign of occurring any time soon.”

*Joseph Mifsud joins London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP).<ref>https://medium.com/@Brian_Whit/the-trump-russia-affair-and-an-odd-company-in-london-9437e0343db2</ref>

*Alexander Downer attended a 2-day country retreat at the invitation of the private intelligence organisation [[Hakluyt]] & Co., followed by a cocktail soiree hosted by the same company at the Orangery in Kensington Palace.<ref>https://medium.com/@the_war_economy/spygate-part-4-foreign-intelligence-921c0accb9c2</ref>

===December 2015===
Sundance of the conservativetreehouse.com summarizes: '''December 2015 through April 2016''': The first phase leading into ‘Spygate’ is the period of time where opposition research of the republican candidate field was taking place. It is in this period where Fusion-GPS hired CIA Open Source researcher Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ-NSD official Bruce Ohr, to do research. In the background of this time period the FBI and NSA database was being exploited by unknown FBI contractors; it is highly suspected that Nellie Ohr and/or Fusion-GPS was one of those contracted agencies with access to the massive electronic and metadata files.
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[[Patrick Byrne]] begins reporting on [[Maria Butina]] more frequently to the FBI. Byrne became suspicious of the FBI motives because he warned FBI officials of a potential that his efforts, his reputation and those who trust him, may result in Butina gaining entry into campaign confidences. The FBI agents told Byrne that was exactly the intent; people high up in the FBI wanted Ms. Butina to gain deep access into the Trump campaign. Mr. Byrne became suspicious of a corrupt political motive, but didn’t say anything at the time.
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[[File:Azov-bn.gif|right|350px|thumb|The Obama State Department colluded with the fascist Azov Battalion to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine in the [[Euromaidan Rebellion]] and install a corrupt regime that was sympathetic to and included fascists.]]
*'''2 December.''' [[Dmitry Firtash]] announces hid intention to return to Ukraine to address the General Assembly of the Federation of Employers (FEU).
:*Joe Biden, President Poroshenko, and Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov took steps to prevent Firtash's return.<ref>[https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement Affidavit of [[Viktor Shokin]] on Biden shakedown], September 4, 2019.</ref>

*'''3 December.''' ''Politico'' reports:''A Ukrainian oligarch’s foiled homecoming: The U.S. and the government in Kiev want Dmytro Firtash behind bars.''
:*"Ukraine's Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov announced on Sunday that, after consulting with U.S. officials, he instructed Ukrainian police to detain Firtash should he attempt to enter Ukraine."<ref>[https://www.politico.eu/article/firtash-poroshenko-ukraine-oligarchs-corruption/ A Ukrainian oligarch’s foiled homecoming], By LINDA KINSTLEr, ''Politico,'', 12/3/15.</ref>
:*Photos of armed paramilitary groups were posted on Avakov's [[Facebook]] page; ''Politico'' reported the "commander of Ukraine’s nationalist Azov Battalion, said that his volunteer fighters would arrest Firtash themselves if government forces failed to do so. He later posted a Facebook photo of his armed men waiting at Kiev's Borispol airport.

*'''6 December.''' Biden meets with Poroshenko in [[Kiev]].

*'''7 December.''' Strzok texted Lisa Page that Jonathan Moffa was waiting for his job interview.

*'''8 December.''' '''''New York Times'' completes its investigation in the [[Biden-Ukraine scandal]].'''
:*''Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch''
:*[[Hunter Biden]], [[Burisma Holdings]], and its owner, [[Mykola Zlochevsky]], who was Ukraine's ecology minister under former President [[Viktor F. Yanukovych]] before Hunter's boss, Zlochevsky, embezzled $5 Billion and became a fugitive from justice.
:*Zlochevsky hired Hunter Biden in 2014 while Vice President Biden oversaw U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine.
:*Burisma is Ukraine's largest oil and gas produce; hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors.
:*Hunter Biden was paid $166,000 a month, which was split with the nephew of [[Whitey Bulger]].
:*Zlochevsky]], a former Ukraine ecology minister, was under investigation by the new administration for embezzlement.
:*Prosecutors traced payments to Hunter Biden.
:*Vice President Biden threatened the new Ukrainian administration to withhold $1 Billion in U.S. allocated funds unless the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden was fired.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html</ref>
*Biden addresses Ukrainian parliament (Rada) in Kiev.</ref>https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/09/remarks-vice-president-joe-biden-ukrainian-rada</ref>

*'''9 December.''' [[Amnesty International]] reports Obama armed ISIS.<ref>https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/politics/amnesty-international-isis-weapons-u-s-/index.html</ref>
*FBI Director Comey replaces head of FBI Counterintelligence Division at Washington Field Office with Charles Kable.
*'''10 December.''' [[Michael Flynn]] and [[Jill Stein]] attend RT dinner in Moscow with Putin.<ref>https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/jill-stein-says-nothing-happened-at-her-dinner-with-putin/</ref>
:*Before Flynn made the trip he alerted his former employer, the DIA. He then attended a “defensive” or “protective” briefing before he ever sat alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Russia Today (RT) dinner, or before he talked with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The briefing educated and sensitized Flynn to possible efforts by his Russian host to compromise the former high-ranking defense official and prepared him for conversations in which he could potentially extract intelligence for U.S. agencies such as the DIA. When Flynn returned from Moscow, he spent time briefing intelligence officials on what he learned during the Moscow contacts. Between two and nine intelligence officials attended the various meetings with Flynn about the RT event, and the information was moderately useful, about what one would expect from a public event.<ref>https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/423558-exculpatory-russia-evidence-about-mike-flynn-that-us-intel-kept-secret#.XC0yisc_S_4.twitter</ref>
:*[[Joseph Mifsud]] also said to be in attendance.<ref>page 5, item 16. Document states December 17, 2015, but the context appears to be speaking about the same event. https://t.co/aTzO3WiTGJ?amp=1</ref>

*'''15 December.''' Vadim Mikerin, Director of Tenex, sentenced in [[extortion]] and [[money laundering]] scheme. Tenex operated as the sole supplier and exporter of Russian Federation uranium and uranium enrichment services to nuclear power companies worldwide. Tenam became Tenex's official representative in the United States. Vadim Mikerin, a Russian national and Director of the Pan American Department of Tenex from 2004 to 2010. In 2010, Mikerin became the executive director of Tenam until 2014. As director of Tenam, he oversaw the shipment of uranium from Russia for use in American power plants under the “Megatons to Megawatts” program. It has been reported that at one point the program fueled ten percent of U.S. electricity. Mikerin was involved in a multimillion-dollar [[conspiracy]] involving an extortion and money laundering scheme that awarded contracts to American companies to transport uranium in exchange for kick-backs. Mikerin pleaded guilty in 2014 “to helping orchestrate more than $2 million in bribe payments through a web of secret accounts in [[Cyprus]], [[Latvia]], and [[Switzerland]].” His actions, according to the US government, occurred “with the consent of higher level officials at Tenex and Rosatom…”. The investigation began as an intelligence probe into Russian nuclear officials. During the investigation, federal agents attempted to convince Mikerin to turn on his Russian colleagues by showing him evidence of relationships between “shell companies and other Russian energy officials, including President Vladimir Putin.” He refused to expose them and was subsequently arrested and charged.<ref>Joel Schectman, U.S. sentences Russian nuclear official to four years for bribe scheme, Reuters (Dec. 15, 2015). The “Megatons to Megawatts” program converted uranium from thousands of Russian nuclear warheads for civilian use in U.S.nuclear power plants.</ref>
----
*'''18 December.''' ''Natural Gas Europe'' reports: {{Quotebox|"In 2015, [[Papadopoulos]] joined the London Center of International Law Practice as the director of the Center for International Energy and Natural Resources Law and Security. Papadopoulos focuses on the Eastern Mediterranean as well as the Caspian region. In 2015, he spoke to a business and energy convention in Israel, explaining the complex market for natural gas in the region. At the conference, he touched on issues of U.S.-Israel-Russia relations in an interview with Natural Gas Europe.<ref>https://www.naturalgasworld.com/united-states-russia-gas-east-mediterranean-27020</ref>}} [[File:De3DrwwUcAA7Mtd.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|'''''Spygate:''''' DOJ redacted the word, "lures". "Lures" are infiltrators, [[provocateur]]s, or spies who offer bait, in this case [[Hillary Clinton email scandal|Hillary Clinton's emails]]. Oconus = outside contiguous United States. The message from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page reads, "You get all our outside contiguous US spies approved?" It was sent after [[Sally Yates]] ended independent oversight of the DOJ-National Security Division, while FBI contractors conducted over 5,000 illegal FISA 702 "About queries," and before [[Adm. Rogers]] cutoff outside [[FBI]] contractor access to the FISA database. The primaries, Hillary's whitewash, and official [[counterintelligence]] investigation were yet to come.]] [[Joseph Mifsud]] joined the London Center of International Law Practice (LCILP) a month earlier. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016 - in [[Italy]].
*'''21 December.''' Brent Budowsky discusses Clinton strategy with John Podesta: {{quotebox|Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/25651</ref>}}
----
*'''22 December.''' ''Daily Caller'' reports that the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) asked the IRS to investigate a $350,000 payment that the Clinton Foundation made to Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign for an email list of potential donors.
*FACT also asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether Clinton's campaign illegally obtained an email list of 4 million names from Tom Mostyn's Ready for Hillary PAC. FACT asserts that the list swap should be considered an in-kind donation — which would constitute illegal coordination between the Clinton campaign and Ready for Hillary PAC.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2015/12/22/watchdog-names-hillary-worst-ethics-violator-of-2015/</ref>
----
*'''23 December.''' FBI Director Comey names [[Bill Priestap]] as assistant director of Counterintelligence Division.

*'''28 December.''' Strzok texts Lisa Page: {{quotebox| "You get all our outside contiguous US spies approved?"}} referring to [[Stefan Halper]], [[Alexander Downer]], and [[Joseph Mifsud]].

*'''29 December.''' ''Wall Street Journal'' reports that the Obama administration 'incidentally' collected private communications by members of Congress while it spied on Israeli Prime Minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]]. In sweeping up “private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups… raised fears [of]—an ‘Oh-sh*t moment,’ one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.”<ref>https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-spy-net-on-israel-snares-congress-1451425210</ref>

*'''31 December.''' Press release naming E.W. Priestap as Assistant Director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division.<ref>https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/e.w.-priestap-named-assistant-director-of-the-counterintelligence-division</ref>

==2016 election year==
[[File:Crossfire-hurricane-3.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Deputy Peter Strzok referred to as the Espionage Machine Party. A small group within the FBI and intelligence community conspired to prevent the election of Donald Trump through the illegal use of FISA wiretaps, and as an "insurance policy" to remove him from office after he won.]]
:''See:'' '''''[[Obamagate timeline|Russiagate timeline 2016 election year]]'''''
The FBI 'small group' was participating in a plan to exonerate Hillary Clinton in her [[Hillary Clinton email scandal|email investigation]]. That same FBI small group was simultaneously conducting opposition research on candidate [[Donald Trump]] and his campaign team. Those FBI officials were allied by entities outside the government. The ‘outside group’ were “contractors”. One of the contractors was FusionGPS or entities in contact with FusionGPS.

The contractors were using FBI intelligence databases to conduct opposition research “searches” on Trump campaign officials, FISA-702(16)(17) “To/From” and “About” queries. This [[FISA abuse]] was the allowed by the FBI, but the NSA detected the abuses in early 2016. NSA Dir. Admiral Mike Rogers stepped in on April 18, 2016 and stopped the FBI contractors from having any further access. Without access to the FBI intelligence database, the group needed a workaround.

The [[DOJ]] side of the operation was conducted within the National Security Division headed by [[John P Carlin]]. The DOJ-NSD could use the NSA/FBI database and pass information to, and receive information from, Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ official [[Bruce Ohr]]. Nellie was hired by FusionGPS immediately after [[NSA]] Dir. Admiral Mike Rogers shut down the FBI ‘contractor’ use of the system. Nellie would be the go-between. On May 23, 2016, she received a technician-level amateur radio license.<ref>http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/LicArchive/license.jsp?licKey=12382876&archive=Y</ref> There was speculation about timing given her cybersecurity knowledge, was Nellie Ohr hoping to use non-cyber short wave communications to hide her participation in that nefarious effort from the NSA? <ref>https://thefederalist.com/2018/03/02/fusion-gpss-anti-trump-researcher-avoid-surveillance-ham-radio-license/</ref>

The problem was that any information from within the [[FISA]] searches could not be directly used by the FBI because they would have to explain how they gained it, and all search queries without a warrant were [[illegal]]. FusionGPS then hired the retired British [[MI6]] officer [[Christopher Steele]]. The FBI needed to launder the intelligence product.

Chris Steele would be the laundry for the intelligence information pulled from the U.S. system. Unauthorized FISA-702(16)(17) results were passed on to Christopher Steele by [[Nellie Ohr]]. Steele would then wash the intelligence product, repackage it into what became known as the ''[[Steele dossier]]'', and pass it back to the FBI ‘small group’ as evidence for use in their [[counterintelligence]] operation beginning in July 2016. Dir. [[James Comey]] intentionally failed to notify the Congressional [[Gang of Eight]], denying congressional oversight of the operation.

Proof of this laundry process is found in a “search query” result that was actually a mistake. The faulty intelligence mistake was the travel history of [[Michael Cohen]], a long-time Trump lawyer. The FISA search returned a Michael Cohen traveling to Prague, but it was the wrong Michael Cohen. However, that mistaken result was passed on to Chris Steele, and it made its way into the ''Steele dossier''. Absent of a FISA search, there's no other way Christopher Steele could identify a random “Michael Cohen” traveling to Prague. The Cohen mistake created a trail from Chris Steele to the FISA database.

All of the unauthorized FISA-702 search queries, “To From”(16) and/or “About”(17), of the NSA/FBI database were returning results. Those results are “raw intelligence”. That raw intelligence needed “unmasking”, that's where the [[Department of State]] (DOS) is involved. The U.N. Ambassador is part of the DOS. Samantha Power testified she wasn't doing the daily “unmasking” identified by the House Intelligence Committee investigation. Someone, or a group of people, within the State Department, were doing unmasking requests using Ms. Power's authority. The collaborative process by officials within the State Department, as outlined and supported by Senator [[Chuck Grassley]] and his investigation, explains why those officials were also communicating with Christopher Steele.

The assembled but highly compartmentalized reports from the DOJ-NSD, FBI-Counterintelligence, Department of State, Office of National Intelligence ([[James Clapper]]) and CIA ([[John Brennan]]), was then constructed to become part of President Obama's Daily Intelligence Briefing (PDB). That's where National Security Adviser [[Susan Rice]] comes in and her frequent unmasking of the assembled intelligence product.

The Obama PDB was then redistributed internally to more than three dozen administration officials who [[President Obama]] allowed access his PDB. This includes the heads of DOJ, DOJ-NSD, FBI, FBI-counterintel, CIA, DOS, ODNI, NSA and Pentagon.

The distribution of the PDB was how each disparate member of the administration, the larger intelligence apparatus, knew of the ongoing big picture without having to assemble together for direct discussion.

==2017 soft coup==
[[File:Mueller-and-yanu.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Special Counsel Robert Mueller [[colluding]] with Ukrainian President [[Viktor Yanukovych]]. Yanukovych is considered a Putin stooge by many [[Deep State]]rs.]]
:''See : '''[[Russiagate timeline 2017|Russiagate timeline 2017 soft coup]]'''''
The information the FBI collected, and the material Christopher Steele and [[FusionGPS]] manufactured, were used to create the [[fake news]] [[Trump-Russia conspiracy theory]], and to manipulate the [[FISA]] court into granting a FISA warrant - what [[Peter Strzok]] called “the insurance policy” against Trump's election. When [[James Comey]] reopened the Clinton investigation ten days before the election in October 2016, and Hillary's lead in the polls started to drop, the "insurance policy" became operational: officially sanctioned leaks alleging collusion between Trump and Russia were rampant.<ref>https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/</ref>

When James Comey asked for a private meeting with Trump on January 6, 2017 to present Trump with Hillary Clinton's fictional opposition research as a US intelligence product, Comey briefed Trump only on the sexual allegations and not a word about [[Carter Page]], [[Michael Flynn]], Paul Manafort, and [[Michael Cohen]] being targeted under the [[FISA]] Act. According to Comey, he acted on the instructions of [[John Brennan]] and [[James Clapper]].<ref>"the leaders of the intelligence community agreed he needed to be told about because we knew it and thought it was about to become public." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1804/19/cg.01.html</ref> Clapper dutifully [[leak]]ed the fact that Trump had been briefed on allegations that he consorted with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013 in an unsavory way to Jake Tapper of CNN.<ref>https://saraacarter.com/former-dni-james-clapper-allegedly-leaked-to-cnn-investigation-revealed/</ref> CNN reported the made-up news from the supposed "intelligence report" and linked to the opposition research report on [[BuzzFeed]], claiming it was some sort of official document in the hands of the US intelligence community that the government was acting on. The [[intelligence community]] had implemented the "insurance policy". Russiagate was no longer just [[Hillary Clinton]]'s political campaign directed against Trump, it was now a [[disinformation]] operation aimed at [[liberal deceit|deceiving]] the American people.

In early March 2017, [https://dod.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography-View/Article/602701/ Evelyn Farkas], Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia from the Obama Administration, appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapRNpEjXUo</ref> and shared efforts to get information about Trump staff to The Hill in hopes to get information out. To many people this proved President Trump's claim that Obama had "his wires tapped" at Trump Tower.<ref>https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837989835818287106</ref> Later in that same month she tries to backtrack and change the meaning of what she was saying.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D-nDGSzQg4</ref>

==2018 reckoning==
[[File:31D66D0A-82A4-40E7-A1C2-EBA55EEB357D.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|Prime movers in the [[Deep State coup]]. Comey (first left) funneled raw FISA data to [[FusionGPS]] to make it appear the FBI's illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign came from outside the government;<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/11/the-doj-and-fbi-worked-with-fusion-gps-on-operation-trump/</ref> Brennan (second left) collected the bogus ''[[Donald Trump–Russia dossier|Clinton-Steele dossier]]'' from British intelligence sources as part of a supposed routine "intelligence sharing" agreement;<ref>https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/04/09/john-brennans-role-in-the-fbis-trump-russia-investigation/</ref> Clapper (third from left) rubber stamped the operation, lied to Trump about the scheme and facilitated leaks to the press to impugn Trump.<ref>https://saraacarter.com/former-dni-james-clapper-allegedly-leaked-to-cnn-investigation-revealed/</ref> Adm. Rogers (end right), the lone hero of the group, detected the Obama FBI's abuse of the NSA's [[FISA]] computer system and personally reported the illegal activity to the FISA court.<ref>https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/01/10/an-american-hero-the-death-of-a-fisa-narrative/</ref>]]
:''Sree:'' '''''[[Russiagate timeline 2018]]'''''
The '''Russiagate timeline''' chronicles [[Obama administration]] appointees and holdovers, in collusion with the [[2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign|Hillary Clinton campaign]] and [[DNC]], efforts to prevent the election of [[Donald J. Trump]] and, after he was elected, remove him from office. The Obama FBI Counterintelligence Division and [[DOJ]] National Security Division conducted an illegal [[counterintelligence]] operation against domestic political opponents.
Chris Blackburn said: {{quotebox|"For those that still believe we are living in democratic, free and open societies it is sadly starting to look like fantasy. Democracies flourish when the checks and balances in the system are robust. We need them to work now more than ever.”}}
Elizabeth Vos observed: {{quotebox|"In the Trump-Russia and Russian hacking narratives, American and UK intelligence agencies appear to have recklessly and deceptively acted in the interest of a single political candidate, Hillary Clinton. This singularity of purpose speaks to the insecurity and magnitude of the unelected Western power structure, equaled by the scale of lies propping up the Trump-Russia and Russian hacking narratives."}}

==2019 the Empire strikes out==
[[File:Mifsud with Boris Johnson.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|'''FBI/CIA spy [[Joseph Mifsud]] (left) with [[UK]] prime minister [[Boris Johnson]] (center)''' two weeks after Trump advisor '''[[George Papadopoulos]]'''' plea agreement in the '''[[Mueller investigation]]'''.<ref>https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-pictured-with-london-professor-from-fbi-russia-probe/amp/ </ref> The entire [[Trump-Russia conspiracy hoax]] was hatched by [[Obama administration|Obama]] CIA director [[John Brennan]] on the false allegation that Mifsud was a Russian agent. Mifsud had been working for Brennan and [[Jimmy the Weasel]] Comey all along.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUZ8XI_ncas Why the Mifsud Story Matters], DECLASSIFIED with Gina Shakespeare,- ''[[The Epoch Times]]'', Aug 5, 2019.</ref>]]
:''See : '''[[Muellergate timeline 2019]]'''''
The '''[[Muellergate scandal]]''' refers to efforts to cover-up Obama-era [[FBI]]/[[DOJ]] crimes and frame [[Donald Trump]] and campaign associates for crimes they did not do.

Since President Trump's inauguration, 26 people were fired or otherwise removed from the [[Department of Justice]] and [[FBI]] in the [[Obamagate timeline|Obamagate scandal]].

FBI Deputy Director [[Andrew McCabe]] and FBI chief legal counsel [[James Baker (DOJ)]] selected most of the special counsel investigators; those two then recommended to Deputy AG [[Rod Rosenstein]] that he hire [[Robert Mueller]] as special counsel lead.

[[James Comey]] was fired. The remaining ‘at-risk’ [[corrupt]] [[FBI]] leadership (McCabe and Baker), positioning to defend their own interests, selected the “small group”; then Mueller was selected and brought on his additional team members. The entire purpose of the special counsel operation was to cover-up the DOJ/FBI activity during the [[2016 presidential election]], [[Trump transition]], and early [[Trump administration]].

While DOJ Inspector General [[Michael Horowitz]] completed his review of the FBI mishandling of the [[Clinton email investigation]], Horowitz was prevented from looking at any of the prime suspects in the [[FISA abuse]] scandal. As was U.S. Attorney John Huber from prosecuting anyone involved. Mueller's ongoing investigation gave cover to corrupt Obama era officials, citing Mueller's "ongoing investigation." They successfully impeded investigations throughout the 2017-2019 Congressional session.

==See also==
*[[List of names in Obamagate]]
*[[Obama war crimes]]
*[[Barack Obama Controversies]]
*[[Barack Hussein Obama's unlawful acts]]
*[[Obamagate timeline 2009-2015|Obamagate timeline 2009-2014 vanguardism]]
*[[Obama's second term agenda]]
*[[Media intelligence complex]]
*[[Clinton body count]]
*[[Clinton scandal]]
*[[FBI scandal]]
*[[Arab Spring]]

==References==
{{reflist|4}}

==External links==
*[https://sharylattkisson.com/obama-era-surveillance-timeline/ Obama era surveillence timeline], sharylattkisson.co
*[http://thecompleteobamatimeline.com/the-timeline.html The Complete Obama Timeline]
*[https://sharylattkisson.com/stonewalled-book/ sharylattkisson.com]
*[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1390759/251766258-attkissons.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiF-vLvsrvTAhVV-GMKHWwlDrQQFghSMBI&usg=AFQjCNHTrEnHFX0mCd0T35Mh2632wysE9A&sig2=8Bc7S9O2dx3DTtfHFTcDAQ ''Attkisson v Holder''] complaint
*[https://sharylattkisson.com/hillary-clintons-email-the-definitive-timeline/ Hillary Clinton’s Email: the Definitive Timeline], Sharyl Attkisson

[[Category:Barack Hussein Obama]]
[[Category:Obama Presidency]]
[[Category:Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax]]
[[Category:Corruption]]
[[Category:Obama Administration]]
[[Category:United States Political Scandals]]
[[Category:2010s]]

Obamagate timeline 2009-2014

2019-11-30T23:13:16Z

JoeyJ: /* May 2014 */ There is no evidence that more than 48 people were killed on this day. Even RT admits that. https://www.rt.com/news/341203-un-investigation-odessa-masacre/

:<center>''This is a timeline. For updated events see '''[[Obamagate timeline]]'''. For a detailed presentation, see [[Barack Hussein Obama]] and [[Barack Obama Controversies]].''</center>

The [[Obamagate|Obamagate scandal]] refers to several scandals during President Barack Obama tenure, notably the misuse of government agencies, [[Uranium One bribery scandal]],<ref>https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/355749-fbi-uncovered-russian-bribery-plot-before-obama-administration</ref> media manipulation, illegal wiretaping, and domestic spying on American citizens to harass political opponents and critics.

Seven large scale scandals have tainted the [[Barack Obama|Obama]] legacy:
*Misuse of the IRS targeting political opponents;
*[[Operation Fast and Furious]] illegal arms selling;
*[[Uranium One bribery scandal]];
*[[Benghazi massacre]];
*Squashing [[Project Cassandra|Iranian drug trafficking investigations]] to gain the [[Iranian nuke deal]];
*[[Obstruction of justice]] in the [[Clinton email whitewash]];
*[[Russia collusion hoax]].

''Circa'' reported "As his presidency drew to a close, Barack Obama’s top aides routinely reviewed intelligence reports gleaned from the National Security Agency’s incidental intercepts of Americans abroad, taking advantage of rules their boss relaxed starting in 2011 to help the government better fight terrorism, espionage by foreign enemies and hacking threats. ...Among those cleared to request and consume unmasked NSA-based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens were Obama’s national security adviser [[Susan Rice]], his CIA Director [[John Brennan]] and then-Attorney General [[Loretta Lynch]]."<ref>http://circa.com/politics/barack-obama-changed-how-nsa-intercepts-of-americans-like-donald-trump-could-be-shared</ref>

The abuses came to light when [[Mark Levin]] cited mainstream press reporting of [[Obama administration]] leaks about government agencies spying on the presidential campaign of [[Donald Trump]] and surrogates, including then U.S. Senator [[Jeff Sessions]], who was appointed the Attorney General of the United States.<ref>[https://spectator.org/investigate-obamagate/ Investigate Obamagate], ''The American Spectator''</ref>
[[File:Bill-clinton-moscow-speech.jpg|right|thumb|350px|Pay day: Bill Clinton in Moscow to pick up a $500,000 bribe for his wife Hillary Clinton's approval of the Russian purchase of an American uranium mining company.]]
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Color key
|-
|[[Ukrainian collusion]] in blue
|}
==2009==
TENEX was a wholly-owned subsidiary of JSC Atomenergoprom, which was a wholly-owned subsidiary of The State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM ("ROSATOM"). TENEX operated as the sole supplier and exporter of Russian Federation uranium and uranium enrichment services to nuclear power companies worldwide. In about October 2010, TENEX established TENAM Corporation ("TENAM") of Bethesda, Maryland as its wholly-owned subsidiary and official representative in the United States.

Vadim Mikerin was a Director of the Pan American Department of TENEX from about 2004 through about 2010, and was the President of TENAM from about October 2010 through about October 2014.

Between 2004 and October 2014, Mikerin conspired with others to transmit funds from Maryland and elsewhere in the United States to offshore shell company bank accounts located in Cyprus, Latvia, and Switzerland for the purpose of promoting a corrupt payment scheme that violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The payments were made to influence Mikerin and to secure improper business advantages for U.S. companies that did business with TENEX. Mikerin used consulting agreements and code words such as “lucky figure,” “LF,” “cake” and “remuneration” to disguise the corrupt payments.

According to court filings in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, in 2009, the [[FBI]] began an investigation into corruption and extortion by senior managers of JSC Techsnabexport (Tenex), a subsidiary of Rosatom, a Russian entity. The extortion racket against American energy companies was permitted to continue into the summer of 2014 until the [[Crimea|Crimean crisis]] and passage of the Russian sanctions bill. The Obama administration wanted to avoid an embarrassing trial highlghting its failure to prosecute a national security case four years earlier in order to protect Russia’s takeover of U.S. nuclear assets.

The investigation was centered in Maryland, Tenam’s home base. The US Attorney in Maryland was Bush appointee [[Rod Rosenstein]], and [[Robert Mueller]] was FBI Director at the time the investigation into the Rosatom subsidiary began.<ref>Government’s Response to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss for Pre-Indictment Delay, United States v. Vadim Mikerin, Criminal No. TDC-14-0529 (D. MD) at 1. http://fcpa.stanford.edu/enforcement-action.html?id=583</ref>
===January 2009===
*'''13 January.''' clintonemail.com domain established.
*'''21 January.''' Obama inaugurated 44th president.

*'''January.''' Gullenist contractors receive their first loan to begin building Charter schools for Turkish immigrants in the US. The Gullenist fronts move quickly within two years to become the largest charter school operator in Texas, with 33 schools receiving more than $100 million a year in taxpayer funds.<ref>http://www.vdare.com/posts/the-economics-of-the-gulen-cults-american-charter-schools</ref><ref>http://info.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/pdf/CharterContribs.pdf</ref>

===February 2009===
*'''6 February.''' Italian government ratifies historic Friendship Agreement with Libya.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.alarabonline.org/english/display.asp?fname=2009%5C03%5C03-02%5Czbusinessz%5C988.htm&dismode=x&ts=02/03/2009%2004:42:49%20ã|title=Libya agrees pact with Italy to boost investment|date=2 March 2009|accessdate=|publisher=[[Al-Arab]] }}</ref> Under its terms, Italy would pay $5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former colonial occupation. In exchange, Libya would take measures to combat [[illegal immigration]] coming from its shores.<ref name="rep">{{cite news|publisher=La Repubblica|url=http://www.repubblica.it/2008/05/sezioni/esteri/libia-italia/accordo-firmato/accordo-firmato.html|title=Italia-Libia, firmato l'accordo|language=Italian|date=30 August 2008|accessdate=|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203000538/http://www.repubblica.it/2008/05/sezioni/esteri/libia-italia/accordo-firmato/accordo-firmato.html|archivedate=3 December 2013}}</ref>

[[File:2015-08-07-d47f891b large.jpg|right|350px|thumb|The '''Russian reset''' after a period of strained relations blamed on [[George W. Bush]] paved the way from the sale of 20% of America's uranium mining capacity to Russia for which the Clinton's pocketed $500,000 from the Moscow bank that financed the deal. Once the deal was completed, the Obama administration had no more need for improved relations with Russia.]]
===March 2009===
*'''6 March.''' Russian reset. Hillary Clinton in a high-profile photo-op, "resets" relations with Russia which had been strained after the Russian occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, paving the way for the Uranium One deal.

*'''13 March.''' Hillary Clinton invites Vladimir Putin to [[Clinton Foundation]] event.

*'''21 March.''' State Dept. spokesman Sean McCormack confirms that John Brennan’s private firm, The Analysis Corp., had contractor access to State Department passport files and that the Inspector General had an ongoing investigation.

===April 2009===
*'''1 April.''' Email to Huma Abedin from a Fethullah Gulen follower, Gokhan Ozkok, asks to arrange a meeting between Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Obama during an upcoming visit to Turkey. Obama met Ihsanoglu days later in Istanbul and invited him to the White House. Ihsanoglu is [[Premier Erdogen]] chief domestic political opponent.

*'''5 April.''' ''Washington Times'' reports John Brennan's private consulting firm under investigation for illegally hacking State Department computers.
[[File:Judge Sullivan.jpg|right|275px|thumb|Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. In 2014, Sullivan presided over ''[[Judicial Watch]] v. [[IRS]],''<ref>{{cite news |title=Motion for Status Conference |author=Judicial Watch |newspaper=Judicial Watch |date=June 27, 2014 |url=http://nblo.gs/Zd7kv |accessdate=August 15, 2014}}</ref> related to Obama's [[IRS scandal]]. There was an attempt to determine where the deleted emails of former IRS employee [[Lois Lerner]] had gone, what damage to her computer hard drive occurred, and what steps the IRS had taken to recover the information contained in the emails and on the hard drive.<ref>{{cite news |title=Judge Prods IRS on Effort to Save Lois Lerner’s E-Mail |author=Andrew Zajac |newspaper=[[Bloomberg L.P.|Bloomberg]] |date=August 14, 2014 |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-14/judge-prods-irs-on-effort-to-save-lois-lerner-s-e-mail.html |accessdate=}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Group: Inquiry ordered into lost IRS emails |author=Kevin G. Hall |newspaper=[[Fort Worth Star-Telegram]] |date=August 14, 2014 |url=http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/08/14/6044045/group-inquiry-ordered-into-lost.html |accessdate=}}</ref> In 2015 Sullivan presided over a [[Freedom of Information Act|FOIA]] case in the [[Hillary Clinton email scandal]].<ref>{{cite news|author1=Jason Donner|title=Judge orders State Dept. to work on recovering emails, suggests Clinton violated policy|url=https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/20/judge-orders-state-to-work-with-fbi-on-clinton-email-investigation/?intcmp=ob_article_footer_text&intcmp=obnetwork|accessdate=August 27, 2015|work=Fox News|date=}}</ref> in 2017, Sullivan took over the sentencing phase of former [[National Security Advisor]] [[Michael Flynn]] when it was discovered [[Robert Mueller]] used tainted evidence gathered by [[Peter Strzok]] who was also a personal friend of the judge who entered a guilty conviction.]]
*'''7 April.''' Judge Emmet G. Sullivan set aside the conviction of Alaska Sen. [[Ted Stevens]] and appointed an outside lawyer to investigate the [[Department of Justice]]'s "Public Integrity Section" for [[criminal]] [[contempt]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/07/ted.stevens/index.html|work=CNN|title=Sen. Ted Stevens's conviction set aside|date=2009-04-07}}</ref><ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/07/AR2009040700338.html</ref> Subsequently, one of the four prosecutors held in contempt committed [[suicide]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/27/AR2010092706613.html |first=Paul |last=Duggan |title=Justice Dept. lawyer kills self |publisher=[[Washington Post]] |date=September 28, 2010 |accessdate=}}</ref>

*'''19 April.''' Key witness in the Inspector General's investigation into John Brennan's illegal hack of State Department files found murdered.

*'''April.''' Unmasked name of Rep. Jane Harmon leaked to the press. NSA incidentally recorded phone conversations with pro-Israel [[lobbyist]]s who were under investigation for espionage. Story broken by ''Congressional Quarterly''’s Jeff Stein.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-danger-of-nsa-spying-on-members-of-congress/282827/</ref>

===June 2009===
*'''June.''' After being in power for 40 years, for the first time, Mumammar Gaddafi is invited and travels to [[Rome]] to visit with Prime Minister Berlusconi, under the terms of the new Italian-Libyan Friendship Agreement.

*[[Hunter Biden]], son of Joe Biden, and Chris Heinz, stepson of John Kerry form Rosemount Seneca. The firm partners with the Thornton Group run by Devon Archer, and the Bank of China, to form Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) in China. Devon Archer is the nephew of Whitey Bulger, head of the Boston Irish mafia who enjoyed federal protection under FBI director [[Robert Mueller]] as an informant. Bulger was convicted of 19 murders that occurred while under Mueller's protection; some have linked the Bulger klan to as many as 52 murders while Mueller ran the Boston FBI field office. The Bank of China is owned by the Chinese government and closely connected with the Chinese military and intelligence services. Biden, Heinz, and Archer transfered and sold "duel use" technology to the Chinese military which was used to create the Chinese drone program and replicate the Chinese version of the F-15 fighter.<ref>https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equity-firm-run-by-kerry-and-bidens-kids/</ref>

===July 2009===
[[File:14ihohf.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Obama holding hands with a [[gay]] lover in 1981. Obama traveled to Pakistan in 1981 on an Indonesian passport under the name Barry Soetero. John Brennan hacked into State Department computers in March 2008 to "cauterize" Obama's passport file. Obama never obtained a US passport until 2004. Obama authorized his literary agent in 1991 to promote Obama as having been born in Kenya.<ref>https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/exposing-the-original-birther-2/</ref> A key [[whistleblower]] witness was founded murdered on April 19, 2009, shortly after the investigation into Brennan's hack was opened.]]
*'''July.''' State Department Inspector General’s report cites Obama Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan, while outside government, as hacking into State Department computers in March 2008 to obtain Barack Obama's passport file. Brennan served as an advisor and contributor to the Obama campaign. The file was accessed in order to “cauterize” the records of potentially embarrassing information. “They looked at the McCain and Clinton files as well to create confusion,” one knowledgeable source told [[Newsmax]]. "But this was basically an attempt to cauterize the Obama file."<ref>https://www.newsmax.com/kentimmerman/brennan-passport-breach/2009/01/12/id/337482/</ref> Obama traveled to [[Pakistan]], [[Indonesia]], and [[Kenya]] in 1981<ref>“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college—I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . .” https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-says-no-to-foreign_b_95357.html</ref> as a foreign citizen on an Indonesian passport. Obama never obtained a US passport until 2004 when he became a US Senator. A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department, Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., was murdered a few weeks after the hack occurred and was reported by the ''Washington Times''.<ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/</ref>

===August 2009===
*'''August.''' Responsibility for interrogations of terror suspects shifted away from the CIA, and the White House assumes direct control.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/23/AR2009082302598.html ''New Unit to Question Key Terror Suspects - Move Shifts Interrogation Oversight From the CIA to the White House]'', Anne E. Kornblut, ''[[Washington Post]]'', August 24, 2009.</ref> John Brennan, a holdover from the Bush torture program,<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/11/no-way-no-how-no-brennan/208302/</ref> placed in charge. Unlike executive departments and agencies such as the [[FBI]], CIA, or [[Department of Justice]], the [[National Security Council]] is on the personal staff of the president, is not subject to Congressional oversight, and functions outside of public view.<ref>[http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/j-e-dyer/78202 National Security Council Reloaded], J. E. Dyer, ''Commentary blog'', 08.25.2009.</ref> This arrangement was based on the model of [[Iran Contra]] headed by Col. [[Oliver North]] of the NSC. The [[American Civil Liberties Union]] called attention to this before Obama appointed the NSC staff to serve an operational role.<ref>[https://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/35595prs20080610.html?s_src=RSS ACLU Urges Congress to Examine White House National Security Council as Central Decision-Maker on Torture], ACLU Press Release, (6/10/2008).</ref> The Tower Commission Report specifically criticized a major abuse in the Iran Contra affair was the President using his personal staff to carry out operations.<ref>Tower Commission Report, p. 13.</ref>

===September 2009===
.'''4 September.''' Mike Levine of Fox News reports:<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/09/04/al-qaeda-linked-american-terrorist-unveiled-as-charges-await-him-in-u-7092.html</ref>
{{Quotebox|"In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI. Since then at least four more men from Minneapolis have been killed in Somalia, according to their families. 

A grand jury in Minneapolis has been investigating the case for several months, and three men have already pleaded guilty to terror-related charges, including providing material support to terrorists. The indictments said the men traveled to Somalia "so that they could fight jihad" there."}}
:In January of 2011 Holder's Justice Dept. obtains a warrant against Levine to compel him to reveal his source. The case raises significant First and Sixth Amendments issues.

*'''21 September.''' FBI Director Robert Mueller personally selected by Sec. of Star Hillary Clinton to hand deliver 10 grams of highly enriched [[uranium]] to [[Moscow]].<ref>https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE85588_a.html</ref><ref>https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE85588_a.html#efmBbpBlP</ref>

*'''23 September.''' Obama's first speech before the UN General Assembly (UNGA). Obama insists that no country, least of all America, has the right to tell other countries how to organize their political lives. “Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside,” said Obama. “Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect. Each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its people and in its past traditions.”

*'''30 September.''' ''The Atlantic'' reports {{Quotebox|In a pro-forma press release today, the Justice Department’s National Security Division (NSD) released the names of its leadership today. Reporting to David Kris, the assistant attorney general in charge of the NSD, are several credentialed [[national security]] lawyers with '''significant connections to the [[Democratic Party]]'''. But there are also officials — Brad Weigman, Sheryl Walter, [[Tanisha Guahar]], Leonard Bailey, Carol Cordero and [[George Toscas]] — who have served more than one president."<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/09/career-staff-get-key-posts-at-justices-national-security-division/27469/</ref><ref>A few weeks after Obama's election, former [[Weather Underground]] [[terrorist]] [[Mark Rudd]] wrote, "the strategy is feint to the right, move left. Any other strategy invites sure defeat. It would be stupid to do otherwise in this environment. Look to the second level appointments. There's a whole govt. in waiting that Podesta has at the [[Center for American Progress]]. They're mostly progressives." http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/mark-rudd-lets-get-smart-about-obama.html?m=1</ref>}}

*'''Fall.''' Operation Fast and Furious conceived locally in Phoenix ATF office.

===October 2009===
*'''26 October.''' State Department's routine International Religious Freedom Report for 2009 said of Libya under Gaddafi:<ref>U.S. Department of State, [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/rellibya09.html International Religious Freedom Report 2009,] Released by the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Washington, DC, (October 26, 2009). www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org</ref>
{{QuoteBox|The Government tolerates most minority religions but '''strongly opposes militant forms of Islam, which it views as a security threat'''... There were '''no reports of forced religious conversion''' ...There were '''no reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice.'''}}

*'''27 October.''' State Dept. cable from Italy says of Italian Prime Minister Sivio Berlusconi "a growing list of scandals, adverse court decisions and health issues have weakened him; and led some erstwhile Berlusconi allies to begin hedging their bets on his political longevity... Berlusconi's frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest." The same cable also says that: "Separately, on October 21, Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, commenting on Berlusconi's troubles, told the Ambassador that organized crime figures had probably set the trap for Berlusconi on some of the sex scandals." When Berlusconi accused Washington of "provoking" Moscow by recognizing the independence of [[Kosovo]], a [[Serbia]]n province, an Italian official visited the US Embassy. A cable from the embassy said the official "took back a terse message to the [Italian Foreign Minister] that such comments risk substantial and lasting damage to Italy's credibility in Washington....Berlusconi was losing credibility for Italy as a reliable partner, which he could ill afford to do," the cable added.<ref>https://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/02/wikileaks.berlusconi/</ref>

===November 2009===
*'''Early November.''' Obama administration directs [[Department of Homeland Security]] to delete information collected on hundreds of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups from its database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). The records are the basis for the ability to “connect dots.” DHS Customs and Border Protection officers monitor entering and exiting individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, and detect patterns.<ref>https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/268282-dhs-ordered-me-to-scrub-records-of-muslims-with-terror</ref>

===December 2009===
*'''17 December.''' Obama administration prosecutes FBI contractor Shamai Leibowitz for leaking documents to the media in April 2009. Leibowitz says he leaked because he felt FBI practices were “an abuse of power and a violation of the law” which he reported to his superiors at the FBI “who did nothing about them.”
*'''25 December.''' Christmas Day underwear bombing attempt. Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab fails to detonate plastic explosives sewed into his underwear onboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route from [[Amsterdam]] to [[Detroit]] over US territory with 290 on board. Passengers wrestled the bomber to the floor of the cabin and put out a fire.

==2010==
===January 2010===
*'''21 January.''' ''Citizens United'' overturned.

*'''26 January.''' Operation Fast and Furious organized in Washington as a joint Strike Force with agents from ATF, FBI, [[DEA]], and the [[ICE]] run through the U.S. Attorney's office rather than the ATF. Designation as a Strike Force allowed it to use sophisticated surveillance techniques such as federal wiretaps, which would require court orders and interaction from Justice Department (DOJ) officials in Washington, D.C. since federal law requires certain individuals to review evidence and certify the necessity of such techniques.<ref name="oversight.house.gov">[http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Update-on-Fast-and-Furious-with-attachment-FINAL.pdf Darrell Issa, "Update on Operation Fast and Furious"] House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, May 3, 2012.</ref> ATF agents were prevented from making arrests by federal prosecutors with Eric Holder's office.<ref name="Fortune">Fortune</ref> Wiretaps were employed of suspected straw-buyers.<ref name="Fortune"/>

*'''27 January.''' Obama insults the [[Supreme Court]] in his State of the Union address over the ''Citizens United'' ruling.<ref>https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/mary-kate-cary/2010/01/29/obama-was-wrong-to-criticize-the-supreme-court</ref>

*'''31 January.''' Villas de Salvárcar massacre, Juárez, Mexico.<ref>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211289/Operation-Fast-Furious-Guns-failed-gun-program-used-2010-Mexico-massacre.html</ref> A birthday party attended by high school students was intruded upon by a group of 20 La Línea drug cartel hitmen. 15 teenagers were killed and 12 received injuries.<ref>Reyes, Gerardo and Santiago Wills. "[https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/fast-furious-scandal-details-emerge-us-government-armed/story?id=17352694#.UGmiKqpfr4- Fast and Furious Scandal: New Details Emerge on How the U.S. Government Armed Mexican Drug Cartels]." ''[[ABC News]]''. September 30, 2012. Retrieved on October 6, 2014.</ref><ref>"[http://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/835001.2010-ocurre-en-juarez-la-masacre-de-salvarcar-15-jovenes-fueron-asesinados.html 2010: Ocurre en Juárez la 'Masacre de Salvárcar'; 15 jóvenes fueron asesinados]." ''El Siglo de Torreón''. Thursday January 31, 2013. Retrieved on October 6, 2014.</ref> The brutality of the crime outraged people both in and outside Mexico.<ref>Martínez-Cabrera, Alejandro. "[http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_20185715/villas-de-salvarcar-massacre-suspect-tortured-by-mexican-army Official: Villas de Salvarcar massacre suspect tortured by Mexican army]." ''El Paso Times''. March 16, 2012. Retrieved on October 6, 2014.</ref> The weapons used came from President Obama's Fast and Furious program.

===March 2010===
*'''1 March.''' Hillary Clinton arranges meeting with former Russian President [[Dmitry Medvedev]] and current Russian President Vladimir Putin.<ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/officials-tied-to-russian-nuclear-bribes-have-pushed-trump-russia-collusion-accusations_2338496.html</ref> Clinton then travels to Russia where she met with Putin and Medvedev. Soon after, it is announced that Renaissance Capital, a regime-tied Russian bank, offered Bill Clinton $500,000 to make a single speech — five times more than Clinton's usual speaking fee.

*'''March.''' [[IRS]] employees in Cincinnati instructed from Washington to scrutinize tax-exempt applications using the words "Tea Party" or "Patriots" in the name.

===April 2010===
*'''7 April.''' James H. Thessin,<ref>https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-h-thessin-27951a10/</ref> State Department Deputy Legal Advisor and Designated Deputy Ethics Advisor approves conflict of interest review request from Bill Clinton to address Renaissance Capital in Moscow. Copy forwarded to [[Cheryl Mills]].<ref>https://www.scribd.com/mobile/document/362127538/Citizens-United-Releases-Clinton-Russia-Related-FOIA-Documents-From-State-Dept p.20</ref>

*'''15 April.''' Obama administration pursues espionage charges against NSA [[Whistleblower Statutes|whistleblower]] Thomas Drake.<ref>https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-nsa-senior-executive-charged-illegally-retaining-classified-information-obstructing</ref> Charges were later dropped and Drake pled guilty to a misdemeanor. The judge called the government’s conduct in the case “unconscionable.”

*'''April.''' Obama Attn. Gen. Eric Holder renews a subpoena of ''New York Times'' reporter James Risen in a leak investigation. Risen and a colleague reported on warrantless wiretaps. The coverage won Risen and colleague a [[Pulitzer Prize]] for “carefully sourced stories on secret domestic eavesdropping that stirred a national debate.” The Justice Dept. opened an investigation into the wiretap stories. John Brennan played a key role in the illegal wiretap program, overseeing the production of what personnel in the program called the “scary memos” intended to justify the domestic spying exposed by Risen. Brennan later admitted that he relied on information from CIA’s torture program rather than domestic spying, which was used as a cover. In a frontpage May 13, 2004 story the torture program was exposed with Risen as the lead reporter.
[[File:Feinstein.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Sen. Diane Feinstein, Chair of the Intelligence Committee entrusted with oversight of CIA was hacked by Brennan's CIA looking into Brennan and CIA use of torture. This egregious abuse of power by the Obama Executive branch was papered over by the Democrats in the administration and Senate by having Brennan offer Feinstein an apology. No one was prosecuted. No one went to jail. No reforms were initiated or proposed in Congress.]]

===May 2010===
*'''May.''' Sixty documents disappear from the computers of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Torture Review investigation. Chairwoman Feinstein said that CIA personnel at first denied that the documents were missing, then blamed the IT contractors, then informed her it was at the behest of the [[White House]].<ref>https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/torture-report</ref>

*'''Mid May.''' Through its confidential informant the FBI could prove three extortion payments Tenam (Rosatom subsidiary) received from the informant. The informant also learned from Vadim Mikerin and others that Rosatom officials were trying to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons.

*'''14 May.''' Bill Clinton lists Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and a key Rosatom board member as one of 15 Russians he wanted to meet with. Rosatom is the parent company of Tenex, then under investigation by FBI Dir. Robert Mueller for money-laundering and extortion of American energy companies. Processing of Rosatom's request to purchase Uranium One was in the works by Hillary's State Dept. at the time.<ref>
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/356323-bill-clinton-sought-states-permission-to-meet-with-russian-nuclear</ref> Carter Page is said to have met Dvorkovich about this time as well.<ref>https://thesternfacts.com/carter-page-met-russian-politician-behind-uranium-one-deal-during-trump-campaign-10cdfa078642</ref> Clinton met with Putin and Medvedev during the excursion to Moscow, where he received $500,000 from the bank financing the Rosatom-Uranium One purchase.

*'''18 May.''' John Brennan tells a Washington conferernce including Lebanese leaders that the Obama administration is looking for ways to build up “moderate elements” within Hezbollah. “Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” saying it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and, ultimately, a political party with representatives in the Lebanese Parliament and Cabinet. “There is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing,” Brennan said. “And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”

*In practice, the administration’s willingness to envision a new role for Hezbollah, combined with Obama's desire for the Iran nuke deal, translated into a reluctance to move aggressively against the top Hezbollah operatives, according to Project Cassandra members and others.<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-usa-hezbollah/u-s-wants-to-build-up-hezbollah-moderates-adviser-idUSTRE64I0UM20100519?type=politicsNews</ref> Hezbollah was known to be selling approximately $200 million a month in illegal narcotics in the United States at this time.

*'''28 May.''' Justice Dept. applies for a warrant to obtain [[Google]] email information of Fox News reporter James Rosen without telling Rosen.<ref>http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/memorandum-and-order/169/</ref>

===June 2010===
*'''June.''' Operation Fast and Furious suspects have purchased 1,608 firearms thus far at a cost of over $1 million at [[Phoenix]]-area gun shops. ATF is aware of 179 of those weapons being found at crime scenes in [[Mexico]], and 130 in the United States.<ref>CBS</ref> As guns traced to Fast and Furious began turning up at violent crime scenes in Mexico, ATF agents stationed in Mexico voice opposition to the program.<ref name="Washington Post">Washington Post</ref>

*'''8 June.''' Uranium One announces it has signed an agreement to sell a majority stake to the mining arm of Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy agency. Uranium One's two licensed mining operations in [[Wyoming]] amount to about 20 percent of all uranium mining production capacity in the U.S, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The deal requires a [[national security]] review by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS).

*'''9 June.''' Obama administration announces $900 million in aid to a designated terror organization in [[Gaza]].<ref>A violate of section 301c of the Foreign Assistance Act.</ref><ref>[https://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/03/The-Gaza-Aid-Package-Time-to-Rethink-US-Foreign-Assistance-to-the-Palestinians The Gaza Aid Package: Time to Rethink U.S. Foreign Assistance to the Palestinians, Heritage.org, March 9, 2009]</ref><ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/09/barack-obama-gaza-israel-aid Barack Obama announces $400m aid package to Gaza and West Bank, Guardian.uk, June 9, 2010]</ref><ref>[http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=21913 Visiting journalist finds Hamas is stealing Gaza's aid, Israel Today, September 22, 2010]</ref>

*'''29 June.''' Bill Clinton receives $500,000 for a Moscow speech to Renaissance Capital in a pay-to-play bribery scam arranged by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton for State Dept. approval of Russian purchase of Uranium One, an American mining company. Clinton was thanked personally by Russian President Vladimir Putin after the speech.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?mtrref=www.breitbart.com&gwh=18536F8B60E8680A988CF8CB1C3C10B2&gwt=pay&assetType=nyt_now</ref> Renaissance Capital is a controlled entity of the Russian government. Bill & Hillary Clinton file joint taxes, are a joint economic unit, therefore any money received by one spouse is joint income to both spouses.

*'''June.''' Uranium One and Rosatom notifies Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) of the Russian government’s intent to acquire twenty percent of the United States’ uranium assets.<ref>Jo Becker and Mike McIntire, “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal,” THE NEW YORK TIMES(April 23, 2015).</ref>

===July 2010===
*'''July.''' Renaissance Bank of Moscow reportedly assigned Uranium One a “buy” rating, a move that would principally benefit its Russian investors. Later the Department of Justice investigation into Prevezon Holdings determined that $13 million from the crime that Sergei Magnitsky uncovered, exposed, and was killed over went to the bank accounts of Renaissance Capital in the [[United Kingdom]].<ref>Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, Oversight of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and Attempts to Influence U.S. Elections:
Lessons Learned from Current and Prior Administrations, Testimony from Mr. [[Bill Browder]] at 20-21 (July 27, 2017).</ref>
[[File:Abedin-weiner-wedding-bill-clinton 409.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner were wed July 10, 2010 in a ceremony officiated by former President [[Bill Clinton]].]]
*One of the nineteen guns Mexican authorities said they found at the hideout of Joaquin Guzman aka El Chapo, after his January 2016 capture, was associated with the Fast and Furious operation. The Justice Department confirmed that the .50-caliber rifle was bought in July 2010 in a straw purchase by someone not known to the ATF at the time.<ref>[http://time.com/4261176/el-chapo-hideout-gun-fast-furious/?xid=homepage Gun From El Chapo’s Hideout Linked to Fast and Furious Operation]; ''Time''; Eric Tucker & Alicia A. Caldwell; March 16, 2016</ref><ref>[https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/20/rifle-capable-taking-down-helicopter-found-at-el-chapo-hideout-purchased-through-fast-and-furious-program.html ‘Fast & Furious’ rifle capable of taking down helicopter found in 'El Chapo' cache], Fox News, January 20, 2016.</ref>

*Catherine Engelbrecht of [[Texas]] filed with the IRS seeking tax exempt status for her organizations, King Street Patriots and True the Vote. FBI makes 6 contacts with the family or the nonprofit entities over the next 18 months, including harassment from ATF and OSHA as well.

*'''10 July.''' Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner wedding.

===August 2010===
*'''16 August.''' Def. Sec. Robert Gates announces intention to resign.
*'''31 August.''' Uranium One shareholders approved ARMZ’s, a Rosatom subsidiary, acquisition of controlling interest in Uranium One.<ref>http://eng.bizmedia.kz/news/subject_of_the_day/846-rosatom-launches-global-charm-offensive.html</ref><ref>http://odysseus.prometeus.nsc.ru/science/scidig/10/sept.ssi#1</ref>
*'''August'''. The IRS distributes its first BOLO (Be on the Lookout) list to examiners nationwide. The criteria on the BOLO list were Tea Party organizations applying for section 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status.<ref>http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201310053fr.pdf</ref>
*'''August.''' [[Robert Mueller]] [[rape]] allegations first occur.<ref>https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/doc-3.jpeg?itok=HxzZqOp9</ref><ref>https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/doc-4.jpeg?itok=So4Dwaij</ref>

===September 2010===
*'''21 September.''' Internal email entitled “Obama Leak Investigations” at “global intelligence” company Stratfor claims Obama’s then-White House adviser [[John Brennan]] is targeting [[journalist]]s.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20120925054433/http://wikileaks.org:80/gifiles/docs/1210665_obama-leak-investigations-internal-use-only-pls-do-not.html</ref><ref>https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2013/05/22/wikileaks-stratfor-e-mail-brennan-behind-witch-hunt-of-journalists-reporting-leaks/</ref>
{{Quotebox|"Brennan is behind the [[witch hunt]]s of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources,” writes one Stratfor official to another. The email continues: “Note — '''There is specific tasker from the [White House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda''' (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…”}}
:“The Wonder Boys” reportedly refers to the [[National Security Agency]] (NSA).<ref>Credit:Sharyl Attkisson. https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/12/1210665_obama-leak-investigations-internal-use-only-pls-do-not.html</ref>

===October 2010===
*'''October.''' {{Quotebox|"The IRS apparently considered political speech by nonprofit groups to be so troublesome that it illegally assisted federal law-enforcement officials in assembling a massive database of the lawful political speech of thousands of American citizens, weeks before the 2010 midterm elections, using confidential taxpayer information."<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/irs-sent-massive-database-of-tax-exempt-groups-to-fbi-weeks-before-2010-election</ref>}}

*'''6 October.''' ''Washington Post'' reports {{Quotebox|Office of Intelligence Policy and Review handled applications for secret surveillance warrants in intelligence investigations. "We were separate in almost every way," said [[George Z. Toscas]], who is the deputy assistant attorney general over counterterrorism and counterespionage. The new division, launched on Sept. 26, 2006, was designed to change that. Intelligence lawyers and criminal prosecutors now work together when a threat is identified - in partnership with U.S. attorneys' offices and the FBI - in what are considered broad [[national security]] investigations. Toscas and [[Tashina Gauhar]], the deputy assistant attorney general for intelligence, have offices next to each other and say they are in constant communication. The division is the liaison between Justice Department headquarters and the [[intelligence community]].<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100600015_2.html</ref>}}

*'''22 October.''' Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) certifies to Congress sale of Uranium One to Rosatom of the Russian Federation.<ref>CFIUS Certification to Congress, Case 10-40: Rosatom (Russian Federation)/Uranium One, Inc, (October 22, 2010).</ref>

*'''26 October.''' In a campaign speech, Obama promises to "punish our enemies and reward our friends."<ref>https://youtu.be/TeT67BvYzo4</ref>

===November 2010===
*'''2 November.''' Republicans sweep Midterms. GOP gained 63 seats in the House and took control, the largest for any midterm election since 1938 in the [[Great Depression]]. All 63 seats came from wins over Democrats who voted on a straight partyline for Obamacare. The GOP also gained six seats in the U.S. Senate. In state legislatures the GOP gained 680 seats.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/11/in-redistricting-year-gop-gains-a-big-edge/66128/|title=In Redistricting Year, GOP Gains a Big Edge|date=November 4, 2010|accessdate=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/national-affairs/blogs/NationalAffairs_May2010/231048/66235|title=Four More Lessons from the GOP Landslide|date=November 4, 2010|accessdate=}}</ref><ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web|url=http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/11/devastation-gop.php|title=Devastation: GOP Picks Up 680 State Leg. Seats|date=November 4, 2010|accessdate=}}</ref> to break the previous majority record set by Democrats in the immediate post-[[Watergate Scandal]] Midterms of 1974.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> Republicans controlled 26 state legislatures, compared to 15 still by Democrats, and 29 of 50 Governorships. Obama referred to this outcome as his "shellacking".

*Sarkozy and Cameron sign Lancaster House Treaties to "develop co-operation between British and French Armed Forces, the sharing and pooling of materials and equipment including through mutual interdependence, the building of joint facilities, mutual access to each other’s defence markets, and industrial and technological co-operation."

*Berlusconi sex scandal breaks; Berlusconi responds, "It is better to be fond of beautiful girls than to be [[gay]]." The statement is offensive to Barack Obama,<ref>https://youtu.be/3QK0eGp3N6A</ref> Hillary Clinton,<ref>http://hollywoodlife.com/2013/09/19/hillary-clinton-bisexual-bill-clinton-gennifer-flowers-interview/</ref> and [[Homosexual agenda|numerous others]] in mass media.

*'''7 November.''' Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi targeted in a number of press and news articles alleging deviant sex lifestyle.<ref>https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/11/07/silvio-berlusconis-bunga-bunga-parties.html</ref>

*'''23 November.''' Hillary Clinton suggests murdering [[Julian Assange]].<ref>http://truepundit.com/under-intense-pressure-to-silence-wikileaks-secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton-proposed-drone-strike-on-julian-assange/</ref>

*'''28 November.''' Wikileaks begins publishing classified information from [[Bradley Manning]] revealing, among other matters, that the US is extensively spying on the [[United Nations]].<ref>https://www.thenation.com/article/long-list-what-we-know-thanks-private-manning/</ref>

===December 2010===
*'''14 December.''' US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and others were patrolling Peck Canyon, Santa Cruz County, Arizona 11 miles from the Mexican border. The group came across five suspected [[illegal]] [[immigrant]]s. When they fired non-lethal beanbag guns, the suspects responded with live fire. Agent Terry was killed. Four of the suspects were apprehended and two AK-47 type weapons.<ref name="Washington Post"/> The Eric Holder's office was immediately notified of the shooting incident by email.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/01/27/146010135/emails-show-how-fast-and-furious-ambush-news-unfolded-at-justice-dept Carrie Johnson, "Emails Show How 'Fast And Furious' Ambush News Unfolded At Justice Dept"]. NPR, January 27, 2012.</ref> The weapons were traced within hours to a purchase involved in the Fast and Furious operation.<ref name="Washington Post"/>

==2011==
It is clear in reading Hillary Clinton's emails that, in the glow of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Hillary embraced the call to spike the football and clearly was planning to use Libya as evidence of her leadership and skill that qualified her to become President.

The attack on US diplomats and CIA officers in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 however, destroyed that dream. The dream became a nightmare and Hillary scrambled to pretend that she was not the mover-and-shaker that destabilized Libya and made it a safe haven for [[ISIS]], uncorking the bottle for the [[European migrant crisis]].
----
2011
U.S. intel community vastly expands its surveillance authority, giving itself permission to spy on Americans who do nothing more than “mention a foreign target in a single, discrete communication.” Intel officials also begin storing and entering into a searchable database sensitive intelligence on U.S. citizens whose communications are accidentally or “incidentally” captured during surveillance of foreign targets. Prior to this point, such intelligence was supposed to be destroyed to protect the constitutional privacy rights of U.S. citizens. However, it’s required that names U.S. citizens be hidden or “masked” –even inside U.S. intel agencies –to prevent abuse.<ref>https://sharylattkisson.com/2018/05/20/collusion-against-trump-timeline/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SharylAttkisson+%28Sharyl+Attkisson%29</ref>
===January 2011===
*'''11 January.''' IRS begins 3-day on-site audit of the Engelbrechts business and personal tax returns. Catherine Engelbrecht of Texas had applied for tax exempt status for True the Vote 6 months earlier.

*'''25 January.''' First public disclosures about Operation Fast and Furious. Obama and Holder's Justice Dept. denies that guns had been deliberately allowed to walk into Mexico.<ref name="Washington Post"/><ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-on-gunwalking-serious-mistake-may-have-been-made/</ref> Altogether, about 2,000 firearms were bought by straw purchasers during Fast and Furious.<ref name="Washington Post"/><ref>Department of Justice report</ref> These included AK-47 variants, Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles, .38 caliber revolvers, and FN Five-sevens.<ref name=staffrep072611>{{cite web |title=The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Fueling Cartel Violence |url=http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/FINAL_FINAL.pdf |publisher=United States Congress |accessdate=|format=PDF}}</ref> 389 had been recovered in the US and 276 had been recovered in Mexico. The rest remained on the streets, unaccounted for.<ref name=miher1>{{cite web |last=Yost |first=Pete |title=2007 Justice memo mentioned gun-walking probe |url=https://news.yahoo.com/2007-justice-memo-mentioned-gun-walking-probe-194543784.html |publisher=Yahoo! News |accessdate=June 20, 2012}}</ref> The total number of recovered firearms was 710.<ref>Department of Justicebreport</ref> Most of the guns went to the Sinaloa drug cartel, while others made their way to El Teo and La Familia Michoacana crime organizations.<ref name="Washington Post"/><ref name="Christian Science Monitor">Christian Science Monitor</ref>

*'''26 January.''' US Treasury Dept. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designates the Hassan Ayash Exchange Company and the Ellissa Exchange Company as Significant Foreign Narcotics Traffickers under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act related to their roles in the money laundering activities of Ayman Joumaa, a Lebanese narcotics trafficker linked to Hezbollah. Joumaa is also designated as a Significant Foreign Narcotics Trafficker.

*'''27 January.''' Acting on a whistleblower tip, Grassley wrote a letter to the ATF Acting Director requesting information about the ATF-sanctioned sale of hundreds of firearms to straw purchasers. The letter mentioned a number of allegations that walked guns were used in the fight that killed Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.<ref name=azre1>{{cite web |last=Wagner |first=Dennis |title=Phoenix-area gun store, ATF sting may be linked to shootout |url=http://www.azcentral.com/community/pinal/articles/2011/02/01/20110201phoenix-gun-store-atf-sting-border-shootout.html |publisher=The Arizona Republic |accessdate=}}</ref> A second letter from Grassley on January 31 accused the ATF of targeting whistleblowers.<ref name=fox020211>{{cite news |last=Lott |first=Maxim |title=Senator Calls ATF on Allegations Agency Is Allowing Guns Into Mexico |url=https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/02/senator-calls-atf-allegations-agency-allowing-guns-mexico/ |publisher=Fox News |accessdate=|date=February 2, 2011}}</ref>

*'''January.''' Justice Dept. persuades a federal grand jury in Washington DC to subpoena Mike Levine of Fox News to learn confidential sources after reporting that several Somali-Americans were secretly indicted in [[Minneapolis]] for joining an al Qaeda-linked group in [[Somalia]].<ref name="abcnews.go.com">https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/justice-dept-vows-jail-reporters-jobs/story?id=23915952</ref>

===February 2011===
*'''2 February.''' Sen. Grassley’s investigators interview a whistleblower.<ref>https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2012/07/04/senator-grassley-reveals-damaging-fast-furious-memo/</ref>
*'''4 February.''' Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the US Attorney's Office in Phoenix, and ATF Headquarters,<ref>Department of Justice Inspector General report</ref> Ronald Weich sends a response to Sen. Grassley regarding his two January letters. Weich said claims "...that (the) ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico [are] false. ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.”<ref name=bloom120211>{{cite news |last=Salant |first=Jonathan |title=Erroneous Gun Letter Based on U.S. Attorney, Documents Show |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-02/erroneous-gun-letter-based-on-u-s-attorney-documents-show.html |publisher=Bloomberg |accessdate=|date=}}</ref><ref name=weich020411>{{cite web|last=Weich |first=Ronald |title=Letter dated February 4, 2011, from U.S. Department of Justice to Senator Charles E. Grassley |url=http://www.grassley.senate.gov/about/upload/Judiciary-ATF-02-04-11-letter-from-DOJ-deny-allegations.pdf |publisher=United States Senate |accessdate=|format=PDF |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110508031440/http://grassley.senate.gov/about/upload/Judiciary-ATF-02-04-11-letter-from-DOJ-deny-allegations.pdf |archive-date=May 8, 2011 |dead-url=yes |df=mdy }}</ref>

*'''10 February.''' US Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) identifies Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) as a financial institution of primary money laundering concern. As a result, U.S. financial institutions ended their relationships with LCB, precluding LCB from sending money to the United States. The finding was based on FinCEN’s determination that LCB was used by drug traffickers and money launderers around the world, including at least one narco-trafficker who provided financial support to Hezbollah. LCB had permitted Hezbollah-related entities to conduct massive cash transactions, in some cases as much as $260,000 and 200 million Lebanese pounds per day, without disclosing the source or purpose of the money. Hassan Ayash Exchange was LCB’s main source of U.S. currency, and LCB allowed Ellissa companies to conduct large cash transactions through the bank without sufficient oversight or disclosures about the sources and purpose of the cash.

*'''11 February.''' CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson breaks news about “Fast and Furious” on The CBS Evening News.

*'''14 February.''' Maroun Saade charged in the Southern District of New York with participating in an international drug conspiracy in West Africa and conspiring to aid the [[Taliban]]. Saade is a member of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Lebanese Christian organization closely allied with Hizballah, and has provided extensive services to Hezbollah members engaged in narcotics trafficking and bulk cash smuggling in West Africa. Saade is a close associate of Oussama Salhab, who relied on Saade to pay bribes to release money couriers arrested for smuggling cash through West Africa. Saade and Salhab are subjects of the DEA's [[Project Cassandra]] operation.

*'''15 February.''' Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata killed on Texas-Mexican border.<ref name=lat5>{{cite news |last=Serrano |first=Richard |title=Family of U.S. agent slain in Mexico demands to know gun source |url=http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/17/nation/la-na-guns-cartel-20110718 |work=Los Angeles Times |accessdate|date=July 17, 2011}}</ref><ref name=houchr1>{{cite web |last=Carroll |first=Susan |title=Slain ICE agent's family still searching for answers |url=http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Slain-ICE-agent-s-family-still-searching-for-2230738.php |work=The Houston Chronicle |accessdate=}}</ref> The gun used to kill Zapata was purchased in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Texas,<ref name=broher>{{cite web |last=Perez-Trevino |first=Emma |title=Straw purchaser of guns pleads guilty in Dallas; defendant linked to Zapata death |url=http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/ice-132901-special-jaime.html |publisher=The Brownsville Herald |accessdate=}}</ref> outside the area of responsibility for the ATF Phoenix field division<ref name=atf2>{{cite web |title=Phoenix Field Division |url=http://www.atf.gov/field/phoenix/ |publisher=ATF |accessdate=}}</ref> which conducted Fast and Furious, and then smuggled into Mexico. Congressional investigators have stated the purchaser was known by the ATF to be a straw purchaser months before he purchased the gun used to kill Zapata, leading investigators to suspect the Obama administration was conducting a Texas-based operation similar to Fast and Furious.<ref name=textri1>{{cite web |last=Titus |first=Elizabeth |title=Cornyn Presses Holder on Alleged Texas Operation |url=http://www.texastribune.org/texas-representatives-in-congress/us-congress/cornyn-wants-answers-holder-hearing/ |publisher=The Texas Tribune |accessdate=}}</ref> Another of the guns involved in the Zapata shooting traced to the "Baytown Crew", shows that guns were allowed to walk during surveillance that began June 7, 2010. On August 20, 2010, a purchaser received a rifle later recovered in the Zapata ambush and sent it with nine others to Mexico. The warrant for the purchasers arrest was issued February 14, 2011, the day before Zapata was shot.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/baytown.pdf |title=Timeline of "Baytown Crew" case. |format=PDF |date= |accessdate=|work=CBS News |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602174559/https://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/baytown.pdf |archivedate=June 2, 2013 }}</ref> On January 30, 2012, the purchaser of one of the guns in Zapata's killing, who claimed to be working with Los Zetas cartel in illegally exporting at least 44 weapons purchased through straw buyers, was sentenced to 100 months in prison.<ref>[https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57383089-10391695/second-gun-used-in-ice-agent-murder-linked-to-atf-undercover-operation/ Sharyl Attkisson, "Second gun used in ICE agent murder linked to ATF undercover operation"], CBS News, February 22, 2012.</ref>

*Italian [[Prime Minister]] [[Silvio Berlusconi]] indicted on sex charges.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/15/silvio-berlusconi-trial-teenage-sex |title=Silvio Berlusconi sent for trial accused of paying for sex with teenager |date=15 February 2011 |work=The Guardian |location=UK |accessdate= |first=John |last=Hooper}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Silvio Berlusconi faces Ruby sex charge trial in April |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12083491 |accessdate= |publisher=BBC News |date=15 February 2011}}</ref>

*'''23 February.''' Italian Foreign Minister expressed concern that the amount of Libyan refugees trying to reach Italy might reach between 200,000 and 300,000 people.<ref>{{cite news| author =Squires, Nick |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8343963/Libya-Italy-fears-300000-refugees.html |title=Libya: Italy Fears 300,000 Refugees |work =The Daily Telegraph|date=23 February 2011 |accessdate=|location=London}}</ref>

*'''25 February.''' Hillary Rodham Clinton announces the suspension of operations of the Libyan embassy in Washington.

*'''26 February.''' Hillary Clinton directs efforts to remove all US embassy personnel from Tripoli and orders the closing of the embassy.

*Hillary Clinton makes a series of calls to her foreign counterparts to help secure passage of UNSC 1970, imposing sanctions on Muamma Gaddafi and his family and refers Gaddafi and aides to the ICC.

*'''27 February.''' Transitional National Council announces in the city of Benghazi its purpose is to act as the "political face of the revolution." Spokesman made clear that the Libyan Transitional National Council was not a provisional government and added that the newly formed council was not in contact with foreign governments and did not want them to intervene.<ref>{{cite news |title=Libya Opposition Launches Council|url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011227175955221853.html |work= [[Al Jazeera]] |date=27 February 2011 |accessdate=}}</ref> He later said that an airstrike purportedly sanctioned by the UNSC 1973 would not be considered a foreign intervention.<ref>{{cite news |title=Libyan Rebels Said To Debate Seeking U.N. Airstrikes|url=http://nytimes.com/2011/03/02/world/africa/02libya.html |date=1 March 2011 |accessdate=|work= [[The New York Times]] |first1=Kareem |last1=Fahim |first2=David D. |last2=Kirkpatrick}}</ref> Vladimir Putin later reported Russian abstention from UNSC 1973 in private talks with Hillary Clinton in no way sanctioned NATO use of aggressive force.

*'''28 February.''' Hillary Clinton travels to Geneva, [[Switzerland]] for consultations with European partners on Libya. She gives a major address in which she says: "It is time for Qadhafi to go." Works to secure the suspension of Libya from membership in the Human Rights Council.

*Eric Holder requests that the Justice's Dept.'s Office of the Inspector General begin an investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.<ref name=lat122411>{{cite news |last=Serrano |first=Richard |title=Angry former ATF chief blames subordinates for Fast and Furious |url=https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fast-furious-20111225,0,3268890.story |work=Los Angeles Times |accessdate=|date=December 24, 2011}}</ref>

===March 2011===
*'''Early March.''' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appoints Special Envoy [[Chris Stevens]] to handle US operations in Benghazi.

*'''4 March.''' CBS News’ Attkisson exclusively interviews sitting [[ATF]] special agent John Dodson. He gives a firsthand account contradicting government denials regarding Fast and Furious.<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/agent-i-was-ordered-to-let-us-guns-into-mexico-03-03-2011/</ref>

*'''11 March.''' The President of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, in response to reports that the Obama administration was knowingly and willfully allowing the sale and transfer of weapons across the Mexican border announces "This is a serious violation of international law.<ref name=lat4>{{cite news |last=Murphy |first=Kim |title=Mexico lawmakers demand answers about guns smuggled under ATF's watch |url=http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/10/nation/la-na-mexico-guns-20110311-1 |work=Los Angeles Times |accessdate=|date=March 10, 2011}}</ref>

*'''13 March.''' Secretary Clinton travels to [[Paris]] for a series of meetings with foreign ministers from the Group of Eight countries. [[Bernard-Henri Levy]] is also in attendence to do introductions to the rebel group leaders.<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/did-bernard-henri-lvy-take-nato-to-war</ref> She meets with Libyan Transitional National Council leader Mahmoud Jibril and consults with other foreign counterparts on further UN Security Council action.<ref>https://anarchitext.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/bhl-war-in-libya/</ref> She secretly adds that aggressive action and not just a no-fly zone will be adequate.

*'''14-16 March.''' Sec. Clinton participates in a series of high-level video- and teleconferences. She is a leading voice for strong UNSC action in the name of a NATO "civilian protection" mission. A majority of NATO member states refuse to participate. This was not why the NATO alliance was founded or continues to exist.

*Clinton meets with Russian Foreign Minister [[Sergei Lavrov]] whose country's [[veto]] of UNSC 1973 could derail any planned intervention. Lavrov was intentially misled to believe that giving NATO a free hand in Libya could be had in exchange for a Russian free hand in Georgia and the [[Crimea]].

*'''15 March.''' Clinton speaks with Obama by phone as a “strong advocate” for U.S. intervention. Obama, who had been weighing arguments from a divided NSC for days, sides with Clinton.

*'''17 March.''' Clinton secures a deal with Russia to abstain from vetoing UNSC Resolution 1973, supposedly granting authorization to a few NATO members “to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights” and “pure no-fly zone". Only 12 of NATO's 28 members participate, changing NATOs ostensibly defensive nature, founded on the premise that an attack on one is an attack against all, to an offensive mercenary force for hire in the service of private interests and politicians' quests for approval ratings.<ref>National Security [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hillarys-war-how-conviction-replaced-skepticism-in-libya-intervention/2011/10/28/gIQAhGS7WM_story.html Hillary’s war: How conviction replaced skepticism in Libya intervention], By Joby Warrick, ''[[Washington Post]]'', October 30, 2011.</ref><ref>[http://www.europeaninstitute.org/index.php/130-european-affairs/ea-august-2011/1417-lessons-of-libya-for-future-western-military-forays LESSONS OF LIBYA FOR FUTURE WESTERN MILITARY FORAYS], By John Barry, Newsweek National Security Correspondent. europeaninstitute.org</ref>

*The resolution passes 10-0, with Russia, China, [[Germany]], Brazil and India abstaining. It authorizes a “pure no-fly zone."

*'''19 March.''' Sarkozy convenes meeting in the Westin Hotel to solicit agreement for the immediate deployment of military aircraft to stop Gaddafi's efforts to put down the rebellion in Benghazi, and the establishment of a US no-fly zone in the country.

*Before the meeting is over, French fighter planes attack Gaddafi forces outside Benghazi. Italian and Russian participants protest the French government's insistence on convening the meeting '''''before agreeing to air strikes''''', and then launching strikes '''before the meeting was over.'''

*[[Vladimir Putin]] later charges Obama and cohorts "violated the UN Security Council resolution on Libya, when instead of imposing the so-called no-fly zone over it they started bombing it too."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=AjAyCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=violated+the+UN+Security+Council+resolution+on+Libya,+when+instead+of+imposing+the+so-called+no-fly+zone+over+it+they+started+bombing+it+too.&source=bl&ots=HRqOB2VBJQ&sig=5r066oZAPgWKZIsS9B04IzMGlL8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH_5Pv69HTAhUjj1QKHZJ0CkIQ6AEIKzAF#v=onepage&q=violated%20the%20UN%20Security%20Council%20resolution%20on%20Libya%2C%20when%20instead%20of%20imposing%20the%20so-called%20no-fly%20zone%20over%20it%20they%20started%20bombing%20it%20too.&f=false]</ref>

*The early attack so upset Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who recently signed a Friendship Pact with Libya, he warned of cutting access to Italian air bases vital to French, British, and American warplanes.
[[File:Hillary email.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Hillary Clinton [[Hillary Rodham Clinton#Sexual blackmail of political opponents|used sexual blackmail]] to advance her entire career.]]
*The ''Washington Post'' says, “It nearly broke up the coalition,” according to an eyewitness. "Yet the rift was quickly patched, thanks to a frenzied lobbying effort that kept the coalition from unraveling in its opening hours. 'That,' the source said, 'was Hillary.'... She spent hours on the phone and in person with Berlusconi."<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hillarys-war-how-conviction-replaced-skepticism-in-libya-intervention/2011/10/28/gIQAhGS7WM_story.html?utm_term=.eae1c96f2b72</ref><ref>https://www.buzzfeed.com/tamerragriffin/clinton-apparently-did-a-berlusconi-impression-while-discuss?utm_term=.yomzmw2VeL#.xdPA0pxW89</ref>
{{Quotebox|**'''29 October 2013.''' At a Goldman Sachs summit Hillary recounts, "Leaders who shall remain nameless, who were characterized as vain, egotistical, power hungry, corrupt. And '''we knew they were'''. This was not fiction. And I had to go and say, you know, our ambassadors, they get carried away, they want to all be literary people. They go off on tangents. What can I say. I had grown men cry. I mean, literally." Then, in a mocking Italian accent, "''I am a friend of America, and you say these things about me.''"}}
*''Washington Post'' later reports Berlusconi "eventually provided air bases as staging grounds for attacks."

*French officials claim that meeting participants were informed of the operation. The strikes clearly had been planned and coordinated with the knowledge of the United States and UK.<ref>https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc99034/</ref>

*That night, the first U.S. air strikes halt the advance of Gaddafi's forces on Benghazi and target Libya's air defenses. Members of Libya's Christian Coptic community are later decapitated ''en masse'' once Secretary Clinton and President Obama's objectives are met.<ref>https://youtu.be/v-5WjfiIIbA</ref>

*'''21 March.''' Obama announces US forces commenced operations in [[Libya]] two days earlier, on March 19, "to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe." Sec. [[Robert Gates]] warned establishment of a no-fly zone meant attacking Libya.<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20038391-503544.html</ref> National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Deputy National Security Advisor [[Denis McDonough]] opposed attacking Libya; but [[Hillary Clinton]] "won the bureaucratic battle to use Department of Defense resources to achieve what's essentially the State Department's objective... and Obama let it happen".<ref>[http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/18/how_obama_turned_on_a_dime_toward_war How Obama turned on a dime toward war.]</ref>
[[File:Libya Rebels Gaining Momentum.jpg|thumb|President Obama armed al-Qaeda rebels who later migrated to Syria to form the Islamic State.(Photo:Reuters).]]
*[[United Nations]] Charter, Article 2(4), prohibits the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence” of a member state, and many observers object that Obama's actions violate this prohibition.

*Congressional Research Services advises that a no-fly byzone imposed against a state that has not carried out an attack on its neighbors may consider the imposition an “armed attack.” CRS warns that even if a no-fly zone does not constitute an armed attack, "that state, and other members of the international community, might consider them a violation of the prohibition of the 'threat or use of force,' as well as of the customary duty of non-intervention in the affairs of other sovereign states."

*NATO's Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee days before President Obama publicly admitted to intervention that US intelligence community knew of [[al Qaeda]] and [[Hezbollah]] elements among Libyan rebels.<ref>https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8414583/Libya-al-Qaeda-among-Libya-rebels-Nato-chief-fears.html</ref>

*'''22 March.''' Obama appears on [[Univision]] to deny that neither he nor Eric Holder authorized Operation Fast and Furious.<ref name=cbs032311>{{cite news|last=Attkisson |first=Sharyl |title=Obama on "gunwalking": Serious mistake may have been made |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20046151-10391695.html |publisher=CBS News |accessdate=|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150131005043/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-on-gunwalking-serious-mistake-may-have-been-made/ |archive-date=January 31, 2015 |dead-url=no |df=mdy }}</ref>

*'''23 March.''' Video of Berlusconi 'bunga bunga party' hits American cable news.<ref>https://video.foxnews.com/v/4603745/?#sp=show-clips</ref>

*'''24 March.''' Clinton engages with Sarkozy, Cameron, and others to secure the transition of command and control of the "civilian protection mission" to NATO. She announces the transition in a statement.

*'''26 March.''' A report from Rep. [[Dennis Kucinich]] corroborates the claim of Franco Bechis in [[Italy]] that "plans to spark the Benghazi rebellion were initiated by French intelligence services in November 2010."<ref>''[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RkUoFsgEwm8J:www.voltairenet.org/article169069.html+French+plans+to+topple+Gaddafi+on+track+since+last+November&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com French plans to topple Gaddafi on track since last November]'', by Franco Bechis, VoltaireNet, March 26, 2011.</ref>

*'''18-30 March.''' Hillary Clinton engages with [[UAE]], [[Qatar]], and [[Jordan]] to seek their participation in coalition operations. Over the course of several days, all three devote aircraft to the mission.

*'''29 March.''' Clinton travels to London for a conference on Libya, where Clinton is a '''driving force behind the creation of a Contact Group comprising 20-plus countries to coordinate efforts to "protect civilians" and plan for a post-Gaddafi Libya.''' She is instrumental in setting up a rotating chair system to ensure regional buy-in.

*Russia and China accuse US of exceeding UNSC 1973 mandate.<ref>https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/russia-china-accuse-west-exceeding-un-resolution-making-libyan-crisis-worse</ref>

*'''31 March.''' [[Reuters]] reports "President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi...Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks"<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-usa-order-idustre72t6h220110331</ref>

*'''Spring.''' Obama intel officials capture and record private communications between Rep. Kucinich, and a Libyan official.<ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/audio/kucinich-no1/</ref><ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/audio/kucinich-no2/</ref>

===April 2011===
*'''14 April.''' According to a Hillary staff email, Sec. of State Clinton travels to Berlin for NATO meetings. Clinton is '''the driving force behind NATO adopting a communiqué that calls for Gaddafi's departure as a political objective, and lays out three clear military objectives:''' (1) end of attacks and threat of attacks on civilians; (2) the removal of Gaddafi forces; (3) [redacted from original]. Germans refuse to go along.<ref>http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29143.htm</ref>
*DOJ scuttles terror financing prosecutions.<ref>https://pjmedia.com/blog/did-obama-and-holder-scuttle-terror-finance-prosecutions/</ref>

*'''15 April.''' Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Berlin conference accuses Obama administration of exceeding UNSC 1973 mandate and the agreements at the Paris summit. What started out as a mission to “protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone,” has transformed into an effort at "[[regime change]]" without having a clear understanding as to the nature of the rebel opposition.

*'''22 April.''' Amber Lyon reports on CNN violent put down of Bahrain uprising.<ref>https://youtu.be/NzyyIb5_jXA</ref>

*'''April.''' A large cache of weapons, 40 traced to Operation Fast and Furious was found in the home of a prominent Sinaloa Cartel member in Juarez, Mexico. Also found were military-grade weapons difficult to obtain legally in the US, such as an anti-aircraft machine gun and [[grenade]] launcher.<ref name=damaa>{{cite news |last=Longbottom |first=Wil |title=U.S. Attorney General issued with subpoena in probe over 'Fast and Furious' gun trafficking |url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048584/U-S-Attorney-General-issued-subpoena-probe-Fast-Furious-gun-trafficking.html |work=Daily Mail |accessdate=|location=London |date=October 13, 2011}}</ref><ref name=latc>{{cite news |last=Serrano |first=Richard |title=Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer's home |url=https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20111009,0,6431788.story |work=Los Angeles Times |accessdate=|date=October 8, 2011}}</ref>

===May 2011===
*'''3 May.''' Eric Holder testifies to the House Judiciary Committee that he did not know who approved Operation Fast and Furious, but that it was being investigated. He also states that he "probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."<ref>[http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/193481 Attorney General Eric Holder Testimony Before the House Judiciary Committee]; CSPAN; May 3, 2011.</ref> a claim which would later be questioned<ref name="hennessey1">{{cite news |last=Hennessey |first=Kathleen |title=Senate grills Holder on Fast and Furious gun-trafficking sting |url=https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fast-furious-holder-20111109,0,3203255.story |accessdate=|newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=November 9, 2011}}</ref><ref name=cbs050311>{{cite news|last=Attkisson |first=Sharyl |title=Attorney General Eric Holder grilled by Congress on ATF "Gunwalker" controversy |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20059360-10391695.html |publisher=CBS News |accessdate=|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141204081534/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/attorney-general-eric-holder-grilled-by-congress-on-atf-gunwalker-controversy/ |archive-date=December 4, 2014 |dead-url=no |df=mdy }}</ref><ref>CBS 100311</ref>

*'''5 May.''' Sec. Hillary Clinton travels to [[Rome]] for a Contact Group meeting. The Contact Group establishes a coordination system and a temporary financial mechanism to funnel money to the National Transitional Council.

*'''14 May.''' An email exchange between Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer shows they are negotiating with Tyler Drumheller to contract with Gen. David Grange to send four operatives on a week-long mission to Tunis, Tunisia, and to the border of Libya and back. Blumenthal has joined a business partnership with Clinton operative Cody Shearer, former CIA official Tyler Drumheller, and former Major General Grange in Grange’s company Osprey Global Solutions that is trying to win a contract with the Libyan jihadis to train and assist them in the Libyan war. Shearer writes, “Sid, do you think the general has to send four guys. He told us three guys yesterday, a translator and two other guys. I understand the difficulty of the mission and realize that K [a Libyan] will be repaid but I am going to need an itemized budget for these guys.”.<ref>https://www.propublica.org/article/private-emails-reveal-ex-clinton-aides-secret-spy-network</ref>

*An email from Drumheller to Blumenthal reveals that the trip will cost around $60,000 for four people, including someone named Khalifa al Sherif. This person is a secret source known as “K” in some of Blumenthal’s other Libya-related emails to Clinton. (Gawker, 3/27/2015)<ref>http://www.thompsontimeline.com/tag/cody-shearer/</ref>

*'''20 May.''' ''[[Washington Post]]'' reports Obama ignored the legal deadline set in the 1973 law that required him to obtain Congressional approval for U.S. military operations in Libya. Under the [[Nixon]]-era [[War Powers Resolution]], the president must obtain Congressional authorization of military action within 60 days, or else begin withdrawing forces.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-likely-to-miss-deadline-for-congressional-approval-of-libya-operations/2011/05/19/AFFLKn7G_story.html</ref><ref>http://lugar.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=332967&</ref><ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-obama-above-the-law/2011/05/26/AGL5zyCH_story.html</ref>

*'''29 May.''' Four Mexican Federal Police [[helicopter]]s attack a drug cartel compound, where they were met with heavy fire, including from a .50 caliber rifle. This rifle has been linked to Operation Fast and Furious.<ref name="Christian Science Monitor"/>

*'''May.''' White House recruits democratic operative Eric Schultz to promote [[fake news]] reporting on Fast and Furious and to counter House Oversight Committee’s investigative work. Schultz previously worked for Sen. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton.<ref>
http://www.studlife.com/scene/2016/04/18/wash-u-alum-deputy-press-secretary-talks-about-white-house-experiences-offers-guidance-for-job-seeking-students/</ref>

===June 2011===
*'''6 June.''' ''New York Times'' article focuses on suspicious relationships between Gulenist schools operating in Texas which have received hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded contracts to provide services to Gulen schools.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/education/07charter.html?_r=0</ref> Partnerships between the schools and contractors allow taxpayer funds to remain within the Gulen network. Teachers at the schools, many of whom are not fluent in English, are also used to help finance Fethullah Gülen's Hizmet organization. Turkish teachers are required to return a large portion of their salary to the Gulen network. One teacher according to whistleblower allegations was required to return 40 percent of his salary.

*'''8 June.''' Sec. Of State Clinton travels to [[Abu Dhabi]] for another Contact Group meeting and holds a series of intense discussions with jihadi and rebel leaders.

*'''10 June.''' Sec. Robert Gates addresses NATO summit: {{Quotebox|*NATO’s serious capability gaps and other institutional shortcomings laid bare by the Libya operation; *The military – and political – necessity of fixing these shortcomings if the transatlantic security alliance is going to be viable going forward; *And more broadly, the growing difficulty for the U.S. to sustain current support for NATO if the American taxpayer continues to carry most of the burden in the Alliance. ... "In the past, I’ve worried openly about NATO turning into a two-tiered alliance: Between members who specialize in “soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping, and talking tasks, and those conducting the “hard” combat missions. Between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership – be they security guarantees or headquarters billets – but don’t want to share the risks and the costs. This is no longer a hypothetical worry. We are there today. And it is unacceptable.... The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense. Nations apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets."<ref>http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=4839</ref>}}

*'''12 June.''' Clinton travels to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for consultations and a speech before the African Union, pressing the case for a "democratic transition" in Libya.
[[File:Eric Holder.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Eric Holder was the point man for many of the Obama administrations early nefarious activities. He resigned under a cloud.<ref>https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/judicial-watch-president-holder-resigned-over-judges-fast-furious</ref>]]
*'''14 June.''' Preliminary joint staff report released by Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley.<ref>Department of Justice</ref> Among the findings: agents were told to stand down rather than interdict weapons, they complained about the [[strategy]] and were ignored, and Fast and Furious led to increased violence and death in Mexico.<ref name=fox061511>{{cite news |last=Lajeunesse |first=William |title=House Panel Releases Scathing Report on 'Fast and Furious' Gun Operation, Sure to Anger Mexico |url=https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/14/house-panel-releases-scathing-report-on-fast-and-furious-gun-operation-sure-to/ |publisher=Fox News |accessdate=|date=June 15, 2011}}</ref> Agents were panicked, certain that "someone was going to die".<ref name=lat061411>{{cite news |last=Murphy |first=Kim |title=Report describes gun agents' 'state of panic' |url=http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/14/nation/la-na-0615-gunrunner |work=Los Angeles Times |accessdate=|date=June 14, 2011}}</ref> Some speculate the deliberate escalation of violence and gun deaths was a White House Obama administration strategy to influence public opinion in favor of gun control. Chairman Issa continues hearings in June and July where ATF officials based in Phoenix and Mexico, and at headquarters in Washington, testify before the committee.<ref name=fox061011>{{cite news |last=La Jeunesse |first=William |title=Justice Officials in 'Panic Mode' as Hearing Nears on Failed Anti-Gun Trafficking Program |url=https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/09/justice-officials-in-panic-mode-as-new-testimony-is-expected-to-reveal-depth/#ixzz1OpMAwABO |publisher=Fox News |accessdate=|date=June 10, 2011}}</ref> ATF agent John Dodson stated that he and other agents were ordered to observe the activities of gun smugglers but not to intervene. He testifies:<ref name=usat061611>{{cite news |last=Johnson |first=Kevin |title=ATF agent calls gun-tracking program a 'disaster' |url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-06-15-ATF-border-guns-hearing_n.htm |work=USA Today |accessdate=|date=June 16, 2011}}</ref><ref name=tuci061511>{{cite web |last=Holub |first=Hugh |title=Statement of John Dodson about ATF gunwalker scandal: 'The very idea of letting guns walk is unthinkable to most law enforcement.' |url=http://tucsoncitizen.com/view-from-baja-arizona/2011/06/15/statement-of-john-dodson-about-atf-gunwalker-scandal-the-very-idea-of-letting-guns-walk-is-unthinkable-to-most-law-enforcement/ |publisher=Tucson Citizen |accessdate=}}</ref>
{{quotebox|Over the course of the next 10 months that I was involved in this operation, we monitored as they purchased hand guns, AK-47 variants, and .50 caliber rifles almost daily. Rather than conduct any enforcement actions, we took notes, we recorded observations, we tracked movements of these individuals for a short time after their purchases, but nothing more. Knowing all the while, just days after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico, we still did nothing. ... I cannot begin to think of how the risk of letting guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest.}}

*''Washington Life'' magazine runs piece on Tony Podesta's home and 'philanthropy'.<ref>https://youtu.be/NHQObjFyJzM</ref><ref>https://www.sott.net/article/334002-Progressive-liberal-values-Tony-Podestas-creepy-taste-in-art-the-creepy-people-he-hangs-out-with-and-Pizzagate</ref><ref>
https://steemit.com/pizzagate/@gizmosia/art-podesta-admires-and-buys-you-may-never-sleep-well-again</ref>

*'''16 June.''' Hillary Clinton instructs Jake Sullivan to strip off classified markings from a document and send it over a non-secure server.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12605</ref>

*'''28 June.''' Obama US Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke secretly leaks sensitive government information to Fox News, to discredit ATF whistleblower John Dodson in the Fast and Furious case. Burke is former chief of staff to former Arizona Governor and then [[Homeland Security]] Sec. [[Janet Napolitano]].

*'''June.''' Terminology on the BOLO list is increased to include additional names (Patriots and 9/12 Project) as well as specific policy positions such as government spending, government debt, or taxes; or involved advocating or lobbying to "make America a better place to live"; or criticized how the country is being run; or advocated education about the [[Constitution]] and the Bill of Rights; or focused on challenging the [[Affordable Care Act]] known as Obamacare.

*'''Late June.''' Clinton meets with House Democrats and Senate Republicans to persuade them not to de-fund the Libya operation.

===July 2011===
To understand the [[Obama administration]]'s abuse of power, it helps to go back to July 2011, when DOJ Inspector General [[Michael Horowitz]] was appointed. Horowitz found his duties throttled by Attorney General Eric Holder, who placed limitations on the inspector general’s right to have unobstructed access to information. Holder used this tactic to delay Horowitz’s investigation of the failed sting operation known as [[Operation Fast and Furious]].<ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/23/obama-restricts-investigative-powers-inspectors-ge/</ref> Horowitz testified, {{quotebox|“We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. … It was simply a decision by the General Counsel’s Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren’t going to give us that information.”<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=394&v=p7Jc1BL-97w</ref>}}
----
*'''12 July.''' Obama administrations targets Iraqis with new visa and background checks after terrorists residing in Bowling Green, Kentucky were discovered.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/world/middleeast/13baghdad.html</ref>

*'''14 July.''' Sidney Blumenthal emails Clinton about a security company he's invested in called Osprey Global Solutions, headed by retired Army Major General David Grange. Blumenthal tells Clinton about Osprey’s attempt to get a contract to give “field medical help, military training, organize supplies and logistics” to Libyan rebels currently fighting Gaddafi. "Grange can train their forces and he has drawn up a plan for taking [the Libyan capitol of] Tripoli… This is a private contract. It does not involve NATO. It puts Americans in a central role without being direct battle combatants. The TNC [the rebel Transitional National Council] wants to demonstrate that they are pro-US. They see this as a significant way to do that. They are enthusiastic about this arrangement.” Furthermore, “Tyler, Cody, and I acted as honest brokers, putting this arrangement together through a series of connections, linking the Libyans to Osprey and keeping it moving.”

*Blumenthal is a private citizen, journalist, and Clinton Foundation employee at the time. “Tyler” is Tyler Drumheller, who worked for the CIA until 2005. “Cody” is Cody Shearer, a longtime [[dirty tricks]]ter for the Clintons. Blumenthal, Drumheller, and Shearer formed a business relationship to help Osprey. Clinton’s State Department would have to give its approval to a deal between this company and the Libyan rebels. (Yahoo, 10/8/2015) (US Department of State, 1/7/2016)

*'''15 July.''' Hillary Clinton travels to [[Istanbul]] and announces that the US recognizes the Transitional National Council as the legitimate government of Libya. She also secures recognition of the TNC from the other members of the Contact Group.

*'''18 July.''' Clinton sends Sec. of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, U.S. ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, and a senior director at the [[National Security Council]] Derek Chollet, to meet with Gaddafi envoys in Tunis "to deliver a clear and firm message that the only way to move forward, is for Gaddafi to step down". Libyan representatives are confused as to thinking the US had been an ally in fighting the radical Islamic jihadis the Obama administration now was supporting to overthrow Gaddafi.

*Former [[Clinton administration]] State Dept. Spokesman Jamie Rubin, husband of CNN’s [[Christiane Amanpour]] emails Hillary:
{{Quotebox|"Again, congratulations are in order...It is a pleasure to see the State Department again leading the administration on this. Syria, too... 

...the White House doesn’t seem like it cares very much. In general, the [[NSC]] seems uncomfortable with creative applications of American power and influence. And we all know the military and the [[Pentagon]] resist limited military operations, especially airpower-only engagements. So, it must be you and your colleagues at State. Well done. . . . 

... even a small success like the one that is coming in Libya will turn around the steady decline in American influence in the region and around the world. I suspect that you know this, but European elites, Gulf elites, East Europeans and many others regard the Administration as weak.}}

*'''26 July.''' A second joint staff report was released by House and Senate investigatory committees.<ref name=staffrep072611/>

*[[Sharyl Attkisson]] of [[CBS News]] reports during a Congressional hearing on [[Operation Fast and Furious]], [[ATF]] Special Agent Bill Newell tells Congress he discussed approval of the case with a White House National Security staffer as early as September 2010.<ref>Sharyl Attkisson. [https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20083772-10391695.html ATF Manager says he shared Fast and Furious Info with White House], ''[[CBS News]]'', July 26, 2011.</ref> Attkisson is later put under surveillance by the Obama administration.

*'''29 July.''' ''Reuters'' reports Goldman Sachs had purchased and stored one-quarter of global [[aluminium]] suppliers in a refurbished warehouse district of [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]];<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lme-warehousing/goldmans-new-money-machine-warehouses-idUSTRE76R3YZ20110729</ref> in 2018 President [[Donald Trump]] imposes [[tariff]]s on any further imports of aluminium.

===August 2011===
*'''Early August.''' Hillary Clinton works to construct a $1.5 billion assets package to be approved by the UNSC and sent to the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC). That package is working through its last hurdles.

*After military chief Abdel Fattah Younes is killed, Hillary's office sends a personal message to TNC head Jalil to press for a responsible investigation and a careful and inclusive approach to creating a new executive council.

*'''Early August.''' Clinton secures written pledges from the TNC to a supposed "pluralistic democratic transition". Clinton continues to consult with European and Arab colleagues on the evolving situation.

*'''10 August.''' CIA’s Threat Management conference cancelled. The conference was cancelled at the demand of Islamic groups who objected to presentations that were to be conducted by former Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence analyst and international law expert Stephen Coughlin and Steve Emerson of The Investigative Project on Terrorism. An email sent to conference registrants explained that the Department of Homeland Security would be formulating new guidelines for vetting speakers and screening presentation content.<ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/5/inside-the-ring-295822498/#pagebreak</ref>

*'''21 August.''' Jihadis enter [[Tripoli]].

*'''22 August.''' [[Sidney Blumenthal]] emails Hillary:<ref>https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23902</ref>
{{Quotebox|First, brava! This is a historic moment and you will be credited for realizing it. '''When Qaddafi himself is finally removed''', you should of course make a public statement before the cameras wherever you are, even in the driveway of your vacation house. '''You must go on camera. You must establish yourself in the historical record''' at this moment. The most important phrase is: ‘successful strategy.’ 

Just a few points:
*The US has pursued a successful strategy in Libya... This was the right course, based on our interests and principles...

*Do not skimp on the reasons in the US interest...The US has demonstrated its principled belief in the rule of law and acted on...By acting in Libya we have helped advance the cause of democracy and freedom...We have put [[Bashar al-Assad|Assad]] on notice that the sands of time have run out for him as well. Our successful strategy in Libya stands as a warning that our strategy will work again. Etc.

*Be aware that some may attempt to justify the flamingly stupid ‘leading from behind’ phrase, junior types on the NSC imagining their cleverness. To refute this passive construction on US policy and help remove it as an albatross from the administration as it enters the election year, do not be defensive but rather simply explain that the US had a clear strategy from the start, stuck with it and has succeeded.

*Then you can say whatever on future policy — but only after asserting the historic success and explaining the reasons why.

*This is a very big moment historically and for you. '''History will tell your part in it'''. You are vindicated. But don’t wait, help Clio now.” (Blumenthal’s reference to “Clio” is to the Greek muse of history.)}}

*[[Jake Sullivan]] writes "Secretary Clinton's leadership on Libya" memorandum:<ref>https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23898</ref>
{{Quotebox|[Secretary Clinton] has been a critical voice on Libya in administration deliberations, at NATO, and in contact group meetings — as well as the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya. She was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi and his regime.}}

*'''August.''' US Attorney Dennis Burke resigns while under investigation for improper [[leak]] to smear ATF [[whistleblower]] John Dodson. The Inspector General later confirms the leak.<ref>https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2013/s1305.pdf</ref>

===September 2011===
*'''3 September.''' Hillary Clinton directs Jake Sullivan and her staff to document the case of Hillary’s “brilliance” in providing leadership for the destabilization of Libya.

*'''6 September.''' David Petraeus become CIA Director, relieving Michael Morell as acting Director. Morell is immediately hired by David Rhodes, brother of Obama NSC staffer [[Ben Rhodes]] as CBS News National Security expert to spin Obama administration talk8ng points.

*'''7 September.''' bloomberg.com/news publishes:<ref>consortiumnews concludes, "This is how [[propaganda]], press manipulation and lying to the public is manufactured in Washington, DC. Hillary and her crew, with the help of Jamie Rubin, pushed the meme that Hillary, not Obama, deserved the credit for the “success” in Libya.

Absolutely. Let her have it. Hang this festering turd of a policy around Hillary’s neck. To do so is only just. She is a power hungry thug who helped cause the deaths of thousands just to advance her own vile political ambitions." https://consortiumnews.com/2016/07/07/hillary-clintons-libyan-fingerprints/?print=print</ref>

{{Quotebox|'''Hillary Clinton Deserves Credit for U.S. Role in Libya:''' 

View By the Editors – 

The unsung hero of the Libya drama in the U.S. is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s actions were critical for several reasons. Most important, she overcame Defense Secretary [[Robert Gates]]’s caution about using military force in Libya and his reluctance to support an operation led by France and Britain. ... 

Despite the unusual arrangement in which the U.S. was a supporter rather than a leader of NATO’s military operation, she defended intervention before a skeptical Congress and performed the hard slog of daily diplomacy ... 

...the decision to support NATO military action in Libya is probably the Obama administration’s most important achievement in international affairs. Although ... the country is a long way from having a stable, representative government...

History will surely judge that, by intervening on the side of the rebellion, the West — primarily the governments of France, the U.K. and the U.S. — made a unique and invaluable contribution ... That said, the Obama administration’s decision-making process remains opaque. ... 

...by breaking with Gates, Clinton tipped the balance within the administration in favor of action. Without her strong argument ... Washington probably would not have acted. '''The president’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, was declaring freedom in Libya to be outside the U.S. national interest, and both military and civilian officials in the Pentagon were reluctant to endorse or even opposed U.S. intervention. But Clinton’s push... appears to have been decisive.''' 

...Congress not only opposed sending in ground troops but mostly opposed any U.S. involvement. Obama wisely resisted. 

“For better or worse, the Libya model is not likely to be repeated anytime soon. This is not, as some say, because NATO will never again intervene in a situation like Libya’s. After the Kosovo war, many also said NATO would never again act against a dictator to save lives.

...'''Think about the conditions: ... a rebel army on the ground sought democratic change and espoused Western values;''' the UN at least loosely endorsed NATO air operations; ...'''Given those circumstances, it is still hard to explain why there were determined opponents, primarily in the [[Republican Party]],''' to this mission in the first place. 

'''Throughout most of Obama’s term in office, only a few administration officials have commanded respect and political power on national security matters: Clinton, Gates and General [[David Petraeus]], the most decorated and admired officer of recent times. With Gates now gone and Petraeus in a non-policy role as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Clinton’s power will only increase as the president’s re-election campaign heats up'''. We hope she recognizes her opportunity and uses it well.}}

*'''10 September.''' Blumenthal emails Hillary, "Per our conversation. Jamie [Rubin] writes editorial... Sid", and includes text of Rubin's ''Bloomberg'' editorial.

*'''11 September.''' Mexican government states that an undisclosed number of guns found at about 170 crime scenes were linked to Operation Fast and Furious.<ref name=lat091111>{{cite news |last=Serrano |first=Richard A. |title=Gun store owner had misgivings about ATF sting |url=https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110912,0,7686272,full.story |accessdate=|newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=September 11, 2011}}</ref> House Oversight Committee on Government Operstions estimates that more than 200 Mexicans were killed by guns linked to the White House program.<ref>{{cite news |title=200 mexicanos murieron por armas de 'Rápido y Furioso': congresista de EU |url=http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2011/10/28/200-mexicanos-murieron-por-armas-de-rapido-y-furioso-congresista-de-eu |newspaper=CNN Mexico |date=October 28, 2011}}</ref>

*'''19 September.''' Mexican officials state they still have not been informed by the Obama administration about Operation Fast and Furious, neither has the administration offered apologizies for allowing the illegal transfer of guns across the border.<ref>http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/19/world/la-fg-mexico-fast-furious-20110920</ref>

*Chihuahua state prosecutor Patricia Gonzalez, who worked closely with the US for years, said, "The basic ineptitude of these officials [who ordered the Fast and Furious operation] caused the death of my brother and surely thousands more victims." Her brother had been kidnapped, tortured and killed by cartel hit men in October 2010. Later, two AK-47 rifles found among the several weapons recovered after a gunfight between police and cartel members were traced to the Fast and Furious program.<ref>https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0726/How-Mexican-killers-got-US-guns-from-Fast-and-Furious-operation</ref><ref>LA Times</ref>

*'''23 September.''' Amber Lyon reports on CNN the lethal use of tear gas in [[Bahrain]].<ref>https://youtu.be/y221Y8CymxU</ref>

*'''September.''' White House operative Eric Schultz invites Attkisson and several other national journalists to off the record background briefing about Fast and Furious documents subpoenaed by Congress. Later, on the phone, Shultz screams and cusses at Attkisson as she asks questions raised by the Fast and Furious documents.<ref>http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40095.htm</ref><ref>https://ethicsalarms.com/2014/10/26/american-journalisms-integrity-death-spiral-part-i-illegal-voters-and-stonewalled/</ref><ref>http://nypost.com/2014/10/25/former-cbs-reporter-explains-how-the-liberal-media-protects-obama/</ref>

*'''Late September.''' A series of articles by Spencer Ackerman at WIRED Magazine claim counter-terrorism trainers and materials used by the FBI are promoting “[[Islamophobia]]!.” Ackerman targets books in the library at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Individuals inside U.S. government agencies targeted by Ackerman's articles are prohibited from speaking publicly in defense of themselves and their work.<ref>https://www.wired.com/author/spencer-ackerman/page/66/</ref> “The Purge” continues apace.<ref>http://unconstrainedanalytics.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CT-Training-Purge-w70217.pdf</ref>

===October 2011===
*'''3 October.''' Obama administration secretly changes longstanding policy. The change creates a “loophole” that Sen. [[Ron Wyden]] of the Intelligence Committee later says '''allows the NSA to conduct “backdoor searches” or “incidental collection” of US citizens’''' domestic communications.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls</ref>

*CBS News airs Sharyl Attkisson’s report on newly uncovered memos contradicting Attn. Gen. Eric Holders’ denials about Fast and Furious.<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/memos-contradict-holder-on-fast-and-furious/</ref>

*'''4 October.''' In an internal email, Attn. Gen. Eric Holder’s top press aide Tracy Schmaler emails White House operative Eric Schultz calling Attkisson “out of control.” Schultz replies, “Her piece was really bad for the AG.”<ref>http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/control/ p.764 pdf</ref>

*'''6 October.''' Mexican newspaper ''Reforma'' accuses the Obama administration of violating Mexican [[sovereignty]]. "In sum, the gringo government has been sending weapons to Mexico in a premeditated and systematic manner, knowing that their destinations were Mexican criminal organizations."<ref>http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/10/mexico-wide-receiver-reaction-guns-weapons-left-right.html</ref>

*'''30 October.''' Hillary tells ''Washington Post'', in a piece entitled ''Hillary’s War,'' “we set into motion a policy that was on the right side of history, on the right side of our values, on the right side of our strategic interests in the region.”<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hillarys-war-how-conviction-replaced-skepticism-in-libya-intervention/2011/10/28/gIQAhGS7WM_story.html?utm_term=.2a71e7324056</ref>

*'''October.''' Documents showing that Eric Holder's office had been sent briefings on Operation Fast and Furious as early as July 2010, prompted questions about his May 2011 statement that he had known about it for only a few weeks.<ref>{{cite news|last=Attkisson |first=Sharyl |title=ATF Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010 |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20115038-10391695.html |publisher=CBS News |accessdate=|dead-url=no |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131217111017/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/atf-fast-and-furious-new-documents-show-attorney-general-eric-holder-was-briefed-in-july-2010/ |archive-date=December 17, 2013 |df=mdy }}</ref>

===November 2011===
*'''8 November.''' Attorney General Eric Holder stated for the first time in Congressional testimony that "gunwalking" was used in Operation Fast and Furious. He stated that his office had inaccurately described the program in previous letters sent to Congress, but that this was unintentional. He said he and other top officials had been unaware that the "gunwalking" was used. "Those things were not brought to my attention, and my staff, I think, made the correct decision in that regard."<ref name="hennessey1"/><ref name=cbs110811>{{cite news |last=Attkisson |first=Sharyl |title=Eric Holder calls "gunwalking" unacceptable, regrets tactic as part of Fast and Furious |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57321065-10391695/eric-holder-calls-gunwalking-unacceptable-regrets-tactic-as-part-of-fast-and-furious/?tag=contentMain;contentAux |publisher=CBS News |accessdate=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/assets/news/2012/01/DOJdocs.pdf |title=Holder emails |format=PDF |date= |accessdate=}}</ref>

*'''23 November.''' Ayman Joumaa, a Lebanese narcotics trafficker linked to Hezbollah, is indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia on charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and conspiracy to commit money laundering related to drug trafficking by [[Mexican]] and [[Colombia]]n drug cartels. Joumaa is a target of the DEA's Project Cassandra.

*'''November.''' Ex-US Attorney Burke admitted to leaking sensitive documents about ATF agent and whistleblower Dodson. Sen. Grassley expressed concern that the Justice Dept. was using Burke as the fallguy to protect higher officials and vowed to continue his probe.<ref>[http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/11/09/20111109burke-admits-leaking-whistle-blowers-records.html Dennis Wagner, "Ex-U.S. Attorney Burke admits to leaking whistle-blower's records"] The Arizona Republic, November 10, 2011.</ref>

*CIA Director Gen. [[David Petraeus]], who’s married, allegedly begins an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. The FBI would later say it “stumbled” upon evidence of the affair incidentally during an unspecified, much broader investigation.

===December 2011===
*'''2 December.''' Justice Dept. formally withdraws its reply to Sen. Grassley from February 4, 2011, denying gunwalking due to inaccuracies.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/12/02/143067851/justice-withdraws-inaccurate-fast-and-furious-letter-it-sent-to-congress Carrie Johnson, "Justice Withdraws Inaccurate 'Fast And Furious' Letter It Sent To Congress"] NPR, December 2, 2011.</ref>
*'''15 December.''' Preet Bharara and the DEA Administrator announce civil suit seeking $483,142,568 from the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) and two Lebanese exchange houses—the Hassan Ayash Exchange Company and Ellissa Holding—and their related subsidiaries and affiliates for facilitating a massive Hezbollah money laundering scheme.

*As part of the scheme, funds were wired from Lebanon to the United States to buy used cars, which were then transported to [[West Africa]]. Cash from the sale of the cars, along with proceeds of narcotics trafficking, were then funneled to Lebanon through Hezbollah-controlled money laundering channels. Substantial portions of the cash were paid to Hezbollah, which the U.S. Department of State designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997.

*The complaint alleges that the assets of LCB, the Hassan Ayash Exchange and Ellissa Holding, along with the assets of approximately 30 U.S. car buyers and a U.S. shipping company and related entities that facilitated the scheme, are forfeitable as the proceeds of violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), together with executive orders and [[U.S. Department of the Treasury]] regulations, and as property involved in and the proceeds of money laundering offenses.

*U.S. Attorney Bharara said: “The intricate scheme laid out in today’s complaint reveals the deviously creative ways that terrorist organizations are funding themselves and moving their money, and it puts into stark relief the nexus between narcotics trafficking and terrorism. Today, we are putting a stranglehold on a major source of that funding by disrupting a vast and far-flung network that spanned three continents. Together with our law enforcement partners in the U.S. and around the globe, our commitment to disrupting and dismantling Hizballah and other terrorist organizations is unwavering.”

*DEA Administrator Leonhart said: “DEA and its partners have exposed the Lebanese Canadian Bank as a major money laundering source for Hizballah. The connection between drug traffickers and terror networks is evident. By attacking the financial networks of those who wish to harm innocent Americans, DEA is strengthening national security and making our citizens safer.”

==2012==
:{{See also|FISA abuse timeline}}
By 2012 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both were running for president, Obama for re-election in 2012, Hillary to succeed him in 2016. Removing dictators in the [[Arab Spring]] was intended to give the impetus to both. But the Benghazi fiasco of September derailed Hillary's chances of remaining on in the State Department in Obama's second term, exposing covert operations, and slowed the progress of overthrowing Assad.

Nevertheless, Hillary established an important donor base in the Middle East who had provided funds for the removal of Assad and Gadaffi,<ref>http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/04/2012412022613580.html</ref> then had a stake in seeing Hillary's election in 2016 through contributions to the [[Clinton Foundation]].<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign-charity.html</ref>

The failure of the quick removal of Assad, along with Obama's complete disengagement of US troops from Iraq earlier, led to the unanticipated rise of the Islamic State in 2014, which further highlighted the failure of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, and weakened Hillary's 2016 prospects.
----
In the Spring of 2017 Chief [[FISA Court]] Judge Rosemary Collyer found that the [[Obama administration]] had been abusing the NSA FISA 702 database since President Obama's re-election in 2012.

The FISA 702 database consists of US Persons - American citizens residing inside or outside the United States, as well as non-citizens visiting or residing in the United States who are afforded [[Fourth Amendment]] protection from unlawful searches. FISA 702 database queries are strictly regulated. US Persons can sometimes be caught up in surveillance activities of foreign agents, terrorists, and criminal gangs while not being the target. Their names are to be masked in reports circulated within the government. The Obama administration targeted thousands of US persons - American citizens mostly - without [[probable cause]] for a period of more than four years. Judge Collyer found that these victims unmasked names and personal information (phone contacts, email, texts, banking and any other electronic information) was funneled to outside contractors - internet firms and opposition researchers, likely [[Crowdstrike]], [[FusionGPS]] and others. The victims of Obama civil rights abuses were targeted as part of a program of opposition political research. [[Robert Mueller]] was the FBI director at the time the massive violation of American citizen's [[Constitutional rights]] began.

Obama implemented the very system of an oppressive [[police state]] that Obama later argued made [[Vladimir Putin]] so evil.

===February 2012===
*'''8 February.''' FBI Dir. [[Robert Mueller]] meets with representatives from ISNA, MPAC, and other Islamic organizations to discuss purging 'Islamophobic' materials from FBI training manuals.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20120216025316/http:/www.isna.net/articles/News/ISNA--Nat-Orgs-Meet-with-FBI-Dir-to-Discuss-Biased-FBI-Training-Materials.aspx</ref> ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) has been identified by DOJ in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial of 2007-2008 as a front for international terrorist organizations. MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council) has been criticized for publications defending terrorist organizations. Dr. [[Sebastian Gorka]] is among those individuals blacklisted by these organizations and the FBI.
[[File:C9Pak4-W0AIldKy (1).jpg|right|350px|thumb|Jake Sullivan<ref>
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/a-conversation-with-jake-sullivan-video/</ref> to Hillary Clinton: Al Qaeda is on our side.]]
*'''12 February.''' Deputy Assistant to President Barack Obama,<ref>Jake Sullivan b. 1976. Sullivan, who was 35 years old at the time is presumably one of the "35-year-old PhDs who love to talk, because that's the way you let everybody know how smart you are, is how much you talk." Sec. Hagel continues, "[Obama] has a staff around him that's very inexperienced. I don't think there's one veteran on his senior staff at the White House. I don't believe there's one business person. I don't believe there's one person who's ever run anything. Other than [[Vice President Biden]], none of them have ever been elected to anything." Sec. Gates criticized "staffers calling senior commanders out in the field and asking them questions, of second guessing commanders...I told my combatant commanders and field commanders … if you get calls from … the president, that's one thing. But if you get a call from some White House or National Security Council staffer, you tell them to call me instead, and then tell them, by the way, go to hell." Hagel also criticized Susan Rice's approach and subservience to Obama. https://youtu.be/GPPx83VoLyY </ref> emails Sec. Clinton to notify her "[Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria. Otherwise, things have basically turned out as expected;"<ref>https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/852266094379380738/photo/1 </ref> the only legal basis Obama has for the use force (2001 AUMF) is to destroy Al Qaeda and associated groups.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-perils-of-president-obamas-latest-undeclared-war/413566/ </ref>

*'''13 February.''' Remote hackers secretly download new spy software proprietary to a federal agency onto Sharyl Attkisson’s CBS work computer. The software was secretly attached to a legitimate Hotmail email and downloaded in the background after a pop-up ad appeared.

*'''February.''' Catherine Engelbrecht of Texas receives third request for information from the IRS for True the Vote; King Street Patriots receives its first request. The questionaires had “hundreds of questions — hundreds and hundreds of questions. ”The '''IRS requested every [[Facebook]] post and [[Tweet]] she had ever written'''. She received questions about her family, whether she’d ever run for political office, and which organizations she had spoken to. The same day the Engelbrechts received the questions from the IRS, the [[Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives]] (ATF) showed up to inspect their machine shop for the production of firearms, which they do not manufacture. The inspection took all day.

*IRS abuses hit the media for the first time but attract little attention.

===March 2012===
*'''9 March.''' Politico reports: {{Quotebox|President Obama called Russian President-elect and Prime Minister Putin to congratulate him on his recent victory in the Russian Presidential election. President Obama highlighted achievements in U.S.-Russia relations over the past three years with President Medvedev, including cooperation on Afghanistan, the conclusion and ratification of the START agreement, Russia’s recent invitation to join the [[World Trade Organization]] (WTO) and cooperation on Iran. President Obama and President-Elect Putin agreed that the successful reset in relations should be built upon during the coming years. The President said that he looked forward to hosting President-Elect Putin at the G-8 Summit in May at Camp David. The two leaders outlined areas for future cooperation, including strengthening trade and investment relations arising out of Russia’s pending accession to the WTO. President Obama and President-Elect Putin agreed to continue discussions on areas where the United States and Russia have differed, including Syria aand missile defense. President Obama and President-Elect Putin agreed to continue their efforts to find common ground and remove obstacles to better relations.”<ref>https://www.politico.com/politico44/whiteboard/2012/3/Readout_of_Obama_s_call_with_Russia_s_Putin.html</ref>}}
*'''22 March.''' IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman testifies before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight that there was "absolutely no targeting" by the IRS of conservative and/or Tea Party organizations.

*'''23 March.''' FBI officials meet with House Judiciary Committee attorneys and staffers to discuss new revised FBI training manuals. The ''FBI’s Guiding Principles'' document spells out policy for selecting Islamic partners to oversee new and updated training materials, including recognition of the "principle that mere association with organizations that demonstrate both legitimate (advocacy) and illicit (violent extremism) objectives should not automatically result in a determination that the associated individual is acting in furtherance of the organization’s illicit objective(s)."<ref>
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2014/03/26/a-detailed-look-at-the-purge-of-u-s-counter-terrorism-training-by-the-obama-administration</ref>

===April 2012===
*'''2 April.''' After a sixteen-month court battle, Justice Dept. withdraws subpeoana for Mike Levin related to the Minneapolis Somali case. Justice Dept. admits it was an abuse of power to intimidate witnesses to give testimony.<ref name="abcnews.go.com"/> As in the Risen case of the ''New York Times'', it is easier for prosecutors to coerce testimony from a journalist by threats of imprisonment in order to convict a leaker, rather than put government eavesdroppers on the witness stand who gathered the actual evidence first hand with a duly authorized warrant. The government's fear is, too much information about sources and methods could leak out under cross examination of an accuser who is a simply a technician tasked with surveillance, if the accused's [[due process]] rights under the [[Sixth Amendment]]—the right to face one's accusers, were honored.

*'''7 April.''' Justice Dept. publicly announces vast expansion of cyber related efforts to address alleged “national security-related cyber issues.”<ref>https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/new-network-takes-aim-cyber-threats-national-security</ref> FBI announces same program 12 April.<ref>https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/cybersecurity-responding-to-the-threat-of-cyber-crime-and-terrorism</ref><ref>http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28897&start=75#p417915</ref>

*'''19 April.''' National Organization for Marriage Human Rights Campaign announced that IRS disclosed copies of their tax returns to Obama political allies. IRS later admitted to theft of government property and paid damages for illegal disclosure to unauthorized persons of a citizen's confidential information.<ref>http://www.nomblog.com/39390/</ref>

*'''20 April.''' Charterschoolwatchdog.org estimates that 149 Gullenist charter schools in the US have received $472,500,000 annually in taxpayer financing (45,000 students enrolled paid an average of $10,500 per student). Additionally, a one-time cost of about $2,362,500 in immigration fees for roughly 945 Turkish/foreign-born H1-B visa holders as teachers at the existing schools.<ref>http://www.charterschoolwatchdog.com/a-half-a-billion-dollars.html</ref>

*'''23 April.''' [week of 22-29]. 18328 Wikileaks Hillary Clinton email archive. NEW IRAN AND SYRIA 2.DOC. Lays out justification and strategy for the anti-Assad campaign.<ref>The document reads in part: "Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of
both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about -- but cannot talk about -- is losing their nuclear monopoly. An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would not only end that nuclear monopoly but could also prompt other adversaries, like Saudi Arabia and [[Egypt]], to go nuclear as well. The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today."https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/18328 </ref>
[[File:Blumenthal-hillary-kupchan.jpeg|right|300px|thumb|Blumenthal to Hillary: “My friend Charles Kupchan quickly provided some contact information (in Ukraine). Charlie is now a professor at Georgetown University. If you need more contacts I can get them from friends in Paris”.<ref>https://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/eric-ciaramellas-schiffs-whistleblower-has-ties-to-susan-rice-joe-biden-124122/</ref>]]
*'''26 April.''' Blumenthal email to Hillary:
{{quotebox|“My friend Charles Kupchan quickly provided some contact information (in Ukraine). Charlie is now a professor at Georgetown University. If you need more contacts I can get them from friends in Paris”.<ref>https://twitter.com/JPMediaBoss/status/1186402201209409536</ref>}}

*'''27 April.''' Lackland Airforce Base, San Antonio TX, used to house undocumented immigrants caught at the southern border.<ref>http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/A-look-inside-the-temporary-shelter-at-Lackland-3513770.php</ref> Many illegals say, "Obama said it was ok to come."<ref>https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxrz-5t5pmA</ref>

*'''April.''' Michael E. Horowitz appointed head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) after the Obama administration hobbled the OIG's investigative powers in 2011 during the Fast and Furious scandal. The changes forced the various Inspectors General for all government agencies to request information while conducting investigations, as opposed to the authority to demand it. This allows Holder and other agency heads to bog down OIG requests in bureaucratic red tape, and in some cases, deny them outright.

===May 2012===
*'''3 May.''' Chairman Issa releases a memorandum to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform including a draft resolution to hold Eric Holder in contempt.<ref>{{cite web |title=Update on Operation Fast and Furious |url=http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Update-on-Fast-and-Furious-with-attachment-FINAL.pdf |last=Issa |first=Darrell |author-link=Darrell Issa |date=May 3, 2012 |accessdate=|format=PDF}}</ref> Issa describes the connection between Operation Fast and Furious and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) program since at least January 2009 when President Obama took office, which would involve multiple executive agencies including the ATF, DOJ, DEA, FBI, ICE, and [[DHS]]. The memo questions how, why, or if oversight by high level Justice Department officials did not occur in such an important case. He further describes the tragic death of Brian Terry, the whistleblowers and their mistreatment, and the damage the operation had to US-Mexico relations.

*'''11 May.''' ''The Wall Street Journal'' publishes an article entitled, '' The President's Hit List.'' "[[Idaho]] businessman Frank VanderSloot has become the target of a smear campaign since it was disclosed earlier this year that he had donated $1 million to a super PAC supporting Mr. Romney. President Obama's campaign website teed him up in April as one of eight "less than reputable" Romney donors and a "bitter foe of the [[gay rights]] movement." One sin: His wife donated to an anti-[[gay marriage|gay-marriage]] campaign, of the kind that have passed in 30 or so states. Now we learn that little more than a week after that Presidential posting, a former Democratic Senate staffer called the courthouse in Mr. VanderSloot's home town of Idaho Falls seeking his [[divorce]] records. Ms. Strassel traced the operative, Michael Wolf, to a Washington, D.C. outfit called Fusion GPS that says it is "a commercial research firm."<ref>http://www.fusiongps.com</ref>

*Fusion GPS is run by a former Wall Street Journal reporter, [[Glenn Simpson]], who wouldn't say who is paying him for this high-minded slumming but said in an email that Mr. VanderSloot was a "legitimate" target because of "his record on [[homosexual agenda|gay issues]]."<ref>https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304203604577397031654422966</ref> FusionGPS is the same oufit that later produces the ''Steele dossier''.

*'''12 May.''' The [[Associated Press]] publishes a story based on leaks of FISA information about a CIA operation which foiled a terrorist plot to detonate an explosive device on a commercial airline.<ref name="RC-Ingram">{{cite web|last=Ingram|first=David|title=Associated Press says U.S. government seized journalists' phone records|publisher=Reuters Canada|date=May 13, 2013|url=http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE94C0ZW20130513|accessdate=}}</ref><ref>https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/7642013923154527618802.pdf</ref> Justice Dept. secretly seizes personal and phone records Associated Press journalists from Verizon for the monthes of April and May 2012 in a leak investigation.

*[[Michelle Obama]] refers to [[Kenya]] as Barack Obama's homeland in public speech.<ref name="youtu.be">https://youtu.be/6M7Rp_Ghv6k</ref>

*'''13 May.''' [[60 Minutes]] report of Gulinist movement schools in America.<ref>https://youtu.be/ktl--IDnM7I</ref>
[[File:Clinton Roh.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Bill Clinton meets with Stephan Roh. Roh is a part owner of Link University where Prof. [[Joseph Mifsud]] is employed.]]
*'''18 May.''' Bill Clinton meets with [[Stephan Roh]] at the CDGC Annual Meeting in [[Vienna]], [[Austria]].<ref>https://mobile.twitter.com/rising_serpent/status/977020213559484416</ref>

===June 2012===
*'''4 June.''' Inspector General informs Treasury Department general counsel he will be investigating the IRS's targeting of conservative groups.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/us/politics/irs-scandal-congressional-hearings.html?hp&_r=1&</ref>

*'''19 June.''' Hillary Clinton opposes Russian sanctions and supports collusion with Putin.<ref>https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303836404577475061208876588</ref>

*'''20 June.''' President Obama invokes [[executive privilege]] over Operation Fast and Furious documents.

*House Oversight and Government Reform Committee votes to recommend to the full Congress that Attorney General Eric Holder be held in contempt. At issue were 1,300 pages of documents that had been subpoenaed eight months earlier.<ref name=usat062012>{{cite news |last=Jackson |first=David |title=Obama claims executive privilege; Holder held in contempt |url=http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/06/obama-team-fast-and-furious-documents-are-privileged/1#.T-I8kpGnfqs |accessdate=|newspaper=USA Today |date=June 20, 2012}}</ref><ref name=abc062012>{{cite news |last=Dwyer |first=Devin |title=Committee Votes Attorney General Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress After Obama Asserts Executive Privilege |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/committee-votes-attorney-general-eric-holder-contempt-congress/story?id=16610619 |accessdate=|publisher=ABC News |date=June 20, 2012|author2=Parkinson, John R.}}</ref>

*Chairman Issa says that Obama's claim of executive privilege is a cover-up and obstruction of a congressional investigation. Chairman Issa states the Justice Dept. identified "140,000 pages of documents and communications responsive to the committee's subpoena".<ref>[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/26/issa-obama-executive-privilege-claim-either-cover-/ Issa: Obama executive privilege claim is cover-up or obstruction]; Washington Times; June 26, 2012</ref>

*'''21 June.''' ''Foreign Policy'' magazine publishes article, ''Abandoning Sergei Magnitsky: Why is Hillary Clinton giving up on human rights in Russia?''<ref>https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/06/21/abandoning-sergei-magnitsky/</ref>

*'''22 June.''' [[Judicial Watch]] files [[FOIA]] request with Justice Dept. for materials denied House Oversight Committee by Obama's claim of executive priviege.

*'''28 June.''' Attorney General [[Eric Holder]] held in contempt by full Congress over his failure to submit documents to Oversight Committee in the Fast and Furious [[scandal]]. This is the first time Congress has ever taken such a dramatic step against a sitting Cabinet official. Ordinarily the Justice Dept. would prosecute cases of contempt of Congress.

*'''June.''' Holder secretly initiates investigations into AP and the ''New York Times'' regarding government leaks.

===July 2012===
*'''July.''' Justice Dept. designates US Attorneys’ offices as “force multipliers” in further stepped-up cyber efforts in the name of national security.

*Hackers remotely “refresh” ongoing surveillance of Attkisson’s CBS News laptop.

*Occupational Safety and Health Administration pays a visit to Engelbrecht Manufacturing and inspects the premises minutely fing minor infractions. OSHA fines totaled $25,000.

*Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) inquiry begins.

*'''1 July.''' Sec. Hillary Clinton emails Pres. Barack Obama from Russia using her private unsecure email account.<ref>https://www.scribd.com/document/322851482/Hillary-Clinton-FBI-302-V2-6 pg.2</ref>

*'''20 July.''' Uranium One paid The Podesta Group $40,000 to lobby the State Department, the Senate, the National Park Service and the [[National Security Council]] for “international mining projects” according to a filing.<ref name="soprweb.senate.gov">https://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=2a6bc321-f7aa-413d-bd53-3b1f96b7f6e7&filingTypeID=62</ref><ref>https://dailycaller.com/2015/04/29/firm-co-founded-by-hillarys-campaign-chair-lobbies-for-russias-uranium-one/</ref>

*'''25 July.''' In Afghanistan, a US Chinook helicopter is shot down with a new generation of US Stinger missile procured by the [[Taliban]] from Qatar. A serial number from the missile casing is recovered, tracing the Stinger's origin to a lot disbursed to the CIA which the CIA delivered to Qatar intended for Libya and Syria during the early days of the Libyan war. Hillary Clinton's State Dept. & Brennan's CIA jointly ran the covert weapons supply program.<ref>http://nypost.com/2014/06/08/how-the-taliban-got-their-hands-on-modern-us-missiles/</ref> Some of the Stinger's that Qater illegally transferred to the Taliban may have been recovered in a trade for 5 Taliban commanders released from Guantanamo. DIA chief Mike Flynn is outraged at the findings of the DIA investigation, that US weapons supplied by Obama/Hillary/Brennan's covert assistance to jihadis is used to kill Americans.

*'''Summer.''' FBI 'incidentally' stumbles across emails revealing CIA Dir. Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Broadwell. FBI Dir. [[Robert Mueller]] is notified of the affair on a date the government will not disclose. The FBI later says it interviewed Petraeus and Broadwell, and concluded national security hasn’t been breached. The FBI keeps all of this information secret.<ref>https://sharylattkisson.com/obama-era-surveillance-timeline/</ref>

*In late summer, on a date the government won’t reveal, the FBI notifies Attn. Gen. Holder of the Petraeus affair.

===August 2012===
*'''1 August.''' ''Huff Post'' reports Obama issued a secret Presidential Finding earlier in the year authorising transfer of captured weapons from Libya to Syria.<ref>https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/obama-secret-syria-order_n_1730712.html?tw_p=twt</ref> Amb. [[Christopher Stevens]] put in charge of the covert operation. The aim is to arm jihadist groups which transformed themselves into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to overthrow [[Bashar al Assad]].

*'''20 August.''' [[Paul]] Combatta]] of Platte River Networks (PRN) creates carterheavyindustries@gmail.com, a Chinese company.

*'''29 August.''' Trump tweets, "What a coincidence--Michelle Obama called Kenya @BarackObama's "homeland" in 2008 <nowiki>http://bit.ly/U8uNH0</nowiki>"<ref name="youtu.be"/>

===September 2012===
*'''11 September.''' [[Benghazi massacre]] on the 11th anniversary of the [[9/11 attacks]].
[[File:Benghazi attack.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Amb. Stevens was specifically in Benghazi to oversee and facilitate transfer of captured weapons from the Gadaffi regime to groups in Syria which ultimately became the [[Islamic State]]. Few people had knowledge of this program beyond Stevens, Clinton, and Obama. Once the mission was completed, Stevens was expendable.<ref>https://www.amazon.com/REAL-Benghazi-Story-White-Hillary/dp/1531817130</ref>]]
*Some Obama officials become frustrated with CIA Dir. Petraeus as he opposes efforts to edit out mentions of terrorism from the public Benghazi talking points. Petraeus deputy Mike Morell is given authority over the edits, and aligns with Hillary Clinton’s State Department against Petraeus’s desires.

*'''14 September.''' The Benghazi "talking points" were born out of a request from Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, ranking [[Democrat]] on the [[House Intelligence Committee]]. CIA Dir. David Petraeus had just given a classified briefing to Ruppersberger and other Intelligence Committee members. A source who was present said that following the briefing, "Ruppersberger wanted to know 'what can I say on TV'?"<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/officials-on-benghazi-we-made-mistakes-but-without-malice/2/</ref>

:*Deputy National Security Advisor [[Ben Rhodes]] emailed that there would be a Deputies meeting the next morning to work out the issues.

:*The administration's "Dream Team" to write the talking points to fool Congress on Benghazi. The "Dream Team" consisted of: Maj. Gen. Darryl Roberson, Vice Dir. of Operations, Joint Staff; Matt Olson, Dir. of the National Counterterrorism Center; [[Hillary Rodham Clinton#FBI paid off|Andy McCabe]], Asst. Dir. of Counterterrorism for the FBI, later involved in the [[Hillary Clinton email scandal#Terry McAuliffe and the FBI|Hillary Clinton email]] coverup investigation; and Linda Weissgold from CIA Office of Terrorism Analysis (OTA).<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/officials-on-benghazi-we-made-mistakes-but-without-malice/</ref>

:*Linda Weissgold testified she changed one such talking point to say that extremists in Benghazi with ties to al Qaeda were involved in “protests,” despite the fact that no such protests had occurred on the day of the attack.<ref>https://www.weeklystandard.com/mcmaster-interviewed-cia-operative-to-replace-trump-nsc-official/article/2007219</ref>

:*The final version called the attacks "demonstrations" that "evolved" after being "spontaneously inspired" by protest at the US Embassy in [[Cairo]]. All mentions of terrorism, al Qaeda and previous warnings given by the CIA had been excised.

*'''16 September.''' Susan Rice appears on 5 Sunday talk shows to put out a [[fake news]] narrative that the Benghazi massacre was a "spontaneous demonstration" rather than a terrorist attack.<ref>https://youtu.be/uFf0dUH3OtU</ref> The [[Presidential Election 2012|presidential election]] is less than two months away, and the White House is fearful of upsetting President Obama's chance of winning by giving the public the truth.

[[File:Obama UN.jpg|right|275px|thumb|Obama crowing just days after the murder of Americans, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."]]
*'''25 September.''' Days afterthe [[Benghazi massacre]], Obama crows from rostrum oft the United Nations, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."<ref>http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obamafuture.asp</ref>
:*'''1MDB scandal.''' Obama says in UN speech, "We see it in Malaysia, where vibrant entrepreneurship is propelling a former colony into the ranks of advanced economies."

*'''September.''' Sen. [[Barbara Boxer]] writes to [[Thomas Perez]], then the assistant attorney general for civil rights, now DNC chair. “As you know, an organization called ‘True the Vote,’ which is an offshoot of the Tea Party, is leading a [[voter suppression]] campaign in many states...this type of intimidation must stop."

===October 2012===
*'''1 October.''' Univision reports that the guns used in the January 2010 Villas de Salvárcar massacre originated from Obama's Operation Fast and Furious.<ref>http://www.univision.com/shows/aqui-y-ahora/operacion-rapido-y-furioso-armando-al-enemigo-parte-1-la-masacre-de-salvarcar-video</ref> The head of the La Linea drug cartel who ordered the executions in a plea agreement with Mexican prosecutors later admitted that he participated in the murder of U.S. consulate employee Arthur Redelfs and his wife and a car bombing that killed four Mexican police officers. The drug boss was linked to "1,500 murders since 2008," according to the plea document.<ref>''[[Associated Press]]'' and ''[[Daily Mail]]'' reporter. "[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211289/Operation-Fast-Furious-Guns-failed-gun-program-used-2010-Mexico-massacre.html Revealed: Operation Fast and Furious guns used in 2010 Mexico massacre of 16 people - including 14 TEENS]". ''[[Daily Mail]]''. October 1, 2012. Retrieved on October 6, 2014.</ref>

*'''2 October.''' Sec. Hillary Clinton announces her selection of appointees to an Accountability Review Board (ARB), which will conduct an internal review and whitewash of the Benghazi massacre. The board begins work the same week. Clinton ultimately will never be interviewed by the Accountability investigators.

*Amber Lyon reports on her firing from CNN for reporting on Bahrain, and CNN's censorship of Bahrain's suppression of the [[Shia]] uprising there.<ref>https://youtu.be/BO-TyETzNO8</ref>

*'''3 October.''' Sec. Hillary Clinton responds to question at press conference, "I believe that our diplomats, our leaders, and the American people deserve a rigorous, serious, careful process."

*'''15 October.''' Hillary Clinton first acknowledges that the State Dept. considered using outside assets to rescue Amb. Stevens and those under siege in Benghazi, but decided against it: "Well we considered everything and, um, we did as you know send additional assets from Tripoli. But it was a fast moving, very difficult assault to try to figure out. As you know, the assault on the post ended, there was a gap of time, then the assault on the annex, um, so everybody who had any responsibility was scrambling very hard to figure out what more could be done." Clinton said they did not send assets from outside Libya "partly because of the difficulties of trying to do that...but I think all of this will be examined in the Accountability Review Board because after all we have this independent board to sort through everything." The Accountability Review Board never spoke with Clinton.

*'''16 October.''' President Obama issues top secret presidential directive on ordering intelligence officials to draw up a list of overseas targets for cyberattacks. According to ''The Guardian'', the directive also “contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US.”

*'''19 October.''' In the weeks before his murder, Amb. Stevens sent the State Dept. several requests for increased security for diplomats in Libya, CBS News' Attkisson reports.

*'''20 October.''' Attkisson reports no outside US military help was sent to Benghazi despite the presence of a major naval air base in Sigonella, [[Italy]], less than one hour's flight away.

*'''23 October.''' Sharyl Attkisson obtains some of the Obama administrations's first internal emergency alerts sent during the Benghazi attack. As the assault began, at 4:05 p.m. ET on September 11, an alert from the State Dept. Operations Center was issued to various government emergency watch lists including the White House Situation Room, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI. Entitled "''US Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack''," the alert reports "approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four COM (Chief of Mission/embassy) personnel are in the compound safe haven."

*Another alert an hour later reports: "the firing... has stopped...A response team is on site attempting to locate COM personnel."

*At 6:07 p.m. ET, an alert was sent with the subject heading "''Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibilty for Benghazi Attack''." The US Embassy in Tripoli, says the alert, reports the group "claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli." That alert was sent around midnight in Benghazi, hours before the wave of mortar attacks against the CIA Benghazi annex began.

*'''October.''' CBS begins airing Attkisson’s Benghazi stories which rely on whistleblowers and numerous government-linked confidential sources. These sources report that the [[Executive Branch]] is clamping down on leaks to reporters regarding the Benghazi massacre.

*Justice Dept. continues its stepped-up National Security Division cyber efforts, holding specialized training at DOJ headquarters for the National Security Cyber Specialists (NSCS) network and the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS).

*As CIA Dir. Petraeus’s interagency relationships deteriorate over his refusal to go along with White House and State Dept. Benghazi talking points, unnamed FBI agents reach out to Republicans in Congress to tell about Petraeus’s affair. They eventually land at the office of Republican majority leader Eric Cantor. With the presidential elections about a week away, Cantor stays mum on the Petraeus rumors and instead contacts the FBI about them.

*The FBI interviews Petraeus and Broadwell a second time.

*Rep. Elijah Cummings attacked True the Vote in a letter. He wrote that “some have suggested that your true goal is not voter integrity, but voter suppression against thousands of legitimate voters who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.” He added that: “If these efforts are intentional, politically motivated, and widespread across multiple states, they could amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.” He also decried True the Vote on MSNBC and CNN. Catherine Engelbrecht says she believes that because she worked against voter fraud, she was targeted. The Engelbrecht continue receiving harassment by the Obama administration and after three years their non profit status remains unapproved.<ref>
https://www.nationalreview.com/article/348756/true-scandal-jillian-kay-melchior</ref>

===November 2012===
*'''1 November.''' CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports that the Obama administration did not convene an emergency meeting of the Counterterrorism Security Group during the Benghazi attack. Attkisson also reports on a draft letter obtained by ForeignPolicy.com, written the very day of the Benghazi attack, that someone on the US team in Benghazi spotted a member of the local police photographing the inside of the US mission. The letter, intended for the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Benghazi, called for an investigation. Another draft letter written two days before complained of an inadequate local police presence around the compound, requested ahead of Amb. Chris Stevens' arrival.

*'''2 November.''' FBI questions Obama’s vice chair of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] James Cartwright in a leak investigation regarding material in a book written by a ''New York Times'' reporter. Cartwright denies being the source, but later admits he was, and is convicted in the case.

*'''6 November.''' Obama elected to second term. His opponent [[Mitt Romney]] does not allege any improper surveillance of Romney's campaign. Republicans retain control of House Oversight Committee investigating IRS abuse.

*Officials claim this day is the first time Dir. of National Intelligence [[James Clapper]] is notified about the Petraeus affair by an unspecified official at the Justice Dept. Clapper calls Petraeus and urges him to resign.

*'''7-9 November.''' Attn. Gen. Eric Holder hosts a national training conference at Justice Dept. headquarters for the expanded efforts of DOJ’s National Security Cyber Specialists (NSCS).

*Obama administration says somebody notifies somebody at the White House about the Petraeus affair on Nov. 7. The President is reportedly looped in for the first time on Nov. 8.

*'''8 November.''' Senate Intelligence Committee schedules closed hearing on the Benghazi attack November 15. Among those called to testify are CIA Dir. Gen. David Petraeus.

*'''9 November.''' CIA Dir. Gen. Petraeus resigns under threat of prosecution by Eric Holder's Justice Dept.

*'''11 November.''' Shulman steps down as IRS Commissioner.

*'''13 November.''' FBI initiates a body of cyber security case investigations that would later relate to Attkisson’s computer intrusions.

*'''16 November.''' Gen. Petraeus gives closed-door briefings to Congress on the Benghazi attack, and when exactly U.S. officials knew there were terrorists involved. After the hearing, members emerge saying CIA talking points on the attack were altered.

[[File:Susan Rice, BHO, Hillary.JPG|right|200px|thumb|Obama, Clinton, and Rice, three of a half dozen or so main plotters.]]
*'''19 November.''' Dana Milbank of the ''Wahington Post'' writes, "President Obama had a rare “bring-it-on” moment...'If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me...For them to go after the U.N. ambassador . . . and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous.' ... Obama’s over-the-top defense of Rice was surprising...'''She is ill-equipped to be the nation’s top diplomat.'''...The '''Russian business daily ''Kommersant'' quoted an anonymous Russian foreign ministry official as saying that Rice, who quarreled with [[Russia]] over [[Syria]], is “too ambitious and aggressive,” and her appointment would make it “more difficult for [[Moscow]] to work with [[Washington DC|Washington]].”''' ...in her much-criticized TV performance, '''she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted''' by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s ''[[Face the Nation]]'' just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” '''Rice rebutted the [[Libya]]n official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning'''. True, '''Rice was following orders from the White House, which she does well'''. But the nation’s top diplomat '''needs to show more sensitivity and independence''' — traits Clinton has demonstrated in abundance. Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.<ref>The article states, "Rice has managed to make an impressive array of enemies ...when she was an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, she appalled colleagues by flipping her middle finger at [[Richard Holbrooke]] during a meeting with senior staff at the State Department, according to witnesses. Colleagues talk of shouting matches and insults. Among those she has insulted is the woman she would replace at State. Rice was one of the first former Clinton administration officials to defect to Obama’s primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Rice condemned Clinton’s [[Iraq]] and [[Iran]] positions, asking for an “explanation of how and why she got those critical judgments wrong.” Clinton got a measure of revenge in 2010 after she worked out a deal with the Russian foreign minister on a package of Iran sanctions to be adopted by the U.N. Security Council. The White House wanted Rice to make the announcement (part of a campaign to increase her profile that included high-visibility foreign trips and TV appearances), but a Clinton aide got Kerry to ask Clinton about the matter during an unrelated Senate hearing...It was Rice’s own shoot-first tendency that caused her to be benched as a spokesman for the Obama campaign for a time in 2008. She unnerved European allies when she denounced as “counterproductive” and “self-defeating” the U.N. policy that Iran suspend its nuclear program before talks can begin. She criticized President [[George W. Bush]] and McCain because they “insisted” on it. But, as The Post’s Glenn Kessler pointed out at the time, European diplomats were rattled by such remarks because the precondition was their idea. Rice’s pugilism provoked the Russians to weigh in this week in opposition to her nomination as secretary of state."
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1112/milbank111912.php3#.WOvs0_9MHMI</ref>

*A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said, "The talking points about the intelligence assessment that Amb. Rice used were produced by the intelligence community. Officials determined that the unclassified points should use the broader term 'extremists' when referring to those responsible for the attack."

*'''27 November.''' Susan Rice meets with Sens. [[John McCain]] and [[Lindsey Graham]] on Capitol Hill to explain her initial remarks on the Benghazi attack. Graham said afterword he was "more disturbed now than I was before," and McCain said he was "significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get."

*'''29 November.''' ''Washington Post'' reports Susan Rice's net worth at $20 million. Rice is a career civil servant.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/susan-rice-not-your-typical-diplomat/2012/11/29/c83ac58c-3a6e-11e2-a263-f0ebffed2f15_story.html?utm_term=.0ad1efc38c87</ref>

===December 2012===
*'''14 December.''' President Obama signs the Magnitsky Act.<ref>https://www.ft.com/content/e18677dc-54d8-11e2-a628-00144feab49a</ref> [[John McCain]] is a chief sponsor.<ref>
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/1476755744</ref> Russian parliament retaliates banning Americans from adopting Russian children. [[European Union]] stymied, under pressure from the US to pass similar legislation, but with much closer social and economic ties to Russia, fails to act. The incident is seen by some as a provocation for a new, brewing Cold War.

*'''22 December.''' Egyptian magazine ''Rose El-Youssef'' publishes expose of 6 highly placed [[Muslim Brotherhood]] operatives in Obama White House.<ref>https://www.investigativeproject.org/3868/a-man-and-6-of-the-brotherhood-in-the-white-house</ref>
*'''27 December.''' Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, publicly warn of the “back-door search loophole” or "incidental" collection of innocent Americans. Udall says,
{{Quotebox|As it is written, there is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls or e-mails of specific Americans.}}

*'''December.''' Two intelligence-connected sources separately suggest to Attkisson that she’s likely under government surveillance due to her reporting. One source tells her the government has pushed the envelope like never before and that the public would be shocked to “learn the extent that the government is conducting surveillance of private citizens.”

==2013==
One of the focal points of the Snowden documents is not so much the technical marvels of intelligence collectors, rather the existence of, and extent to which intelligence agencies worldwide share information through cooperative sharing agreements (also known as 'shell game eavesdropping' or 'third party relationships').<ref>https://theintercept.com/document/2014/03/13/third-party-relationships/%20/?Edi</ref> While the programs are billed as efforts to fight terrorism, international drug cartels, money laundering, and safeguard national security, they exist and function only on the basis of circumventing national laws in the respective countries whose agencies cooperate in the efforts.
[[File:Full-spectrum-cyber-effects-final-p4-large.gif|right|300px|thumb|US Government document from 2010 part of the Snowden leaks and sharing agreements with the UK. The [[Five Eyes]] program of the English speaking world (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) use [[social media]] for “propaganda,” “deception,” “mass messaging,” “pushing stories”, and "discrediting” the intelligence agencies' enemies with false information spread online.<ref>https://theintercept.com/document/2014/04/04/full-spectrum-cyber-effects/</ref>]]
Fort Meade, MD, for instance, home of the NSA which has the technical ability to monitor and spy on any American with an Obama phone or flat screen TV in their living room, cannot do so without probable cause or a warrant. So two employees of the UK's GCHQ in residence standby at the ready to man the helm and perform the operation ''legally'' under the guise of international intelligence sharing and national security.<ref>https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0614/Another-US-UK-special-relationship-between-intelligence-services</ref>

While the United States possessed greater capacity and resources in surveillance technology, the United Kingdom was less scrupulous in violating privacy rights and civil rights, and more aggressive in cyber attacks and the use of fake news to discredit and harass their political enemies, including domestic opponents. Under Obama, the marriage of passive surveillance and active cyber warfare against political opponents accelerated, with both the UK and US extending cooperative agreements and technology to other third party agencies [[globalism|globally]].
----
The ''Washington Post'' reported that by 2013, Obama’s ''Presidential Daily Briefing'' (PDB) was making its way to more than 30 recipients, including the president’s top strategic communications aide and speechwriter, and deputy secretaries of national security departments. The PBD is an example of a SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. An originating intelligence agency holds the proprietary intelligence they create in their SCIF. They may also receive intelligence products created for them by other agencies, which they will also host in their unique SCIF. Thus, intelligence is compartmentalized. The White House has their own SCIF which holds intelligence products they would create (very little), or intelligence products created for them (the vast majority). The PDB as a whole product would only exist in the White House SCIF. Parts of the PDB would be hosted by the originating participant, for example the NSA, FBI, DOJ, DoD, CIA, State Dept. etc., but only the White House is supposed to have the fully assembled product. Only a few people could traditionally access the full PDB. However, under President Obama the President’s Daily Brief went to almost everyone at top levels in his administration. Regarding the Obama PDB:
{{Quotebox|"But while through most of its history the document has been marked “For the President’s Eyes Only,” the PDB has never gone to the president alone. The most restricted dissemination was in the early 1970s, when the book went only to President [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Henry Kissinger]], who was dual-hatted as [[national security adviser]] and secretary of state.
In other administrations, the circle of readers has also included the vice president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with additional White House staffers.<ref>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-presidents-daily-brief/2016/12/29/eeb4bbec-c862-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?utm_term=.7590754fb293</ref>}}
----
The Department of Justice, Southern District of New York, announced an indictment against a Russian operative, Evgeny Buryakov. Carter Page was working as an “under-cover employee” (UCE) of the FBI, helping to build a case against Evgeny Buryakov.
----
[[FusionGPS]] was retained by a law firm to assist with representation of a Russian defendant in a civil forfeiture case arising out of alleged money laundering activities uncovered by the late Sergei Magnitsky (whose name was subsequently given to the U.S. human rights law, the [[Magnitsky Act]]). [[Glenn Simpson]] acknowledged that the [[Kremlin]]'s interests in the case were aligned with his client and against the [[U.S. Government]]. Russian lawyer [[Natalia Veselnitskaya]] hired the law firm for which Simpson was working, and that firm retained the services of Russian-American lobbyist [[Rinat Akhmetshin]], both of whom attended a meeting at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016.
----
===January 2013===
*'''17 January.''' Clinton operative [[Cody Shearer]] sends [[Sidney Blumenthal]] a clearly classified document in an email. The subject heading for the email is: “Sid – This is Classified.” There is no text, but a document is attached called “Washington,_DC_Itinerary_for_D.doc.” Blumenthal has no security clearance to receive classified information.<ref>
https://www.weeklystandard.com/meet-the-men-behind-hillary-clintons-private-spy-network/article/901675</ref>

*'''21 January.''' Obama re-inaugurated for second term.

*'''23 January.''' Obama administration prosecutes CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou<ref>https://shadowproof.com/2017/01/25/around-empire-episode-6-inside-cias-war-trump-feat-john-kiriakou/</ref> for leaks to a reporter. Kiriakou blew the whistle on the CIA torture program. Kiriakou the first CIA officer convicted of providing classified information to a reporter.

*'''29 January.''' FBI press release on convictions of two Bowling Green terrorists. “Using our growing suite of investigative and intelligence capabilities, FBI agents and analysts assigned to our Bowling Green Office were able to neutralize a potential threat." The FBI is the only federal agency able to match fingerprints on an exploded IED found in Iraq with a person residing in Bowling Green, KY.<ref>https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/louisville/press-releases/2013/former-iraqi-terrorists-living-in-kentucky-sentenced-for-terrorist-activities</ref>

===February 2013===
*'''Febtuary.''' [[Maxine Waters]] said, {{Quotebox|"The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life. That’s going to be very, very powerful. That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”<ref>https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=49a_1360284775</ref>}}

===March 2013===
*'''3 March.''' The Smoking Gun website breaks the story of Hillary Clinton's illegal webserver.<ref>Hacker Begins Distributing Confidential Memos Sent To Hillary Clinton On Libya, Benghazi Attack, The Smoking Gun (Mar. 18, 2013), http://thesmokinggun.com/buster/sidney-blumenthal/hacker-distributes-memos-784091. Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail draws scrutiny. The Smoking Gun (Mar. 3, 2015), http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/hrc-e-mails.</ref>

*'''5 March.''' CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports some of the first revelations on "who changed the Benghazi talking points." One source who reviewed the documents said removal of the word "al Qaeda" from the talking points was initiated by one of the "press shops." The source said press officers from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the White House and the FBI were "looped in" from the start and that some of them expressed concerns in writing that the media would ask follow up questions if certain words or phrases were used. The source added that the [[Director of National Intelligence]] James Clapper and then-Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell were included in these emails. A DNI spokesman acknowledged that press officers from his agency and other agencies were looped in and took part in the talking points exchanges, but he said "no press officers suggested the edits of the specific words 'al Qaeda.'"

*'''7 March.''' Senate confirms [[John Brennan]] as CIA Director. Brennan is now in charge of writing the CIA's response to torture allegations in the Senate Intelligence Oversight Torture report which implicates Brennan.<ref>https://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324034804578346692855187354</ref>

*'''12 March.''' In public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee [[Democrat]]ic Sen. [[Ron Wyden]] asked Obama Director of National Intelligence ([[DNI]]) James Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans?" Clapper replied, “No sir. Not wittingly."<ref>https://youtu.be/nsmo0hUWJ08</ref>

*'''14 March.''' CBS News reports Libyan and US investigators have been questioning a suspect long affiliated with the [[Libyan Islamic Fighting Group]] (LIFG), and is believed to have connections to other [[Islamist]] [[radical]]s. LIGF is one of the main terror groups the Obama administration funded.

*'''22 March''' “Guccifer” hacks Clinton’s emails via Clinton aide’s account. This showed that Clinton had received sensitive, confidential information on what was later revealed to be the private server she improperly used for government business.

*'''28 March.''' State Department email from Baxter Hunt to a number of officials including then-U.S. Foreign Service Officer John Tefft (who would go on to be U.S. Ambassador to Russia in 2014) and State Department Director for the Office of Eastern Europe Alexander Kasanof, Hunt writes: {{quotebox|See below, I also stressed to them the need for GOU [Government of Ukraine] to take concrete steps to get new SBA with IMF and avoid PFC/loss of GSP. [[Podesta Group]] is noted among host of Ukraine lobbyists in article I’ll forward in article on low side. *Ben Chang and Mark Tavlarides of the Podesta Group, which is representing the [[Party of Regions]], told us they were working with Klyuyev on a visit he plans to make to Washington in early May. They are working to broaden the POR’s contacts on the Hill, including setting up a meeting for Klyuyev with Chris Smith, and have advised Kyiv to stop trying to justify their actions against [[Tymoshenko]] in Washington. They also noted that during his recent meeting with former EC President Prodi, HFAC Chairman Ed Royce said that Congress would not be enacting sanctions legislation against Ukraine.<ref>http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/JW-v-State-Podesta-records-02489-1.pdf</ref>}} The Podesta Group was owned by and employed John and [[Tony Podesta]] in 2013. [[John Podesta]] was Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential campaign manager. The Party of Regions is the Putin-controlled group, according to Special Counsel [[Robert Mueller]]'s 2017 indictment of [[Paul Manafort]]. Tymoshenko, who served several years in prison on corruption charges, including murder, was sprung from prison after the Obama-sponsored coup that overthrew the democratically elected regime and brought a [[nationalist]] and neo-[[fascist]] regime to power. The criminal code was revised by the new regime to exonerate Tymoshenko. Obama campaign consultants from 2008 managed Tymoshenko's 2010 election campaign for the presidency of the Ukraine.<ref>https://www.politico.com/story/2009/11/obama-consultants-land-abroad-029410</ref>

*'''March.''' CIA awards a $600 million contract to Amazon Web Services for a computing cloud system which would allow all 17 agencies of the US intelligence community to coordinate and share information.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/</ref> The General Accounting Office found the deal violated the open bidding process, but a federal court stood by CIA's action.

*A computer technician employed by Hillary Clinton deletes emails from her server atter a congressional subpoena had been issued for them, and lied to the FBI during his interviews, memos show. The witness's name was redacted from documents released by the FBI but he was identified as an employee of a computer firm that helped maintained Clinton’s email server.

===April 2013===
*'''12 April.''' The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court secretly approves the latest FBI request to continue obtaining daily telephone records of millions of Verizon customers.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order</ref> The judge orders Verizon to turn over the information to the National Security Agency (NSA). This directly contradicts Clapper’s March 12 testimony to Congress.

*'''15 April.''' Boston Marathon bombing. Two immigant Russian Muslim brothers - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan - were responsible for the bombing. The brothers wanted to defend Islam from the U.S., accusing the U.S. of conducting the [[Iraq War]] and [[Afghan War]] against Muslims.<ref name="AutoLC-98" /><ref name="CNN220130423" /><ref name="AutoG4-3" /> A CBS report revealed that Dzhokhar had scrawled a note with a marker on the interior wall of the boat where he was hiding; the note stated that the bombings were "retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq", and called the Boston victims "collateral damage", "in the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in U.S. wars around the world."<ref name="cbs20130516" /><ref name="consortium_mcgovern">{{cite web|url=http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/17/boston-suspects-writing-on-the-wall/|title=Boston Suspect’s Writing on the Wall|work=consortiumnews.com|accessdate=April 8, 2015}}</ref> Photographs of the note were later used in the trial.<ref name="CBS Local Boston">{{cite news|work=CBS Local Boston|url=http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/03/10/jury-in-boston-bombing-trial-sees-photos-of-writing-in-boat/|accessdate=March 12, 2017|title=Boston Marathon Bombing Trial Jury Sees Photos Of Tsarnaev Boat Note|date=March 10, 2015}}</ref><ref name=NYT20130516>{{cite news|title=Note by Boston Bombing Suspect Sheds Light on Motive, Officials Say|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/us/boston-bombing-developments.html|newspaper=The New York Times | first1=Scott|last1=Shane|first2=Ellen|last2=Barry|date=May 16, 2013 |accessdate= April 11, 2015}}</ref>

*Dzhokhar said that he and his brother wanted to defend Islam from the U.S., accusing the U.S. of conducting the [[Iraq War]] and [[Afghan War]] against Muslims.<ref name="AutoLC-98" /><ref name="CNN220130423" /><ref name="AutoG4-3" /> A CBS report revealed that Dzhokhar had scrawled a note with a marker on the interior wall of the boat where he was hiding; the note stated that the bombings were "retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq", and called the Boston victims "collateral damage", "in the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in U.S. wars around the world."<ref name="cbs20130516" /><ref name="consortium_mcgovern"/> Photographs of the note were later used in the trial.<ref name="CBS Local Boston"/><ref name="NYT20130516"/>

*Russian President [[Vladimir Putin]] condemned the bombing as a "barbaric crime" and "stressed that the Russian Federation will be ready, if necessary, to assist in the U.S. authorities' investigation."<ref name="AutoLC-150" /> He urged closer cooperation of security services with Western partners.<ref name="AutoLC-151" /> Other Russian authorities and mass media blamed the U.S. authorities for negligence as they warned the US of the Tsarnaevs.<ref name="Russia-could">{{cite web|url=http://www.rg.ru/2013/04/26/mnenie-site.html |script-title = ru:Россия могла предотвратить теракт в Бостоне |trans-title=Russia could have prevented a terrorist attack in Boston|author=Shestakov, Yevgeny|work=Rossiyskaya Gazeta|date=April 26, 2013|accessdate= April 11, 2015|language=Russian}}</ref> Moreover, Russian authorities and mass media since the Spring of 2014 blame USA for politically motivated false information about lack of response from Russian authorities after subsequent U.S. requests. As proof a letter from the Russian [[Federal Security Service]] (FSB) was shown to the members of an official U.S. Congressional delegation to Moscow during their visit. This letter with information about Tsarnaev (including his biography details, connections and phone number) had been sent from FSB to FBI and CIA during March 2011.<ref name="Russia-blame-again">{{cite web|url=http://ria.ru/boston_terror/20140410/1003329322.html |script-title = ru:Эксперт: обвинения США по делу Царнаева политически мотивированы|trans-title=Expert: U.S. blame around Tsarnaev case are politically motivated|author=Korotchenko, Igor|work=RIA Novosti |date=April 10, 2014|accessdate= April 11, 2015|language=Russian}}</ref>

*Sens. [[Saxby Chambliss]] and [[Richard Burr]] reported that Russian authorities had separately asked both the FBI (at least twice: during March and November 2011) and the CIA (September 2011) to look carefully into Tamerlan Tsarnaev and provide more information about him back to Russia.<ref name="BG-RUS">{{cite web|url= https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/04/23/russia-contacted-fbi-multiple-times-concerns-about-alleged-boston-marathon-bomber/ND0bhUdq1Tp1mRuC8xlb8N/story.html |title = Russia contacted US government ‘multiple’ times|author1=Bender, Bryan |author2= Bierman, Noah|work=The Boston Globe|date= April 23, 2013|accessdate=March 27, 2017}}</ref><ref name="RT-RUS">{{cite web|url=http://rt.com/usa/fbi-boston-senate-hearing-263/ |title= Senate grills FBI over Boston bombings intel failures|work=RT|date=April 23, 2013|accessdate= April 11, 2015}}</ref> Russian [[Federal Security Service]] (FSB) secretly recorded phone conversations between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother (they vaguely and indirectly discussed [[jihad]]) and sent these to the FBI as evidence of possible extremist links within the family.<ref name="Boston-RUSS">{{cite web|url= http://rt.com/usa/tsarnaev-mother-wiretap-jihad-519/ |title=
Caught on Russian wiretap: Tsarnaev ‘vaguely discussed jihad’ with mother – US official|date=April 28, 2013|work=RT|accessdate=March 27, 2017}}</ref> However, while Russia offered US intelligence services warnings that Tsarnaev planned to link up with extremist groups abroad, an FBI investigation yielded no evidence to support those claims at the time.<ref>{{cite news|last=Radia|first=Kirit|title=Lawmakers Traveling to Russia to Investigate Boston Bombing|url=https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/05/lawmakers-traveling-to-russia-to-investigate-boston-bombing/|newspaper=ABC News|date=May 21, 2013 |accessdate= April 11, 2015}}</ref>

*'''17 April.''' CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports that the House Oversight Committee sent letters to the three federal agencies—the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department—in response to new whistleblower revelations on the Benghazi attacks. The letters instruct how whistleblowers are to be able to share sensitive or classified information with their own attorneys, and ask for each agency's official description of the legal steps that process must follow. The letters also state that additional witnesses may be "compelled by subpoena to give testimony."

*'''23 April.''' Five House Committees issue interim report on Benghazi attacks naming Sec.of State Hillary Clinton and other Obama administration officials responsible for reducing security levels at the consulate, contradicting testimony Hillary Clinton gave under oath before Congress. The report issued by the Armed Services, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight and Government Reform Committees reaches three major conclusions:

*First, Clinton approved security reductions at the consulate, pointing to an April 2012 State Dept. cable bearing her signature. The cable was a formal request from then-Amb.Cretz for more security. In her testimony before Congress in January, Clinton said, "With specific security requests they didn't come to me. I had no knowledge of them."

*The report charges that White House and senior State Dept. officials attempted to protect the State Dept. from criticism by altering accurate talking points drafted by Gen. Petraeus and the intelligence community. The report says that, after a Sept. 15, 2012 meeting, administration officials removed references to the likely participation of [[Islamic]] [[extremist]]s.

*The report contradicts Obama administration claims that the talking points were altered to protect classified information. None of the emails reviewed ever mentioned a concern about classified information.

*'''30 April.''' Attorney for a whistleblower on the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi says the Obama administration is impeding her clients and others' efforts to speak.<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/benghazi-whistleblowers-still-waiting-to-tell-their-story/</ref>

*McCain subcommittee staff director [[Henry Kerner]] urged IRS to engage in “financially ruinous” targeting of [[Tea Party]] groups.<ref>https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-obtains-irs-documents-revealing-mccains-subcommittee-staff-director-urged-irs-to-engage-in-financially-ruinous-targeting/?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=press%20release</ref>

*'''April.''' A secret memo later exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden discusses how the US, along with Brirish intelligence, is collecting information “directly from the servers of …Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html?hpid=z1&utm_term=.c188c8af0ba0</ref>

*Foundation for Open Society [[Macedonia]] (FOSM) is awarded 18 USAID grants by the US State Dept.;<ref>http://soros.org.mk/en/Home/NewsAndActivity?newsID=660&catID=7&pageIndex=1&month=10&year=0&additionalID=73</ref> FOSM is a Soros-run foundation. Recipients of grants in Macedonia are known as 'Soros army'. Soros is later accused of wanting to destroy Macedonia, its name, language, and identity."<ref>http://katehon.com/article/george-soros-wants-destroy-macedonia-its-name-language-and-identity</ref> Obama and Soros have been accused of interfering in Macedonia's [[democracy|democratic]] process.<ref>http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/macedonia-forms-anti-soros-movement-01-18-2017</ref><ref>http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/02/u-s-gives-soros-groups-millions-destabilize-macedonias-conservative-govt/</ref><ref>In Google translation the article reads (''boldening in original, excerpted''):"...Washington has operated continuously through USAID, the US government agency that works to "promote American interests" and whose goal is "to support US foreign policy (...) expand stable free societies, create markets and business partners for the United States".
For about 20 years the USAID action was altogether balanced, ruled by a sense of realism and limited to create spheres of influence in the country in line with the legitimate demands of geopolitical America. '''But after Obama entered the White House, things have changed.''' 

'''SOROS COMING!'''
On February 27, 2012, the Open Society of George Soros has entered into an agreement with the Government of the United States, more than 2.5 million dollars to make in Macedonia the Civil Society Project, the democratization floor of the small Balkan nation through a series of Macedonian NGOs and associations. In 2014, the agreement was expanded to four other civil organizations (all related to the Open Society or funded by it), for a total investment of '''5 million dollars from USAID and $500,000 in the same Soros Foundation.'''

The data, figures, associations and activities, are published in [https://stopsoros.mk/detailed-overview-usaid-support-george-soros-led-groups-macedonia/ a very precise report drawn up by a group of Macedonian journalists gathered under the name "STOP SOROS"] report denouncing the collusion between the US government and the financier and shows the complexity of the connections and of the plots.

The report explains how the '''organizations that have received millions of dollars from the US government, through the Open Society, are all emanations of the Macedonian [[left-wing]] party SDSM''' (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia) derivation of the old [[Yugoslavia|Yugoslav]] [[Communist Party]] era; and it is no accident that from 2015 to 2016 '''these organizations coordinated by the SDSM, were the protagonists of the protests and riots of the "colored revolution"''' that shook Macedonia leading to the resignation of the Conservative government in office and to early elections; clashes led by leaders like [[LGBT]] activist Pavle Bogoevski and even today the parliamentary left, in the photo portrait with a t-shirt ironic that says, 'Soros-army'.

Now Macedonia is crossed by a serious political crisis without a government majority with ethnic tensions that begin to burst with the [[Albania]]n minority. In short, a perfect creative chaos similar to many other artificially created by Geroge Soros in Eastern Europe.

'''In Macedonia the scheme is very similar to the scheme in [[Ukraine]]''' (where among other things we remember, the role of Soros is well documented)

Even the characters are the same as Victoria Nuland, responsible for the Eurasian policies of Obama, who during the color Revolution she traveled to Macedonia "to meet civil activists and encourage them to continue their work" exactly what she did during Maidan.

(For those who wish to learn who is Victoria Nuland, and what role she played in the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, we refer to this video editorial two years ago, made for ''Il Giornale'') 

'''STOP SOROS'''
In a long and complex analysis of ''The [[American Spectator]]':, Victor Gaetan , explained how the attempts at destabilization of Macedonia by Soros has commenced, even in 1995, but are made only when '''the arrival of Obama to the White House given away for free (and American money) to infiltration strategy of the Open Society.'''

Cvetin Chilimanov, journalist MIA (Macedonian Information Agency) and Vice President of STOP SOROS, explained how the goal of the USA/Soros is not help the Macedonian nation but to seize power in the political forces of the left [[radical]]s.

And it is evident also in Macedonia (as in the rest of Europe) '''the left is perfectly functional [[globalist]] ideology that Soros wants to impose in the West: migration, dissolution of [[nation state]]s, disarticulation of the fabric of traditional values of the Royal Society (and not ideological).''' On the other hand, Macedonia remains a culturally and socially conservative country, whose population is strongly linked to the values of [[Orthodox Christianity]], with public opinion in a clear majority opposed to issues such as [[abortion]] and [[gay marriage]] (among the most expensive issues George Soros). 

'''SOMETHING IS CHANGING (?)'''
Financing Operations Use/Soros to the Macedonian NGOs have continued even in recent times, and many are still active.

Not only that, but according to Gaetan an additional funding of $9.5 million was awarded a year ago at the Open Society and entrusted to Macedonian organizations, if it were not blocked by the new Secretary of State [[Tillerson]], appointed by Trump.

'''But this is a sign that maybe something is changing.''' Strengthened by Trump victory, thousands of Macedonians took to the streets to ask the new US administration the end of the financial support of the Open Society and the American ambassador's removal as the very executor of the Soros project...http://blog.ilgiornale.it/rossi/2017/04/04/macedonia-di-soros/?repeat=w3tc</ref>

===May 2013===
*'''1 May.''' Carter Page publishes a paper for the Center for National Policy, entitled ''After Boston: Alternative Diplomacy and the Reconsideration of Unbridled U.S. Power'', critical of Obama administration and deep state foreign policy in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. Page wrote, {{Quotebox|a more cooperative U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship would clearly decrease the risks of such a potential event, both earlier this month and in the future. In this sense, the recent tragedy in [[Boston]] could offer a valuable wake-up call for the U.S. government. Instead of putting in place excessive restrictions on Russian officials as seen in last year’s [[Magnitsky Act]] which was reminiscent of the blacklists of the [[McCarthyism|McCarthy era]], establishing policies that instead build links could help to address a range of critical [[globalism|global]] challenges...A more active government support of the US businesses community’s efforts most especially through the avoidance of efforts that seek to instigate hegemonic change could represent a strong initial move in that general direction. The frequently unjustified maltreatment of Russia and its leaders in the US media further engrains long-standing tendencies toward misunderstanding, thereby offering a super-sized cover for equally large policy mistakes by the U.S. government. Despite the recent accomplishments of Igor Sechin, his article for the Time 100 was written by Vladimir Milov – an exceptionally harsh critic who followed historic precedent in his write-up. In contrast, the April 29 edition of ''[[Time magazine]]'' also included tributes to U.S. President Barack Obama and the First Lady [[Michelle Obama]] by Hillary Clinton and Maya Angelou respectively. Reflecting the highest principles of [[cronyism]] rather than [[democracy]], Clinton’s future political career rests firmly on the continued success and popularity of the Obama Administration over the next three and a half years. Meanwhile, Angelou was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2011 – the highest civilian award in the United States and in essence the ultimate pay-off. Reminiscent of McFaul’s earlier discussion of unbridled U.S. power, Angelou ironically mentions in her tribute, “The philosophers tell us that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While no person on this planet is completely free from sin in contrast to public relations spin, another political philosopher named [[Alexander Hamilton]] once noted, “The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.” Although such failings may have helped enable the terror in Boston, a reevaluation of ambitions could set the stage for a future peace.<ref>Paper for Center for National Policy ''After Boston: Alternative Diplomacy and the Reconsideration of Unbridled U.S. Power'', May 1, 2013.
In March 2003, the Century Foundation and the Stanley Foundation released a report entitled ''U.S. Foreign Policy and Chechnya''. Written by Michael McFaul who was then a Professor at Stanford University prior to taking positions in the Obama Administration, the report included a review of various factoids on this topic. But the most valuable contribution it offered was a window into the underlying source of age-old problems that have plagued the U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship to this day. Some of these very same obstacles may have helped pave the way for the tragedy that occurred at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The report’s conclusions essentially highlight fundamental philosophies, objectives and dilemmas that have stood in the way of vital cooperation: “US policy regarding [[Chechnya]] exposes the limits of American power even in an age of unbridled US power. Russia’s military interventions in Chechnya were policies that US
[[foreign policy]] leaders would have liked to stop. In the end, however, policies pursued by both the Clinton and [[Bush administration]]s have had little impact on the course of the war in Chechnya.” Reflecting persistent tendencies and aspirations toward unbridled US power, some of the options suggested in the article bordered on the truly draconian: “There were and are policy alternatives. Clinton and Bush could have sanctioned Russia by cutting off direct assistance to the Russian government. They could have suspended Russia from membership in the [[G-8]]. They could have postponed presidential summits. They could have offered more humanitarian assistance to the region. Even more dramatically, they could have offered their services as a mediator. Theoretically, Chechen and Russian officials could have met at Camp David in 1995 or 2001 to hammer out a political settlement. Hypothetically, they even could have recognized the legitimacy of the elected government of Chechnya and provided direct assistance to the government in exile.” Although US foreign tactics and ambitions have varied by region, these approaches of sanctions, suspensions and meddling in internal affairs when not invited remain consistent with intrusive policies which have often afflicted America since the [[Cold War]]. In an epilogue written after a deadly Chechen [[terrorist]] attack and hostage seizure at the sold-out Dubrovka Theater in Moscow on October 23, 2002, McFaul added his bottom-line conclusion regarding certain cooperative approaches: “Most dramatically, Bush unambiguously framed his ‘[[war on terrorism]]’ and Putin’s ‘war in Chechnya’ as part of one common struggle. The real losers of this [[united front]] are the people of Chechnya.” A debate has emerged whether the U.S. missed the chance to prevent the Boston bombing. Although evidence will materialize over time and despite the acknowledgement of U.S. government officials that a “trust deficit” may have negatively impacted the earlier investigations, the possibility of prevention might remain a controversy that can never be definitively solved. However, there is one certainty that cannot be called into question: a more cooperative U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship would clearly decrease the risks of such a potential event, both earlier this month and in the future. In this sense, the recent tragedy in [[Boston Pizza]] could offer a valuable wake-up call for the U.S. government. Instead of putting in place excessive restrictions on Russian officials as seen in last year’s [[Magnitsky Act]] which was reminiscent of the blacklists of the [[McCarthyism|McCarthy era]], establishing policies that instead build links could help to address a range of critical [[globalism|global]] challenges. Yet while Washington and its representatives sleep on the security front, other actors are taking matters into their own hand in other arenas. '''Uncle Sam, please do no harm: Alternative forms of diplomacy in an era of gridlock''' Last week, a subtle theme permeated the second annual New York Times Energy for Tomorrow Conference. While on one hand dysfunction in the U.S. federal government has instituted an era of gridlock, innovative initiatives across the [[private sector]] and at the state and municipal level of government have continued to drive forward monumental change in the energy sector. In the wake of this structural evolution of governance, corporations and local communities have taken control of their own destiny through a diverse array of revolutionary technologies and investment programs. In the context of U.S.-Russian relations, a similar example may be seen in the relationship of [[ExxonMobil]] and Rosneft – the largest oil companies in each of these respective countries. Through a diverse portfolio of agreements and related ventures, the two leading companies have continued to move forward on projects in the United States, Russia and beyond. Under the leadership of Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s President and Management Board Chairman, the company has taken steps to build bridges and advance the interests of both companies. At an investment conference organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia last week, a former [[Australia]]n diplomat named Glenn Waller was the star of the show. As the President of ExxonMobil Russia, he offered telling comments regarding his company’s joint accomplishments with Rosneft: "I was happy to hear from Ambassador McFaul that it has been discussed at the highest level between presidents. We have very strong support from various levels of the Russian government." Consistent with the conclusions of the recent New York Times conference, Waller’s quote did not indicate strong support from various levels of the Russian and US governments. A more active government support of the US businesses community’s efforts most especially through the avoidance of efforts that seek to instigate hegemonic change could represent a strong initial move in that general direction. The frequently unjustified maltreatment of Russia and its leaders in the US media further engrains long-standing tendencies toward misunderstanding, thereby offering a super-sized cover for equally large policy mistakes by the U.S. government. Despite the recent accomplishments of Igor Sechin, his article for the Time 100 was written by Vladimir Milov – an exceptionally harsh critic who followed historic precedent in his write-up. In contrast, the April 29 edition of ''[[Time magazine]]'' also included tributes to U.S. President Barack Obama and the First Lady [[Michelle Obama]] by Hillary Clinton and Maya Angelou respectively. Reflecting the highest principles of [[cronyism]] rather than [[democracy]], Clinton’s future political career rests firmly on the continued success and popularity of the Obama Administration over the next three and a half years. Meanwhile, Angelou was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2011 – the highest civilian award in the United States and in essence the ultimate pay-off. Reminiscent of McFaul’s earlier discussion of unbridled U.S. power, Angelou ironically mentions in her tribute, “The philosophers tell us that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While no person on this planet is completely free from sin in contrast to public relations spin, another political philosopher named [[Alexander Hamilton]] once noted, “The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.” Although such failings may have helped enable the terror in Boston, a reevaluation of ambitions could set the stage for a future peace. Instead of worrying about what decisions are made on high, efforts by American business leaders like ExxonMobil to continue establishing bilateral links play an invaluable service to both countries. While the palatial setting of Spaso House which Dr. McFaul now calls home may understandably be a difficult place to acquire new humble perspectives regarding unbridled power, initial strides in the right direction by business can offer further momentum which eventually changes the tone and improves the broader bilateral relationship. '''Building a cleaner future''' Fortunately, the earlier policy alternatives outlined by McFaul were not followed and the American headmaster did not suspend Russia from the G-8 school. To the contrary, Russia currently holds the Chair of the more democratic and inclusive G-20. Under the leadership of President Putin, the Energy Sustainability Working Group of the G-20 has taken important steps in the energy arena including in the area of green growth. The US Government’s support of such cutting-edge initiatives led by Russia offers a viable means for changing direction and following in the wake of the Rosneft-ExxonMobil ship.</ref>}}

*'''5 May.''' Excerpts of an interview investigators conducted with Gregory Hicks, the no. 2 U.S. diplomat in Libya who was in Tripoli during the Benghazi attack are leaked to CBS News. The US diplomat contradicted the Obama White House version.
{{Quotebox|I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate. Chris [Stevens] last report, if you want to say his final report - is, 'Greg, we are under attack.'...I've never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day" (that Susan Rice appeared on talk shows calling the attack the result of a demonstration,) The net impact of what has transpired is, [Rice,] the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world, has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar or doesn't know what he's talking about. ....My jaw hit the floor as I watched this."}}

*'''6 May.''' CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports more details from private testimony in which a team of Special Operation Forces prepared to fly from [[Tripoli]] to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by US Special Operations Command Africa. Investigators heard that if the US had quickly sent military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives. The US Souda Bay Naval Base is an hour's flight from Libya.

*'''8 May.''' Three US officials stationed in Libya the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack deliver accounts of the events and their aftermath. They renew criticism against the Obama administration for issuing stand-down orders to Special Operations Forces who were ready to assist.
[[File:Obama-brennan-white-house-540.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Obama and CIA Director [[John Brennan]] meet in the White House to discuss the Torturegate coverup.<ref>https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/11/john-brennan-torture_n_6310704.html</ref> Brennan had been heavily involved in the CIA's torture program,<ref>https://www.ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/american-impunity-shielding-officials-involved-torture-has-decades-long-precedent</ref> and when the Congress investigated,<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/does-it-matter-if-john-brennan-was-complicit-in-illegal-torture/266918/</ref> the CIA spied on and hacked into its Senate overseers computers who were investigating the CIA's use of torture.<ref>
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/01/05/bob-baer-if-russian-hacking-story-is-political-there-should-be-a-criminal-investigation/?utm_source=akdart</ref> Brennan needed Obama's assurance the Justice Dept. would not prosecute himself or anyone else involved in the torture program.]]
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*'''9 May.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' DuSable incorporated on Delaware.<ref>https://realpolitikasia.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-connection-between-money-from-1mdb.html</ref>
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*'''10 May.''' Brennan meets with Obama in the White House to discuss CIA's response to the Torture Report.<ref>
https://theintercept.com/2014/03/13/president-obama-covering-presidencys-role-torture-4-years/</ref>

*A senior administration official tells CBS News' that reports State Dept. officials helped make final edits to the false information supplied to Congress about the Benghazi attacks -- the same false information Susan Rice lied about in her television appearances on Sept. 16, 2012 were "just false."

*IRS admits to targeting Republican Tea Party groups for harassment, including pretenses for prosecution leading up to the 2012 election.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/irs-admits-targeting-conservatives-for-tax-scrutiny-in-2012-election/2013/05/10/3b6a0ada-b987-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html?utm_term=.fd83e5007ce0</ref>

*'''11 May.''' CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reports details of approximately 100 interagency government emails, sent on Sept. 14 and Sept. 15, 2012 regarding the content of the talking points to be used by Susan Rice on the Sunday shows about the Benghazi attacks. The talking points were revised numerous times.

*'''13 May.''' The AP announced telephone records for 20 of their reporters had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. News sources reported the US Attorney's office for the District of Columbia was conducting a criminal investigation into publication of a foiled May 2012 terrorist plot. While journalists are protected, leakers in the government are subject to prosecution. The Justice Dept. subpoenaed the phone records of AP from [[Verizon]] and other service providers.<ref name=verizonslate>{{cite web|last=Gallagher|first=Ryan|title=Verizon Wireless Secretly Passed AP Reporters' Phone Records to Feds|publisher=www.slate.com|date=May 16, 2013|url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/16/verizon_wireless_passed_ap_reporters_phone_records_to_the_feds.html|accessdate=}}</ref> The AP claimed these acts were a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering.<ref name=TTSanchez>{{cite web|last=Sanchez|first=Raf|title=US Justice Department secretly seizes Associated Press phone records|publisher=The Telegraph|date=May 13, 2013|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/10055318/US-Justice-Department-secretly-seizes-Associated-Press-phone-records.html|accessdate=}}</ref><ref name=TG130513>{{cite web|author=Washington (AP)|title=US government secretly obtained Associated Press phone records|publisher=The Guardian|date=May 13, 2013|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/13/america-government-associated-press-phone-records|accessdate=}}</ref> The "intrusion" is the frightening off of government sources, the bread and butter of the Washington news gathering industry. CEO Gary Pruitt of AP stated: "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know;"<ref name=CNNJohns>{{cite web|author=Matt Smith and Joe Johns|title=AP blasts feds for phone records search|publisher=CNN|date=May 14, 2013|url=https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/13/us/justice-ap-phones/?hpt=hp_t2|accessdate=}}</ref><ref name=holder>{{cite web|author=Gary B. Pruitt|title=AP letter to Eric Holder on seizure of phone records|publisher=USA Today|date=May 13, 2013|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/05/13/doj-seizes-ap-phone-records/2156819/|accessdate=June 1, 2013}}</ref> a "conceivable right to know" would be a hunt for leakers of FISA information within the administration.
* Obama states publicly he first heard of IRS targeting conservatives only days before "from the news."

*'''14 May.''' Inspector General issues initial report of IRS abuse; FBI begins investigation.

*''USA Today'' publishes report FBI Director Robert Mueller travelled to Moscow.<ref>https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/14/holder-fbi-mueller-russians-boston-bombing-investigation/2159333/</ref>

*''Boston Herald'' publishes frontpage story on Obamagate scandal.<ref>http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2013/05/14/obama-gate <</ref>

*'''15 May.''' White House releases some 100 pages of internal emails showing how CIA talking points originally referenced al Qaeda's links to the Benghazi attack. After revisions the al Qaeda references were removed.

*'''17 May.''' Fox News learns that the Justice Dept. secretly labeled reporter James Rosen a possible “criminal co-conspirator” and “flight-risk” in obtaining warrants to monitor Rosen’s State Department movements, phone records and emails in a leak investigation that started in 2011.

*''New York Times'' reports Obama lied about when he first knew of IRS targeting conservative groups.<ref>http://nypost.com/2016/10/30/obama-told-us-hes-honorable-but-hes-just-another-liar/</ref>

*'''22 May.''' IRS Commissioner pleads the [[5th Amendment]] against self-incrimination during opening statement before Congressional oversight committee.

*'''29 May.''' Ready for Hillary PAC established, Tom Mostyn, co-founder.<ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/191340/hillary-superpac-headed-radical-environmentalist-daniel-greenfield</ref>

===June 2013===
*'''6 June.''' Asked at a hearing if the Justice Dept. spies on members of Congress, Attn. Gen. Holder refuses to answer.<ref>http://www.mediaite.com/tv/asked-if-justice-department-is-spying-on-congress-holder-refuses-to-answer/</ref>

*The UK ''Guardian'' reveals NSA unlimited metadata collection under FISA protection. Data collection on 4 million of Verizon customers are collected daily.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order</ref>

*'''7 June.''' ''Guardian'' reveals NSA tapping through back doors into US internet companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook with a program called [[PRISM]] [GCHQ counterpart = Tempora].<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data</ref>

*An 18-page memo shows Obama ordering intelligence officials to draw up a list of overseas targets for cyberattacks.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/07/obama-cyber-directive-full-text</ref>

*Obama defends NSA wiretapping.<ref>https://usnews.newsvine.com/_news/2013/06/07/18824941-obama-nobody-is-listening-to-your-telephone-calls?lite</ref>

*The ''Guardian'' story, soon to be known as the ''Snowden leaks'', is more evidence Obama Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper misled Congress and public about the true nature and extent of domestic intelligence gathering in his 12 March sworn testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

*Reporter Michael Hastings writes ''Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans'' in BuzzFeed, excerpted: {{quotebox|"most Democrats abandoned their civil liberty positions during the age of Obama...the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties...Clapper admitted he'd misled Senator Wyden at a hearing earlier this year...The state of affairs, in other words, is so grave that two sitting senators went as close as they could to violating their unconstitutional security oaths in order to warn the country of information that otherwise would not have been declassified until April of 2038, according to the Verizon court order...the White House has dug in, calling their North Korea-esque tools "essential" to stop terrorism, and loathe to give up the political edge they've seized for Democrats on national security issues under Obama's leadership. The AP spying scandal — which the administration attempted to downplay at the time, even appointing Eric Holder to lead his own investigation into himself —was one of the unexpected consequences of one of two leak investigations that Obama ordered during the 2012 campaign....any so-called credible DOJ/FBI leak investigation, by its very nature, would have to involve the Obama administration invasively using the very surveillance and data techniques it is attempting to hide...Transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters, especially those writers who have aggressively pursued the connections between the corporate defense industry and federal and local authorities involved in domestic surveillance, have been viciously attacked by the Obama administration and its allies in the FBI and DOJ.}} Hastings was killed eleven days later.

*'''8 June.''' Documents reveal the NSA's Boundless Informant program, which gives the agency near real-time ability to understand how much intelligence coverage there is on certain areas through use of a "heat map."<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining</ref>

*'''9 June.''' [[Edward Snowden]] steps forward as source of NSA leaks published in ''The Guardian''.<ref name="theguardian.com">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-secret-surveillance-lawmakers-live</ref> Introducing himself Snowden says,<ref>https://youtu.be/9u5ecSR_rag</ref>
{{Quotebox|“'''I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone''', from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to '''even the president''' if I had a personal e-mail. 

It’s getting to the point you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you have ever made.”}}
:Training materials provided by Snowden for XKeyscore propgram detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous NSA databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed. The program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata. Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized [[FISA]] warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But '''XKeyscore provides''' the technological capability, if not '''the legal authority, to target even US persons''' for extensive electronic surveillance '''without a warrant provided''' that some identifying information, such as '''their email or IP address, is known.'''

*'''10 June.''' ''Wall Street Journal'' reports FISA Court has rejected only 11 of 33,900 warrant requests in the 33 years the law has been in existence.<ref>https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324904004578535670310514616</ref>

*'''11 June.''' ''New York Post'' reports: A chief investigator for the agency’s inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton’s chief of staff, [[Cheryl Mills]].
:*A DS agent was called off a case against US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman over claims that he solicited prostitutes, including minors. “The agent began his investigation and had determined that the ambassador routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” says the memo. Undersecretary of State for Management [[Patrick Kennedy]] ordered the investigation ceased, and the ambassador remains in place, according to the memo. Gutman was a big Democratic donor before taking the post, having raised $500,000 for President Obama’s 2008 campaign and helping finance his inaugural.<ref>https://archive.fo/LLAIY#selection-1169.0-1209.148</ref>

*'''12 June.''' [[NBC News]] reports: NBC News has obtained documents tied to ongoing investigations at the State Department involving eight cases of alleged misconduct by state department workers, contractors, and a United States ambassador. The incidents reportedly occurred during Hillary Clinton’s tenure, according to the documents.
:*An internal Inspector General memo from last October reported the ambassador under investigation “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.” The report also states that a high-ranking official at the State Department directed investigators to “cease the investigation.”<ref>http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52184794/t/new-allegations-state-department-cover-up/</ref>
*IRS suspends use of the BOLO list.

*'''13 June.''' Snowden reveals NSA was hacking computers in Hong Kong and mainland China, few of which were military systems.

*FBI Dir. Robert Mueller tells Congressional committee [[9/11]] hijackers were under NSA surveillance, a fact unknown and unreported by the 9/11 investigating Commission and omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report.<ref>https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/6/14/1216187/-Director-Mueller-9-11-Hijackers-were-in-Fact-Under-NSA-Surveillance</ref>

*'''16 June.''' Snowden reveals intelligence sharing on Britain's GCHQ (its intelligence agency) intercepting phone and internet communications of foreign politicians attending two G-20 meetings in London in 2009.
[[File:960px-Michael Hastings election night 2012.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Michael Hastings and [[Valerie Jarrett]] at Barack Obama's victory party, 2012. Hastings became a vocal critic of the Obama administration, Democratic Party and surveillance state. His last story, ''Why Democrats Love to Spy On Americans'', was published by BuzzFeed eleven days before his untimely death. He was killed while working on a profile of CIA Director [[John O. Brennan]].]]
----
*'''17 June.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' Pantoll Energy (major recipient of payments from DuSable) incorporated Delaware.
----
*'''18 June.''' Michael Hastings, Polk Award winning [[journalist]] for ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' and reporter for [[BuzzFeed]],<ref>{{cite web|author=Michael Hastings|url=https://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings|title=Michael Hastings (mhastings) on|publisher=''Buzzfeed.com''|accessdate=}}</ref> killed.<ref>https://youtu.be/2ojZXVg3C54</ref> Hastings became a vocal critic of the [[Obama administration]], [[Democratic Party]] and [[surveillance state]] during the investigation of reporters by the [[U.S. Department of Justice]] in 2013, referring to the restrictions on the freedom of the press by the Obama administration as a "war" on journalism.<ref>Uygur, Cenk. (June 23, 2013). "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBm-DRmRP9g&feature=youtu.be Michael Hastings and The War on Journalism]". ''The Young Turks''.</ref> His last story, "Why Democrats Love to Spy On Americans", was published by BuzzFeed on June 7, 2013.<ref>[https://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/why-democrats-love-to-spy-on-americans "Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans"], ''buzzfeed.com'', June 7, 2013.</ref><ref>Stebner, Beth. (June 19, 2013). [https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/conspiracy-theories-abound-michael-hastings-death-article-1.1377392 "Michael Hastings conspiracy theories: Web goes wild after NSA, CIA reporter killed in crash"], ''Daily News''; accessed April 11, 2015.</ref> Hastings was killed in a mysterious automobile crash on June 18, 2013, in Los Angeles, California.<ref>{{cite web|author=Jenny McCartney|url=https://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hastings-crash-witness-113514329.html|title=Witness: Hastings' speeding car 'shook my car like a freight truck going by'|publisher=Yahoo! News|date=June 21, 2013|accessdate=June 21, 2013}}</ref> A witness to the crash said the car seemed to be traveling at maximum speed and was creating sparks and flames before it fishtailed and crashed into a palm tree.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fweyFCFKcp0|title=Witness to Michael Hastings Car Crash Shares His Story (TYT Exclusive)|date=June 21, 2013|work=[[YouTube]]|publisher=[[The Young Turks]]|accessdate=June 22, 2013}}</ref><ref name="dvorak">{{cite web|last=Dvorak |first=Kimberley |title=Details of reporter Hastings' death elusive |url=http://www.sandiego6.com/story/details-of-reporter-hastings-death-remain-elusive-20130708 |publisher=San Diego 6 |accessdate=July 10, 2013 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130713071933/http://www.sandiego6.com/story/details-of-reporter-hastings-death-remain-elusive-20130708 |archivedate=July 13, 2013 |deadurl=yes |df= }}</ref> Video from a nearby security camera reportedly shows Hastings' vehicle speeding and bursting into flames.<ref>{{cite news|title=Michael Hastings death: New video of crash emerges|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-michael-hastings-death-new-video-of-crash-emerges-20130727,0,2133280.story|accessdate=July 30, 2013|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=July 27, 2013}}</ref> Witnesses described the car's engine being ejected 50 to 60 yards (46–55 m) from the scene.<ref name="dvorak"/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/journalist-michael-hastings-killed-car-crash-article-1.1376574|title=Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings killed in car crash|date=June 19, 2013|publisher=[[Daily News (New York)|''NY Daily News'']]}}</ref> Hastings' body was burned beyond recognition. The 2015 documentary film ''Imminent Threat'', directed by Janek Ambros, is dedicated to his work. Soon after Hastings' death, questions were raised about the crash that took his life. Former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism [[Richard A. Clarke]] said that what is known about the crash is "consistent with a [[car cyber attack]]." He was quoted as saying: "There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers — including the United States — know how to remotely seize control of a car. So if there were a cyber attack on [Hastings'] car — and I'm not saying there was, I think whoever did it would probably get away with it."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/michael-hastings-car-hacked_n_3492339.html|title=Was Michael Hastings' Car Hacked? Richard Clarke Says It's Possible|last=Hogan|first=Mike|date=June 24, 2013|accessdate=December 15, 2014}}</ref> The day before the crash, Hastings indicated that he believed he was being investigated by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]. In an email to colleagues, which was copied to and released by Hastings' friend, Army Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs,<ref>Fox News, [http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/06/25/michael-hastings-friend-joe-biggs-he-drove-grandma-crash-doesnt-add Michael Hastings' Friend: 'He Drove Like a Grandma,' Crash Scenario Doesn't Add Up], June 25, 2013.</ref> Hastings said that he was "onto a big story", that he needed to "go off the radar", and that the FBI might interview them.<ref>[http://ktla.com/2013/06/21/exclusive-hastings-sent-colleagues-email-hours-before-crash/#axzz2YFBUMsJ6 Exclusive: Hastings Sent Colleagues Email Hours Before Crash], ''KTLA.com''; accessed April 10, 2015.</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/24/journalist-michael-hastings-sends-chilling-e-mail-to-colleagues-before-death|work=Fox News|title=Journalist Michael Hastings sent chilling email to colleagues before death|date=June 24, 2013}}</ref> [[WikiLeaks]] announced that Hastings had also contacted Jennifer Robinson, one of its lawyers, a few hours prior to the crash,<ref>[http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/06/19/wikileaks-hastings-said-he-was-being-investigated-by-fbi WikiLeaks: Hastings Said He Was Being Investigated By FBI], ''losangeles.cbslocal.com''; accessed April 10, 2015.</ref> and the ''[[LA Weekly]]'' reported that he was preparing new reports on the CIA at the time of his death.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/06/michael_hastings_cia_coverage_crash_fire.php|title=Michael Hastings Probed the CIA Before Fatal Hollywood Crash|date=June 18, 2013|publisher=''LA Weekly''|accessdate=April 10, 2015}}</ref> His widow [[Elise Jordan]] said his final story was a profile of CIA Director [[John O. Brennan]].<ref>[https://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/08/06/exp-pmt-elise-jordan.cnn.html Piers Morgan, "Hastings' widow: 'Taking it day by day'"] ''CNN.com'', August 6, 2013.</ref>

*The FBI released a statement denying that Hastings was being investigated, at least not by their agency.<ref name="latimes"/> This statement was incorrect as FBI had opened a file on Hastings as early as 2012 (see FBI files below). Furthermore, on the day of the crash Hastings visited his neighbor Jordanna Thigpen's apartment after midnight and urgently asked to borrow her Volvo, saying he was afraid to drive his own car. However, Thigpen declined.<ref name="Maddaus-2013">{{Cite news|url=http://www.laweekly.com/news/michael-hastings-dangerous-mind-journalistic-star-was-loved-feared-and-haunted-2614816|title=Michael Hastings' Dangerous Mind: Journalistic Star Was Loved, Feared and Haunted|last=Maddaus|first=Gene|date=August 22, 2013|work=L.A. Weekly|access-date=March 10, 2017}}</ref> Some media outlets{{Who|date=August 2016}} reported that Hastings claimed to have received death threats. ''[[USA Today]]'' reported that in the days before his death, Hastings believed his car was being "tampered with" and that he was scared and wanted to leave town.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/22/newser-hastings-car/2684631|work=USA Today|first1=John|last1=Johnson|title=Hastings thought his car was being tampered with|date=August 22, 2013}}</ref>

*'''20 June.''' Bonuses paid to two former IRS Commissioners who oversaw the abuse of Tea Partiers, the one who initiated the program and the 'fall guy' who resigned over it, were paid an extra $42,000 and $100,000, respectively.

*Snowden leaks top-secret procedures steps the NSA must take to target and collect data from "non-US persons" and how it must minimize, or mask, data collected on US citizens.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant</ref>

*'''21 June.''' Snowden leaks how Britain's GCHQ taps fiber-optic cables to collect and store global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories, and calls, and then shares the data with the NSA.

*'''27 June.''' CIA responds to Torture Report, attacks Committee; Sen. Mark Udall issues a statement alleging intelligence officials leaked "inaccurate information" critical of the Committee report. Udall states that the CIA and the White House "repeatedly rejected requests to discuss the Committee's report."<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20140627161317/http://www.markudall.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3536</ref>

*'''June.''' FBI secretly opens a case on Sharyl Attkisson’s computer intrusions under the auspices of 'national security.' FBI contacts CBS without Attkisson’s knowledge, but fails to contact or interview Attkisson. FBI later ignores multiple FOIA request and other documents.

*News of the FBI case involving Attkisson’s computer intrusions is circulated internally to the Justice Dept.’s national cyber security group, and grouped with a set of cases opened on 20 November, shortly after the president's re-election in 2012.<ref name="wyden.senate.gov">https://www.wyden.senate.gov/download/?id=285dc9e7-195a-4467-b0fe-caa857fc4e0d</ref>
----

===July 2013===
[[File:1MDB scandal.jpg|left|360px|thumb|After the 2012 election, Obama's chief fundraiser was involved in the 1MDB scam, channeling money from the 1Malaysian Development Berhad to Democratic candidates through Yarus Private Equities Fund.]]
After the 2012 election, Obama's chief fundraiser continued raising money for Democratic candidates. [[Frank R. White, Jr.]] and [[Pras Michel]] formed a joint venture with 1Malaysian Development Berhad (1MDB), wholly owned by the Malaysian government. The venture supposedly was to invest in green technology and solar panels, but corrupt officials of 1MDB were more interested in buying influence with the [[Obama administration]] and the [[Democratic party]], and White and Pras likewise were not interested in providing a renewable source of electricity or solving the problems of [[poverty]] for Malaysia's 30 million people.

Malaysians have a median household income of $4500, so the theft of $4.5 Billion by [[globalism|globalists]] pushing green technology and Democrats looking for foreign money to finance their campaigns cause they can't sell their ideas at home, had a devastating impact on the Malaysian people, economy, and political culture.

White and Pras got two anonymous investors to lend a half of a Trillion dollars for a a little over a two year period. They formed a joint partnership agreement with 1MDB to build a green technology solar plant. White and Pras owned 49%, 1MDB controlled 51%. White was suppose to provide financial advice. His advice turned out to be for 1MBD to buy out his 49% for $69 million six months after the agreement was signed, without White's entities investing any of the half Trillion he borrowed. Portions of the $69 million were then donated to Democrat Senate, Congressional, and Gubernatorial candidates. The $69 million Democrats stole from the people of Malaysia during the Obama presidency is only a fraction of the corrupt deals 1MDB did all over the planet. Much of the $4.5 Billion embezzled was laundered through U.S. banks, and has become the largest investigation ever under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Act.
----
*'''1 July.''' [[Daniel Ellsberg]] calls for Congressional probe of “abuses of American intelligence agencies” and to “restore the protections in the [[Bill of Rights]]."<ref>https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/01/daniel-ellsberg-issues-call-for-a-new-church-committee-to-probe-nsa.html</ref>

*'''10 July.''' ''Washington Post'' publishes a new slide detailing NSA's "Upstream" program of collecting communications from tech companies through fiber-optic cables to then feed into its Prism database.
----
*'''16 July.''' '''1MDB [[dark money]] scam.''' Obama chief election fundraiser [[Frank R. White, Jr.]] launches DuSable Capital Management. According to its initial [[SEC]] filing the firm claims it will focus on global investments with specific interest in [[Malaysia]], [[Russia]], [[Indonesia]], [[Burma]], [[Brazil]], Mexico and [[India]],<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20131024135901/http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/Iapd/Content/Common/crd_iapd_Brochure.aspx?BRCHR_VRSN_ID=203650</ref> Shortly after its launch, DuSable raised a $505,000,000 fund called the Yurus Private Equity I, LP.
:*In its 26 month existence it only had one client - 1Malaysian Development Berhad (1MDB) - which lost $3.5 Billion in the interim. 1MDB paid DuSable $69 million to severe a partnership agreement that DuSable made no investment in. Some of the proceeds were donated to Democrat congressional and gubernatorial campaigns.<ref>http://www.sarawakreport.org/2015/11/1mdb-sleaze-spreads-to-us-democrats-on-eve-of-obama-visit-investigation/</ref>
----
[[File:Schiff-Ukraine-600x370.png|right|300px|thumb|Invitation to a fundraiser in the home of Ukrainian arms deal Igor Pasternak for Adam Schiff.]]
*'''18 July.''' Platte River Networks hired by Clinton machine to scrub Clinton servers.<ref>https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015b-b1a4-de92-a17b-bdf42e570000</ref>

*[[Adam Schiff]] fundraiser with Ukrainian arms dealer [[Igor Pasternak]].<ref>http://politicalpartytime.org/party/34974/</ref>

*'''31 July.''' NSA analysts, using the XKeyscore program, can search through enormous databases of emails, online chats, and browsing histories of targets.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data</ref><ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jul/31/nsa-xkeyscore-program-full-presentation</ref>

*'''July.''' In an undated letter from DNI Clapper posted on Sen. Wyden's website the final week of July, Clapper acknowledged that NSA analysts have exceeded even legal limits as interpreted by the NSA in domestic surveillance. Acknowledging what he called "a number of compliance problems", Clapper attributed them to "human error" or "highly sophisticated technology issues" rather than "bad faith".<ref name="wyden.senate.gov"/> Sen. Wyden responded on the Senate floor: "These violations are more serious than those stated by the intelligence community, and are troubling."<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/16/nsa-violated-privacy-rules-audit</ref>

*Manning convicted.

===August 2013===
*'''1 August.''' The US government paid Britain's GCHQ roughly $155 million over three years to gain access and influence over its spying programs.

*'''2 August.''' Seven of the world's leading telecommunications companies provide GCHQ with secret, unlimited access to their network of undersea cables.

*'''5 August.''' ''[[Reuters]]'' runs an article on how the NSA shares information, collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with other agencies to frame criminal cases against American citizens using a process called "parallel construction" to manufacture [[probable cause]], violating a person's due process rights.<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 <</ref>

*'''6 August.''' Armed [[Coast Guard]] agents under the [[Department of Homeland Security]] raid the home of reporter Audrey Hudson with a warrant for her husband’s [[firearm]]s. As they searched the house, they read Hudson her [[Miranda rights]] and confiscat documents that contained “confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials” belonging to Hudson, including the identities of whistleblowers at the Department of Homeland Security. Hudson sues and later receives a settlement from the government.<ref>http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/02/government-agrees-settlement-raiding-reporters-home-seizing-confidential-files/</ref>

*'''7 August.''' CBS News publicly announces confirmation of Attkisson’s computer intrusions. “Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012…This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion."<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-confirms-sharyl-attkissons-computer-hacked/</ref>

*'''9 August.''' Internal NSA document reveals an agency "loophole" that allows a secret backdoor for the agency to search its databases for US citizens' emails and phone calls without a warrant.

*'''12 August.''' ''The Atlantic'' surprisingly published a piece entitled ''The Surveillance Speech: A Low Point in Barack Obama's Presidency''.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/278565/</ref> Despite being openly critical of Obama, no mainstream news sources accuse ''The Atlantic'' of [[racism]]. The piece is of interest to historians of the era, and has this paragraph for example: {{Quotebox|"In fact, the whole concept of a secret court is misguided, and it is astonishing that Obama, or anyone aside from partisan Republicans, would trust a court composed entirely of one man's appointees. What if I told you, Democrats, that henceforth, abortion jurisprudence, voting-rights jurisprudence, labor law, or really any area of U.S. [[Constitutional law]] would be decided in secret and always by judges who John Roberts chose? How much confidence would you have in the outcome of decisions made in that court? Yet that is how the [[FISA court]] works. And we're supposed to trust that the secret court's decisions are getting everything correct!"}} Within two years, justice, fairness, civil liberties and government excesses were among the least of [[Progressive]] [[liberal]]s concerns.

*'''13 August.''' '''Ghouta chemical attack.''' [[Islamic State|Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]] uses chemical weapons on civilians in a Damascus suburb. Obama blames Assad regime.<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/06/nyt-retreats-on-2013-syriasarin-claims/</ref>

*'''23 August.''' 2011 NSA minimization procedures submitted to the FISA Court.<ref>https://www.lawfareblog.com/nsa-documents-part-vi-2011-minimization-procedures</ref>

*'''29 August.''' NSA found to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars each year to US companies for access to their networks.

===September 2013===
*'''4 September.''' Robert Mueller leaves office as FBI Director after 12-year tenure; [[James Comey]] sworn in.

*'''5 September.''' Joint investigation by ProPublica, ''The New York Times'', and ''The Guardian'' finds the NSA is winning its war against internet encryption with supercomputers, technical know-how, and court orders.

*'''7 September.''' NSA has the ability to access user data for most major smartphones on the market, including Apple iPhones, BlackBerrys, and Google Android phones.

*'''9 September.''' ''Daily Caller'' publishes article detailing how the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a supposed independent [[lobby]]ing group asking Congress for money to support anti-[[Bashar Assad|Assad]] forces was receiving funding from the State Department. Elizabeth O'Bagy is SETF political director.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2013/09/09/who-funds-syrian-rebel-advocate-obagy-and-the-syrian-emergency-task-force-you-do/</ref>
----
*'''26 September.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' DuSable submitted filings to the Foreign Agents Registration Unit ([[FARA]]) to represent the Malaysian government and 1MDB JV, a state investment fund created by the Malaysian government. Yurus was incorporated days later.
----
*'''27 September.''' [[UN]] declares Assad regime has surrendered all it chemical weapons.

*'''30 September.''' Clinton donors get a pass on shady contracting.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2013/09/30/clinton-donors-get-a-pass-on-shady-contracting/</ref><ref>http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/justice-department-charges-clinton-obama-feinstein-donor-for-8-billion-contract-fraud/</ref><ref>https://m.theepochtimes.com/the-common-thread-behind-four-investigations_2728104.html</ref>

===October 2013===
*'''2 October.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' '''Yurus fund incorporated in Delaware by [[Pras Michel]] and Frank White.'''
----
*'''7 October.''' Reports indicate, "Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria." "Evidence leads directly to the White House, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA Director John Brennan, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar, and Saudi Arabia´s Interior Ministry. The Strategic Situation, leading up to the Use of Chemical Substances in the Eastern Ghouta Suburb of [[Damascus]] on 21 August 2013."<ref>
https://nsnbc.me/2013/10/07/top-us-and-saudi-officials-responsible-for-chemical-weapons-in-syria/</ref> [[Seymour Hersh]] later reports Hillary Clinton approved sending captured Libyan stocks of [[sarin]] gas to Syrian rebels and jihadis.<ref>http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/28/seymour-hersh-hillary-approved-sending-libya-sarin-syrian-rebels.html</ref>

*'''14 October.''' NSA collected more than 250 million email contact lists from services such as [[Yahoo]] and Gmail.
----
*'''17 October.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' Yarus announces its first commitment of an injection of $505 million from two investors,<ref>https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1577589/000150794313000078/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml</ref> one of which is said by the ''Wall Street Journal'' to be the Aabar fund of Abu Dhabi.
----
*'''23 October.''' NSA tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]].

*'''27 October.''' ''Der Spiegel'' reports Obama personally approved wiretapping German Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]]'s cell phone conversations.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2017/03/17/flashback-barack-obama-wiretapped-german-chancellor-angela-merkel-in-2010/</ref>
----
*'''28 October.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) engaged DuSable Capital Management to assist with project development of utility-scale grid connected solar power generation capability. 1MDB is a Malaysian strategic development company, wholly owned by the Malaysian Minister of Finance. DuSable is headed by [[Frank White]], who was Obama’s chief fundraiser during the 2012 re-election campaign.<ref name="bloomberg.com">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-10/obama-fundraiser-said-to-seek-1-billion-for-private-fund</ref> DuSable received $506,079 from the “Government of Malaysia” for the purpose of a “joint venture partnership reimbursement for [a] solar investment project in Malaysia”.<ref>Statement to the US Department of Justice Foreign Agent Registration Unit in 2014.</ref>
----
*'''October.''' State Dept. sends letters to Clinton and her three predecessors as secretary of state seeking work emails related to personal accounts.

*[[Jeff Bezos]], founder of [[Amazon.com]] purchases the ''[[Washington Post]]'' for less than half of his ongoing contract for cloud service with the CIA.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/washington-post-closes-sale-to-amazon-founder-jeff-bezos/2013/10/01/fca3b16a-2acf-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html?utm_term=.8fea51fb3097</ref> The Institute for Public Accuracy releases a statement condemning the move.<ref>https://medium.com/@SarahRRunge/amazon-the-washington-post-and-the-cia-d68a4ee802e#.406uub5gw</ref> ''Washington Post'' begins promoting [[Hillary Clinton]] as their preferred candidate for President in 2016.<ref>http://www.mockingbirdpaper.com/content/leaked-dnc-emails-prove-washington-post-both-fundraiser-and-attack-dog-clinton-and-national</ref>

===November 2013===
*'''1 November.''' Snowden leaks reveal Britain's GCHQ and other European spy agencies work together to conduct mass surveillance. The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies. ''The Guardian'' article reports,<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/01/gchq-europe-spy-agencies-mass-surveillance-snowden</ref>
{{Quotebox|It is clear from the Snowden documents that GCHQ has become Europe's intelligence hub in the internet age, and not just because of its success in creating a legally permissive environment for its operations. Britain's location as the European gateway for many transatlantic cables, and its privileged relationship with the NSA has made GCHQ an essential partner for European agencies. The documents show British officials frequently lobbying the NSA on sharing of data with the Europeans and haggling over its security classification so it can be more widely disseminated. In the intelligence world, far more than it managed in diplomacy, Britain has made itself an indispensable bridge between America and Europe's spies.}}

*'''20 November.''' UK government struck a secret deal with the NSA to share phone, internet, and email records of UK citizens.

*[[ABC News]] reports on terror suspects arrested in Bowling Green, KY.<ref>https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-qaeda-kentucky-us-dozens-terrorists-country-refugees/story?id=20931131</ref>

*'''22 November.''' NSA strategy document reveals the agency's goal to acquire data from "anyone, anytime, anywhere" and expand its already broad legal powers.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/nsa-report-outlined-goals-for-more-power.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1402013607-O4V0y2ArhGWsYy8IcbXOpQ</ref>

==2014==
Russia annexes [[Crimea]]. Ukraine steps up hiring of U.S. lobbyists to make its case against Russia and obtain U.S. aid. Russia also continues its practice of using U.S. lobbyists.

Ukraine forms National Anti-Corruption Bureau as a condition to receive U.S. aid. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau later signs evidence-sharing agreement with FBI related to Trump-Russia probe.

Ukrainian-American [[Alexandra Chalupa]], a paid consultant for the [[Democratic National Committee]] (DNC), begins researching lobbyist [[Paul Manafort]]’s Russia ties.

FBI investigates, and then wiretaps, Paul Manafort for allegedly not properly disclosing Russia-related work. FBI fails to make a case, according to CNN, and discontinues [[wiretap]].
----
===January 2014===
*'''3 January.''' Obama’s national security staff met with Julian Kulas, Andrew Fedynsky, Ulana Mazurkevich and [[Alexandra Chalupa]], where they discussed relations between the United States and Ukraine. Other attendees at the time included Allison Jarus and [[James Zogby]].<ref>http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/2014-u-s-ukraine-relations-more-important-than-ever/</ref><ref>http://festivaldc.com/blog/?p=26789</ref>
*'''6 January.''' Sen. Mark Udall writes to President Obama asking the President to compel the CIA to comply with Congressional Oversight requests, and "a public statement from the White House committing to the fullest possible declassification of the Committee's study."<ref>https://www.scribd.com/doc/196596920</ref> CIA refuses to comply.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/dianne-feinstein-cia-senate-statement-full-text</ref>

*[[Bernie Sanders]] pleads for leniency for Edward Snowden.<ref name="theguardian.com"/>

*'''17 January.''' At some point during the dispute between Brennan and the Oversight Committee, the CIA Inspector General filed a "crimes report" with the [[US Justice Department]] about the CIA spying on the Senate; in retaliation, the CIA's general counsel filed a "crimes report" alleging Senate staffers pilfered copies of the ''Panetta review''.<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-senate-cia-idUSBREA2H25W20140318</ref>

*Obama makes a speech at US Justice Dept. about his new directive allowing internet and telephone service providers to disclose to the public FISA court rulings and NSA requests for surveillance in aggregate volume. (Note: in National Security parlance an NSA request = FISA court order).<ref>https://www.thenation.com/article/what-obama-didnt-say-his-speech-nsa-spying/</ref>

*'''20 January.''' First Twitter storm pushing for assault on President [[Viktor Yanukovych]] and support for the Euro-Maidan protests in [[Kyiv]].

*'''23 January.''' Sen. Bernie Sanders asks the NSA if it spies on members of Congress.<ref>https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/letter-to-nsa?id=EEE1F3B1-9DD4-4CDB-96FC-D2A145709A9C&download=1&inline=file</ref> The NSA replies that Congress is afforded “the same privacy protections as all US persons.”<ref>http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/04/nsa-wont-say-whether-it-spies-on-congress/</ref>

*'''24 January.''' Andrea Chalupa and a friend launched Digital Maidan from New York where the two agitated with Twitter messages which could then be used by any Twitter user to form an army of Maidan activists.<ref>https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/31/from-brooklyn-to-kiev-how-digitalmaidan-went-viral/</ref><ref>http://nepmcc.com/node/19089</ref>

*'''27 January.''' Second Twitter storm pushing for assault on President Viktor Yanukovych and support for the Euro-Maidan protests in Kyiv.<ref>http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/2014-ukrainians-in-the-u-s-advocates-for-ukraine/</ref>

*GCHQ program called Squeaky Dolphin monitors [[YouTube]], Facebook, and [[Blogger]] for "broad real-time monitoring of online activity."

*'''28 January.''' Victoria Nuland and US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt discuss details of planned overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine. Nuland makes disparaging remarks about the [[EU]], and thinks the [[UN]] will give better cover to make the new US-installed regime appear legitimate.

*'''30 January.''' Third Twitter storm pushing for assault on President Viktor Yanukovych and support for the Euro-Maidan protests in Kyiv. These efforts were bolstered with assistance from Alexandra Chalupa, Lara Chelak, Constantin Kostenko, Terrell J. Starr and others.<ref>https://personaldemocracy.com/terrell-j-starr</ref> This led to 11.6 million Twitter messages being generated within its first week.
:*Around this time [[Alexandra Chalupa]] started to investigate [[Paul Manafort]]’s connections to President Yanukovych’s Administration.<ref>https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446</ref>

===February 2014===
[[File:Nuland-in-ukraine.jpg|right|350px|thumb|[[Oleh Tyahnybok]] (left) Victorias Nuland (center) Yarsenyi Yatsenyuk (right) Vitali Klitschko (rear).]]
:{{See also|Svoboda party}}
*'''4 February.''' CIA Dir. John Brennan tells House Intelligence Cmte. that operators in the Benghazi attack rescue efforts were required to re-sign non-disclosure agreements.<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/04/cia-director-benghazi-rescuers-required-to-sign-non-disclosure-agreements.html?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fn</ref>

*'''6 February.''' Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland meets with Oleh Tyahnybok and other ringleaders who assume power after the revolution.<ref>http://in.reuters.com/article/ukraine-call-idINDEEA1704520140208</ref> Tyahnybok leads the [[Svoboda]] party.

:*Tyahnybok in 2004 was kicked out of the ruling parliamentary faction after giving a speech calling for a fight against the "Muscovite-Jewish mafia."

:*Tyahnbok in 2005 signed an open letter to Ukrainian leaders calling for the government to halt the "criminal activities" of "organised Jewry", which was spreading its influence through organisations such as the [[Anti-Defamation League]] which ultimately wanted to commit "[[genocide]]" against the Ukrainian people.<ref>https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20824693</ref>

:*DCLeaks published Soros emails arranging a meeting between [[George Soros]] and Tyahnbok. Soros, an 84 year old veteran of the Nazi-era ''[https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005265 Judenrät]'' in Budapest who survived [[World War II]] and parlayed his pilfering [[Holocaust]] victims' property into a $25 billion personal fortune, himself is [[Jewish]], a proud [[atheist]], and vehement anti-[[Zionist]].

:*Various Soros' international [[progressive]] and [[liberal]] front organizations (NGOs) organized and funded the Ukrainian revolution.<ref>http://www.voltairenet.org/article181535.html#nb2</ref>

*'''Obama foreign policy shifts at this point forward from the "Russian Reset" of 2008 and the greater "flexibility" Obama promised President Medvedev in 2012, to rabid [[Russophobia]]''', one factor being Vladimir Putin's lack of support for the [[homosexual agenda]] and [[gay marriage]]. The anti-Russian grip of Soros on American foreign policy reaches a fever pitch in in coming years in efforts to destroy President Donald Trump who sought to mend relations with Russia after the Ukrainian crisis.

*'''7 February.''' UK's GCHQ used "[[dirty tricks]]" such as computer viruses and sexual "honey traps" to target adversaries.<ref>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/snowden-docs-british-spies-used-sex-dirty-tricks-n23091</ref>

*'''18-20 February.''' [[Ukrainian crisis|Euromaidan]] begins in which almost 100 Soros-backed activists and 17 police officers were killed.<ref>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26079957</ref><ref>What the Democrats tried to do today [20 March 2017 Congressional hearing] was criminalize everyone who works for better relations between the US and Russia. To be for peace between the nuclear powers is to be a Russian agent and to be put on a list. The Democrats insisted that Russia was an enemy out to get us, and the Democrats had no difficulty getting Comey and Rogers, both Obama appointees, to agree.

Comey and Rogers said that Russia was the main threat to the US, was working against our interests, and intends to harm us. Harming us includes opposing US hegemony and unilateralism. In other words, if the Russian government acts in the interests of Russia, the Russian government is harming the US. From the testimony it clearly emerged that any kind of opposition to anything Washington does is against American interests.

Both Comey and Rogers declared, falsely, that Russia had invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea by force. If Comey and Rogers are so poorly informed that they believe this, they are unfit for office. Crimea has been a part of Russia for 300 years.{{fact}} The population is almost entirely Russian. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Washington broke it apart, the Ukraine became independent for the first time in history. Crimea, which had been transferred by Khrushchev in 1954 from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, was included in the transfer on the condition that Russia had a long term lease on the naval base in Crimea.

When Washington’s regime change overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine, the Russian populations in Crimea, and in the new republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, were attacked and threatened by the neo-nazi elements in eastern Ukraine that had fought for Hitler against the Soviet Union.{{fact}} The populations of these areas voted overwhelmingly to reunite with Russia, from whence they had come. The votes were fair and open. As Crimea is the Russian Navy’s Black Sea base, Crimea was already occupied by Russian forces. For Comey and Rogers to call this an “invasion” displays either ignorance or a lack of integrity. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/20/conspiracy-president-trump/ </ref> As in Syria and other "Arab Spring" uprisings, ''agent provacateurs'' begin shooting and killing people on both sides to provoke a civil insurrection.

:*In February 2014, Russian soldiers landed in [[Crimea]]. Because some of the people currently living in Crimea are ethinic Russians, there is a dispute whether Crimea belongs to [[Ukraine]] or to [[Russia]].<ref>https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-warns-russia-over-military-moves-crimea</ref> On March 11, 2014, Crimea declared its indepence from Ukraine.<ref>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578160/Ukraines-fugitive-president-blasts-bandit-regime-says-country-heading-civil-war.html</ref> On March 16, 2014, Russia sponsored a referendum in Crimea about joining Russia. The United States and the [[European Union]] called the referendum "illegal".<ref>https://www.voanews.com/content/eu-crimea-referendum-illegal/1865590.html</ref> Because the referendum gave voters only two choices: join Russia now or later, experts already declared that most Crimeans will vote for the connection to Russia.<ref>http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/europe/2014/03/experts_russia_will_take_crimea</ref> As a result of it 95.5% of voters supported joining Russia.<ref>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26599776</ref> Since March 18, 2014, Russia claims Crimea as a part of its territory.<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/18/russia-moves-to-annex-crimea-laughs-at-us-sanctions/</ref> Only [[Afghanistan]], [[Cuba]], [[Nicaragua]], [[North Korea]], [[Russia]], [[Syria]] and [[Venezuela]] recognize Crimea as a part of Russia.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/world/asia/breaking-with-the-west-afghan-leader-supports-russias-annexation-of-crimea.html?ref=asia&_r=1</ref> On March 27, the U.N. General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution (100 in favor, 11 against and 58 abstentions) declaring Crimea's referendum invalid.<ref name="CHARBONNEAU AND DONATH">{{cite news|lcoauthors=Charbonneau M and Donath L|title=U.N. General Assembly declares Crimea secession vote invalid|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-ukraine-crisis-un-idUSBREA2Q1GA20140327|newspaper=Reuters|date=Mar 27, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Felton and Gumuchian">{{cite news|coauthors=Marie-Louise Felton and Alex Gumuchian|title=U.N. General Assembly resolution calls Crimean referendum invalid|url=https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/|newspaper=CNN|date=March 27, 2014}}</ref><ref name="un.org">{{cite news|title=Backing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, UN Assembly declares Crimea referendum invalid|url=https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47443&Cr=ukraine&Cr1=|newspaper=UN News Center|date=27 March 2014}}</ref><ref name="foxnews.com">{{cite news|title=UN General Assembly approves referendum calling Russia annexation of Crimea illegal|url=https://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/27/un-general-assembly-votes-yes-on-ukraine-unity/|newspaper=Associated Press|date=March 27, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Ukraine: UN condemns Crimea vote as IMF and US back loans|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26776416|newspaper=27 March 2014|date=BBC}}</ref> In response, the United States and Europe have imposed sanctions against Russian trade. In February 2017 [[President Trump]] accused Russia of taking Crimea by force and asked whether Obama was too soft on Russia.<ref>[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-russia-latest-tweet-accuse-crimea-obama-too-soft-distance-campaign-team-white-house-a7581511.html Donald Trump accuses Russia of taking Crimea by force in attempt to distance himself from campaign allegations]</ref>

*NSA and UK's GCHQ reportedly monitored traffic to the WikiLeaks website and considered a move to monitor communications going to or from WikiLeaks and the Pirate Bay.

*'''22 February.''' Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is ousted from power in a U.S. backed [[coup]].

*'''24 February.''' UK's GCHQ conducts covert operations to disrupt and shape online discourse.<ref>https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/</ref>

*'''28 February.''' [[Stefan Halper]] attempts to smear [[Gen. Michael Flynn]] and [[Svetlana Lokhova]] as Russian spies having an affair.<ref>https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/31/lawsuit-exposes-media-deep-state-hatched-russiagate-hoax/</ref>

*UK's GCHQ, using a program called Optic Nerve, intercepted and stored webcam images from millions of Yahoo users, then passed them on to the NSA's XKeyscore database.

===March 2014===
*'''4 March''' ''McClatchy'' reports on CIA spying on Congressional oversighters.<ref>https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article24764752.html</ref> Sen. Mark Udall again writes the President: "As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal CIA review and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the committee's oversight responsibilities and for our democracy," he writes. "It is essential that the committee be able to do its oversight work – consistent with our constitutional principle of the [[separation of powers]] – without the CIA posing impediments or obstacles as it is today."<ref>https://www.scribd.com/doc/210597656/Udall-Challenges-White-House-to-Support-Fullest-Possible-Declassification-of-Intelligence-Committee-s-Torture-Study</ref>
[[File:Obama and the media.jpg|right|250px|thumb|[[Ben Rhodes]] is the Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, and Deputy National Security Advisor to [[Susan Rice]]. Rhodes is also the brother of David Rhodes, President of CBS News.]]
*'''10 March.''' Award-winning News Anchor Sharyl Attkisson resigns from CBS alleging the network was spiking news stories that were unflattering to Barack Obama.<ref name=Macneal-resignation>{{cite news|last=Macneal|first=Caitlin|title=CBS Investigative Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Resigns From Network|url=http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sharyl-attkisson-cbs-resigns|accessdate=|newspaper=Talking Points Memo|date=March 10, 2014}}</ref> In her Best Seller, ''Stonewalled: One Reporter's Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington'',<ref name="NYT Best Stonewalled">{{cite news|title=Best Sellers: Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction|url=https://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2014-11-23/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/list.html|accessdate=|publisher=''[[The New York Times]]''|date=November 23, 2014}}</ref> Attkisson tells how her work and personal computers had been hacked for more than two years after she began filing stories about the Benghazi massacre.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/21/sharyl-attkisson-computers-compromised-cbs_n_3313199.html|title=CBS' Sharyl Attkisson: My Computers Were Compromised, 'Could Be Some Relationship' To DOJ Scandals|last=Mirkinson|first=Jack|date=May 21, 2013|work=[[The Huffington Post]]|accessdate=November 1, 2014}}</ref> CBS News investigated and found evidence of multiple unauthorized accesses by a third party in late 2012.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/sharyl-attkisson_n_3442019.html|title=CBS News Confirms Sharyl Attkisson's Computer Breached|date=June 14, 2013|work=[[The Huffington Post]]|accessdate=}}</ref> The hackers were identified by independent experts as a US Government intelligence agency.<ref>{{Citation|last=Smith|first=Kyle|author-link=|last2=Golding|first2=Bruce|title=Ex-CBS reporter: Government agency bugged my computer|newspaper=[[New York Post]]|date=October 27, 2014|url=http://nypost.com/2014/10/27/ex-cbs-reporter-government-related-entity-bugged-my-computer|accessdate=}}</ref> In March 2015, Attkisson and her family initiated suit against Eric Holder, Patrick R. Donahoe and unnamed agents of the [[US Department of Justice]], the US Postal Service and the United States claiming to have been subjected to illegal surveillance activities.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/01/05/attkisson-sues-government-over-computer-intrusions Attkisson sues government over computer intrusions], ''Washington Post''; Retrieved March 6, 2015.</ref><ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/01/05/Editorial-Opinion/Graphics/attkisson-lawsuit.pdf Editorial Opinion re Attkisson], ''Washington Post''; Retrieved March 6, 2015.</ref>

*'''11 March.''' Senate [[Democrat]] Intelligence Committee Chair [[Diane Feinstein]] takes to the Senate floor to accuse the Obama CIA of violating "the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the C.I.A. from conducting domestic searches or surveillance," and "breaching a constitutional boundary" of intimidation and spying on the US Senate.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief-history-of-the-cias-unpunished-spying-on-the-senate/384003/</ref>

*'''13 March.''' Document reveals that, while many foreign governments share information with NSA, few senior officials outside of the intelligence or defense sphere have any knowledge of it.<ref>https://theintercept.com/2014/03/13/nsa-elected-officials-foreign-countries-unaware-countries-cooperation-us/</ref>
----
*'''17 March.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' ''StarOnline'': Solar plant deal expected to be signed during Obama’s visit next month.<ref>https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2014/03/17/solar-plant-agreement-expected-to-be-signed-during-obamas-visit-next-month/</ref>
*'''18 March.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' 1MDB awarded solar project from Malaysian Government.
----
*'''20 March.''' Majority Leader [[Harry Reid]] backs investigation into Obama CIA hacking of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee's computers,<ref name="theguardian.com/world">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-senate-staffers</ref> and notifies Brennan and Attn. Gen. [[Eric Holder]] that the Capital Police will investigate charges that the CIA accessed the Intelligence Oversight Committee’s computer network.

*'''26 March''' Ali Fayad (aka Fayyad) indicted in U.S. courts on charges of planning the murders of U.S. government employees, attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and attempting to acquire, transfer and use anti-aircraft missiles. Fayad was arrested in [[Prague]] in the spring of 2014. But for the nearly two years Fayad was in custody, top Obama administration officials declined to apply serious pressure on the Czech government to extradite him to the United States, thwarting Project Cassandra. Fayad is a Lebanese arms merchant suspected of being a top Hezbollah operative moving large amounts of weapons to Syria and Iraq. Fayad was ultimately extradited to [[Beirut]] and is now believed by U.S. officials to be back in business, and helping to arm militants in Syria and elsewhere with Russian heavy weapons.

===April 2014===
A confidential DEA assessment more than a year into Obama's second term concluded that Hezbollah’s business affairs entity “has leveraged relationships with corrupt foreign government officials and transnational criminal actors … creating a network that can be utilized to move metric ton quantities of cocaine, launder drug proceeds on a global scale, and procure weapons and precursors for explosives.” Hezbollah “has at its disposal one of the most capable networks of actors coalescing elements of transnational organized crime with terrorism in the world,” the assessment concluded.

Some top U.S. military officials shared those concerns, including the four-star generals heading U.S. Special Operations and Southern commands, who warned Congress that Hezbollah’s criminal operations and growing beachhead in Latin America posed an urgent threat to U.S. security, according to transcripts of the hearings.

In early 2014, Project Cassandra task force agent John “Jack” Kelly who oversaw Hezbollah cases at Special Operations Division, and other task force members briefed Attorney General [[Eric Holder]], who was so alarmed by the findings that he insisted President Obama and his entire [[national security]] team get the same briefing as they formulated the administration’s Iran strategy.

*'''April.''' Ali Fayad arrested in Prague on a U.S. warrant. Fayad had agreed to sell 20 Russian-made shoulder-fired Igla [[surface-to-air missile]]s ([[MANPADS]]), 400 rocket-propelled grenades and various firearms and rocket launchers for $8.3 million to Project Cassandra task force agents posing as [[Colombia]]n [[FARC]] narcoterrorists.

*'''4 April.''' NSA and UK's GCHQ discuss various methods of deception, use of propaganda, mass messaging, and pushing stories on social media sites.
----
*'''11 April.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' Master joint venture agreement (JVA) formed between Yurus and 1MDB.<ref>1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), (via its wholly owned subsidiary, 1MDB Synergy Sdn. Bhd.), (“1MDB Synergy”) and Yurus Private Equity Fund I, L.P. (“Yurus PE Fund”) entered into a Master Joint Venture Agreement (“Master JVA”), to jointly develop up to 500MW of solar power plants in [[Malaysia]]. DuSable Capital Management was appointed as the investment adviser to the Yurus PE Fund. The Master JVA shareholding was 49% Yurus PE Fund and 51% 1MDB Synergy. https://web.archive.org/web/20161021233802/http://www.1mdb.com.my/sites/default/files/news/pdf/2015%2011%2011%20--%20Joint%20media%20statement%20by%201MDB%20and%20DuSable.pdf</ref> DuSable is headed by [[Frank White]], who was Obama’s chief fundraiser during the 2012 re-election campaign.<ref name="bloomberg.com"/>
:*1MBD and the Government of Malaysia is DuSable's only client.
:*Yurus Fund is managed by Frank White, Jr.

*'''12 April.''' 1MDB, (via its wholly-owned subsidiary) 1MDB Solar Sdn. Bhd (“1MDB Solar”) entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (“PPA”) with Tenaga Nasional Berhad for the construction of a 50MW solar power plant in the state of Kedah, Malaysia. It is important to highlight that Yurus PE Fund and DuSable Capital Management were not and never were, signatories to this PPA, nor did either party, at any time, have ownership of 1MDB Solar.

:*1MDB and DuSable Capital Management subsequently engaged in discussions for a partnership to develop, finance and construct the proposed 50MW solar power plant in Kedah. However, no project level joint venture agreement was reached between the parties for this solar power project or any other individual solar power project.
----
*USS Donald Cook equipped with the Aegis Combat System electronically disabled while sailing in the [[Black Sea]] off Russian territorial waters.<ref>http://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html</ref>

*'''14 April.''' 276 African Christian schoolgirls are kidnapped by [[Boko Haram]]. The girls are to be auction off by Muslim extremists as sex slaves. The administration was asked repeatedly in 2011 to designate the group as a terrorist organization so that counterterrorism agencies would have legal authority to counter it.<ref>[https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillary-dropped-ball-boko-haram-020300046--politics.html?ref=gs Hillary Dropped the Ball on Boko Haram], Josh Rogin, [The Daily Beast], May 7, 2014. www.yahoo.com</ref>
:*Rather than Special Operations Forces, the White House response was to send Michelle Obama out to encourage people to tweet about the horrific crime on [[social media]] at #BringBackOurGirls.<ref>https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/14/opinions/sesay-bring-back-our-girls-one-year-on/</ref>
:*In May 2012, Justice Dept. official Lisa Monaco wrote to Sec. Clinton asking to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. The following month, Gen. Carter Ham, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, said that Boko Haram provided a ‘safe haven’ for al Qaeda in North Africa, and was likely sharing explosives and funds with the group.<ref>Morrissey, Ed (May 8, 2014). [https://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/08/did-hillary-refuse-to-designate-boko-haram-as-a-terrorist-organization/ Did Hillary refuse to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization?] Hot Air website.</ref> The group had already bombed the [[United Nations]] headquarters in Abuja. Clinton refused, despite requests coming from the U.S. Justice Dept, the FBI, the CIA, and numerous Senators and Congressmen. Obama and Clinton had already armed al Qaeda in North Africa, the [[Libyan Islamic Fighting Group]], and Ansar al Shariah to destabilize the Gadaffi and Assad regimes.

*'''16 April.''' ''[[Forbes]]'' reports CIA Dir. John Brennen's visit to Ukraine.<ref>https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/04/16/why-cia-director-brennan-visited-kiev-in-ukraine-the-covert-war-has-begun/#248cdd8510cb</ref>
:*Devon Archer holds late night meeting at the [[White House]].<ref>https://video.foxnews.com/v/6094578904001/#sp=show-clips</ref>
*'''18 April.''' *Hunter Biden was appointed to the Board of Directors for Burisma–one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine. Hunter Biden has no experience in the oil and gas business.<ref>https://burisma-group.com/eng/director/hunter-biden/</ref><ref>http://www.dw.com/en/who-are-hunter-bidens-ukrainian-bosses/a-17642254</ref><ref>https://burisma-group.com/eng/?s=Hunter+Biden</ref>

*'''22 April.''' *Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine, offering his political support and $50 million in aid for [[Yatsenyuk]]'s shaky new government. Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire politician, was elected as president of Ukraine on May 25, 2014.

*'''30 April.''' James Clapper fires [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] Chief Mike Flynn for warning of radical [[Islamic]] [[jihad]]ists.<ref>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/head-of-pentagon-intelligence-agency-forced-out-officials-say/2014/04/30/ec15a366-d09d-11e3-9e25-188ebe1fa93b_story.html?utm_term=.45a637102303</ref><ref>https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/michael-flynn-isis-memoir/2016/07/10/id/737937/</ref>

*Snowden reveals GCHQ asked NSA for "unsupervised access" to NSA's databases.
----
*'''1MDB scandal.''' DuSable registers continuing foreign agent role for Government of Malaysia.
----

===May 2014===
Project Cassandra task force leaders were invited to attend a May 2014 summit meeting of Obama [[national security]] officials at Special Operations Command headquarters in [[Tampa]], [[Florida]]. Task force leaders hoped to convince the administration of the threat posed by Hezbollah’s networks, and of the need for other agencies to work with DEA in targeting the growing nexus of drugs, crime and terror.

The summit, and several weeks of interagency prep that preceded it, however, prompted pushback from some top national security officials. Lisa Monaco who replaced [[John Brennan]] as the [[White House]] [[counterterrorism]] and homeland security adviser expressed concern about using RICO laws against top [[Hezbollah]] leaders. Senior Obama administration officials were alarmed by how far [[Project Cassandra]]’s investigations reached into the leadership of Hezbollah and [[Iran]], and wary of the possible political repercussions. Project Cassandra became increasingly viewed as a threat to the Obams administration’s efforts to secure the [[Iran nuclear deal]], and the top-secret prisoner swap that was being negotiated.

The Obama administration made it clear to Project Cassandra leaders that it would not support a RICO case, even though tasdk force investigators spent years gathering evidence for it. Briefings for top White House and [[Justice Department]] officials that had been requested by [[Eric Holder]] never materialized. A top intelligence official blocked the inclusion of Project Cassandra’s memo on the Hezbollah drug threat from being included in Obama’s daily threat briefing. Project Cassandra agents stopped getting invitations to interagency meetings, including those of a top Obama transnational crime working group. Obama officials dropped Hezbollah from the formal list of groups targeted by a special White House initiative into transnational organized crime, which in turn effectively eliminated DEA’s broad legal authority to investigate it overseas. “Tampa was supposed to settle how everyone would have a seat at the table and what the national strategy is going to be, and how clearly law enforcement has role. And the opposite happened. We walked away with nothing," said Jack Riley, DEA’s chief of operations.<ref>https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/</ref>

*'''2 May.''' '''[[Odessa]] Trade Unions House massacre'''. At least 42 Ukrainians are murdered by Ukrainian nationalists, most burnt alive in the Odessa Trades Union Building. The bodies were removed and buried in secret. Survivors of the fire inside the building were executed with bullets to the head. Some were beaten to death with clubs when they jumped from Windows of the burning building. A pregnant woman was strangled.<ref>http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/videos-photos-odessan-massacre-done.html</ref> Shortly before, pro-Russian extremists killed two pro-Ukrainian activists.<ref>http://2maygroup.blogspot.de/2016/01/chronology-of-events-may-2-2014-in.html</ref>

*The Benghazi Mission was initially, and mistakenly by media, called “a consulate," or a “consulate outpost.” But there are no State Dept. records of any consulate office in Benghazi.<ref>https://www.juancole.com/2014/05/questions-benghazi-consulate.html</ref> This is why no Pentagon rescue operation was mounted, the Defense Dept. had no knowledge of US assets in Benghazi. The Benghazi weapons smuggling operation to ISIS was a CIA/State Dept. operation authorized by an Obama presidential covert action finding.

*'''13 May.''' During a State Department press conference, Matt Lee of the ''[[Associated Press]]'' grilled spokesperson Jen Psaki about Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board. Lee asked Psaki,
{{quotebox|Lee: “Does this building diplomatically have any concerns about potential perceptions of conflict or [[cronyism]] – which is what you’ve often accused the Russians of doing?” Paski: “No, he’s a private citizen."<ref>https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4819961/hunter-biden-ukraine-joe-biden-conflict-interest-13-2014</ref>}}

*'''21 May.''' Lucy Komisar exposes [[Bill Browder]], the driving force behind the [[Russia sanctions bill]] sponsored by [[John McCain]], as an offshore tax evader.<ref>https://100r.org/2014/05/russian-sanctions-highlight-role-of-western-enablers/</ref>

===June 2014===
*'''2 June.''' White House Counsel [[Kathryn Ruemmler]] leaves White House Counsel office.
*'''3 June.''' ''Foreign Affairs'' published the article ''The Estonian Spymasters''.<ref>https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/central-europe/2014-06-03/estonian-spymasters</ref>
*'''9 June.''' [[Islamic State]] captures Mosul;<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states Iraq army capitulates to Isis militants in four cities | World news | The Guardian]</ref> Obama calls ISIS "the Junior Varsity team."<ref>https://youtu.be/-wCqcWDZOjE</ref>
*'''13 June.''' IRS notified House Republican investigators that it had lost emails from January 2009 to April 2011.<ref>{{cite news|title=I.R.S. Commissioner to Testify on Ex-Official's Lost Emails|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/us/house-panels-looking-into-irss-claims-of-lost-emails.html|publisher=The New York Times|date=June 16, 2014|accessdate=|first=David S.|last=Joachim}}</ref> The emails were under subpoena.<ref>{{cite news|title=IRS says it's unable to recover subpoenaed Lerner e-mails in computer crash|url=http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/14/irs-loses-subpoenaed-lerner-e-mails-in-computer-crash/|publisher=CNN|date=June 14, 2014|accessdate=}}</ref> [[NSA]] megadata collection makes the loss of data impossible.
*'''19 June.''' IRS said that a damaged hard drive containing the missing emails had been disposed of more than two years prior.<ref>{{cite news |first1=Francesca |last1=Chambers |first2=David |last2=Martosko |url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2662577/The-IRS-THREW-AWAY-Lois-Lerners-hard-drive-containing-incriminating-emails.html |title=The IRS THREW AWAY and recycled Lois Lerner's hard drive containing incriminating Tea Party targeting emails |newspaper=Daily Mail |date=June 19, 2014 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140619162131/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2662577/The-IRS-THREW-AWAY-Lois-Lerners-hard-drive-containing-incriminating-emails.html |archivedate=|deadurl=yes |location=London}}</ref> Legal commentators raised questions how the IRS handled these federal records.<ref>{{cite web|title=The IRS's stunning and shameful record-keeping hypocrisy|url=http://theweek.com/article/index/263304/the-irss-stunning-and-shameful-record-keeping-hypocrisy|publisher=The Week|date=June 18, 2014|accessdate=}}</ref><ref name=FT>{{cite web|title=Did IRS Violate the Law on Lerner's Email?|url=http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/06/16/Did-IRS-Violate-Law-Lerner-s-Email|publisher=The Fiscal Times|date=June 16, 2014|accessdate=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Issa, Camp seek IRS hard drives|url=https://thehill.com/policy/finance/209883-issa-camp-seek-irs-hard-drives|publisher=The Hill|date=June 19, 2014|accessdate=}}</ref> A National Archives and Records Administration spokesperson said: "The Office of the Chief Records Officer for the U.S. Government has contacted the IRS to explore specifics of the situation.<ref name=FT/>
*'''27 June.''' A group of Turkish American donors give more than $62,000 to Ready for Hillary PAC. Among the donors are Adil Oksuz, Gokhan Ozkok, and Fethullah Gülen. Gokhan Ozkok is also a donor to the Clinton Global Initiative.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20141117214753/http://www.turkishculturalcenter.org/clinton-foundation-for-bringing-us-all-together-to-help-hurricane-sandy-victims/</ref> Many of the donations appear highly questionable.<ref>
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/08/23/turkey-coup-plotter-clinton-donor/88991622/</ref>

* Intelligence Community Directive ICD 732 issued requiring a damage assessment be conducted whenever there is 'an actual or suspected unauthorized disclosure or compromise of classified national intelligence that may cause damage to U.S. national security.'" Despite Dir. Comey's finding Hillary Clinton's server did indeed contain classified information, no such damage assessment was ever made following Wikileaks disclosure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails.

===July 2014===
*'''Sometime in the later half of 2014.''' [[Christopher Steele]] of Orbis International begins providing informal reports to the State Department on the Ukrainse. “During the [[Ukraine crisis]] in 2014 and ‘15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them,” said [[Victoria Nuland]], assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/victoria-nuland-says-obama-state-dept-informed-fbi-of-reporting-from-steele-dossier/</ref>
[[File:Katica-1-1-2 (1).png|right|350px|thumb|Reddit posting asking other tech professionals how to “strip out” and batch convert the emails of a “VERY VIP” client, for the sole purpose of concealing that “VERY VIP” client’s email address. According to the post, “they don’t want the VIP’s email address exposed to anyone.”]]
*'''July''' Clinton aide Cheryl Mills arranged for [name withheld by FBI] to export all .gov emails from the Platte River Networks (PRN) server, which he then exported to Mills’ and Clinton lawyer Heather Samuelson’s laptops via ScreenConnect.

*'''9 July.''' House Republicans released an April 13, 2013 email from the Commissioner in which she cautioned colleagues to "be cautious about what we say in emails," citing congressional inquiries. Congressional investigators said this email suggested that the Commissioner tried to hide evidence.<ref name="politico0714">{{cite news|title=Lois Lerner cautioned against email chatter amid lawmaker probes|url=https://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/lois-lerner-irs-lawyer-email-108722.html|last=Bade|first=Rachael|date=July 9, 2014|accessdate=|publisher=[[Politico]]}}</ref>

*'''23 July.''' House Select Committee reaches an agreement with the State Department for production of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

*'''24 July.''' User Stonetear ([[Paul Combetta]]<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/reddit-stone-tear1.png</ref>) of Platte River Networks posts smoking gun of intent to obstruct the production of evidence to Congress, either through deception or deletion, after Congress requested the evidence. Combetta later told the FBI that he knew about Congress’ preservation request when he used the BleachBit program to purge Clinton’s emails.<ref>http://www.thompsontimeline.com/tag/paul-combetta/</ref>
[[File:Accusa-doj.png|left|350px|thumb|[[Project Cassandra]] task force agent Jack Kelly warns of the danger Obama DOJ inaction on Hezbollah narco-terrorism. Obama allowed Hezbollah to flourish as a global narco-terrorist crime syndicate in exchange for the Iran nuclear deal.]]
*'''31 July.''' CIA admits to hacking into Oversighter's computers and spying on the Senate.<ref>https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article24771274.html</ref> Brennan lied to Congress.<ref>https://archive.is/H31EB</ref> Democratic Sen. [[Mark Udall]] calls for Director Brennan's resignation.<ref name="theguardian.com/world"/>

===August 2014===
*'''5 August.''' Public release of the Senate Torture Report is put on hold when the Senate objects to CIA trying to redact evidence that the agency misled congressional investigators, a key finding of the report. The report is already nearly one full year overdue.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senate-cia-clash-over-redactions-in-interrogation-report/2014/08/05/2f904f04-1ce0-11e4-ab7b-696c295ddfd1_story.html?utm_term=.cac6fd6648f9</ref>

*'''17 August.''' Hillary email to Presidentisl Counselor John Podesta acknowledges the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are “providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL.”<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774</ref>

*'''29 August.''' Project on Government Oversight sends letter to President Obama and members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to voice concerns over Executive Order 12333, the primary authority under which the NSA gathers foreign intelligence. Unlike a FISA warrant, the EO provides the government with the latitude to conduct sweeping surveillance on US and non-US persons without judicial review as long as the monitoring is necessary to protect US interests from "foreign security threats," an umbrella term that likely permits the surveillance of any foreign person.<ref>http://www.pogo.org/our-work/letters/2014/pogo-joins-group-letter-EO-12333.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/?referrer=http://circa.com/politics/government/if-proven-true-nunes-surveillance-revelations-raise-concerns-about-civil-liberties</ref>

*'''August.''' Vadim Mikerin, the Russian head of Tenam (Rosatom's American subsidiary) under investigation by the FBI for extortion and money laundering, visa renewed.

===September 2014===
*'''4 September.''' ''The Intercept'' reports [[Ken Dilanian]] cleared his stories with CIA before publishing.<ref>https://theintercept.com/2014/09/04/former-l-times-reporter-cleared-stories-cia-publication/</ref>
*'''5 September.''' IRS says it lost additional emails of five workers under congressional investigation.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ohlemacher |first=Stephen |date=September 5, 2014 |title=IRS Says it has Lost Emails From 5 More Employees |url=http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRS_LOST_EMAILS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-05-15-47-22 |newspaper=Associated Press |location=Washington |accessdate=}}</ref> These five workers include two people based in Cincinnati who worked on Tea Party cases.<ref>{{cite news |last=Bade |first=Rachael |date=September 5, 2014 |title=More IRS employees lost emails |url=https://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/irs-emails-lost-110648.html |newspaper=Politico |accessdate=}}</ref>

*Henry Kerner, listed as lead investigator in "IRS and TIGTA Management Failures Related to 501(c)(4) Applicants Engaged In Campaign Activity," a report on the investigation into the IRS weaponization against the Tea Party.<ref>https://twitter.com/The_War_Economy/status/1010250521947623426</ref> As a McCain staffer, Kerner earlier recommended using the IRS to destroy Tea Party groups.<ref>https://thefederalist.com/2018/06/22/report-mccain-staffer-urged-irs-to-conduct-financially-ruinous-investigations-of-non-profits/</ref>

*Turkish Premier [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]] asks Barack Obama for extradition of Clinton donor Fethullah Gülen.<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-usa-gulen/turkeys-erdogan-to-seek-gulen-extradition-in-obama-talks-media-idUSKBN0H00MC20140905</ref><ref>
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2014/03/erdogan-versus-gulen-extradition-request-obama.html</ref> Gülen fled to the United States in 1999, as Turkish authorities were preparing to arrest him, for “trying to undermine the [[secular]] system.” He now lives in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, in the Poconos, and has emerged as the leader of one of the world’s most important Islamic orders, surpassed only by the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] in its reach and influence. According to the ''New Yorker'' the Gulen movement is focused on infiltrating and controlling police forces. Gulen is "reviled and feared by much of Turkey’s population."<ref>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/03/12/the-deep-state</ref>

*'''6 September.''' Trump tweets, "Attention all hackers: You are hacking everything else so please hack Obama's college records (destroyed?) and check "place of birth"

*'''23 September.''' Federal judge rules Justice Dept. must comply with FOIA request by Judicial Watch for documents withheld from Congress on Fast and Furious under Obama's claim of executive privilege. [[Operation Fast and Furious]] was a Justice Department/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” operation in which the Obama administration allowed guns to go to Mexican drug cartels in hopes that they would end up at crime scenes, thereby advancing Obama's gun-control agenda.<ref>http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/pre5ss-releases/federal-court-denies-doj-motion-delay-orders-release-fast-furious-documents-list-judicial-watch-october-22/</ref> The number of deaths due to violence associated with Mexican drug trafficking cartels grew exponentially during the years Obama's Fast and Furious program was operational.

:{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Mexican drug related gun murders skyrocket during Obama's Fast and Furious campaign<ref>http://www.telesurtv.net/english/multimedia/Timeline-Mexicos-Failed-War-on-Drugs-Deaths-and-Disappearances-20150324-0033.html</ref>
|-
| 2006 || 62
|-
| 2007 || 2,837
|-
| 2008 || 6,844
|-
| 2009 || 11,753
|-
| 2010 || 19,546
|-
| 2011 || 24,068
|-
| 2012 || 18,061 (by October 31, 2012)
|-
| 2013 || 23,640 killed in 2013 (through to March 2014)
|}
----
*'''24 September.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' Sarawak Report cites connection between DuSable’s Frank White and Obama.<ref>http://www.sarawakreport.org/2014/09/obama-needs-a-longer-spoon-to-dine-with-najib-razak/</ref>
----
*'''25 September.''' Eric Holder announces his resignation as Attorney General.

*Rep. [[Adam Kinzinger]] and [[Evan McMullin]] travel to Turkey to meet with Syrian rebels.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/09/28/the-emerging-connections-between-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-never-trump/</ref>

*'''Late September.''' Cheryl Mills and [[Heather Samuelson]] ask [name withheld by FBI] to export all emails to them, not just those with .gov addresses. The FBI noted that [name withheld by FBI] made “inconsistent statements” over three interviews regarding the location from which he extracted the emails on the server.

===October 2014===
*'''2 October.''' '''1MDB scandal.''' '''1MDB buys out DuSable's Yarus fund for $69 million before any financing or construction on the joint project began.'''
:*As part of the initial public offering (IPO) plans of Edra Global Energy Berhad (“Edra”), 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) acquired the entire 49% interest of Yurus PE Fund managed by [[Frank White]] in the master joint venture agreement (Master JVA), for a final amount of $69 million. This acquisition ensured that 1MDB and Edra would own 100% of the rights to develop up to 500MW of solar power plants, prior to the launch of a proposed IPO of Edra.
:*Yurus fund’ capital base went from zero to $505,000,000 assets under management (AUM) – then added a $69 million increase before cashing out.<ref>https://archive.fo/aff2Z</ref> Yarus had none of its $505 million in assets invested in the joint project with 1MDB.<ref>http://www.sarawakreport.org/cache/1/0/2/1/b/1021bc3b397443abb31b9acdbd400f552e01e748.jpg</ref> Yurus reported the entire $69 million it received from 1MDB as a gain.
:*Malaysian investigators consider the 1MDB/DuSable relationship an influencing buying scheme between the [[Obama administration]], the [[Democratic party]], and corrupt 1MDB officials.
:*Some of the proceeds of the $69 million transaction, stolen from the Malaysian government by corrupt 1MDB officials, were donated by DuSable to Democratic candidates. It appears to be a corrupt foreign influence buying ([[dark money]]) scheme arranged by President Obama's chief fundraiser to interfere in American elections.
----
*'''10 October.''' ''Forbes'' reports that Judicial Watch obtained documents revealing the FBI was involved with the illegal IRS effort to investigate — and thus silence— around 500 conservative and Tea Party groups during Obama’s 2012 reelection. Perhaps the worst use of the IRS in American history, this was about manipulating the 2012 presidential election and the FBI was complicit in this abuse of governmental power. As JWs Tom Fitton writes, “Both the FBI and Justice Department collaborated with Lois Lerner and the IRS to try to persecute and jail Barack Obama’s political opponents.”<ref>https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/12/10/obama-justice-department-was-involved-in-irs-targeting-lerner-emails-reveal/#5eddbb716931</ref>
*'''15 October.''' ''New York Times'' reports the United States discovered the [[weapons of mass destruction]] in [[Iraq]]. American troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons. American troops reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs. "Troops and officers were instructed to be silent or give deceptive accounts of what they had found," Times reporter C.J. Chivers writes. [[Sarin]] was found. Information on the presence and dangers of chemical agents was not shared inside the armed forces, which left supervising officers and medical personnel unprepared to deal with their discovery. The Times documents a number of incidents in which Americans were made ill by chemical agents, given inadequate treatment, and told not to discuss their experiences. At least one large stash of the weapons now has come into the control of [[ISIS]] forces.<ref>
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Banner&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0</ref>>

===November 2014===
*'''4 November.''' Midterm elections. Republicans take control of the Senate, 54-46. Overall, the elections resulted in the largest Republican majority in the entire country in nearly a century, 247 House members, 31 governorships, and 68 state legislative chambers. GOP gains in the House were the largest majority since 1928, as well as the largest number of state legislatures since 1928.<ref name="reuters">{{cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/05/us-usa-elections-states-idUSKBN0IP2HB20141105|title=Republicans gain big in state legislative elections | Reuters|first=Karen|last=Pierog|agency=Reuters|accessdate=}}</ref><ref name="washingtonpost">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/11/nearly-half-of-americans-now-live-in-states-under-total-gop-control/|title=Nearly half of Americans will now live in states under total GOP control |newspaper=The [[Washington Post]]|accessdate=}}</ref><ref name="realclearpolitics">{{cite web|url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/11/11/the_other_gop_wave_state_legislatures__124626.html|title=The Other GOP Wave: State Legislatures &#124 |website=RealClearPolitics|accessdate=}}</ref>
*'''11 November.''' Longtime Democratic consultant [[Tad Devine]] who worked on [[Al Gore]]’s presidential campaign in 2000, [[John Kerry]]’s in 2004, and Viktor Yanukovych’s 2010 [[Ukrainian]] presidential campaign hired by [[Bernie Sanders]] as chief strategist.<ref>https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-is-a-russian-agent-and-other-things-i-learned-this-week/</ref><ref>http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/bernie-sanders-must-disclose-what-he-knows-about-his-campaign-adviser-tad-devine-and-russia/2155/</ref>
*'''18 November.''' House Benghazi Committee makes additional request for Clinton emails from State Dept.
*'''22 November.''' A spokesman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Republican majority stated that TIGTA investigators told Congress that they had recovered up to 30,000 emails to and from a past Commissioner.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/22/investigators-may-have-recovered-lost-irs-emails/|title=Investigators into [[IRS scandal]] may have recovered lost Lois Lerner emails|publisher=Fox News|date=November 22, 2014|accessdate=}} {{cite news |author=Susan Ferrechio |title=30,000 missing emails from IRS' Lerner recovered |url=http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/30k-missing-irs-emails-recovered/article/2556522 |newspaper=Washington Examiner |date=November 22, 2014 |accessdate=}}</ref>

===December 2014===
*'''December.''' The month Hillary Clinton decided to implement an auto-deletion policy to purge emails older than 60 days, per her FBI interview.

*'''4 December.''' CTH: A Transparent Conflict of Interest – Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Blocks White House/IRS Email Release.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/12/04/a-transparent-conflict-of-interest-treasury-secretary-jack-lew-blocks-white-houseirs-email-release/</ref>

*'''5 December.''' Hillary Clinton provides 55,000 work related emails to the State Department.

*'''9 December.''' DailyKos reports: ''War Criminal Michael Hayden Got Caught Leaking Trash about President Obama.''<ref>https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2014/12/9/1350441/-Recall-War-Criminal-Michael-Hayden-Got-Caught-Leaking-Trash-about-President-Obama</ref>

*'''10 December.''' “Stonetear” (Paul Camotta) asked Reddit users for help formulating a 60-day deletion policy, which involved automatically deleting emails 60 days old for “certain users” unless specifically saved.

*'''11-12 December.''' With the subject line "‘RE: 2 items for IT support,’ and a December 12, 2014 work ticket referencing email retention changes and archive/email cleanup, [Combetta] references ‘…the Hillary cover-up operation …’.<ref>[http://www.thompsontimeline.com/fbi-clinton-email-investigation-inteviews-released-on-september-23-2016/ FBI Transcripts: Paul Cambott, p. 8 (Paul Combetta) 9/15/15, p. 14 (Paul Combetta) 2/18/16, p. 21 (Paul Combetta) 5/3/16.]</ref>

*'''23 December.''' House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's staff releases a report that found that "[t]he IRS's inability to keep politics out of objective decisions about interpretation of the tax code damaged its primary function: an apolitical tax collector that Americans can trust to treat them fairly."

*'''December.''' Obama donor and "career" employee [[David Laufman]] appointed Dept. of Justice Chief of Counterintelligence.<ref name="trunews.com">http://www.trunews.com/article/doj-clinton-investigation-revealed-as-less-than-apolitical</ref>

*Eric Holder withdraws subpeaona of ''[[60 Minutes]]'' producer Richard Bonin.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/us/eric-holder-preet-bharara-richard-bonin-subpoena-testify-in-terrorism-trial.html?_r=0</ref>

==2015 progressive police state==
[[File:Sally Yates.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|Obama Deputy Attorney General [[Sally Yates]], one of the prime movers in the [[Deep State]] conspiracy to thwart American democracy. Yates barred Inspector General oversight of the Department of Justice-National Security Division from the time candidate Donald Trump announced his intention to run for president.]]
:''See : '''[[Obamagate timeline 2015 progressive police state]]'''''
What [[Nixon]] contemplated - misuse of the FBI and CIA against domestic opponents - but failed to accomplish yet was nevertheless forced from office, Obama achieved beyond anyone's wildest expectations. The post-[[Watergate]] reform [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]] to supervise [[Executive Branch]] power was systematically and wantonly circumvented to harass political opponents in an attempt to dictate the outcome of the [[2016 presidential election]], and [[blackmail]] the winner with illegally gathered evidence should the Obama coterie of conspirators fail.

Obamagate timeline 2015 - the progressive police state documents how the [[Leftist]] [[authoritarian]] [[utopia]] under [[President Barack Obama]] was firmly in place to cover-up the [[crimes]] of [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]], compromise whomever the 2016 [[GOP]] nominee would be, and rig the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton. This assault on American [[democracy]] is indisputable.

The origins of intelligence lures, FBI [[provocateur]]s or Spygate. [[Sally Yates]] terminates independent Inspector General oversight of the [[DOJ-National Security Division]]. [[Nellie Ohr]] hired as an FBI contractor to begin illegal [[FISA]] 702 surveillance on [[Michael Cohen]] and others. [[Papadopoulos]] set up.

Comey gives immunity to Clinton cronies who destroyed evidence under Congressional [[subpoena]].

During a period of November 2015 through April 18, 2016, Justice Department political insiders and outside political contractors, including [[FusionGPS]], accessed the [[NSA]] and FBI database using FISA-702(17) “About Queries”. They gathered information on political opposition of candidate [[Hillary Clinton]], including Donald Trump campaign officials and affiliates. NSA Director Mike Rogers suspected illegal abuse and instructed the NSA compliance officer to conduct a full [[FISA]] audit. The NSA began querying [[DOJ]] and [[FBI]] activity.<ref>https://youtu.be/CIJGH9RS2Fc</ref>

The unlawfully obtained [[FISA]] intelligence information ended up with Fusion GPS. The key personnel in FusionGPS are husband and wife [[Glenn Simpson]] and [[Mary Jacoby]]. Mary Jacoby’s relationship with the Clintons’ goes back to the Rose Law Firm.<ref>
Hillary Clinton was the intellectual property lawyer for Systematics. According to The ''American Lawyer'', July 1992: "[Hillary] Clinton also was attracted to intellectual property litigation. 'We did not have any intellectual property expertise when she joined us,' says [[Vince Foster]], who adds that Clinton got involved in this area through her work for the firm client, Systematics Inc., a company based in Little Rock that provided computer systems for financial institutions. 'She became sort of self-taught in all of this,' explains Foster. 'And you don't find a lot of intellectual property subspecialists in Arkansas. Quite frankly, the rest of us here thought of it as a foreign language.'"

Part of this "intellectual property" would involve a banking transaction software system based on the stolen PROMIS software. A federal bankruptcy court had ruled in 1987 that the US Justice Dept. 'stole' the PROMIS software from a small company called [[Inslaw Inc]] when the DOJ refused to pay Inslaw for it. US intelligence took the PROMIS software and added a hidden "backdoor" for monitoring banking transactions and money laundering. Systematics was the marketing firm the [[National Security Agency]] (NSA) was using to get the PROMIS software with the hidden backdoor into the hands of banks worldwide. The intellectual property that Hillary handled, and that Systematics was marketing, had been stolen from Inslaw.

Systematics was founded in 1968 by University of Arkansas graduate Walter Smiley, who learned of the high software costs and other difficulties faced by small banks in trying to use data processing software from his experiences working with IBM and in the banking industry. Smiley recognized a niche that could be filled for medium-sized banks in this space, and sought funding to start his own company. http://walton.uark.edu/abhf/walter-v-smiley.php Through Jon Jacoby, Smiley was introduced to the Stephens family, who agreed to invest $400,000 in Smiley and Systematics in return for 80% equity stake. http://www.stephensgroup.com/our-portfolio-partners/case-studies Jon Jacoby is the father of Mary Jacoby, wife of [[Glenn Simpson]], http://library.fora.tv/speaker/6818/Glenn_Simpson the founder and owner of FusionGPS.</ref>

==2016 election year==
[[File:The-scheme.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Leading figures in what FBI Counterintelligence Deputy Peter Strzok referred to as the Espionage Machine Party. A small group within the FBI and intelligence community conspired to prevent the election of Donald Trump through the illegal use of FISA wiretaps, and as an "insurance policy" to remove him from office after he won.]]
:''See:'' '''''[[Obamagate timeline|Russiagate timeline 2016 election year]]'''''
The FBI 'small group' was participating in a plan to exonerate Hillary Clinton in her [[Hillary Clinton email scandal|email investigation]]. That same FBI small group was simultaneously conducting opposition research on candidate [[Donald Trump]] and his campaign team. Those FBI officials were allied by entities outside the government. The ‘outside group’ were “contractors”. One of the contractors was FusionGPS or entities in contact with FusionGPS.

The contractors were using FBI intelligence databases to conduct opposition research “searches” on Trump campaign officials, FISA-702(16)(17) “To/From” and “About” queries. This [[FISA abuse]] was allowed by the FBI, but the NSA detected the abuses in early 2016. NSA Dir. Admiral Mike Rogers stepped in on April 18, 2016 and stopped the FBI contractors from having any further access. Without access to the FBI intelligence database, the group needed a workaround.

The [[DOJ]] side of the operation was conducted within the National Security Division headed by [[John P Carlin]]. The DOJ-NSD could use the NSA/FBI database and pass information to, and receive information from, Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr. Nellie was hired by FusionGPS immediately after [[NSA]] Dir. Admiral Mike Rogers shut down the FBI ‘contractor’ use of the system. Nellie would be the go-between.

The problem was that any information from within the [[FISA]] searches could not be directly used by the FBI because they would have to explain how they gained it, and all search queries without a warrant were [[illegal]]. FusionGPS then hired the retired British [[MI6]] officer [[Christopher Steele]]. The FBI needed to launder the intelligence product.

Chris Steele would be the laundry for the intelligence information pulled from the U.S. system. Unauthorized FISA-702(16)(17) results were passed on to Christopher Steele by Nellie Ohr. Steele would then wash the intelligence product, repackage it into what became known as the ''[[Steele dossier]]'', and pass it back to the FBI ‘small group’ as evidence for use in their [[counterintelligence]] operation beginning in July 2016. Dir. [[James Comey]] intentionally failed to notify the Congressional [[Gang of Eight]], denying congressional oversight of the operation.

Proof of this laundry process is found in a “search query” result that was actually a mistake. The faulty intelligence mistake was the travel history of [[Michael Cohen]], a long-time Trump lawyer. The FISA search returned a Michael Cohen traveling to Prague, but it was the wrong Michael Cohen. However, that mistaken result was passed on to Chris Steele, and it made its way into the ''Steele dossier''. Absent of a FISA search, there’s no other way Christopher Steele could identify a random “Michael Cohen” traveling to Prague. The Cohen mistake created a trail from Chris Steele to the FISA database.

All of the unauthorized FISA-702 search queries, “To From”(16) and/or “About”(17), of the NSA/FBI database were returning results. Those results are “raw intelligence”. That raw intelligence needed “unmasking”, that’s where the [[Department of State]] (DOS) is involved. The U.N. Ambassador is part of the DOS. [[Samantha Power]] testified she wasn’t doing the daily “unmasking” identified by the House Intelligence Committee investigation. Someone, or a group of people, within the State Department, were doing unmasking requests using Ms. Power’s authority. The collaborative process by officials within the State Department, as outlined and supported by Senator [[Chuck Grassley]] and his investigation, explains why those officials were also communicating with Christopher Steele.

The assembled but highly compartmentalized reports from the DOJ-NSD, FBI-Counterintelligence, Department of State, Office of National Intelligence ([[James Clapper]]) and CIA ([[John Brennan]]), was then constructed to become part of President Obama’s Daily Intelligence Briefing (PDB). That’s where National Security Adviser [[Susan Rice]] comes in and her frequent unmasking of the assembled intelligence product.

The Obama PDB was then redistributed internally to more than three dozen administration officials who [[President Obama]] allowed access his PDB. This includes the heads of DOJ, DOJ-NSD, FBI, FBI-counterintel, CIA, DOS, ODNI, NSA and Pentagon.

The distribution of the PDB was how each disparate member of the administration, the larger intelligence apparatus, knew of the ongoing big picture without having to assemble together for direct discussion. That’s Lisa Monaco and “Operation Latitude”.

==2017 soft coup==
[[File:Mueller-and-yanu.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Special Counsel Robert Mueller [[colluding]] with Ukrainian President [[Viktor Yanukovych]]. Yanukovych is considered a Putin stooge by many [[Deep State]]rs.]]
:''See : '''[[Russiagate timeline 2017|Russiagate timeline 2017 soft coup]]'''''
The information the FBI collected, and the material Christopher Steele and [[FusionGPS]] manufactured, were used to create the [[fake news]] [[Trump-Russia conspiracy theory]], and to manipulate the [[FISA]] court into granting a FISA warrant - what [[Peter Strzok]] called “the insurance policy” against Trump's election. When [[James Comey]] reopened the Clinton investigation ten days before the election in October 2016, and Hillary's lead in the polls started to drop, the "insurance policy" became operational: officially sanctioned leaks alleging collusion between Trump and Russia were rampant.<ref>https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/</ref>

When James Comey asked for a private meeting with Trump on January 6, 2017 to present Trump with Hillary Clinton's fictional opposition research as a US intelligence product, Comey briefed Trump only on the sexual allegations and not a word about [[Carter Page]], [[Michael Flynn]], Paul Manafort, and [[Michael Cohen]] being targeted under the [[FISA]] Act. According to Comey, he acted on the instructions of [[John Brennan]] and [[James Clapper]].<ref>"the leaders of the intelligence community agreed he needed to be told about because we knew it and thought it was about to become public." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1804/19/cg.01.html</ref> Clapper dutifully [[leak]]ed the fact that Trump had been briefed on allegations that he consorted with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013 in an unsavory way to Jake Tapper of CNN.<ref>https://saraacarter.com/former-dni-james-clapper-allegedly-leaked-to-cnn-investigation-revealed/</ref> CNN reported the made-up news from the supposed "intelligence report" and linked to the opposition research report on [[BuzzFeed]], claiming it was some sort of official document in the hands of the US intelligence community that the government was acting on. The [[intelligence community]] had implemented the "insurance policy". Russiagate was no longer just [[Hillary Clinton]]'s political campaign directed against Trump, it was now a [[disinformation]] operation aimed at [[liberal deceit|deceiving]] the American people.

In early March 2017, [https://dod.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography-View/Article/602701/ Evelyn Farkas], Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia from the Obama Administration, appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapRNpEjXUo</ref> and shared efforts to get information about Trump staff to The Hill in hopes to get information out. To many people this proved President Trump's claim that Obama had "his wires tapped" at Trump Tower.<ref>https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837989835818287106</ref> Later in that same month she tries to backtrack and change the meaning of what she was saying.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D-nDGSzQg4</ref>

==2018 reckoning==
[[File:31D66D0A-82A4-40E7-A1C2-EBA55EEB357D.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|Prime movers in the [[Deep State coup]]. Comey (first left) funneled raw FISA data to [[FusionGPS]] to make it appear the FBI's illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign came from outside the government;<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/11/the-doj-and-fbi-worked-with-fusion-gps-on-operation-trump/</ref> Brennan (second left) collected the bogus ''[[Donald Trump–Russia dossier|Clinton-Steele dossier]]'' from British intelligence sources as part of a supposed routine "intelligence sharing" agreement;<ref>https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/04/09/john-brennans-role-in-the-fbis-trump-russia-investigation/</ref> Clapper (third from left) rubber stamped the operation, lied to Trump about the scheme and facilitated leaks to the press to impugn Trump.<ref>https://saraacarter.com/former-dni-james-clapper-allegedly-leaked-to-cnn-investigation-revealed/</ref> Adm. Rogers (end right), the lone hero of the group, detected the Obama FBI's abuse of the NSA's [[FISA]] computer system and personally reported the illegal activity to the FISA court.<ref>https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/01/10/an-american-hero-the-death-of-a-fisa-narrative/</ref>]]
:''See'': '''''[[Russiagate timeline 2018]]'''''
The '''Russiagate timeline''' chronicles [[Obama administration]] appointees and holdovers, in collusion with the [[2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign|Hillary Clinton campaign]] and [[DNC]], efforts to prevent the election of [[Donald J. Trump]] and, after he was elected, remove him from office. The Obama FBI Counterintelligence Division and [[DOJ]] National Security Division conducted an illegal [[counterintelligence]] operation against domestic political opponents.
Chris Blackburn said: {{quotebox|"For those that still believe we are living in democratic, free and open societies it is sadly starting to look like fantasy. Democracies flourish when the checks and balances in the system are robust. We need them to work now more than ever.”}}
Elizabeth Vos observed: {{quotebox|"In the Trump-Russia and Russian hacking narratives, American and UK intelligence agencies appear to have recklessly and deceptively acted in the interest of a single political candidate, Hillary Clinton. This singularity of purpose speaks to the insecurity and magnitude of the unelected Western power structure, equaled by the scale of lies propping up the Trump-Russia and Russian hacking narratives."}}

==2019 the Empire strikes out==
[[File:Mifsud with Boris Johnson.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|'''FBI/CIA spy [[Joseph Mifsud]] (left) with [[UK]] prime minister [[Boris Johnson]] (center)''' two weeks after Trump advisor '''[[George Papadopoulos]]'''' plea agreement in the '''[[Mueller investigation]]'''.<ref>https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-pictured-with-london-professor-from-fbi-russia-probe/amp/ </ref> The entire [[Trump-Russia conspiracy hoax]] was hatched by [[Obama administration|Obama]] CIA director [[John Brennan]] on the false allegation that Mifsud was a Russian agent. Mifsud had been working for Brennan and [[Jimmy the Weasel]] Comey all along.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUZ8XI_ncas Why the Mifsud Story Matters], DECLASSIFIED with Gina Shakespeare,- ''[[The Epoch Times]]'', Aug 5, 2019.</ref>]]
:''See : '''[[Muellergate timeline 2019]]'''''
The '''[[Muellergate scandal]]''' refers to efforts to cover-up Obama-era [[FBI]]/[[DOJ]] crimes and frame [[Donald Trump]] and campaign associates for crimes they did not do.

Since President Trump's inauguration, 26 people were fired or otherwise removed from the [[Department of Justice]] and [[FBI]] in the [[Obamagate timeline|Obamagate scandal]].

FBI Deputy Director [[Andrew McCabe]] and FBI chief legal counsel [[James Baker (DOJ)]] selected most of the special counsel investigators; those two then recommended to Deputy AG [[Rod Rosenstein]] that he hire [[Robert Mueller]] as special counsel lead.

[[James Comey]] was fired. The remaining ‘at-risk’ [[corrupt]] [[FBI]] leadership (McCabe and Baker), positioning to defend their own interests, selected the “small group”; then Mueller was selected and brought on his additional team members. The entire purpose of the special counsel operation was to cover-up the DOJ/FBI activity during the [[2016 presidential election]], [[Trump transition]], and early [[Trump administration]].

While DOJ Inspector General [[Michael Horowitz]] completed his review of the FBI mishandling of the [[Clinton email investigation]], Horowitz was prevented from looking at any of the prime suspects in the [[FISA abuse]] scandal. As was U.S. Attorney John Huber from prosecuting anyone involved. Mueller's ongoing investigation gave cover to corrupt Obama era officials, citing Mueller's "ongoing investigation." They successfully impeded investigations throughout the 2017-2019 Congressional session.

==See also==
*[[Obama war crimes]]
*[[List of names in the Obamagate scandal]]
*[[Barack Hussein Obama's unlawful acts]]
*[[Obama's second term agenda]]
*[[Trump-Russia scandal]]
*[[Awan investigation]]
*[[Project Cassandra]]
*[[Clinton scandal]]
*[[FBI scandal]]
*[[FusionGPS]]

==References==
{{reflist|3}}

==External links==
*[https://sharylattkisson.com/stonewalled-book/ sharylattkisson.com]
*[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1390759/251766258-attkissons.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiF-vLvsrvTAhVV-GMKHWwlDrQQFghSMBI&usg=AFQjCNHTrEnHFX0mCd0T35Mh2632wysE9A&sig2=8Bc7S9O2dx3DTtfHFTcDAQ ''Attkisson v Holder''] complaint
*[http://www.understandingwar.org/daily-libya-tracker DAILY LIBYA TRACKER] Libya Conflict: Situation Update, By: Spencer Butts. Institute for the Study of War. http://www.understandingwar.org/
*[https://sharylattkisson.com/hillary-clintons-email-the-definitive-timeline/ Hillary Clinton’s Email: the Definitive Timeline], Sharyl Attkisson
*[https://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-leaks-timeline-2016-9 This is everything Edward Snowden revealed in one year of unprecedented top-secret leaks]
*http://www.obamagolfcounter.com

[[Category:Barack Hussein Obama]]
[[Category:Obama Presidency]]
[[Category:Hillary Clinton email scandal]]
[[Category:Corruption]]
[[Category:Obama Administration]]
[[Category:United States Political Scandals]]

Pogroms

2019-11-30T23:11:13Z

JoeyJ: /* Background */

'''Pogroms''' are riots committed against [[ethnic communities]] with the intent of destroying them. Historically the term "[[pogrom]]" has been applied to [[Jews]]. Pogroms began early in the 1880s in Tsarist Russia, lasting for decades. They spread west to Germany and continued through until the [[Holocaust]].

==Background==
The word originates from Russia, with a combination of the prefis po- and the verb ''gromit''. The first major pogroms occurred in what is now present-day Ukraine and Poland. Another much bloodier wave of attacks left more than two thousand dead in [[Odessa]]. Other pogroms occured in Kishinev, Limerick, [[Kyiv]], Siedlce, Adana, Tredegar, Sarajevo, Lwów, Guba City, Pinsk, Vilna, Tulsa, [[Hebron]], and Iaşi.

==See also==
* [[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]], which originate from Russia in 1903
* [[Kristallnacht]]

[[Category:Ethnicities]]

Bill Weisband

2019-11-30T23:10:43Z

JoeyJ:

<div style="float: right; border: 1px solid #8888aa; background: #f7f8ff; padding: 5px; font-size: 85%; margin: 0 15px 0 15px; text-align: center;">
<div style="background: #ccf; font-weight: bold; padding: 1px 3px 1px 3px;">This article is part of the [[Venona project|Venona]] series.</div>
[[CPUSA#Secret apparatus|Secret apparatus]] 
[[Signals Intelligence Service]] 
[[Arlington Hall]]
</div>

'''William Wolf Weisband''' was born in [[Odessa]] (then [[Russia]], today [[Ukraine]]) in 1908 of Russian parents. Weisband emigrated to America in the 1920s and became a US citizen in 1938. From 1941 to 1942 Weisband was the [[Agent handling|agent handler]] for [[Jones Orin York]] who worked in the [[Northrop Corporation]]. He joined the US Army [[Signals Intelligence Service]] (SIS) in 1942 and performed signals intelligence and communications security duties in [[North Africa]] and [[Italy]], where he made some important friends before returning to [[Arlington Hall]] and joining its "Russian Section." Although not a cryptanalyst, as a "linguist adviser" who spoke fluent Russian, he was working closely with cryptographers. The gregarious and popular Weisband had access to all areas of Arlington Hall's Soviet work. [[Meredith Gardner]] recalled that Weisband had watched him extract the list of Western atomic scientists from the December 2, 1944 KGB message.

The [[Soviet]]s apparently had monitored Arlington Hall's "Russian Section" since at least 1945, when Weisband joined the unit. Weisband's earliest reports on the work on Soviet diplomatic systems were probably sketchy and might not have provided clear warning to Moscow about the exploitability of the KGB messages. Weisband passed the information on to them in 1948, although he was not discovered by counterintelligence officers until 1950. Where Weisband had sketched the outlines of the cryptanalytic success, British liaison officer [[Kim Philby]] received actual translations and analyses on a regular basis after he arrived for duty in Washington in autumn 1949.

While suspended from SIS on suspicion of disloyalty, he skipped a federal grand jury hearing on [[CPUSA]]. As a result, in November 1950 Weisband was convicted of contempt and sentenced to a year in prison. Weisband was never prosecuted for espionage because under the 1947 [[National Security Act]] "sources and methods" by law cannot be revealed. He died suddenly of natural causes in 1967.

==Sources==
*[http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/preface.htm Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957]

==External links==
*David A. Hatch with Robert Louis Benson, [http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00022.cfm The Korean War: The SIGINT Background], National Cryptographical Museum, 2001

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weisband, Bill}}
[[Category:KGB Agents and Sources]]

Ukrainian collusion timeline

2019-11-30T23:00:48Z

JoeyJ: /* February 2014 */ How is this image related to the Euromaidan movement?

<center>'''Main article:''' '''[[Ukrainian collusion]]'''</center>
==1954==
*After [[Joseph Stalin]]’s death [[Nikita Khrushchev]], a Ukrainian, assumed power. Pandering to Ukrainian supporters, he unilaterally decreed that henceforth Crimea would be part of the Ukrainian SSR, not the Russian SSR. Since all 15 Republics of the [[USSR]] were under tight rule from [[Moscow]], the switch was a distinction without a difference — until the USSR fell apart.

==1989==
*'''9 November.''' '''Fall of the Wall.'''
:{{See also|Berlin Wall|Cold War}}

*'''December 2-3.''' [[President George H. W. Bush]] invites Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] to summit talks in [[Malta]]; reassures him “the U.S. will not take advantage” of Soviet troubles in Eastern Europe.

==1990==
*'''February 7-10.''' Secretary of State [[James A. Baker III]] negotiates a quid pro quo; Soviet acceptance of the bitter pill of a reunited Germany (inside NATO), in return for an oral U.S. promise not to enlarge NATO “one inch more” to the East.<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/16/the-broken-promise-to-shevardnadze/</ref>

==1991==
*'''December.''' '''Soviet Union goes out of business.'''

==1996==
*'''October.''' During the last weeks of [[President Bill Clinton]]’s re-election campaign when he said he would welcome [[Poland]],[[ Hungary]] and the [[Czech Republic]] into NATO — the earlier promise to Moscow notwithstanding. Former U.S. Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock, who took part in both the Bush-Gorbachev early-December 1989 summit in Malta and the Baker-Gorbachev discussions in early February 1990, has said, “The language used was absolute, including no ‘taking advantage’ by the U.S. … I don’t see how anybody could view the subsequent expansion of NATO as anything but ‘taking advantage,’ particularly since, by then, Russia was hardly a credible threat.” (From 16 members in 1990, NATO has grown to 29 member states — the additional 13 all lie east of [[Germany]].)

==1999==
*'''10 November.''' U.S.- Ukraine Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.<ref>http://www.dickmorris.com/us-ukraine-treaty-authorized-everything-trump-did-lunch-alert/</ref><ref>https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/120230.pdf</ref>

==2008==
*'''1 February.'''. Amid rumors of NATO planning to offer membership to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister [[Sergei Lavrov]] warns U.S. Ambassador William Burns that “Nyet Means Nyet.” Russia will react strongly to any move to bring Ukraine or the [[Republic of Georgia]] into NATO. Thanks to WikiLeaks, we have Burns’s original cable from embassy in Moscow.
*'''3 April.''' Included in Final Declaration from NATO summit in [[Bucharest]]: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”

==2013==
===July 2013===
*'''18 July.''' [[Adam Schiff]] attends fundraiser in his honor hosted by Igor Pasternak, a Ukrainian arms dealer.
===December 2013===
*'''December.''' In a speech to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs [[Victoria Nuland]] says: “The United States has supported Ukraine’s European aspirations. … We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.”
*'''14 December.''' Sen. John McCain meets with fascist leader Oleh Tyahnybok and Arseniy Yatsenyuk in Kiev.<ref>https://progressivedemocrat.org/tag/oleh-tyahnybok/</ref>

==2014==
===February 2014===
*'''4 February.''' Amid rioting on the Maidan in Kiev, YouTube carries Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s last minute instructions to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt regarding the U.S. pick for new Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk (aka “Yats”) and other plans for the imminent ''coup d’etat'' in Kiev. When Pyatt expresses concern about EU misgivings about mounting a coup, Nuland says “F*** the EU.” She then apologizes to the EU a day or two later — for the profanity, not for the coup. She also says that Vice President Joe Biden will help “glue this thing together”, meaning the coup.
*'''22 February.''' '''Coup d’etat in Kyiv'''; President Viktor Yanukovych is ousted from power;<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/23/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/</ref> appropriately labeled “the most blatant coup in history” by George Friedman, then President of the widely respected think-tank STRATFOR.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9J6sxCs5k&feature=youtu.be</ref>
*'''23 February.''' The date that NATO, Western diplomats, and the corporate media have chosen as the beginning of recent European history, with silence about the coup orchestrated in Kyiv the day before. President Vladimir Putin returns to Moscow from the winter olympics in Sochi; confers with advisers about Crimea, deciding to arrange a plebiscite to let the people of Crimea, most of whom strongly opposed the coup regime, decide their own future.

===March 2014===
*'''16 March.''' The official result from the voters in Crimea voted overwhelmingly for independence from Ukraine and to join Russia. Following the referendum, Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the [[Russian Federation]]. On March 18, the Russian Federal Assembly ratified the incorporation of Crimea into Russia. In the following days, Putin made it immediately (and publicly) clear that Yatsenyuk’s early statement about Ukraine joining NATO and – even more important – the U.S./NATO plans to deploy ABM systems around Russia’s western periphery and in the [[Black Sea]], were the prime motivating forces behind the post-referendum re-incorporation of Crimea into Russia.
:*Moscow would take no chances of letting NATO grab Crimea and Russia’s only warm-water naval base. The Nuland [[neocon]]s seized on the opportunity to accuse Russia of aggression and told obedient European governments to follow suit.

===April 2014===
*'''April.''' Investigators in the U.K. open a money laundering and fraud investigation of Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma Holdings.

*'''16 April.''' ''[[Forbes]]'' reports Trump-Russia mastermind [[John Brennan]] visits Ukraine.<ref>https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/04/16/why-cia-director-brennan-visited-kiev-in-ukraine-the-covert-war-has-begun/#248cdd8510cb</ref>
:*Devon Archer holds late night meeting at the [[White House]]..<ref>https://video.foxnews.com/v/6094578904001/#sp=show-clips</ref>

*'''18 April.''' Hunter Biden is hired to the board of Ukraine's largest energy company, Burisma Holdings.<ref>https://archive.is/LqxDr/</ref><ref>http://www.dw.com/en/who-are-hunter-bidens-ukrainian-bosses/a-17642254</ref><ref>https://archive.is/Aza4U</ref><ref>https://archive.is/IDha1</ref> It is owned by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, one of several subjects of the Ukrainian corruption probe.

*'''21-22 April.''' Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine,<ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/joe-biden-obama-officials-influenced-ukraine-to-advance-own-interests_2896259.html</ref> offering his political support and $50 million in aid for the new shaky government.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/world/europe/biden-ukraine.html</ref>

===May 2014===
*'''2 May.''' '''Odessa Trade Unions House massacre'''. Between 42 and 116 Russians and Ukrainians, including a pregnant woman, burnt alive by fascist supporters of the new regime.<ref>http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/videos-photos-odessan-massacre-done.html</ref><ref>http://2maygroup.blogspot.de/2016/01/chronology-of-events-may-2-2014-in.html</ref> Western fake news downplays the incident and low-balls the number of deaths.

*'''13 May.''' During a State Department press conference, Matt Lee of the ''[[Associated Press]]'' grilled spokesperson Jen Psaki about Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board. Lee asked Psaki,
{{quotebox|Lee: “Does this building diplomatically have any concerns about potential perceptions of conflict or [[cronyism]] – which is what you’ve often accused the Russians of doing?” Paski: “No, he’s a private citizen."<ref>https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4819961/hunter-biden-ukraine-joe-biden-conflict-interest-13-2014</ref>}}

===June 2014===
*'''6 June.''' Joe Biden visits Ukraine.
===August 2014===
*'''August.''' Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Vitaly Yarema, opens an investigation of Zlochevsky. A lawyer for Burisma claims that an investigation was closed in September 2016.
===November 2014===
*'''21-22 November.''' Joe Biden visits Ukraine.

==2015==
*'''10 February.''' Viktor Shokin takes over as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

===June 2015===
*'''June or July.''' U.S. Ambassador Geoffry Pyatt told Viktor Shokin to handle "Biden investigation with white gloves".<ref>https://saraacarter.com/u-s-amb-in-ukraine-told-the-prosecutor-to-handle-biden-investigation-with-white-gloves/</ref>

===August 2015===
*'''27 August.''' Quinnipiac Poll: Biden runs better than Clinton against top Republicans while Clinton lead shrinks,<ref>https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2274</ref> as ''New York Times'' is investigating Biden links to Ukraine.

===October 2015===
*'''21 October.''' Joe Biden drops out of presidential race.<ref>https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/21/politics/joe-biden-not-running-2016-election/index.html</ref> while ''New York Times'' investigation into Biden links to Ukraine continues.

===November 2015===
*'''9 November.''' Deep State informant [[Eric Ciaramella]] invites DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa into the White House.<ref>https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/10/30/whistleblower_exposed_close_to_biden_brennan_dnc_oppo_researcher_120996.html]</ref><ref>https://archive.usukraine.org/coalition/report-wh-press-conf-events.shtml</ref><ref>http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/wp-content/uploads/current-pdf/The_Ukrainian_Weekly_2015-47.pdf</ref>
*'''28 November.''' Spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs says there are no criminal investigations in which businessman Dmitry Firtash is a suspect.<ref>https://archive.is/G5gwG 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Google translate]</ref>

*'''29 November.''' Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov said that upon arrival in Ukraine, the oligarch Dmitry Firtash would be detained by the National Police if the US Justice Department filed such a petition.<ref>https://archive.is/3cHqz 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Google translate] Also see https://archive.is/lAVHg</ref>

===December 2015===
[[File:Azov Battalion.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Members of the Azov Battalion with the NATO flag (left) Azov mascot (center) and [[Swastika]] (right). The NATO flag represents [[globalism]]; the ''[[Cyrillic]]'' A3OB in the center spells AZOV; and the swastika represents the Obama administration's [[OUN]], [[Russophobe]] allies in Ukraine.<ref>https://www.salon.com/2014/02/25/is_the_us_backing_neo_nazis_in_ukraine_partner/</ref>]]
*'''2 December.''' Dmitry Firtash announces hid intention to return to Ukraine to address the General Assembly of the Federation of Employers (FEU). Joe Biden, [[President Poroshenko]], and Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov took steps to prevent Firtash's return.<ref>[https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement Affidavit of [[Viktor Shokin]] on Biden shakedown], September 4, 2019.</ref>

*'''3 December.''' ''[[Politico]]'' reports:''A Ukrainian oligarch’s foiled homecoming: The U.S. and the government in Kiev want Dmytro Firtash behind bars.''
:*"Ukraine's Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov announced on Sunday that, after consulting with U.S. officials, he instructed Ukrainian police to detain Firtash should he attempt to enter Ukraine."<ref>[https://www.politico.eu/article/firtash-poroshenko-ukraine-oligarchs-corruption/ A Ukrainian oligarch’s foiled homecoming], By LINDA KINSTLEr, ''Politico,'', 12/3/15.</ref> Photos of armed paramilitary groups were posted on Avakov's [[Facebook]] page; ''Politico'' reported the "commander of Ukraine’s nationalist Azov Battalion, said that his volunteer fighters would arrest Firtash themselves if government forces failed to do so. He later posted a Facebook photo of his armed men waiting at Kiev's Borispol airport."

*'''6-8 December.''' Biden meets with Poroshenko in [[Kiev]].

*'''8 December.''' '''''[[New York Times]]'' completes its investigation in the Biden-Ukraine scandal, ''Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch.'''''
:*[[Hunter Biden]], [[Burisma Holdings]], and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was Ukraine's ecology minister under former President [[Viktor F. Yanukovych]] before Hunter's boss, Zlochevsky, embezzled $5 Billion and became a fugitive from justice.
:*Zlochevsky hired Hunter Biden in 2014 while Vice President Biden oversaw U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine.
:*Burisma is Ukraine's largest oil and gas produce; hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors.
:*Hunter Biden was paid $166,000 a month, which was split with the nephew of [[Whitey Bulger]].<ref>https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/09/22/giuliani_ladies_and_gentleman_go_look_at_what_the_press_has_been_covering_up_on_you.html</ref>
:*Zlochevsky, a former Ukraine ecology minister, was under investigation by the new administration for embezzlement.
:*Prosecutors traced payments to Hunter Biden.

==2016==
:{{See also|Obamagate timeline}}
===January 2019===
[[File:Ciaramella-telizhenko-600x111.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Ciaramella/Telizhenko meeting at the White House to discuss killing the Hunter Biden investigation and reviving allegations against Paul Manafort.]]
*'''January 19.''' Eric Ciaramella hosts Andriy Telizhenko, a political officer in the DC Ukrainian Embassy at the [[White House]] to discuss killing the Hunter Biden investigation and reviving allegations against [[Paul Manafort]] which the [[FBI]] dismissed in 2014.

===March 2016===
*'''March.''' Biden threatened Poroshenko that he would withhold $1 Billion in U.S. allocated funds unless Viktor Stokin, the Prosecutor General investigating Hunter Biden, was fired.<ref>https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1174910135421919232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw</ref>

*'''30 March.''' Shotkin fired.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/world/europe/political-stability-in-the-balance-as-ukraine-ousts-top-prosecutor.html</ref>

===May 2016===
*'''3 May.''' '''Evidence of DNC collusion with Ukraine to dig up dirt on Trump campaign:
{{quotebox|From: Chalupa, Ali 
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2016 11:56 PM 
To: Miranda, Luis 
Subject: Re: You saw this, right? 

A lot more coming down the pipe. I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the Library of Congress - the Open World Society's forum - they put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of. 

Since I started digging into Manafort these messages have been a daily occurrence on my yahoo account despite changing my password often: 

[image1.JPG] 

Sent from my iPhone 

On May 3, 2016, at 10:50 PM, Miranda, Luis <MirandaL@dnc.org<mailto:MirandaL@dnc.org>> wrote: 

http://www.politifact.com/global-news/article/2016/may/02/paul-manafort-donald-trumps-top-adviser-and-his-ti/ 

<http://www.democrats.org/>[SigDems]<http://www.democrats.org/><http://www.democrats.org/>Luis Miranda, Communications Director 
Democratic National Committee 
202-863-8148 - MirandaL@dnc.org<mailto:MirandaL@dnc.org> - @MiraLuisDC<https://www.twitter.com/MiraLuisDC><ref>https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/3962</ref>}}

===November 2016===
*'''17 November.''' Obama administration votes against Russian sponsored UN Resolution entitled "''Combating glorification of [[Nazism]], [[Neo-Nazism]] and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of [[racism]], racial discrimination, [[xenophobia]] and related intolerance''," condemning the neo-fascist regime Obama and [[progressive]]s brought to power in Ukraine.<ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-votes-against-anti-nazi-resolution-at-united-nations/</ref>

===December 2016===
*'''31 December.''' ''Moon of Alabama:'' New Russian Hacks? No, Old Ukrainian Malware Found.''<ref>https://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/12/fbi-dhs-wapo-falsely-claim-russian-hacks-for-use-of-old-ukrainian-malware-used.html</ref>

==2017==
===January 2017===
*'''3 January.''' '''George Eliason, ''Washingtonsblog:'' Why Crowdstrike’s Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear.'''<ref>https://washingtonsblog.com/2017/01/crowdstrikes-russian-hacking-story-fell-apart-say-hello-fancy-bear-2.html</ref>
:*In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security firm '''[[Crowdstrike]]''' that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an “as is” statement showing this.
:*The difference between Dmitri Alperovitch’s claims which are reflected in JAR-1620296 and this article is that enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when it is their business to know?
:*The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement?
:*information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90’s that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
:*Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch’s discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John McAfee had this to say. “Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta’s emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, “if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians.”
:*How does Crowdstrike’s story part with reality? First is the admission that it is probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. “Intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks.” The public evidence never goes beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike insists that it’s Russia behind both Clinton’s and the Ukrainian losses.
:*NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this.”The company, Crowdstrike, was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian intelligence. One of Crowdstrike’s senior executives is '''[[Shawn Henry]]''', a former senior FBI official who consults for NBC News.
:*In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia’s CIA, known as the FSB. The other, known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called the GRU.” The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above “believed to be.” According to the December 12th ''Intercept'' article “Most importantly, the Post adds that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.”
:*The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren’t on it, the former Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
:*Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
:*Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If it’s done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be investigated? If unwinding the story from the “targeting of Ukrainian volunteers” side isn’t enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who’s involved? Does this pose conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let’s face it, a hacking story isn’t complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason are exposed.
:*According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page “After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. “That’s when we knew it was the Russians,” said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, “we told her to stop her research.”” July 25, 2016
:*If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. '''The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by '''[[Alexandra Chalupa]]'''? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection.'''
:*How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work.
:*Alperovitch’s relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
[[File:Chalupa-ciaramella.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa (left) Deep State informant Eric Ciaramella (right).<ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/10/huge-cia-whistleblower-eric-cairamella-worked-with-dnc-operative-alexandra-chalupa-in-creation-of-trump-russia-collusion-hoax/</ref>]]
::*The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, “Other statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in Support of Ukraine. The''' [[OUN|OUN (Bandera wing)]] '''called for”… What is OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed in the 1930’s by '''[[Stepan Bandera]]'''. When these people go to a '''[[Holocaust]] memorial they are celebrating both the dead and the OUNb [[SS]] that killed.'''<ref>http://www.infoukes.com/galiciadivision/</ref> There is no getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an [[authoritarian]] [[fascism]].
::*Alexandra Chalupa- According to the ''Ukrainian Weekly'',<ref>http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/2014-ukrainians-in-the-u-s-advocates-for-ukraine/</ref>
{{quotebox|… “The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms. Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko and others.” The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine’s chubby nazi, Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The “Sniper Massacre” on the Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the “heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached to it because it ended in a coup.}}
::*Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a ''Huff Post'' article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine’s important “dreamers.” He is a young activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn’t say is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh’s spokesman just after Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
::*In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found out.
::*At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh’s spokesman and can be seen either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an appointment with Yurash.
:*Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash’s Euromaidan Press which is associated with Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
::*Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine’s propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
:*According to Robert Parry’s article<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/22/washingtons-new-lock-step-march-of-folly/</ref> At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the '''[[Atlantic Council]]'''. Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
:*The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was “Are you willing to go to war with Russia?” Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.
:*What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike’s investigation. Trump’s campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security?
:*When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it opens up criminal conspiracy.
:*If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri Alperovitch’s case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a crime.
:*Alperovitch’s relationship with Andrea Chalupa’s efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
[[File:Alperovitch-hacker-friends-400x118 (1).jpg|right|300px|thumb|Alperovitch and [[Fancy Bear]] tweet each other.]]
:*When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch’s twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine’s Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
:*Crowdstrike’s product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service Crowdstrike offers?
:*In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA.<ref>http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/11/02/ukraine-hackers-cyberhunta-surkov-putin-ruh8-cyberalliance/</ref> They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency.”
[[File:Surkov-leaks-with-Crowdstrike-390x400.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source.]]
[[File:Osint-image-and-tweet-400x117.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it’s the official twitter account for Ukraine’s Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.]]
:*Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his “Peacemaker” site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the past.
:*Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine’s Information Ministry (UA Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister’s following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch’s story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch’s victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.

:*These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
::*When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article, one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh’s Pravy Sektor members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
::*Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let’s understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA… I don’t know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don’t think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics.”
:*What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts.
:*The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
::*According to the Esquire interview “Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. “A lot of people who are born here don’t appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they’ve never had it any other way,” he told me. “I have.”
:*While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. '''Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine’s interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he’s a patriot. He isn’t serving US interests. He’s definitely a Ukrainian patriot.''' Maybe he should move to Ukraine.
:*The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of rumor.
:*From the Observer.com,
{{quotebox|“Andrea Chalupa—the sister of DNC research staffer Alexandra Chalupa—claimed on social media, without any evidence, that despite Clinton conceding the election to Trump, the voting results need to be audited to because Clinton couldn’t have lost—it must have been Russia. Chalupa hysterically tweeted to every politician on Twitter to audit the vote because of Russia and claimed the TV show The Americans, about two KGB spies living in America, is real.”}}

*'''11 January.''' ''Politico'' reports on the same day ''[[BuzzFeed]]'' released the 'pee-pee memo': '''''Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire.'''''<ref>[https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446 Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire], January 11, 2017.</ref>
:*A Ukrainian-American operative consulting for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) met with top officials in Ukraine’s U.S. embassy to publicize ties between Trump, his top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia. (It worked.)
:*Ukrainian officials tried to help Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office.
:*Ukrainian officials “disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election.”
:*Ukrainian officials helped Clinton allies dig up damaging information on Trump and his advisers.
:*“The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to … Russia.”

*'''12 January.''' Biden schedules meeting with Poroshenko in Ukraine for January 15, 2017 after yesterday's ''Politico'' leak about DNC/Ukrainian collusion in 2016 election.<ref>https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/biden-meet-poroshenko-ukraine-jan-15.html</ref>

*'''15-17 January.''' Joe Biden visits Ukraine.<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/joe-biden-visited-ukraine-six-times-in-eight-years-while-vice-president</ref>

===February 2017===
*'''13 February.''' Zlochevsky announces appointment of of former CIA operative and [[Romney]] aide Joseph Cofer Black to Burisma board.<ref>https://archive.is/J1RvR</ref><ref>https://archive.is/zSGtr</ref><ref>https://sharylattkisson.com/2019/10/us-intel-figure-joined-board-of-ukraine-gas-company-burisma/</ref><ref>https://www.huffpost.com/entry/former-cia-director-joins-burisma-and-it-is-good-news_b_58adf600e4b01f4ab51c75a4</ref>

===March 2017===
*'''31 March.''' ''Washington Times:'' Hillary Clinton's astonishing post-State access to top secret docs.<ref>https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/31/hillary-clintons-astonishing-post-state-access-top/</ref>
:*Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for six of her former staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election.<ref>https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-seeks-update-clearance-review-clinton-email-case</ref>

==2018==
===January 2018===
*'''23 January.''' Biden brags to an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations describing the pressure he put on President Petro Poroshenko to fire then Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to stop a criminal probe into Burisma Holdings and Biden's son, Hunter Biden. Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in funds unless Shokin was fired.
{{Quotebox|“They were walking out to a press conference. I said, ‘Nah, I’m not going to — or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars.’ They said: ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president. I said, 'Call him,’ ” Biden says. “I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.’ I said: ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours.’ I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a b----, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”<ref>https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4818429/biden-ukraine-cfr</ref><ref>https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-affairs-issue-launch-former-vice-president-joe-biden</ref>}}

===February 2018===
*'''6 February.''' Adam Schiff agrees to accept dirt on Trump from two Russians.<ref>[https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/06/russian_comedians_prank_call_rep_adam_schiff_promise_him_naked_photos_of_trump_from_fsb.html#!]</ref>

===July 2018===
*'''20 July.''' Grassley letter to Rosenstein.
{{quotebox|Media reports suggest that Ukrainian “political leadership” opposed the candidacy of Donald Trump for president of the United States and worked with a Democratic National Committee consultant to undermine his campaign. This consultant allegedly had various meetings with Ukrainian government officials, including embassy staff, to coordinate the dissemination of incriminating information about Trump campaign officials. It appears that this consultant was operating to advance the interests of both the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign, and a foreign government, which would have required registration under [[FARA]].<ref>https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-raises-further-concerns-over-foreign-agent-registration</ref>}}
[[File:Burisma-group-ukraine-ambassador.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Burisma Leadership Meeting With Ambassador Yovanovitch in October 2018.]]

===October 2018===
[[File:Guiliani to Graham.PNG|right|300px|thumb|Excerpt of [[Giuliani]] letter to [[Sen. Graham]]. Amb. [[Marie Yovanovitch]] was denying visas to Ukrainian whistleblowers willing to testify about [[Ukrainian collusion]] to the [[Mueller investigation]] and covering up DNC and [[Biden]] corruption.]]
*'''30 October.''' Burisma leadership meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine [[Marie Yovanovitch]] in Kiev.<ref>https://archive.is/nzHUM#selection-543.0-551.1</ref>

===December 2018===
*'''3 December.''' '''Meet Andrii Telizhenko: The Man Who Will Blow the Lid Off of Mueller’s Russian Witch Hunt.'''<ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/meet-andrii-telizhenko-the-man-who-will-blow-the-lid-off-of-muellers-russian-witch-hunt-video/</ref>
*'''10 December.''' ''The New York Times'' reports ''Ukraine Court Rules Manafort Disclosure Caused 'Meddling' in U.S. Election''. <ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/world/europe/ukraine-paul-manafort.html</ref> National Anti-Corruption Bureau Director [[Artem Sytnyk]] and legislator [[Serhiy Leshchenko]] broke the law by revealing Manafort's name. The court said that the disclosure
{{quotebox|“led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state.” <ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/ties-to-ukrainian-national-a-unifying-theme-in-early-attacks-on-trump_2872609.html</ref>}}
*'''14 December.''' ''[[The Nation]]'' reports,
{{quotebox|"When it comes to his work in Ukraine, '''Manafort''', as former Fusion GPS researcher Graham Stack writes, '''was convicted for ‘doing the opposite of colluding with Russia.’''' In Ukraine, Manafort pushed a pro-[[Western]] agenda … Internal '''documents released by Mueller make clear that Manafort tried to steer his client''', then – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to align with the [[European Union]] and '''away from Russia''', or, in Manafort’s own words, promote ‘the key geopolitical messaging of how “Europe and the U.S. should not risk losing Ukraine to Russia.”‘<ref>https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-russophobia-mueller-trump/</ref>}}

==2019==
===January 2019===
*'''19 January.''' Eric Ciaramella invites Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau [[NABU]] director [[Artem Sytnyk]] to the White House. Artem Sytnyk was convicted in December 2018 of interference in the U.S. presidential election along with [[Serhiy Leshchenko]] in a Ukrainian court. Sytnyk and Leshchenko gave Chalupa and Ciaramella official documents critical of [[Paul Manafort]], leading to Manafort's resignation as Trump's campaign manager. Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska suing Manafort over a failed Ukrainian cable TV investment.
*'''20 January.''' Trump inaugurated.

===February 2019===
*'''February.''' Ukraine re-opened their investigation into [[Burisma Holdings]] and [[Hunter Biden]].<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VggkWGVlQE&feature=youtu.be</ref>
:*NABU requested the probe into Burisma and owner [[Mykola Zlochevsky]] be reopened.

===March 2019===
*'''9 March.''' Three weeks in advance of Ukraine's March 31, 2019 presidential election, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine in Kiev [[Marie Yovanovitch]] called for Ukraine’s special anti corruption prosecutor to be removed.<ref>https://ua.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-ambassador-yovanovitch-on-the-occasion-of-the-5th-anniversary-of-the-ukraine-crisis-media-centers-founding/</ref> Yovanovitvh's comments were regarded in Ukrainian media as a violation of international diplomatic convention and protocols of the duty of foreign diplomats to refrain from interfering in a host country's internal affairs, particularly in advance of an election.
:*the U.S. embassy in Kiev had earlier pressured the Ukraine prosecutors in 2016 to drop or avoid pursuing several cases, including one involving the Soros-backed AntiCorruption Action Centre (AntAc) and two cases involving Ukraine officials who criticized Donald Trump and his campaign manager Paul Manafort.
::*Kiev embassy official George Kent wrote a letter proving Yovanovitch's meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs did indeed happen.<ref>https://www.scribd.com/document/402559592/Embassy2GPLetter4-4-16</ref> State Department officials authenticated the letter. George Kent acknowledged in this Congressional testimony he signed that letter.

*'''20 March.''' [[John Solomon]]: Senior Ukrainian official says he's opened probe into US election interference.<ref>https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/434892-senior-ukrainian-justice-official-says-hes-opened-probe-into-us-election</ref>

*'''21 March.''' General Prosecutor's office files "Notice of Suspicion" alleging the existence of "illicit funds" running through Burisma Holdings between 2010 and 2015. The 15-page document specifically confirms NABU was investigating $3.4 million paid out by Burisma to Hunter Biden.<ref>https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/03/21/ukraines-top-prosecutor-says-hes-found-collusion-launches-probe-into-hillary-2016-election-meddling-735377</ref>

===April 2019===
*'''April.''' General Prosecutors office requests assistance of another agency to examine Burisma Holding's bank records of money paid to Hunter Biden.<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/media/john-solomon-says-new-hunter-biden-related-doc-shows-significant-shift-in-factual-timeline</ref>

*'''23 April.''' George Eliason: Ukraine’s Voters Didn’t Just Reject Nationalism, They Rejected Maidan, Bandera and the Revolution.<ref>George Eliason: [https://www.mintpressnews.com/ukraine-voters-didnt-just-reject-nationalism-they-rejected-maidan-bandera-and-the-revolution/257747/ Ukraine’s Voters Didn’t Just Reject Nationalism, They Rejected Maidan, Bandera and the Revolution], April 23, 2019.</ref>

*'''25 April.''' '''How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost,''' by John Solomon<ref>https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/440730-how-the-obama-white-house-engaged-ukraine-to-give-russia-collusion</ref>
:*In January 2016 the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington. The meeting brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with [Eric Ciaramella]<ref>""telizhenko,andriy,g,U67540,100561,VA,1/19/16 10:57,D1101,1/19/16 12:53,,01/19/2016 12:00:00 AM,1/19/16 11:00,1/19/16 23:59,,1,KH,WIN,1/19/16 10:51,KH,Ciaramella,Eric,OEOB,230A,HARTWELL,KYLE,,,04/29/2016 07:00:00 AM +0000",,,," [https://archive.org/download/WHvisitorlogs_2010-16_surname/White-House-visitor-logs6_Sorr-Zyz.csv] [https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/judicial-watch-white-house-visitor-logs-detail-meetings-of-eric-ciaramella/ Judicial Watch: White House Visitor Logs Detail Meetings of Eric Ciaramella.]</ref> and members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ). Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations: one involving Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and one involving Paul Manafort's lobbying firm, linked closely to then-candidate Trump.
::*U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, then a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington tasked with organizing the meeting.
::*Telizhenko said U.S. officials said that they had an interest in reviving a closed 2014 investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions. That 2014 investigation was focused on Manafort. The FBI closed the case without charging Manafort.
::*DOJ officials asking investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) if they could help find new evidence about the Party of Regions’ payments and its dealings with Americans. “It was definitely the case that led to the charges against Manafort and the leak to U.S. media during the 2016 election,” Telizhenko said.
::*Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election. Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort — a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions — was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the NABU, after Manafort was named Trump’s campaign chairman: “Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious.” Kholodnytskyy said he explicitly instructed NABU investigators who were working with American authorities not to share the ledger with the media. “I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort. For me it was the first call that something was going wrong and that there is some external influence in this case. And there is some other interests in this case not in the interest of the investigation and a fair trial.”
::*Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Ukraine prosecutor general’s international affairs office, said that, shortly after Ukrainian authorities returned from the Washington meeting, there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the Party of the Regions case. “Yes, there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the ledger just appeared in public.” Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures, such as former Obama White House counsel [[Gregory Craig]], also received money from Yanukovych’s party. But the Americans weren’t interested: “They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else.”
::*Manafort joined Trump’s campaign on March 29, 2016, and then was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, 2016. NABU leaked the existence of the ledgers on May 29, 2016. Later that summer, it told U.S. media the ledgers showed payments to Manafort, a revelation that forced him to resign from the Trump campaign in August 2016.
::*A Ukrainian court in December concluded NABU’s release of the ledger was an illegal attempt to influence the U.S. election. And a member of Ukraine’s parliament has released a recording of a NABU official saying the agency released the ledger to help Hillary Clinton.
::*The other case raised at the January 2016 meeting involved Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company under investigation in Ukraine for improper foreign transfers of money. At the time, Burisma allegedly was paying then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter as both a board member and a consultant. More than $3 million flowed from Ukraine to Rosemont Seneca, Hunter Biden and [[Devon Archer]]'s firm in 2014-15, bank records show.
::*U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire [[Victor Shokin]], Ukraine’s chief prosecutor in March 2016. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down.
::*The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington confirmed that the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions. "Unfortunately, the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C., was not invited to join the DOJ and other law enforcement-sector meetings."
::*Telizhenko’s claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ’s own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General [[Bruce Ohr]], his wife, [[Nellie Ohr]], and ex-British spy [[Christopher Steele]]. Nellie Ohr and Steele worked in 2016 for [[Fusion GPS]], that was hired by Clinton’s campaign and DNC to find dirt on Trump. Steele wrote the famous dossier for Fusion that the FBI used to gain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Nellie Ohr admitted to Congress that she routed Russia dirt on Trump from Fusion to the DOJ through her husband Bruce during the election.
::*DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband Bruce and two DOJ prosecutors to the discovery of the “Black Ledger” files that led to Manafort’s prosecution. “Reported Trove of documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions’ Black Cashbox,” Nellie Ohr wrote to her husband and federal prosecutors Lisa Holtyn and Joseph Wheatley, attaching a news article on the announcement of NABU’s release of the documents.
:::*Bruce Ohr and Steele worked on their own effort to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, [[Oleg Deripaska]], who had a soured business relationship with Manafort. Deripaska was “almost ready to talk” to U.S. government officials regarding the money that “Manafort stole,” Bruce Ohr wrote in notes from his conversations with Steele.
:::*The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which [[Andrew McCabe]] asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous.
::*''Politico'' reported that the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington assisted Clinton’s campaign through [[Alexandra Chalupa]], a DNC contractor. The Ukrainian Embassy acknowledges it got requests for assistance from Chalupa to find dirt on Manafort.

===May 2019===
*'''2 May.''' ''Vanity Fair:'' HUNTER BIDEN’S WORK IN UKRAINE EMERGES AS A POTENTIAL 2020 SCANDAL/<ref>https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/biden-ukrainian-gas-company</ref>

===August 2019===
[[File:Whistleblower-complain-revision-1.jpg|right|300px|thumb|The ICIG changed the whistleblower form to allow [[hearsay]] evidence two days before a complaint was filed.<ref>https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1177580473566093312</ref>]]
ICIG [[Michael Atkinson]] revised the Whistleblower Complaint Form to allow second hand hearsay evidence. The whistleblower complaint appears to be prepared in [[collusion]] with [[House Intelligence Committee]] chair [[Adam Schiff]]'s staff<ref>https://www.conservativereview.com/news/levin-adam-schiff-knows-exactly-whistleblower/</ref> and the [[Lawfare Group]].<ref>https://www.lawfareblog.com/mysterious-whistleblower-complaint-what-adam-schiff-talking-about</ref> Atkinson previous was the chief counsel for [[John Carlin]] and [[Mary McCord (DOJ)]] who authored and presented the fraudulent [[Carter Page]] [[FISA]] warrant to the United States [[FISA court]] and made other false representations and abused police powers and surveillance authorities for domestic poliycal spying.

The [[CIA]] whistleblower was in collusion with House Intel Committee chairman Adam Schiff before the complaint was filed. The Trump-Russia collusion [[conspiracy theory]] plot to meddle in U.S. elections was hatched in the ClA in 2016 under [[John Brennan]] to aid Hillary Clinton and smear Donald Trump.
----
*'''2 August.''' [[Uniparty]]-dominated [[SSCI]] kills Ratcliffe [[DNI]] nomination. [[Deep State]] wants an insider, not an outside reformer, as intelligence community head.
:*SSCI was complicit in the [[Deep State coup 1.0]] attempt.
:*Coats resignation and Ratcliffe's nomination was due to the [[IC]]'s non-compliance with President Trump's declassification order of May 23, 2019 to Attorney General William Barr. The declassification order put the DNI beneath the Attorney General. Coats has not complied with the order to produce documents from John Brennan's [[CIA]] exposing CIA's role in 2016 election interference and the subsequent coup plot.
:*Rod Rosenstein wants Coat's flunky, DNI deputy Sue Gordon to hold the line in stonewalling the Presidential declassification [[Executive Order]], preventing transparency and reform.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/rosenstein-tweet-sue-gordon.jpg</ref>
[[File:Schiff in Ukraine.jpg|right|275px|thumb|Schiff staffers in Ukraine on dirt digging mission the week of August 23 to August 31, 2019.]]
*'''6 August.''' PATRICK LAWRENCE: Finally Time for DNC Email Evidence.<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/05/patrick-lawrence-finally-time-for-dnc-email-evidence/</ref>

*'''8 August.''' Sue Gordon of CIA resigns as Acting DNI.

*'''9 August.''' Trump Announces Former Admiral Joseph Maguire Will Serve as Acting DNI.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/08/president-trump-announces-departure-of-deputy-dni-sue-gordon-former-admiral-joseph-maguire-will-serve-as-acting-dni/</ref>

:*Maguire comes from his current position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The NCTC was first organized by John Brennan, and is suspected that this part of the intelligence apparatus ties directly into the 2015/2016 [[FISA abuse]]. This is laid out in the 99-page opinion from [[FISC]] Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87: “deliberate decisionmaking“: This specific footnote, if declassified, would be key. Note the phrase: ''“([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”'', this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the [[Obama administration]]; that outlines a process for access and distribution of [[surveillance]] data. Note: ''“no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“'', that is important.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/fisa-abuse-improper-decisionmaking.jpg</ref>
:*This was a weaponized surveillance and domestic political spying operation. The trail was laid down in specific detail by Judge Collyer.<ref>[https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/04/23/the-obama-use-of-fisa-702-as-a-domestic-political-surveillance-program/ The Obama Use of FISA-702 as a Domestic Political Surveillance Program], April 23, 2019 by sundance.</ref>

:*Trump tells reporters "we’re dealing with the [ [[SSCI]] ] committee and Senator Burr."<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/10/warning-troubling-statement-by-president-trump-were-dealing-with-senator-burr-were-dealing-with-the-committee/</ref>

:*Twitchy:‘It’s like they’re trying to get out in FRONT of something’: Timing around McCabe and Strzok’s lawsuits against govt. very telling.<ref>https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2019/08/09/its-like-theyre-trying-to-get-out-in-front-of-something-timing-around-mccabe-and-strzoks-lawsuits-against-govt-very-telling/</ref> Posturing to claim Durham indictments are political payback.

*'''10 August.'''

*'''12 August.''' [[Eric Ciaramella]] files [[whistleblower]] complaint using new revised form;<ref>https://www.timesonline.com/news/20190926/whistleblowers-letter-to-chairmen-burr-schiff</ref> it is likely the first complaint with the new form.
:*The complaint cites an [[OCCRP]] (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) report. The OCCRP report was a “joint investigation” by OCCRP and [[BuzzFeed News]]. OCCRP is a [[Soros]] [[Open Society Foundations]] funded entity.<ref>[https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/26/dossier-2-0-whistleblower-complaint-relies-on-soros-funded-investigative-reporting-group-that-partnered-with-buzzfeed/ Dossier 2.0: ‘Whistleblower’ Complaint Relies on Soros-Funded ‘Investigative Reporting’ Group that Partnered with BuzzFeed], ''[[Breitbart]]'', September 26, 2019.</ref>. BuzzFeed News published the phony ''[[Steele dossier]]'' on January 10, 2017. The complaint fails to make any mention of BuzzFeed.
:*Coincidentally, the Congressional Research Services issues ''The Impeachment Process in the House of Representatives''.<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/10/07/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-rules-for-impeachment-116th-congress-full-pdf/#more-173125</ref>
[[File:Taylor-Schiff collusion.png|right|275x|thumb|Schiff staffers colluded with Ambassador William Taylor in Ukraine four days prior to the ''Politico'' leak.]]
*'''23 August.''' Schiff staffers travel to Ukraine 8/23 - 8/31.

*'''25 August.''' Schiff staffers meet with Bill Taylor in Ukraine.<ref>https://twitter.com/IvanPentchoukov/status/1187371069700788225</ref>

*'''28 August.''' [[Adam Schiff]] tweets about Trump, Giuliani and holding back funding pending assistance with political opponents.<ref>https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/1166867471862829056</ref>

===September 2019===
*'''22 September.''' Ukraine Has Evidence Their Govt. Colluded With Clinton Campaign.<ref>https://lidblog.com/ukraine-hillary-clinton/</ref>

===October 2019===
*'''14 October.''' Max Blumenthal: Atlantic Council Raked in Funding from Hunter Biden’s Corruption-Stained Ukrainian Employer While Courting His VP Father.<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/14/dcs-atlantic-council-raked-in-funding-from-hunter-bidens-corruption-stained-ukrainian-employer-while-courting-his-vp-father/</ref>
*'''16 October.''' Sean Davis: Top Diplomat Testified That Obama Admin, Not International Community, Orchestrated Ukraine Prosecutor’s Firing.<ref>https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/16/top-diplomat-testified-that-obama-admin-not-international-community-orchestrated-ukraine-prosecutors-firing/</ref>
:*CDN: Obama WH corruption: Rampant pay to play by Clinton, Kerry, and Biden.<ref>https://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/obama-wh-corruption-rampant-pay-to-play-by-clinton-kerry-and-biden-123712/</ref>
*'''18 October.''' Jeff Carlson: Ukraine Accusations Against Trump Put Renewed Focus On Events During Obama Administration.<ref>https://themarketswork.com/2019/10/18/ukraine-accusations-against-trump-put-renewed-focus-on-events-during-obama-administration/</ref>
:*New details emerge on monthly payments sent to Hunter Biden by Ukrainian company.<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hunter-biden-served-as-ceremonial-figure-on-burisma-board-for-80000-per-month/</ref>
::*Zlochevsky hired Hunter Biden “as a helpful non-executive director with a powerful name,” according to a ''[[Reuters]] report. Burisma’s founder hired Biden in 2014 “to protect [the company]” in the face of potential prosecution. Zlochevsky was investigated for tax violations, money-laundering, and corruption and initially cleared of any wrongdoing. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka told reporters that 15 cases involving Zlochevsky were being reviewed.
::*Hunter Biden never visited Ukraine, but participated regularly in biannual board meetings, all of which were held outside Ukraine. Sources also said Biden was appointed during a time when Burisma was seeking foreign investment, a process which Biden helped by finding lawyers for the potential deal, which ultimately broke down when war broke out in east Ukraine. “He was a ceremonial figure.”
::*Hunter Biden was paid $80,000 per month.
:*''[[The Blaze]]:'' Diplomat: I tried to warn the Obama administration about Hunter Biden and Ukraine in 2015, but no one would listen.<ref>https://www.theblaze.com/news/diplomat-tried-to-warn-obama-administration-about-hunter-biden-in-2015</ref>
*'''19 October.''' [[Glen Beck]] interview with Andriy Telizhenko. Telizhenko was present at the January 19, 2016 White House meeting with Eric Ciaramella and members of Obama’s [[National Security Council]], FBI, State Department and Department of Justice. Ukrainians were informed to terminated the investigation into Hunter Biden and Burisma, and to find "new evidence" on a 2014 case against Paul Manafort that the FBI has already investigated and dismissed.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R86awAp4uIw</ref>
*'''24 October.''' [[NBC News]]: Hunter Biden's legal work in Romania raises new questions about his overseas dealings.<ref>https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hunter-biden-s-legal-work-romania-raises-new-questions-about-n1071031</ref>
:*''Washington Examiner:'' Biden twice used his position to intervene to boost son Hunter's lobbying.<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-outreach-to-dhs-and-doj-overlapped-with-work-by-son-hunters-lobbying-firm</ref>
:*Democrat “Star” Witness sat on Board of Ukranian NGO with deep ties to George Soros.<ref>
https://uncoverdc.com/2019/10/24/democrat-star-witness-sat-on-board-of-ukranian-ngo-with-deep-ties-to-george-soros/</ref>

*'''28 October.''' Lee Smith: How The Obama Administration Set In Motion Democrats’ Coup Against Trump.<ref>https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/28/how-the-obama-administration-set-in-motion-democrats-coup-against-trump/</ref>

===November 2019===
[[File:Biden payments.PNG|right|300px|thumb|Leaked documents show payments to Hunter Biden.]]
*'''4 November.''' John Solomon: Biden lied - Burisma pressed [[State Department]] to end corruption allegations one month before Joe Biden forced firing of prosecutor.<ref>https://johnsolomonreports.com/hunter-bidens-ukraine-gas-firm-pressed-obama-administration-to-end-corruption-allegations-memos-show/</ref><ref>https://www.scribd.com/document/433389210/Bluestar-Novelli-Contacts<</ref>

*'''6 November.''' Hunter Biden received 46 payments from Burisma, 38 for $83,333, the total being $3.1 million.<ref>https://creativedestructionmedia.com/investigations/2019/11/06/breaking-source-reveals-hunter-biden-took-off-the-books-payments-from-burisma-aided-by-fbi-coverup/</ref>

*'''7 November.''' Grassley, Johnson Ask State Department to Release Documents on Hunter Biden, Burisma and Other Firms Tied to Biden.<ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/11/senators-grassley-johnson-ask-state-department-to-release-documents-on-hunter-biden-burisma-and-other-firms-tied-to-biden/</ref>

*'''13 November.''' John Solomon: The real Ukraine controversy: an activist U.S. embassy and its adherence to the Geneva Convention.<ref>https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-real-ukraine-controversy-an-activist-u-s-embassy-and-its-adherence-to-the-geneva-convention/</ref>

*'''14 November.''' [[Glenn Beck]] goes ALL the way back to 2014 in Ukraine thread and it’s so DAMNING for Obama.<ref>https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2019/11/14/its-being-done-in-your-name-glenn-beck-goes-all-the-way-back-to-2014-in-ukraine-thread-and-its-so-damning-for-obama/</ref>

*'''15 November.''' '''''Epoch Times:''''' '''Yovanovitch Urged Firing of Top Prosecutor Amid Ukraine’s Presidential Election.<ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/yovanovitch-demanded-firing-of-top-ukrainian-prosecutor-amid-nations-presidential-election_3147700.html</ref>
:*''Zerohedge:'' Leaked Bank Records Confirm Burisma-Biden Payments To Morgan Stanley Account.<ref>https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaked-bank-records-confirm-burisma-biden-payments-morgan-stanley-account</ref>

*'''17 November.''' John Solomon Threatens Lawsuits Against [[Liberal smear machine|Liberal Media Smear Merchants]].<ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/11/boom-reporter-john-solomon-threatens-lawsuits-against-liberal-media-smear-merchants-claims-obama-brennan-and-lynch-involved-in-spygate-scandal/</ref>
:*Adam Schiff’s three witnesses confirm all of the narratives in my columns.
:*Yes, the State Department embassy in Kiev was pressuring Ukrainian authorities to drop certain cases.
:*Yes, there was concerns about Hunter Biden and his conflicts of interest at Burisma.
:*And, yes there was some evidence that Ukrainian officials were trying to stick their fingers in our 2016 election,
:*Most counter intelligence investigations are always briefed to the president. I would like to see PBDs (daily debriefs) of President Obama actually going back to the summer of 2015…
:*the Attorney General would have to know working with the FBI.

==See also==
*[[List of names in Obamagate]]
*[[Deep State coup 2.0]]
*[[Deep State coup 1.0]]
*[[Muellergate]]
*[[Spygate]]
*[[Mainstream media and Donald Trump]]
*[[Crisis in Ukraine]]
*[[Obama war crimes]]
*[[Trump-Russia scandal]]
*[[Clinton scandal]]
*[[Trump transition]]
*[[FISA abuse]]
*[[FBI scandal]]
*[[Barack Hussein Obama's unlawful acts]]
*[[Obama's second term agenda]]
*[[Media intelligence complex]]
*[[Barack Obama Controversies]]

==References==
{{reflist|}}

==External links==
*[https://www.mintpressnews.com/beyond-the-dnc-leaks-hacks-and-treason/247674/ George Eliason: Beyond the DNC - Leaks, Hacks, and Treason], August 14, 2018.
*[https://sharylattkisson.com/obama-era-surveillance-timeline/ Obama era surveillence timeline], sharylattkisson.co
*[https://www.robbinyoung.info/test-2 Twitter DM's Between @Guccifer_2 & @Robbin_Young]
*[http://thecompleteobamatimeline.com/the-timeline.html The Complete Obama Timeline]
*[http://nlpc.org/2017/11/08/new-book-details-hillarys-attempt-undo-election/ The Plot to Stop Trump: The Story of a Failed Effort to Overturn an Election, Fred Lucas] - Book review.
*[https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/collection/all-the-presidents-enemies/ All the president's enemies], by ''The Washington Times''
*[http://www.magapill.com/o/obamagate-timeline-of-corruption.html ObamaGate Timeline of Corruption]
*[https://twitter.com/The_War_Economy/status/1003016971896619009 The War Economy]
*[https://youtu.be/6opPCj9gcII Lee Stranahan interview with Natalia Veselnitskaya] (uncut)
*[http://thespygateproject.org/ The Spygate Project]

{{Deep State}}
[[Category:Barack Hussein Obama]]
[[Category:Obama Presidency]]
[[Category:Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax]]
[[Category:Corruption]]
[[Category:Obama Administration]]
[[Category:United States Political Scandals]][[Category:2016 Presidential Election]]
[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]
[[Category:Hillary Clinton email scandal]]
[[Category:Police State]]
[[Category:2010s]]

Alternative for Germany

2019-11-30T22:56:34Z

JoeyJ: /* Views */

{{PoliticalParty
| party_name = Alternative for Germany
| party_logo =
| website = [https://www.afd.de/ afd.de]
| leader = Tino Chrupalla and Jörg Meuthen
| parleader = Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel
| foundation = 2013
| ideology = [[National conservatism]]
| position = [[Right-wing]]
| international =
| colors = blue
| footnotes =
}}
The '''Alternative for Germany''' (''Alternative für Deutschland'', abbreviated '''AfD''') is a [[conservative]] [[Germany|German]] political party. It is most known for its [[Euroskeptic]] views.

[[Liberal]] critics falsely claim the party is somehow "far-right" or "neo-Nazi" due to its opposition to mass migration and [[globalism]].<ref name="JasperTNA"/><ref>Byas, Steve (August 30, 2019). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/33286-rising-tide-against-globalism-now-threatens-continued-rule-of-germany-by-angela-merkel Rising Tide Against Globalism Now Threatens Continued Rule of Germany by Angela Merkel]. ''The New American''. Retrieved August 31, 2019.</ref> Because of these false claims, the party has been the victim of numerous "[[Antifa]]" riots and other left-wing violence,<ref name="JasperTNA">Jasper, William F. (October 2, 2017). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/27038-merkel-squeaks-by-what-does-it-portend-for-germany-the-us-the-eu-and-globalism Merkel Squeaks By: What Does It Portend for Germany, the U.S., the EU, and Globalism?] ''The New American''. Retrieved December 2, 2017.</ref><ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (January 5, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/01/05/german-populist-party-office-targeted-by-bombing/ German Populist Party Office Targeted By Bombing]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 5, 2019.
*Tomlinson, Chris (January 8, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/01/08/german-populist-party-chairman-hospitalised-in-assassination-attempt/ German Populist Party Chairman Hospitalised in ‘Assassination’ Attempt]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
*Duke, Selwyn (January 9, 2019). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/31149-assassination-attempt-conservative-leader-beaten-and-left-for-dead Assassination Attempt? Conservative Leader Beaten and Left for Dead]. ''The New American''. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
*Tomlinson, Chris (February 2, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/02/assassination-guide-directed-at-german-populists-posted-on-antifa-linked-site/ ‘Assassination Guide’ Directed at German Populists Posted on Antifa-Linked Site]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved February 2, 2019.
*Tomlinson, Chris (February 12, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/12/antifa-berlin-assault-populist-jewish-youth-invited-holocaust-film-screening/ Berlin Antifa Assault Populist Jewish Youth at Holocaust Film Screening]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
See also:
*Tomlinson, Chris (January 9, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/01/09/german-populist-mp-slams-leftist-parties-encouraging-violence/ German Populist Party MP Slams Leftist Parties For ‘Encouraging’ Violence]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 9, 2019.</ref> though the German [[establishment]] attempted to blame violence on the AfD.<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-crime-afd/far-right-afd-shares-blame-for-politicians-killing-conservative-leader-says-idUSKCN1TK2C3 Far-right AfD shares blame for politician's killing, conservative leader says]. ''Reuters''. June 19, 2019. Retrieved June 19, 2019.</ref> The establishment has even called for surveillance of the party because of its politically incorrect views,<ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (September 4, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/04/german-establishment-call-domestic-intelligence-spy-populists-chemnitz-protests/ German Establishment Call for Domestic Intelligence to Spy on Populists Following Chemnitz Protests]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
*Shalal, Andrea (September 3, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-protests/pressure-rises-for-surveillance-of-germanys-far-right-afd-party-idUSKCN1LJ15G Pressure rises for surveillance of Germany's far-right AfD party]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
*[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-afd/germanys-domestic-spy-agency-to-investigate-far-right-afd-newspaper-idUSKCN1P91C4 German spies to launch anti-extremism probe into far-right opposition]. ''Reuters''. January 15, 2019. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
*Tomlinson, Chris (January 17, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/01/17/german-government-puts-populist-party-under-surveillance/ German Government Puts Populist AfD Party Under Surveillance]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
See also:
*Tomlinson, Chris (January 24, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/01/24/german-intelligence-used-antifa-research-to-build-case-against-populists/ German Intelligence Used Antifa ‘Research’ to Build Case Against Populists]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 24, 2019.</ref> and it has blocked the party's candidates from running in some elections.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (August 18, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/08/18/court-german-populists-can-only-field-30-candidates-in-regional-election/ Court: German Populists Can Only Field 30 Candidates in Regional Election]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 18, 2019.</ref> On the other hand, the AfD became popular with the German military and police forces.<ref>Waterfield, Bruno (June 23, 2019). [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-army-and-police-being-lost-to-far-right-parties-r2dd6h6tq German army and police being ‘lost’ to far‑right parties]. ''The Times''. Retrieved June 30, 2019.</ref>

==History==
The AfD was founded in 2013 by economics professor Bernd Lucke.<ref name="Germany'sFarage">Zeronian, Sarkis (July 5, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/07/05/germanys-farage-becomes-leader-of-eurosceptic-alternative-for-germany-party/ ‘Germany’s Farage’ Becomes Leader Of Eurosceptic Alternative For Germany Party]. ''Breitbart''. Retrieved December 31, 2016.</ref> Although the party was relatively conservative and [[Euroskeptic]] (it mainly opposed the Eurozone<ref name="BBC"/>), it was a neo-liberal party that attracted middle class opponents of the [[Eurozone]].<ref name="Germany'sFarage"/> The party made several gains during this time, with seven AfD members being elected to the [[European Parliament]] in 2014.<ref name="BBC">[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37274201 What does Alternative for Germany (AfD) want?]. ''BBC''. September 5, 2016. Retrieved December 31, 2016.</ref>

A power struggle within the party soon broke out, with Lucke, who wanted the party to remain liberal with opposing the Euro, his liberal course being opposed by Frauke Petry and her conservative, right-wing faction that emphasized law and order, [[European immigration|immigration]], conservative social views, and criticism of [[Islam]].<ref name="Germany'sFarage"/> In the AfD party elections of July 2015, Petry won 68 percent of the vote, becoming the new leader of the party.<ref name="Germany'sFarage"/> The liberal Lucke subsequently left the party and formed his own.<ref name="BBC"/> Additionally, five of the party's seven MEP's left the party.<ref name="BBC"/> The AfD quickly adopted Petry's conservative, right-wing populist agenda, and it continued its support for a referendum over leaving the Eurozone.<ref name="BBC"/><ref name="Telegraph">Huggler, Justin (September 4, 2016). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/04/germanys-far-right-afd-unseats-angela-merkels-party-in-key-regio/ Germany's far-right AfD hands defeat to Angela Merkel's party in key regional vote]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved December 31, 2016.</ref> In October 2017, Petry left the AfD and founded the Blue Party, intended to promote a more moderate and [[establishment]] "conservatism."<ref>Hale, Virginia (October13, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/10/13/former-afd-leader-launches-new-party-appealing-moderate-conservatives/ Former Populist Leader Launches Party Appealing to ‘Moderate Conservatives’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved October 13, 2017.</ref>

Under Petry's leadership, the AfD continued to grow dramatically, winning numerous seats in state parliaments.<ref name="Telegraph"/><ref name="DW">[http://www.dw.com/en/what-is-the-alternative-for-germany/a-19527050 What is the Alternative for Germany?]. ''DW''. September 5, 2016. Retrieved December 31, 2016.</ref><ref name="Wa.T.">Moulson, Geir (September 4, 2016). [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/4/alternative-germany-party-wins-state-election/ Anger over Merkel’s Syria refugee policy drives win for Alternative for Germany party]. ''The Washington Times''. Retrieved December 31, 2016.</ref> The AfD formed an alliance with the [[Freedom Party of Austria]] in 2016 due to their shared Eurosceptic views.<ref>[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36504307 Nationalist Austria-Germany summit held on Zugspitze summit]. ''BBC''. June 10, 2016. Retrieved December 31, 2016.</ref> Despite AfD's shift to the right under Petry, she supported making alliances with the [[establishment]] German parties with the aim of eventually forming a governing coalition with them, something which brought her under much criticism from others in her party. Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel were elected as AfD's top candidates for the 2017 general election instead of Petry, who chose not to run.<ref>[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/04/23/germanys-populist-afd-party-elects-new-right-wing-leaders/ Germany’s Populist AfD Party Elects New Right Wing Leaders]. ''Breitbart News''. April 23, 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2017.</ref>

While the AfD was unable to gain any seats in the German national parliament in the 2013 election, it gained many seats in the European Parliament in 2014. It first entered the Bundestag in the 2017 election after taking a historic third place with nearly 13% of the vote, while Angela Merkel's CDU received its worst result since 1949.<ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (September 25, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/25/merkel-scores-pyrrhic-victory-populists-beat-expectations/ Merkel’s Pyrrhic Victory: Worst Party Performance Since 1949 As Populist AfD Beat Expectations]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-elections-afd/4043104.html Germany Shaken by Far-right Political Earthquake]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/merkel-win-seen-as-inevitable/4042028.html Merkel Wins Historic Fourth Term But Far-right Populists Surge]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Ridgwell, Henry (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-far-right-reclaim-country-angela-merkel-coalition-talks/4043603.html German Far-right Pledges to 'Reclaim Country' as Merkel Begins Tough Coalition Talks]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Chazan, Guy (September 24, 2017). [https://www.ft.com/content/d18213e0-a105-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2 Nationalist AfD make historic breakthrough in German elections]. ''Financial Times''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.</ref> The AfD elected a greater proportion of immigrant MPs than Merkel's CDU.<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-immigration/germanys-far-right-afd-has-more-immigrant-mps-than-merkels-conservatives-idUSKCN1C42GZ Germany's far-right AfD has more immigrant MPs than Merkel's conservatives]. ''Reuters''. September 29, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.</ref> After the CDU and SDP formed another grand coalition government,<ref>Multiple references:
*[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/05/merkel-welcomes-german-govt-deal-handing-4th-term/ Merkel Welcomes German Govt Deal Handing Her 4th Term]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
*Karnitschnig, Matthew (March 4, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-social-democrats-endorse-grand-coalition/ Germany gets new government]. ''Politico''. Retrieved March 6, 2018.</ref> the AfD became the official opposition party.<ref>Oltermann, Philip (February 7, 2018). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/07/germanys-rightwing-afd-gears-up-to-play-noisy-opposition-role Germany's rightwing AfD gears up to play noisy opposition role]. ''The Guardian''. Retrieved March 6, 2018.</ref> By the end of 2018, the AfD had entered every German state parliament,<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/world/europe/germany-hesse-election-merkel.html See also:
*Montgomery, Jack (October 28, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/10/28/merkels-cdu-spd-coalition-partners-hammered-regional-election/ Merkel and Allies Hammered in German Regional Election]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved November 1, 2018.</ref> becoming one of only two parties to do this.<ref>[https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1056513693935157248 Europe Elects]. ''Twitter''. October 28, 2018. Retrieved November 1, 2018.</ref>

In 2018, polling found that the AfD had the second-highest level of public support of any German party,<ref>Multiple references:
*Anderson, Emma (February 19, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/afd-surpasses-spd-for-first-time-in-german-poll/ AfD surpasses SPD for first time in German poll]. ''Politico''. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
*Deacon, Liam (February 19, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/19/poll-germany-afd-populists-second-most-popular-party/ Poll: Germany’s AfD Populists Second Most Popular Party for First Time]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
See also:
*Davis, Austin (February 20, 2018). [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/20/alternative-germany-afd-rises-angela-merkel-strugg/ Far-right Alternative for Germany rises as Merkel struggles for coalition]. ''The Washington Times''. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
*Williams, Thomas D. (June 25, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/06/25/sunday-poll-german-populist-afd-party-hits-record-high-popularity/ Sunday Poll: German Populist AfD Party Hits Record High Popularity]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved June 25, 2018.</ref> and it became the largest party in eastern Germany.<ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (September 8, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/08/anti-mass-migration-alternative-for-germany-now-most-popular-party-in-east-germany/ Anti-Mass Migration Alternative for Germany Now Most Popular Party in East Germany]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
*Cat, Laura (September 7, 2018). [https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/09/right-wing-afd-party-keeps-growing-and-is-now-most-popular-in-east-germany/ Right-wing AfD party keeps growing and is now most popular in East Germany]. ''Voice of Europe''. Retrieved September 8, 2018.</ref> It receives relatively strong support from blue-collar workers.<ref>Dörre, Klaus (April 17, 2018). [https://thehill.com/opinion/international/383555-distant-cousins-trumpism-and-germanys-right-wing-labor-movement Distant cousins: 'Trumpism' and Germany's right-wing labor movement]. ''The Hill''. Retrieved April 17, 2018.</ref> By 2018, the party had made a large impact on German politics,<ref>[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/how-the-alternative-for-germany-has-transformed-the-country-a-1227360.html How the Alternative for Germany Has Transformed the Country]. ''Der Spiegel''. September 21, 2018. Retrieved October 14, 2018.</ref><ref>Pasquet, Yannick (September 24, 2018). [https://www.timesofisrael.com/one-year-on-far-right-has-transformed-german-politics/ One year on, far right has transformed German politics]. ''The Times of Israel''. Retrieved October 14, 2018.</ref> and it built a strong social media presence.<ref>Grieshaber, Kirsten (May 18, 2019). [https://www.apnews.com/fd9d10b52c304f6b9b3c7f3cb1ada5a8 German far-right rules digital campaign for Europe election]. ''Associated Press''. Retrieved May 18, 2019.</ref> The AfD performed particularly well in the regional elections in Saxony and Brandenburg, seeing its best-ever results in any German state.<ref>Multiple references:
*Byas, Steve (September 2, 2019). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/33295-alternative-for-germany-party-receives-most-votes-ever-in-saxony-and-brandenburg Alternative for Germany Party Receives Most Votes Ever in Saxony and Brandenburg]. ''The New American''. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
*Tomlinson, Chris (September 2, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/09/02/populist-afd-see-massive-gains-in-eastern-german-regional-elections/ Populist AfD Sees Massive Gains in Eastern German Regional Elections]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
*Nasr, Joseph (September 1, 2019). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-elections-afd/buoyed-by-state-votes-germanys-afd-takes-aim-at-merkel-coalition-idUSKCN1VM1L0 Buoyed by state votes, Germany's AfD takes aim at Merkel coalition]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
*Bhatti, Jabeen; Banaj, Eros (September 1, 2019). [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/1/alternative-germany-election-surge-hits-angela-mer/ Germany's anti-immigrant party sees election surge against Angela Merkel's moderates]. ''The Washington Times''. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
See also:
*Rahn, Wesley; Knight, Ben (September 2, 2019). [https://p.dw.com/p/3Os3i Germany: Berlin reacts to far-right surge in eastern elections]. ''Deutsche Welle''. Retrieved September 8, 2019.</ref> Members of the CDU began cooperating with the AfD on the local level.<ref>Schumacher, Elizabeth (September 11, 2019). [https://p.dw.com/p/3POwG CDU, AfD find common ground in 18 towns, report says]. ''Deutsche Welle''. Retrieved September 15, 2019.</ref> The AfD performed very well in the regional elections in Thuringia on October 27, 2019, performing better than Merkel's CDU.<ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (October 28, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/10/28/german-populists-surpass-merkel-party-in-regional-elections/ German Populists Surpass Merkel Party in Regional Elections]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved October 28, 2019.
*Carrel, Paul; Hummel, Tassilo (October 26, 2019). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-elections-thuringia/far-right-afd-hurts-merkels-cdu-in-german-state-vote-idUSKBN1X50L1 Far-right AfD hurts Merkel's CDU in German state vote]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
*Posander, Joshua (October 27, 2019). [https://www.politico.eu/article/far-left-and-right-outflank-center-in-regional-german-vote/ Far left and right outflank center in regional German vote]. ''Politico''. Retrieved October 28, 2019.</ref>

The AfD worked to gain influence in Germany's cultural institutions.<ref>Apperly, Eliza (October 28, 2019). [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/10/germany-far-right-culture-war/598978/ The Far Right Is Taking On Cultural Institutions]. ''The Atlantic''. Retrieved November 3, 2019.</ref>

==Views==
The AfD is strongly Eurosceptic and opposes the centralization of the socialist and globalist [[European Union]].<ref name="BBC"/> It supports leaving the EU if the socialistic organization does not reform and discontinue its centralization policies,<ref name="BBC"/><ref>Anderson, Emma (January 13, 2019). [https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-far-right-afd-alternative-for-germany-to-campaign-on-possible-eu-exit-alexander-gauland/ Germany’s far right AfD to campaign on possible EU exit]. ''Politico''. Retrieved January 13, 2019.</ref> and it has criticized the European [[establishment]] for its handling of Brexit.<ref>Delingpole, James (April 5, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/04/05/delingpole-rees-mogg-afd-bbc-brexit-bias/ Delingpole: Rees-Mogg Is Right – the AfD Talks a Lot More Sense on Brexit than the BBC]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 6, 2019.</ref> The party is similar in EU policy to other right-wing parties in Europe. Additionally, the AfD is pro-direct democracy and anti-establishment.<ref name="BBC"/> It supports [[free speech]] rights and strongly opposes [[censorship]].<ref>Williams, Thomas D. (January 2, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/01/02/populist-leader-says-german-censorship-law-is-direct-attack-on-freedom-of-speech/ Populist Leader Says German Censorship Law Is ‘Direct Attack on Freedom of Speech’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 1, 2019.</ref>
[[Image:Geromeslavemarket.jpg|right|thumb|100px|AfD made world-wide news for billboards portraying Gérôme's ''The Slave Market''<ref>[https://www.apnews.com/e4a3dca3c7464ca3925e4fe67afda5a6 US museum condemns use of its art by German far-right party]</ref>]]
The AfD strongly opposes [[Angela Merkel]]'s reckless and [[Open borders|leftist migration policy]].<ref name="Telegraph"/><ref name="Wa.T."/> It does not believe [[Islam]] to be compatible with Western society.<ref name="Telegraph"/><ref>Tomlinson, Chris (April 19, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/04/19/council-muslims-calls-afd-nazis-minaret-ban/ AfD Under Fire: ‘We Are a Christian State, Islam is a Foreign Body… Euro-Islam Does Not Exist’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved February 8, 2018.</ref> However, the AfD accepts "Muslims who accept and embrace our liberal secular society" rather than "political Islam."<ref name="ExclusiveStorch"/> The party has connections to [[Pegida]], which strongly opposes the Islamification of Europe,<ref name="Germany'sFarage"/><ref name="DW"/> and it has proposed bans on minarets, the Islamic call to prayer, and halal slaughter.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (March 12, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/12/germanys-afd-announces-minaret-call-to-prayer-halal-slaughter-ban-ahead-of-sundays-crucial-elections/ Germany’s AfD Announces Minaret, Call To Prayer, Halal Slaughter Ban Ahead Of Sunday’s Crucial Elections]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved February 8, 2018.</ref>

The AfD strongly supports [[Israel]].<ref>Ahren, Raphael (September 24, 2017). [https://www.timesofisrael.com/loathed-by-jews-germanys-far-right-afd-loves-the-jewish-state/ Loathed by Jews, Germany’s far-right AfD loves the Jewish state]. ''The Times of Israel''. Retrieved September 2, 2018.</ref> It receives support from conservative German Jews,<ref>Multiple references:
*Ersen, Hakan (October 7, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-afd-jews/german-far-right-party-draws-backing-from-small-group-of-jews-idUSKCN1MH0WM German far-right party draws backing from small group of Jews]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
*Snyder, Don (October 27, 2018). [https://www.foxnews.com/world/jewish-members-join-german-anti-semitic-party-because-they-are-taking-on-islamization-of-country Jewish members join German party accused of anti-Semitism because they are taking on Islamization of country]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
*Deacon, Liam (September 28, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/09/28/jewish-afd-members-launch-jewish-group-populist-german-party/ Jewish AfD Members Launch Jewish Group Within Populist German Party]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 1, 2019.
*Arfa, Orit. [https://www.weeklyblitz.net/news/jewish-supporters-of-germanys-far-right-afd-see-party-as-means-to-counter-anti-semitism/ Jewish supporters of Germany’s far-right AfD see party as means to counter anti-Semitism]. ''Blitz''. Retrieved January 1, 2019.</ref><ref name="JewishSupport">Byas, Steve (January 1, 2019). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/31069-right-wing-european-parties-seek-jewish-support Right-wing European Parties Seek Jewish Support]. ''The New American''. Retrieved January 1, 2019.</ref> and former [[Mossad]] officer Rafael Eitan, who led the operation to capture [[Adolf Eichmann]], publicly praised the party<ref>Helmhold, Juliane (February 4, 2018). [https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Former-Mossad-agent-praises-German-nationalist-ultra-right-party-AfD-540623 Former Mossad Agent Praises German Nationalist Ultra-Right Party AfD]. ''The Jerusalem Post''. Retrieved September 2, 2018.</ref> although he later explained that he regrets supporting the party.<ref>(February 4, 2018) [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/ex-mossad-agent-regrets-backing-german-party-with-nazi-roots-1.5787732 Ex-Mossad Agent Regrets Backing Far-right German Party With Nazi Roots]. ''Haaretz''. Retrieved November 30, 2019.</ref> It supported U.S. President [[Donald Trump]]'s decision to move the US embassy from [[Tel Aviv]] to [[Jerusalem]],<ref>Ahren, Raphael (April 17, 2018). [https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-far-right-mp-pushes-recognition-of-jerusalem-as-israels-capital/ German far-right MP pushes recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital]. ''Times of Israel''. Retrieved September 2, 2018.</ref> though it also supports [[Iran nuclear deal]].<ref>Chase, Jefferson (May 8, 2018). [https://www.dw.com/en/iran-nuclear-deal-germanys-special-role-and-plans/a-43701214 Iran nuclear deal: Germany's special role and plans]. ''Deutsche Welle''. Retrieved September 2, 2018.</ref> The AfD's deputy leader Beatrix von Storch has spoken highly of Israel<ref>Williams, Thomas D. (September 28, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2017/09/28/german-populist-beatrix-von-storch-says-israel-could-be-a-role-model-for-germany/ German Populist Beatrix Von Storch Says ‘Israel Could Be a Role Model for Germany’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 1, 2019.</ref> and has condemned anti-Semitism using rhetoric stronger than any other party.<ref name="JewishSupport"/> The AfD has proposed banning [[Hezbollah]] in Germany.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (June 5, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/06/05/german-populists-propose-hezbollah-ban/ German Populists Propose Hezbollah Ban]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved June 5, 2019.</ref>

Critics of the AfD, who mainly comprise [[liberal]]s and the [[establishment]], claim the AfD is somehow overrun by "neo-Nazis" or "Nazi-sympathizers."<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-afd/afd-lawmakers-walk-out-on-holocaust-survivors-speech-in-bavaria-idUSKCN1PH2BM AfD lawmakers walk out on Holocaust survivor's speech in Bavaria]. ''Reuters''. January 23, 2019. Retrieved January 23, 2019.</ref> One example held by critics is a January 2017 speech made in [[Dresden]] by AfD member Björn Höcke, considered by many to be racist and pro-Holocaust. Many [[conservative]]s disagree, arguing that the content of Höcke's speech may have been poorly-worded, but it was patriotic and pro-German rather than Neo-Nazi. While some AfD members (including party leader Petry) condemned his speech and launched a party exclusion trial of Höcke, many other AfD members supported him and his speech, such as the AfD Saarland. Critics of the AfD also falsely label the party terms such as "far-right,"<ref name="JasperTNA"/> despite its policies being [[conservative]] and supporting Christian values.<ref name="ExclusiveStorch">Williams, Thomas D. (September 29, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/29/exclusive-interview-german-populist-afd-leader-beatrix-von-storch/ Exclusive Interview with German Populist AfD Leader Beatrix Von Storch]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved February 8, 2018.</ref>

The youth wing of the party, however, is more liberal than the party overall. For example, it advocated adopting climate change policies more in alignment with [[Environmental alarmism|climate alarmists]].<ref>Nasr, Joseph (May 29, 2019). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-afd/save-coal-lose-youth-vote-far-right-german-party-faces-climate-policy-revolt-idUSKCN1SZ1KD Save coal, lose youth vote? Far-right German party faces climate policy revolt]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved May 29, 2019.</ref>

==See also==
*[[European migrant crisis]]

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading==
*Williams, Thomas D. (September 29, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/29/exclusive-interview-german-populist-afd-leader-beatrix-von-storch/ Exclusive Interview with German Populist AfD Leader Beatrix Von Storch]. ''Breitbart News''.

==External links==
*[https://www.alternativefuer.de/ Official party website]

[[Category:Political Parties in Germany]]
[[Category:Conservative Political Parties]]
[[Category:European Politics]]
[[Category:Euroskepticism]]

Alexander Zakharchenko

2019-11-30T22:51:00Z

JoeyJ:

[[File:Prime Minister of DPR Aleksandr Zakharchenko, September 8, 2014.jpg|thumb|Alexander Zakharchenko]]
'''Alexander Zakharchenko''' (June 26, 1976 – August 31, 2018) is the minister-president of the self-proclaimed [[Donetsk People's Republic]], a Russia-backed separatist group which is not recognized by any other country, including Ukraine which labels it a terrorist organization.

==Biography==
Zakharchenko was born in [[Donetsk]] in 1976. After graduating from technical school he worked as a mine electrician. Later he was a student at the law institute of Ukraine's interior ministry.<ref>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27211501</ref> Since April 2014 Zakharchenko was engaged in the [[Donetsk People's Republic]]. On August 7, 2014, he became minister-president of the Republic of Donetsk after [[Alexander Borodai]] resigned.<ref>http://rt.com/news/line/2014-08-07/</ref> Zakharchenko was endorsed by the Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic.<ref>http://en.tass.ru/world/753337</ref> On August 31, 2018 Zakharchenko was killed by a bomb which was planted in a café that he visited.<ref>https://www.foxnews.com/world/ukraine-separatists-report-death-of-leader-zakharchenko</ref>

== Views ==
Zakharchenko was a member of the [[Russian]] [[Orthodox Church]].<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/30/us-ukraine-crisis-east-idUSKBN0IJ22G20141030</ref>

In February 2015 Zakharchenko claimed that Kiev's pro-Western leaders were “miserable representatives of the great Jewish people".<ref>https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukraine-run-by-miserable-jews-says-rebel-chief/</ref>

In December 2016 Zakharchenko said that [[Britain]] should be conquered: "I'm not saying '[[Kyiv]].' In fact, not even [[Berlin]] must be taken. We should leave it behind and conquer Britain. The Anglo-Saxons are the evil to our Russian fate. If we succeed, Russia's 'golden age' will come, according to all our predictions".<ref>https://en.censor.net.ua/video_news/418061/zakharchenko_blames_russias_plight_on_anglosaxons_says_britain_must_be_conquered_video_in_russian</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zakharchenko, Alexander}}
[[Category:Orthodox Christians]]
[[Category:Ukrainian People]]

Hunter Biden

2019-11-30T22:37:34Z

JoeyJ: /* December 2015 */ The Azov Battalion did not participate in the Euromaidan revolution because it was not formed then.

[[File:Obama, Groppin Joe and Hunter.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Obama (left), Joe Biden (center), and Hunter Biden (right).<ref>https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/23/like-russian-collusion-ukraine-hysteria-is-pure-projection-by-media-and-democrats/ https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/21/trump-ukraine-biden-1507051</ref> ]]
'''Robert Hunter Biden''' aka '''Robert H. Biden''' aka '''Hunter Biden''' is the [[white privilege]]d son of former U.S. [[Vice President]] [[Joseph Biden]].<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-hunter-biden-story-is-a-troubling-tale-of-privilege/2019/10/04/8ad20988-e46e-11e9-b403-f738899982d2_story.html</ref> Biden was hired on the Board of Directors of the [[Ukrainian]] gas company [[Burisma Holdings]] in April 2014.<ref>https://burisma-group.com/eng/director/hunter-biden/</ref><ref>http://www.dw.com/en/who-are-hunter-bidens-ukrainian-bosses/a-17642254</ref><ref>https://burisma-group.com/eng/?s=Hunter+Biden</ref> Biden, who weeks earlier was thrown out of the [[U.S. Navy]] for [[narcotic]]s abuse, was paid over $50,000 a month and had no experience in the field of oil and gas.

Hunter Biden was hired by MBNA bank just out of law school for $100,000 a year after Joe Biden took $240,000 in campaign contributions and pushed a bill making it harder for people to file for [[bankruptcy]] that MBNA wanted.<ref>https://twitter.com/ibrahimpols/status/1180531106191413255?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw</ref>

Hunter Biden used his father's position as an emolument for a $1.5 Billion deal with the Chinese military and $50,000 a month payoff from a Ukrainian oil and gas company while his father was in charge of doling out American [[taxpayer]] [[cash]] to Ukraine.

==Princeling career==
:{{See also|Princeling}}
He serves as Counsel to Boies, Schiller, Flexner, LLP, a US national law firm based in [[New York]]. Biden is also an Adjunct Professor on Georgetown University's Masters Program, in the School of Foreign Service. He currently serves as Member of the World Food Program USA Board of Directors and as a Director on the not-for-profit Board of the Center for National Policy, the Truman National Security Project and the US Global Leadership Coalition. Biden is Member of the CSIS Executive Council on Development, the Chairman's Advisory Board for the National Democratic Institute, and the President's Advisory Board for Catholic Charities in [[Washington D.C.]]

From 2006 to 2009 Biden served on the Board of Directors of [[Amtrak]], serving as Vice Chairman from 2007 to 2009.

Biden served as an Honorary Co-Chair of the 2009 Obama Presidential Inaugural Committee and in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Previously,

Biden was a founding member of the law firm Oldaker, Biden and Belair, LLP, was appointed by [[President Clinton]] to serve as Executive Director of E-Commerce Policy Coordination under Secretary of Commerce William Daley and was a Senior Vice President at MBNA America Bank. He is also a Member of the Bar in the State of Connecticut, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Biden received a bachelor's degree from [[Georgetown University]] and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

==Rosemont Seneca Partners==
Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, and Christopher Heinz, [[John Kerry]] stepson, formed Rosemont Seneca Partners, a private equity firm in 2009 with their friend, Devon Archer. The three friends established a series of related [[LLC]]s.<ref>Including Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC, Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, and Rosemont Realty.</ref> It was anchored to Rosemont Capital, the alternative investment fund of the Heinz family fortune.<ref>The Heinz Ketchup family fortune.</ref> The fund grew quickly. According to an email revealed as part of a [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] investigation, Rosemont described themselves as “a $2.4 billion private equity firm co-owned by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz,” with Devon Archer as “Managing Partner.”

Archer was convicted in [[Manhattan]] Federal Court for the fraudulent issuance and sale of more than $60 Million of tribal bonds.<ref>https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/three-convicted-manhattan-federal-court-fraudulent-issuance-and-sale-more-60-million</ref>

===China===
Five months into the [[Obama administration]] in June 2009 Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz, stepson of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair [[John Kerry]] formed Rosemount Seneca. The firm partnered with the Thornton Group run by Devon Archer, and the Bank of China, to form Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) in China. Devon Archer is the nephew of [[Whitey Bulger]], head of the [[Boston]] Irish [[mafia]] who enjoyed federal protection under FBI director [[Robert Mueller]] as an informant.<ref>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335614/Trial-Boston-mob-boss-James-Whitey-Bulger-gets-underway-family-victims-say-look-eye.html</ref> Bulger was convicted of 19 murders that occurred while under Mueller's protection; some have linked the Bulger klan to as many as 52 murders while Mueller ran the Boston FBI field office.<ref>https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/1970/01/19/one-lingering-question-for-fbi-director-robert-mueller/613uW0MR7czurRn7M4BG2J/story.html?arc404=true</ref> The Bank of China is owned by the Chinese government and closely connected with the Chinese military and intelligence services. Biden, Heinz, and Archer transferred and sold "duel use" technology to the Chinese military which was used to create the Chinese [[drone]] program and replicate the Chinese version of the [[F-15]] fighter.<ref>https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equity-firm-run-by-kerry-and-bidens-kids/</ref>

Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) invested in an app the Chinese leftwing communist government is using to surveil ethnic minority [[Muslim]]s in western China. Over one million Muslims living in the regon are now incarcerated in Chinese [[gulag]]s.

===Ukraine===
:{{See also|Biden-Ukraine scandal}}
In December 2015 ''[[The New York Times]]'' reported on ''Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch.'' The story focuses on Hunter Biden, Burisma Holdings, and its owner, [[Mykola Zlochevsky]], who was Ukraine's ecology minister under former President [[Viktor F. Yanukovych]] before he was forced into exile.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html</ref>

U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. [[Vice President]] Joe Biden threatens Ukrainian President [[Petro Poroshenko]] that the [[Obama administration]] would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General [[Viktor Shokin]] who was investigating his son, Hunter Biden, on the board of the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma Holdings. Joe Biden recounted, "'You’re not getting the billion'. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money...Well, [SOB], he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."<ref>https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-affairs-issue-launch-former-vice-president-joe-biden</ref><ref>https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived</ref>

The status of an independent Ukraine became the focus of much [[fake news]] reporting by the ''[[Washington Post]]'' to drive a wedge between President [[Donald Trump]]'s efforts to improve relations with the [[Russian Federation]] following the disastrous [[foreign policy]] of President [[Barack Obama]], which created a "zone of chaos" throughout the [[Middle East]], [[North Africa]], and the Caucus region.

==Burisma oil and gas==
The ouster of President Yanukovych put the founder and president of [[Burisma]] oil and gas, [[Mykola Zlochevsky]], in a delicate spot. Zlochevsky had served as the environment minister under Yanukovych, handing out gas licenses to cronies. Having watched the president flee Ukraine for his life, currying favor with the Obama administration was paramount for Zlochevsky.

In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation at the behest of the UK prosecutors office, which was investigating money laundering allegations against its owner, former Ukrainian Ecology Minister Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola Zlochevsky) and had just frozen $23.5 million in assets allegedly belonging to him in early April 2014. On April 18, 2014 Biden's son, [[Hunter Biden]] was appointed to the board of directors of [[Burisma]].<ref>https://archive.is/2XBHh</ref> According to ''The Hill'' Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular payments—“usually more than $166,000 a month”—from Burisma. The payments ran from the spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million.

During a May 13, 2014, press conference, Matt Lee of the ''[[Associated Press]]'' grilled State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki about Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board.
{{quotebox|Lee: “Does this building diplomatically have any concerns about potential perceptions of conflict or [[cronyism]] – which is what you’ve often accused the Russians of doing?” Paski: “No, he’s a private citizen."<ref>https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4819961/hunter-biden-ukraine-joe-biden-conflict-interest-13-2014</ref>}}
According to ''The Hill'' Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular payments—“usually more than $166,000 a month”—from Burisma. The payments ran from the spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million. ''The Hill'' article included a written answer from Shokin, who said his investigation into Burisma had included plans for “interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”

In August 2014, the Zlochevsky was forced to follow Yanukovych into exile after being accused of illegally enriching himself. The need to refurbish Burisma’s tattered image, as well as his own, prompted Zlochevsky to resort to forking over large sums of money to win friends in [[Washington, D.C.]]. [[Hunter Biden]] and the [[Atlantic Council]] were soon to become two of his best friends.<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/14/dcs-atlantic-council-raked-in-funding-from-hunter-bidens-corruption-stained-ukrainian-employer-while-courting-his-vp-father/</ref> Hunter Biden also held a position at the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-funded “democracy promotion” organization that was heavily involved in pushing [[regime change]] in Ukraine. Burisma handed him a position on its board despite his lack of experience in the energy industry and in Ukrainian affairs. Hunter Biden enlisted the D.C. law firm, Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, where he served as co-counsel, to help “improve [Burisma’s] corporate governance.” By the following January 2015, Zlochevsky’s assets were unfrozen by the U.K.<ref>https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/british-court-unfreezes-accounts-of-yanukovych-era-ecology-minister-zlochevsky-378238.html?cn-reloaded=1</ref> This action was pointedly called out in a speech by U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, who stated,
{{quotebox|“In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the U.K. authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people.”,<ref>[https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto&tl=en&text=%D0%97%D0%B0%20%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%20%D0%BA%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%96%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B0%20%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%20%22%D0%B7%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0%22%20%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%83%20%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%88%D0%BD%D1%8C%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%20%D0%BC%D1%96%D0%BD%D1%96%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%20%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%96%D1%97%20%D0%9C%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B8%20%D0%97%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE.%0A%0A%D0%9C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%8E%20%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%20%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%96%20%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B8%20%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%2C%20%D1%89%D0%BE%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%20%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%96%D0%B2%20%D0%92%D1%96%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%96%D1%8F%20%D0%AF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B8%20%D0%B4%D1%96%D1%8F%D0%BB%D0%B0%20%D1%81%D1%85%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0%2C%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%20%D1%8F%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%8E%20%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81-%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%86%D1%96%20%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%20%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8-%D1%96%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%86%D1%96%D1%97.%20%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%20%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%83%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8F%20%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B8%20%D0%AF%D0%BD%D1%83%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B0%20%D0%B4%D0%BB%D1%8F%20%D0%B7%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%82%D1%82%D1%8F%20%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BA%D1%86%D1%96%D0%B9%20%D1%83%20%D0%84%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%96.%0A%0A%D0%A3%20%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%96%20%D0%97%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%20%D0%B1%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B0%20%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B0%20%D1%85%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%96%D1%8F.%0A%0A5%20%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BF%D0%BD%D1%8F%202014%20%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%83%20%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%8E%20%D0%B2%D1%96%D0%B4%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%20%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8F%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%20%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%8E%20%22%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B5%20%D0%B7%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8F%20%D0%B2%20%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BE%20%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%85%20%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%BC%D1%96%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%85%22.%20%D0%A4%D1%96%D0%B3%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%20%E2%80%93%20%D0%97%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9%2C%20%D0%B0%20%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%83%20%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%83%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%20%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%86%D1%96%2C%20%D1%8F%D0%BA%D1%96%20%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D1%82%D1%83%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%20%D0%B2%20%D0%9B%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%96%2023%2C5%20%D0%BC%D1%96%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%20%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%96%D0%B2.%0A%0A%D0%9F%D1%96%D1%81%D0%BB%D1%8F%20%D1%87%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%20%D0%97%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%94%20%22%D1%80%D1%94%D1%88%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%20%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%22.%20%D0%92%D1%96%D0%BD%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%94%D1%82%D1%8C%D1%81%D1%8F%20%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%20%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%20%D0%B2%D1%96%D0%B4%20%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B8%20%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%20%D1%82%D0%B5%2C%20%D1%89%D0%BE%20%D0%B6%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%85%20%D0%BF%D1%96%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B7%D1%80%20%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%83%20%D0%BD%D0%B5%20%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%83%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82%D0%BE.%0A%0A%D0%86%20%D1%82%D1%83%D1%82%2C%20%D0%B2%20%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8C%20%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%96%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8F%20%D1%89%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BE%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8F%20%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%20%D0%B7%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%82%D1%82%D1%8F%20%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D1%82%D1%83%20%D0%B7%20%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2%D1%96%D0%B2%20%D0%97%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%2C%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%D1%8C%D1%81%D1%8F%20%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BD%D1%96%20%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0.%0A%0A2%20%D0%B3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8F%20%D1%81%D0%BB%D1%96%D0%B4%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%B9%20%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B8%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%BE%20%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%88%D0%B5%20%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%20%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%20%D1%82%D0%B5%2C%20%D1%89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Google Translate]. https://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/leschenko/5549e581cb3df/</ref> Instead of receiving cooperation from Ukrainian prosecutors, they “sent letters to Zlochevsky’s attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was freed by the U.K. court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus.”}}

On Feb. 10, 2015, Viktor Shokin was appointed as the Prosecutor General of the Ukraine and he picked up the investigation into Burisma, which reportedly continued until his removal in February 2016.<ref>[https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement Affidavit of Viktor Shokin on Biden shakedown], September 4, 2019.</ref> Shokin said his investigation into Burisma had included plans for “interrogations and other [[crime]]-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”

In a December 2015 op-ed, the editorial board of ''[[The New York Times]]'' took both Bidens to task for the unseemly business arrangement:
{{quotebox|“It should be plain to Hunter Biden that any connection with a Ukrainian oligarch damages his father’s efforts to help Ukraine. This is not a board he should be sitting on.”<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/opinion/joe-biden-lectures-ukraine.html</ref>}}

Hunter Biden maintained that he had only a brief conversation with his father about his work at Burisma. Hunter recalled to ''[[The New Yorker]]'':
{{quotebox|“Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’<ref>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign</ref>}}

Despite his constant focus on Ukraine, the Joe Biden claimed in September 2019 that he never spoke to his son about his business dealings in the country.<ref>https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/09/21/joe-biden-never-talked-ukraine-son-trump-needs-investigated/2401830001/</ref>

==Hunter Biden timeline==
:{{See also|Ukrainian collusion timeline}}
===April 2014===
*'''April.''' Investigators in the U.K. open a money laundering and fraud investigation of Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma Holdings.

*'''16 April.''' ''[[Forbes]]'' reports Trump-Russia mastermind [[John Brennan]] visits Ukraine.<ref>https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/04/16/why-cia-director-brennan-visited-kiev-in-ukraine-the-covert-war-has-begun/#248cdd8510cb</ref>
:*Devon Archer holds late night meeting at the [[White House]]..<ref>https://video.foxnews.com/v/6094578904001/#sp=show-clips</ref>

*'''18 April.''' Hunter Biden is hired to the board of Ukraine's largest energy company, Burisma Holdings.<ref>https://archive.is/LqxDr/</ref><ref>http://www.dw.com/en/who-are-hunter-bidens-ukrainian-bosses/a-17642254</ref><ref>https://archive.is/Aza4U</ref><ref>https://archive.is/IDha1</ref> It is owned by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, one of several subjects of the Ukrainian corruption probe.

*'''21-22 April.''' Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine,<ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/joe-biden-obama-officials-influenced-ukraine-to-advance-own-interests_2896259.html</ref> offering his political support and $50 million in aid for the new shaky government.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/world/europe/biden-ukraine.html</ref>

===May 2014===
*'''2 May.''' '''Odessa Trade Unions House massacre'''. At least 42 Ukrainians are murdered by Ukrainian nationalists, most burnt alive in the Odessa Trades Union Building. Some sources say as many as 116 were killed, but a smaller number is reported for Western media. The bodies were removed and buried in secret. Survivors of the fire inside the building were executed with bullets to the head. Some were beaten to death with clubs when they jumped from Windows of the burning building. A pregnant woman was strangled.<ref>http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/videos-photos-odessan-massacre-done.html</ref> Shortly before, pro-Russian extremists killed two pro-Ukrainian activists.<ref>http://2maygroup.blogspot.de/2016/01/chronology-of-events-may-2-2014-in.html</ref>

*'''13 May.''' During a State Department press conference, Matt Lee of the ''[[Associated Press]]'' grilled spokesperson Jen Psaki about Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board. Lee asked Psaki,
{{quotebox|Lee: “Does this building diplomatically have any concerns about potential perceptions of conflict or [[cronyism]] – which is what you’ve often accused the Russians of doing?” Paski: “No, he’s a private citizen."<ref>https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4819961/hunter-biden-ukraine-joe-biden-conflict-interest-13-2014</ref>}}

===August 2015===
[[File:Chalupa-ciaramella.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa (left) Deep State informant Eric Ciaramella (right).<ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/10/huge-cia-whistleblower-eric-cairamella-worked-with-dnc-operative-alexandra-chalupa-in-creation-of-trump-russia-collusion-hoax/</ref>]]
*'''7 August.''' ''Kiev Post Op-ed:'' '''[[Olga Bielkova]]:''' Biden’s candidacy would be good news for Ukraine.<ref>https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/olga-belkova-bidens-candidacy-would-be-good-news-for-ukraine-395281.html</ref>

*'''27 August.''' Quinnipiac Poll: Biden runs better than Clinton against top Republicans while Clinton lead shrinks,<ref>https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2274</ref> as ''New York Times'' is investigating Biden links to Ukraine.

===November 2015===
*'''9 November.''' [[Eric Ciaramella]] invites [[Alexandra Chalupa]] into the White House.<ref>https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/10/30/whistleblower_exposed_close_to_biden_brennan_dnc_oppo_researcher_120996.html]</ref><ref>https://archive.usukraine.org/coalition/report-wh-press-conf-events.shtml</ref><ref>http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/wp-content/uploads/current-pdf/The_Ukrainian_Weekly_2015-47.pdf</ref>

===December 2015===
Sundance of the conservativetreehouse.com summarizes: '''December 2015 through April 2016''': The first phase leading into ‘[[Spygate]]’ is the period of time where opposition research of the republican candidate field was taking place. It is in this period where [[Fusion-GPS]] hired CIA Open Source researcher [[Nellie Ohr]], wife of DOJ-NSD official [[Bruce Ohr]], to do research. In the background of this time period the FBI and NSA [[FISA abuse]] was occurring by unknown FBI contractors.
----
[[Patrick Byrne]] begins reporting on [[Maria Butina]] more frequently to the FBI. Byrne became suspicious of the FBI motives because he warned FBI officials of a potential that his efforts, his reputation and those who trust him, may result in Butina gaining entry into campaign confidences. The FBI agents told Byrne that was exactly the intent; people high up in the FBI wanted Ms. Butina to gain deep access into the Trump campaign. Mr. Byrne became suspicious of a corrupt political motive, but didn’t say anything at the time.
----
*'''2 December.''' [[Dmitry Firtash]] announces hid intention to return to Ukraine to address the General Assembly of the Federation of Employers (FEU).
:*Joe Biden, President Poroshenko, and Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov took steps to prevent Firtash's return.<ref>[https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement Affidavit of [[Viktor Shokin]] on Biden shakedown], September 4, 2019.</ref>
*'''3 December.''' ''Politico'' reports:''A Ukrainian oligarch’s foiled homecoming: The U.S. and the government in Kiev want Dmytro Firtash behind bars.''
:*"Ukraine's Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov announced on Sunday that, after consulting with U.S. officials, he instructed Ukrainian police to detain Firtash should he attempt to enter Ukraine."<ref>[https://www.politico.eu/article/firtash-poroshenko-ukraine-oligarchs-corruption/ A Ukrainian oligarch’s foiled homecoming], By LINDA KINSTLEr, ''Politico,'', 12/3/15.</ref>
:*Photos of armed paramilitary groups were posted on Avakov's [[Facebook]] page; ''Politico'' reported the "commander of Ukraine’s nationalist Azov Battalion, said that his volunteer fighters would arrest Firtash themselves if government forces failed to do so. He later posted a Facebook photo of his armed men waiting at Kiev's Borispol airport.

*'''6 December.''' VP Biden meets with Poroshenko in [[Kiev]].

*'''7 December.''' [[Peter Strzok]] texted [[Lisa Page]] that [[Jonathan Moffa]] was waiting for his job interview.

*'''8 December.''' '''''New York Times'' completes its investigation in the Biden-Ukraine scandal.'''
:*''Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch''
:*Hunter Biden, Burisma Holdings, and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was Ukraine's ecology minister under former President [[Viktor F. Yanukovych]] before Hunter's boss, Zlochevsky, embezzled $5 Billion and became a fugitive from justice.
:*Zlochevsky hired Hunter Biden in 2014 while Vice President Biden oversaw U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine.
:*Burisma is Ukraine's largest oil and gas produce; hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors.
:*Hunter Biden was paid $166,000 a month, which was split with the nephew of [[Whitey Bulger]].
:*Zlochevsky, a former Ukraine ecology minister, was under investigation by the new administration for embezzlement.
:*Prosecutors traced payments to Hunter Biden.
:*Vice President Biden threatened the new Ukrainian administration to withhold $1 Billion in U.S. allocated funds unless the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden was fired.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html</ref>
*VP Biden addresses Ukrainian parliament (Rada) in Kiev.<ref>https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/09/remarks-vice-president-joe-biden-ukrainian-rada</ref>

*'''9 December.''' [[Amnesty International]] reports Obama armed ISIS.<ref>https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/politics/amnesty-international-isis-weapons-u-s-/index.html</ref>
*FBI Director [[James Comey]] replaces head of FBI Counterintelligence Division at Washington Field Office with Charles Kable.

*'''10 December.''' [[Michael Flynn]], [[Jill Stein]], and [[Joseph Mifsud]]<ref>page 5, item 16. Document states December 17, 2015, but the context appears to be speaking about the same event. https://t.co/aTzO3WiTGJ?amp=1</ref> attend RT dinner in Moscow with Putin.<ref>https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/jill-stein-says-nothing-happened-at-her-dinner-with-putin/</ref>
:*Before Flynn made the trip he alerted his former employer, the [[DIA]]. He then attended a “defensive” or “protective” briefing before he ever sat alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Russia Today (RT) dinner, or before he talked with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The briefing educated and sensitized Flynn to possible efforts by his Russian host to compromise the former high-ranking defense official and prepared him for conversations in which he could potentially extract intelligence for U.S. agencies such as the DIA. When Flynn returned from Moscow, he spent time briefing intelligence officials on what he learned during the Moscow contacts. Between two and nine intelligence officials attended the various meetings with Flynn about the RT event, and the information was moderately useful, about what one would expect from a public event.<ref>https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/423558-exculpatory-russia-evidence-about-mike-flynn-that-us-intel-kept-secret#.XC0yisc_S_4.twitter</ref>
[[File:De3DrwwUcAA7Mtd.jpeg|right|350px|thumb|'''''Spygate:''''' DOJ redacted the word, "lures". "Lures" are infiltrators, [[provocateur]]s, or spies who offer bait, in this case [[Hillary Clinton email scandal|Hillary Clinton's emails]]. Oconus = outside contiguous United States. The message from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page reads, "You get all our outside contiguous US spies approved?" It was sent after [[Sally Yates]] ended independent oversight of the DOJ-National Security Division, while FBI contractors conducted over 5,000 illegal FISA 702 "About queries," and before [[Adm. Rogers]] cutoff outside [[FBI]] contractor access to the FISA database. The primaries, Hillary's whitewash, and official [[counterintelligence]] investigation were yet to come.]]
*'''15 December.''' Vadim Mikerin, Director of the subsidiary Tenex, sentenced in [[extortion]] and [[money laundering]] scheme.<ref>Joel Schectman, U.S. sentences Russian nuclear official to four years for bribe scheme, Reuters (Dec. 15, 2015). The “Megatons to Megawatts” program converted uranium from thousands of Russian nuclear warheads for civilian use in U.S.nuclear power plants.</ref>
:*Tenex is an American subsidiary of Rosatom, the company that purchased [[Uranium One bribery scandal|Uranium One]].
:*[[Robert Mueller]] was investigating Tenex and its Russian oligarch owners at the same time he signed off on approval the sale of Uranium One to them as a member of [[CFIUS]].
:*[[Rod Rosenstein]] and [[Andrew Weissmann]] were the prosecutors handling the Mikerin case.
----
*'''18 December.''' ''Natural Gas Europe'' reports: {{Quotebox|"In 2015, [[Papadopoulos]] joined the London Center of International Law Practice as the director of the Center for International Energy and Natural Resources Law and Security. Papadopoulos focuses on the Eastern Mediterranean as well as the Caspian region. In 2015, he spoke to a business and energy convention in Israel, explaining the complex market for natural gas in the region. At the conference, he touched on issues of U.S.-Israel-Russia relations in an interview with Natural Gas Europe.<ref>https://www.naturalgasworld.com/united-states-russia-gas-east-mediterranean-27020</ref>}} [[Joseph Mifsud]] joined the London Center of International Law Practice (LCILP) a month earlier. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016 - in [[Italy]].

*'''21 December.''' Brent Budowsky discusses Clinton strategy with [[John Podesta]]: {{quotebox|Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/25651</ref>}}
----
*'''23 December.''' FBI Director Comey names [[Bill Priestap]] as assistant director of Counterintelligence Division.<ref>https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/e.w.-priestap-named-assistant-director-of-the-counterintelligence-division</ref>

*'''28 December.''' Strzok texts Lisa Page: {{quotebox| "You get all our outside contiguous US spies approved?"}} referring to [[Stefan Halper]], [[Alexander Downer]], Joseph Mifsud, Azra Turk, Charles Tawil, Erica Thompson and others.

*'''29 December.''' ''Wall Street Journal'' reports that the Obama administration 'incidentally' collected private communications by members of Congress while it spied on Israeli Prime Minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]].<ref>https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-spy-net-on-israel-snares-congress-1451425210</ref>

===January 2016===
[[File:Ciaramella-telizhenko-600x111.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Ciaramella/Telizhenko meeting at the White House to discuss killing the Hunter Biden investigation and reviving allegations against Paul Manafort.]]
*'''January 19.''' Eric Ciaramella hosts Andriy Telizhenko, a political officer in the DC Ukrainian Embassy at the [[White House]] to discuss killing the Hunter Biden investigation and reviving allegations against [[Paul Manafort]] which the [[FBI]] dismissed in 2014.

===January 2017===
*'''19 January.''' Eric Ciaramella invites Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau [[NABU]] director [[Artem Sytnyk]] to the White House. [[Artem Sytnyk]] was convicted in December 2018 of interference in the U.S. presidential election along with [[Serhiy Leshchenko]] in a Ukrainian court. [[Stynyk]] and Leshchenko gave Chalupa and Ciaramella official documents critical of [[Paul Manafort]], leading to Manafort's resignation as Trump's campaign manager. Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska suing Manafort over a failed Ukrainian cable TV investment.
*'''20 January.''' Trump inaugurated.

===October 2018===
[[File:Burisma-group-ukraine-ambassador.jpg|right|350px|thumb|Burisma Leadership posted this photo to Instgram of their meeting with Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in the personal residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine in Kiev, October 2018 while she was denying visas for Ukrainian prosecutors to testify in the United States.]]
[[File:Guiliani to Graham.PNG|right|300px|thumb|Excerpt of [[Giuliani]] letter to [[Sen. Graham]]. Amb. [[Marie Yovanovitch]] was denying visas to Ukrainian whistleblowers willing to testify about [[Ukrainian collusion]] to the [[Mueller investigation]] and covering up DNC and [[Biden]] corruption.]]
*'''30 October.''' Burisma leadership meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine [[Marie Yovanovitch]] in Kiev.<ref>https://archive.is/nzHUM#selection-543.0-551.1</ref>

===December 2018===
*'''3 December.''' '''Meet Andrii Telizhenko: The Man Who Will Blow the Lid Off of Mueller’s Russian Witch Hunt.'''<ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/meet-andrii-telizhenko-the-man-who-will-blow-the-lid-off-of-muellers-russian-witch-hunt-video/</ref>

===March 2019===
*'''9 March.''' Three weeks in advance of Ukraine's March 31, 2019 presidential election, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine in Kiev [[Marie Yovanovitch]] called for Ukraine’s special anti corruption prosecutor to be removed.<ref>https://ua.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-ambassador-yovanovitch-on-the-occasion-of-the-5th-anniversary-of-the-ukraine-crisis-media-centers-founding/</ref> Yovanovitvh's comments were regarded in Ukrainian media as a violation of international diplomatic convention and protocols of the duty of foreign diplomats to refrain from interfering in a host country's internal affairs, particularly in advance of an election.
:*the U.S. embassy in Kiev had earlier pressured the Ukraine prosecutors in 2016 to drop or avoid pursuing several cases, including one involving the Soros-backed AntiCorruption Action Centre (AntAc) and two cases involving Ukraine officials who criticized Donald Trump and his campaign manager Paul Manafort.
::*Kiev embassy official George Kent wrote a letter proving Yovanovitch's meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs did indeed happen.<ref>https://www.scribd.com/document/402559592/Embassy2GPLetter4-4-16</ref> State Department officials authenticated the letter. George Kent acknowledged in this Congressional testimony he signed that letter.

===April 2019===
*'''25 April.''' '''How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost,''' by John Solomon<ref>https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/440730-how-the-obama-white-house-engaged-ukraine-to-give-russia-collusion</ref>
:*In January 2016 the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington. The meeting brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with [Eric Ciaramella]<ref>""telizhenko,andriy,g,U67540,100561,VA,1/19/16 10:57,D1101,1/19/16 12:53,,01/19/2016 12:00:00 AM,1/19/16 11:00,1/19/16 23:59,,1,KH,WIN,1/19/16 10:51,KH,Ciaramella,Eric,OEOB,230A,HARTWELL,KYLE,,,04/29/2016 07:00:00 AM +0000",,,," [https://archive.org/download/WHvisitorlogs_2010-16_surname/White-House-visitor-logs6_Sorr-Zyz.csv] [https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/judicial-watch-white-house-visitor-logs-detail-meetings-of-eric-ciaramella/ Judicial Watch: White House Visitor Logs Detail Meetings of Eric Ciaramella.]</ref> and members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ). Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations: one involving Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and one involving Paul Manafort's lobbying firm, linked closely to then-candidate Trump.
::*U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, then a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington tasked with organizing the meeting.
::*Telizhenko said U.S. officials said that they had an interest in reviving a closed 2014 investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions. That 2014 investigation was focused on Manafort. The FBI closed the case without charging Manafort.
::*DOJ officials asking investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) if they could help find new evidence about the Party of Regions’ payments and its dealings with Americans. “It was definitely the case that led to the charges against Manafort and the leak to U.S. media during the 2016 election,” Telizhenko said.
::*Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election. Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort — a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions — was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the NABU, after Manafort was named Trump’s campaign chairman: “Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious.” Kholodnytskyy said he explicitly instructed NABU investigators who were working with American authorities not to share the ledger with the media. “I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort. For me it was the first call that something was going wrong and that there is some external influence in this case. And there is some other interests in this case not in the interest of the investigation and a fair trial.”
::*Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Ukraine prosecutor general’s international affairs office, said that, shortly after Ukrainian authorities returned from the Washington meeting, there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the Party of the Regions case. “Yes, there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the ledger just appeared in public.” Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures, such as former Obama White House counsel [[Gregory Craig]], also received money from Yanukovych’s party. But the Americans weren’t interested: “They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else.”
::*Manafort joined Trump’s campaign on March 29, 2016, and then was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, 2016. NABU leaked the existence of the ledgers on May 29, 2016. Later that summer, it told U.S. media the ledgers showed payments to Manafort, a revelation that forced him to resign from the Trump campaign in August 2016.
::*A Ukrainian court in December concluded NABU’s release of the ledger was an illegal attempt to influence the U.S. election. And a member of Ukraine’s parliament has released a recording of a NABU official saying the agency released the ledger to help Hillary Clinton.
::*The other case raised at the January 2016 meeting involved Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company under investigation in Ukraine for improper foreign transfers of money. At the time, Burisma allegedly was paying then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter as both a board member and a consultant. More than $3 million flowed from Ukraine to Rosemont Seneca, Hunter Biden and [[Devon Archer]]'s firm in 2014-15, bank records show.
::*U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire [[Victor Shokin]], Ukraine’s chief prosecutor in March 2016. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down.
::*The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington confirmed that the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions. "Unfortunately, the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C., was not invited to join the DOJ and other law enforcement-sector meetings."
::*Telizhenko’s claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ’s own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General [[Bruce Ohr]], his wife, [[Nellie Ohr]], and ex-British spy [[Christopher Steele]]. Nellie Ohr and Steele worked in 2016 for [[Fusion GPS]], that was hired by Clinton’s campaign and DNC to find dirt on Trump. Steele wrote the famous dossier for Fusion that the FBI used to gain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Nellie Ohr admitted to Congress that she routed Russia dirt on Trump from Fusion to the DOJ through her husband Bruce during the election.
::*DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband Bruce and two DOJ prosecutors to the discovery of the “Black Ledger” files that led to Manafort’s prosecution. “Reported Trove of documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions’ Black Cashbox,” Nellie Ohr wrote to her husband and federal prosecutors Lisa Holtyn and Joseph Wheatley, attaching a news article on the announcement of NABU’s release of the documents.
:::*Bruce Ohr and Steele worked on their own effort to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, [[Oleg Deripaska]], who had a soured business relationship with Manafort. Deripaska was “almost ready to talk” to U.S. government officials regarding the money that “Manafort stole,” Bruce Ohr wrote in notes from his conversations with Steele.
:::*The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which [[Andrew McCabe]] asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous.
::*''Politico'' reported that the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington assisted Clinton’s campaign through [[Alexandra Chalupa]], a DNC contractor. The Ukrainian Embassy acknowledges it got requests for assistance from Chalupa to find dirt on Manafort.

===May 2019===
*'''2 May.''' ''Vanity Fair:'' HUNTER BIDEN’S WORK IN UKRAINE EMERGES AS A POTENTIAL 2020 SCANDAL/<ref>https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/biden-ukrainian-gas-company</ref>

===October 2019===
*'''14 October.''' Hunter Biden Still Holds Stake In Chinese Private Equity Firm.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2019/10/14/hunter-biden-still-holds-stake-in-chinese-private-equity-firm-his-business-partner-retains-supervisor-role/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10480</ref>

*'''16 October.''' Sean Davis: Top Diplomat Testified That Obama Admin, Not International Community, Orchestrated Ukraine Prosecutor’s Firing.<ref>https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/16/top-diplomat-testified-that-obama-admin-not-international-community-orchestrated-ukraine-prosecutors-firing/</ref>
:*CDN: Obama WH corruption: Rampant pay to play by Clinton, Kerry, and Biden.<ref>https://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/obama-wh-corruption-rampant-pay-to-play-by-clinton-kerry-and-biden-123712/</ref>
*'''18 October.''' Jeff Carlson: Ukraine Accusations Against Trump Put Renewed Focus On Events During Obama Administration.<ref>https://themarketswork.com/2019/10/18/ukraine-accusations-against-trump-put-renewed-focus-on-events-during-obama-administration/</ref>
:*New details emerge on monthly payments sent to Hunter Biden by Ukrainian company.<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hunter-biden-served-as-ceremonial-figure-on-burisma-board-for-80000-per-month/</ref>
::*Zlochevsky hired Hunter Biden “as a helpful non-executive director with a powerful name,” according to a ''[[Reuters]] report. Burisma’s founder hired Biden in 2014 “to protect [the company]” in the face of potential prosecution. Zlochevsky was investigated for tax violations, money-laundering, and corruption and initially cleared of any wrongdoing. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka told reporters that 15 cases involving Zlochevsky were being reviewed.
::*Hunter Biden never visited Ukraine, but participated regularly in biannual board meetings, all of which were held outside Ukraine. Sources also said Biden was appointed during a time when Burisma was seeking foreign investment, a process which Biden helped by finding lawyers for the potential deal, which ultimately broke down when war broke out in east Ukraine. “He was a ceremonial figure.”
::*Hunter Biden was paid $80,000 per month.
:*''[[The Blaze]]:'' Diplomat: I tried to warn the Obama administration about Hunter Biden and Ukraine in 2015, but no one would listen.<ref>https://www.theblaze.com/news/diplomat-tried-to-warn-obama-administration-about-hunter-biden-in-2015</ref>
*'''19 October.''' [[Glen Beck]] interview with Andriy Telizhenko. Telizhenko was present at the January 19, 2016 White House meeting with Eric Ciaramella and members of Obama’s [[National Security Council]], FBI, State Department and Department of Justice. Ukrainians were informed to terminated the investigation into Hunter Biden and Burisma, and to find "new evidence" on a 2014 case against Paul Manafort that the FBI has already investigated and dismissed.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R86awAp4uIw</ref>
*'''24 October.''' [[NBC News]]: Hunter Biden's legal work in Romania raises new questions about his overseas dealings.<ref>https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hunter-biden-s-legal-work-romania-raises-new-questions-about-n1071031</ref>
:*''Washington Examiner:'' Biden twice used his position to intervene to boost son Hunter's lobbying.<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-outreach-to-dhs-and-doj-overlapped-with-work-by-son-hunters-lobbying-firm</ref>

*'''29 October.''' Hunter Biden’s China Entanglements Spark Concern in Senate.<ref>https://freebeacon.com/politics/agencies-give-classified-briefing-on-hunter-bidens-china-dealings/</ref>

===November 2019===
[[File:Biden payments.PNG|right|300px|thumb|Leaked documents show payments to Hunter Biden.]]
*'''4 November.''' John Solomon: Biden lied - Burisma pressed [[State Department]] to end corruption allegations one month before Joe Biden forced firing of prosecutor.<ref>https://johnsolomonreports.com/hunter-bidens-ukraine-gas-firm-pressed-obama-administration-to-end-corruption-allegations-memos-show/</ref><ref>https://www.scribd.com/document/433389210/Bluestar-Novelli-Contacts<</ref>
*'''6 November.''' Hunter Biden received 46 payments from Burisma, 38 for $83,333, the total being $3.1 million.<ref>https://creativedestructionmedia.com/investigations/2019/11/06/breaking-source-reveals-hunter-biden-took-off-the-books-payments-from-burisma-aided-by-fbi-coverup/</ref>
*'''13 November.''' John Solomon: The real Ukraine controversy: an activist U.S. embassy and its adherence to the Geneva Convention.<ref>https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-real-ukraine-controversy-an-activist-u-s-embassy-and-its-adherence-to-the-geneva-convention/</ref>
*'''15 November.''' '''''Epoch Times:''''' '''Yovanovitch Urged Firing of Top Prosecutor Amid Ukraine’s Presidential Election.<ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/yovanovitch-demanded-firing-of-top-ukrainian-prosecutor-amid-nations-presidential-election_3147700.html</ref>
:*''Zerohedge:'' Leaked Bank Records Confirm Burisma-Biden Payments To Morgan Stanley Account.<ref>https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaked-bank-records-confirm-burisma-biden-payments-morgan-stanley-account</ref>

==Personal life==
Hunter Biden was kicked out of the Navy Reserves a month after joining in 2012 for failing a drug test.

After the death of his brother, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who had Larry Sinclair<ref>http://archive.is/8a4xF</ref> arrested a week before [[Obama]] chose Joe Biden for the VP slot,<ref>https://larrysinclair.com/blog/a-reminder-from-lame-cherry/</ref> Hunter Biden began a relationship with his brother's widow, Hallie.

His wife Kathleen stated in divorce papers in 2017 that Hunter Biden spent "extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations)."<ref>https://apnews.com/71369b3f0f154fe0b8ec6db7dca57c42</ref>

A Prescott, Arizona police report days before the [[2016 presidential election]] stated that Hunter Biden returned a rental car containing a crack cocaine pipe. Hunter Biden also left a Delaware attorney general badge, a U.S. Secret Service business card, a driver's license, cellphone and credit cards in the car. He had rented the car from Hertz in California and it was returned in Prescott, Ariz., after hours. The car keys were not properly deposited in a drop box, but left in the car's gas tank compartment. In addition to “a small white and brown pipe approximately 3-4 inches long ”which officials determined was used to smoke cocaine, an officer also found “a small ziplock bag with a white powdery substance inside all sitting on the passenger seat.”<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/police-report-cocaine-pipe-found-in-hunter-bidens-rental-car-in-2016</ref>

In June 2019 Hunter Biden married a [[South Africa]]n women; weeks later an [[Arkansas]] woman filed a paternity suit against Biden on behalf of her 10 month old baby.<ref>https://pjmedia.com/trending/paternity-suit-filed-against-joe-bidens-son-hunter/</ref> A filing in court asserts that DNA proves that Hunter Biden is the father, despite how he had denied it in court.

==See also==
*[[Ukraine collusion]]
*[[Ukrainian collusion timeline]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biden, Hunter}}

[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Liberals]]
[[Category:Joe Biden]]

Horst Seehofer

2019-02-15T19:47:54Z

JoeyJ:

[[File:12-07-17-landtagsprojekt-bayern-RalfR-001.jpg|thumb|250px|Horst Seehofer]]
'''Horst Seehofer''' (born July 4, 1949) is the current Minister of Interior of [[Germany]]. From 2008 to 2018 he was the minister president of [[Bavaria]] and from 2008 to 2019 he was the chairman of the [[Christian Social Union of Bavaria]].

In January 2018 Seehofer has been attacked by left-wing politicians for hosting [[Viktor Orbán]], Hungary’s conservative-nationalist prime minister, at a party event.<ref>https://www.ft.com/content/13b9cdb0-f20b-11e7-b220-857e26d1aca4</ref> Some weeks before Orbán has sent a letter of congratulations to Horst Seehofer on his re-election as leader of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria.<ref>http://www.miniszterelnok.hu/viktor-orban-congratulates-horst-seehofer/</ref>

== Political views ==
Seehofer is known as a critic of [[Angela Merkel]]'s refugee policies, though some [[conservative]] critics have described him as "a centre-right figure fundamentally unopposed to mass migration."<ref name="LimpsOn"/> He also has attacked the conservative [[Alternative for Germany]] party – which has the same views on migration that he claims to have – as "highly dangerous."<ref>Mischke, Judith (September 14, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-far-right-afd-interior-minister-highly-dangerous/ German interior minister: AfD is ‘highly dangerous’]. ''Politico''. Retrieved September 14, 2018.</ref> In October 2010, Seehofer stated that "[[multiculturalism]] is dead" and that both CSU and CDU were committed to a "dominant German culture". He also said that if Germany did not revise its immigration policies, it was in danger of becoming "the world's welfare office".<ref>Connolly, Kate (October 17, 2010). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-germany-multiculturalism-failures Angela Merkel declares death of German multiculturalism]. ''The Guardian''. Retrieved September 17, 2018.</ref> In an interview in early 2018, Seehofer said that Germany had been "shaped by Christianity", and that the country should not give up its own traditions. Furthermore, he stated that [[Islam]] "does not belong in Germany,"<ref>Multiple references:
* http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43422770
*Huggler, Justin (March 16, 2018). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/german-interior-minister-declares-islam-does-not-belong-country/ German interior minister declares 'Islam does not belong' in the country]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.
*Shaw, Adam (March 17, 2018). [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03/17/german-interior-minister-undercuts-merkel-says-islam-does-not-belong-to-germany.html German interior minister undercuts Merkel, says 'Islam does not belong to Germany']. ''Fox News''. Retrieved March 20, 2018.</ref> though Merkel quickly responded by saying that "Islam belongs to Germany,"<ref>Multiple references:
*Hale, Virginia (March 16, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/16/islam-belongs-germany-merkel-insists/ ‘Islam Belongs to Germany’, Merkel Insists After Minister Highlights Nation’s Christian Heritage]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.
*[https://www.thelocal.de/20180316/islam-doesnt-belong-to-germany-says-interior-minister-horst-seehofer Merkel contradicts interior minister, saying ‘Islam belongs to Germany’]. ''The Local''. March 16, 2018. Retrieved March 17, 2018.
*Chazan, Guy (March 16, 2018). [https://www.ft.com/content/68f751dc-291d-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0 Merkel’s coalition divided over role of Islam in Germany]. ''Financial Times''. Retrieved March 20, 2018.</ref> along with Germany's president, [[Frank-Walter Steinmeier]].<ref>Wróbel, Aleksandra (March 20, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/islam-germany-is-part-of-says-german-president/ Islam is ‘part of Germany,’ says German president]. ''Politico''. Retrieved March 20, 2018.</ref> Seehofer also criticized the [[European Union]] for being too condescending in its interactions with its Eastern European members on immigration issues.<ref>Plucinska, Joanna (March 18, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-patronizes-eastern-members-on-migration-says-seehofer/ EU ‘patronizes’ Eastern members on migration, says Seehofer]. ''Politico''. Retrieved March 18, 2018.</ref>

Despite serving in Merkel's government, Seehofer reportedly aligns more closely to Italy's [[Matteo Salvini]] on immigration issues.<ref>Deacon, Liam (June 12, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/06/12/german-interior-minister-tune-italy-salvini-migration/ German Interior Minister ‘Fully in Tune’ with Italy’s Salvini on Migration, Rows with Merkel]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved June 12, 2018.</ref> On June 18, 2018, Seehofer expressed that Germany should start to turn away at the border any migrants who had already registered in another EU member state. Merkel responded that such a decision might cause a "negative domino effects that would also harm Germany."<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/18/donald-trump-attacks-angela-merkel-saying-her-coalition-is-rocking</ref> Ultimately, they found a compromise which saw Merkel gain the upper hand.<ref name="LimpsOn">Lane, Oliver JJ (July 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/merkel-germany-coalition-limps-on-as-immigration-control-compromise-struck/ Merkel Germany Coalition Limps on as Immigration Control Compromise Struck]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.</ref><ref>Multiple references:
*Escritt, Thomas; Chambers, Madeline (July 2, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany/merkel-to-fight-another-day-after-settling-migration-row-idUSKBN1JS0NJ Merkel to fight another day after settling migration row]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
*Byas, Steve (July 3, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/29434-immigration-compromise-saves-merkel-government-in-germany-for-now Immigration Compromise Saves Merkel Government in Germany — for Now]. ''The New American''. Retrieved July 3, 2018.</ref> In September 2018, Seehofer stated that mass migration is "the mother of all political problems" in Germany.<ref>Hale, Virginia (September 6, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/06/german-mass-migration-mother-problems/ German Interior Minister ‘Would Have Joined’ Chemnitz Protests, Says Mass Migration ‘Mother of All Problems’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 6, 2018.</ref><ref>Kaddour, Abdelhamid (September 6, 2018). [https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/09/migration-is-the-mother-of-all-problems-says-german-interior-minister/ “Migration is the mother of all problems” says German Interior Minister]. ''Voice of Europe''. Retrieved September 8, 2018.</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seehofer, Horst}}
[[Category:Christian Social Union of Bavaria politicians]]

Christian Social Union of Bavaria

2019-02-15T19:46:36Z

JoeyJ:

{{PoliticalParty
| party_name = Christian Social Union of Bavaria
| party_logo =
| website = [https://www.csu.de/ csu.de]
| leader = Markus Söder
| parleader = Ralph Brinkhaus
| foundation = 1948
| ideology = [[Christian democracy]]
| position = [[Center-right]]
| international = [[International Democrat Union]] and [[European People’s Party]]
| colors = blue and black
| footnotes =
}}
The '''Christian Social Union in Bavaria''' (in German: ''Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern'') is a [[Christian democratic]] and conservative political party in Germany that only runs for elections in the state of [[Bavaria]].

== Ideology ==
The Christian Social Union of Bavaria is considered to be more [[conservative]] than its sister party, the [[Christian Democratic Union]]. However it is also more left than the CDU on social welfare issues.<ref>Chase, Jefferson (June 13, 2017). [https://www.dw.com/en/things-to-know-about-bavarias-christian-social-union/a-39192183 Things to know about Bavaria's Christian Social Union]. ''Deutsche Welle''. Retrieved August 25, 2018.</ref>

The CSU was highly critical on [[Angela Merkel]]'s refugee policies during the [[European migrant crisis]]. The former party leader Horst Seehofer said in an interview that Germany had been "shaped by Christianity", and that the country should not give up its own traditions. Furthermore, he stated that [[Islam]] "does not belong in Germany".<ref>Huggler, Justin (March 16, 2018). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/german-interior-minister-declares-islam-does-not-belong-country/ German interior minister declares 'Islam does not belong' in the country]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> However, some [[conservative]] critics have described the party's leader, [[Horst Seehofer]] as "a centre-right figure fundamentally unopposed to mass migration,"<ref>Lane, Oliver JJ (July 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/merkel-germany-coalition-limps-on-as-immigration-control-compromise-struck/ Merkel Germany Coalition Limps on as Immigration Control Compromise Struck]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.</ref> and the party strongly opposes the conservative [[Alternative for Germany]], the only German party that takes a tough stance on migration, falsely labeling it "extremist."<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-csu/bavarian-csu-takes-tough-migration-stance-but-rejects-far-right-idUSKCN1LV0K2 Bavarian CSU takes tough migration stance but rejects far-right]. ''Reuters''. September 15, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2018.</ref>

In April 2018 the CSU ordered Christian Crosses to be Displayed on All Entrances to Government Buildings in Bavaria.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ixVywnUbrY</ref>

== History ==
Since its foundation shortly after World War II, the CSU has formed a tight partnership with its sister party, the [[Christian Democratic Union|CDU]]: the CDU does not field candidates in Bavaria and, in turn, the CSU does not field candidates outside it. Compared to the larger CDU, the CSU is considered more socially conservative and closer to the Catholic church. In 1980 and 2002, the CSU ran candidates for the German chancellorship on a joint ticket with the CDU ([[Franz Josef Strauss]] in 1980 and Edmund Stoiber in 2002). The CSU is the largest party in the state of Bavaria by a substantial margin, and has ruled the state since 1953, usually with an absolute majority. Its chairman is [[Markus Söder]].

In the 2018 Bavarian elections, the CSU, allied with Merkel's liberal CDU, performed poorly, while the left-wing [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Green Party]] and the conservative [[Alternative for Germany]] performed well.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (October 14, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/10/14/bavarian-election-exit-poll-merkel-allies-see-huge-losses-as-greens-and-populists-surge/ Bavarian Election Exit Poll: Merkel Allies See Huge Losses As Greens and Populists Surge]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved October 14, 2018.</ref>

==Party leaders==
* Josef Müller (1945–1949)
* Hans Erhard (1949–1955)
* Hanns Seidel (1955–1961)
* [[Franz Josef Strauss]] (1961–1988)
* Theo Waigel (1988–1999)
* [[Edmund Stoiber]] (1999–2007)
* [[Erwin Huber]] (2007–2008)
* [[Horst Seehofer]] (2008–2019)
* [[Markus Söder]] (since 2019)

==External links==
*[http://www.csu.de/ Website of the CSU]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Christian Social Union of Bavaria]]

Left-wing antisemitism

2019-01-08T21:09:17Z

JoeyJ: /* 21st-century anti-Semitism: the union of leftism and Islamism */

Although many leftists [http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2009-08-11/news/0908100426_1_town-hall-meetings-swastikas-bob-macguffie try] to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CNQTwSZCPo deny] it, “modern, political [[anti-Semitism]] is a creature of the [[Liberal|left]] as well as the right,” admits Warwick University Sociology Professor Robert Fine, a [http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/emeritus/robertfine/home/mycv/ member] of the [http://www.cseweb.org.uk/ Conference of Socialist Economists].<ref>Robert Fine, “[http://www.engageonline.org.uk/journal/index.php?journal_id=10&article_id=33 Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Anti-Semitism],” ''Engage'', No. 2 (May 2006).</ref> "[A]nti-Semitism that we might call populist or democratic.... is linked equally to the left and right," agrees George L. Mosse, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, "to the new [[nationalism]], but also to certain tendencies in [[socialism]]."<ref>George L. Mosse, [http://history.wisc.edu/mosse/george_mosse/summaries/jewish_history_lecture7.htm Modern Jewish History - Summary: Lecture #7], March 1, 1971, George L. Mosse Program in History, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison</ref> Omer Bartov of Brown University comments:
{{cquote|[O]ne of the most frightening aspects of Hitler's book is not that he said what he said at the time, but that much of what he said can be found today in innumerable places ... As long as it does not have Hitler's name attached to it, this deranged discourse will be ignored or allowed to pass. The voices that express these opinions do not belong to a single political or ideological current ... They belong to the right and the left, to the religious and the secular, to the West and the East, to the rabble and the leaders, to terrorists and intellectuals, students and peasants, pacifists and militants, expansionists and anti-globalization activists.<ref>Omer Bartov, "[http://www.tnr.com/article/he-meant-what-he-said He Meant What He Said]," ''The New Republic'', February 2, 2004</ref>}}
In the 1970s and 80s, during the heart of the [[Cold War]] debate, [[anti-Americanism]], anti-Israeli sentiment, and anti-Semitism "were fringe phenomena while now they are more fashionable and mainstream ... [T]hese sentiments are no longer the monopoly of any particular part of the political spectrum. They are there on the European Left, Right, and in the center," agrees Jeffrey Gedman, president of London's Legatum Institute.<ref>Jeffrey Gedmin, "[http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=624&PID=0&IID=633&TTL=Experiencing_European_Anti-Americanism_and_Anti-Israelism Experiencing European Anti-Americanism and Anti-Israelism]," ''Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism'', No. 27 (December 2004), Institute for Global Jewish Affairs</ref>

==Origins of left-wing anti-Semitism==
There were "strong anti-Semitic currents on the European left in [[Karl Marx|Marx]]'s time," writes Fine; "[T]here is a strong tradition of [https://www.ushmm.org/media/emu/get?irn=544974&mm_irn=32140&file=primary anti-Semitism on the Left].”<ref>Robert Fine, “[http://www.engageonline.org.uk/journal/index.php?journal_id=10&article_id=33 Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Anti-Semitism],” ''Engage'', No. 2 (May 2006)</ref> One "need not venture far into the pre-1930 literature of anti-economics before encountering conspicuous anti-Semitic effusions," observes William Coleman of the Australian National University. "One may say that, before about 1930, anti-economics and anti-Semitism existed in striking conjunction." He adds that "the conjunction was not accidental... [A]nti-economics and modern anti-Semitism shared some leading ideological contentions."<ref>William Coleman, "[http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/history_of_political_economy/v035/35.4coleman.pdf Anti-Semitism in Anti-economics]," ''History of Political Economy'', Vol. 35, No. 4 (Winter 2003), pp. 759-777</ref>

From the outset, according to French historian Marc Crapez, European racism and socialism were closely affiliated.<ref>Marc Crapez, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=l-dtAAAAMAAJ L'antisémitisme de gauche au XIXe siècle]'' (Paris: Berg international, 2002) ISBN 2-911289-43-9</ref> In addition, "anti-capitalism and anti-Semitism were deeply intertwined," writes Mosse. "[I]n fact, they had been connected since the middle-ages."<ref>George L. Mosse, [http://history.wisc.edu/mosse/george_mosse/summaries/jewish_history_lecture7.htm Modern Jewish History - Summary: Lecture #7], March 1, 1971, George L. Mosse Program in History, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison</ref> "For centuries, Jewish economic success led anti-Semites to condemn [[capitalism]] as a form of Jewish domination and exploitation," writes Columbia University history professor Jerry Z. Muller, "or to attribute Jewish success to unsavory qualities of the Jews themselves."<ref>Jerry Z. Muller, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=nMZ_w0mFGIgC Capitalism and the Jews]'' (Princeton University Press, 2010) ISBN 0691144788, p. 2</ref>

“The Marxist, postmodern and post-[[Zionist]] pseudo-liberal views on democracy lead back to the totalitarian democracy of the French [[Enlightenment]], in which anti-Semitism formed an essential ingredient,” writes Shlomo Sharan of [[Tel Aviv]] University.<ref>Shlomo Sharan, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5U-Dk-5p0mIC Israel and the Post-Zionists: A Nation at Risk]'' (Sussex Academic Press, 2003) ISBN 1903900522 , p. 125</ref> At that time, "the Jews symbolised the distressing symptoms of modernity ushered in by capitalism and political liberalism," writes Christian Wiese, professor of Jewish history at the University of Sussex.<ref>Christian Wiese, "Modern Antisemitism and Jewish Responses in Germany and France," in Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron and Uri R. Kaufmann, eds., ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=b2DN7yDuCyoC Jewish emancipation reconsidered: the French and German models]'' (Mohr Siebeck, 2003) ISBN 316148018X, p. 136</ref>
{{cquote|Dissatisfaction with the practical consequences of Liberalism was even stronger in economic than in political matters; anti-capitalism was, after all, one of the oldest and most natural forms of anti-Semitism. Liberal society was characterized by a high degree of social mobility with a premium on individual worth and ability. Perhaps this pill was the hardest to swallow. All those who had an assured place in an ordered hierarchy, even if it was a comparatively low one, looked with distaste on an order which allowed others to rise to positions of eminence and influence ... anti-Semitism is anti-capitalist since capitalism is one of the causes of social mobility.<ref>Peter G. J. Pulzer, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zCoUo84hXDEC The Rise of Political Anti-semitism in Germany & Austria] (Harvard University Press, 1988) ISBN 0674771664, pp. 42-43</ref>}}

“[T]he sudden prominence of a few Jews who benefited from economic liberalisation provoked a backlash from the Left.”<ref>David Cesarani, ''[http://www.engageonline.org.uk/ressources/left_jews/Left_Jews_final.pdf The Jews and the Left] (Labour Friends of Israel 2004) ISBN 0 9500536-5-1, p. 3 (PDF p.9)</ref> In France, writes Göttingen historian Karlheinz Weissmann, many on the left saw the Jews "as the embodiment of capitalism."<ref>Karlheinz Weissmann, "[http://mises.org/journals/jls/12_2/12_2_3.pdf The Epoch of National Socialism]," ''The Journal of Libertarian Studies,'' Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 1996), pp. 257–294, citing Edmund Silberner, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=y6EiAAAAMAAJ Sozialisten zur Judenfrage: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sozialismus vom Anfang des 19.Jahrhunderts bis 1914]'' (Berlin, 1962), pp. 65–82</ref>

Some of the most prominent thinkers of the Enlightenment were virulent anti-Semites: [[Voltaire]] denounced the Jews as "the greatest scoundrels who have ever sullied the face of the globe".<ref>Arthur Hertzberg and Aron Hirt-Manheimer, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=hiWBs5HM_E0C Jews: the essence and character of a people]'' (HarperCollins, 1998) ISBN 0060638354, p. 164</ref> The Jews, he wrote, "deserve to be punished," for it is their "destiny."<ref>Avner Falk, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zL_0WOiZj0oC Anti-semitism: a history and psychoanalysis of contemporary hatred]'' (ABC-CLIO, 2008) ISBN 0313353840, p. 9</ref> "The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters," wrote Voltaire, "always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous—cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity."<ref>Voltaire, ''Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations'', Introduction, [http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/11/07INTFIN.html#i42 XLII: Des Juifs depuis Saül], 1753</ref> [[Immanuel Kant]] expressed similar views: "'The Jews still cannot claim any true genius, any truly great man. All their talents and skills revolve around stratagems and low cunning ... They are a nation of swindlers."<ref>[[Alan Dershowitz|Alan M. Dershowitz]], ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3jjNW-_TnusC Chutzpah]'' (Simon and Schuster, 1992) ISBN 0671760890, p. 113</ref>

==Early Socialist Anti-Semitism==
"It was in those days that the complaint arose that Jews were 'unproductive middle men,' 'economic parasites,'" wrote Edward H. Flannery, a professor at the Institute of Judeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University.<ref>Eric Pace, "[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/22/us/the-rev-edward-flannery-86-priest-who-fought-anti-semitism.html The Rev. Edward Flannery, 86, Priest Who Fought Anti-Semitism]," ''The New York Times'', October 22, 1998</ref> "It was shaped for the most part by socialist writers and became a favorite theme with later racist antisemites of a socialist stripe."<ref>Edward H. Flannery, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=J40gNC7cxfYC The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Antisemitism]'' (Paulist Press, 2004) ISBN 0809143240, p. 168</ref> "Certain anti-economists affiliated with the socialist movement held Jews
to be potentates of an oppressive contemporary social order."<ref>William Oliver Coleman, "[http://www.bupedu.com/lms/admin/uploded_article/eA.368.pdf Anti-Semitism in Anti-economics]," ''History of Political Economy'' (Duke University Press), Vol. 35, No. 4 (Winter 2003), p. 764</ref> Among the French Left, observes Weissmann, were "numerous individuals and groups who considered class struggle and race struggle as one and the same thing—especially with reference to the Jews...."<ref>Karlheinz Weissmann, "[http://mises.org/journals/jls/12_2/12_2_3.pdf The Epoch of National Socialism]," ''The Journal of Libertarian Studies,'' Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 1996), pp. 257–294, citing Edmund Silberner, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=y6EiAAAAMAAJ Sozialisten zur Judenfrage: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sozialismus vom Anfang des 19.Jahrhunderts bis 1914]'' (Berlin, 1962), pp. 65–82</ref>

“Socialist anti-Semitism is indeed almost as old as modern Socialism,” writes historian Edmund Silberner of the Hebrew University of [[Jerusalem]].<ref>Edmund Silberner, “The Anti-Semitic Tradition in Modern Socialism,” Scripta Hierosolymitana, vol. III (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1956), pp.378-379</ref> Early socialism was inseparable from anti-Semitism, portraying Jews as exploiters, leeches and parasites.<ref>Edmund Silberner, “The Anti-Semitic Tradition in Modern Socialism,” ''Scripta Hierosolymitana'', vol. III (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1956), pp.378-379</ref> "[V]irtually every major figure in the early history of socialism — including [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Charles Fourier]], [[Ferdinand Lassalle]], [[Marx]], and [[Pierre Joseph Proudhon|Joseph Proudhon]] — showed a marked antipathy to Jews," observes [[Daniel Pipes]].<ref>Daniel Pipes, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=PPdv8sAtZ4UC Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From]'' (Simon and Schuster, 1999) ISBN 0684871114, p. 88</ref> In his comprehensive survey of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920, historian Zosa Szajkowski found not a single word on behalf of Jews.<ref>Zosa Szajkowski, ''[http://www.jstor.org/pss/4464737 The Jewish Saint-Simonians and Socialist Antisemites in France]'', ''Jewish Social Studies'', Vol. 9, No. 1 (January, 1947), pp. 33-60</ref>

===Leroux===
Pierre Leroux (1797–1871), who coined the word "socialism", “identified the Jews with the despised capitalism, and regarded them as the incarnation of mammon, who lived by exploiting others.”<ref>Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=VK0llzUqQ2YC Why the Jews?: the reason for antisemitism]'' (Simon and Schuster, 2003) ISBN 0743246209, p. 127</ref> He said, "When we speak of the Jews, we mean the Jewish spirit – the spirit of profit, of lucre, of gain, the spirit of commerce, of speculation, in a word, the banker spirit."<ref>Lewis S. Feuer and Irving Horowitz, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=8TwfWRr21zEC Ideology and the Ideologists]'' (Transaction Publishers, 2010) ISBN 1412814421, p. 141</ref> "The true successor of Napoleon," wrote Leroux, "is the Jew."<ref>William Oliver Coleman, "[http://www.bupedu.com/lms/admin/uploded_article/eA.368.pdf Anti-Semitism in Anti-economics]," ''History of Political Economy'' (Duke University Press), Vol. 35, No. 4 (Winter 2003), p. 764</ref>

===Fichte===
"[T]hrough almost all countries of Europe there is spreading a powerful, hostile state, which is perpetually at war with all other States, and which in some of them oppresses the citizens with the utmost severity: it is Jewry."<ref>Moshe Leshem, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=NGSAAAAAIAAJ Balaam's curse: how Israel lost its way, and how it can find it again]'' (Simon and Schuster, 1989) ISBN 067167918X, p. 53</ref> wrote the early socialist [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]] (1762–1814). "I see no other means of protecting ourselves against them, than by conquering their Promised Land and sending them all there."<ref>Bernard Lewis, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GteStbiDEjAC Semites and anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice]'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999) ISBN 0393318397, p. 112</ref> Elsewhere, he suggested a more radical solution, in which Gentiles "chop off all their [Jews'] heads and replace them with new ones, in which there would not be a single Jewish idea."<ref>Jon Stratton, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Blh7RLQVIUcC Jewish identity in Western pop culture: the Holocaust and trauma through modernity]'' (Macmillan, 2008), ISBN 0230604749, p. 24</ref> In Fichte's text "we see the beginnings of the 'anticapitalist' impulse in modern antisemitism, which became central to revolutionist agendas for the redemption of humanity through the regeneration of Jewry," observes [http://www.gf.org/fellows/8291-anthony-j-la-vopa Guggenheim Fellow] Anthony J. LaVopa.<ref>Anthony J. LaVopa, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=vQx0_69P4z4C Fichte: the self and the calling of philosophy, 1762-1799]'' (Cambridge University Press, 2001), ISBN 052179145, p. 135</ref> Duquesne University professor Tom Rockmore comments that "available evidence points strongly to an early and perhaps enduring Marxian interest in Fichte's position."<ref>Tom Rockmore, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qrS4AAAAIAAJ Fichte, Marx, and the German philosophical tradition]'' (Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), ISBN 0809309556, p. 126</ref>

===Fourier===
Early socialist [[Charles Fourier]] (1768–1830) attacked (classical) "liberal retrogression" (i.e., ''laissez faire'' capitalism) for what he called "monstrous actions, such as the admission of the Jews to the rights of citizens" which, he wrote, introduce into society "parasites, unproductives." He added, "The Jewish nation is not civilised ... it devotes itself exclusively to traffic, to usury, and to mercantile depravity ... Every government having regard to good morals ought to repress the Jews," whom Fourier described as "all parasites, merchants, usurers, etc."<ref>Charles Fourier (Tr. Julian H. Franklin), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=w2CgXn5jAm8C Selections from the Works of Fourier]'' (Allen & Unwin, 1901), p. 96. Cf. Bernard Lewis, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GteStbiDEjAC Semites and anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice]'' [W. W. Norton & Company, 1999] ISBN 0393318397, p. 111</ref> Fourier's disciple, Alphonse Toussenel, called Jews "the kings of the epoch," writing that "Europe is entailed to the domination of Israel. This universal domination, of which so many conquerors have dreamed, the Jews have in their hands."<ref>George Lichtheim, "Socialism and the Jews," [http://search.opinionarchives.com/Dissent_Web/DigitalArchive.aspx?panes=1&aid=01504314_1 ''Dissent'', Vol. 15, No. 4 (July 1968)], p. 320</ref> "[I]ndustrial feudalism"—as Toussenel called capitalism—"is personified in the cosmopolitan Jew."<ref>Jacob Katz, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=FeH_uNpWbZAC From prejudice to destruction: anti-Semitism, 1700-1933]'' (Harvard University Press, 1980) ISBN 0674325079, p. 125</ref>

===Dühring===
Marx's mentor Bruno Bauer published antisemitic articles by Marx's intellectual rival in the [[SPD|German Social Democratic Party]], Eugen Dühring, "describing Jews as idle usurers exploiting productive labor."<ref>Richard S. Levy, ''[https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Antisemitism.html?id=Tdn6FFZklkcC Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia Of Prejudice And Persecution]'', Volume 1 (ABC-CLIO, 2005) ISBN 1851094393, pp. 61-62</ref>

===Proudhon===
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), one of the [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/proudhon/grahamproudhon.html leading socialist] theorists of his day (and a [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1846/letters/46_05_05.htm correspondent of Marx]), as well as one of the founders of the [[Anarchism|anarchist]] movement, called Jews “the race which poisons everything” and “the enemy of the human race”;<ref>Norman Podhoretz, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=QUfFP_Q_nqIC Why are Jews Liberals?]'' (Random House, Inc., 2009) ISBN 0385529198, p. 62</ref> "The Jew is by temperament an anti-producer, neither a farmer nor an industrialist nor even a true merchant," wrote Prodhon. "He is an intermediary, always fraudulent and parasitic, who operates, in trade as in philosophy, by means of falsification, counterfeiting, and horse-trading."<ref>Bernard Lewis, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GteStbiDEjAC Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry Into Conflict and Prejudice] (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999) ISBN 0393318397, p. 111</ref> He wrote, "This race must be sent back to Asia, or exterminated."<ref>Daniel Halévy and Pierre Haubtmann, eds., ''Carnets de P.J. Proudhon'' (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1961), Vol. II, p. 337; Vol. VI, p. 178</ref> "By fire or fusion, or by expulsion the Jew must disappear."<ref>Richard L. Rubenstein and John K. Roth, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=IfoBx6skMCkC Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy] (Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) ISBN 0664223532, p. 77</ref>

===Bakhunin===
Mikhail Bakunin, Marx's intellectual rival in the First International, called Jews “an exploiting sect, a bloodsucking people, a unique devouring parasite,”<ref>Robert S. Wistrich, “[http://leobaeck.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/37/1/111 Socialism and Judeophobia: Antisemitism in Europe before 1914],” ''Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook'', Vol. 37, No. 1 (January 1992), pp. 111-145</ref> Jews, he wrote, are disqualified from socialist leadership by "that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principle traits of their national character."<ref>Bernard Lewis, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GteStbiDEjAC Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry Into Conflict and Prejudice] (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999) ISBN 0393318397, p. 113</ref>

===L'Affaire Dreyfus/"J'Accuse"===
When the bourgeois<ref>"M. Doumic on Victor Hugo as a Bourgeois," Boston ''Transcript'' (reprinted in Theodore Stanton, "M. René Doumic," New York ''Evening Post'', March 24, 1898, as cited in [https://books.google.com/books?id=Y94aAAAAYAAJ ''Public Opinion'', Vol. XXIV, No. 12] (January–June, 1898), p. 374</ref> [[Victor Hugo]], a cultural Catholic,<ref>John Andrew Frey, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=olFboDm4bcgC A Victor Hugo encyclopedia]'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999) ISBN 0313298963, p. 222</ref> defended [[Alfred Dreyfus]], a Jewish officer scapegoated by the French army, the French socialist press published a manifesto denouncing Hugo's crusade on the grounds that Jewish capitalists would use the rehabilitation of a single Jew to wash out "all the sins of Israel."<ref>Joseph Telushkin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=bIHtJzYCkqEC Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History]'' (HarperCollins, 2008) ISBN 0061374989, p. 275</ref>

===Hyndman===
Henry Hyndman, founder of Britain's atheistic, Marxist Social Democratic Federation (Britain's first socialist party) and National Socialist Party (now part of the [[Labour Party]]), "repeatedly invoked the stereotype of the 'rich capitalist Jew' in his anti-semitic remarks."<ref>Karin Hofmeester, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=hYZrdkniDYkC Jewish Workers and the Labour Movement: A Comparative Study of Amsterdam, London and Paris, 1870-1914]'' (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004) ISBN 0754609073, p. 304</ref> "Jew moneylenders," complained Hyndman's ''Justice, Organ of the Social Democracy'' (the first Marxist periodical in England),<ref>Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qVrUTUelE6YC Dictionary of nineteenth-century journalism in Great Britain and Ireland]'' [Academia Press, 2009] ISBN 9038213409, p. 328</ref> "now control nearly every Foreign Office in Europe."<ref>Guido Kisch, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5h8WAAAAIAAJ Historia judaica: a journal of studies in Jewish history, especially in legal and economic history of the Jews'', Volumes 13-14] (Historia Judaica, 1951), p. 44</ref> He blamed the Boer war on "Jew financial cliques" and the "Jew-jingo press."<ref>Martin Crick, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=eea_kByVYsoC The History of the Social-Democratic Federation] (Edinburgh University Press, 1994) ISBN 1853310913, p. 159</ref>

===Sombart===
Werner Sombart, a German economist, sociologist and self-proclaimed "convinced Marxist"<ref>Hermynia Zur Mühlen (Tr. Lionel Gossman), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_gd1Aw0ZlEwC The End and the Beginning: The Book of My Life, Volume 1]'' (Open Book Publishers, 2010) ISBN 1906924279, p. 241</ref> – praised by Friedrich Engels as the only German professor who understood ''Das Kapital''<ref>Frederick Engels, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm Introduction], ''Capital'' Volume III (Supplement), 1894. Cf. [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/letters/95_03_11.htm Engels To W. Sombart in Breslaun, London, March 11, 1895], in ''Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutscher Arbeiterbewegung'' No. 3, 1961, reprinted in Marx and Engels, ''Selected Works'', Volume 3, pp. 504-506. Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org)</ref> – wrote that "modern capitalism is nothing more or less than an expression of the Jewish spirit."<ref>Werner Sombart, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=P33VHF1aBAcC The Jews and Modern Capitalism]'' (E. P. Dutton, 1913), p. 38</ref> According to the ''Universal Jewish Encyclopaedia'', Sombart "[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/09/capitalism_and.html accused the Jews of having created capitalism]" – as should perhaps be expected of a "convinced Marxist" (Marx viewed Jews as "responsible for capitalism," according to Princeton's Bernard Lewis.)<ref>Bernard Lewis, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GteStbiDEjAC Semites and anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice]'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999) ISBN 0393318397, p. 112</ref>

===Dreiser===
[[Theodore Dreiser]], an [[atheist]]<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,881224,00.html Religion: Atheist's Oath]," ''Time'', August 20, 1928</ref> as well as a [[Communist]],"<ref>Theodore Dreiser, "Request to Become a Communist," ''[[The Daily Worker]]'', July 30, 1945, reprinted in Albert Fried, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=mLJbT3NMbN4C Communism in America: A History in Documents]'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) ISBN 0231102356, pp. 348-350</ref> was also a virulent [[anti-Semite]]<ref>"the Jew ... has been in America all of two hundred years, and he has not faded into a pure American by any means, and he will not. As I said before, he maintains his religious dogmas and his racial sympathies, race characteristics, and race cohesion as against all the types or nationalities surrounding him wheresoever." Dreiser quoted in Lee Bernstein, "The Avengers of Christie: Street Racism and Jewish Working-Class Rebellion in Mike Gold’s 'Jews Without Money''," in Janet Galligani Casey, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=0wLliXDo2iwC The Novel and the American Left: Critical Essays on Depression-Era Fiction]'' (University of Iowa Press, 2004) 1587294753, p. 118</ref> and defender of [[Hitler]].<ref>Dreiser excused the Holocaust, saying that British rule in India "makes Germany's cruelties seem like a pipe dream," and "If Germany can beat England at the game of mass human torture ... it will have to go some." The editor explains in a footnote that Dreiser was parroting the Communist Party line during the Nazi-Soviet pact "by portraying Britain as a greater threat to world democracy and peace than Germany." (Frederic E. Rusch and Donald Pizer, eds., ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tQL7UitACW4C Theodore Dreiser: Interviews]'' (University of Illinois Press, 2004) ISBN 0252029437, p. 305) Cf. H. Elias, ed., ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=TKtEAAAAYAAJ Letters of Theodore Dreiser: A Selection, vol. 2]'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), pp. 405, 650–52; Richard Tuerk, “The American Spectator Symposium Controversy: Was Dreiser Anti-Semitic?” ''Prospects 16'' (1991), pp. 367–89; Louis Harap, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=mAPvam-n_DYC Creative Awakening: The Jewish Presence in Twentieth-Century American Literature, 1900-1940s],'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1987) ISBN 0313253862, pp. 128-132.</ref> New York is a "kike's dream of a ghetto," he wrote; Jews are not "pure Americans" and "lack integrity."<ref>Alan M. Dershowitz, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3jjNW-_TnusC Chutzpah]'' (Simon and Schuster, 1992) ISBN 0671760890, p. 113</ref>

==Organizations==
Perhaps more important than the widespread anti-Semitism among socialist leaders was the anti-semitism of socialist groups such as the [[Socialist International]] and the [[Fabian Society]].

===Second International===
After reference to the exploitation of workers by Jewish capitalists and denunciation of "philo-Semitic agitation," the Second International (the original [[Socialist International]]) adopted a resolution condemning not just antisemitic, but "philo-Semite outbursts as one of the means by which the capitalist class and the reactionary circles seek to divert the Socialist movement from its purpose and divide the workers."<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0018_0_18779.html Socialism], ''[http://www.gale.cengage.com/servlet/ItemDetailServlet?region=9&imprint=000&titleCode=M355&cf=p&type=4&id=194102 Encyclopaedia Judaica]'' (The Gale Group, 2008), via [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/indexold.html The Jewish Virtual Library]</ref>

===Fabian Society===
Britain's [[Fabian Society]] (which "set up the banner of socialism militant")<ref>G. Bernard Shaw, "[http://walterschafer.com/fabiansocietyhistory.htm Fabian Tract No. 41: The Fabian Society, Its Early History]," (Fabian Society Reprint, 1899)</ref> hosted a number of anti-Semites, including Beatrice Webb, [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[H.G. Wells]], J.A. Hobson, and [[Oswald Mosley]].

Beatrice Webb, who played a crucial role in the founding of the Fabian Society, wrote that “the strongest impelling motive of the Jewish race” was “the love of ''profit'' as distinct from other forms of money-earning.” (Italics in original.)<ref>Beatrice Webb, “East London Labour,” ''[https://books.google.com/bookes?id=udcaAAAAYAAJ The Nineteenth Century]'', Vol. XXIV (July–December 1888), p. 176.</ref> "A careful study of anti-Semitism, prejudice and accusations might be of great value to many Jews," wrote H.G. Wells, "who do not adequately realize the irritation they inflict."<ref>Alan M. Dershowitz, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3jjNW-_TnusC Chutzpah]'' (Simon and Schuster, 1992) ISBN 0671760890, p. 112</ref> George Bernard Shaw once exhorted Jews to "stop being Jews and start being human beings."<ref>Shaw Society of America, [https://books.google.com/books?id=HERbAAAAMAAJ The Shaw review, Volumes 3-4] (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1960), p. 13</ref>

J.A. Hobson blamed London poverty on "the foreign Jew," whom he described as "a terrible competitor. He is ... almost void of social morality. No compunction or consideration for his fellow-worker will keep him from underselling and overreaching them; he acquires a thorough mastery of all the dishonourable tricks of trade which are difficult to restrain by law; the superior calculating intellect, which is a national heritage, is used unsparingly to enable him to take advantage of every weakness, folly, and vice of the society in which he lives."<ref>John A. Hobson, ''[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10710/10710-h/10710-h.htm Problems of Poverty: An Inquiry into the Industrial Condition of The Poor]'' (1891), Project Gutenberg</ref> "He craves the position of a sweating-master, the lowest step in a ladder that may lead to a life of magnificence, supported out of usury."<ref>Anthony Julius, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=BGkSLxDBNTgC Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England]'' (Oxford University Press, 2010) ISBN 0199297053, p. 405</ref> In his 1898 book ''[http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Hobson/hbsnImp.html Imperialism: A Study]''—which would profoundly influence Lenin's ''[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ Imperialism, the Higherst Stage of Capitalism]'' (1917) -- Hobson blamed the Boer War on "Jew power."<ref>Anthony Julius,
[https://books.google.com/books?id=BGkSLxDBNTgC Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England] (Oxford University Press, 2010) ISBN 0199297053, pp. 201-202</ref> That war, he wrote, was fought for the benefit of "a small group of international financiers, chiefly German in origin and Jewish in race."<ref>Bryan Cheyette, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=HTdwPbE6KoIC Constructions of "the Jew" in English Literature and Society: Racial Representations, 1875-1945]'' (Cambridge University Press, 1995) ISBN 0521558778, p. 156</ref>

One Fabian socialist from the 1920s and '30s, Oswald Mosley,<ref>Rose L. Martin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=9_vvAAAAMAAJ Fabian Freeway: High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A., 1884-1966]'' (Fidelis, 1968), p. 62</ref> went on to found and lead the British Union of Fascists (which "at first was modeled after Mussolini’s example but later became patterned after Hitler"),<ref>Zygmund Dobbs, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=N-g1AQAAIAAJ Keynes at Harvard: economic deception as a political credo],'' (New York: Veritas Foundation, 1960), pp. 88-90</ref> in which role he was lauded by Shaw.<ref>Gareth Griffith, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=aGAEWDI3SR4C Socialism and Superior Brains: The Political Thought of Bernard Shaw]'' (CRC Press, 2002) ISBN 0203210832, p. 263</ref>

==Anti-capitalist anti-semitism in Germany==
During the 19th century, the center of left-wing anti-Semitism gradually shifted from [[Paris]] to [[Vienna]], where the "radical-democratic and nationalist left wing" was headed by German Liberal Party leader Georg von Schönerer,<ref>Viktor Karády, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=4hGg9rMQpEEC The Jews of Europe in the modern era: a socio-historical outline]'' (Central European University Press, 2004) ISBN 9639241520, p. 360</ref> one of a group of "left-wing German liberals" who demanded "the exclusion of Jews from the new movement and as far as possible from public life";<ref>Robert A. Kann, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=cG570mijBF4C A history of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918]'' (University of California Press, 1980) ISBN 0520042069, p. 433</ref> Hitler would later ascribe to Schönerer "the wisdom of a prophet."<ref>Adolf Hitler, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=EBUBUEeUwxUC Mein Kampf: zwei Bände in einem Band'', Vol. 1], 40th ed., (Bottom of the Hill, 1938) ISBN 1935785079, p. 93</ref> Wilhelm Marr, who [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=anti-Semitism coined the term] "antisemitism," wrote that "anti-Semitism is a Socialist movement, only in nobler and purer forms than Social Democracy."<ref>Peter G. J. Pulzer, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zCoUo84hXDEC The rise of political anti-semitism in Germany & Austria]'' (Harvard University Press, 1988) ISBN 0674771664, p. 45</ref> In late 19th century Germany, a popular critical view held that capitalism was a product of Jewish culture.<ref>Cristobal Young, "[http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/0/8/9/5/pages308953/p308953-1.php Christianity, Judaism, and the Spirit of Capitalism: The Weber-Sombart Debates]," Department of Sociology, Princeton University, p. 1</ref> Adolf Stöcker, leader of the left-wing Christian Social Party, wrote, "I see in unrestrained capitalism the evil of our epoch and am naturally also an opponent of modern Judaism on account of my socio-political views."<ref>Peter G. J. Pulzer, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zCoUo84hXDEC The rise of political anti-semitism in Germany & Austria]'' (Harvard University Press, 1988) ISBN 0674771664, p. 95.</ref> Meanwhile, anti-capitalist leader Adam Müller said, “The Jewish messiah, the Antichrist, has come to earth in the guise of the steam engine, and this in order to speed up the end of the world.”<ref>George L. Mosse, [http://history.wisc.edu/mosse/george_mosse/summaries/jewish_history_lecture7.htm Modern Jewish History - Summary: Lecture #7], March 1, 1971, George L. Mosse Program in History, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison</ref> "The doctrine of egalitarian free economics and of corresponding human rights in economics, as they were formulated in a humanely well-meaning way by the Scotsmen Hume and Smith, were used by the Jews in order to derive from them their monopoly," according to the anti-semitic ''Die Judenfrage''.<ref>Peter G. J. Pulzer, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zCoUo84hXDEC The rise of political anti-semitism in Germany & Austria]'' (Harvard University Press, 1988) ISBN 0674771664, p. 51</ref> According to Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University:
{{cquote|German writers picked up on earlier anti-Enlightenment theories of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to rule the world. During the French Revolution, the Jews, along with the Masons, were identified as forces for liberalism, secularism, and capitalism. German writers quickly found the Jews to be a more popular target than the Masons, perhaps because they were more visible or more different. The originally Judeo-Masonic theories eventually discarded the other conspirators, such as the Templars and the Illuminati, and focused on the Jews.<ref>Tyler Cowen, "[http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-socialist-roots-of-modern-anti-semitism/ The Socialist Roots of Modern Anti-Semitism]," ''The Freeman'' (Foundation for Economic Education), January 1997</ref>}}

==20th century: Stalinist anti-Semitism==
According to Henry L. Feingold, director of the Jewish Resource Center at Baruch College, "socialism contained the seeds to become the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals of the Left."<ref>Henry L. Feingold, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=-ZrhFjuebEEC Lest memory cease: finding meaning in the American Jewish past]'' (Syracuse University Press, 1996) ISBN 0815604009, p. 81</ref> In the 20th century, those seeds took root and grew into a forest bearing poisonous fruit. For example, in the former [[Soviet Union]], even after the death of the anti-Semite [[Stalin]],<ref>See Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, "[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/egorov.htm From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism]," ''Journal of Cold War Studies'', Vol. 4, No. 1 (Winter 2002), pp. 66-80. Cf. Louis Rapoport, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5rZtAAAAMAAJ Stalin's war against the Jews: the doctors' plot and the Soviet solution]'' (Free Press, 1990) ISBN 0029258219</ref> Soviet anti-Semitism persisted:
{{cquote|Since World War II Jews and Judaism have been liberated in every country and territory where capitalism has been restored to vigorous growth—and this includes Germany. By contrast, wherever anticapitalism or precapitalism has prevailed the status of Jews and Judaism has either undergone deterioration or is highly precarious. Thus at this very moment the country where developing global capitalism is most advanced, the United States, accords Jews and Judaism a freedom that is known nowhere else in the world and that was never known in the past. It is a freedom that is not matched even in Israel ... By contrast, in the Soviet Union, the citadel of anticapitalism, the Jews are cowed by anti-Semitism, threatened by extinction, and barred from access to their God.<ref>Ellis Rivkin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=MUk1SwAACAAJ The shaping of Jewish history: A radical new interpretation],'' (C. Scribner's Sons, 1971) ISBN 0684132362, p. 240</ref>}}
According to Nazi hunter [[Simon Wiesenthal]], during the [[Six Day War]] on Israel in 1967, the East German Communist regime employed former Nazi propagandists to write anti-Israeli propaganda, with the substitution of a few words such as “Israeli” for “Jew” and “progressive forces” for “National Socialism.”<ref>Simon Wiesenthal, ''The Same Language: First for Hitler—Now for Ulbricht'' (Bonn: Rolf Vogel, Deutschland Berichte, 1968), as cited in Jeffrey Herf, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=yahqnBEEbQEC Divided memory: the Nazi past in the two Germanys]'' (Harvard University Press, 1997) ISBN 0674213033, p. 189</ref>

On a similar note, Stalin before his death enacted the [[Doctor's plot]], which persecuted various Jewish people under the pretense of their involvement in a conspiracy to poison Soviet leaders. Ironically, this led directly to Stalin's death via a brain hemorrhage due to the elimination of several of the USSR's best doctors.

Historian Susan Urban of the Jersusalem Center for Public Affairs writes, "Germany has seen a growth of leftist anti-Semitism along with anti-imperialist, antiglobalization, and anti-Zionist attitudes."<ref>Susanne Urban, "Anti-Semitism In Germany Today: Its Roots And Tendencies1," ''Jewish Political Studies Review'' Vol. 16 (Fall 2004), pp. 3-4</ref> The Tupamoros-West Berlin, a Communist group headed by Dieter Kunzelmann (who would later become a leader of the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Green Party]]),<ref>Aribert Reimann, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=MGKnrkMmY5cC Dieter Kunzelmann: Avantgardist, Protestler, Radikaler],'' (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), ISBN 3525370105, pp. 274-286</ref> attempted to bomb Berlin's Jewish Community Center during a commemoration of the anniversary of ''Kristallnacht'' in 1969.<ref>Walter Laqueur, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=xMGeXXBSY8wC The changing face of antisemitism: from ancient times to the present day]'' (Oxford University Press US, 2006) ISBN 0195304292, p. 147</ref>

"Outside of the Western communist parties, which were mostly oriented solidly towards [[Moscow]]’s anti-Zionism, a fully articulated anti-Zionism appeared only in the early 1970s with the formation of the so-called [[New Left]], which interpreted the Middle-East conflict in terms of its anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist rhetoric," reports the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. "As many authors have shown since, the anti-Zionism of the 1970s was largely not just ideological criticism of Israel, but a form of [http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/184-AS-Main-report.pdf secondary anti-Semitism]. The rhetoric of these organizations, whose remnants survive into the present day, often indicates the antisemitic nature of their criticism."

Berlin's [[Red Army Faction]] (RAF), a Communist group, was led by Ulrike Meinhof, who stated, "[[Auschwitz]] means that six million Jews were murdered and carted on to the rubbish dumps of Europe for being that which was maintained of them—Money-Jews."<ref>"''Auschwitz heisst, das sechs Millionen Juden ermordet und auf die Müllkippen Europas gekarrt wurden als das, als was man sie ausgab — als Geldjuden.''") Robert S. Wistrich, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=acBtAAAAMAAJ Hitler's apocalypse: Jews and the Nazi legacy]'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985) ISBN 0297787195, p. 230</ref> She added that "Anti-Semitism is really hatred of capitalism."<ref>''Antisemitismus eigentlich Haß auf Kapitalismus ist.'' George Watson, "Race and the Socialists. On the Progressive Principle of Revolutionary Extermination," ''Encounter'' 47, 1976, pp. 15-18</ref> Another founder of this Communist group, Horst Mahler, an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier,<ref>“[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,550430,00.html One-Man Right-Wing Circus Act: German Sentenced to 10 Months for Hitler Greeting],” ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' Online International</ref> was sentenced to six years in prison for incitement to racial hatred in 2005.<ref>”[http://www.ejpress.org/article/12601 Neo-Nazi Horst Mahler transferred to prison in Bavaria],” ''European Jewish Press'', December 29, 2006</ref> Despite being labeled “right-wing” in the media, this Communist revolutionary insisted in a 2007 interview that his beliefs had not changed ("[http://shoabloger.wordpress.com/texts/michael-friedman-interviews-horst-mahler-full-text/ The enemy is the same]")<ref>“Der Feind ist derselbe.” Hoerst Mahler in Michael Friedman, “[https://archive.org/download/Friedman-Michel-Interview-mit-Horst-Mahler-und-Sylvia-Stolz/FriedmanMichel-InterviewMitHorstMahlerUndSylviaStolz200789S.Text.pdf So spricht man mit Nazis],” ''Vanity Fair (German edition), November, 2007, p. 17</ref> since his days as an informant for the [[Stasi]],<ref>Helen Pidd, "[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/01/baader-m einhof-gang-founder-stasi Baader-Meinhof terrorist may have worked for the Stasi]," ''The Guardian'', August 1, 2011</ref> the secret police of [[German Democratic Republic|Communist East Germany]]. (After the fall of East German Communism in 1990, it was revealed that the Stasi had been supplying the RAF with funds and logistic support, including false identities and network of safehouses in West Belin.)<ref>John Schmeidel "[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684529308432225#preview My Enemy's Enemy: Twenty Years of Co-operation between West Germany's Red Army Faction and the GDR Ministry for State Security]," ''Intelligence and National Security'' Vol. 8, No. 4 (October 1993), pp. 59–72.</ref> In 1976, the Revolutionary Cells (''Revolutionäre Zellen''), another German Communist group, joined with the [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine]] (a hard-line Marxist<ref>Edmund L. Andrews and John Kifner, [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/world/africa/27iht-obits.1.9523942.html George Habash, 82, founder of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], ''The New York Times'', January 27, 2008</ref> terrorist group) to hijack an Air France flight to [[Entebbe]], [[Uganda]], where they singled out the Jewish passengers in a plot to murder them.<ref>Stephen E. Atkins, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=b8k4rEPvq_8C Encyclopedia of modern worldwide extremists and extremist groups]'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) ISBN 0313324859, p. 277</ref> In 1979, the [[Sandinistas]], a [http://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/timeline-nicaragua.php Marxist-Leninist] group, seized control of the government of [[Nicaragua]], supporting a newspaper that proclaimed that "the world's money, banking and finance are in the hands of descendants of Jews ... [C]ontrolling economic power, they control political power as now happens in the United States."<ref>''El Nuevo Diario'', July 17, 1982, as cited in Porfirio R. Solórzano, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tFwSAQAAIAAJ The Nirex Collection: Nicaraguan Revolution Extracts, Twelve Years, 1978-1990, Vol VII: Of War and Peace]'' [Litex, 1993] ISBN 1877970018</ref>
{{cquote|In 1979 many of the country's approximately 250 Jews fled abroad in the face of persecution and imprisonment by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The FSLN bombed and partially destroyed the country's only synagogue, then confiscated the property shortly afterward and converted it into a youth training camp.<ref>Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/5681.htm Nicaragua], Annual Report on International Religious Freedom (U.S. Department of State, 2001). Cf. Elliott Abrams, "[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_v84/ai_3408623/?tag=content;col1 Persecution and Restrictions of Religion in Nicaragua]," (Transcript), ''Department of State bulletin'', October–December 1984, pp. 49-50</ref>}}

In 1985, the [[Palestinian Liberation Front]], then a [http://www.adl.org/terrorism/symbols/palestinian_liberation_front.asp Communist group], which had hijacked an Italian cruise ship, the MS ''Achille Lauro'', murdered 69-year-old passenger Leon Klinghoffer, an American, shooting him to death and rolling his wheelchair off the deck, dumping his body into the ocean. The PLF singled out Klinghoffer for murder [http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-04-17/news/0304161228_1_achille-lauro-abul-abbas-palestinian-authority because he was Jewish].

"Outside of the Western communist parties, which were mostly oriented solidly towards Moscow’s anti-Zionism, a fully articulated anti-Zionism appeared only in the early 1970s with the formation of the so-called New Left, which interpreted the Middle-East conflict in terms of its anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist rhetoric," reports the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. "As many authors have shown since, the anti-Zionism of the 1970s was largely not just ideological criticism of Israel, but a form of [http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/184-AS-Main-report.pdf secondary anti-Semitism]. The rhetoric of these organizations, whose remnants survive into the present day, often indicates the antisemitic nature of their criticism." A 2016 study by the Research Association on the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED]] [Socialist Unity Party] State at [[Berlin]]'s Free University, financed by Germany's Federal Ministry of Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, found that "there has been more left-wing violence in Germany since 2009 than right-wing violence." Researchers found extensive anti-Semitism among left-wing extremists in Germany, and said the view of anti-Jewish extremist leftism can be traced to the word [http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/German-left-wing-radicals-say-Jews-have-too-much-influence-460773 “Jew” as a synonym for “capitalist” and “exploiter.”]

Hillary Clinton was also known to refer to anyone who failed her as "You [censored] Jew!" (or at times "You Jew [censored]!" or "You [censored] Jew [censored]"), most notably to her Jewish campaign manager Paul Fray after Bill Clinton lost the House of Representatives election on 1974, and has even used the phrase towards her own husband Bill Clinton.<ref>Oppenheimer, Jerry. ''State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton'' p. 153; 155</ref><ref>Ruddy, Christopher. ''Bitter Legacy: The untold Story of the Clinton - Gore Years'' p.11</ref>

==21st-century anti-Semitism: the union of leftism and Islamism==
{{See also|European migrant crisis}}
In the 21st century these seeds have festered into full flower, with the embrace of Islamist anti-Semitism by the Left:
{{cquote|Although traditional Trotskyite ideology is in no way close to radical Islamic teachings and the shariah, since the radical Islamists also subscribed to anticapitalism, antiglobalism, and [[anti-Americanism]], there seemed to be sufficient common ground for an alliance. Thus, the militants of the [[far left]] began to march side by side with the radical Islamists in demonstrations, denouncing American aggression and Israeli crimes. In Britain a new political party named Respect was established, uniting Trotskyites, Stalinists, Muslim Brotherhood militants, and similar groups.<ref>Walter Laquer, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=xMGeXXBSY8wC The changing face of antisemitism: from ancient times to the present day]'' [Oxford University Press US, 2006] ISBN 0195304292, p. 186</ref>}}
For example, the European Union's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia decided not to publish its comprehensive study of the causes of anti-Semitism in Europe in 2003, a source familiar with the report told London's ''Financial Times'', after the report uncovered "a trend towards Muslim anti-Semitism," and that "on the left there is also mobilization against Israel that is not always free of prejudice."<ref>Reuters, "[http://www.haaretz.com/news/eu-racism-watchdog-shelves-anti-semitism-report-1.106473 EU racism watchdog shelves anti-Semitism report]," ''Haaretz'', November 22, 2003</ref>
That year, one academic, Michael Neumann, Professor of Philosophy at Canada's Trent University, wrote that he wants to
{{cquote|help the Palestinians.... I am not interested in the truth, or justice, or understanding, or anything else, except so far as it serves that purpose. If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don’t come to light, I don’t care. If an effective strategy means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism, or reasonable hostility to Jews, I also don’t care. If it means encouraging vicious racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the State of Israel, I still don’t care.<ref>Yoni Petel, "Antisemitism on Campus: A Student's Perspective," League for Human Rights, B'nai B'rith of Canada, ''[http://www.bnaibrith.ca/briefs/klein/klein030925.html Submission to the Special Rapporteur on Racism]'', Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, September 25, 2003</ref>}}
According to the progressive magazine ''Tikkun'', "[[A.N.S.W.E.R.]] refuses to acknowledge or support the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination—though it supports that right for every other group with a history of oppression. When Jews are denied the rights of others, it is a tell-tale sign of anti-Semitism."<ref>"[http://web.archive.org/web/20041019075845/http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0305/article/030512a.html Authoritarianism and Anti-Semitism in the Anti-War Movement?]," ''Tikkun'', May–June 2003</ref>
{{cquote|[L]eftists who despise their own capitalist societies inevitably come to sympathize with militants—communists, Tier-mondistes, Islamists, it doesn't make any difference—who attack those societies from without. Right now, the only corner of the world putting up any sort of serious ideological fight against Western-style capitalism and liberalism is the Muslim Middle East. So, just as the left uncritically swallowed Stalin's propaganda in the 1930s, expect the left to increasingly swallow Arabist propaganda in our own era. And since one of the key elements of Arabist propaganda is a hatred of Israel and a suspicion of Jews, these building blocks of anti-Semitism will become more and more a part of mainstream leftist discourse.<ref>Johnathan Kay, quoted in Jamie Glazov, Symposium: "[http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=19272 Anti-Semitism - the New Call of the Left]," FrontPageMagazine.com, March 14, 2003</ref>}}
Thus in 2009, the "progressive" webzine Counterpunch.org, edited by Alexander Cockburn, son of Soviet agent<ref>Chapman Pincher, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=netJI5stGlwC Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage against America and Great Britain]'' (Random House, Inc., 2009) ISBN 140006807X, pp. 43-47</ref> Claud Cockburn, could publish a revival of the "Blood Libel," alleging that Israeli Jews were killing Palestinian Muslims to harvest their organs.<ref>Alison Weir, "[http://www.counterpunch.org/weir08282009.html Israeli Organ Harvesting]," Counterpunch.org, August 28–30, 2009) Cf. David Horowitz, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=azE5qoXTgoAC Unholy alliance: radical Islam and the American left]'' (Regnery Publishing, 2004) ISBN 089526076X, p. 148</ref> By 2011, the Anti-Defamation League had documented the growing list of [https://web.archive.org/web/20140413064836/http://archive.adl.org:80/main_extremism/occupy_wall_street.html#.WY5m_lGQzIU anti-semitic incidents] at rallies of the left-wing "Occupy" movement. A 2012 survey of 5,847 Jews in the European Union found that more than three out of four said anti-Semitism had increased over the preceding five years, and more respondents blamed perpetrators of the most serious incidents on the political left than the right, according to the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency.<ref>European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, [http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2013-discrimination-hate-crime-against-jews-eu-member-states_en.pdf Discrimination and hate crime against Jews in EU Member States: experiences and perceptions of anti-Semitism] (Vienna: EU-FRA, 2013) ISBN 978-92-9239-262-8, p. 13</ref> Researchers at Tel Aviv University reported that anti-Semitic violence worldwide surged 40 percent in 2014.<ref>Kim Hjelmgaard, "[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/15/jewish-anti-semitic-attacks-western-europe/25807273/ Anti-Semitic violence surged 40% worldwide last year]," ''USA Today'', April 16, 2015</ref>

"[T]he left's anti-Semitism—which, of course, it never acknowledges and fervently denies—rather than the right's conventional version of this hatred comprises the key ingredient of anti-Semitism's current European existence."<ref>Andrei S. Markovits, "[http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=624&PID=0&IID=1754&TTL=%22Twin_Brothers%22:_European_Anti-Semitism_and_Anti-Americanism 'Twin Brothers': European Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism]," ''Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism'', No. 6 [January 2006] Institute for Global Jewish Affairs</ref> Antisemitism may be found within much contemporary "antihegemonic, radical, liberal and socialist" discourse, admits David Hirsh of the University of London, who concedes that "antisemitism is a live and virulent threat."<ref>David Hirsh, Book Review: "[http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/book/ Perry and Schweitzer, ''Antisemitic myths: a historical and contemporary anthology'']," ''[http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01419870.asp Ethnic and Racial Studies]'', Vol. 32, No. 4 (May 2009), pp. 749-750</ref> "[T]he locus of anti-Semitism has moved from the right side of the political spectrum to the left ... These days, the hatemongers targeting Jews’ right to live peacefully spout the mantras of 'social justice' and 'peace studies,' not racial purity."<ref>Jonathan Kay, "[http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/03/02/jonathan-kay-on-the-lesson-from-israel-apartheid-week-anti-semitism-is-now-a-creature-of-the-left.aspx The lesson from Israel Apartheid Week: Anti-Semitism is now a creature of the left]," ''National Post'', March 2, 2009</ref>
{{cquote|The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe "hails much more from the left than the right. The latter—mainly because of the continued illegitimacy and unacceptability of Nazism and fascism in European public opinion—has had a much more circumspect influence on how Jews and Israel are depicted than the left has had. Because classical anti-Semitism—certainly in its praxis—was mostly associated with the European right, the left enjoyed a certain bonus when it came to discussing all matters relating to Jews and Israel. The left could take liberties with being anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic that the right could never have. This legitimacy bonus enabled the left to employ anti-Israeli discourse that—in the meantime—has become completely common and acceptable parlance in Europe. Because of this general acceptability and overall legitimacy, left-wing anti-Semitism is much more relevant and disturbing than right-wing anti-Semitism.<ref>Andrei S. Markovits, "[http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-markovits-05.htm European Anti-Americanism (and Anti-Semitism): Ever Present Though Always Denied]," ''Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism'', No. 2 [August 2005], Institute for Global Jewish Affairs</ref>}}
As Urban concludes: "The extreme leftist trend in Germany contains elements that envision [http://jcpa.org/article/being-leftist-and-anti-semitic-in-germany/ a world cleansed of the Jewish state]."

Europe, which has seen [[European migrant crisis|millions of Muslim migrants enter]] due to the [[European Union]]'s [[open borders]] policies, has also seen large numbers of Jews immigrate to Israel due to Europe's anti-Semitism.<ref>Heller, Aron (January 14, 2016). [https://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-semitism-drives-record-high-western-european-immigration-to-israel/ Anti-Semitism drives record-high Western European immigration to Israel]. ''The Times of Israel''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref><ref>Sherwood, Harriet (January 12, 2018). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/12/rise-in-numbers-of-jews-leaving-europe-for-israel-is-not-an-exodus Rise in numbers of Jews leaving for Israel from some European countries]. ''The Guardian''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref><ref>Edmunds, Donna Rachel (February 15, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/15/video-jewish-flight-from-rising-anti-semitism-serves-as-warning-to-whole-of-europe/ VIDEO: Jewish Flight From Rising Anti-Semitism Serves as Warning to Whole of Europe]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref> Additionally, according to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2013, one-third of all European Jews due to fears of security caused by anti-Semitism.<ref>[https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-european-jews-report-rise-in-anti-semitism/ A third of Europe’s Jews have weighed leaving because of safety fears]. ''The Times of Israel'' (from the ''Associated Press''). November 8, 2013. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref><ref>Shapiro, Ben (November 8, 2013). [https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2013/11/08/survey-jews-europe/ Survey: 1/3 Jews Consider Leaving Europe Thanks to Rise of Leftist, Muslim Anti-Semitism]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref> According to a study released by the University of Oslo in June 2017, which examined anti-Semitism between 2005 and 2015 in seven European nations, large proportions of European Jews felt unsafe in their home countries and were considering immigrating to Israel, including half of all French Jews.<ref>Miller, Abraham H. (July 5, 2017). [http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2017/7/5/new-study-reveals-europes-rising-anti-semitism-forces-jews-to-leave-or-hide#.Wlzog6inFPY= New study reveals Europe’s rising anti-Semitism forces Jews to leave or hide]. ''Jewish News Service''. January 15, 2018.</ref> By 2016, Jews were leaving France in record numbers,<ref>Kent, Simon (January 26, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/01/26/jews-leave-france-for-israel-in-record-numbers-anti-semitism-and-terrorism-fears-drive-exodus/ Jews Leave France for Israel in Record Numbers: Anti-Semitism and Terrorism Fears Drive Exodus]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 15, 2018. 
See also:
*Kent, Simon (December 15, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/12/15/exodus-french-jews-forced-islamists-anti-semitism-rises-across-europe/ Exodus: Jews Flee Paris Suburbs over Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref> and a 2017 YouGov poll found that nearly a third of all British Jews considered leaving the country due to anti-Semitism, among other findings.<ref>Friedman, Victoria (August 20, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/20/one-three-british-jews-consider-leaving-uk-majority-labour-party-anti-semites/ One in Three British Jews Consider Leaving UK, Majority Thinks Labour Party Harbours Anti-Semites]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref><ref>Wooding, David (August 20, 2017). [https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4281039/jews-leaving-uk-poll-hate-crime/ One in three British Jews ‘thinking about leaving UK’ as anti-Semitism soars leaving one in six ‘feeling unwelcome’]. ''The Sun''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref> According to the University of Teacher Education in Vienna in 2017, half of all Muslim youth in Austria held anti-Semitic views.<ref>Kent, Simon (June 20, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/06/20/report-anti-semitic-views-backed-half-austrias-muslim-youth/ Report: Anti-Semitic Views Backed by Half of Austria’s Muslim Youth]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 15, 2018.</ref> A survey released in December 2018 found that one-third of Jews considering emigrating from Europe.<ref>Byas, Steve (December 11, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/30879-many-jews-no-longer-feel-safe-in-europe Many Jews No Longer Feel Safe in Europe]. ''The New American''. Retrieved December 11, 2018.</ref> In Berlin, anti-Semitic attacks triped in 2018 compared to the previous year.<ref>Kent, Simon (January 4, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/01/04/drastic-increase-violent-anti-semitic-attacks-soaring-in-berlin/ ‘Drastic Increase’: Violent Anti-Semitic Attacks Soaring in Berlin]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 4, 2019.</ref>

In the [[United Kingdom]], the [[Labour Party]] has seen a large surge of anti-Semitism inside its ranks in the early 21st century which has especially increased with the beginning of the leadership of [[Jeremy Corbyn]].<ref>Multiple references:
*Friedman, Victoria (July 18, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/18/corbyn-anti-semite-racist-anti-semitism-scandals-labour-far-left/ ‘Anti-Semite and a Racist’: The Scandals Following Labour’s Shift to the Far Left]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
*Shaw, Adam (March 31, 2018). [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03/31/uks-left-wing-labour-party-engulfed-by-anti-semitism-crisis.html UK's left-wing Labour Party engulfed by anti-Semitism crisis]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
*Zeronian, Sarkis (May 3, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/03/50-labour-party-members-suspended-for-anti-semitism-and-racism-those-named-are-tip-of-the-iceberg/ 50 Labour Party Members Suspended For Anti-Semitism And Racism, Those Named Are ‘Tip Of The Iceberg’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
*Kent, Simon (March 30, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/03/30/british-parliament-debate-anti-semitism-allegations-continue-labour-party/ UK Parliament to Debate Anti-Semitism as Fresh Allegations Engulf Labour Party]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
*[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics/uk-labour-leader-corbyn-apologizes-for-anti-semitism-in-his-party-idUSKBN1H10VR UK Labour leader Corbyn apologizes for anti-Semitism in his party‍]. ''Reuters''. March 25, 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
*Kent, Simon (July 29, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/07/29/party-is-a-sewer-more-anti-semitism-claims-rock-uk-labour/ Party Is a ‘Sewer’: More Anti-Semitism Claims Rock UK Labour]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 29, 2018.
See also:
*Kent, Simon (April 3, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/04/03/tony-blair-warns-uk-labour-root-out-anti-semitism-completely/ Tony Blair Warns UK Labour: ‘Root Out Anti-Semitism Completely, Totally’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 3, 2018.</ref> In April 2018, the [[Labour Party (Israel)|Israeli Labour Party]] cut ties with the UK Labour Party due to the latter's anti-Semitism.<ref>Multiple references:
*Stoddart, Michelle (April 10, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/israeli-labor-party-suspends-ties-with-british-uk-jeremy-corbyn-over-anti-semitism/ Israeli Labor Party suspends ties with Corbyn, citing anti-Semitism]. ''Politico''. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
*[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-britain-labour/israeli-labour-party-breaks-off-relations-with-britains-corbyn-idUSKBN1HH27U Israeli Labour party breaks off relations with Britain's Corbyn]. ''Reuters''. April 10, 2018. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
*Kent, Simon (April 11, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/04/11/israeli-labor-party-severs-ties-with-jeremy-corbyn-over-hostility-to-jewish-community/ Israeli Labor Party Severs Ties with Jeremy Corbyn over ‘Hostility’ to Jewish Community]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 11, 2018.</ref> The party adopted a definition of anti-Semitism in response to these developments, but this definition was criticized as "toothless" as it held a much narrower definition of anti-Semitism than that of Jewish groups, such as still allowing Israel-Nazi comparisons and accusing Israel of racism.<ref>Kent, Simon (July 6, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/07/06/anger-as-uk-labour-party-adopts-toothless-definition-of-anti-semitism/ Anger as UK Labour Party Adopts ‘Toothless’ Definition of Anti-Semitism]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 6, 2018.</ref><ref>Friedman, Victoria (July 17, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/17/uk-jewish-leaders-condemn-labour-party-altering-definition-anti-semitism/ UK Jewish Leaders Condemn Labour Party for Watering Down Definition of Anti-Semitism]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 17, 2018.</ref> In August 2018, veteran MP Frank Field resigned from the party, as it had become "a force for anti-Semitism."<ref>Multiple references:
*Deacon, Liam (August 30, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/30/veteran-labour-mp-frank-field-resigns-slams-anti-semitism-racist-party/ Veteran Labour MP Frank Field Resigns, Slams Anti-Semitism and ‘Racist Party’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
*Friedman, Victoria (August 31, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/31/labour-mp-condemns-party-where-anti-semitism-is-more-than-tolerated/ Labour MP Condemns Party Where ‘Anti-Semitism Is More than Tolerated’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 31, 2018.
*[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-labour/veteran-uk-labour-lawmaker-brands-party-leadership-a-force-for-anti-semitism-idUSKCN1LF214 Veteran UK Labour lawmaker brands party leadership a 'force for anti-Semitism']. ''Reuters''. August 30, 2018. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
*Dickson, Annabelle (August 30, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-labour-veteran-frank-field-quits-over-anti-semitism-crisis-jeremy-corbyn/ UK Labour veteran Frank Field quits over anti-Semitism crisis]. ''Politico''. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
See also:
*Delingpole, James (August 31, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/31/delingpole-frank-field-is-right-modern-left-is-nasty-vicious-anti-semitic/ Delingpole: Frank Field Is Right – the Modern Left Is Nasty, Vicious, Anti-Semitic]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 31, 2018.</ref> In 2018, the Simon Wiesenthal Center mentioned Corbyn in its list of top ten worst anti-Semitism incidents that year.<ref>Lane, Oliver JJ (December 28, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/28/uk-opposition-leader-corbyn-makes-simon-wiesenthal-anti-semitism-list/ UK Opposition Leader Corbyn Makes Simon Wiesenthal Anti-Semitism List]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved December 28, 2018.</ref>

Far-left Democrat congresswoman [[Rashida Tlaib]] hung a map in her congressional office with a sticky note calling [[Israel]] "Palestine."<ref>Multiple references:
*Kraychik, Robert (January 4, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/04/rashida-tlaib-new-office-map-israel-renamed-palestine/ Rashida Tlaib’s New Office Map: Israel Renamed ‘Palestine’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 5, 2019.
*O'Neil, Tyler (January 4, 2019). [https://pjmedia.com/trending/israel-replaced-with-palestine-on-rashida-tlaibs-office-map/ Israel Replaced With Palestine on Office Map of Congresswoman Who Called Trump a 'Motherf**ker']. ''PJ Media''. Retrieved January 5, 2019.
*[https://www.jns.org/new-congresswoman-tlaib-displays-map-with-israel-replaced-by-palestine/ New Congresswoman Tlaib displays map with Israel replaced by ‘Palestine’]. ''Jewish News Syndicate''. January 3, 2019. Retrieved January 5, 2019.</ref> She earlier endorsed the anti-Israel [[Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions|BDS movement]].<ref>Chasmar, Jessica (December 4, 2018). [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/4/rashida-tlaib-newly-elected-democrat-endorses-anti/ Democratic Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib endorses anti-Israel BDS movement]. ''The Washington Times''. Retrieved January 5, 2019.</ref> In addition to these anti-Semitic actions, Tlaib also made a bigoted tweet accusing Jewish-Americans of having divided loyalties, an attack frequently made by anti-Semites.<ref>Multiple references:
*Starr, Penny (January 7, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/07/democrat-rashida-tlaib-blasted-for-antisemitic-tweet-accusing-dual-loyalty-israel-bds/ Democrat Rashida Tlaib Blasted for Antisemitic Tweet: ‘They Forgot What Country They Represent’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
*Re, Gregg (January 7, 2019). [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rashida-tlaib-accused-of-anti-semitic-slur-days-after-profane-anti-trump-tirade Rashida Tlaib accused of anti-Semitic slur, days after profane anti-Trump tirade]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved January 8, 2019.</ref>

==Anti-capitalism, Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism==
"[I]n North America," wrote Marx, the "practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world" had achieved what he called "its unambiguous and normal expression."<ref>Karl Marx, "On The Jewish Question," ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher'', February 1844, reprinted in Karl Marx, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=TKdLO2jvbqsC Early writings]'' (Penguin, 1992) ISBN 0140445749, p. 232</ref> According to Sombart, “what we call Americanism is nothing else, if we may say so, than the Jewish spirit distilled.”<ref>Werner Sombart, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=P33VHF1aBAcC The Jews and Modern Capitalism]'' (E. P. Dutton, 1913), p. 44</ref>

“The anti-American left... is at least as anti-Jewish as the clerical conservative right, especially among those who have embraced a pronounced 'antifascist' and 'antiracist' credo.”<ref>Robert S. Wistrich, ''[http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/wistrich.pdf European Anti-Semitism Reinvents Itself],'' [The American Jewish Committee, 2002], p. 11</ref> "Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and Anti-Americanism in Europe are in fact linked, and both bear an uncanny resemblance to anti-Semitism."<ref>Natan Sharansky, "On Hating Jews: The inextricable link between anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism," ''The Wall Street Journal'', November 17, 2003</ref>

"America and Jews are seen by many Europeans as paragons of a modernity they dislike and distrust: money-driven, profit-hungry, urban, universalistic, individualistic, mobile, rootless, inauthentic, and thus hostile to established traditions and values."<ref>"[http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=624&PID=0&IID=658&TTL=European_Anti-Americanism_and_Anti-Semitism:_Similarities_and_Differences European Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism: Similarities and Differences]," An Interview with Andrei S. Markovits, ''Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism'' [Institute for Global Jewish Affairs], No. 16 [January 1, 2004]</ref> "Jews were blamed for the evils of capitalism in earlier centuries. Americans are blamed for globalization, that is, technological and economic change to the max, in our days."<ref>Josef Joffe, quoted in Mark O'Keefe, "[http://pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Anti-Semitism-and-Anti-Americanism.aspx Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism]," Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, May 5, 2006</ref> "America today has become the world's market-dominant minority," while "Jews are a market-dominant mionority in the Middle East."<ref>Amy Chua, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=KSp1okOggpkC World on fire: how exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability]'' [Random House, Inc., 2004] ISBN 0385721862, pp. 218, 229</ref>

Thus post-unification Germany, observed a journalist in 2005, is marked by "a poisonous cocktail of the three big As: anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-capitalism."<ref>Wolfgang Munchau, "[http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/13684/part_2/antiamericanism-antisemitism-anticapitalism.thtml Anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism]," ''The Spectator'', May 21, 2005</ref> This association of Jews with America was illustrated in 2006, when German Neo-Nazis burned a copy of ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=y50yo2rnJHcC Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl]'' together [http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/germany/9582 with an American flag].

Despite the growth of liberal anti-Semitism, left-wingers who happen to be Jewish have largely ignored anti-Semitism on the Left.<ref>Markowicz, Karol (November 25, 2018). [https://nypost.com/2018/11/25/liberal-jews-are-still-turning-a-blind-eye-to-anti-semitism-on-the-left/ Liberal Jews are still turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism on the left]. ''New York Post''. Retrieved November 29, 2018.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism]]
*[[Nazism and socialism]]
*[[Communism and Nazism]]
*[[Liberal intolerance]]
*[[Liberalism and racism]]
*[[Communist Racism]]

==External links==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQWuNozi6UM The Threat of Left-wing Antisemitism] on YouTube

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

{{liberalism}}

[[Category:Anti-Semitism]]
[[Category:Socialism]]
[[Category:Marxism]]
[[Category:Liberalism]]
[[Category:Liberal Traits]]
[[Category:European History]]

Angela Merkel

2018-12-28T19:54:20Z

JoeyJ:

[[File:Merkel.jpg|thumb|Merkel between the flags of Germany (left) and the European Union (EU)]]
:''For more on Merkel's destructive immigration policies, see [[European migrant crisis]]''
'''Angela Dorothea Merkel''' (born 17 July 1954) was elected in March 2018 to her fourth term as the chancellor of [[Germany]], the top position for a broad coalition government. From 2000 to 2018 she was also the leader of the German [[Christian Democratic Union]] (CDU), historically Germany's conservative party. She has served as the chancellor of Germany since 2005, a position comparable to prime minister. She is a champion of the euro and of the mass migration of Middle Eastern and North African refugees to Europe.<ref>Milton Friedman detailed the disadvantages of the euro in "[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-euro--monetary-unity-to-political-disunity The Euro: Monetary Unity To Political Disunity?]"</ref>

==Early life==
Angela Dorthea Kasner Merkel was born in [[Hamburg]] but three years later he family moved to Templin, Brandenburg in [[East Germany]]. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Protestant pastor who had studied Theology at Heidelberg University. Her mother, Herlind, was an English and Latin teacher. The Kasner family was increased when Angela's brother Marcus was born in 1957 and her sister Irene in 1964.

==Career==
Merkel grew up in the Communist [[East Germany]] just outside Berlin. Merkel was educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig, where she studied physics (1973-1978).

She worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences (1978–1990). After graduating with a doctorate in physics working in quantum chemistry. In 1989 she became involved in the growing [[democracy]] movement and, after the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]], she got a job as government spokesperson following the first democratic elections. She joined the CDU two months before German reunification and within three months she was in [[Helmut Kohl]]'s cabinet as minister for women and youth. In 1994 she was made minister for the environment.

Her East German background has stood her in good stead. For the first 36 years of her life, she honed her skills at covering up or suppressing her feelings—essential in a society where practically every room contained a [[Stasi]] informer, especially if you were a pastor's daughter. Speaking near perfect English and remarking on her background as an Ossi she says, "Anyone who really has something to say doesn't need make-up".

==German chancellor==
===2005 election===
Merkel was first elected as chancellor of Germany in 2005. She ruled together with the left-center [[SPD]] until 2009.<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10518099/Germanys-Social-Democrats-vote-to-form-grand-coalition-with-Angela-Merkel.html</ref>

===2009 election===
[[File:Germ-vote-2009.jpg|300px|thumb|Exit polls from Sept. 2009 election won by the conservative coalition CDU and FDP]]
The September 2009 election was a major win for the right-of-center forces led by Chancellor Merkel, breaking a stalemate and opening the way for more conservative economic policies. Previously since an indecisive election in 2005 the center-right [[Christian Democratic Union|Christian Democrats]] formed a "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats, headed by Frank-Walter Steinmeier. 2009 Merkel and her CDU formed a coalition with the liberal [[Free Democratic Party|Free Democrats]]. Left in the cold was the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Greens]], and the ex-Communists who remain strong under the name "[[The Left]]." Merkel moved forward on tax cuts, reform of the tax code, reduction of bureaucracy and an extension of the time that nuclear power plants can continue to operate.

The victory enhanced her reputation as Europe's top political power broker, as Merkel became the first leader of a major European country to win re-election since the [[Recession of 2008|global financial crisis]] struck the previous year. Voters generally approved of her response to the recession, even though it hammered Germany's export-dependent economy and resulted in a huge amount of public debt. She countered criticism by blaming the crisis on [[Wall Street]] and engaging in a modest stimulus program.<ref>Craig Whitlock, "Germany's Merkel Reelected Easily, Will Form New Coalition," [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/27/AR2009092700631.html?nav=emailpage ''Washington Post'' Sept. 28, 2009]</ref>

===2013 election===
In the 2013 election, the CDU remained Germany's strongest party, but its ally the [[Free Democratic Party|FDP]] lost the election and left the parliament.<ref>http://bigstory.ap.org/article/merkel-bidding-3rd-term-german-election</ref> Thus, the CDU created a "grand coalition" with the SPD again.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/27/merkel-conservatives-center-left-rivals-reach-deal-to-form-new-german/</ref> The vice chancellor is Sigmar Gabriel, the chairman of the [[SPD]].<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/merkel-backs-plans-stem-energy-cost-rises</ref>

===2017 election===
In a campaign described as "boring", Merkel saw a challenge by the SPD's left-wing [[Martin Schulz]], the former president of the [[European Parliament]]. Merkel was seen by some commentators to have subtly tacked towards the right on some policies such as migration and [[Turkey]]'s accession to the EU – two issues she formerly was wholeheartedly in support of. In the election, the right-wing conservative [[Alternative for Germany]] entered the Bundestag after taking a historic third place with nearly 13% of the vote, while Merkel's CDU received its worst result since 1949.<ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (September 25, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/25/merkel-scores-pyrrhic-victory-populists-beat-expectations/ Merkel’s Pyrrhic Victory: Worst Party Performance Since 1949 As Populist AfD Beat Expectations]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-elections-afd/4043104.html Germany Shaken by Far-right Political Earthquake]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/merkel-win-seen-as-inevitable/4042028.html Merkel Wins Historic Fourth Term But Far-right Populists Surge]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Ridgwell, Henry (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-far-right-reclaim-country-angela-merkel-coalition-talks/4043603.html German Far-right Pledges to 'Reclaim Country' as Merkel Begins Tough Coalition Talks]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Chazan, Guy (September 24, 2017). [https://www.ft.com/content/d18213e0-a105-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2 Nationalist AfD make historic breakthrough in German elections]. ''Financial Times''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.</ref> Despite this, Merkel continued defending her open borders policies.<ref>[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/25/merkel-defends-open-borders-migrant-policy-election-shock/ Merkel Defends Open Borders Migrant Policy After Election Shock]. ''Breitbart News''. September 25, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2017.</ref> Merkel had trouble creating a government, with the Social Democrats initially refusing to work with her in a coalition and with the Greens and FDP being unable to agree together with the CDU. In February 2018, Merkel reached an agreement with the Social Democrats that gave the latter party a disproportionate amount of influence in her government.<ref>Joffe, Josef (February 9, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-martin-schulz-cdu-spd-government-of-losers/ Angela’s Merkel government of losers]. ''Politico''. Retrieved February 9, 2018.</ref> Six months after the election, the German Bundestag voted to give Merkel a fourth term as chancellor with her "grand coalition" with the SPD.<ref>Multiple references:
*[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/14/six-months-inconclusive-elections-angela-merkel-begins-historic-fourth-term-chancellor/ Six Months After Worst Ever Election Result Angela Merkel Begins Historic Fourth Term as Chancellor]. ''Breitbart News''. March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*[http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03/14/angela-merkel-elected-for-4th-term-as-german-chancellor.html Angela Merkel elected for 4th term as German chancellor]. ''Fox News''. March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*Doubek, James (March 14, 2018). [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593412170/germanys-angela-merkel-begins-fourth-term-on-shaky-ground Germany's Angela Merkel Begins Fourth Term On Shaky Ground]. ''NPR''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*Thomas, Andrea; Benoit, Bertrand (March 14, 2018). [https://www.wsj.com/articles/angela-merkel-begins-fourth-term-as-german-chancellor-1521022646 Angela Merkel Starts Fourth Term Facing Big Hurdles]. ''The Wall Street Journal''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.</ref>

===Policies===
Merkel supports [[liberal]] and [[Globalism|globalist]] policies. She allowed her party members a free vote for legalizing [[same-sex "marriage"]]. In June 2017, the German parliament voted for legalizing it, including some MPs from Merkel's party, although she herself voted against it.<ref>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/angela-merkel-same-sex-marriage-vote-germany-legalisation-lgbt-rights-christian-democrat-man-woman-a7815846.html</ref> Her nation harshly opposes [[homeschooling]]. She supports the socialist and globalist [[European Union]] and open borders. Her left-wing policies contributed significantly to the [[European migrant crisis]]. Merkel opposes patriotic policies, such as building [[border wall]]s and advancing protectionism, opposes [[populism]], and supports [[globalism]].<ref>Deacon, Liam (January 24, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/24/merkel-davos-attacks-walls-poison-populism-defends-globalism/ Merkel at Davos: Attacks ‘Walls’ and ‘Poison’ of Populism, Defends Globalism]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 24, 2018.</ref> In November 2018, Merkel called for a common EU army.<ref>Multiple references:
*Hale, Virginia (November 14, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/11/14/merkel-eu-army-call-world-peace/ Merkel Demands ‘Real, True EU Army’… Days After Calling for ‘UN Values’ Globalist World Peace]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
*Shaw, Adam (November 13, 2018). [https://www.foxnews.com/world/merkel-calls-for-creation-of-european-army-backing-macron-in-spat-with-trump Merkel calls for creation of ‘European army,’ backing Macron in spat with Trump]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved November 13, 2018.
*Axelrod, Tal (November 13, 2018). [https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/416412-merkel-calls-for-creation-of-real-true-european-army Merkel calls for creation of ‘real, true European army']. ''The Hill''. Retrieved November 13, 2018.</ref>

Merkel supports the [[War on Sovereignty|erosion of national sovereignty]], stating in 2018 that "nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty."<ref>Hale, Virginia (November 23, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/11/23/merkel-eu-hand-sovereignty-brussels/ Merkel: EU States Must Prepare to Hand National Sovereignty over to Brussels]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved November 23, 2018.</ref>

Merkel fears that the European Union has failed to define its common interests "for the (commercial) battles of the future" now Europe's cold war priorities of keeping "peace and freedom" have been achieved. "This is where I think Europe needs to learn a lot, not to concentrate too much on whether bicycle paths are built the same way in Portugal and north-west Germany." Domestically, Merkel recognizes the need for change in the country's consensual model. "In Germany, we are always facing the danger that we are a little bit too slow. We have to speed up our changes."

====Migration policy====
Because of Merkel's [[open borders]] policies, more than 2.5 million refugees and migrants have flooded into Germany from outside Europe, migrants who do not share a common European heritage with their host country. In 2015 alone, Germany was invaded by nearly one million non-Western immigrants,<ref>[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/10/europe-immigration-muslim-refugees-portraits/ The New Europeans], Robert Kunzig, ''National Geographic'', October 2016</ref> more than double the size of Germany's standing and reserve military force. Merkel opposed setting an upper limit on the number of refugees Germany would allow in annually.<ref>Delcker, Janosch (October 2, 2017). [https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-germany-new-refugee-dilemma-bavaria-csu/ Angela Merkel’s new refugee dilemma]. ''Politico''. Retrieved October 3, 2017.</ref> It was reported in August 2017 that since 2015, when the [[European migrant crisis]] was at its height, the German Prosecutor’s Office received over 1,000 criminal complaints accusing Merkel of high treason for her actions regarding refugees and immigration.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (August 31, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/31/german-prosecutors-1000-criminal-complaints-merkel-high-treason/ Prosecutors Have Rejected 1,000 High Treason Charges Against Merkel For Migrant Crisis Since 2015]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 31, 2017.</ref> This represented a massive visible shift in her policies since 2010, when she actually stated that a multicultural society had failed and that immigrants needed to do more to integrate, including learning German.<ref>(October 17, 2010). [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11559451 Merkel says German multicultural society has failed]. ''BBC''. Retrieved September 16, 2018.</ref>

When discussing her options on how to counter the migrant crisis in 2015, Merkel quickly dismissed the notion of restoring border controls.<ref>Hale, Virginia (September 25, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/25/no-fences-merkels-migrant-crisis-vow/ ‘We Won’t Build Any Fences’: Interview Reveals Merkel’s Reaction to 2015 Migrant Crisis]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 25, 2018.</ref>

When the German Minister of Interior [[Horst Seehofer]] stated that [[Islam]] "does not belong in Germany,"<ref>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43422770</ref><ref>Huggler, Justin (March 16, 2018). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/german-interior-minister-declares-islam-does-not-belong-country/ German interior minister declares 'Islam does not belong' in the country]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> Merkel quickly responded by saying that "Islam belongs to Germany."<ref>Hale, Virginia (March 16, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/16/islam-belongs-germany-merkel-insists/ ‘Islam Belongs to Germany’, Merkel Insists After Minister Highlights Nation’s Christian Heritage]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[https://www.thelocal.de/20180316/islam-doesnt-belong-to-germany-says-interior-minister-horst-seehofer Merkel contradicts interior minister, saying ‘Islam belongs to Germany’]. ''The Local''. March 16, 2018. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> Merkel's globalist views on immigration and unwillingness to compromise conflicted with the relatively conservative views of Seehofer, something which endangered the coalition she created after the 2017 elections.<ref>Multiple references:
*Irvine, Chris (June 15, 2018). [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/15/angela-merkels-german-government-facing-collapse-over-her-immigration-stance.html Angela Merkel's German government facing collapse over her immigration stance]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
*Tomlinson, Chris (June 16, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/06/16/longstanding-disagreements-on-migrant-policy-threaten-to-end-merkel-era/ New Migrant Crisis Threatens to Bring Down Merkel in 48 Hours]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
*Duke, Selwyn (June 18, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/29300-muslim-migration-may-topple-eu-starting-with-angela-merkel-s-government Muslim Migration May Topple EU — Starting With Angela Merkel’s Government]. ''The New American''. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
*[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany/defiant-merkel-backs-europe-migrant-policy-as-bavaria-row-simmers-idUSKBN1JC0CQ Defiant Merkel backs Europe migrant policy as Bavaria row simmers]. ''Reuters''. June 16, 2018. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
*[http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/13/merkel-allies-heading-for-showdown-over-immigration-policy.html Merkel, allies heading for showdown over immigration policy]. ''Fox News'' (from the ''Associated Press''). June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.</ref> Ultimately, they found a compromise which saw Merkel gain the upper hand.<ref>Multiple references:
*Lane, Oliver JJ (July 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/merkel-germany-coalition-limps-on-as-immigration-control-compromise-struck/ Merkel Germany Coalition Limps on as Immigration Control Compromise Struck]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
*Escritt, Thomas; Chambers, Madeline (July 2, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany/merkel-to-fight-another-day-after-settling-migration-row-idUSKBN1JS0NJ Merkel to fight another day after settling migration row]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
*Byas, Steve (July 3, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/29434-immigration-compromise-saves-merkel-government-in-germany-for-now Immigration Compromise Saves Merkel Government in Germany — for Now]. ''The New American''. Retrieved July 3, 2018.</ref>

Merkel continued advancing policies increasing the number of migrants into Germany.<ref>Byas, Steve (October 3, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/30231-germany-s-merkel-favors-even-more-immigrants Germany’s Merkel Favors Even More Immigrants]. ''The New American''. Retrieved October 3, 2018.</ref> She strongly endorsed the [[UN Migrant Treaty|UN's migration compact]] that conservative leaders rejected.<ref>Hale, Virginia (November 21, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/11/21/merkel-defence-win-migration-pact/ ‘No Compromises’: Merkel Launches Passionate Defence of UN Migration Pact]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved November 21, 2018.</ref><ref>Friedman, Victoria (December 10, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/10/merkel-hails-un-migration-pact-populist-le-pen-change-forever-face-france/ Merkel Hails UN Migration Pact Le Pen Says Would ‘Forever Change’ France]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved December 10, 2018.</ref> Under Merkel's government, Germany tried to send the highest number of migrants to other EU countries.<ref>Friedman, Victoria (December 7, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/07/germany-most-prolific-attempting-send-migrants-other-eu-countries/ Germany Most Prolific at Attempting to Send Migrants to Other EU Countries]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved December 7, 2018.</ref>

===Foreign relations===
Merkel failed to stand up for [[the West|Western]] values as German Chancellor and allowed Germany to become dependent on Russian energy.<ref>Rogan, Tom (November 12, 2018). [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/macron-merkel-and-why-international-order-remains-the-american-preserve Macron, Merkel, and why international order remains the American preserve]. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved November 12, 2018.</ref>

In 2011 Merkel opposed [[Israel]]'s settlement program in the [[West Bank]]<ref>Weiland, Severin. [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/merkel-and-netanyahu-pledge-friendship-in-berlin-despite-differences-a-871458.html Merkel and Netanyahu Seek to Play Down Differences] ''[[Der Spiegel]]''. Retrieved August 9, 2018.</ref> and rejects moving Germany's embassy from [[Tel Aviv]] to [[Jerusalem]].<ref>Berkowitz, Adam Eliyahu. [https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/106501/germanys-merkel-no-to-jerusalem-embassy-no-to-settlements-yes-to-iran-nuclear-deal/ Germany’s Merkel: No to Jerusalem Embassy, No to ‘Settlements,’ Yes to Iran Nuclear Deal] ''BreakingIsraelNews''. Retrieved October 7, 2018.</ref> She even told other EU leaders not to move their embassies<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (December 7, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/07/merkel-told-eu-countries-not-move-embassies-jerusalem-save-iran-deal/ Merkel Told EU Leaders to Not Move Embassies to Jerusalem]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved December 7, 2018.</ref> and urged [[Romania]]'s President Klaus Iohannis to stop the planned relocation of Romania's embassy to Jerusalem.<ref>Weinthal, Benjamin. [https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Angela-Merkel-urged-Romanian-president-to-not-move-embassy-to-Jerusalem-572032 Exclusive: Merkel Urged Romanian President to Not Move Embassy to Jerusalem] ''Jerusalem Post''. Retrieved November 18, 2018.</ref> After President Trump decided to leave the [[Iran nuclear deal]], Merkel explained that this deal "should never be called into question" and wanted [[Iran]] to remain in it.<ref>(May 9, 2018). [https://www.thelocal.de/20180509/iran-nuclear-deal-should-never-be-called-in-question-says-merkel Iran nuclear deal ‘should never be called into question’, says Merkel] ''thelocal.de''. Retrieved August 9, 2018.</ref>

==== Relations with Donald Trump ====
In October 2015, [[Donald Trump]] criticized Merkel's migration policy: "I love a safe zone for people. I do not like the migration. I do not like the people coming. Frankly, look, Europe is going to have to handle – but they're going to have riots in Germany. What's happening in Germany, I always thought Merkel was like this great leader. What she's done in Germany is insane. It is insane. They're having all sorts of attacks."<ref>Keneally, Meghan (July 6, 2017). [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-merkel/story?id=46198767 What Trump and Merkel have said about each other] ''ABC News''. Retrieved May 5, 2018.</ref> In April 2018, President Trump emphasized that he has a "really great relationship" with Chancellor Merkel. According to him they both "actually have had a great relationship from the beginning."<ref>Fredericks, Bob (April 27, 2018). [https://nypost.com/2018/04/27/trump-praises-great-relationship-with-merkel-during-white-house-visit/ Trump praises ‘great relationship’ with Merkel during White House visit] ''New York Post''. Retrieved May 8, 2018.</ref> On November 11, 2018, Merkel joined [[globalist]] French president [[Emmanuel Macron]] in attacking nationalism and President Trump's [[America First]] foreign policy.<ref>Re, Gregg (November 11, 2018). [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-speaking-at-armistice-day-event-xx Trump, speaking at Armistice Day event outside Paris, honors fallen soldiers as Macron, Merkel take shots at him]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved November 11, 2018.</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of German Chancellors]]

==Further reading==
* Clifford W. Mills. ''Angela Merkel'' (2007), 120pp; for middle schools
* Wolfgang Stock: Angela Merkel: eine politische Biographie. Neuauflage. München 2005, ISBN 3-7892-8168-9

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}

{{German Chancellors}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merkel, Angela}}
[[Category:Current Heads of Government]]
[[Category:Christian Democrat Union politicians]]
[[Category:Children of Clergy]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom award winners]]
[[Category:German Chancellors]]
[[Category:Globalists]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Christian Democratic Union

2018-12-11T20:59:09Z

JoeyJ:

{{PoliticalParty
| party_name = Christian Democratic Union
| party_logo =
| website = [https://www.cdu.de/ cdu.de]
| leader = [[Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer]]
| parleader = Ralph Brinkhaus
| foundation = 1945
| ideology = [[Christian democracy]]
| position = [[Centrist|Center]] to [[center-right]]
| international = [[International Democrat Union]], [[Centrist Democrat International]] and [[European People’s Party]]
| colors = black
| footnotes =
}}
The '''Christian Democratic Union of Germany''' (Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands, '''CDU''') is a [[Christian Democratic]] political party in [[Germany]]. It is a middle-conservative party, and in 2009-2013 shared power in a coalition with the liberal-libertarian [[Free Democratic Party]] (FDP). [[File:Merkel.jpg|thumb|290px| Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]] led the party from 2000 to 2018]]

The CDU is always in partnership with the '''[[Christian Social Union of Bavaria|Christian Social Union]]''', its more conservative sister party in [[Bavaria]]: the CDU does not field candidates in Bavaria and, in turn, the CSU does not field candidates outside it. When adding the mandates of both the CDU and CSU, who caucus together at the national level, they form the largest parliamentary group at the national level. Both parties are also in control of a majority of governments at the state level, with 11 out of 16 heads of state governments hailing from one of them.

In 2013 the CDU won again the majority with 41.5 percent, but its ally the [[Free Democratic Party]] left the parliament because they had not enough votes.<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/merkel-triumphs-german-vote-allies-crushed</ref> The Christian Democratic Union has created a coalition with the left-center [[SPD]], who got 25.7 percent of the vote.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/17/merkel-and-center-left-rivals-agree-to-recommend-entering-formal-talks-on-new/</ref> The CDU declined by 8% in the 2017 election, losing much of its votes to the conservative and [[Euroskeptic]] [[Alternative for Germany]].

==History==
The party was founded in post-war Germany by centrist and conservative Christian politicians who were former members of the Centre Party and wanted to overcome the divisions among democratic Christians politicians in pre-war Germany, which was perceived as one of the reasons of the deadlock in politics during the [[Weimar Republic]]. Before 1934 Germany was about 1/3 Catholic. West Germany was now about evenly split between Catholics and Protestants. The CDU (and its sister party the CSU in Bavaria) regularly won about 60% of the Catholic vote, and 35-40% of the Protestants. To control a majority in the Bundestag (national parliament) it formed coalitions usually with the small Free Democrats (FDP), a conservative/libertarian party favored by big business and professionals.

Leading figures in the post-war era were [[Konrad Adenauer]] and [[Ludwig Erhard]]. Adenauer became the first Chancellor of West Germany, and who was seeking firm military and economic integration of West Germany with western Europe and the US. Ludwig Erhard was the first Minister of Economy, renowned for his advocacy and implementation of [[social market economy]], and is considered the father of the German [[Wirtschaftswunder]], the economic boom in the 50s and 60s. These two political concepts, social market economy, and integration in the West, have become the two main ideological pillars of the Christian Democratic Union.

In the [[German Democratic Republic]] the CDUD (Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands engl: Christian Democratic Union of Germany) should subordinate the [[Socialist Unity Party]]. Only in the first free elections of 1990, the CDUD merged an election alliance called "Alliance for Germany" and could win the election. On October 1 and 2 of 1990, the CDUD merged with the CDU to one party.<ref>http://www.cdu.de/artikel/geschichte</ref>

It should be noted that under Merkel's leadership, the party has moved more to the political center in recent years. Voters in Germany haven't approved of this new course: although the CDU managed to emerge as the strongest party in both the 2005 and 2009 elections, winning Merkel the chancellorship, their share of the vote was only 35,2% and 33,8%,<ref>http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/bundestagswahlen/ Official results of the 2005 and 2009 federal elections (in German)</ref> respectively. When running more to the right, as has happened under the leadership of Bavarians Franz Josef Strauss in 1980 or Edmund Stoiber in 2002, the party performed much stronger: in 1980, Strauss almost managed to win an absolute majority; in 2002, Stoiber obtained the best results the CDU has enjoyed in the current five-party-environment. Both candidates only missed the chancellorship because the left-wing social democrats could assemble majority coalitions with smaller centrist parties.

[[File:Germ-vote-2009.jpg|300px|thumb|Exit polls from Sept. 2009 election won by the conservative coalition CDU and FDP]]
The September 2009 elections were a major win for the conservative forces led by CDU Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]], breaking a stalemate and opening the way for more conservative economic policies. Previously since an indecisive election in 2005, the Christian Democrats (CDU) (on the center-right) formed a "grand coalition" with the [[SPD|Social Democrats]] (SPD) (on the center-left). Merkel and her CDU formed a coalition with the libertarian, pro-business [[Free Democratic Party|Free Democrats]] (FDP) to 2013. Left in the cold was the SPD, the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Greens]], and the ex-Communists who remain strong in the former East Germany under the name "[[The Left]]". Merkel moved forward on tax cuts, reform of the tax code, reduction of bureaucracy and a possible extension of the time that nuclear power plants can continue to operate.

In 2013 the [[Free Democratic Party]] (FDP) left the parliament.<ref>http://news.msn.com/world/merkels-party-wins-german-election-but-allies-crushed</ref> So the CDU created a "grand coalition" with the [[SPD]] again.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/17/merkel-and-center-left-rivals-agree-to-recommend-entering-formal-talks-on-new/</ref>

== Party leaders ==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name
! From
! To
|-
| [[Konrad Adenauer]]
| 1 March 1946
| 23 March 1966
|-
| [[Ludwig Erhard]]
| 23 March 1966
| 23 May 1967
|-
| [[Kurt Georg Kiesinger]]
| 23 May 1967
| 5 October 1971
|-
| [[Rainer Barzel]]
| 5 October 1971
| 12 June 1973
|-
| [[Helmut Kohl]]
| 12 June 1973
| 7 November 1998
|-
| [[Wolfgang Schäuble]]
| 7 November 1998
| 16 February 2000
|-
| [[Angela Merkel]]
| 16 February 2000
| 7 December 2018
|-
| [[Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer]]
| 7 December 2018
| ''present''
|-
|}

==Party Structure==
===Regional Party Groups===
The party has regional party groups, the federal group (''Bundesverband'', there is only one), the state group(s) (''Landesverbände'', singular: ''Landesverband''), the county group(s) (''Kreisverbände'', singular: ''Kreisverband'') and the local group(s) (''Ortsverbände'', singular: ''Ortsverband''). All local groups in a county (''Kreis'' or ''Landkreis'') are part of the county group, all county groups in a German (federal) state (''Land'' or ''Bundesland'') are part of the state group and all state groups form the federal group.

===Federal Leadership===
The present chairwoman (of the federal party group) is [[Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer]], vice-chairman are [[Volker Bouffier]] ([[Minister-President]] of the federal state of [[Hesse]]), [[Ursula von der Leyen]] (Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs), [[Julia Klöckner]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[Rhineland-Palatinate]]), [[Armin Laschet]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[North Rhine-Westphalia]]) and [[Thomas Strobl]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[Baden-Württemberg]]).

===Think Tank===
The federal party group holds a think tank called [[Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung]] (''Konrad Adenauer Foundation''), named after the first chancellor of post-[[World War II]] Germany [[Konrad Adenauer]]. The state party groups have similar foundations.

==Bavaria==
There's a special relationship between the CDU and the [[Christian Social Union of Bavaria]] (CSU). The CSU is legally a party of its own but cooperates closely with the CDU. The CSU only acts in the state of [[Bavaria]] and the CDU in the other states. The CSU is independent and has its own political structure and party platform, which differs in some positions from the CDU's one so that the CSU can be considered more conservative. The most prominent politician of the CSU was [[Franz-Josef Strauss]].

The CDU has special organizations for demographic groups ([[Young Union|youth]], women, older/retired citizens, etc.).

==Positions==
The CDU has been compared with the [[Republican Party]] in the United States. It supports a social market economy, used to oppose "equality" of homosexual pairs with traditional families (but now has given into the [[homosexual agenda]]) and is stated to support the [[USA]] and [[Israel]]. But it has also liberal views. For example, it opposes the death penalty, which is outlawed by the current German constitution.<ref>http://www.cducsu.de/Titel__todesstrafe_weltweit_aechten_und_abschaffen/TabID__6/SubTabID__7/InhaltTypID__1/InhaltID__16775/inhalte.aspx</ref> It also supports mass immigration and destructive refugee policies, the socialist and globalist [[European Union]] and open borders, and has apparently lost its Christian roots.

==Famous Party Members==
*[[Konrad Adenauer]], first chancellor of the [[Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]]
*[[Helmut Kohl]], former chancellor of Germany
*[[Angela Merkel]], present chancellor of Germany, former chairwoman of the CDU

===External links===
*[http://www.cdu.de Website of the CDU]
*[http://www.csu.de Website of the CSU]

==See also==
*[[European migrant crisis]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Political Parties in Germany]]
[[Category:Christian Democratic Union]]

1991 Persian Gulf War

2018-12-05T16:40:47Z

JoeyJ:

{{Military conflict
| image =[[Image:USAF F-16A F-15C F-15E Desert Storm pic.jpg|right|thumb|USAF F-16A, F-15C, F-15E combat aircraft flying over burning oil wells during [[Operation Desert Storm]].|300px]]
| conflict =Gulf War
| partof =
| date =August 2, 1990-March 5, 1991
| location =[[Iraq]] and [[Kuwait]]
| combatant1 =[[Iraq]]
| combatant2 =[[Kuwait]] [[USA]] [[United Kingdom]] [[Saudi-Arabia]]
| commander1 =[[Saddam Hussein]]
| commander2 =[[Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.]]
| strength1 =650.000
| strength2 =956.600
| casualties1 =20.000–35.000 deaths
| casualties2 =1.200 deaths (Kuwait), 392 deaths (others)
}}
The '''Persian Gulf War''' was started when [[Iraq]], under [[Saddam Hussein]]'s leadership, invaded [[Kuwait]] on August 2, 1990. The [[United Nations]] commanded Saddam to leave Kuwait but he rejected the idea. After much planning an international force involving the armies and air forces of, among others, the ''United States'', the [[United Kingdom]], [[France]], [[Germany]], [[Canada]] and [[South Korea]] forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait on February 28, 1991.

== See also ==
* [[Invasion of Kuwait]]
* [[Iraq War]]
* [[George H .W. Bush Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the End of the Gulf War]]
* [[Michael Speicher]]

[[Category:Gulf War| ]]
[[Category:Middle East History]]
[[Category:Wars]]
[[Category:Reagan Era]]
[[Category:Veterans]]

Paul Manafort

2018-12-05T14:45:06Z

JoeyJ: /* References */

'''Paul Manafort''' is the leading target of the [[Robert Mueller|Mueller]] investigation, apparently because he served briefly for several months as the campaign chairman for presidential candidate [[Donald Trump]] in mid-2016. Manafort has also been a lobbyist and political consultant.

Manafort is a longtime target of Clinton operatives [[Mary Jacoby]] and [[Glenn Simpson]]. Jacoby and Simpson colluded with the [[Obama]] [[FBI]] and [[Justice Department]] to commit [[fraud]] against the U.S. [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] and meddle in the [[2016 Presidential election]].<ref>
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/251897/obama-steele-dossier-russiagate</ref>

Manafort was framed in an illegal information flow from [[FusionGPS]] to [[Bruce Ohr]] and [[Andrew Weissmann]] in the [[Obamagate]] [[FISA abuse]] scandal.

==Mary Jacoby and Glenn Simpson==
During the [[2008 Presidential election]], ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'' correspondents Mary Jacoby.and Glenn Simpson reported that a consultant to [[John McCain]] hired a public-relations firm to improve the American image of a [[Ukrainian]] political party backed by Russian leader [[Vladimir Putin]], according to documents filed with the Justice Department.

Jacoby and Simpson reported "The lobbying firm of Davis Manafort Inc. arranged through an affiliate for the public-relations firm's work in the spring of 2008, at the same time Davis Manafort was being paid by McCain's presidential campaign. The firm is co-owned by lobbyist Rick Davis, manager of [[John McCain 2008 Presidential Campaign|Sen. McCain's presidential campaign]], and Republican strategist Paul Manafort."<ref>https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121072447597990171</ref>

===Jacoby and Systematics===
Mary Jacoby, the wife of [[FusionGPS]] founder Glenn Simpson, is the daughter of Jon Jacoby who arranged the purchase of an 80% share of Systematics for the Stephens family.<ref>http://www.stephensgroup.com/our-portfolio-partners/case-studies</ref> [[Hillary Clinton]] was hired by Systematics in 1978 as their intellectual property lawyer.<ref>According to The ''American Lawyer'', July 1992: "[Hillary] Clinton also was attracted to intellectual property litigation. 'We did not have any intellectual property expertise when she joined us,' says [[Vince Foster]], who adds that Clinton got involved in this area through her work for the firm client, Systematics Inc., a company based in [[Little Rock]] that provided computer systems for financial institutions. 'She became sort of self-taught in all of this,' explains Foster. 'And you don't find a lot of intellectual property subspecialists in [[Arkansas]]. Quite frankly, the rest of us here thought of it as a foreign language.'"</ref> The intellectual property that Systematics claimed to own were pirated versions of the PROMIS software stolen from [[Inslaw, Inc.]]<ref>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1992/06/14/the-inslaw-file/03b0362c-81d2-40b9-ac16-bc6a8b12dd3f/</ref>
[[File:Photo Collage-20180428 235136.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Simpson hired Nellie Ohr (left) and Christopher Steele (right) to construct the phony ''Clinton-Steele dossier''. Nellie Ohr is the wife of Obama Associate Deputy Attorney General [[Bruce Ohr]]. Bruce Ohr passed the phony dossier to the FBI, which then was used to justify inititiating an investigation of Trump associates and hoaxing the FISA court to issue surveillance warrants.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2018/07/12/strzok-trump-dossier-questions/</ref> The illegal evidence then was used by the [[Mueller team]] to indict Paul Manafort.]]
Systematics at the time was acting as a front for the [[NSA]], marketing the software worldwide to banks so the US [[intelligence community]] could monitor global [[money laundering]] transactions.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=mvq0BQAAQBAJ&pg=PT122&lpg=PT122&dq=Systematics+General+rose+law+firm&source=bl&ots=qCZ-m4fr4z&sig=rTWMLwutszQ389hz683u9qXuhao&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmuITNwpzcAhUIJXwKHYxkAOgQ6AEwCHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=Systematics%20General%20rose%20law%20firm&f=false The Oil Card: Global Economic Warfare in the 21st Century], James R. Norman, Trine Day, 2008.</ref>

===Glenn Simpson and FusionGPS===
FusionGPS was hired by Hillary Clinton to author the fraudulent ''[[Steele dossier]]'' which alleged [[Trump-Russia collusion]].<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html</ref>

The day after FusionGPS lost its contractor access to the [[FISA]] database,<ref>https://youtu.be/4G48P1cTK-E</ref> Mary Jacoby attended a meeting at the Obama [[White House]].<ref>https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/mary-jacoby-1.jpg</ref> [[Nellie Ohr]] and [[Christopher Steele]] were hired by FusionGPS to write the ''Steele dossier'' shortly afterward. The ''Steele dossier'' was used in the [[FISA abuse]] scandal.<ref>https://themarketswork.com/2018/04/16/the-fbis-private-contractors-fisa-abuse-the-steele-dossier-a-timeline/</ref>

===Neil King and Shailagh Murray===
Additionally, FusionGPS's No.2 man, [[Neil King, Jr.]], is the spouse of [[Obama]] Senior Advisor [[Shailagh Murray]].

==Trump-Russia collusion hoax==
[[File:Mueller and Yanu.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Robert Mueller (right) colluding with Ukrainian President [[Viktor Yanukovych|Victor Yanukovich]] (left). Mueller served as an errand boy for [[Hillary Clinton]] to build goodwill with Vladimir Putin for the Russian Reset.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE38943_a.html </ref> The Russian Reset was a pause in tensions for the Uranium One deal. The Clintons personally took $500,000 from Russian oligarchs in the [[Uranium One bribery scandal]], which Mueller likewise had to sign-off on.]]
During the Republican National Convention in 2016 Anne Applebaum of the ''[[Washington Post]]'' wrote a piece entitled, ''Trump presidency could destabilize Europe.'' The issue, she explained, was Trump’s positive attitude toward [[Putin]]. “The extent of the Trump-Russia business connection has already been laid out, by Franklin Foer at ''Slate'',” wrote Applebaum.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/how-a-trump-presidency-could-destabilize-europe/2016/07/21/9ec38a20-4f75-11e6-a422-83ab49ed5e6a_story.html?sw_bypass=true</ref><ref>[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/vladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_destroying_the_west_and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html]</ref> She named [[Carter Page]] and his “long-standing connections to Russian companies.” Applebaum repeats the debunked notion that the “Trump’s campaign team helped alter the Republican party platform to remove support for [[Ukraine]]” from the RNC platform.<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-how-pundits-got-key-part-of-trump-russia-story-all-wrong/article/2617802 </ref> Maybe, she hints, that was because of Trump aide Manafort’s ties to Ukrainian President [[Viktor Yanukovych|Victor Yanukovich]].

The Manafort-Yanukovich relationship is an important part of the ''[[Steele dossier]]''. So is the claim that in exchange for Russia releasing the DNC emails, “the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue.” For Applebaum, it was hard to understand why Trump would express skepticism about the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]], except to appease Putin. She referred to a recent interview in which Trump “cast doubt on the fundamental basis of transatlantic stability, NATO’s Article 5 guarantee: If Russia invades, he said, he’d have to think first before defending U.S. allies.” The talking points come directly from [[Hillary Clinton]]'s opposition research, [[FusionGPS]] and the ''Steele dossier''.

In 2017 Manafort was indicted by Special Counsel [[Robert S. Mueller]] in the [[Trump-Russia scam]]. Manafort was indicted for FARA violations and influence peddling in conjunction with the [[Podesta Group]]. The activities took place primarily during [[Hillary Clinton]]’s [[State Department]] years. Nothing in the indictments related to President Trump.

On February 22, 2018, a grand jury issued a superseding indictment for Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates. The superseding indictment does not include any reference to the Trump campaign, including no mention of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

On September 14, 2018 Manafort plead guilty in money laundering and tax evasion schemes while employed by Sen. [[John McCain]].<ref>https://www.circa.com/story/2017/06/21/heres-the-russia-influence-controversy-that-john-mccain-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about</ref>

==See also==
*[[John Podesta]]
*[[Tony Podesta]]
*[[U1]]
*[[Andrew McCabe]]
*[[Andrew Weissmann]]
*[[Oleg Deripaska]]
*[[Lisa Page]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:2000s]]
[[Category:2010s]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Criminals]]

George Orwell

2018-12-05T14:29:00Z

JoeyJ: Reverted edits by Sir Thomas Elder (talk) to last revision by Aschlafly

[[Image:Hgdctuy6.jpg|right|thumb|George Orwell (Eric Blair)]]
'''George Orwell''' is the pen name of '''Eric Arthur Blair''' (June 25, 1903 - January 21, 1950), a leading and [[Essay:Quantifying Openmindedness|open-minded]] English writer, essayist and journalist who became critical of his ideological allies on the [[Left]]. He hated [[imperialism]]<ref>"I went to Burma and joined the Indian Imperial Police. This was an armed police, a sort of gendarmerie very similar to the Spanish Guardia Civil or the Garde Mobile in France. I stayed five years in the service. It did not suit me and made me hate imperialism" [http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/ukrainian-af-pref.htm]</ref> and grew increasingly [[conservative]], adopting and raising a child and becoming a member of the [[Church of England]].<ref>"There are nevertheless four aspects of Orwell's later work which are more closely linked to conservative than to left-wing styles of thinking." [http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/document.html?id=1391]</ref> The tension between the increasingly conservative Orwell and the perception of him as a democratic socialist may account for some of his interesting word inventions like "doublethink". Because of his prominent liberal past, Orwell's conservative writings were accepted and praised by the clueless liberal intelligentsia.

"Orwellian" is a term in tribute to his mockery of political attempts to control and redefine terminology.

Unlike most writers, Orwell's greatest works came late in his life. He harshly criticized [[communism]] and [[totalitarianism]] in ''[[1984]]'', his finest novel, as well as in his shorter fictional work ''[[Animal Farm]]'', an allegorical reference to the [[Russian Revolution]]. These works were far more significant than his first novel, based on his experiences on the Imperial Police Force in Burma, ''Burmese Dаys'', which explored the evils of coloniаlism. His highly influential essay, "Politics in the English Language," attacked the [[liberal obfuscation]] which was already present in his day, and championed clear speech.

The inspiration for Orwell's growth into conservatism remains unexplored. Likely reasons include his open-mindedness, his adopting and then raising (due to his wife's untimely death) a child, and his disillusionment with Leftists while fighting on their side in [[Spain]].

== Biography ==
Orwell's political views began to move away from the [[far left]] when he volunteered to fight the Spanish [[Nationalist]] forces to keep them from overturning the [[Soviet]]-backed revolutionary socialist government of Spain<ref>"Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of state archives in Moscow, scholarship has considerably darkened the view of the Communist role in Republican Spain.... [The] Spanish government... was in no serious sense democratic.... [I]t was composed largely of revolutionary parties that showed no willingness to allow the right wing a political future in Spain, and it was extremely brutal in its treatment of clerics, landowners, and suspected Fascists.... [It] was probably headed toward Soviet-style totalitarianism before Franco ever launched his rebellion.... Stalin was among the Spanish government’s first arms suppliers of choice." George Packer, "[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/31/051031crbo_books#ixzz0mOubjsda The Spanish Prisoner]," ''The New Yorker'', October 31, 2005. Cf. Stanley G. Payne, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mmfv1Z4Z18YC The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism]'' (Yale University Press, 2004) ISBN 030010068X</ref> in the [[Spаnish Civil War]] (1936-1939). He enlisted in the POUM (In English, Workers Party for Marxist Unity) Militia, and saw action on the Aragon front, where he fought side by side with Anаrchists and Communists, as well as Republican regulars.

He became disillusioned with the Spanish government's policy of withholding arms from the POUM and the Anarchists, which he saw as an attempt by the Communists to water down the revolutionary nature of the Anti-Fascist resistance, and centralize power in the hands of the Moscow-backed Communist Party. Taking a bullet through his neck but surviving, Orwell was invalided to Barcelona, where he witnessed the [[Stalin]]ist repression of [[Trotsky]]ist and [[Anarchist]] parties. Orwell and his wife were forced to escape from Spain as fugitives, after the POUM was banned by the increasingly repressive regime.

Despite his persecution, Orwell initially continued to support the Republic upon his return to England, viewing a Communist-dominated Spain as better than a Nationalist Spain. He recounted his experiences in Spain in the book ''Homage to Catalonia''.<ref>[http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/index.html]</ref> He remained a socialist, and was for a time in the late 1930s a member of the Independent Labour Party, although he split from the ILP over its opposition to [[World War II]]. Orwell served in the Home Guаrd during the war.

In 1941, Orwell wrote his essay “The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius”, in which he summarized Britain’s wartime situation, and expressed his political opinions. He called for a particularly English form of socialism, which would democratically replace the capitalist model and create a fairer society, while being informed by the most attractive English characteristics, such as love of privacy and law abidance.

Orwell had only ten years left in his life when he returned. During that period he and his wife adopted a baby boy, but Orwell's wife died shortly thereafter.

In those ten years Orwell wrote his famous [[anti-Communist]] fictional works, demonstrating how much his views had moved to the right from his youth. First he spent three years writing ''Animаl Farm'' (1944), and then perhaps five years on the longer novel ''1984'' (1949). Orwell continued to espouse forms of [[socialism]]<ref>[http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/eaip_03]</ref> right up to his death, but utilized his position as a regular columnist for the left-labor ''Tribune'' paper to strongly criticize the USSR. Such criticism was unusual for a [[left-wing]]er of the period, but Orwell was so well respected that his position was secure. "I belong to the left and must work with it," he declared in 1945.<ref>http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/document.html?id=1391</ref> He died of [[tuberculosis]] in 1950.

==Quotes==

*"In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

*"For the future. For the unborn."

*"Truth is treason in an empire of lies."

*"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia."<ref>http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm</ref>

*"It cannot be said too often— at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough— that [[collectivism]] is not inherently [[democratic]], but, on the contrary, gives to a [[tyranny|tyrannical]] minority such powers as the [[Spanish Inquisition|Spanish Inquisitors]] never dreamt of."<ref>George Orwell, "Review, ''The Road to Serfdom'' by F. A. Hayek," The London ''Observer'', April 9, 1944, reprinted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=fCRLPIbLP8IC The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 3: As I Please, 1943-1945]'' (London: David R. Godine Publisher, 2000) ISBN 1567921353, p. 118</ref>

*"To this day it gives me a faint feeling of sacrilege not to stand to attention during ‘God save the King’. That is childish, of course, but I would sooner have had that kind of upbringing than be like the [[left-wing]] intellectuals who are so ‘enlightened’ that they cannot understand the most ordinary emotions."<ref>George Orwell, "My Country, Right or Left," ''New Folios of Writing'', Autumn 1940, reprinted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=0j2qODEJkdoC ''The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 1: An age like this, 1920-1940]'' (London: David R. Godine Publisher, 2000) ISBN 1567921337, p. 540</ref>

*"It is all very well to be 'advanced' and 'enlightened,' to snigger at Colonel Blimp and proclaim your emancipation from all traditional loyalties, but a time comes when the sand of the desert is sodden red and what have I done for thee, England, my England? As I was brought up in this tradition myself I can recognise it under strange disguises, and also sympathise with it, for even at its stupidest and most sentimental it is a comelier thing than the shallow self-righteousness of the left-wing intelligentsia."<ref>George Orwell, "The Limit to Pessimism," ''New English Weekly'', April 25, 1940, reprinted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=0j2qODEJkdoC ''The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 1: An age like this, 1920-1940]'' (London: David R. Godine Publisher, 2000) ISBN 1567921337, p. 535</ref>

*"One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words '[[Socialism]]' and '[[Communism]]' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, [[pacifist]] and [[feminist]] in England."<ref>George Orwell, ''[http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1259.pdf The Road to Wigan Pier]'' (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937), p. 115</ref>

*"The truth is that to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which 'we,' the clever ones, are going to impose upon 'them,' the Lower Orders."<ref>George Orwell, ''[http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1259.pdf The Road to Wigan Pier]'' (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937), p. 119</ref>

*"[T]he intellectual, book-trained Socialist... is drawn... entirely from... a rootless town-bred section of the middle class.... [I]t includes—so much so that to an outsider it even appears to be composed of—... the foaming denouncers of the bourgeoisie, and the more-water-in-your-beer reformers of whom [[George Bernard Shaw|Shaw]] is the prototype, and the astute young social-literary climbers who are Communists now, as they will be Fascists five years hence, because it is all the go, and all that dreary tribe of highminded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat."<ref>George Orwell, ''[http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1259.pdf The Road to Wigan Pier]'' (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937), p. 121</ref>

*"If only the sandals and pistachio-colored shirts could be put in a pile and burnt, and every vegetarian, [[teetotalism|teetotaler]] and creeping Jesus sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly. As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents."<ref>George Orwell, ''[http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1259.pdf The Road to Wigan Pier]'' (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937), p. 147</ref>

*"The word ''[[Fascism]]'' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable'.... Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism?"<ref>George Orwell, "[http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Politics and the English Language]," ''Horizon'', vol. 13, issue 76 (April 1946), reprinted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=0j2qODEJkdoC ''The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 4: In Front of Your Nose, 1946-1950]'' (London: David R. Godine Publisher, 2000) ISBN 1567921337, pp. 132-139</ref>

*"[T]here is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of [[Western]] [[democracy]] and admiration for [[totalitarianism]]. Pacifist [[propaganda]] usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against [[Britain]] and the [[United States]]."<ref>George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism," ''Polemic'', October 1945, reprinted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=fCRLPIbLP8IC The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 3: As I Please, 1943-1945]'' (London: David R. Godine Publisher, 2000) ISBN 1567921353, p. 374</ref>

*"Fifteen years ago, when one defended the freedom of the intellect, one had to defend it against [[Conservative]]s, against [[Catholic]]s, and to some extent—for they were not of great importance in England—against Fascists. Today one has to defend it against [[Communist]]s and ‘fellow travellers’"<ref>George Orwell, "The Prevention of Literature," ''Polemic'', No. 2 (January 1946), reprinted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zaxG_3ivhVAC The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 4: In Front of Your Nose, 1946-1950]'' (London: David R. Godine Publisher, 2000) ISBN 1567921361, p. 62</ref>

*"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

*"The [[nationalist]] not only does not disapprove of [[mass murder|atrocities]] committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

*"Every line of serious work I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, ''against'' [[totalitarianism]] and ''for'' [[democratic socialism]], as I understand it."<ref>Huneke, Samuel (February 16, 2016). [http://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2016/02/16/pr-orwell-alex-woloch-021516/ Stanford professor uncovers roots of George Orwell's political language]. ''Stanford''. Retrieved June 25, 2017.</ref>

*"Up to 1930 I did not on the whole look upon myself as a Socialist. In fact I had as yet no clearly defined political views. I became pro-Socialist more out of disgust with the way the poorer section of the industrial workers were oppressed and neglected than out of any theoretical admiration for a planned society."<ref>http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/ukrainian-af-pref.htm</ref>

*"I have no particular love for the idealized 'worker' as he appears in the [[bourgeois]] Communist's mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the [[police]]man, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on."

*"If [[liberty]] means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

==Bibliography==
===Books===
*[http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London/english/ ''Down and Out in Paris and London''] (1933)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Burmese_Days/ ''Burmese Days''] (1934)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/novels/A_Clergymans_Daughter/ ''A Clergyman's Daughter''] (1935)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Keep_the_Aspidistra_Flying/ ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying''] (1936)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/novels/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/ ''The Road to Wigan Pier''] (1937)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Homage_to_Catalonia/ ''Homage to Catalonia''] (1938)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Coming_up_for_Air/ ''Coming Up for Air''] (1939)
*''[[Animal Farm]]'' (1945)
*''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' (1949)

===Essays===
*[http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/spike.htm ''The Spike''] (1931)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/articles/hanging/ '' A Hanging''] (1931)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/articles/elephant/ ''Shooting An Elephant''] (1936)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dickens/ ''Charles Dickens''] (1939)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/boys/ ''Boys' Weeklies''] (1940)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/whale/ ''Inside The Whale''] (1940)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/ ''The Lion and The Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius''] (1941)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/wells/ ''Wells, Hitler and the World State''] (1941)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/McGill/ ''The art of donald McGill''] (1941)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/Spanish_War/ ''Looking back on the Spanish War''] (1943)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/yeats/ ''W. B. Yeats''] (1943)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dali/ ''Benefit of Clergy: Some notes on Salvador Dali''] (1944)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/koestler/ ''Arthur Koestler''] (1944)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/ ''Notes on Nationalism''] (1945)
*[http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/nicecupoftea.htm ''A Nice Cup of Tea''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/articles/Poor_Die/ ''How The Poor Die''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/swift/ ''Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/ ''Politics and the English Language''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/burnham/ ''Second Thoughts on James Burnham''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/articles/decline/ ''Decline of the English Murder''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/articles/Common_Toad/ ''Some Thoughts on the Common Toad''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/vicar/ ''A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/plum/ ''In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/ ''Why I Write''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/prevention/ ''The Prevention of Literature''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/ ''Such, Such Were the Joys''] (1946)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/ ''Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool''] (1947)
*[http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/gandhi/ ''Reflections on Gandhi''] (1949)
*[http://www.george-orwell.org/Bookshop_Memories/0.html ''Bookshop Memories''] (1936)
*[http://www.whitebeertravels.co.uk/orwell ''The Moon Under Water''] (1946)

===Poetry===
*Romance
*A Little Poem
*Awake! Young Men of England
*Kitchener
*Our Minds are Married, But we are Too Young
*The Pagan
*The Lesser Evil
*Poem From Burma

=== See Also ===
* [[Mystery:Did George Orwell Become a Conservative?]]
* [[Big government]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[Nanny state]], leads to [[Police state]]
* [[Liberal totalitarianism]]
* [[Brave New World]] by [[Aldous Huxley]]
* [[Nineteen Eighty-Four]] by George Orwell
* [[We]] by Yevgeny Zamyatin
* [[Animal Farm]] - [[Anti-Communist|anti-Stalinist]] "fairy story" by George Orwell
* [[Atlas Shrugged]] by [[Ayn Rand]]
* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,926380-6,00.html That Year Is Almost Here] by Paul Gray, Time Online.

==References==
{{reflist|1}}

==External links==
* [https://librivox.org/author/1537 Works by George Orwell - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]

{{Conservatism}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orwell, George}}

[[Category:American Authors]]
[[Category:Conservatism]]
[[Category:British History]]
[[Category:Totalitarianism]]
[[Category:Police State]]
[[Category:Welfare State]]
[[Category:Dystopian Fiction]]
[[Category:Anti-Communism]]

Golan Heights

2018-11-25T14:33:15Z

JoeyJ:

[[File:The Golan, Syria.jpg|thumb|The Druze village of Ein Qiniyye in the Golan Heights]]
The '''Golan Heights''' ([[Hebrew]]: '''רמת הגולן''' ) ([[Arabic]]:'''هضبة الجولان''') is a plateau on the border of four rival countries in the [[Middle East]]: [[Israel]], [[Lebanon]], [[Jordan]] and [[Syria]].

== History ==
[[File:Ruined Syrian Fortifications on Golan Heights from Six-Day War.jpg|thumb|Remains of a Syrian fortification on the Golan Heights. After the Six-Day War, the [[Israeli Defense Forces]] turned it into a memorial to their fallen.]]
From 1948 to 1967 the Golan Heights were controlled by Syria, which used the region to fire at the Israeli communities below and forced their residents to sleep in bomb shelters.<ref>https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262643/muslim-countries-slam-israel%E2%80%94-protecting-them-p-david-hornik</ref> Attempts to protest the Syrian bombardments to the UN Mixed Armistice Commission remained unsuccessful. In October 1966 Israel demanded at the [[United Nations]] a stop of the ongoing terrorist attacks of the [[Fatah]] which operated from the Golan Heights. The Syrian ambassador responded to this demand by declaring "It is not our duty to stop them, but to encourage and strengthen them".<ref>[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-the-golan-heights Golan Heights: History & Overview]</ref>

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in both the [[Six-Day War]] (1967) and the [[Yom Kippur War]] (1973). Syria insists that the Golan Heights are part of the governorate of al Qunaytirah, and [[United Nations]] Resolution 242, unanimously adopted by the [[United Nations]] Security Council on 22 November 1967 takes the position that Israel should withdraw from the territory, along with all other territories that it occupied during the [[Six Day War]].

Israel disagrees with this position, mainly for tactical reasons: if returned, the Golan Heights elevation (at 9,232 feet, or 2,184 meters, above sea level at its highest point) would allow enemies to launch missiles downward on Jerusalem (which sits at only 2,474 feet, or 754 meters, above sea level). Furthermore, it provides 15% of Israel's fresh water supply (the headwaters of the Jordan River are located there), providing enemies another tactical advantage.

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Israel]]

Raul Castro

2018-11-18T20:12:20Z

JoeyJ:

{{Dictator bio
| image =[[Image:Raul Castro.jpg|200px]]
| name =Raul Castro
| birth =june 3, 1931 Birán, Oriente Province, [[Cuba]]
| parents =Angel Castro y Argiz Lina Ruz González (out of wedlock)
| religion =Atheist
| education =Jesuit School of Colegio Dolores
| spouse =Vilma Espín
| children =
| death =
| deathmanner =
| burial =
| country =Cuba
| military =26th of July Movement (guerrilla organization)
| rank =n/a
| polbeliefs =[[Socialism]] [[Communism]]
| party =[[Communist Party of Cuba]]
| dictatordate =February, 2008-April 2018
| war =
| deathnumber =
}}
'''Raul Castro''' (born 3 June 1931) is the younger brother of [[Fidel Castro]], and succeeded his brother as President of [[Cuba]] in 2008, having acted as de facto president since 2006. He was not elected to this position. He had previously been head of the Cuban armed forces. Castro was an [[Atheism|atheist]] [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] dictator. On April 19, 2018 Castro was succeeded by [[Miguel Díaz-Canel]] as president.<ref>http://video.foxnews.com/v/5773272460001/</ref>

People still faced serious persecution under Castro's regime if they criticized the deceased Fidel Castro, as in the example of a Christian leader who was arrested in March 2017 and sentenced to three years in prison, a few months after his young children were arrested.<ref>Martel, Frances (March 22, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/03/22/cuba-christian-leader-receives-3-year-prison-sentence-for-anti-castro-comments/ Cuba: Christian Leader Receives 3-Year Prison Sentence for Anti-Castro Comments]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved March 23, 2017.</ref>

==See also==
* [[Friendly dictator]]
* [[List of Communist States]]
* [[List of Socialist States]]
* [[Death toll of communism]]
* [[Liberal totalitarianism]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Raul}}
[[Category:Heads of State]]
[[Category:Cuba]]
[[Category:Communists]]
[[Category:Dictators]]
[[Category:Atheists]]

Iran

2018-11-18T20:05:53Z

JoeyJ: /* See also */

{{Country
|name = جمهوری اسلامی ايران'' Jomhūrī-ye Eslāmī-ye Īrān''
|map =Iran rel 2001.jpg
|map2 =Iran location.png
|flag =800px-Flag of Iran svg.png
|arms =Arms of Iran.png
|capital =Tehran
|capital-raw =
|government =Islamic Republic
|government-raw =
|language =Persian (Farsi)
|king =
|queen =
|monarch-raw =
|president = Hassan Rouhani
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =
|pm-raw =
|area =636,372 sq. mi.
|pop =77,891,000
|pop-basis =2011
|gdp =$610 billion
|gdp-year =2006
|gdp-pc =$8,700
|currency =Iranian rial
|idd =
|tld =
}}
'''Iran''', officially the '''Islamic Republic of Iran''' (جمهوری اسلامی ايران) is an Islamic theocratic republic in southwest [[Asia]]. Its capital is [[Tehran]] and its official language is Farsi. A historical name for Iran was "'''Persia, '''" which is also the name of the dominant ethnic group. Iran is suspected by [[Israel]] and her western allies of pursuing nuclear weapons to gain a strategic advantage in a regional cold war against Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia. Israel also accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons for use against Israel, which is hotly denied by Iran's government which claims the program is to be used for peaceful purposes, requiring the enrichment of [[uranium]].

==People==
Iran is not a pluralistic society, but does have little diversity. Persians are the largest predominant ethnic and cultural group in this country, though many are actually of mixed ancestry. The population of the country has important Turkic elements (e.g., Azeris) and Arabs predominate in the southwest. In addition, Iranian citizens include Kurds, Balochi, Bakhtyari, Lurs, and other smaller minorities, such as Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, and Brahuis (or Brohi).
*Population (2007): 65.4 million.
*Population growth rate (2007 est.): 0.663%.
*Ethnic groups: Persians 51%, Azeri 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1%.
*Religions: Shi'a Muslim 89%; Sunni Muslim 9%; Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i 2%.
*Languages: Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic languages (besides Turkish) 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%, Turkish 1%, other 2%.
*Education: Literacy (total population age 15 and over who can read and write, 2003)--79% (male: 86%, female: 73%).
*Health (2007 est.): Infant mortality rate—38.2 deaths/1,000 live births. Life expectancy at birth (2007)--total population: 70.56 yrs.

[[File:Iran.jpg|thumb|left|[[Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini]].]]
[[File:Persian women from Shiraz Iran.jpg|thumb|Persian women from Shiraz.]]
The 1979 Islamic revolution and the 1980-88 war with Iraq transformed Iran's class structure politically, socially, and economically. During this period, [[Shia]] clerics took a more dominant position in politics and nearly all aspects of Iranian life, both urban and rural. After the fall of the Pahlavi regime in 1979, much of the urban upper class of prominent merchants, industrialists, and professionals, favored by the former monarch, the shah, lost standing and influence to the senior clergy and their supporters. Bazaar merchants, who were allied with the clergy against the Pahlavi shahs, also have gained political and economic power since the revolution. The urban working class has enjoyed somewhat enhanced status and economic mobility, spurred in part by opportunities provided by revolutionary organizations and the government bureaucracy. Though the number of clergy holding senior positions in the parliament and elsewhere in government has declined since the 1979 revolution, Iran has nevertheless witnessed the rise of a post-revolutionary elite among lay people who are strongly committed to the preservation of the Islamic Republic.

Most Iranians are Muslims; 89% belong to the Shi'a branch of Islam, the official state religion, and about 9% belong to the [[Sunni]] branch, which predominates in neighboring Muslim countries. Non-Muslim minorities include [[Zoroastrian]]s, [[Jew]]s, Baha'is, and [[Christian]]s.

==Government==
[[Image:Iran population density 2004.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Population density]]
The December 1979 Iranian constitution defines the political, economic, and social order of the Islamic republic. The document establishes Shi'a Islam of the Twelver (Jaafari) sect as Iran's official religion. Sunni Islam, [[Zoroastrianism]], [[Judaism]] and Christianity are the only other recognized, legal minority religions. But Iran is the eighth country on the World Watch List of [[Open Doors]]. The country is governed by secular and religious leaders through governing bodies, whose duties often overlap. (See also:[[Christians in Iran]])

The Supreme Leader holds power for life unless removed by the Assembly of Experts. He has final say on all domestic, foreign, and security policies for Iran, though he establishes and supervises those policies in consultation with the Expediency Council. The Leader is the final arbiter on all differences or disputes among the various branches of government. He appoints officials to key positions including the head of judiciary and the 12 members of the Guardian Council (six directly, six indirectly). He has power to remove the president and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

The constitution stipulates that the Assembly of Experts, which currently consists of the 86 popularly-elected clerics elected to 8-year terms, chooses the Supreme Leader based on jurisprudent qualifications and commitment to the principles of the revolution. The Assembly of Experts reviews his performance periodically and has the power to depose and replace him. Pragmatic conservative candidates generally polled better than their hardline conservative opponents during the December 15, 2006 elections to the Assembly of Experts. (Turnout for this vote, which coincided with municipal council elections, was quite high, topping 60%.) Citizens will not vote for representatives to the Assembly again until 2014.

The Council of Guardians consists of 12 persons. The Supreme Leader appoints the six religious members of the Council of Guardians while the Iranian parliament, the Majles, selects the six lay members from candidates recommended by the judiciary, which is in turn selected by the Supreme Leader. The non-clerics play a role only in determining whether legislation before the [[Majles]] conforms to Iran's constitution. The religious members, on the other hand, take part in all deliberations, considering all bills for conformity to Islamic principles. The Council of Guardians can veto any law. This body also certifies the competence of candidates for the presidency, the Assembly of Experts, and the Majles.

The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran is elected by universal suffrage to a 4-year term. The president supervises the affairs of the executive branch, appointing and supervising the Council of Ministers (members of the cabinet), coordinating government decisions, and selecting government policies to be placed before the National Assembly.
[[File:Tehran Milad Tower Iran.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Milad Tower, Tehran.]]
The Majles, or National Assembly, consists of 290 members elected to 4-year terms. The members of the legislature are elected by direct and secret ballot from among the candidates approved by the Council of Guardians.

In 1988, Ayatollah Khomeini created the Council for Expediency, which resolves legislative issues on which the Majles and the Council of Guardians fail to reach an agreement. Since 1989, it has been used to advise the national religious leader on matters of national policy as well. It is composed of the president, the speaker of the Majles, the judiciary chief, the clerical members of the Council of Guardians, and other members appointed by the Supreme Leader for 3-year terms. Cabinet members and Majles committee chairs also serve as temporary members when issues under their jurisdictions are considered. In 2005, it was announced that the Expediency Council, which now has over 40 members, would have responsibility for general supervision of the system, though that has not resulted in any noticeable change in this institution's day-to-day authority or operations.

Judicial authority is constitutionally vested in the Supreme Court and the four-member High Council of the Judiciary; these are two separate groups with overlapping responsibilities and have one head. Together, they are responsible for supervising the enforcement of all laws and for establishing judicial and legal policies.

Iran has two military forces. The national military is charged with defending Iran's borders, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is charged mainly with maintaining internal security.

Iran has 30 provinces managed by an appointed governor general. The provinces are further divided into counties, districts, and villages. Sixty percent of eligible voters took part in the first ever municipal and local council elections in 1999, though a lower percentage went to the polls in the second round in 2003. Turnout during the December 15, 2006 elections, during which citizens also elected Assembly of Expert representatives, was over 60%. The local councils select mayors.

The March 2008 elections resulted in the conservatives getting a significant lead in the polls, with Conservative politician Shahabeddin Sadr saying that, during early counting, 70 per cent of winners were "principlists" - a label conservatives use to describe their loyalty to the Islamic Republic's ideals.<ref>[http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/15/2190618.htm Conservatives forge ahead in Iran parliament vote], [[ABC Online]], 15 March 2008</ref>

===Principal Government Officials===
[[File:Hassan Rouhani.jpg|thumb|President [[Hassan Rouhani]]]]
*Leader of the Islamic Revolution—Ali Hosseini-Khamenei
*President—Hassan Rouhani
*First Vice President—Eshaq Jahangiri
*Foreign Minister—Mohammad Javad Zarif
*Ambassador to the United Nations—Gholamali Khoshroo

===Political Conditions===
[[Image:Iran ethnoreligious distribution 2004.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Ethnoreligious distribution]]
Iran's post-revolution difficulties have included an 8-year war with Iraq, internal political struggles and unrest, and economic disorder. The early days of the regime were characterized by severe human rights violations and political turmoil, including the seizure of the U.S. Embassy compound and its occupants on 4 November 1979, by Iranian student militants. Iranian authorities released the 52 hostages only after 444 days of captivity.

By mid-1982, the clergy had won a succession of post-Revolution power struggles that eliminated first the center of the political spectrum and then the leftists, including the communist Tudeh party and the cult-like Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO). Assassinations, throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil, and other acts of violence punctuated this period. There has been some moderation of excesses since the early days of the revolution, and the country experienced a partial "thaw" in terms of political and social freedoms during the tenure of former president Khatami, but serious problems remained. The administration of former President Ahmadi-Nejad had witnessed a crackdown on Iranian civil society, continued human rights violations, and worsening constraints on press freedom and civil liberties. Current president [[Hassan Rouhani]] did not changed anything.

The Islamic Republican Party (IRP) was Iran's sole political party until its [[dissolution]] in 1987. Iran now has a variety of groups engaged in political activity; some are oriented along ideological lines or based on an identity group, others are more akin to professional political parties seeking members and recommending candidates for office. Some have been active participants in the Revolution's political life while others reject the state. Conservatives consistently thwarted the efforts of reformists during the Khatami era and have consolidated their control on power since the flawed elections for the seventh Majles in 2004 and president Ahmadi-Nejad's victory in 2005. The party of Khamenei is the Combatant Clergy Association. President [[Hassan Rouhani]] is a member of it.

The Iranian Government has faced armed opposition from a number of groups, including the MEK (which the U.S. Government added to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 1999), the People's Fedayeen, and the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).

===Foreign Relations===
Khomeini's revolutionary regime initiated sharp changes from the foreign policy pursued by the Shah, particularly in reversing the country's orientation toward the West. In the Middle East, Iran's only significant ally has been [[Syria]], but Iran has made strides in improving relations with its Gulf neighbors, particularly [[Saudi Arabia]].
[[File:Ayatollah Abdolhussein Moezi.JPG|thumb|Ayatollah Abdolhussein Moezi.]]
Iran's foreign relations are based on sometimes competing objectives. Iran's pragmatic foreign policy goals include, not surprisingly, protecting itself from external threats and building trade ties. Iran has additionally been accused, however, of trying to export its fundamentalist revolution to other countries, sometimes supporting terrorist organizations, and its vehement anti-U.S. and anti-Israel stances are well-known. Senior Iranian officials directed Hezbollah to carry out the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA, the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) building in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, killing 85 people and wounding scores of others. Out of the eight individuals indicted by the Government of Argentina in October 2006, the Interpol Executive Committee has recommended the issuance of Red Notices (international arrest warrants) against six: five former or current Iranian officials and one Lebanese Hezbollah leader.

In September 1980, during the U.S. hostage crisis, Iraq invaded Iran to take control of the waterway between the two countries, the Shatt al-Arab, although the conflict's underlying causes included each nation's overt desire for the overthrow of the other's government. Iran defended itself and demanded the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Iranian territory and the return to the status quo ante for the Shatt al-Arab as established under the 1975 Algiers Agreement signed by Iraq and Iran. Khomeini's government turned down an Iraqi cease-fire proposal in 1982, making a new demand for Saddam Hussein's removal as well. After eight punishing years of war, in July 1988, Iran at last agreed to UN Security Council Resolution 598 and the cease-fire was implemented on August 20, 1988. Neither nation had made any real gains in the war.
[[File:Chavez ahmad.jpg|thumb|left|290px|[[Hugo Chavez]] and former president Ahmadineyad.]]
Iran's relations with many of its Arab neighbors have been strained by Iranian attempts to spread its Islamic revolution, a strictly ideological goal. In 1981, Iran supported a plot to overthrow the [[Bahrain Government]]. In 1983, Iran expressed support for Shi'ites who bombed Western embassies in Kuwait, and in 1987, Iranian pilgrims rioted during the hajj (pilgrimage) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Nations with strong fundamentalist movements, such as Egypt and Algeria, also mistrust Iran. Iran backs Hezbollah (in Lebanon), Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of [[Palestine]]-General Command, all of which are violently opposed to the Arab-Israeli peace process. In contrast, while relations with west European nations have been uneven, they have been driven primarily by pragmatic goals of trade and security. Iran has accepted stronger commercial ties but largely declined to deliver on key European political concerns such as human rights and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) acquisition efforts, particularly in the nuclear field, where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been strongly critical of Iran.

An IAEA report in November 2003 provided evidence that Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), had concealed secret nuclear activities for 18 years. Under international pressure, Iran signed the Additional Protocol to the Safeguards Agreement on December 18, 2003, agreeing to suspend all uranium-enrichment and reprocessing activities voluntarily, as well as cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in resolving questions regarding Iran's nuclear program. In June 2004, the IAEA rebuked Iran for failing to fully cooperate with an inquiry into its nuclear activities, and in November 2004, Iran agreed to suspend most of its uranium enrichment under a deal with the EU. That promise did not last, however, and since then concerns over Iran's nuclear activities have increased.

On June 6, 2006, [[China]], [[France]], [[Germany]], [[Russia]], the [[United States]], and [[United Kingdom]] offered Iran a substantial package of economic cooperation and assistance. Tehran, however, was first required to come into compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines on its nuclear program, suspending its [[uranium]] enrichment program. On July 31, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1696 on the Iranian nuclear question, requiring Iran to suspend all activities related to enrichment and reprocessing, including research and development, as demanded by the IAEA, or else face possible sanctions. Tehran defied the UN Security Council (UNSC) deadline of August 31, leading to the passage of UNSC Resolution 1636 in December 2006 and, as Iran continued to balk, Resolution 1747 in March 2007.
[[File:Iran Pakistan India gas pipeline.JPG|thumb|300px|Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.]]
Iran sparked an international controversy when its forces seized and held hostage 15 British sailors and marines, conducting routine anti-smuggling operations in Iraqi territorial waters under UN mandate, on March 23, 2007. Tehran released the U.K. service members on April 6.

Iran maintains regular diplomatic and commercial relations with Russia and the former Soviet republics. Both Iran and Russia believe they have important national interests at stake in developments in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus, particularly regarding energy resources from the Caspian Sea. Russian and other sales of military equipment and technology to Iran concern Iran's neighbors and the United States. Washington is also concerned about Russian assistance in building at nuclear facility at Bushehr.

Iran spends about 3.3% of its GDP on its military. Iran's military consists of both a national military held over from the shah's government and the IRGC, each with its own ground, naval and air branches. The Iran-Iraq war took a heavy toll on these military forces. Iran is trying to modernize its military, including ballistic missile programs, and acquire weapons of mass destruction; it continues to seek nuclear capabilities. On November 7, 2007, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had 3,000 centrifuges operating in its uranium enrichment program, which would be enough to produce a nuclear weapon.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308903,00.html</ref> However, a December, 2007 U.S. intelligence report stated that Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003, and remains on hold. According to the National Intelligence Estimate, "We do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."<ref>[http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071203/ts_nm/iran_usa_dc Report contradicts Bush on Iran nuclean program]</ref>

===Support for terrorism===
The Iranian government supports and funds [[Islamic terrorist]] organizations in various countries, doing so since the Islamic revolution in 1979.<ref>Nazarian, Adelle (October 13, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/10/13/brief-timeline-iran-sponsored-terrorism-since-1979/ A Brief Timeline of Iran-Sponsored Terrorism Since 1979]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved October 13, 2017.</ref> The U.S. Department of State labels Iran as a leading state sponsor of terror.<ref>Lee, Matthew (July 19, 2017). [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/iran-still-top-state-sponsor-terrorism-u-s-report-says/ Iran still top state sponsor of terrorism, U.S. report says]. ''PBS'' (from the ''Associated Press''). Retrieved October 13, 2017.</ref>

===Relations with the United States===
[[File:US Iran.gif|right]]
On November 4, 1979, militant Iranian students occupied the American Embassy in Tehran with the support of Ayatollah Khomeini. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. On April 7, 1980, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran, and on April 24, 1981, the Swiss Government assumed representation of U.S. interests in Tehran. Iranian interests in the United States are represented by the Government of Pakistan. The Islamic Republic of Iran does not have its own embassy in Washington, though it does have a permanent mission to the United Nations in New York City.

In accordance with the Algiers declaration of January 20, 1981, the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal (located in The Hague, Netherlands) was established for the purpose of handling claims of U.S. nationals against Iran and of Iranian nationals against the United States. U.S. contact with Iran through The Hague covers only legal matters.

The U.S. Government, by Executive Orders issued by the President as well as by Congressional legislation, prohibits most trade with Iran. Some sanctions were imposed on Iran because Tehran is a state sponsor of terrorism, others because of the nuclear [[proliferation]] issues, and still more for human rights violations, including infringement of religious freedom. The commercial relations that do exist between the two countries consist mainly of Iranian purchases of food and medical products and U.S. imports of carpets and food. Some sanctions were temporarily waived in the wake of the devastating Bam earthquake of December 2003. U.S. officials and relief workers actively assisted in relief and reconstruction efforts.

There are serious obstacles to improved relations between the two countries. As a state sponsor of terrorism, Iran remains an impediment to international efforts to locate and prosecute terrorists. Recent attempts by Iran to form loose alliances with anti-U.S. governments in the Western Hemisphere, such as the Venezuelan Government, has further heightened concern about Iran's support for terrorism and nuclear ambitions. Operation Iraqi Freedom removed the Iranian Government's greatest security threat, but officially Iran remained neutral about U.S. policy, sometimes strongly condemning American policies and actions in Iraq. Iran has cultural ties to elements of the populations of both Iraq and Afghanistan. It has made some positive contributions to stability in both countries, but other actions have had the opposite effect. It remains to be seen whether Tehran will ultimately be a constructive force in the reconstruction of its two neighbors or not.

The U.S. Government defines its areas of objectionable Iranian behavior as the following:
*Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction;
*Its support for and involvement in international terrorism;
*Its support for violent opposition to the Middle East peace process, as well as its harmful activities particularly in Lebanon, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the region; and
*Its dismal human rights record and lack of respect for its own people.

The United States has held discussions with Iranian representatives on particular issues of concern over the years. U.S. and Iranian envoys cooperated during operations to overthrow the Taliban in 2001 and during the Bonn Conference in 2002 that established a broad-based government for the Afghan people under President Karzai. The Secretary of State, her Iranian counterpart, and others met at talks on Iraq in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on May 3, 2007. The American and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq took part in face-to-face discussions in Baghdad, with Iraqi officials in attendance, on May 28, 2007. The United States believes, however, that normal relations are impossible until Iran's policies change.

Nevertheless, the U.S. State Department is supporting efforts to further the cause of democracy in Iran. In fiscal year (FY) 2006, the U.S. Congress allocated approximately $66 million to promote free media, personal freedom, and a better understanding of western values and culture. As part of these efforts, the Department supports efforts to develop civil society in Iran and exchange programs that bring Iranian students, athletes, professionals and others to the United States.

The Secretary of State has stated that Iranian agreement to abide by UNSC Resolutions 1696 and 1747, calling for Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment and comply with its international nuclear obligations, could lead to the direct negotiations between American and Iranian government officials, not only on Iran's nuclear case but on a wide range of issues.

In May 2007, the Iranian Government charged and in some cases imprisoned a handful of innocent Iranian-American scholars, civil society actors, and journalists, accused by the regime of jeopardizing the security of the state. The international community, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private citizens have joined the U.S. Government in calling for the release of the detained dual nationals, as well as Iranian cooperation in the case of missing retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, last reported on Kish Island, Iran, on March 8, 2007.

===Covert operations and the 2009 elections===
Beginning in 2004, U.S. President [[George W. Bush]] is reported to have signed a series of Executive Orders initiating covert operations aimed at destabilizing the Iranian regime.<ref>[http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2009/intell-090113-rferl01.htm ''Reports Suggest Obama Faces Early Choice On Iran Covert Ops''], Ron Synovitz, Globalsecurity.org January 13, 2009.</ref> The CIA was authorized to supply communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass internet censorship by the government.<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552784/Bush-sanctions-black-ops-against-Iran.html ''Bush sanctions 'black ops' against Iran''], London Telegraph, 27 May 2007.</ref> During the domestic unrest following the post-election protests in which opposition groups accused the regime of rigged elections, U.S. Secretary of State [[Hillary Clinton]] urged Twitter networking service to keep the system running, leading to complaints from Iran's government. Protesters used Twitter to communicate amid the clampdown.<ref>[http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-twitter18-2009jun18,0,5845567.story ''Hillary Clinton defends Twitter efforts for Iran''], L.A. Times, June 17, 2009.</ref>

==Economy==
[[Image:Iran industry mining78.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Iranian industry and mining]]
Pre-revolutionary Iran's economic development was rapid. Traditionally an agricultural society, by the 1970s Iran had achieved significant industrialization and economic modernization. However, the pace of growth had slowed dramatically by 1978, just before the Islamic revolution. Since the fall of the shah, economic recovery has proven elusive thanks to a combination of factors, including fluctuations in the global energy market. Economic activity was severely disrupted additionally by years of upheaval and uncertainty surrounding the revolution and the introduction of statist economic policies. These conditions were worsened by the war with Iraq and the decline in world oil prices beginning in late 1985. After the war with Iraq ended, the situation began to improve: Iran's GDP grew for two years running, partly from an oil windfall in 1990, and there was a substantial increase in imports. However, Iran had suffered a brain drain throughout the previous decade and wartime policies had resulted in a demographic explosion.

A decrease in oil revenues in 1991 and growing external debt dampened optimism for recovery. In March 1989, the government instituted a new 5-year plan for economic development, which loosened state control and allowed Iran to seek greater latitude in accessing foreign capital. Mismanagement and inefficient bureaucracy, as well as political and ideological infighting, hampered the formulation and execution of a consolidated economic policy, and the Iran fell short of the plan's goals while economic inequality was aggravated. Today, Iran's economy is a mixture of central planning, state ownership of oil and other large enterprises, village agriculture, and small-scale private trading and service ventures. Former President Khatami followed the market reform plans of his predecessor, President Rafsanjani, and indicated that he would pursue diversification of Iran's oil-reliant economy, although he made little progress toward that goal. High [[inflation]] and expansive public transfer programs, as well as powerful economic-political vested interests created obstacles for rapid reform.

During the 2005 election campaign, President Ahmadi-Nejad promised to redistribute oil revenues to the impoverished, fund large infrastructure projects, and privatize Iranian state enterprises. He has been criticized within Iran for not carrying through on many of his promises. While establishment of the Imam Reza fund for cheap loans to youth has been popular, a law increasing the minimum was revoked because of the huge strain on employers. The "Shares of Justice" program—distributing shares of state-owned enterprises to the poor—faces a number of potential problems.
[[File:Naghshe Jahan Square Isfahan Iran.jpg|left|thumb|300px|Naghshe Jahan Square, Isfahan.]]
Unemployment was estimated to be 20% for 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund. Unemployment, a major problem even before the revolution, has many causes, including population growth, high minimum wage level and other restrictive labor policies. Farmers and peasants enjoyed a psychological boost from the attention given them by the Islamic regime but hardly appear to be better off in economic terms. The government has made progress on rural development, including electrification and road building, but Iran still faces inefficiencies related to agricultural land usage which are politically difficult to reconcile. Agriculture also has suffered from shortages of capital, raw materials, and equipment, problems dating back to the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. (See Foreign Relations above.)

Although Islam guarantees the right to private ownership, banks and some industries—including the petroleum, transportation, utilities, and mining sectors—were nationalized after the revolution under Marxist-influenced economic policies. Starting under President Rafsanjani, Iran has pursued some privatization through its nascent equities markets. However, the industrial sector remains plagued by low labor productivity and shortages of raw materials and spare parts, and is uncompetitive against foreign imports.

Increases in the price of oil starting in 2003 have increased state revenue enormously and permitted a much larger degree of spending on social programs than previously anticipated. However, this has not eased economic hardships such as high unemployment and inflation. The proportion of the economy devoted to the development of weapons of mass destruction and military spending overall remains a contentious issue with leading Western nations.

Earnings from Iranian oil exports, projected at $57-$87 billion for 2007-2008, are placed into the Oil Stabilization Fund (OSF), originally designed as a Treasury safety net if oil prices dropped below $20/barrel. In practice, the government has drawn upon the OSF to cover over expenditures. Iran relies on oil for 80% of its export revenue, and 40% of total revenues. (Note: Iran's refining capacity is limited, and Tehran is a net gasoline importer, spending $2.6 billion for foreign gas in 2005.)
*GDP (purchasing power parity, 2006 est.): $599.2 billion.
*GDP (official exchange rate, 2006 est.): $193.5 billion.
*GDP real growth rate (2007 est.): 4.6%.
*GDP composition by sector (2006): Agriculture 11.2%, industry 41.7%, services 47.1%.
*Per capita income (2006 est.): $8,700.
*Work force: 24.36 million.
*Work force - by occupation (2001 est.): Agriculture 30%, industry 25%, services 45%.
*Unemployment rate (2007 est.): 20%.
*Natural resources: [[Petroleum]], [[natural gas]], [[coal]], [[chromium]], [[copper]], [[iron ore]], [[lead manganese]], [[zinc]], [[sulfur]].
*Agriculture: Principal products—wheat, rice, other grains, sugar beets, fruits, nuts, cotton, dairy products, wool, caviar. Note: Iran is not self-sufficient in terms of food.
*Industry: Types—petroleum, petrochemicals, textiles, cement and building materials, food processing (particularly sugar refining and vegetable oil production), metal fabricating (particularly steel and copper), armaments.
*Trade (2007 est.): Exports--$56.9 billion: petroleum 80%, chemical and petrochemical products, carpets, fruits, nuts. Major export partners (2006): Japan (17.3%), China (11.4%), Italy (6.2%), South Korea (5.2%), South Africa (5.5%), Turkey (5.7%), Netherlands (4.6%), France (4.1%), Taiwan (4.1%). Imports--$48.1 billion: industrial raw materials and intermediate goods, capital goods, foodstuffs and other consumer goods, technical services, military supplies. Major import partners: Germany (14.2%), U.A.E. (6.7%), China (8.3%), Italy (7.5%), France (6.2%), South Korea (5.4%), Russia (4.9%).
==Military==
Iran currently relies upon her Russian and Chinese allies to supply defense equipment. In addition, it holds sizable stockpiles given to it by the United States during the period of the Shah.
== History ==
[[Image:Colossal Bull Head.gif|left]]
see [[History of Iran]]
[[File:Persepolis-Hundred Columns Hall Iran.jpg|thumb|300px|Persepolis-Hundred Columns Hall.]]
Tensions between Iran and the United States have increased since Iran was identified by President Bush in January 2002 as part of the [[Axis of Evil]], and particularly since the 2005 election of Ahmadinejad. An attempt by the [[European Union]] to negotiate a surrender of or reduction in [[Iranian nuclear efforts]] failed, leading to the [[United Nations Security Council]] voting to impose limited [[sanctions]]. The United States has since lobbied for sanctions more along the lines of those imposed on 1990 upon [[Iraq]], which remained in place until the beginning of [[Operation Iraqi Freedom]] in 2003. Talks in March 2007 between U. S., Iranian, and [[Syrian]] diplomats at a regional conference organized by Iraq proved unproductive, although the willingness of the parties to talk was itself regarded by some as a sign that war had become somewhat less likely.

In spite of the relative overstretch of the U. S. [[military]], the utility of an attack on Iran, or at least its nuclear facilities, was a live [[debate]] among American opinion leaders throughout 2006. Objections to such an attack were mostly based upon the belief that this would represent the first step on a [[slippery slope]] to [[occupation]] of Iran, which would probably require [[conscription]] in the United States, a step [[conservatives]] and most military leaders oppose. The debate, however, appeared to have been won decisively by the hawks following the regime's suicidal decision in late March 2007 not to promptly release 15 British sailors and marines it had captured on March 23, 2007.

In 2007, [[NATO]] officials caught Iran "red-handed" shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the [[Taliban]] for use against NATO forces.<ref>''[http://www.aina.org/news/20070608101313.htm Iran Caught Red-Handed Shipping Arms to Taliban]''. June 8, 2007. Assyrian International News Agency.</ref> The NATO officials stated that the incident was a "dramatic escalation of Iran's proxy war against the [[United States]] and [[United Kingdom]]".<ref>''[http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/document_iran_c.html Document: Iran Caught Red-Handed Shipping Arms to Taliban]''. June 6, 2007. ABC News.</ref>

A [[United States]] intelligence report in 2007 noted growing public unrest in Iran over the bleak economic situation.<ref>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070824/ap_on_go_ot/us_iran;_ylt=AqDn5RrWdeIow5YjHjscMn2yFz4D Draft report logs bleak outlook for Iran. August 24, 2007. Associated Press.</ref>

==Moral legislation in Iran==
[[Image:Maleki An Achaemenian Soldier.jpg|thumb|An Achaemenian Soldier by Iman Maleki.]]
[[Homosexuality|Homosexuals]] get the death penalty in Iran.
<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297982,00.html Iran Does Far Worse Than Ignore Gays, Critics Say] Fox News, September 25, 2007</ref> However, in a speech at Columbia University, the president of Iran stated that homosexuality does not exist in his nation.

In Iran, production and consumption of alcohol by Muslims is prohibited. However, Iranian law makes an exception for minority groups, such as the Christian [[Armenia]]ns, who are allowed to produce and consume [[wine]] and distilled spirits. Naturally, these communities produce far more alcohol than they consume, "illegally" selling it to Muslims who drink in contradiction of [[Sharia]] law.

Prostitution is also prohibited in Iran, but there are allegations that نكاح المتعة (temporary marriage, legal in [[Usuli]] [[Shia]] jurisprudence) is exploited to solemnize marriages of such short duration (hours or days) that the activities thus permitted more resemble dating (if money is not exchanged) or prostitution (if a fee is charged for the marriage).

==Further reading==
*[http://www.townhall.com/News/NewsArticle.aspx?contentGUID=e3d7a4b3-5763-41db-afaf-9f5b2304ca9f Iran: Western Spy Networks Discovered], May 26, 2007.
*[http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21816881-38197,00.html Iranian-American charged with spying], May 29, 2007.

==See also==
* [[Previous Breaking News/Iran|Articles about '''Iran''' from previous "Breaking News"]]
* [[Democracy in Iran]]
* [[Big government]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[socialist]] [[Nanny state]], leads to [[communist]] [[Police state]] - Don't think [[Communism]] is incompatible with [[Islam]].
* [[Gun control]] - key element to create a police state
*[[Iranian nuke deal]]
* [[Press TV]]
* [[Essay:Women's Rights in Iran]]

== External links ==
*[http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/06/16/iran_leader_calls_for_alliance_against_west/ Iran leader calls for alliance against West.]
*[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ Purim, Haddasah Hospital in Jerusalem, and Iran's Nuclear Bomb]

* [http://www.president.ir/eng/ Official website of the President of Iran]
* [http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/ The blog of the President of Iran]
* [http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articlenavigation/index.isc Encyclopædia Iranica]

{{Copyright Details (US Government)}}

{{Asian Countries}}

==References==
*http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5314.htm
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Iran]]
[[Category:Middle Eastern Countries]]
[[Category:Muslim-Majority Countries]]
[[Category:Dictatorships]]
[[Category:Welfare State]]
[[Category:Police State]]
[[Category:Gun Control]]
[[Category:Oppression]]
[[Category:Forms of Government]]
[[Category:Anti-American]]

{{Terrorism}}

Nancy Pelosi

2018-11-18T20:04:40Z

JoeyJ: /* Support for Syria and Assad */

{{Officeholder
|name=Nancy Pelosi
|image=Ytr7576.jpg
|party=[[Democrat]]
|spouse=Paul Pelosi
|religion=[[Roman Catholic]]
|offices=
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=California
|district=12th
|terms=January 3, 2013 - Present
|preceded=[[Jackie Speier]]
|succeeded=
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=California
|district=8th
|terms=January 3, 1993 - January 3, 2013
|preceded=Ron Dellums
|succeeded=[[Paul Cook]]
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=California
|district=5th
|terms=June 2, 1987 - January 3, 1993
|preceded=Sala Burton
|succeeded=Bob Matsui
}}
}}
'''Nancy Pelosi''' has been [[Democratic]] Leader of the House since 2002. She represents the 12th congressional district of [[California]] and has been criticized for imposing [[San Francisco values]] on mainstream America. She served as first woman [[Speaker of the House]].

Rep. [[Marcia Fudge]] of the Congressional Black Caucus considered running against Pelosi for Speaker. Rep. [[Keith Ellison]], who was relegated to the back of the bus in the newly created position of vice-chair of the [[DNC]] despite his fronrunner status as top fundraiser, was kicked out of party leadership after the [[2018 midterms]].<ref>https://bongino.com/keith-ellison-resigns-from-the-dnc-to-focus-on-new-job/</ref> Post-election recount ballot box stuffing to steal a dozen House seats may have offset the Dump Pelosi movement and provided the difference to insure Pelosi's survival.<ref>https://youtu.be/yd2tjFHhq0I</ref><ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/11/since-election-day-democrats-pick-off-over-a-dozen-gop-house-seats-and-2-senate-seats-and-theyre-going-for-more/?omhide=true</ref>

Pelosi backs [[Left-wing violence in the Trump era|mob violence]],<ref>https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/10/18/nancy-pelosi-supports-collateral-damage-against-those-who-disagree-with-democrats</ref><ref>https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/06/16/open-letter-nancy-pelosi-regarding-uprisings/</ref> [[class warfare]] and [[socialist]] revolutionary fervor to address [[income inequality]].<ref>[https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2018/11/14/inside-the-house-democrats-first-meeting-since-the-election-346412 Inside the House Democrats’ first meeting since the election: PELOSI said income disparity is a top Democratic priority.] CEOs, she said, once made ...[bla bla bla]. She said Democrats won’t think or work incrementally.</ref><ref>https://www.mediaite.com/online/mob-of-protestors-harasses-nancy-pelosi-in-florida-you-dont-belong-here-you-fking-communist/</ref>

==Speakership 2019–2021==
Since taking office the Left has tried to delegitimize President Trump and create chaos so that socialism can be portrayed as rational opposition to an abnormal situation.<ref>https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/30/victor_davis_hanson_democrats_delegitimize_trump_create_chaos_to_make_socialism_the_solution.html</ref> Prof. Victor Davis Hanson observed: {{quotebox|"The Democratic Party of [[Hubert Humphrey|Humphrey]], [[JFK]], or even [[Bill Clinton]] no longer exists. It's a pyramid with a few grandees on top that have enough [[money]] they can be immune from the consequences of their own [[ideology]], and then a group on the bottom who depend on [[entitlements|subsidies]]. And they have alienated the [[middle class]]."<ref>https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/30/victor_davis_hanson_democrats_delegitimize_trump_create_chaos_to_make_socialism_the_solution.html</ref>}}

Pelosi raised $130 million for the midterm elections. She also announced an intention to create a House Diversity Office.

Trump's approval ratings stood higher than Pelosi as she regained power.

===Dump Pelosi movement===
The Dump Pelosi movement was led by Reps. [[Seth Moulton]], [[Tim Ryan]], [[Ed Perlmutter]], [[Kathleen Rice]], [[Bill Foster]], [[Filemon Vela]], [[Kurt Schrader]], [[Conor Lamb]], Reps.-Elect [[Abigail Spanberger]], [[Jason Crow]], [[Mikie Sherrill]], [[Andy Kim]] and [[Haley Stevens]]. Pelosi's biographer made it clear that if the [[coup]] plotters against Pelosi failed, "life would become uncomfortable."<ref>Listen to Why Nancy Pelosi Won't Back Down by CQ Roll Call Podcast #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/cq-rollcall/why-nancy-pelosi-wont-back</ref> The coup was largely organized by two white men, Moulton and Ryan who, for appearance sake, proposed replacing a woman with woman. Reps. Fudge, [[Cheri Bustos]] and [[Karen Bass]] all were put forward.

Some members in the coup plot were willing to vote for Pelosi if she would agree to a "Leave by" date. Others who vowed on the campaign trail not to vote for Pelosi as Speaker were given an option: they could vote against Pelosi in the closed door caucus meeting, "Present" on the floor vote, thus keeping their promise to the voters and their committee assignments as well.

During the rebellion [[President Trump]] said he could gaurantee enough Republican votes to save Pelosi.<ref>https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/trump-casts-pelosis-speaker-savior</ref>

===Mental health concerns===
Pelosi has been the subject of much concern over her deteriorating mental health condition.<ref>https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/as_pelosi_increasingly_incoherent_in_public_dems_face_a_battle_over_leadership_succession.html</ref> In 2014, Pelosi became unhinged and chased Rep. [[Tom Marino]] across the House floor during a debate on Border Security funding. Marino said on the Zhouse floor, {{quotebox|"Under the leadership of the former Speaker, and under the leadership of their former leader, when in 2009 and 2010, they had the House, the [[Senate]] and the [[White House]], and they knew this problem existed, they didn't have the strength to go after it back then, but are trying to make a political issue out of it now."<ref>http://itsateapartyyall.com/pelosi-chases-marino-house-floor/</ref>}} Pelosi fumbled for words when Prof. Jonathan Gruber - who wrote the [[Obamacare]] bill - was exposed for lying and deceiving the American public.<ref>https://youtu.be/kDomkBtJC7Q</ref> Even Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer admitted Obamacare was a mistake.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/chuck-schumer-passing-obamacare-in-2010-was-a-mistake/449700/</ref>

Pelosi is in the habit of referring to President Trump as "President Bush".<ref>Yilek, Caitlin (July 12, 2017). [http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nancy-pelosi-again-refers-to-trump-as-president-bush/article/2628411 Nancy Pelosi again refers to Trump as 'President Bush']. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved July 13, 2017.</ref>

==Speakership 2007–2011==
Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House after the 2006 midterm elections when Democrats gained majorities in the House and Senate. [[John McCain]] referred to her as "one of the great American success stories" and "an inspiration."<ref>[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/29/MN0I121CI9.DTL&type=politics McCain extends olive branch to Pelosi, Gore], [[San Francisco Chronicle]]</ref>

When coming into her leadership position in 2007, Pelosi's "6 for 06" 100-hour campaign promise turned out being 100-legislative hours, and took several weeks.

On [[Earth Day]] in 2008, Pelosi stated: "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.'" Pelosi has used the quote many times, often attributing it to Isaiah. The verse is non-existent.<ref>Christianity Today, June 2008, Pg. 15</ref>

During the 2010 congressional elections, largely due to the unpopularity of Pelosi's extreme positions, [[Republican]]s gained a historic 60+ seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Pelosi was stripped of power on January 3, 2011, when the 112th Congress was sworn in.<ref>[http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/vote-2010-elections-nancy-pelosi-ousted-house-speaker/story?id=12034633 Nancy Pelosi Ousted as House Speaker, John Boehner Waits in Wings], [[ABC News]]</ref>

===Scuttled ethics reform===
Corruption and reform were big issues in the 2006 Midterm elections. Pelosi pledged reform during the election. Members of Pelosi's own Democratic Caucus warned failure to deliver on their promises to clean up corruption could be damaging.<ref>[https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/4014.html Democrats divided on lobbying reform], Josephine Hearn and Jeff Patch, May 15, 2007. Retrieved from [[Politico]] 06/01/07.</ref> Twenty freshmen Democrats asked for legislation to establish an independent ethics commission within the legislative branch to investigate future ethical lapses by fellow members.<ref>Alexander Bolton, [https://thehill.com/leading-the-news/dems-press-pelosi-for-ethics-panel-2007-04-18.html''Dems press Pelosi for ethics panel''], The Hill, April 19, 2007.</ref> Pelosi resisted the reform.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7hE4HX-Cwo&NR=1 The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same], ''[[ABC News]]'', April 25, 2007.</ref>

Members regularly abuse the appropriations process by [[earmark]]ing public money to fund projects in their own districts, such as the San Fransisco was project from which she and her family financially gained. Earmarks are an area of the legislative process particularly susceptible to corruption.

Pelosi's famous comment- the 'culture of corruption' was only meant to apply to Republicans.<ref>In another example of her hypocrisy, Democrat [[Charles Rangel]] was under investigation for ethics violations. Nancy said "she has no intention of forcing Rangel out"[https://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/charles_rangel_ethics/2008/09/10/129539.htmlPelosi, Republicans in Rangel Tug of War] [[Newsmax]], September 10, 2008</ref>

===2008 election===
On October 28, 2008 Pelosi said "Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win, and have substantial majorities, the Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan." Commenting on Pelosi, Republican [[Mike Pence]] said, “As it’s been said before, I have an open mind but not an empty mind.” <ref>[https://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=39385 More ‘Bipartisan’ Congress Not Likely, Pence Says] [[CNSNews]], November 17, 2008</ref>

Anti-war protester [[Cindy Sheehan]] challenged Pelosi as an independent. Although Sheehan won 16% of the vote, more than the Republican nominee's 10%, Pelosi was reelected with 72%.

When Obama was elected Pelosi said that Obama is "a leader God has blessed us with at this time."
<ref>[http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/430377.aspx Pelosi Suggests Obama is a Gift from God] [[Associated Press]], August 19, 2008</ref>

===Obamacare disaster===
The passage of [[Obamacare]] cost Pelosi her job as Speaker as Democrats took a shellacking in the 2006 midterm elections. Pelosi and 60 Democrats were unceremoniously tossed out.

At the time of passage Pelosi claimed passage of the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" [[H.R. 3962]] as a major achievrment. The bill cost $1.1 trillion. It just barely passed 215-210, as 39 Democrats voted against the bill. The bill laid a tax on Americans requiring all Americans to purchase insurance they did not want or may not need. The bill was incomprehensible to most, even House members. Pelosi famously said, "We have to pass it to see what's in it."

Like most Democrat legislation, the bill created massive new bureaucratic agencies will administrative powers to create new regulations. Senate Democrat Leader [[Chuck Schumer|Cuck Schumer]], in a moment of candid realism, admitted passage of Obamacare was a mistake.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/449700/</ref> Obamacare retarded economic growth for the remainder of President Obama's term.<ref>https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/06/09/It-s-Time-Blame-Obamacare-Losing-So-Many-Full-Time-Jobs</ref>

Pelosi is a strong supporter of abortion, but to get 215 votes she gave in to Catholic leaders nationally and abortion opponents in her own caucus, allowing tight restrictions of the [[Stupak Amendment]] which barred any insurance plan purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions. Numerous liberals denounced the bill even as they voted for it.<ref>David M. Herszenhorn and Jackie Calmes, [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/health/policy/08scene.html?_r=1 "Abortion Was at Heart of Wrangling," ''[[The New York Times]]'' Nov 7, 2009]</ref> The bill went to the Senate where it was adopted with amendments.

===Abortion and Planned Parenthood===
In 2009, student [[Lila Rose]] exposed several instances of illegal behavior by [[Planned Parenthood]].<ref>[http://dotherightthing-cyberpastor.blogspot.com/2009/01/lila-rose-wins-award.html Undercover activist awarded for pro-life work]</ref> However, Pelosi still wanted $200 million for Planned Parenthood as part of the 2009 economic stimulus bill.<ref>[http://politicalhousewyf.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/speaker-pelosi-likes-leather/ Speaker Pelosi Likes Leather]</ref> When asked to explain why this money would promote economic stimulus, Pelosi was never able to give a sensible answer and Planned Parenthood funding was dropped from the bill.<ref>[https://www.lifenews.com/2009/01/29/nat-4799/ Abortion Advocates Upset Planned Parenthood Bailout Dropped From Stimulus Bill], [[LifeNews.com]]</ref>

Commenting on her erroneous understanding of the [[Catholic Church]] beliefs regarding conception, Nancy quips “And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And [[St. Augustine]] said at three months. We don’t know.” <ref>[http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/26/archbishop-of-washington-chides-pelosi-denver-archbishop-warns-biden-to-skip-communion/ Archbishop of Washington Chides Pelosi] [[Fox News]], August 26, 2008</ref> [[Archbishop]] Donald Wuerl rebuked her saying "From the beginning, the Catholic Church has respected the dignity of all human life from the moment of [[conception]] to natural death."

Marc Sheppard of American Thinker has asked how can,
:"one of the most outspoken advocates for unrestricted abortion in Congress -- with a perfect 100% rating from the radical [[pro-abortion]] group [[NARAL]], -- maintain a straight face when declaring a concern for children? How can you vote NO to making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime (Lacy and Conner’s Law - H.R.1997) and pretend to care about infants? How does anyone who voted against restricting interstate transport of minors for the purpose of [[abortion]] (H.R 748) or outlawing the barbaric [[infanticide]] which is [[partial birth abortion]] (H.R 3660) seriously proclaim that anything she does is “about children”.<ref>Marc Sheppard, [https://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/pelosi_god_bless_the_child_tha.html Pelosi: God Bless the Child that’s not at Home], [[American Thinker]], January 14, 2007.</ref>

In 2013, then-Chief Justice of the [[Vatican]], Cardinal [[Raymond Burke]], stated that she should be denied [[communion]] because “[t]his is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin--cooperating with the crime of procured [[abortion]]--and still professes to be a devout [[Roman Catholic|Catholic]].”<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/vatican-chief-justice-nancy-pelosi-must-be-denied-communion</ref>

In defense of children in the mother's womb and the sanctity of Jesus in the host, a priest at the Saint's Peter and Paul Church in Nancy Pelosi's home district, Fr. John Malloy wrote a letter regarding her abortion stance and church services. The letter makes mention of her 100% rating with [[NARAL]] and her support for partial birth abortion. The last line says "...Nancy, do not receive the Eucharist when you attend Mass." <ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070208233537/http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=695280f1-c90e-44d8-a866-d8e28f5ef457 California Catholic Daily A priest writes to Nancy Pelosi], February 1, 2007</ref>

===Gay rights===
In the 2001 San Francisco [[Lesbian]], Gay, [[Bisexual]], Transgender Pride Parade Pelosi marched along with long time [[CPUSA]] <ref>''The Boston Phoenix'', [http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02511115.htm The real Harry Hay], Michael Bronski, October 31 - November 7, 2002.</ref> member and [[gay rights]] pioneer [[Harry Hay]].<ref>The [[American Spectator]] Special Report, [http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10450 When Nancy Met Harry], Jeffrey Lord, 10/5/2006.</ref><ref>The [[San Francisco Chronicle]], [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/22/DD115758.DTL Official Guide & Program] Parade Lineup, page SP - 14, June 22, 2001.</ref> A gay activist group calling itself the [[Human Rights Campaign]] (HRC), eulogized Hay as "the first to realize that the dream of equality for our community could be attained through visibility and activism".<ref>[http://www.hrc.org/Content/ContentGroups/News_Releases/20021/HRC_Mourns_the_Death_of_Gay_Rights_Pioneer_Harry_Hay.htm Human Rights Campaign Mourns the Death of Gay Rights Pioneer Harry Hay], Press Release, Oct. 24, 2002.</ref> An outspoken advocate of the North American Man-Boy Love Association [[NAMBLA]], Hay regularly addressed NAMBLA conferences.{{fact}} NAMBLA carries published material by Hay on its website dating back to 1984. The [[ACLU]] defended NAMBLA against a $200 million lawsuit by parents of a 10 year old murder victim who claimed their sons’ killer was motivated by published material on NAMBLA’s website.<ref>Deroy Murdock, [http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200402270920.asp No Boy Scouts: The ACLU defends NAMBLA], [[National Review Online]], February 27, 2004.</ref><ref>[http://www.thecpac.com/Curleys-v-NAMBLA.html Curley Vs. NAMBLA]</ref> The Human Rights Campaign contributed $10,000 to Pelosi's campaign.<ref>[http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00007360&cycle=2006 Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Top Contributors]</ref>

Pelosi made special rights for homosexuals a priority in the 109th Congress including [[Hate Crime]] legislation.<ref>Concerned Women for America, [http://www.cwfa.org/articles/12147/CWA/family/index.htm Homosexual Bills Top House Speaker Pelosi’s List], January 10, 2007.</ref>

Every year, the gay and lesbian community participates in the Folsom Street Fair that is located in her [[San Francisco]] district. They are barely dressed and publicly expose themselves in depraved sex acts. In addition, crucifixes made into sex toys are sold on the street during the fair.<ref>[https://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=41858 San Francisco Catholic Church Attacked by Pro-Homosexual Marriage Vandals], [[CNSNews]], January 13, 2009</ref> In 2007, the Fair mocked the 'Last Supper' image of Christians, with homosexuals in leather posing as [[Christ]] and the Apostles. Not a word of condemnation from Pelosi on the sacrilegious display.

'''Boy Scouts''' Pelosi tried to pass legislation making it illegal for [[Boy Scouts]] to use public facilities like schools.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080110235203/http://pelosiwatch.us/Pelosi-Record/Truth-About-Nancy-Pelosi.html The Truth About Nancy Pelosi]</ref> According to the ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', her position on the bill was in response to the Boy Scouts not allowing gay scoutmasters, but this was proven to be false.<ref>[http://mediamatters.org/research/2006/10/05/journal-editorial-falsely-claimed-pelosi-voted/136844 Journal editorial falsely claimed Pelosi "vot[ed] to revoke the Boy Scouts' charter for its ban on gay scoutmasters"], [[Media Matters for America]]</ref>

===Support for Syria and Assad===
Pelosi traveled to Damascus, Syria in April 2007 to meet with Syrian [[Ba'athist]] leader [[Bashar al-Assad]]. Pelosi indicated at a press conference that she had carried a message from the government of Israel. "Our message was President Bush’s message," Pelosi told The Associated Press in Portugal.<ref>[http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-delivered-wrong-message-assad-israel-says Pelosi Delivered Wrong Message to Assad, Israel Says], [[CNSNews]] Apr 7 2007.</ref> Pelosi told reporters the meeting "enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister [[Ehud Olmert|Olmert]]".

The Israeli Prime Minister's office stated Olmert told Pelosi that Israel continued to regard Syria as "part of the axis of evil and a party encouraging terrorism in the entire Middle East." The ''Jerusalem Post'' reported sources at the Prime Minister's Office said, "Pelosi took part of the things that were said in the meeting, and used what suited her." <ref>[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=845618&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0 PMO: Pelosi did not carry any message from Israel to Assad], Yoav Stern and Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondents and AP, 5 April 2007.</ref>

The trip was praised by terrorists as "brave". Members of the [[Palestinian Islamic Jihad]] have said Pelosi aligns to their views about terror much better than Bush and Dr. [[Condoleezza Rice]].<ref>[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3385140,00.html Terrorists endorse Pelosi's 'good policy of dialogue'], Aaron Klein, Israel News, 04.05.07. "Palestinian terror group members call US House speaker's visit to Damascus 'brave' and hope for talks with Iran; ‘I think the Democratic Party can do things the best,’ Islamic Jihad member says"</ref> Khaled Al-Batch, spokesman for Islamic Jihad, which along with [[Fatah|Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades]] has taken responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel since 2005,<ref>http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3392403,00.html </ref> expressed [[hope]] Pelosi and the Democratic Party will pressure Bush to create dialogue with Syrian rebel and Middle East "resistance movements" and prompt an American withdrawal from Iraq.

In the lead editorial of Thursday, April 5, The ''[[Washington Post]]'' commented on '''"The Pratfall in Damascus":'''<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402306.html Pratfall in Damascus], [[Washington Post]]</ref>

<blockquote>
HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.</blockquote>

<blockquote>
Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda. ...</blockquote>

<blockquote>Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish. </blockquote>

Pelosi was roundly criticized from all quarters for making the trip. The ''[[New York Post]]'' said, "the sad reality is that Pelosi is sending Assad the same message she and her Democratic colleagues in Congress have sent the terrorist [[Iraq insurgency 2004-2008|insurgency in Iraq]]: Just wait until President Bush leaves office and a Democratic administration will hand you what you want on a platter."<ref>[http://www.nypost.com/seven/04032007/postopinion/editorials/nancys_nonsense_editorials_.htm Nancy's Nonsense], [[New York Post]], 3 April 2007.</ref> The ''Philadelphia Enquirer'' ran an editorial declaring Pelosi "was nuts" to visit Assad.<ref>Claudia Rosett, [http://articles.philly.com/2007-04-05/news/25243155_1_president-bashar-assad-syrian-involvement-damascus Pelosi was nuts to visit with Assad], ''Philadelphia Enquirer'', Thu, Apr. 05, 2007.</ref>

===Refuses to pay troops===
Pelosi was for the War in Iraq before she was against it. During the [[Clinton administration]] Pelosi's said {{Quotebox|"[[Saddam Hussein]] has been engaged in the development of [[weapons of mass destruction]] technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."}} In 2003 Leader Pelosi voted for the [[Operation Iraqi Freedom|War in Iraq]]. By 2005 Pelosi called eliminating a [[fascist]] [[dictatorship]] and establishing a [[parliamentary]] [[democracy]] in Iraq a "grotesque mistake".

As Speaker, a major setback for Pelosi was the rejection by Democrats in both Houses for her plan to cut and run from Iraq. Pelosi promised in the csmpaign a [[Vietnam]]-style solution to stop funding the troops. In a stunning rebuke to her leadership, the House voted 280-142 to continue fighting radical [[Islamic]] extremists. Only radical fringe Democrats voted against paying the troops.<ref>[http://washingtontimes.com/national/20070525-122215-4854r.htm Congress OKs war bill sans timeline,] By S.A. Miller, ''[[The Washington Times]]'', May 25, 2007.</ref> In [[bi-partisan]] compromise Pelosi won a raise in the [[minimum wage]] in exchange for paying the troops.<ref>[http://www.optimalsolutionsgroup.com/pubs/Duncan-Turner-Pape.pdf Minimum wages and school enrollment of teenagers: a look at the 1990’s.] Duncan D. Chaplin, Mark D. Turner, Andreas D. Pape. ''Economics of Education Review''. 22 (2003) 11–21.</ref><ref>"Hamilton and Madison knew what they were doing when they gave the bulk of the war powers to the President, and it's hard to imagine a more telling vindication of their wisdom...Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader [[Harry Reid]] claim to oppose the war and want it to end, yet they refused to use their power of the purse to end it. Instead, they tried every legislative gimmick imaginable to hamstring President Bush's war strategy without actually having to take responsibility for cutting off funds.[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118014289006815463 Congress and Iraq], ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', May 26, 2007.</ref>

===John Brennan and torture===
:{{See also|John Brennan}}
Pelosi has been caught lying about her knowledge of [[CIA]] interrogations. She claims she was never briefed by the [[Bush Administration]]. In fact, Pelosi was briefed through the [[Gang of Eight]] process. The ''[[Washington Post]]'' reported "In September 2002, four members of Congress [House members including Pelosi] met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody," and "Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding..." <ref>[https://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=47108 Pelosi Says She Was 'Never Briefed' on Waterboarding] [[CNSNews]], April 24, 2009</ref>

After doing nothing to improve the intelligence of the CIA, after admonishing the CIA for lying, and providing no evidence weeks after her allegation, Pelosi then said she has confidence in the intelligence community.<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/08/house-democrat-joins-pelosi-accusing-cia-misleading-lying-congress/ House Democrats' Letter Says Panetta Testified CIA 'Misled' Congress] [[Fox News]], July 8, 2009</ref>

On November 2, 2007, Brennan defended the [[torture]] program:
{{Cquote|the C.I.A. has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since [[9/11]], and about a third of them have been subjected to what the C.I.A. refers to as enhanced interrogation tactics.and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures.<ref>''The Early Show'' on [[CBS]], John Brennan interview with Harry Smith. [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/07/us/politics/07brennan-issues.html]</ref>}} President Obama appointed Brennan to head the CIA, despite his promise to shut down Brennan's torture program.

===China: Human rights vs global warming===
Pelosi left the U.S. at a time when she is under verbal attack at home for her CIA comments. During her travel to China she made no mention of Chinese human rights abuses but raised awareness for [[Global warming]]. Earlier she was calling for President Bush to boycott the Olympics held in China over human rights abuses in [[Tibet]].

===Opposed energy Independence===
Rising pump prices was a big issue in the 2006 elections. Many Americans were paying more for gasoline than they were on housing. A poll showed more than 75% of Americans supported expanding domestic drilling. The poll showed 85% of Republicans, 71% of Democrats and 68% of Independents favored more drilling.<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/062108_energy_release_web.pdf Fox News Polling Opinion Dynamics] [[Fox News]], June 21, 2008</ref> The poll found the public split on whether domestic drilling would have an impact on gas prices.<ref>An anti-Bush CNN poll found "just over half say that the Bush administration and the war in Iraq are major causes of high fuel prices."[https://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/31/congress.session/index.html GOP lawmakers want special session on energy crisis]</ref>

Pelosi wanted oil companies to drill on federal lands already leased and refused to allow a vote for additional domestic drilling. In July 2008 Pelosi told [[George Stephanopoulos]] on [[ABC News]]'s ''[[This Week]]'' program, {{quotebox|"I'm trying to save the planet I'm trying to save the planet."<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUx6o9qpYY</ref><ref>She did allow a vote to close the [[House of Representatives]] early for a five-week recess without addressing energy issues. [http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/77da4653-28ce-4c3e-a8a9-37ae52671b15 A Month Off for Bad Behavior] [[Townhall]], July 30, 2008. Pelosi wanted to tap into the Strategic Oil Reserves. "America's greatest strategic reserves lie beneath taxpayer-owned lands - including ANWR's northern coastal plain and the outer continental shelf - that are currently off limits to energy production,” said Daniel Kish, senior vice president of the Institute for Energy Research, an oil industry-supported think tank. [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/11/us-oil-reserves-sought-for-relief/ U.S. oil reserves sought for relief], [[The Washington Times]], July 11, 2008</ref> }}
Pelosi espouses the [[Marxist]] view of blaming producers and [[capitalist]] speculators for price increases rather than growing demand of a growing population on finite resources.<ref>Pelosi's support for renewable energy and new technologies did not lower energy prices. "A New Direction", the Democrats' Six for '06 campaign promised energy independence, however once elected she refused to deliver. "For 25 years, Democrats have blocked more American-made oil and gas. That's why we're in the predicament we're in, voters want Congress to vote on more American made oil and gas. We want to do that. She, [[Harry Reid]], [[Barack Obama]] are standing in the way." "She's got time to go out and promote her new book tour and her new book, but she doesn't have time to schedule a vote on the floor of the House and let the American people have their will expressed?" said Republican Leader John Boehner, who made energy independrnce a reality when he assumed the Speakership.</ref>

Pelosi is a supporter of increasing taxes and regulation on oil production to lower output and raise consumer prices to support advocates of the anti-[[global warming]] agenda.<ref>Pelosi was scheduled to speak at a March 2, 2009 global warming protest, but did not make it because her plane, a huge gas guzzler, was delayed due to a snowstorm.[http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-snowed-out-global-warming-rally Pelosi Snowed-Out of Global Warming Rally], [[Cybercast News Service]]</ref>

'''Wilderness years''' In May 2017, Pelosi claimed the Democratic Party was not divided, despite clear examples to the contrary.<ref>Nazarian, Adelle (May 3, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/05/03/nancy-pelosi-claims-broken-democratic-party-is-100-percent-unified/ Nancy Pelosi Claims Broken Democratic Party Is ‘100 Percent Unified’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved May 3, 2017.</ref>

==Personal life==
Pelosi's father was a Congressman from [[Maryland]] and later the Mayor of [[Baltimore]] for twelve years; when she graduated from Trinity College in 1962, Pelosi did not remain to serve her community,<ref>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2006/10/07/family-dynasty-may-boost-pelosi-to-head-of-house-2/amp/</ref> but rather joined the [[white flight]] out of Baltimore as so many other [[white]]s did and moved to [[California]] where [[blacks]] were fewer in number.<ref>https://qz.com/393128/white-flight-decimated-baltimore-businesses-long-before-rioters-showed-up/amp/</ref> She married and had five children. Pelosi rose through the ranks to become chair of the California Democratic Party and representative to the [[Democratic National Committee]].

In 1987, Pelosi made the leap into elected office by winning the special election called after the death of Representative Sala Burton. She served on the House Appropriations Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Previously Pelosi represented California's 8th district (1993-2013) and its 5th district (1987-1993). She was [[Speaker of the House]] from 2007 to 2011, succeeding [[J. Dennis Hastert]] and preceding [[John Boehner]].

Since being elected Democrat Leader in 2002 Pelosi has raised $750,000,000 for Congressional Democrats.

===1 percenter===
Pelosi is among the ten richest members of the House with a net worth estimated at over $150 million.<ref>[http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.asp?CID=N00007360&year=2005 opensecrets.org]</ref>

Pelosi's rise in the Democrat party [[nationalism|national]] leadership began with her election in one of the richest and bluest districts in America. With a safe seat guaranteed, she could raise money from Democrat millionaires in her district and funnel the cash to other Democrat House candidates around the country, making those members indebted to her and buying their loyalty.

She prides herself in "being called a [[liberal]]" and rejects the label of "moderate".<ref>[http://www.newrepublic.com/article/follow-the-leader Follow the Leader], Michael Crowley, [[New Republic]], November 25, 2002.</ref>

===Environmental polluter===
One of Nancy Pelosi's largest investments is a private golf development partnership called Lions Gate Limited. The Santa Clara County Planning Committee approved a plan to build a 275-acre golf course 30 minutes south of [[San Jose]], but only under strict conditions. They agreed to allow 60% public usage of the course and to abide by strict environmental rules, since a number of [[endangered species]] were present in the area. The club, CordaValle, opened in 2000 and did very well, making $250,000 for each member and $400,000 for corporations.<ref>Barry Witt, "Cordevalle club not living up to 60 percent language," San Jose Mercury News Jan. 10, 2002.</ref>

But then the Planning Commission took a look to see if the guidelines had been followed. First of all, only about a dozen non-members had been actually able to play on the course, a far cry from 60%. CordeValle had also set up obvious anti-public rules, such as requiring people to call seventy-two hours in advance and pay close to $300 for 18 holes. Upon investigation, the Commission learned that non-members were told that the club was "full" and turned away even when the club was relatively empty. There were a series of public hearings on the matter and it was concluded that Lion's Gate was in clear violation of the agreement they had made.<ref>Barry Witt, "CordeValle Update," San Jose Mercury News, May 8, 2003.</ref>

During the hearings, it emerged that Lion's Gate had also ignored many of the applicable environmental regulations. They failed to build two ponds that were necessary to preserve two species of lizard and turtle. And only one mandatory annual environmental report had been submitted in seven years.<ref>Barry Witt, "What to do on CordeValle; open it up to the public, or open up its wallet", San Jose Mercury News, August 7, 2003</ref> In 2004, a county report complained that improperly abandoned wells and urban [[pollutant]]s from the resort were causing water quality degradation in the area.<ref>File 5950-68-28-94P, Lions Gate Limited Partnership Staff Report, San Jose Planning Commission, August 5, 2004, and November 4, 2004 (same file name)</ref>

In 2003, the Pelosis and the development partnership finally hired some [[lobbyist]]s and put a few government employees on the payroll. This caused the commission to cave and give up their [[fraud]] investigation as long as the course agreed to host a charity golf tournament for children.<ref>Barry Witt, "Help for CordeValle," San Jose Mercury News, June 13, 2003.</ref>

===Personal gains from pork===
In May 2007 Pelosi inserted a $25 million earmark into the Water Resources Development Act for a project that involved renovating ports near four commercial properties owned by her husband, Paul Pelosi, which boosted the value of the property he owned.<ref>[http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGIwYzc2MTQ4YTBlMTg3YjJmZGVhODc4NmJhYjg4YjY Pelosi’s Waterworks], Stephen Spruiell, ''[[National Review Online]]'', May 9, 2007.</ref> The properties earn combined annual income of more than $3 million.<ref>[http://www.nypost.com/seven/05082007/news/nationalnews/her_an_fran_treat_nationalnews_geoff_earle.htm Her $an Fransisco Treat: Pelosi Water-Bill Bid Drawing Fire], Geoff Earle, ''[[New York Post]]'', May 8, 2007.</ref>

===Illegal and non-union employees===
According to opensecrets.org, nearly half of Pelosi's assets are invested in a Napa County, California, vineyard called Zinfandel Lane. Capitolnews.com has reported Pelosi only employs non-union laborers and does not provide health coverage for her workers. In addition, it is believed [[illegal alien]]s have been exploited by Pelosi on the work farm, as well as a general question surrounding paying a basic liveable wage for many of society's most vulnerable.<ref>[http://www.capoliticalnews.com/s/spip.php?article13 Does Pelosi’s Non-Union Vineyard Use Illegal Aliens?], Monday 30 October 2006.</ref>

==Memoir==
[[File:Pelosibook.jpg‎|200px|right]]
Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters. She writes "If [[women]] can learn from me, it will make the honor of being [[Speaker of the House]] even greater." Currently, the majority rating is one star on Amazon.com and is doing poorly in sales, ranked at 1620 for a non-fiction memoir.<ref>[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71104 Corsi's Obama title soars to No. 1, Pelosi's tanks] [[WorldNetDaily]], July 31, 2008</ref>

==See also==
* [[Ségolène Royal]]
* [[Hillary Clinton]]
* [[New Democrat]]
* [[Liberal]]
* [[Previous Breaking News/Nancy Pelosi|Articles about '''Nancy Pelosi''' from previous "Breaking News"]]

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}

==External links==
*[http://www.house.gov/pelosi/ Nancy Pelosi's Congressional Page]
*[http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00007360&cycle=2006 Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Top Contributors]
*[http://www.themilitant.com/1995/5944/5944_5.html Ed Shaw: 50 Years In Fight For Socialism], ''The Militant'', Vol.59/No.44, November 27, 1995.
*[http://www.opensecrets.org/1996os/contrib/H8CA05035.htm]

{{liberalism}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pelosi, Nancy}}
[[Category:United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Speakers of the House(US)]]
[[Category:Liberals]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:114th United States Congress]]
[[Category:Italian-Americans]]

Nancy Pelosi

2018-11-18T20:04:04Z

JoeyJ: /* Support for Syria and Assad */

{{Officeholder
|name=Nancy Pelosi
|image=Ytr7576.jpg
|party=[[Democrat]]
|spouse=Paul Pelosi
|religion=[[Roman Catholic]]
|offices=
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=California
|district=12th
|terms=January 3, 2013 - Present
|preceded=[[Jackie Speier]]
|succeeded=
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=California
|district=8th
|terms=January 3, 1993 - January 3, 2013
|preceded=Ron Dellums
|succeeded=[[Paul Cook]]
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=California
|district=5th
|terms=June 2, 1987 - January 3, 1993
|preceded=Sala Burton
|succeeded=Bob Matsui
}}
}}
'''Nancy Pelosi''' has been [[Democratic]] Leader of the House since 2002. She represents the 12th congressional district of [[California]] and has been criticized for imposing [[San Francisco values]] on mainstream America. She served as first woman [[Speaker of the House]].

Rep. [[Marcia Fudge]] of the Congressional Black Caucus considered running against Pelosi for Speaker. Rep. [[Keith Ellison]], who was relegated to the back of the bus in the newly created position of vice-chair of the [[DNC]] despite his fronrunner status as top fundraiser, was kicked out of party leadership after the [[2018 midterms]].<ref>https://bongino.com/keith-ellison-resigns-from-the-dnc-to-focus-on-new-job/</ref> Post-election recount ballot box stuffing to steal a dozen House seats may have offset the Dump Pelosi movement and provided the difference to insure Pelosi's survival.<ref>https://youtu.be/yd2tjFHhq0I</ref><ref>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/11/since-election-day-democrats-pick-off-over-a-dozen-gop-house-seats-and-2-senate-seats-and-theyre-going-for-more/?omhide=true</ref>

Pelosi backs [[Left-wing violence in the Trump era|mob violence]],<ref>https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/10/18/nancy-pelosi-supports-collateral-damage-against-those-who-disagree-with-democrats</ref><ref>https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/06/16/open-letter-nancy-pelosi-regarding-uprisings/</ref> [[class warfare]] and [[socialist]] revolutionary fervor to address [[income inequality]].<ref>[https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2018/11/14/inside-the-house-democrats-first-meeting-since-the-election-346412 Inside the House Democrats’ first meeting since the election: PELOSI said income disparity is a top Democratic priority.] CEOs, she said, once made ...[bla bla bla]. She said Democrats won’t think or work incrementally.</ref><ref>https://www.mediaite.com/online/mob-of-protestors-harasses-nancy-pelosi-in-florida-you-dont-belong-here-you-fking-communist/</ref>

==Speakership 2019–2021==
Since taking office the Left has tried to delegitimize President Trump and create chaos so that socialism can be portrayed as rational opposition to an abnormal situation.<ref>https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/30/victor_davis_hanson_democrats_delegitimize_trump_create_chaos_to_make_socialism_the_solution.html</ref> Prof. Victor Davis Hanson observed: {{quotebox|"The Democratic Party of [[Hubert Humphrey|Humphrey]], [[JFK]], or even [[Bill Clinton]] no longer exists. It's a pyramid with a few grandees on top that have enough [[money]] they can be immune from the consequences of their own [[ideology]], and then a group on the bottom who depend on [[entitlements|subsidies]]. And they have alienated the [[middle class]]."<ref>https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/30/victor_davis_hanson_democrats_delegitimize_trump_create_chaos_to_make_socialism_the_solution.html</ref>}}

Pelosi raised $130 million for the midterm elections. She also announced an intention to create a House Diversity Office.

Trump's approval ratings stood higher than Pelosi as she regained power.

===Dump Pelosi movement===
The Dump Pelosi movement was led by Reps. [[Seth Moulton]], [[Tim Ryan]], [[Ed Perlmutter]], [[Kathleen Rice]], [[Bill Foster]], [[Filemon Vela]], [[Kurt Schrader]], [[Conor Lamb]], Reps.-Elect [[Abigail Spanberger]], [[Jason Crow]], [[Mikie Sherrill]], [[Andy Kim]] and [[Haley Stevens]]. Pelosi's biographer made it clear that if the [[coup]] plotters against Pelosi failed, "life would become uncomfortable."<ref>Listen to Why Nancy Pelosi Won't Back Down by CQ Roll Call Podcast #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/cq-rollcall/why-nancy-pelosi-wont-back</ref> The coup was largely organized by two white men, Moulton and Ryan who, for appearance sake, proposed replacing a woman with woman. Reps. Fudge, [[Cheri Bustos]] and [[Karen Bass]] all were put forward.

Some members in the coup plot were willing to vote for Pelosi if she would agree to a "Leave by" date. Others who vowed on the campaign trail not to vote for Pelosi as Speaker were given an option: they could vote against Pelosi in the closed door caucus meeting, "Present" on the floor vote, thus keeping their promise to the voters and their committee assignments as well.

During the rebellion [[President Trump]] said he could gaurantee enough Republican votes to save Pelosi.<ref>https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/trump-casts-pelosis-speaker-savior</ref>

===Mental health concerns===
Pelosi has been the subject of much concern over her deteriorating mental health condition.<ref>https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/as_pelosi_increasingly_incoherent_in_public_dems_face_a_battle_over_leadership_succession.html</ref> In 2014, Pelosi became unhinged and chased Rep. [[Tom Marino]] across the House floor during a debate on Border Security funding. Marino said on the Zhouse floor, {{quotebox|"Under the leadership of the former Speaker, and under the leadership of their former leader, when in 2009 and 2010, they had the House, the [[Senate]] and the [[White House]], and they knew this problem existed, they didn't have the strength to go after it back then, but are trying to make a political issue out of it now."<ref>http://itsateapartyyall.com/pelosi-chases-marino-house-floor/</ref>}} Pelosi fumbled for words when Prof. Jonathan Gruber - who wrote the [[Obamacare]] bill - was exposed for lying and deceiving the American public.<ref>https://youtu.be/kDomkBtJC7Q</ref> Even Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer admitted Obamacare was a mistake.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/chuck-schumer-passing-obamacare-in-2010-was-a-mistake/449700/</ref>

Pelosi is in the habit of referring to President Trump as "President Bush".<ref>Yilek, Caitlin (July 12, 2017). [http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nancy-pelosi-again-refers-to-trump-as-president-bush/article/2628411 Nancy Pelosi again refers to Trump as 'President Bush']. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved July 13, 2017.</ref>

==Speakership 2007–2011==
Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House after the 2006 midterm elections when Democrats gained majorities in the House and Senate. [[John McCain]] referred to her as "one of the great American success stories" and "an inspiration."<ref>[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/29/MN0I121CI9.DTL&type=politics McCain extends olive branch to Pelosi, Gore], [[San Francisco Chronicle]]</ref>

When coming into her leadership position in 2007, Pelosi's "6 for 06" 100-hour campaign promise turned out being 100-legislative hours, and took several weeks.

On [[Earth Day]] in 2008, Pelosi stated: "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.'" Pelosi has used the quote many times, often attributing it to Isaiah. The verse is non-existent.<ref>Christianity Today, June 2008, Pg. 15</ref>

During the 2010 congressional elections, largely due to the unpopularity of Pelosi's extreme positions, [[Republican]]s gained a historic 60+ seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Pelosi was stripped of power on January 3, 2011, when the 112th Congress was sworn in.<ref>[http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/vote-2010-elections-nancy-pelosi-ousted-house-speaker/story?id=12034633 Nancy Pelosi Ousted as House Speaker, John Boehner Waits in Wings], [[ABC News]]</ref>

===Scuttled ethics reform===
Corruption and reform were big issues in the 2006 Midterm elections. Pelosi pledged reform during the election. Members of Pelosi's own Democratic Caucus warned failure to deliver on their promises to clean up corruption could be damaging.<ref>[https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/4014.html Democrats divided on lobbying reform], Josephine Hearn and Jeff Patch, May 15, 2007. Retrieved from [[Politico]] 06/01/07.</ref> Twenty freshmen Democrats asked for legislation to establish an independent ethics commission within the legislative branch to investigate future ethical lapses by fellow members.<ref>Alexander Bolton, [https://thehill.com/leading-the-news/dems-press-pelosi-for-ethics-panel-2007-04-18.html''Dems press Pelosi for ethics panel''], The Hill, April 19, 2007.</ref> Pelosi resisted the reform.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7hE4HX-Cwo&NR=1 The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same], ''[[ABC News]]'', April 25, 2007.</ref>

Members regularly abuse the appropriations process by [[earmark]]ing public money to fund projects in their own districts, such as the San Fransisco was project from which she and her family financially gained. Earmarks are an area of the legislative process particularly susceptible to corruption.

Pelosi's famous comment- the 'culture of corruption' was only meant to apply to Republicans.<ref>In another example of her hypocrisy, Democrat [[Charles Rangel]] was under investigation for ethics violations. Nancy said "she has no intention of forcing Rangel out"[https://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/charles_rangel_ethics/2008/09/10/129539.htmlPelosi, Republicans in Rangel Tug of War] [[Newsmax]], September 10, 2008</ref>

===2008 election===
On October 28, 2008 Pelosi said "Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win, and have substantial majorities, the Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan." Commenting on Pelosi, Republican [[Mike Pence]] said, “As it’s been said before, I have an open mind but not an empty mind.” <ref>[https://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=39385 More ‘Bipartisan’ Congress Not Likely, Pence Says] [[CNSNews]], November 17, 2008</ref>

Anti-war protester [[Cindy Sheehan]] challenged Pelosi as an independent. Although Sheehan won 16% of the vote, more than the Republican nominee's 10%, Pelosi was reelected with 72%.

When Obama was elected Pelosi said that Obama is "a leader God has blessed us with at this time."
<ref>[http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/430377.aspx Pelosi Suggests Obama is a Gift from God] [[Associated Press]], August 19, 2008</ref>

===Obamacare disaster===
The passage of [[Obamacare]] cost Pelosi her job as Speaker as Democrats took a shellacking in the 2006 midterm elections. Pelosi and 60 Democrats were unceremoniously tossed out.

At the time of passage Pelosi claimed passage of the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" [[H.R. 3962]] as a major achievrment. The bill cost $1.1 trillion. It just barely passed 215-210, as 39 Democrats voted against the bill. The bill laid a tax on Americans requiring all Americans to purchase insurance they did not want or may not need. The bill was incomprehensible to most, even House members. Pelosi famously said, "We have to pass it to see what's in it."

Like most Democrat legislation, the bill created massive new bureaucratic agencies will administrative powers to create new regulations. Senate Democrat Leader [[Chuck Schumer|Cuck Schumer]], in a moment of candid realism, admitted passage of Obamacare was a mistake.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/449700/</ref> Obamacare retarded economic growth for the remainder of President Obama's term.<ref>https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/06/09/It-s-Time-Blame-Obamacare-Losing-So-Many-Full-Time-Jobs</ref>

Pelosi is a strong supporter of abortion, but to get 215 votes she gave in to Catholic leaders nationally and abortion opponents in her own caucus, allowing tight restrictions of the [[Stupak Amendment]] which barred any insurance plan purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions. Numerous liberals denounced the bill even as they voted for it.<ref>David M. Herszenhorn and Jackie Calmes, [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/health/policy/08scene.html?_r=1 "Abortion Was at Heart of Wrangling," ''[[The New York Times]]'' Nov 7, 2009]</ref> The bill went to the Senate where it was adopted with amendments.

===Abortion and Planned Parenthood===
In 2009, student [[Lila Rose]] exposed several instances of illegal behavior by [[Planned Parenthood]].<ref>[http://dotherightthing-cyberpastor.blogspot.com/2009/01/lila-rose-wins-award.html Undercover activist awarded for pro-life work]</ref> However, Pelosi still wanted $200 million for Planned Parenthood as part of the 2009 economic stimulus bill.<ref>[http://politicalhousewyf.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/speaker-pelosi-likes-leather/ Speaker Pelosi Likes Leather]</ref> When asked to explain why this money would promote economic stimulus, Pelosi was never able to give a sensible answer and Planned Parenthood funding was dropped from the bill.<ref>[https://www.lifenews.com/2009/01/29/nat-4799/ Abortion Advocates Upset Planned Parenthood Bailout Dropped From Stimulus Bill], [[LifeNews.com]]</ref>

Commenting on her erroneous understanding of the [[Catholic Church]] beliefs regarding conception, Nancy quips “And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And [[St. Augustine]] said at three months. We don’t know.” <ref>[http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/26/archbishop-of-washington-chides-pelosi-denver-archbishop-warns-biden-to-skip-communion/ Archbishop of Washington Chides Pelosi] [[Fox News]], August 26, 2008</ref> [[Archbishop]] Donald Wuerl rebuked her saying "From the beginning, the Catholic Church has respected the dignity of all human life from the moment of [[conception]] to natural death."

Marc Sheppard of American Thinker has asked how can,
:"one of the most outspoken advocates for unrestricted abortion in Congress -- with a perfect 100% rating from the radical [[pro-abortion]] group [[NARAL]], -- maintain a straight face when declaring a concern for children? How can you vote NO to making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime (Lacy and Conner’s Law - H.R.1997) and pretend to care about infants? How does anyone who voted against restricting interstate transport of minors for the purpose of [[abortion]] (H.R 748) or outlawing the barbaric [[infanticide]] which is [[partial birth abortion]] (H.R 3660) seriously proclaim that anything she does is “about children”.<ref>Marc Sheppard, [https://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/pelosi_god_bless_the_child_tha.html Pelosi: God Bless the Child that’s not at Home], [[American Thinker]], January 14, 2007.</ref>

In 2013, then-Chief Justice of the [[Vatican]], Cardinal [[Raymond Burke]], stated that she should be denied [[communion]] because “[t]his is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin--cooperating with the crime of procured [[abortion]]--and still professes to be a devout [[Roman Catholic|Catholic]].”<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/vatican-chief-justice-nancy-pelosi-must-be-denied-communion</ref>

In defense of children in the mother's womb and the sanctity of Jesus in the host, a priest at the Saint's Peter and Paul Church in Nancy Pelosi's home district, Fr. John Malloy wrote a letter regarding her abortion stance and church services. The letter makes mention of her 100% rating with [[NARAL]] and her support for partial birth abortion. The last line says "...Nancy, do not receive the Eucharist when you attend Mass." <ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070208233537/http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=695280f1-c90e-44d8-a866-d8e28f5ef457 California Catholic Daily A priest writes to Nancy Pelosi], February 1, 2007</ref>

===Gay rights===
In the 2001 San Francisco [[Lesbian]], Gay, [[Bisexual]], Transgender Pride Parade Pelosi marched along with long time [[CPUSA]] <ref>''The Boston Phoenix'', [http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02511115.htm The real Harry Hay], Michael Bronski, October 31 - November 7, 2002.</ref> member and [[gay rights]] pioneer [[Harry Hay]].<ref>The [[American Spectator]] Special Report, [http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10450 When Nancy Met Harry], Jeffrey Lord, 10/5/2006.</ref><ref>The [[San Francisco Chronicle]], [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/22/DD115758.DTL Official Guide & Program] Parade Lineup, page SP - 14, June 22, 2001.</ref> A gay activist group calling itself the [[Human Rights Campaign]] (HRC), eulogized Hay as "the first to realize that the dream of equality for our community could be attained through visibility and activism".<ref>[http://www.hrc.org/Content/ContentGroups/News_Releases/20021/HRC_Mourns_the_Death_of_Gay_Rights_Pioneer_Harry_Hay.htm Human Rights Campaign Mourns the Death of Gay Rights Pioneer Harry Hay], Press Release, Oct. 24, 2002.</ref> An outspoken advocate of the North American Man-Boy Love Association [[NAMBLA]], Hay regularly addressed NAMBLA conferences.{{fact}} NAMBLA carries published material by Hay on its website dating back to 1984. The [[ACLU]] defended NAMBLA against a $200 million lawsuit by parents of a 10 year old murder victim who claimed their sons’ killer was motivated by published material on NAMBLA’s website.<ref>Deroy Murdock, [http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200402270920.asp No Boy Scouts: The ACLU defends NAMBLA], [[National Review Online]], February 27, 2004.</ref><ref>[http://www.thecpac.com/Curleys-v-NAMBLA.html Curley Vs. NAMBLA]</ref> The Human Rights Campaign contributed $10,000 to Pelosi's campaign.<ref>[http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00007360&cycle=2006 Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Top Contributors]</ref>

Pelosi made special rights for homosexuals a priority in the 109th Congress including [[Hate Crime]] legislation.<ref>Concerned Women for America, [http://www.cwfa.org/articles/12147/CWA/family/index.htm Homosexual Bills Top House Speaker Pelosi’s List], January 10, 2007.</ref>

Every year, the gay and lesbian community participates in the Folsom Street Fair that is located in her [[San Francisco]] district. They are barely dressed and publicly expose themselves in depraved sex acts. In addition, crucifixes made into sex toys are sold on the street during the fair.<ref>[https://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=41858 San Francisco Catholic Church Attacked by Pro-Homosexual Marriage Vandals], [[CNSNews]], January 13, 2009</ref> In 2007, the Fair mocked the 'Last Supper' image of Christians, with homosexuals in leather posing as [[Christ]] and the Apostles. Not a word of condemnation from Pelosi on the sacrilegious display.

'''Boy Scouts''' Pelosi tried to pass legislation making it illegal for [[Boy Scouts]] to use public facilities like schools.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080110235203/http://pelosiwatch.us/Pelosi-Record/Truth-About-Nancy-Pelosi.html The Truth About Nancy Pelosi]</ref> According to the ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', her position on the bill was in response to the Boy Scouts not allowing gay scoutmasters, but this was proven to be false.<ref>[http://mediamatters.org/research/2006/10/05/journal-editorial-falsely-claimed-pelosi-voted/136844 Journal editorial falsely claimed Pelosi "vot[ed] to revoke the Boy Scouts' charter for its ban on gay scoutmasters"], [[Media Matters for America]]</ref>

===Support for Syria and Assad===
Pelosi traveled to Damascus, Syria in April 2007 to meet with Syrian [[Ba'athist]] leader [[Bashar al-Assad]]. Pelosi indicated at a press conference that she had carried a message from the government of Israel. "Our message was President Bush’s message," Pelosi told The Associated Press in Portugal.<ref>[http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-delivered-wrong-message-assad-israel-says Pelosi Delivered Wrong Message to Assad, Israel Says], [[CNSNews]] Apr 7 2007.</ref> Pelosi told reporters the meeting "enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister [[Ehud Olmert|Olmert]]".

The Israeli Prime Minister's office stated Olmert told Pelosi that Israel continued to regard Syria as "part of the axis of evil and a party encouraging terrorism in the entire Middle East." The ''Jerusalem Post'' reported sources at the Prime Minister's Office said, "Pelosi took part of the things that were said in the meeting, and used what suited her." <ref>[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=845618&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0 PMO: Pelosi did not carry any message from Israel to Assad], Yoav Stern and Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondents and AP, 5 April 2007.</ref>

The trip was praised by terrorists as "brave". Members of the [[Palestinian Islamic Jihad]] have said Pelosi aligns to their views about terror much better than Bush and Dr. [[Condoleezza Rice]].<ref>[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3385140,00.html Terrorists endorse Pelosi's 'good policy of dialogue'], Aaron Klein, Israel News, 04.05.07. "Palestinian terror group members call US House speaker's visit to Damascus 'brave' and hope for talks with Iran; ‘I think the Democratic Party can do things the best,’ Islamic Jihad member says"</ref> Khaled Al-Batch, spokesman for Islamic Jihad, which along with [[Hamas|Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades]] has taken responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel since 2005,<ref>http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3392403,00.html </ref> expressed [[hope]] Pelosi and the Democratic Party will pressure Bush to create dialogue with Syrian rebel and Middle East "resistance movements" and prompt an American withdrawal from Iraq.

In the lead editorial of Thursday, April 5, The ''[[Washington Post]]'' commented on '''"The Pratfall in Damascus":'''<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402306.html Pratfall in Damascus], [[Washington Post]]</ref>

<blockquote>
HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.</blockquote>

<blockquote>
Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda. ...</blockquote>

<blockquote>Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish. </blockquote>

Pelosi was roundly criticized from all quarters for making the trip. The ''[[New York Post]]'' said, "the sad reality is that Pelosi is sending Assad the same message she and her Democratic colleagues in Congress have sent the terrorist [[Iraq insurgency 2004-2008|insurgency in Iraq]]: Just wait until President Bush leaves office and a Democratic administration will hand you what you want on a platter."<ref>[http://www.nypost.com/seven/04032007/postopinion/editorials/nancys_nonsense_editorials_.htm Nancy's Nonsense], [[New York Post]], 3 April 2007.</ref> The ''Philadelphia Enquirer'' ran an editorial declaring Pelosi "was nuts" to visit Assad.<ref>Claudia Rosett, [http://articles.philly.com/2007-04-05/news/25243155_1_president-bashar-assad-syrian-involvement-damascus Pelosi was nuts to visit with Assad], ''Philadelphia Enquirer'', Thu, Apr. 05, 2007.</ref>

===Refuses to pay troops===
Pelosi was for the War in Iraq before she was against it. During the [[Clinton administration]] Pelosi's said {{Quotebox|"[[Saddam Hussein]] has been engaged in the development of [[weapons of mass destruction]] technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."}} In 2003 Leader Pelosi voted for the [[Operation Iraqi Freedom|War in Iraq]]. By 2005 Pelosi called eliminating a [[fascist]] [[dictatorship]] and establishing a [[parliamentary]] [[democracy]] in Iraq a "grotesque mistake".

As Speaker, a major setback for Pelosi was the rejection by Democrats in both Houses for her plan to cut and run from Iraq. Pelosi promised in the csmpaign a [[Vietnam]]-style solution to stop funding the troops. In a stunning rebuke to her leadership, the House voted 280-142 to continue fighting radical [[Islamic]] extremists. Only radical fringe Democrats voted against paying the troops.<ref>[http://washingtontimes.com/national/20070525-122215-4854r.htm Congress OKs war bill sans timeline,] By S.A. Miller, ''[[The Washington Times]]'', May 25, 2007.</ref> In [[bi-partisan]] compromise Pelosi won a raise in the [[minimum wage]] in exchange for paying the troops.<ref>[http://www.optimalsolutionsgroup.com/pubs/Duncan-Turner-Pape.pdf Minimum wages and school enrollment of teenagers: a look at the 1990’s.] Duncan D. Chaplin, Mark D. Turner, Andreas D. Pape. ''Economics of Education Review''. 22 (2003) 11–21.</ref><ref>"Hamilton and Madison knew what they were doing when they gave the bulk of the war powers to the President, and it's hard to imagine a more telling vindication of their wisdom...Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader [[Harry Reid]] claim to oppose the war and want it to end, yet they refused to use their power of the purse to end it. Instead, they tried every legislative gimmick imaginable to hamstring President Bush's war strategy without actually having to take responsibility for cutting off funds.[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118014289006815463 Congress and Iraq], ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', May 26, 2007.</ref>

===John Brennan and torture===
:{{See also|John Brennan}}
Pelosi has been caught lying about her knowledge of [[CIA]] interrogations. She claims she was never briefed by the [[Bush Administration]]. In fact, Pelosi was briefed through the [[Gang of Eight]] process. The ''[[Washington Post]]'' reported "In September 2002, four members of Congress [House members including Pelosi] met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody," and "Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding..." <ref>[https://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=47108 Pelosi Says She Was 'Never Briefed' on Waterboarding] [[CNSNews]], April 24, 2009</ref>

After doing nothing to improve the intelligence of the CIA, after admonishing the CIA for lying, and providing no evidence weeks after her allegation, Pelosi then said she has confidence in the intelligence community.<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/08/house-democrat-joins-pelosi-accusing-cia-misleading-lying-congress/ House Democrats' Letter Says Panetta Testified CIA 'Misled' Congress] [[Fox News]], July 8, 2009</ref>

On November 2, 2007, Brennan defended the [[torture]] program:
{{Cquote|the C.I.A. has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since [[9/11]], and about a third of them have been subjected to what the C.I.A. refers to as enhanced interrogation tactics.and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures.<ref>''The Early Show'' on [[CBS]], John Brennan interview with Harry Smith. [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/07/us/politics/07brennan-issues.html]</ref>}} President Obama appointed Brennan to head the CIA, despite his promise to shut down Brennan's torture program.

===China: Human rights vs global warming===
Pelosi left the U.S. at a time when she is under verbal attack at home for her CIA comments. During her travel to China she made no mention of Chinese human rights abuses but raised awareness for [[Global warming]]. Earlier she was calling for President Bush to boycott the Olympics held in China over human rights abuses in [[Tibet]].

===Opposed energy Independence===
Rising pump prices was a big issue in the 2006 elections. Many Americans were paying more for gasoline than they were on housing. A poll showed more than 75% of Americans supported expanding domestic drilling. The poll showed 85% of Republicans, 71% of Democrats and 68% of Independents favored more drilling.<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/062108_energy_release_web.pdf Fox News Polling Opinion Dynamics] [[Fox News]], June 21, 2008</ref> The poll found the public split on whether domestic drilling would have an impact on gas prices.<ref>An anti-Bush CNN poll found "just over half say that the Bush administration and the war in Iraq are major causes of high fuel prices."[https://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/31/congress.session/index.html GOP lawmakers want special session on energy crisis]</ref>

Pelosi wanted oil companies to drill on federal lands already leased and refused to allow a vote for additional domestic drilling. In July 2008 Pelosi told [[George Stephanopoulos]] on [[ABC News]]'s ''[[This Week]]'' program, {{quotebox|"I'm trying to save the planet I'm trying to save the planet."<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUx6o9qpYY</ref><ref>She did allow a vote to close the [[House of Representatives]] early for a five-week recess without addressing energy issues. [http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/77da4653-28ce-4c3e-a8a9-37ae52671b15 A Month Off for Bad Behavior] [[Townhall]], July 30, 2008. Pelosi wanted to tap into the Strategic Oil Reserves. "America's greatest strategic reserves lie beneath taxpayer-owned lands - including ANWR's northern coastal plain and the outer continental shelf - that are currently off limits to energy production,” said Daniel Kish, senior vice president of the Institute for Energy Research, an oil industry-supported think tank. [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/11/us-oil-reserves-sought-for-relief/ U.S. oil reserves sought for relief], [[The Washington Times]], July 11, 2008</ref> }}
Pelosi espouses the [[Marxist]] view of blaming producers and [[capitalist]] speculators for price increases rather than growing demand of a growing population on finite resources.<ref>Pelosi's support for renewable energy and new technologies did not lower energy prices. "A New Direction", the Democrats' Six for '06 campaign promised energy independence, however once elected she refused to deliver. "For 25 years, Democrats have blocked more American-made oil and gas. That's why we're in the predicament we're in, voters want Congress to vote on more American made oil and gas. We want to do that. She, [[Harry Reid]], [[Barack Obama]] are standing in the way." "She's got time to go out and promote her new book tour and her new book, but she doesn't have time to schedule a vote on the floor of the House and let the American people have their will expressed?" said Republican Leader John Boehner, who made energy independrnce a reality when he assumed the Speakership.</ref>

Pelosi is a supporter of increasing taxes and regulation on oil production to lower output and raise consumer prices to support advocates of the anti-[[global warming]] agenda.<ref>Pelosi was scheduled to speak at a March 2, 2009 global warming protest, but did not make it because her plane, a huge gas guzzler, was delayed due to a snowstorm.[http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-snowed-out-global-warming-rally Pelosi Snowed-Out of Global Warming Rally], [[Cybercast News Service]]</ref>

'''Wilderness years''' In May 2017, Pelosi claimed the Democratic Party was not divided, despite clear examples to the contrary.<ref>Nazarian, Adelle (May 3, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/05/03/nancy-pelosi-claims-broken-democratic-party-is-100-percent-unified/ Nancy Pelosi Claims Broken Democratic Party Is ‘100 Percent Unified’]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved May 3, 2017.</ref>

==Personal life==
Pelosi's father was a Congressman from [[Maryland]] and later the Mayor of [[Baltimore]] for twelve years; when she graduated from Trinity College in 1962, Pelosi did not remain to serve her community,<ref>https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2006/10/07/family-dynasty-may-boost-pelosi-to-head-of-house-2/amp/</ref> but rather joined the [[white flight]] out of Baltimore as so many other [[white]]s did and moved to [[California]] where [[blacks]] were fewer in number.<ref>https://qz.com/393128/white-flight-decimated-baltimore-businesses-long-before-rioters-showed-up/amp/</ref> She married and had five children. Pelosi rose through the ranks to become chair of the California Democratic Party and representative to the [[Democratic National Committee]].

In 1987, Pelosi made the leap into elected office by winning the special election called after the death of Representative Sala Burton. She served on the House Appropriations Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Previously Pelosi represented California's 8th district (1993-2013) and its 5th district (1987-1993). She was [[Speaker of the House]] from 2007 to 2011, succeeding [[J. Dennis Hastert]] and preceding [[John Boehner]].

Since being elected Democrat Leader in 2002 Pelosi has raised $750,000,000 for Congressional Democrats.

===1 percenter===
Pelosi is among the ten richest members of the House with a net worth estimated at over $150 million.<ref>[http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.asp?CID=N00007360&year=2005 opensecrets.org]</ref>

Pelosi's rise in the Democrat party [[nationalism|national]] leadership began with her election in one of the richest and bluest districts in America. With a safe seat guaranteed, she could raise money from Democrat millionaires in her district and funnel the cash to other Democrat House candidates around the country, making those members indebted to her and buying their loyalty.

She prides herself in "being called a [[liberal]]" and rejects the label of "moderate".<ref>[http://www.newrepublic.com/article/follow-the-leader Follow the Leader], Michael Crowley, [[New Republic]], November 25, 2002.</ref>

===Environmental polluter===
One of Nancy Pelosi's largest investments is a private golf development partnership called Lions Gate Limited. The Santa Clara County Planning Committee approved a plan to build a 275-acre golf course 30 minutes south of [[San Jose]], but only under strict conditions. They agreed to allow 60% public usage of the course and to abide by strict environmental rules, since a number of [[endangered species]] were present in the area. The club, CordaValle, opened in 2000 and did very well, making $250,000 for each member and $400,000 for corporations.<ref>Barry Witt, "Cordevalle club not living up to 60 percent language," San Jose Mercury News Jan. 10, 2002.</ref>

But then the Planning Commission took a look to see if the guidelines had been followed. First of all, only about a dozen non-members had been actually able to play on the course, a far cry from 60%. CordeValle had also set up obvious anti-public rules, such as requiring people to call seventy-two hours in advance and pay close to $300 for 18 holes. Upon investigation, the Commission learned that non-members were told that the club was "full" and turned away even when the club was relatively empty. There were a series of public hearings on the matter and it was concluded that Lion's Gate was in clear violation of the agreement they had made.<ref>Barry Witt, "CordeValle Update," San Jose Mercury News, May 8, 2003.</ref>

During the hearings, it emerged that Lion's Gate had also ignored many of the applicable environmental regulations. They failed to build two ponds that were necessary to preserve two species of lizard and turtle. And only one mandatory annual environmental report had been submitted in seven years.<ref>Barry Witt, "What to do on CordeValle; open it up to the public, or open up its wallet", San Jose Mercury News, August 7, 2003</ref> In 2004, a county report complained that improperly abandoned wells and urban [[pollutant]]s from the resort were causing water quality degradation in the area.<ref>File 5950-68-28-94P, Lions Gate Limited Partnership Staff Report, San Jose Planning Commission, August 5, 2004, and November 4, 2004 (same file name)</ref>

In 2003, the Pelosis and the development partnership finally hired some [[lobbyist]]s and put a few government employees on the payroll. This caused the commission to cave and give up their [[fraud]] investigation as long as the course agreed to host a charity golf tournament for children.<ref>Barry Witt, "Help for CordeValle," San Jose Mercury News, June 13, 2003.</ref>

===Personal gains from pork===
In May 2007 Pelosi inserted a $25 million earmark into the Water Resources Development Act for a project that involved renovating ports near four commercial properties owned by her husband, Paul Pelosi, which boosted the value of the property he owned.<ref>[http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGIwYzc2MTQ4YTBlMTg3YjJmZGVhODc4NmJhYjg4YjY Pelosi’s Waterworks], Stephen Spruiell, ''[[National Review Online]]'', May 9, 2007.</ref> The properties earn combined annual income of more than $3 million.<ref>[http://www.nypost.com/seven/05082007/news/nationalnews/her_an_fran_treat_nationalnews_geoff_earle.htm Her $an Fransisco Treat: Pelosi Water-Bill Bid Drawing Fire], Geoff Earle, ''[[New York Post]]'', May 8, 2007.</ref>

===Illegal and non-union employees===
According to opensecrets.org, nearly half of Pelosi's assets are invested in a Napa County, California, vineyard called Zinfandel Lane. Capitolnews.com has reported Pelosi only employs non-union laborers and does not provide health coverage for her workers. In addition, it is believed [[illegal alien]]s have been exploited by Pelosi on the work farm, as well as a general question surrounding paying a basic liveable wage for many of society's most vulnerable.<ref>[http://www.capoliticalnews.com/s/spip.php?article13 Does Pelosi’s Non-Union Vineyard Use Illegal Aliens?], Monday 30 October 2006.</ref>

==Memoir==
[[File:Pelosibook.jpg‎|200px|right]]
Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters. She writes "If [[women]] can learn from me, it will make the honor of being [[Speaker of the House]] even greater." Currently, the majority rating is one star on Amazon.com and is doing poorly in sales, ranked at 1620 for a non-fiction memoir.<ref>[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71104 Corsi's Obama title soars to No. 1, Pelosi's tanks] [[WorldNetDaily]], July 31, 2008</ref>

==See also==
* [[Ségolène Royal]]
* [[Hillary Clinton]]
* [[New Democrat]]
* [[Liberal]]
* [[Previous Breaking News/Nancy Pelosi|Articles about '''Nancy Pelosi''' from previous "Breaking News"]]

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}

==External links==
*[http://www.house.gov/pelosi/ Nancy Pelosi's Congressional Page]
*[http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00007360&cycle=2006 Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Top Contributors]
*[http://www.themilitant.com/1995/5944/5944_5.html Ed Shaw: 50 Years In Fight For Socialism], ''The Militant'', Vol.59/No.44, November 27, 1995.
*[http://www.opensecrets.org/1996os/contrib/H8CA05035.htm]

{{liberalism}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pelosi, Nancy}}
[[Category:United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Speakers of the House(US)]]
[[Category:Liberals]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:114th United States Congress]]
[[Category:Italian-Americans]]

Angela Merkel

2018-11-18T20:00:38Z

JoeyJ: /* Foreign relations */

[[File:Merkel.jpg|thumb|Merkel between the flags of Germany (left) and the European Union (EU)]]
:''For more on Merkel's destructive immigration policies, see [[European migrant crisis]]''
'''Angela Dorothea Merkel''' (born 17 July 1954) was elected in March 2018 to her fourth term as the chancellor of [[Germany]], the top position for a broad coalition government. She is also the leader of the German [[Christian Democratic Union]] (CDU), historically Germany's conservative party. She has served as the chancellor of Germany since 2005, a position comparable to prime minister. She is a champion of the euro and of the mass migration of Middle Eastern and North African refugees to Europe.<ref>Milton Friedman detailed the disadvantages of the euro in "[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-euro--monetary-unity-to-political-disunity The Euro: Monetary Unity To Political Disunity?]"</ref>

==Early life==
Angela Dorthea Kasner Merkel was born in [[Hamburg]] but three years later he family moved to Templin, Brandenburg in [[East Germany]]. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Protestant pastor who had studied Theology at Heidelberg University. Her mother, Herlind, was an English and Latin teacher. The Kasner family was increased when Angela's brother Marcus was born in 1957 and her sister Irene in 1964.

==Career==
Merkel grew up in the Communist [[East Germany]] just outside Berlin. Merkel was educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig, where she studied physics (1973-1978).

She worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences (1978–1990). After graduating with a doctorate in physics working in quantum chemistry. In 1989 she became involved in the growing [[democracy]] movement and, after the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]], she got a job as government spokesperson following the first democratic elections. She joined the CDU two months before German reunification and within three months she was in [[Helmut Kohl]]'s cabinet as minister for women and youth. In 1994 she was made minister for the environment.

Her East German background has stood her in good stead. For the first 36 years of her life, she honed her skills at covering up or suppressing her feelings—essential in a society where practically every room contained a [[Stasi]] informer, especially if you were a pastor's daughter. Speaking near perfect English and remarking on her background as an Ossi she says, "Anyone who really has something to say doesn't need make-up".

==German chancellor==
===2005 election===
Merkel was first elected as chancellor of Germany in 2005. She ruled together with the left-center [[SPD]] until 2009.<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10518099/Germanys-Social-Democrats-vote-to-form-grand-coalition-with-Angela-Merkel.html</ref>

===2009 election===
[[File:Germ-vote-2009.jpg|300px|thumb|Exit polls from Sept. 2009 election won by the conservative coalition CDU and FDP]]
The September 2009 election was a major win for the right-of-center forces led by Chancellor Merkel, breaking a stalemate and opening the way for more conservative economic policies. Previously since an indecisive election in 2005 the center-right [[Christian Democratic Union|Christian Democrats]] formed a "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats, headed by Frank-Walter Steinmeier. 2009 Merkel and her CDU formed a coalition with the liberal [[Free Democratic Party|Free Democrats]]. Left in the cold was the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Greens]], and the ex-Communists who remain strong under the name "[[The Left]]." Merkel moved forward on tax cuts, reform of the tax code, reduction of bureaucracy and an extension of the time that nuclear power plants can continue to operate.

The victory enhanced her reputation as Europe's top political power broker, as Merkel became the first leader of a major European country to win re-election since the [[Recession of 2008|global financial crisis]] struck the previous year. Voters generally approved of her response to the recession, even though it hammered Germany's export-dependent economy and resulted in a huge amount of public debt. She countered criticism by blaming the crisis on [[Wall Street]] and engaging in a modest stimulus program.<ref>Craig Whitlock, "Germany's Merkel Reelected Easily, Will Form New Coalition," [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/27/AR2009092700631.html?nav=emailpage ''Washington Post'' Sept. 28, 2009]</ref>

===2013 election===
In the 2013 election, the CDU remained Germany's strongest party, but its ally the [[Free Democratic Party|FDP]] lost the election and left the parliament.<ref>http://bigstory.ap.org/article/merkel-bidding-3rd-term-german-election</ref> Thus, the CDU created a "grand coalition" with the SPD again.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/27/merkel-conservatives-center-left-rivals-reach-deal-to-form-new-german/</ref> The vice chancellor is Sigmar Gabriel, the chairman of the [[SPD]].<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/merkel-backs-plans-stem-energy-cost-rises</ref>

===2017 election===
In a campaign described as "boring", Merkel saw a challenge by the SPD's left-wing [[Martin Schulz]], the former president of the [[European Parliament]]. Merkel was seen by some commentators to have subtly tacked towards the right on some policies such as migration and [[Turkey]]'s accession to the EU – two issues she formerly was wholeheartedly in support of. In the election, the right-wing conservative [[Alternative for Germany]] entered the Bundestag after taking a historic third place with nearly 13% of the vote, while Merkel's CDU received its worst result since 1949.<ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (September 25, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/25/merkel-scores-pyrrhic-victory-populists-beat-expectations/ Merkel’s Pyrrhic Victory: Worst Party Performance Since 1949 As Populist AfD Beat Expectations]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-elections-afd/4043104.html Germany Shaken by Far-right Political Earthquake]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/merkel-win-seen-as-inevitable/4042028.html Merkel Wins Historic Fourth Term But Far-right Populists Surge]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Ridgwell, Henry (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-far-right-reclaim-country-angela-merkel-coalition-talks/4043603.html German Far-right Pledges to 'Reclaim Country' as Merkel Begins Tough Coalition Talks]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Chazan, Guy (September 24, 2017). [https://www.ft.com/content/d18213e0-a105-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2 Nationalist AfD make historic breakthrough in German elections]. ''Financial Times''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.</ref> Despite this, Merkel continued defending her open borders policies.<ref>[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/25/merkel-defends-open-borders-migrant-policy-election-shock/ Merkel Defends Open Borders Migrant Policy After Election Shock]. ''Breitbart News''. September 25, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2017.</ref> Merkel had trouble creating a government, with the Social Democrats initially refusing to work with her in a coalition and with the Greens and FDP being unable to agree together with the CDU. In February 2018, Merkel reached an agreement with the Social Democrats that gave the latter party a disproportionate amount of influence in her government.<ref>Joffe, Josef (February 9, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-martin-schulz-cdu-spd-government-of-losers/ Angela’s Merkel government of losers]. ''Politico''. Retrieved February 9, 2018.</ref> Six months after the election, the German Bundestag voted to give Merkel a fourth term as chancellor with her "grand coalition" with the SPD.<ref>Multiple references:
*[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/14/six-months-inconclusive-elections-angela-merkel-begins-historic-fourth-term-chancellor/ Six Months After Worst Ever Election Result Angela Merkel Begins Historic Fourth Term as Chancellor]. ''Breitbart News''. March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*[http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03/14/angela-merkel-elected-for-4th-term-as-german-chancellor.html Angela Merkel elected for 4th term as German chancellor]. ''Fox News''. March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*Doubek, James (March 14, 2018). [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593412170/germanys-angela-merkel-begins-fourth-term-on-shaky-ground Germany's Angela Merkel Begins Fourth Term On Shaky Ground]. ''NPR''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*Thomas, Andrea; Benoit, Bertrand (March 14, 2018). [https://www.wsj.com/articles/angela-merkel-begins-fourth-term-as-german-chancellor-1521022646 Angela Merkel Starts Fourth Term Facing Big Hurdles]. ''The Wall Street Journal''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.</ref>

===Policies===
Merkel supports [[liberal]] and [[Globalism|globalist]] policies. She allowed her party members a free vote for legalizing [[same-sex "marriage"]]. In June 2017, the German parliament voted for legalizing it, including some MPs from Merkel's party, although she herself voted against it.<ref>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/angela-merkel-same-sex-marriage-vote-germany-legalisation-lgbt-rights-christian-democrat-man-woman-a7815846.html</ref> Her nation harshly opposes [[homeschooling]]. She supports the socialist and globalist [[European Union]] and open borders. Her left-wing policies contributed significantly to the [[European migrant crisis]]. Merkel opposes patriotic policies, such as building [[border wall]]s and advancing protectionism, opposes [[populism]], and supports [[globalism]].<ref>Deacon, Liam (January 24, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/24/merkel-davos-attacks-walls-poison-populism-defends-globalism/ Merkel at Davos: Attacks ‘Walls’ and ‘Poison’ of Populism, Defends Globalism]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 24, 2018.</ref> In November 2018, Merkel called for a common EU army.<ref>Multiple references:
*Hale, Virginia (November 14, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/11/14/merkel-eu-army-call-world-peace/ Merkel Demands ‘Real, True EU Army’… Days After Calling for ‘UN Values’ Globalist World Peace]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
*Shaw, Adam (November 13, 2018). [https://www.foxnews.com/world/merkel-calls-for-creation-of-european-army-backing-macron-in-spat-with-trump Merkel calls for creation of ‘European army,’ backing Macron in spat with Trump]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved November 13, 2018.
*Axelrod, Tal (November 13, 2018). [https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/416412-merkel-calls-for-creation-of-real-true-european-army Merkel calls for creation of ‘real, true European army']. ''The Hill''. Retrieved November 13, 2018.</ref>

Merkel fears that the European Union has failed to define its common interests "for the (commercial) battles of the future" now Europe's cold war priorities of keeping "peace and freedom" have been achieved. "This is where I think Europe needs to learn a lot, not to concentrate too much on whether bicycle paths are built the same way in Portugal and north-west Germany."

Domestically, Merkel recognizes the need for change in the country's consensual model. "In Germany, we are always facing the danger that we are a little bit too slow. We have to speed up our changes."

====Migration policy====
Because of Merkel's [[open borders]] policies, more than 2.5 million refugees and migrants have flooded into Germany from outside Europe, migrants who do not share a common European heritage with their host country. In 2015 alone, Germany was invaded by nearly one million non-Western immigrants,<ref>[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/10/europe-immigration-muslim-refugees-portraits/ The New Europeans], Robert Kunzig, ''National Geographic'', October 2016</ref> more than double the size of Germany's standing and reserve military force. Merkel opposed setting an upper limit on the number of refugees Germany would allow in annually.<ref>Delcker, Janosch (October 2, 2017). [https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-germany-new-refugee-dilemma-bavaria-csu/ Angela Merkel’s new refugee dilemma]. ''Politico''. Retrieved October 3, 2017.</ref> It was reported in August 2017 that since 2015, when the [[European migrant crisis]] was at its height, the German Prosecutor’s Office received over 1,000 criminal complaints accusing Merkel of high treason for her actions regarding refugees and immigration.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (August 31, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/31/german-prosecutors-1000-criminal-complaints-merkel-high-treason/ Prosecutors Have Rejected 1,000 High Treason Charges Against Merkel For Migrant Crisis Since 2015]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 31, 2017.</ref> This represented a massive visible shift in her policies since 2010, when she actually stated that a multicultural society had failed and that immigrants needed to do more to integrate, including learning German.<ref>(October 17, 2010). [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11559451 Merkel says German multicultural society has failed]. ''BBC''. Retrieved September 16, 2018.</ref>

When discussing her options on how to counter the migrant crisis in 2015, Merkel quickly dismissed the notion of restoring border controls.<ref>Hale, Virginia (September 25, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/25/no-fences-merkels-migrant-crisis-vow/ ‘We Won’t Build Any Fences’: Interview Reveals Merkel’s Reaction to 2015 Migrant Crisis]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 25, 2018.</ref>

When the German Minister of Interior [[Horst Seehofer]] stated that [[Islam]] "does not belong in Germany,"<ref>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43422770</ref><ref>Huggler, Justin (March 16, 2018). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/german-interior-minister-declares-islam-does-not-belong-country/ German interior minister declares 'Islam does not belong' in the country]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> Merkel quickly responded by saying that "Islam belongs to Germany."<ref>Hale, Virginia (March 16, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/16/islam-belongs-germany-merkel-insists/ ‘Islam Belongs to Germany’, Merkel Insists After Minister Highlights Nation’s Christian Heritage]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[https://www.thelocal.de/20180316/islam-doesnt-belong-to-germany-says-interior-minister-horst-seehofer Merkel contradicts interior minister, saying ‘Islam belongs to Germany’]. ''The Local''. March 16, 2018. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> Merkel's globalist views on immigration and unwillingness to compromise conflicted with the relatively conservative views of Seehofer, something which endangered the coalition she created after the 2017 elections.<ref>Multiple references:
*Irvine, Chris (June 15, 2018). [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/15/angela-merkels-german-government-facing-collapse-over-her-immigration-stance.html Angela Merkel's German government facing collapse over her immigration stance]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
*Tomlinson, Chris (June 16, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/06/16/longstanding-disagreements-on-migrant-policy-threaten-to-end-merkel-era/ New Migrant Crisis Threatens to Bring Down Merkel in 48 Hours]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
*Duke, Selwyn (June 18, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/29300-muslim-migration-may-topple-eu-starting-with-angela-merkel-s-government Muslim Migration May Topple EU — Starting With Angela Merkel’s Government]. ''The New American''. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
*[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany/defiant-merkel-backs-europe-migrant-policy-as-bavaria-row-simmers-idUSKBN1JC0CQ Defiant Merkel backs Europe migrant policy as Bavaria row simmers]. ''Reuters''. June 16, 2018. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
*[http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/13/merkel-allies-heading-for-showdown-over-immigration-policy.html Merkel, allies heading for showdown over immigration policy]. ''Fox News'' (from the ''Associated Press''). June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.</ref> Ultimately, they found a compromise which saw Merkel gain the upper hand.<ref>Multiple references:
*Lane, Oliver JJ (July 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/merkel-germany-coalition-limps-on-as-immigration-control-compromise-struck/ Merkel Germany Coalition Limps on as Immigration Control Compromise Struck]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
*Escritt, Thomas; Chambers, Madeline (July 2, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany/merkel-to-fight-another-day-after-settling-migration-row-idUSKBN1JS0NJ Merkel to fight another day after settling migration row]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
*Byas, Steve (July 3, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/29434-immigration-compromise-saves-merkel-government-in-germany-for-now Immigration Compromise Saves Merkel Government in Germany — for Now]. ''The New American''. Retrieved July 3, 2018.</ref>

Merkel continued advancing policies increasing the number of migrants into Germany.<ref>Byas, Steve (October 3, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/30231-germany-s-merkel-favors-even-more-immigrants Germany’s Merkel Favors Even More Immigrants]. ''The New American''. Retrieved October 3, 2018.</ref>

===Foreign relations===
Merkel failed to stand up for [[the West|Western]] values as German Chancellor and allowed Germany to become dependent on Russian energy.<ref>Rogan, Tom (November 12, 2018). [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/macron-merkel-and-why-international-order-remains-the-american-preserve Macron, Merkel, and why international order remains the American preserve]. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved November 12, 2018.</ref>

In 2011 Merkel opposed [[Israel]]'s settlement program in the [[West Bank]]<ref>Weiland, Severin. [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/merkel-and-netanyahu-pledge-friendship-in-berlin-despite-differences-a-871458.html Merkel and Netanyahu Seek to Play Down Differences] ''[[Der Spiegel]]''. Retrieved August 9, 2018.</ref> and rejects moving Germany's embassy from [[Tel Aviv]] to [[Jerusalem]].<ref>Berkowitz, Adam Eliyahu. [https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/106501/germanys-merkel-no-to-jerusalem-embassy-no-to-settlements-yes-to-iran-nuclear-deal/ Germany’s Merkel: No to Jerusalem Embassy, No to ‘Settlements,’ Yes to Iran Nuclear Deal] ''BreakingIsraelNews''. Retrieved October 7, 2018.</ref> She even urged [[Romania]]’s President Klaus Iohannis to stop the planned relocation of Romania’s embassy to Jerusalem.<ref>Weinthal, Benjamin. [https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Angela-Merkel-urged-Romanian-president-to-not-move-embassy-to-Jerusalem-572032 EXCLUSIVE: MERKEL URGED ROMANIAN PRESIDENT TO NOT MOVE EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM] ''Jerusalem Post''. Retrieved November 18, 2018.</ref> After President Trump decided to leave the [[Iran nuclear deal]], Merkel explained that this deal "should never be called into question" and wanted [[Iran]] to remain in it.<ref>(May 9, 2018). [https://www.thelocal.de/20180509/iran-nuclear-deal-should-never-be-called-in-question-says-merkel Iran nuclear deal ‘should never be called into question’, says Merkel] ''thelocal.de''. Retrieved August 9, 2018.</ref>

==== Relations with Donald Trump ====
In October 2015, [[Donald Trump]] criticized Merkel's migration policy: "I love a safe zone for people. I do not like the migration. I do not like the people coming. Frankly, look, Europe is going to have to handle – but they're going to have riots in Germany. What's happening in Germany, I always thought Merkel was like this great leader. What she's done in Germany is insane. It is insane. They're having all sorts of attacks."<ref>Keneally, Meghan (July 6, 2017). [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-merkel/story?id=46198767 What Trump and Merkel have said about each other] ''ABC News''. Retrieved May 5, 2018.</ref> In April 2018, President Trump emphasized that he has a "really great relationship" with Chancellor Merkel. According to him they both "actually have had a great relationship from the beginning."<ref>Fredericks, Bob (April 27, 2018). [https://nypost.com/2018/04/27/trump-praises-great-relationship-with-merkel-during-white-house-visit/ Trump praises ‘great relationship’ with Merkel during White House visit] ''New York Post''. Retrieved May 8, 2018.</ref> On November 11, 2018, Merkel joined [[globalist]] French president [[Emmanuel Macron]] in attacking nationalism and President Trump's [[America First]] foreign policy.<ref>Re, Gregg (November 11, 2018). [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-speaking-at-armistice-day-event-xx Trump, speaking at Armistice Day event outside Paris, honors fallen soldiers as Macron, Merkel take shots at him]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved November 11, 2018.</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of German Chancellors]]

==Further reading==
* Clifford W. Mills. ''Angela Merkel'' (2007), 120pp; for middle schools
* Wolfgang Stock: Angela Merkel: eine politische Biographie. Neuauflage. München 2005, ISBN 3-7892-8168-9

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}

{{German Chancellors}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merkel, Angela}}
[[Category:Current Heads of Government]]
[[Category:Christian Democrat Union politicians]]
[[Category:Children of Clergy]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom award winners]]
[[Category:German Chancellors]]
[[Category:Globalists]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Jeremy Corbyn

2018-11-16T17:55:57Z

JoeyJ:

[[File:Official portrait of Jeremy Corbyn crop 2.jpg|thumb|Jeremy Corbyn]]
'''Jeremy Corbyn''', (sometimes nicknamed as 'Jez' by supporters) is the leader of the British [[Labour Party]] and [[Leader of the Opposition]]. He was elected in September 2015, and his predecessor was [[Ed Miliband]].<ref>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34223157</ref> He is the [[Member of Parliament]] for Islington North.<ref>http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/jeremy-corbyn/185</ref> Jeremy is the brother of physicist and meteorologist [[Piers Corbyn]].<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/24/piers-corbyn-other-rebel-in-the-family-jeremy-corbyn-climate-change</ref>

==2017 Snap Election==
Although Corbyn was 20% down in the polls compared to [[Theresa May]], he has said the public "cannot trust" May. His campaign largely focussed around [[Tory]] cuts to the NHS and schools in the name of [[UK Spending Cuts|austerity]].<ref>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39636466</ref>

He managed to increase the Labour Party's share of the vote to 40% and gained an additional 30 seats in the [[House of Commons]].

==Political views==
Corbyn has openly expressed his admiration for [[Socialism|Socialist]] dictators such as [[Hugo Chavez]] and [[Fidel Castro]].<ref>https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992</ref><ref>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38117068</ref> He argued for the preservation of the [[Iran nuclear deal]]<ref>https://financialtribune.com/articles/national/88341/jeremy-corbyn-says-nuclear-deal-should-be-preserved</ref> and called the [[Hamas]] "an organisation dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people" which should not be listed as a terrorist organization by the British government.<ref>https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/24/britains-labour-party-has-a-lefty-problem-jeremy-corbyn/</ref> He joined Hamas terrorists at a conference in the [[Middle East]].<ref>Kent, Simon (August 20, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/08/20/jeremy-corbyn-joined-hamas-terrorists-at-middle-east-conference/ Jeremy Corbyn Joined Hamas Terrorists at Middle East Conference]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 20, 2018.</ref> He also compared Israel with [[Nazi]] occupiers.<ref>Friedman, Victoria (August 11, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/11/far-left-labour-leader-corbyn-compared-israel-nazi-occupation-europe/ Far-Left Labour Leader Corbyn Compared Israel to Nazi WW2 Occupiers]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 20, 2018.</ref>

Corbyn was criticized by [[Israel]]i Prime Minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] for laying a wreath on the graves of the terrorists who committed the [[Munich massacre]].<ref>https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Netanyahu-condemns-Corbyns-homage-to-Munich-Massacre-564755</ref><ref>Kent, Simon (August 12, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/08/12/jeremy-corbyn-challenged-over-graveside-wreath-laying-for-munich-massacre-terrorists/ Jeremy Corbyn Challenged over Graveside Wreath-Laying for Munich Massacre Terrorists]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 20, 2018.</ref> He also was criticized for making the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] salute at a local mosque.<ref>Deacon, Liam (August 15, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/15/corbyn-slammed-for-making-muslim-brotherhood-islamist-salute/ Corbyn Slammed for Making Muslim Brotherhood Islamist Salute]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 20, 2018.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Far Left]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corbyn, Jeremy}}
[[Category:British Politicians]]
[[Category:Socialists]]
[[Category:Abortion Advocates]]
[[Category:Members of Parliament]]

File:Official portrait of Jeremy Corbyn crop 2.jpg

2018-11-16T17:55:33Z

JoeyJ: Jeremy Corbyn source = [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Jeremy_Corbyn_crop_2.jpg] [https://beta.parliament.uk/media/u0mXpY2m] author = [http://www.mcandrewphoto.co.uk/ Chris McAndrew] Licensed by CC BY 3.0 (...

[[Jeremy Corbyn]]
 source = [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Jeremy_Corbyn_crop_2.jpg] [https://beta.parliament.uk/media/u0mXpY2m]
 author = [http://www.mcandrewphoto.co.uk/ Chris McAndrew]
 Licensed by CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.de)], via Wikimedia Commons

[[Category:Image]]

Angela Merkel

2018-11-14T16:26:26Z

JoeyJ:

[[File:Merkel.jpg|thumb|Merkel between the flags of Germany (left) and the European Union (EU)]]
:''For more on Merkel's destructive immigration policies, see [[European migrant crisis]]''
'''Angela Dorothea Merkel''' (born 17 July 1954) was elected in March 2018 to her fourth term as the chancellor of [[Germany]], the top position for a broad coalition government. She is also the leader of the German [[Christian Democratic Union]] (CDU), historically Germany's conservative party. She has served as the chancellor of Germany since 2005, a position comparable to prime minister. She is a champion of the euro and of the mass migration of Middle Eastern and North African refugees to Europe.<ref>Milton Friedman detailed the disadvantages of the euro in "[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-euro--monetary-unity-to-political-disunity The Euro: Monetary Unity To Political Disunity?]"</ref>

==Life==
===Early life===
Angela Dorthea Kasner Merkel was born in [[Hamburg]] but three years later he family moved to Templin, Brandenburg in [[East Germany]]. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Protestant pastor who had studied Theology at Heidelberg University. Her mother, Herlind, was an English and Latin teacher. The Kasner family was increased when Angela's brother Marcus was born in 1957 and her sister Irene in 1964.

===Career===
Merkel grew up in the Communist [[East Germany]] just outside Berlin. Merkel was educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig, where she studied physics (1973-1978).

She worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences (1978–1990). After graduating with a doctorate in physics working in quantum chemistry. In 1989 she became involved in the growing [[democracy]] movement and, after the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]], she got a job as government spokesperson following the first democratic elections. She joined the CDU two months before German reunification and within three months she was in [[Helmut Kohl]]'s cabinet as minister for women and youth. In 1994 she was made minister for the environment.

Her East German background has stood her in good stead. For the first 36 years of her life, she honed her skills at covering up or suppressing her feelings—essential in a society where practically every room contained a [[Stasi]] informer, especially if you were a pastor's daughter. Speaking near perfect English and remarking on her background as an Ossi she says, "Anyone who really has something to say doesn't need make-up".

===German chancellor===
====2005 election====
Merkel was first elected as chancellor of Germany in 2005. She ruled together with the left-center [[SPD]] until 2009.<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10518099/Germanys-Social-Democrats-vote-to-form-grand-coalition-with-Angela-Merkel.html</ref>

====2009 election====
[[File:Germ-vote-2009.jpg|300px|thumb|Exit polls from Sept. 2009 election won by the conservative coalition CDU and FDP]]
The September 2009 election was a major win for the right-of-center forces led by Chancellor Merkel, breaking a stalemate and opening the way for more conservative economic policies. Previously since an indecisive election in 2005 the center-right [[Christian Democratic Union|Christian Democrats]] formed a "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats, headed by Frank-Walter Steinmeier. 2009 Merkel and her CDU formed a coalition with the liberal [[Free Democratic Party|Free Democrats]]. Left in the cold was the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Greens]], and the ex-Communists who remain strong under the name "[[The Left]]." Merkel moved forward on tax cuts, reform of the tax code, reduction of bureaucracy and an extension of the time that nuclear power plants can continue to operate.

The victory enhanced her reputation as Europe's top political power broker, as Merkel became the first leader of a major European country to win re-election since the [[Recession of 2008|global financial crisis]] struck the previous year. Voters generally approved of her response to the recession, even though it hammered Germany's export-dependent economy and resulted in a huge amount of public debt. She countered criticism by blaming the crisis on [[Wall Street]] and engaging in a modest stimulus program.<ref>Craig Whitlock, "Germany's Merkel Reelected Easily, Will Form New Coalition," [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/27/AR2009092700631.html?nav=emailpage ''Washington Post'' Sept. 28, 2009]</ref>

====2013 election====
In the 2013 election, the CDU remained Germany's strongest party, but its ally the [[Free Democratic Party|FDP]] lost the election and left the parliament.<ref>http://bigstory.ap.org/article/merkel-bidding-3rd-term-german-election</ref> Thus, the CDU created a "grand coalition" with the SPD again.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/27/merkel-conservatives-center-left-rivals-reach-deal-to-form-new-german/</ref> The vice chancellor is Sigmar Gabriel, the chairman of the [[SPD]].<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/merkel-backs-plans-stem-energy-cost-rises</ref>

====2017 election====
In a campaign described as "boring", Merkel saw a challenge by the SPD's left-wing [[Martin Schulz]], the former president of the [[European Parliament]]. Merkel was seen by some commentators to have subtly tacked towards the right on some policies such as migration and [[Turkey]]'s accession to the EU – two issues she formerly was wholeheartedly in support of. In the election, the right-wing conservative [[Alternative for Germany]] entered the Bundestag after taking a historic third place with nearly 13% of the vote, while Merkel's CDU received its worst result since 1949.<ref>Multiple references:
*Tomlinson, Chris (September 25, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/25/merkel-scores-pyrrhic-victory-populists-beat-expectations/ Merkel’s Pyrrhic Victory: Worst Party Performance Since 1949 As Populist AfD Beat Expectations]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-elections-afd/4043104.html Germany Shaken by Far-right Political Earthquake]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Dettmer, Jamie (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/merkel-win-seen-as-inevitable/4042028.html Merkel Wins Historic Fourth Term But Far-right Populists Surge]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Ridgwell, Henry (September 25, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-far-right-reclaim-country-angela-merkel-coalition-talks/4043603.html German Far-right Pledges to 'Reclaim Country' as Merkel Begins Tough Coalition Talks]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
*Chazan, Guy (September 24, 2017). [https://www.ft.com/content/d18213e0-a105-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2 Nationalist AfD make historic breakthrough in German elections]. ''Financial Times''. Retrieved September 25, 2017.</ref> Despite this, Merkel continued defending her open borders policies.<ref>[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/25/merkel-defends-open-borders-migrant-policy-election-shock/ Merkel Defends Open Borders Migrant Policy After Election Shock]. ''Breitbart News''. September 25, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2017.</ref> Merkel had trouble creating a government, with the Social Democrats initially refusing to work with her in a coalition and with the Greens and FDP being unable to agree together with the CDU. In February 2018, Merkel reached an agreement with the Social Democrats that gave the latter party a disproportionate amount of influence in her government.<ref>Joffe, Josef (February 9, 2018). [https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-martin-schulz-cdu-spd-government-of-losers/ Angela’s Merkel government of losers]. ''Politico''. Retrieved February 9, 2018.</ref> Six months after the election, the German Bundestag voted to give Merkel a fourth term as chancellor with her "grand coalition" with the SPD.<ref>Multiple references:
*[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/14/six-months-inconclusive-elections-angela-merkel-begins-historic-fourth-term-chancellor/ Six Months After Worst Ever Election Result Angela Merkel Begins Historic Fourth Term as Chancellor]. ''Breitbart News''. March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*[http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03/14/angela-merkel-elected-for-4th-term-as-german-chancellor.html Angela Merkel elected for 4th term as German chancellor]. ''Fox News''. March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*Doubek, James (March 14, 2018). [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593412170/germanys-angela-merkel-begins-fourth-term-on-shaky-ground Germany's Angela Merkel Begins Fourth Term On Shaky Ground]. ''NPR''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*Thomas, Andrea; Benoit, Bertrand (March 14, 2018). [https://www.wsj.com/articles/angela-merkel-begins-fourth-term-as-german-chancellor-1521022646 Angela Merkel Starts Fourth Term Facing Big Hurdles]. ''The Wall Street Journal''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.</ref>

==Policies==
Merkel supports [[liberal]] and [[Globalism|globalist]] policies. She allowed her party members a free vote for legalizing [[same-sex "marriage"]]. In June 2017, the German parliament voted for legalizing it, including some MPs from Merkel's party, although she herself voted against it.<ref>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/angela-merkel-same-sex-marriage-vote-germany-legalisation-lgbt-rights-christian-democrat-man-woman-a7815846.html</ref> Her nation harshly opposes [[homeschooling]]. She supports the socialist and globalist [[European Union]] and open borders. Her left-wing policies contributed significantly to the [[European migrant crisis]]. Merkel opposes patriotic policies, such as building [[border wall]]s and advancing protectionism, opposes [[populism]], and supports [[globalism]].<ref>Deacon, Liam (January 24, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/24/merkel-davos-attacks-walls-poison-populism-defends-globalism/ Merkel at Davos: Attacks ‘Walls’ and ‘Poison’ of Populism, Defends Globalism]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved January 24, 2018.</ref> In November 2018, Merkel called for a common EU army.<ref>Multiple references:
*Hale, Virginia (November 14, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/11/14/merkel-eu-army-call-world-peace/ Merkel Demands ‘Real, True EU Army’… Days After Calling for ‘UN Values’ Globalist World Peace]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
*Shaw, Adam (November 13, 2018). [https://www.foxnews.com/world/merkel-calls-for-creation-of-european-army-backing-macron-in-spat-with-trump Merkel calls for creation of ‘European army,’ backing Macron in spat with Trump]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved November 13, 2018.
*Axelrod, Tal (November 13, 2018). [https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/416412-merkel-calls-for-creation-of-real-true-european-army Merkel calls for creation of ‘real, true European army']. ''The Hill''. Retrieved November 13, 2018.</ref>

Merkel fears that the European Union has failed to define its common interests "for the (commercial) battles of the future" now Europe's cold war priorities of keeping "peace and freedom" have been achieved. "This is where I think Europe needs to learn a lot, not to concentrate too much on whether bicycle paths are built the same way in Portugal and north-west Germany."

Domestically, Merkel recognizes the need for change in the country's consensual model. "In Germany, we are always facing the danger that we are a little bit too slow. We have to speed up our changes."

===Migration policy===
Because of Merkel's [[open borders]] policies, more than 2.5 million refugees and migrants have flooded into Germany from outside Europe, migrants who do not share a common European heritage with their host country. In 2015 alone, Germany was invaded by nearly one million non-Western immigrants,<ref>[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/10/europe-immigration-muslim-refugees-portraits/ The New Europeans], Robert Kunzig, ''National Geographic'', October 2016</ref> more than double the size of Germany's standing and reserve military force. Merkel opposed setting an upper limit on the number of refugees Germany would allow in annually.<ref>Delcker, Janosch (October 2, 2017). [https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-germany-new-refugee-dilemma-bavaria-csu/ Angela Merkel’s new refugee dilemma]. ''Politico''. Retrieved October 3, 2017.</ref> It was reported in August 2017 that since 2015, when the [[European migrant crisis]] was at its height, the German Prosecutor’s Office received over 1,000 criminal complaints accusing Merkel of high treason for her actions regarding refugees and immigration.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (August 31, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/31/german-prosecutors-1000-criminal-complaints-merkel-high-treason/ Prosecutors Have Rejected 1,000 High Treason Charges Against Merkel For Migrant Crisis Since 2015]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved August 31, 2017.</ref> This represented a massive visible shift in her policies since 2010, when she actually stated that a multicultural society had failed and that immigrants needed to do more to integrate, including learning German.<ref>(October 17, 2010). [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11559451 Merkel says German multicultural society has failed]. ''BBC''. Retrieved September 16, 2018.</ref>

When discussing her options on how to counter the migrant crisis in 2015, Merkel quickly dismissed the notion of restoring border controls.<ref>Hale, Virginia (September 25, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/25/no-fences-merkels-migrant-crisis-vow/ ‘We Won’t Build Any Fences’: Interview Reveals Merkel’s Reaction to 2015 Migrant Crisis]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 25, 2018.</ref>

When the German Minister of Interior [[Horst Seehofer]] stated that [[Islam]] "does not belong in Germany,"<ref>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43422770</ref><ref>Huggler, Justin (March 16, 2018). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/german-interior-minister-declares-islam-does-not-belong-country/ German interior minister declares 'Islam does not belong' in the country]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> Merkel quickly responded by saying that "Islam belongs to Germany."<ref>Hale, Virginia (March 16, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/16/islam-belongs-germany-merkel-insists/ ‘Islam Belongs to Germany’, Merkel Insists After Minister Highlights Nation’s Christian Heritage]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[https://www.thelocal.de/20180316/islam-doesnt-belong-to-germany-says-interior-minister-horst-seehofer Merkel contradicts interior minister, saying ‘Islam belongs to Germany’]. ''The Local''. March 16, 2018. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> Merkel's globalist views on immigration and unwillingness to compromise conflicted with the relatively conservative views of Seehofer, something which endangered the coalition she created after the 2017 elections.<ref>Multiple references:
*Irvine, Chris (June 15, 2018). [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/15/angela-merkels-german-government-facing-collapse-over-her-immigration-stance.html Angela Merkel's German government facing collapse over her immigration stance]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
*Tomlinson, Chris (June 16, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/06/16/longstanding-disagreements-on-migrant-policy-threaten-to-end-merkel-era/ New Migrant Crisis Threatens to Bring Down Merkel in 48 Hours]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
*Duke, Selwyn (June 18, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/29300-muslim-migration-may-topple-eu-starting-with-angela-merkel-s-government Muslim Migration May Topple EU — Starting With Angela Merkel’s Government]. ''The New American''. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
*[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany/defiant-merkel-backs-europe-migrant-policy-as-bavaria-row-simmers-idUSKBN1JC0CQ Defiant Merkel backs Europe migrant policy as Bavaria row simmers]. ''Reuters''. June 16, 2018. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
*[http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/13/merkel-allies-heading-for-showdown-over-immigration-policy.html Merkel, allies heading for showdown over immigration policy]. ''Fox News'' (from the ''Associated Press''). June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.</ref> Ultimately, they found a compromise which saw Merkel gain the upper hand.<ref>Multiple references:
*Lane, Oliver JJ (July 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/merkel-germany-coalition-limps-on-as-immigration-control-compromise-struck/ Merkel Germany Coalition Limps on as Immigration Control Compromise Struck]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
*Escritt, Thomas; Chambers, Madeline (July 2, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany/merkel-to-fight-another-day-after-settling-migration-row-idUSKBN1JS0NJ Merkel to fight another day after settling migration row]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
*Byas, Steve (July 3, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/29434-immigration-compromise-saves-merkel-government-in-germany-for-now Immigration Compromise Saves Merkel Government in Germany — for Now]. ''The New American''. Retrieved July 3, 2018.</ref>

Merkel continued advancing policies increasing the number of migrants into Germany.<ref>Byas, Steve (October 3, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/30231-germany-s-merkel-favors-even-more-immigrants Germany’s Merkel Favors Even More Immigrants]. ''The New American''. Retrieved October 3, 2018.</ref>

==Foreign relations==
Merkel failed to stand up for [[the West|Western]] values as German Chancellor and allowed Germany to become dependent on Russian energy.<ref>Rogan, Tom (November 12, 2018). [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/macron-merkel-and-why-international-order-remains-the-american-preserve Macron, Merkel, and why international order remains the American preserve]. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved November 12, 2018.</ref>

In 2011 Merkel opposed [[Israel]]'s settlement program in the [[West Bank]]<ref>Weiland, Severin. [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/merkel-and-netanyahu-pledge-friendship-in-berlin-despite-differences-a-871458.html Merkel and Netanyahu Seek to Play Down Differences] ''[[Der Spiegel]]''. Retrieved August 9, 2018.</ref> and rejects moving Germany's embassy from [[Tel Aviv]] to [[Jerusalem]].<ref>Berkowitz, Adam Eliyahu. [https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/106501/germanys-merkel-no-to-jerusalem-embassy-no-to-settlements-yes-to-iran-nuclear-deal/ Germany’s Merkel: No to Jerusalem Embassy, No to ‘Settlements,’ Yes to Iran Nuclear Deal] ''BreakingIsraelNews''. Retrieved October 7, 2018.</ref> After President Trump decided to leave the [[Iran nuclear deal]], Merkel explained that this deal "should never be called into question" and wanted [[Iran]] to remain in it.<ref>(May 9, 2018). [https://www.thelocal.de/20180509/iran-nuclear-deal-should-never-be-called-in-question-says-merkel Iran nuclear deal ‘should never be called into question’, says Merkel] ''thelocal.de''. Retrieved August 9, 2018.</ref>

=== Relations with Donald Trump ===
In October 2015, [[Donald Trump]] criticized Merkel's migration policy: "I love a safe zone for people. I do not like the migration. I do not like the people coming. Frankly, look, Europe is going to have to handle – but they're going to have riots in Germany. What's happening in Germany, I always thought Merkel was like this great leader. What she's done in Germany is insane. It is insane. They're having all sorts of attacks."<ref>Keneally, Meghan (July 6, 2017). [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-merkel/story?id=46198767 What Trump and Merkel have said about each other] ''ABC News''. Retrieved May 5, 2018.</ref> In April 2018, President Trump emphasized that he has a "really great relationship" with Chancellor Merkel. According to him they both "actually have had a great relationship from the beginning."<ref>Fredericks, Bob (April 27, 2018). [https://nypost.com/2018/04/27/trump-praises-great-relationship-with-merkel-during-white-house-visit/ Trump praises ‘great relationship’ with Merkel during White House visit] ''New York Post''. Retrieved May 8, 2018.</ref> On November 11, 2018, Merkel joined [[globalist]] French president [[Emmanuel Macron]] in attacking nationalism and President Trump's [[America First]] foreign policy.<ref>Re, Gregg (November 11, 2018). [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-speaking-at-armistice-day-event-xx Trump, speaking at Armistice Day event outside Paris, honors fallen soldiers as Macron, Merkel take shots at him]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved November 11, 2018.</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of German Chancellors]]

==Further reading==
* Clifford W. Mills. ''Angela Merkel'' (2007), 120pp; for middle schools
* Wolfgang Stock: Angela Merkel: eine politische Biographie. Neuauflage. München 2005, ISBN 3-7892-8168-9

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}

{{German Chancellors}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merkel, Angela}}
[[Category:Current Heads of Government]]
[[Category:Christian Democrat Union politicians]]
[[Category:Children of Clergy]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom award winners]]
[[Category:German Chancellors]]
[[Category:Globalists]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Mike Pompeo

2018-11-11T11:01:10Z

JoeyJ:

[[File:Mike Pompeo official portrait.jpg|thumb|250px|Official portrait]]
'''Michael Richard Pompeo''' (born December 30, 1963) is the [[United States Secretary of State]] under U.S. President [[Donald Trump]]. Previously, he served in the [[United States House of Representatives]] from 2011 to 2017, and as the Director of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] from 2017 to 2018. He is a member of the [[Republican Party]] and served as a [[Republican National Committee]]man.

On March 13, 2018, President Trump announced he would fire U.S. Secretary of State [[Rex Tillerson]] and appoint Pompeo to replace him.<ref>Multiple references:
*Pappas, Alex (March 13, 2018). [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/13/trump-says-rex-tillerson-out-as-secretary-state-replaced-by-mike-pompeo.html Trump says Rex Tillerson out as Secretary of State, replaced by Mike Pompeo]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
*Spiering, Charlie (March 13, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/13/twitter-donald-trump-announces-mike-pompeo-secretary-state/ On Twitter, Donald Trump Announces Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State; Rex Tillerson Out]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved March 14, 2018.</ref> The Senate confirmed him on April 26, 2018.<ref>Multiple references:
*Wong, Kristina (April 26, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/04/26/senate-confirms-mike-pompeo-secretary-state/ Senate Confirms Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
*Sands, David R. (April 26, 2018). [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/26/mike-pompeo-confirmed-as-secretary-of-state/ Trump gets his man as Senate confirms Mike Pompeo for State Department]. ''The Washington Times''. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
*Pappas, Alex (April 26, 2018). [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/26/mike-pompeo-confirmed-as-secretary-state.html Mike Pompeo confirmed as secretary of state; Senate OKs Germany ambassador]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
See also:
*Greenwood, Max (May 1, 2018). [https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385726-pompeo-issues-first-tweets-as-secretary-of-state Pompeo issues first tweets as secretary of State]. ''The Hill''. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
*Spiering, Charlie (May 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/02/donald-trump-and-mike-pompeo-state-department-will-get-its-swagger-back-represent-america-first/ Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo: State Department Will ‘Get Its Swagger Back’ — Represent America First]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved May 2, 2018.</ref> Social conservatives supported Pompeo's nomination.<ref>Berry, Susan (April 26, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/04/26/mike-pompeo-confirmation-a-pro-life-and-religious-freedom-victory/ Mike Pompeo Confirmation a ‘Pro-Life’ and ‘Religious Freedom’ Victory]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 26, 2018.</ref><ref>Freiburger, Calvin (April 27, 2018). [https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pro-life-pompeo-confirmed-as-secretary-of-state-abortion-advocates-pounce Pro-life Pompeo confirmed as Secretary of State; abortion advocates pounce]. ''LifeSiteNews''. Retrieved April 28, 2018.</ref>

He visited [[North Korea]] two times and helped successfully free the 3 Americans detained by the country.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/08/mike-pompeo-north-korea-kim-jong-un-trump</ref><ref>https://www.npr.org/2018/05/09/609699517/pompeo-secures-release-of-3-american-prisoners-in-north-korea</ref>

==Political views==
Pompeo critized the [[Iran nuclear deal]], saying that he looks “forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism”.<ref>Van Buren, Peter (March 15, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vanburen-pompeo-commentary/commentary-the-pros-and-cons-of-pompeo-as-secretary-of-state-idUSKCN1GR2DL Commentary: The pros – and cons – of Pompeo as secretary of state]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved November 11, 2018.</ref> [[Israel]]i Prime Minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] called Pompeo a “true friend of Israel”.<ref>Lazaroff, Tovah (April 29, 2018). [https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/US-Secretary-of-State-Mike-Pompeo-to-meet-PM-Netanyahu-for-talks-on-Iran-552975 NETANYAHU: 'I’LL TALK WITH U.S. SEC. OF STATE POMPEO ABOUT IRANIAN AGGRESSION']. ''Jerusalem Post''. Retrieved November 11, 2018.</ref>

==Trade war with China==
* The trade war by China against the United States has been going on for years.
* We’re going to win it. We’re going to get an outcome which forces China to behave in a way that if you want to be a power, a global power – [[transparency]], [[rule of law]], you don’t steal [[intellectual property]], the fundamental principles of trade around the world, fairness, reciprocity – those are the things President Trump has told his counterpart there, who he very much likes. Those are the things the American people are demanding and the American workers deserve. [https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2018/09/286143.htm Interview With Chris Wallace of Fox News] - September 23, 2018

==See also==
*[[Reince Priebus]]
*[[H.R. McMaster]]
*[[Dan Coats]]
*[[James Mattis]]
*[[Steven Mnuchin]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000602 Profile] in the ''Biographical Directory of the United States Congress''
*[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/11/30/mike-pompeo-is-rumored-pick-for-secretary-state-what-to-know-about-him.html Mike Pompeo is rumored pick for secretary of state: What to know about him], Fox News, by Zoe Szathmary, November 30, 2017.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pompeo, Michael}}
[[Category:United States Secretaries of State]]
[[Category:Former United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Kansas]]
[[Category:Trump Cabinet]]

Conservative of the Year 2018

2018-11-09T21:01:52Z

JoeyJ: /* Nominees */

Nominations are being accepted for the '''Conservative of the Year 2018'''. For each nominee, also state a short reason why.

==Nominees==
*[[Donald Trump]] — for his many achievements to date on pro-life issues, judges, immigration, trade, preserving American sovereignty, and other issues, and for advancing numerous conservative causes, America First policies, and fighting political correctness (see [[Donald Trump achievements]]).
*[[Jair Bolsonaro]] — a very strong and consistent conservative who was elected president of one of the largest countries in the world in both size and population
*[[Brett Kavanaugh]] — surviving the Left’s smears against him (see [[Kavanaugh smear]])
*[[Viktor Orbán]] — for his massive re-election victory and strong stance on immigration and other issues
*[[Matteo Salvini]] — for his strong stance on immigration and other issues and for getting into the Italian government
*[[Steve King]] — a strong conservative voice who refused to back down in the face of unfair media criticism and won re-election despite those smears
*[[Tucker Carlson]] — for being one of the few voices on TV advocating for consistently conservative policies
*[[Ann Coulter]] — Strong immigration positions
*[[Rand Paul]] — for taking principled stances on numerous issues, including single-handedly shutting the government down because of spending
*[[Alternative for Germany]] — for its continued growth and making it into every German state parliament<ref>https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1056592040283258880</ref><ref>https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1056513693935157248</ref>
*[[Dave Brat]] and [[Kris Kobach]] — though both lost their respective elections this year, they held strongly to conservative principles and already have accomplished careers
*[[John Bolton]] — for supporting American sovereignty and opposing the [[War on Sovereignty]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Conservative of the Year]]

Hesse

2018-11-02T12:47:58Z

JoeyJ:

'''Hesse''' ([[German]]: ''Hessen'') is a federal state (''Land'') of central [[Germany]]. It has an area of 8,147 square miles (21,110 km2) and a population of 6,000,000. The state [[capital]] is [[Wiesbaden]]; the largest city is [[Frankfurt|Frankfurt am Main]], Germany's financial capital. Other major cities and towns include Darmstadt and Kassel. Until 2013 Hesse was ruled by [[Conservative]] [[CDU]] and liberal libertarian [[Free Democratic Party|FDP]]. Currently there is a coalition between the [[CDU]] and the Leftist [[Environmental]] [[Alliance '90/The Greens]]. The current minister president of Hesse is [[Volker Bouffier]].

[[File:Frankfurt skyline.jpg]]

Frankfurt skyline.

{{DEBundeslaender}}

Hesse

2018-11-02T12:46:24Z

JoeyJ: The current minister preisdent of Hesse is Volker Bouffier.

'''Hesse''' ([[German]]: ''Hessen'') is a federal state (''Land'') of central [[Germany]]. It has an area of 8,147 square miles (21,110 km2) and a population of 6,000,000. The state [[capital]] is [[Wiesbaden]]; the largest city is [[Frankfurt|Frankfurt am Main]], Germany's financial capital. Other major cities and towns include Darmstadt and Kassel. Until 2013 Hesse was ruled by [[Conservative]] [[CDU]] and liberal libertarian [[Free Democratic Party|FDP]]. Currently there is a coalition between the [[CDU]] and the Leftist [[Environmental]] [[Alliance '90/The Greens]]. The current minister preisdent of Hesse is [[Volker Bouffier]].

[[File:Frankfurt skyline.jpg]]

Frankfurt skyline.

{{DEBundeslaender}}

Christian Democratic Union

2018-11-01T15:54:10Z

JoeyJ:

{{PoliticalParty
| party_name = Christian Democratic Union
| party_logo =
| website = [https://www.cdu.de/ cdu.de]
| leader = [[Angela Merkel]]
| parleader = Ralph Brinkhaus
| foundation = 1945
| ideology = [[Christian democracy]]
| position = [[Center-right]]
| international = [[International Democrat Union]], [[Centrist Democrat International]] and [[European People’s Party]]
| colors = black
| footnotes =
}}
The '''Christian Democratic Union of Germany''' (Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands, '''CDU''') is a [[Christian Democratic]] political party in [[Germany]]. It is a middle-conservative party, and in 2009-2013 shared power in a coalition with the liberal-libertarian [[Free Democratic Party]] (FDP). [[File:Merkel.jpg|thumb|290px| Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]] leads the party]]

The CDU is always in partnership with the '''[[Christian Social Union of Bavaria|Christian Social Union]]''', its more conservative sister party in [[Bavaria]]: the CDU does not field candidates in Bavaria and, in turn, the CSU does not field candidates outside it. When adding the mandates of both the CDU and CSU, who caucus together at the national level, they form the largest parliamentary group at the national level. Both parties are also in control of a majority of governments at the state level, with 11 out of 16 heads of state governments hailing from one of them.

In 2013 the CDU won again the majority with 41.5 percent, but its ally the [[Free Democratic Party]] left the parliament because they had not enough votes.<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/merkel-triumphs-german-vote-allies-crushed</ref> The Christian Democratic Union has created a coalition with the left-center [[SPD]], who got 25.7 percent of the vote.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/17/merkel-and-center-left-rivals-agree-to-recommend-entering-formal-talks-on-new/</ref> The CDU declined by 8% in the 2017 election, losing much of its votes to the conservative and [[Euroskeptic]] [[Alternative for Germany]].

==History==
The party was founded in post-war Germany by centrist and conservative Christian politicians who were former members of the Centre Party and wanted to overcome the divisions among democratic Christians politicians in pre-war Germany, which was perceived as one of the reasons of the deadlock in politics during the [[Weimar Republic]]. Before 1934 Germany was about 1/3 Catholic. West Germany was now about evenly split between Catholics and Protestants. The CDU (and its sister party the CSU in Bavaria) regularly won about 60% of the Catholic vote, and 35-40% of the Protestants. To control a majority in the Bundestag (national parliament) it formed coalitions usually with the small Free Democrats (FDP), a conservative/libertarian party favored by big business and professionals.

Leading figures in the post-war era were [[Konrad Adenauer]] and [[Ludwig Erhard]]. Adenauer became the first Chancellor of West Germany, and who was seeking firm military and economic integration of West Germany with western Europe and the US. Ludwig Erhard was the first Minister of Economy, renowned for his advocacy and implementation of [[social market economy]], and is considered the father of the German [[Wirtschaftswunder]], the economic boom in the 50s and 60s. These two political concepts, social market economy, and integration in the West, have become the two main ideological pillars of the Christian Democratic Union.

In the [[German Democratic Republic]] the CDUD (Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands engl: Christian Democratic Union of Germany) should subordinate the [[Socialist Unity Party]]. Only in the first free elections of 1990, the CDUD merged an election alliance called "Alliance for Germany" and could win the election. On October 1 and 2 of 1990, the CDUD merged with the CDU to one party.<ref>http://www.cdu.de/artikel/geschichte</ref>

It should be noted that under Merkel's leadership, the party has moved more to the political center in recent years. Voters in Germany haven't approved of this new course: although the CDU managed to emerge as the strongest party in both the 2005 and 2009 elections, winning Merkel the chancellorship, their share of the vote was only 35,2% and 33,8%,<ref>http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/bundestagswahlen/ Official results of the 2005 and 2009 federal elections (in German)</ref> respectively. When running more to the right, as has happened under the leadership of Bavarians Franz Josef Strauss in 1980 or Edmund Stoiber in 2002, the party performed much stronger: in 1980, Strauss almost managed to win an absolute majority; in 2002, Stoiber obtained the best results the CDU has enjoyed in the current five-party-environment. Both candidates only missed the chancellorship because the left-wing social democrats could assemble majority coalitions with smaller centrist parties.

[[File:Germ-vote-2009.jpg|300px|thumb|Exit polls from Sept. 2009 election won by the conservative coalition CDU and FDP]]
The September 2009 elections were a major win for the conservative forces led by CDU Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]], breaking a stalemate and opening the way for more conservative economic policies. Previously since an indecisive election in 2005, the Christian Democrats (CDU) (on the center-right) formed a "grand coalition" with the [[SPD|Social Democrats]] (SPD) (on the center-left). Merkel and her CDU formed a coalition with the libertarian, pro-business [[Free Democratic Party|Free Democrats]] (FDP) to 2013. Left in the cold was the SPD, the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Greens]], and the ex-Communists who remain strong in the former East Germany under the name "[[The Left]]". Merkel moved forward on tax cuts, reform of the tax code, reduction of bureaucracy and a possible extension of the time that nuclear power plants can continue to operate.

In 2013 the [[Free Democratic Party]] (FDP) left the parliament.<ref>http://news.msn.com/world/merkels-party-wins-german-election-but-allies-crushed</ref> So the CDU created a "grand coalition" with the [[SPD]] again.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/17/merkel-and-center-left-rivals-agree-to-recommend-entering-formal-talks-on-new/</ref>

== Party leaders ==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name
! From
! To
|-
| [[Konrad Adenauer]]
| 1 March 1946
| 23 March 1966
|-
| [[Ludwig Erhard]]
| 23 March 1966
| 23 May 1967
|-
| [[Kurt Georg Kiesinger]]
| 23 May 1967
| 5 October 1971
|-
| [[Rainer Barzel]]
| 5 October 1971
| 12 June 1973
|-
| [[Helmut Kohl]]
| 12 June 1973
| 7 November 1998
|-
| [[Wolfgang Schäuble]]
| 7 November 1998
| 16 February 2000
|-
| [[Angela Merkel]]
| 16 February 2000
| ''present''
|-
|}

==Party Structure==
===Regional Party Groups===
The party has regional party groups, the federal group (''Bundesverband'', there is only one), the state group(s) (''Landesverbände'', singular: ''Landesverband''), the county group(s) (''Kreisverbände'', singular: ''Kreisverband'') and the local group(s) (''Ortsverbände'', singular: ''Ortsverband''). All local groups in a county (''Kreis'' or ''Landkreis'') are part of the county group, all county groups in a German (federal) state (''Land'' or ''Bundesland'') are part of the state group and all state groups form the federal group.

===Federal Leadership===
The present chairwoman (of the federal party group) is German [[chancellor]] [[Angela Merkel]], vice-chairman are [[Volker Bouffier]] ([[Minister-President]] of the federal state of [[Hesse]]), [[Ursula von der Leyen]] (Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs), [[Julia Klöckner]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[Rhineland-Palatinate]]), [[Armin Laschet]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[North Rhine-Westphalia]]) and [[Thomas Strobl]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[Baden-Württemberg]]).

===Think Tank===
The federal party group holds a think tank called [[Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung]] (''Konrad Adenauer Foundation''), named after the first chancellor of post-[[World War II]] Germany [[Konrad Adenauer]]. The state party groups have similar foundations.

==Bavaria==
There's a special relationship between the CDU and the [[Christian Social Union of Bavaria]] (CSU). The CSU is legally a party of its own but cooperates closely with the CDU. The CSU only acts in the state of [[Bavaria]] and the CDU in the other states. The CSU is independent and has its own political structure and party platform, which differs in some positions from the CDU's one so that the CSU can be considered more conservative. The most prominent politician of the CSU was [[Franz-Josef Strauss]].

The CDU has special organizations for demographic groups ([[Young Union|youth]], women, older/retired citizens, etc.).

==Positions==
The CDU has been compared with the [[Republican Party]] in the United States. It supports a social market economy, used to oppose "equality" of homosexual pairs with traditional families (but now has given into the [[homosexual agenda]]) and is stated to support the [[USA]] and [[Israel]]. But it has also liberal views. For example, it opposes the death penalty, which is outlawed by the current German constitution.<ref>http://www.cducsu.de/Titel__todesstrafe_weltweit_aechten_und_abschaffen/TabID__6/SubTabID__7/InhaltTypID__1/InhaltID__16775/inhalte.aspx</ref> It also supports mass immigration and destructive refugee policies, the socialist and globalist [[European Union]] and open borders, and has apparently lost its Christian roots.

==Famous Party Members==
*[[Konrad Adenauer]], first chancellor of the [[Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]]
*[[Helmut Kohl]], former chancellor of Germany
*[[Angela Merkel]], present chancellor of Germany, present chairwoman of the CDU

===External links===
*[http://www.cdu.de Website of the CDU]
*[http://www.csu.de Website of the CSU]

==See also==
*[[European migrant crisis]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Political Parties in Germany]]
[[Category:Christian Democratic Union]]

Christian Social Union of Bavaria

2018-11-01T14:00:00Z

JoeyJ:

{{PoliticalParty
| party_name = Christian Social Union of Bavaria
| party_logo =
| website = [https://www.csu.de/ csu.de]
| leader = Horst Seehofer
| parleader = Ralph Brinkhaus
| foundation = 1948
| ideology = [[Christian democracy]]
| position = [[Center-right]]
| international = [[International Democrat Union]] and [[European People’s Party]]
| colors = blue and black
| footnotes =
}}
The '''Christian Social Union in Bavaria''' (in German: ''Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern'') is a [[Christian democratic]] and conservative political party in Germany that only runs for elections in the state of [[Bavaria]].

== Ideology ==
The Christian Social Union of Bavaria is considered to be more [[conservative]] than its sister party, the [[Christian Democratic Union]]. However it is also more left than the CDU on social welfare issues.<ref>Chase, Jefferson (June 13, 2017). [https://www.dw.com/en/things-to-know-about-bavarias-christian-social-union/a-39192183 Things to know about Bavaria's Christian Social Union]. ''Deutsche Welle''. Retrieved August 25, 2018.</ref>

The CSU was highly critical on [[Angela Merkel]]'s refugee policies during the [[European migrant crisis]]. The party leader Horst Seehofer said in an interview that Germany had been "shaped by Christianity", and that the country should not give up its own traditions. Furthermore, he stated that [[Islam]] "does not belong in Germany".<ref>Huggler, Justin (March 16, 2018). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/german-interior-minister-declares-islam-does-not-belong-country/ German interior minister declares 'Islam does not belong' in the country]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> However, some [[conservative]] critics have described the party's leader, [[Horst Seehofer]] as "a centre-right figure fundamentally unopposed to mass migration,"<ref>Lane, Oliver JJ (July 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/merkel-germany-coalition-limps-on-as-immigration-control-compromise-struck/ Merkel Germany Coalition Limps on as Immigration Control Compromise Struck]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.</ref> and the party strongly opposes the conservative [[Alternative for Germany]], the only German party that takes a tough stance on migration, falsely labeling it "extremist."<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-csu/bavarian-csu-takes-tough-migration-stance-but-rejects-far-right-idUSKCN1LV0K2 Bavarian CSU takes tough migration stance but rejects far-right]. ''Reuters''. September 15, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2018.</ref>

In April 2018 the CSU ordered Christian Crosses to be Displayed on All Entrances to Government Buildings in Bavaria.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ixVywnUbrY</ref>

== History ==
Since its foundation shortly after World War II, the CSU has formed a tight partnership with its sister party, the [[Christian Democratic Union|CDU]]: the CDU does not field candidates in Bavaria and, in turn, the CSU does not field candidates outside it. Compared to the larger CDU, the CSU is considered more socially conservative and closer to the Catholic church. In 1980 and 2002, the CSU ran candidates for the German chancellorship on a joint ticket with the CDU ([[Franz Josef Strauss]] in 1980 and Edmund Stoiber in 2002). The CSU is the largest party in the state of Bavaria by a substantial margin, and has ruled the state since 1953, usually with an absolute majority. Its chairman is [[Horst Seehofer]].

In the 2018 Bavarian elections, the CSU, allied with Merkel's liberal CDU, performed poorly, while the left-wing [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Green Party]] and the conservative [[Alternative for Germany]] performed well.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (October 14, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/10/14/bavarian-election-exit-poll-merkel-allies-see-huge-losses-as-greens-and-populists-surge/ Bavarian Election Exit Poll: Merkel Allies See Huge Losses As Greens and Populists Surge]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved October 14, 2018.</ref>

==Party leaders==
* Josef Müller (1945–1949)
* Hans Erhard (1949–1955)
* Hanns Seidel (1955–1961)
* [[Franz Josef Strauss]] (1961–1988)
* Theo Waigel (1988–1999)
* [[Edmund Stoiber]] (1999–2007)
* [[Erwin Huber]] (2007–2008)
* [[Horst Seehofer]] (since 2008)

==External links==
*[http://www.csu.de/ Website of the CSU]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Christian Social Union of Bavaria]]

Christian Democratic Union

2018-11-01T13:59:30Z

JoeyJ:

{{PoliticalParty
| party_name = Christian Democratic Union
| party_logo =
| website = [https://www.cdu.de/ cdu.de]
| leader = [[Angela Merkel]]
| parleader = Ralph Brinkhaus
| foundation = 1945
| ideology = [[Christian democracy]]
| position =
| international = [[International Democrat Union]], [[Centrist Democrat International]] and [[European People’s Party]]
| colors = black
| footnotes =
}}
The '''Christian Democratic Union of Germany''' (Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands, '''CDU''') is a [[Christian Democratic]] political party in [[Germany]]. It is a middle-conservative party, and in 2009-2013 shared power in a coalition with the liberal-libertarian [[Free Democratic Party]] (FDP). [[File:Merkel.jpg|thumb|290px| Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]] leads the party]]

The CDU is always in partnership with the '''[[Christian Social Union of Bavaria|Christian Social Union]]''', its more conservative sister party in [[Bavaria]]: the CDU does not field candidates in Bavaria and, in turn, the CSU does not field candidates outside it. When adding the mandates of both the CDU and CSU, who caucus together at the national level, they form the largest parliamentary group at the national level. Both parties are also in control of a majority of governments at the state level, with 11 out of 16 heads of state governments hailing from one of them.

In 2013 the CDU won again the majority with 41.5 percent, but its ally the [[Free Democratic Party]] left the parliament because they had not enough votes.<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/merkel-triumphs-german-vote-allies-crushed</ref> The Christian Democratic Union has created a coalition with the left-center [[SPD]], who got 25.7 percent of the vote.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/17/merkel-and-center-left-rivals-agree-to-recommend-entering-formal-talks-on-new/</ref> The CDU declined by 8% in the 2017 election, losing much of its votes to the conservative and [[Euroskeptic]] [[Alternative for Germany]].

==History==
The party was founded in post-war Germany by centrist and conservative Christian politicians who were former members of the Centre Party and wanted to overcome the divisions among democratic Christians politicians in pre-war Germany, which was perceived as one of the reasons of the deadlock in politics during the [[Weimar Republic]]. Before 1934 Germany was about 1/3 Catholic. West Germany was now about evenly split between Catholics and Protestants. The CDU (and its sister party the CSU in Bavaria) regularly won about 60% of the Catholic vote, and 35-40% of the Protestants. To control a majority in the Bundestag (national parliament) it formed coalitions usually with the small Free Democrats (FDP), a conservative/libertarian party favored by big business and professionals.

Leading figures in the post-war era were [[Konrad Adenauer]] and [[Ludwig Erhard]]. Adenauer became the first Chancellor of West Germany, and who was seeking firm military and economic integration of West Germany with western Europe and the US. Ludwig Erhard was the first Minister of Economy, renowned for his advocacy and implementation of [[social market economy]], and is considered the father of the German [[Wirtschaftswunder]], the economic boom in the 50s and 60s. These two political concepts, social market economy, and integration in the West, have become the two main ideological pillars of the Christian Democratic Union.

In the [[German Democratic Republic]] the CDUD (Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands engl: Christian Democratic Union of Germany) should subordinate the [[Socialist Unity Party]]. Only in the first free elections of 1990, the CDUD merged an election alliance called "Alliance for Germany" and could win the election. On October 1 and 2 of 1990, the CDUD merged with the CDU to one party.<ref>http://www.cdu.de/artikel/geschichte</ref>

It should be noted that under Merkel's leadership, the party has moved more to the political center in recent years. Voters in Germany haven't approved of this new course: although the CDU managed to emerge as the strongest party in both the 2005 and 2009 elections, winning Merkel the chancellorship, their share of the vote was only 35,2% and 33,8%,<ref>http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/bundestagswahlen/ Official results of the 2005 and 2009 federal elections (in German)</ref> respectively. When running more to the right, as has happened under the leadership of Bavarians Franz Josef Strauss in 1980 or Edmund Stoiber in 2002, the party performed much stronger: in 1980, Strauss almost managed to win an absolute majority; in 2002, Stoiber obtained the best results the CDU has enjoyed in the current five-party-environment. Both candidates only missed the chancellorship because the left-wing social democrats could assemble majority coalitions with smaller centrist parties.

[[File:Germ-vote-2009.jpg|300px|thumb|Exit polls from Sept. 2009 election won by the conservative coalition CDU and FDP]]
The September 2009 elections were a major win for the conservative forces led by CDU Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]], breaking a stalemate and opening the way for more conservative economic policies. Previously since an indecisive election in 2005, the Christian Democrats (CDU) (on the center-right) formed a "grand coalition" with the [[SPD|Social Democrats]] (SPD) (on the center-left). Merkel and her CDU formed a coalition with the libertarian, pro-business [[Free Democratic Party|Free Democrats]] (FDP) to 2013. Left in the cold was the SPD, the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Greens]], and the ex-Communists who remain strong in the former East Germany under the name "[[The Left]]". Merkel moved forward on tax cuts, reform of the tax code, reduction of bureaucracy and a possible extension of the time that nuclear power plants can continue to operate.

In 2013 the [[Free Democratic Party]] (FDP) left the parliament.<ref>http://news.msn.com/world/merkels-party-wins-german-election-but-allies-crushed</ref> So the CDU created a "grand coalition" with the [[SPD]] again.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/17/merkel-and-center-left-rivals-agree-to-recommend-entering-formal-talks-on-new/</ref>

== Party leaders ==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name
! From
! To
|-
| [[Konrad Adenauer]]
| 1 March 1946
| 23 March 1966
|-
| [[Ludwig Erhard]]
| 23 March 1966
| 23 May 1967
|-
| [[Kurt Georg Kiesinger]]
| 23 May 1967
| 5 October 1971
|-
| [[Rainer Barzel]]
| 5 October 1971
| 12 June 1973
|-
| [[Helmut Kohl]]
| 12 June 1973
| 7 November 1998
|-
| [[Wolfgang Schäuble]]
| 7 November 1998
| 16 February 2000
|-
| [[Angela Merkel]]
| 16 February 2000
| ''present''
|-
|}

==Party Structure==
===Regional Party Groups===
The party has regional party groups, the federal group (''Bundesverband'', there is only one), the state group(s) (''Landesverbände'', singular: ''Landesverband''), the county group(s) (''Kreisverbände'', singular: ''Kreisverband'') and the local group(s) (''Ortsverbände'', singular: ''Ortsverband''). All local groups in a county (''Kreis'' or ''Landkreis'') are part of the county group, all county groups in a German (federal) state (''Land'' or ''Bundesland'') are part of the state group and all state groups form the federal group.

===Federal Leadership===
The present chairwoman (of the federal party group) is German [[chancellor]] [[Angela Merkel]], vice-chairman are [[Volker Bouffier]] ([[Minister-President]] of the federal state of [[Hesse]]), [[Ursula von der Leyen]] (Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs), [[Julia Klöckner]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[Rhineland-Palatinate]]), [[Armin Laschet]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[North Rhine-Westphalia]]) and [[Thomas Strobl]] (chairman of the CDU of the federal state of [[Baden-Württemberg]]).

===Think Tank===
The federal party group holds a think tank called [[Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung]] (''Konrad Adenauer Foundation''), named after the first chancellor of post-[[World War II]] Germany [[Konrad Adenauer]]. The state party groups have similar foundations.

==Bavaria==
There's a special relationship between the CDU and the [[Christian Social Union of Bavaria]] (CSU). The CSU is legally a party of its own but cooperates closely with the CDU. The CSU only acts in the state of [[Bavaria]] and the CDU in the other states. The CSU is independent and has its own political structure and party platform, which differs in some positions from the CDU's one so that the CSU can be considered more conservative. The most prominent politician of the CSU was [[Franz-Josef Strauss]].

The CDU has special organizations for demographic groups ([[Young Union|youth]], women, older/retired citizens, etc.).

==Positions==
The CDU has been compared with the [[Republican Party]] in the United States. It supports a social market economy, used to oppose "equality" of homosexual pairs with traditional families (but now has given into the [[homosexual agenda]]) and is stated to support the [[USA]] and [[Israel]]. But it has also liberal views. For example, it opposes the death penalty, which is outlawed by the current German constitution.<ref>http://www.cducsu.de/Titel__todesstrafe_weltweit_aechten_und_abschaffen/TabID__6/SubTabID__7/InhaltTypID__1/InhaltID__16775/inhalte.aspx</ref> It also supports mass immigration and destructive refugee policies, the socialist and globalist [[European Union]] and open borders, and has apparently lost its Christian roots.

==Famous Party Members==
*[[Konrad Adenauer]], first chancellor of the [[Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]]
*[[Helmut Kohl]], former chancellor of Germany
*[[Angela Merkel]], present chancellor of Germany, present chairwoman of the CDU

===External links===
*[http://www.cdu.de Website of the CDU]
*[http://www.csu.de Website of the CSU]

==See also==
*[[European migrant crisis]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Political Parties in Germany]]
[[Category:Christian Democratic Union]]

Tucker Carlson

2018-10-18T17:19:54Z

JoeyJ: Reverted edits by Karetardajou (talk) to last revision by DavidB4-bot

'''Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson''' (born May 16, 1969) is an American [[conservative]] political anchor, pundit, and television personality who works for [[Fox News Channel]], who formerly co-hosted ''[[Crossfire]]'' on [[CNN]] and ''Tucker'' on [[MSNBC]] and who was one of the few conservative anchors on MSNBC before the network strengthened its progressive stance with its "Lean Forward" campaign. Tucker takes more consistently conservative stances compared to other commentators.<ref>Byas, Steve (January 9, 2017). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/25081-change-from-kelly-to-carlson-may-give-fox-viewers-a-new-perspective Change from Kelly to Carlson May Give Fox Viewers a New Perspective]. ''The New American''. Retrieved May 12, 2018. See also:
*Buchanan, Patrick J. (September 14, 2018). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/30067-the-unpardonable-heresy-of-tucker-carlson The Unpardonable Heresy of Tucker Carlson]. ''The New American''. Retrieved September 15, 2018.</ref>

After commentator [[Bill O'Reilly]] resigned from Fox News due to sexual abuse allegations, Carlson replaced him at the 8 pm EDT time slot. He also replaced O'Reilly as the number one rated cable TV show for that time slot.<ref>Nussbaum, Daniel (April 25, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/04/25/tucker-carlson-dominates-ratings-first-night-8-p-m-time-slot/ Tucker Carlson Dominates Cable News Ratings in First Night at New Time Slot]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 26, 2017.</ref> His ratings were nearly as high as O'Reilly's.<ref>Concha, Joe (April 30, 2018). [https://thehill.com/homenews/media/385492-carlsons-ratings-on-fox-closing-in-on-oreillys Carlson's ratings on Fox closing in on O'Reilly's]. ''The Hill''. Retrieved April 30, 2018.</ref>

In 2010, Carlson, with [[Neil Patel]] established the online news website ''[[The Daily Caller]]''. The website is considered to be an excellent source for conservative news and a welcome polar opposite to left-wing sources such as the [[Huffington Post]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carlson, Tucker}}
[[Category:Television Personalities]]
[[Category:Broadcasters]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]

Mike Pence

2018-10-18T17:19:52Z

JoeyJ: Reverted edits by Karetardajou (talk) to last revision by DavidB4-bot

{{Officeholder
|name=Mike Pence
|image=Mike Pence official vice presidential photo.jpg
|party=[[Republican]]
|spouse=Karen Pence
|religion=[[Evangelical Christian]]
|offices=
{{Officeholder/vice president
|country=the United States
|number=48th
|terms=January 20, 2017 – present
|president=[[Donald Trump]]
|preceded=[[Joe Biden]]
|former=n
|succeeded=
}}
{{Officeholder/governor
|state=Indiana
|terms=January 14, 2013 – January 9, 2017
|preceded=[[Mitch Daniels]]
|succeeded=[[Eric Holcomb]]
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Indiana
|district=6th
|terms=January 3, 2003 – January 3, 2013
|preceded=Dan Burton
|succeeded=Luke Messer
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Indiana
|district=2nd
|terms=January 3, 2001 – January 3, 2003
|preceded=David McIntosh
|succeeded=Chris Chocola
}}
}}
'''Michael Richard "Mike" Pence''' (born June 7, 1959)<ref name="Bio">[http://www.biography.com/people/mike-pence-071416 Mike Pence]. ''Biography.com''. Retrieved October 4, 2016.</ref> is the [[conservative]], [[pro-life]], [[evangelical]] [[Republican]] [[Vice President]] of the United States and a former Governor of [[Indiana]].

Prior to being governor and vice-president, Pence was one of the most conservative members of [[Congress]], serving in the U.S. Representative from [[Indiana]]'s 6th congressional district. In the 111th Congress, he served as Chairman of the House Republican Conference. Pence has also been a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Pence also has been a [[conservative talk radio]] host and an attorney.

==Early life==
Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana on June 7, 1959 to an Irish-Catholic family.<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/> He was one of six children, and his father was a [[U.S. Army]] veteran and gas station-chain owner.<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/>

Early in his life, Pence was strongly aligned with the [[Democratic Party (USA)|Democratic Party]] and was a Roman Catholic.<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/> He volunteered for the party while in high school, and he voted for [[Jimmy Carter]] in 1980.<ref name="Bio"/> When Pence was in college he became a born-again Christian through his future wife, Karen.<ref name="Eason10things"/> After his conversion, his views shifted towards the right, and after the election of [[Ronald Reagan]] as president, Pence became a Republican as he was inspired by Reagan's policies.<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/><ref>Graham, Jordan (September 8, 2016). [http://www.ocregister.com/articles/nominee-728408-tells-pence.html Mike Pence explains how Ronald Reagan made him a Republican]. ''The Orange County Register''. Retrieved September 18, 2016.</ref>

Pence graduated from Hanover College in 1981 with a B.A. in history, and he earned a Juris Doctor degree from Indiana University School of Law in 1986.<ref name="Bio"/>

==Early career==
After graduation, Pence became a practicing attorney and started to get involved in politics, first "becoming a precinct committeeman for the Marion County Republican Party."<ref name="Bio"/> He unsuccessfully ran for [[United States Congress|Congress]] in 1988 and 1990, but "learned a valuable lesson in defeat" and "vowed to preach a positive message" after becoming disgusted by his negative attack ads.<ref name="Bio"/>

Pence served as the president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation from 1991 to 1993.<ref name="Bio"/> In 1994, he launched his own [[conservative talk radio]] show, and the next year he became a morning show host on television.<ref name="Bio"/> Pence discontinued both programs in 1999,<ref name="Bio"/> presumably in preparation for another run for Congress.

In October 2009 Pence defended conservative talk radio, saying:

<blockquote>
''"To suggest that men and women that are taking a stand for fiscal discipline and traditional values in the national debate today only speak for ‘grassroots activists’ is absurd. As evidenced by the hundreds of thousands that filled town hall meetings this summer and the nearly a million Americans who gathered here in Washington in September. Millions of Americans, Republicans, Democrats and Independents are worried about liberal social policies and runaway federal spending, deficit and debt.''

''So to my friends in the so-called ‘mainstream media’ I say, ‘conservative talk show hosts may not speak for everybody but they speak for more Americans than you do.’"''<ref>[https://www.politico.com/story/2009/10/pence-rush-beck-speak-for-many-028608# Pence: Rush, Beck speak for many]. ''Politico''. October 22, 2009. Retrieved October 6, 2016.</ref>
</blockquote>

==U.S. Congress==
[[File:MikePence.jpg|thumb|100px|left|Congressman]]
In 2000, Pence was elected to [[Congress]] and reelected in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010.<ref name="Bio"/> In 2005, he became chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group representing the most conservative members of the House.<ref name="Bio"/> The next year, Pence unsuccessfully ran for House minority leader, losing to [[John Boehner]].<ref name="Bio"/> Pence served as the House Republican Conference Chair during the 111th Congress, which lasted from 2009–2011.<ref name="Bio"/><ref>[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=p000587 PENCE, Mike, (1959 - )]. ''Biographical Directory of the United States Congress''. Retrieved October 5, 2016.</ref>

In Congress, Pence built a very conservative record, even opposing liberal Republican bills that would increase spending or the size of government, such as [[No Child Left Behind]] in 2001, and the Medicare expansion of 2002.<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/>

==Governor of Indiana==
Pence successfully ran for Indiana governor in 2012.<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/>

Pence's successor, the conservative [[Mitch Daniels]], had been effective in boosting the state's economy, and Pence continued his policies. The Indiana economy continued to improve, and Pence cut taxes by $1.1 billion in 2013, which was the largest tax cut in state history.<ref name="Bio"/> In addition, Indiana has the seventh lowest tax burden or any state in 2013, and in 2014 Pence signed a law that will decrease the state corporate tax by 1.6 percent by 2021.<ref name="Eason10things"/> While liberals expect tax cuts to increase budget deficits, by 2016 Indiana actually had a $2 billion surplus,<ref name="Bio"/> and unemployment dropped by 3.4 percent since his term began.<ref name="Eason10things"/>

Pence became nationally famous in 2015 for initially defending a new religious freedom law for Indiana businesses that would have enabled them to decline to support the [[homosexual agenda]], such as in being forced to bake a cake for [[Same-sex "marriage"|homosexual couples]].<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/> Ultimately, Pence compromised under intense pressure from the [[liberal media]] and added protections for [[sexual orientation]] into Indiana law.<ref name="Bio"/><ref name="Eason10things"/> While many conservatives considered Pence's move a betrayal, subsequent events showed that Pence did stand up more against the [[homosexual agenda]] than virtually any other governor, including other Republicans such as [[Greg Abbott]] and [[Chris Christie]].

In addition, Pence is [[pro-life]], and in 2016 he signed a bill into law that stops abortions when the [[Human being|unborn human being]] has a disability.<ref name="Bio"/>

==2016 GOP vice-presidential nominee==
[[File:Donald Trump and Mike Pence RNC July 2016.jpg|thumb|Pence with Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.]]
{{see also|2016 U.S. presidential election}}
Pence first endorsed [[Texas]] Senator [[Ted Cruz]] for the Republican presidential nomination, but after businessman [[Donald Trump]] became the presumptive GOP nominee, Pence was chosen to be the vice-presidential nominee.<ref name="Bio"/>

Pence debated Democrat VP nominee [[Tim Kaine]] on October 4, 2016, and he gave a much better performance than Kaine.<ref>Boyle, Matthew (October 5, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/10/05/pence-dominates-kaine-vice-presidential-debate/ ‘Flawless’ Victory: Mike Pence Dominates Tim Kaine in Vice Presidential Debate]. ''Breitbart''. Retrieved October 6, 2016.</ref><ref>Agiesta, Jennifer (October 5, 2016). [https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/05/politics/mike-pence-tim-kaine-vp-debate-poll/ Pence edges Kaine in VP debate instant poll]. ''CNN''. Retrieved October 6, 2016.</ref> This was despite the fact that Kaine interrupted Pence 70 times in the debate.<ref>Struyk, Ryan (October 5, 2016). [http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tim-kaine-interrupted-mike-pence-70-times-vice/story?id=42583803 Tim Kaine Interrupted Mike Pence 70 Times in Vice Presidential Debate]. ''ABC News''. Retrieved October 6, 2016.</ref> Pence masterfully used his debating skills that he acquired from being a talk radio host while Kaine was hyper and sometimes hard to follow.<ref name="Bradner">Bradner, Eric (October 5, 2016). [https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/05/politics/vp-debate-takeaways/index.html 5 takeaways from the vice presidential debate]. ''CNN''. Retrieved October 6, 2016.</ref> Even the liberal [[mainstream media]], which holds [[double standards]] and loves to bash conservatives, believed that Pence won.<ref name="Bradner"/><ref>Zurcher, Anthony (October 5, 2016). [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/37558787 Pence v Kaine: Who won the vice-presidential debate?]. ''BBC News''. Retrieved October 5, 2016.</ref>

The Donald Trump–Mike Pence ticket won the election in a massive, historical upset.<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/08/first-polls-close-in-2016-race-trump-projected-to-win-ind-ky-clinton-wins-vt.html Trump wins presidency, defeats Clinton in historic election upset]. ''Fox News''. November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 10, 2016.</ref>

==Vice-president==
Soon after the election, the conservative Pence replaced the moderate [[Chris Christie]], who is facing serious allegations in a scandal, as the head of Trump's transition team.<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/11/pence-reportedly-taking-over-transition-effort-from-christie.html Pence replaces Christie in Trump transition team shuffle]. ''Fox News''. November 11, 2016.</ref> One of his first decisions as head was to remove every lobbyist, who had been appointed by Christie, from the team, in order to "drain the swamp" in [[Washington D.C.]]<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/16/pence-removing-lobbyists-from-trump-transition-team.html Pence removing lobbyists from Trump transition team]. ''Fox News''. November 16, 2016. Retrieved November 17, 2016.</ref><ref>Jaffe, Alexandra (Novemer 16, 2016). [http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/pence-removes-lobbyists-trump-transition-team-controversial-names-remain-n684836 Mike Pence Orders Lobbyists Be Removed From Transition Team]. ''NBC News''. Retrieved November 17, 2016.</ref> On the same day, the team announced that all [[Trump Administration]] officials would be placed under a five-year lobbying ban after leaving, which is much stricter than the ban by the transition team of the previous president, [[Barack Obama]].<ref>Arnsdorf, Isaac & Vogel, Kenneth P. (November 16, 2016). [https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-lobbying-ban-231534 Trump team announces tough lobbying ban]. ''Politico''. Retrieved November 17, 2016.</ref> The transition team under Pence's leadership reportedly completed its work on time and 20 percent under budget.<ref>Miller, S.A. (January 19, 2017). [http://washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/19/pence-trump-transition-finishing-time-under-budget/ Mike Pence: Trump transition finishing on time, under budget]. ''The Washington Times''. Retrieved February 8, 2017.</ref>

Vice President Pence became the first vice president in United States history to speak at the annual [[March for Life]] march in Washington D.C. in 2017.<ref>Sells, Heather (January 27, 2017). [http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2017/january/trump-administration-rallies-behind-march-for-life VP Mike Pence Making History at the March for Life]. ''CBN News''. Retrieved January 27, 2017.</ref><ref>Hickey, Jennifer (January 27, 2017). [http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/01/27/massive-attendance-at-march-for-life-could-extend-crowd-size-chatter.html 'Life is winning': Pence fired up March for Life crowd]. ''Fox News''. Retrieved January 27, 2017.</ref>

On February 7, 2017, Pence became the first vice president in United States history to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate for confirming a cabinet nominee.<ref name="DeVosTie">[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/07/devos-confirmed-as-education-secretary-pence-casts-historic-tie-breaking-vote.html DeVos confirmed as education secretary, Pence casts historic tie-breaking vote]. ''Fox News''. February 7, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017.</ref> He also became the first since 2008 to cast a tie-breaking vote at all.<ref name="DeVosTie"/>
[[File:Mike Pence October 2017.jpg|thumb|250px|Pence speaking in October 2017]]
It was reported in late April 2017 that Pence and eight other Trump Administration [[Cabinet of Donald Trump|cabinet members]] were participating in a weekly [[Bible study]].<ref>[http://www1.cbn.com/beltwaybuzz/archive/2017/04/24/trump-cabinet-members-praying-studying-the-bible-together TOP STORY: Trump Cabinet Members Praying, Studying the Bible Together]. ''CBN News''. April 24, 2017. Retrieved April 28, 2017.</ref><ref>Gotera, Jay (April 28, 2017). [http://www.christianpost.com/news/trump-cabinet-members-gather-weekly-for-prayer-session-senate-and-house-also-hold-bible-studies-181770/ Trump Cabinet Members Gather Weekly for Prayer Session; Senate and House Also Hold Bible Studies]. ''The Christian Post''. Retrieved April 29, 2017.</ref><ref>Haverluck, Michael F. (April 29, 2017). [https://www.onenewsnow.com/church/2017/04/27/trump-cabinet-fellowships-thru-prayer-bible-study Trump cabinet fellowships thru prayer, Bible study]. ''One News Now''. Retrieved April 29, 2017.</ref> This suggested that the Trump Administration is, at least in part, striving to be under [[God]].<ref>Bakinski, Pete (April 29, 2017). [https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/mike-pence-sponsors-bible-study-for-trump-cabinet Mike Pence sponsors Bible study for Trump cabinet]. ''Life Site News''. Retrieved April 29, 2017.</ref>

In May 2017, Pence created a PAC, called the "Great America Leadership PAC," to help fund the GOP in upcoming elections, becoming the first sitting vice president to do so.<ref>Spiering, Charlie (May 18, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/05/18/mike-pence-creates-great-america-leadership-pac/ Mike Pence Creates ‘Great America’ Leadership PAC]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved May 18, 2017.</ref>

Vice President Pence played an active and relatively important role in the [[Trump Administration]],<ref>Westwood, Sarah (June 18, 2017). [http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mike-pence-stays-above-trump-scandals-and-in-touch-with-capitol-hill/article/2625973 Mike Pence stays above Trump scandals and in touch with Capitol Hill]. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved July 1, 2017.</ref><ref name="Envoy2017">O'Sullivan, Mike (December 31, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/pence-role-presidential-envoy/4186257.html Pence Carving a Role as Presidential Envoy]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved December 31, 2017.</ref> including representing the administration in foreign countries.<ref name="Envoy2017"/><ref>O'Sullivan, Mike (August 11, 2017). [https://www.voanews.com/a/vice-president-mike-pence-embraces-role-key-diplomat/3982273.html US VP Pence Embraces Role as Key Diplomat]. ''Voice of America''. Retrieved August 11, 2017.</ref> A July 2017 poll found Pence to be the most popular national political official and the only one with a positive rating – of both Republicans and Democrats – with 45% approving and 44% disapproving.<ref>Bedard, Paul (July 13, 2017). [http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pence-rises-only-dc-leader-with-positive-approval-rating/article/2628554 Pence rises: Only DC leader with positive approval rating]. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved July 13, 2017.</ref> Pence used his role in the Trump Administration to promote socially conservative policies.<ref>Abutaleb, Yasmeen; Mason, Jeff (January 19, 2018). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pence/in-year-of-drama-and-chaos-pence-quietly-advances-conservative-agenda-idUSKBN1F82NO In year of drama and chaos, Pence quietly advances conservative agenda]. ''Reuters''. Retrieved January 20, 2018. See also:
*[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/20/look-vice-president-pences-first-year-office-key-takeaways/1048778001/ A look at Vice President Pence's first year in office: key takeaways]. ''USA Today''. January 20, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018.</ref>

Despite his generally conservative positions, Pence was the keynote speaker at a political strategy retreat for the [[Koch Brothers]], who take left-wing positions on several issues, particularly [[illegal immigration]] and [[globalism]].<ref>Binder, John (September 29, 2017). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/29/vp-mike-pence-to-be-keynote-speaker-at-pro-amnesty-koch-brothers-retreat/ VP Mike Pence to Be Keynote Speaker at Pro-Amnesty Koch Brothers’ Retreat]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved September 29, 2017.</ref>

==Political philosophy==
Pence describes himself as "a [[Christian]], a conservative and a Republican, in that order."<ref name="Eason10things">Eason, Brian (July 15, 2016). [http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/07/07/trumps-vp-10-things-know-indiana-gov-mike-pence/86746980/ Trump's VP? 10 things to know about Indiana Gov. Mike Pence]. ''IndyStar''. Retrieved October 4, 2016.</ref><ref name="Phillips">Phillips, Amber (October 4, 2016). [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/14/10-things-you-should-know-about-mike-pence-who-may-join-donald-trump-on-the-gop-ticket/ Who is Mike Pence?]. ''The Washington Post''. Retrieved October 4, 2016.</ref> His political views are strongly influenced by his [[faith]] and by [[Russell Kirk]].<ref name="Eason10things"/> Pence was an early supporter of the [[Tea Party Movement|Tea Party movement]].<ref name="Phillips"/> On the other hand, Pence has a record of supporting many [[neoconservative]] and [[globalist]] policies, including high [[immigration]] levels,<ref>Munro, Neil (January 5, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/05/report-vp-pence-invites-pro-amnesty-sen-flake-lobby-trump/ Report: VP Pence Invites Sen. Flake To Lobby Trump For Amnesty]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved April 20, 2018.</ref> and his record indicates that he is not as conservative on social issues as the [[mainstream media]] alleges.<ref>Newman, Alex (July 15, 2016). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/23646-trump-vp-pence-globalist-neocon-or-solid-conservative Trump VP Pence: Globalist Neocon or Solid Conservative?] ''The New American''. Retrieved April 11, 2018.</ref>

==Personal life==
Pence married his wife Karen in 1985, and together they have three children.<ref name="Bio"/> As a Christian and out of [[Fidelity|loyalty to his wife]], he refuses to go out of dinner with any woman if his wife is not with him.<ref>Richardson, Bradford (November 29, 2017). [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/29/mike-pence-rule-contrasts-sex-misconduct-accusatio/ Once mocked, ‘Pence rule’ gets renewed look in wake of sexual misconduct wave]. ''The Washington Times''. Retrieved November 30, 2017.</ref> [[Liberal]]s, who do not adhere to [[family values]], misunderstood Pence and falsely accused him of "sexism."<ref>Multiple references:
*Gonzales, Sara (March 31, 2017). [http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/31/liberals-reactions-to-mike-pences-loyalty-to-his-wife-are-getting-more-unhinged-by-the-hour/ Liberals’ reactions to Mike Pence’s loyalty to his wife are getting more unhinged by the hour]. ''The Blaze''. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
*Shapiro, Ben (April 6, 2017). [https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/ben-shapiro/human-nature-and-mike-pences-dinner-partners On Human Nature and Mike Pence's Dinner Partners]. ''CNS News''. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
Liberal sources that genuinely believe Pence is "sexist" for his moral practice:
* Abcarian, Robin (April 5, 2017). [http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-pence-marriage-20170405-story.html Mike Pence won't dine alone with a woman who's not his wife. Is that sexist?]. ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
* Duffy, Erin (April 5, 2017). [http://fortune.com/2017/04/05/mike-pence-wife-dinner/ How Mike Pence’s Dumb Dinner Rule Puts Women at a Disadvantage]. ''Fortune''. Retrieved May 10, 2017.</ref> Despite the fact that Pence is a Christian, he has used shameful, filthy language in public.<ref>McHugh, Katie (October 4, 2016). [https://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/10/04/mike-pence-mocks-media-coverage-of-trump-this-sht-really-is-fun-to-watch/ Mike Pence Mocks Media Coverage of Trump: ‘This Sh*t Really Is Fun to Watch’]. ''Breitbart''. Retrieved October 6, 2016.</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}

==External links==
*[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=p000587 Profile] on the ''Biographical Directory of the United States Congress''
*[https://ballotpedia.org/Mike_Pence Profile] on Ballotpedia
*[http://www.ontheissues.org/in/Mike_Pence.htm Mike Pence On the Issues]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pence, Mike}}
{{USVicePresidents}}

[[Category:United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Former Democrats]]
[[Category:Christians]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Fiscal Conservatives]]
[[Category:Koch Puppets]]
[[Category:Conservative Commentators]]
[[Category:Tea Party Movement]]
[[Category:The 100 Americans The Left Hates Most]]
[[Category:Indiana Governors]]
[[Category:Former Governors]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Trump Cabinet]]
[[Category:Patriots]]

Christian Social Union of Bavaria

2018-10-15T11:50:44Z

JoeyJ: /* History */

{{PoliticalParty
| party_name = Christian Social Union of Bavaria
| party_logo =
| website = [https://www.csu.de/ csu.de]
| leader = Horst Seehofer
| parleader = Volker Kauder
| foundation = 1948
| ideology = [[Christian democracy]]
| position = [[Center-right]]
| international = [[International Democrat Union]] and [[European People’s Party]]
| colors = blue and black
| footnotes =
}}
The '''Christian Social Union in Bavaria''' (in German: ''Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern'') is a [[Christian democratic]] and conservative political party in Germany that only runs for elections in the state of [[Bavaria]].

== Ideology ==
The Christian Social Union of Bavaria is considered to be more [[conservative]] than its sister party, the [[Christian Democratic Union]]. However it is also more left than the CDU on social welfare issues.<ref>Chase, Jefferson (June 13, 2017). [https://www.dw.com/en/things-to-know-about-bavarias-christian-social-union/a-39192183 Things to know about Bavaria's Christian Social Union]. ''Deutsche Welle''. Retrieved August 25, 2018.</ref>

The CSU was highly critical on [[Angela Merkel]]'s refugee policies during the [[European migrant crisis]]. The party leader Horst Seehofer said in an interview that Germany had been "shaped by Christianity", and that the country should not give up its own traditions. Furthermore, he stated that [[Islam]] "does not belong in Germany".<ref>Huggler, Justin (March 16, 2018). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/german-interior-minister-declares-islam-does-not-belong-country/ German interior minister declares 'Islam does not belong' in the country]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved March 17, 2018.</ref> However, some [[conservative]] critics have described the party's leader, [[Horst Seehofer]] as "a centre-right figure fundamentally unopposed to mass migration,"<ref>Lane, Oliver JJ (July 2, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/merkel-germany-coalition-limps-on-as-immigration-control-compromise-struck/ Merkel Germany Coalition Limps on as Immigration Control Compromise Struck]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved July 2, 2018.</ref> and the party strongly opposes the conservative [[Alternative for Germany]], the only German party that takes a tough stance on migration, falsely labeling it "extremist."<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-csu/bavarian-csu-takes-tough-migration-stance-but-rejects-far-right-idUSKCN1LV0K2 Bavarian CSU takes tough migration stance but rejects far-right]. ''Reuters''. September 15, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2018.</ref>

In April 2018 the CSU ordered Christian Crosses to be Displayed on All Entrances to Government Buildings in Bavaria.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ixVywnUbrY</ref>

== History ==
Since its foundation shortly after World War II, the CSU has formed a tight partnership with its sister party, the [[Christian Democratic Union|CDU]]: the CDU does not field candidates in Bavaria and, in turn, the CSU does not field candidates outside it. Compared to the larger CDU, the CSU is considered more socially conservative and closer to the Catholic church. In 1980 and 2002, the CSU ran candidates for the German chancellorship on a joint ticket with the CDU ([[Franz Josef Strauss]] in 1980 and Edmund Stoiber in 2002). The CSU is the largest party in the state of Bavaria by a substantial margin, and has ruled the state since 1953, usually with an absolute majority. Its chairman is [[Horst Seehofer]].

In the 2018 Bavarian elections, the CSU, allied with Merkel's liberal CDU, performed poorly, while the left-wing [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Green Party]] and the conservative [[Alternative for Germany]] performed well.<ref>Tomlinson, Chris (October 14, 2018). [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/10/14/bavarian-election-exit-poll-merkel-allies-see-huge-losses-as-greens-and-populists-surge/ Bavarian Election Exit Poll: Merkel Allies See Huge Losses As Greens and Populists Surge]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved October 14, 2018.</ref>

==Party leaders==
* Josef Müller (1945–1949)
* Hans Erhard (1949–1955)
* Hanns Seidel (1955–1961)
* [[Franz Josef Strauss]] (1961–1988)
* Theo Waigel (1988–1999)
* [[Edmund Stoiber]] (1999–2007)
* [[Erwin Huber]] (2007–2008)
* [[Horst Seehofer]] (since 2008)

==External links==
*[http://www.csu.de/ Website of the CSU]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Christian Social Union of Bavaria]]

Moldova

2018-10-13T13:15:01Z

JoeyJ: /* Transnistria */

{{Country
|name =''Republica Moldova''
|map =Moldova rel01.jpg
|map2 =Moldova location.png
|flag =Flag of Moldova.png
|arms =Arms of Moldova.png
|capital =Chisinau
|capital-raw =
|government =
|government-raw =
|language =Moldovan (Romanian)
|king =
|queen =
|monarch-raw =
|governor general=
|governor general-raw=
|president =Igor Dodon
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =Pavel Filip
|pm-raw =
|chairman =
|general secretary=
|governor =
|governor-raw =
|premier =
|premier-raw =
|area =13,000 sq. mi.
|pop =3,510,485
|pop-basis =2016
|gdp =$4.4 billion
|gdp-year =2007
|gdp-pc =$1,298
|currency =Leu
|idd =
|tld =.md
}}
The '''Republic of Moldova''' is a country in eastern [[Europe]] and a former member of the [[Soviet Union]]. Its capital is [[Chişinău]]. It has close historical connections with neighbouring [[Romania]], and the language is a Romanian dialect.

==Geography==
An essentially-land-locked country west of the [[Ukraine]], Moldova's only natural outlets to the Black Sea are the Dniester and Prut Rivers.
*Area: 33,843 km2. (13,000 sq. mi.); slightly larger than Maryland.
*Cities: Capital—Chisinau.
*Terrain: Rolling steppe, gradual slope south toward the Black Sea.
*Climate: Moderate winters, warm summers.
*Time Zone: GMT+2

==People==
Ethnic groups represented in Moldova include Moldovan/Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, [[Gagauz]], and Bulgarian. Romanian (officially known as Moldovan) is the official language; Russian, Ukrainian, and Gagauz also are spoken. The great majority of Moldova's population is Christian Orthodox—90% of the population nominally belongs to one of the two main Orthodox denominations. The Moldovan Orthodox Church, an autonomous diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church and loyal to the Patriarch of Moscow, has 1,194 parishes; the Bessarabian Orthodox Church, affiliated with the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate in Bucharest, has 124 parishes. In addition, followers of the Old Rite Russian Orthodox Church (Old Believers) make up approximately 3.6% of the population.
*Nationality: Noun—Moldovan(s). Adjective—Moldovan.
*Population (January 1, 2008): 4.1 million, including the estimated Transnistrian population of 533,000. An estimated 750,000 to 1,000,000 work outside the country.
*Population growth rate (2007): -0.3%.
*Ethnic groups (2004 census): Moldovan (83.7%), Ukrainian (6.6%), Russian (1.7%), Gagauz (4.5%), Bulgarian (1.7%), Romanian (1.4%), other (0.4%).
*Main religions: Christian Orthodox (93.3%), Baptist (1%), Adventist, Roman Catholic, Jewish.
*Languages: Romanian (officially known as Moldovan), Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz.
*Education: Literacy—96%.
*Health: Infant mortality rate—12/1,000. Life expectancy-68.4 years.
*Work force (1.3 million): Agriculture—41%; industry—12%; other—47%.

==Government and Political Conditions==
In 2000, Parliament passed a decree making Moldova a parliamentary republic, with the president elected by Parliament instead of by popular vote. Widespread popular dissatisfaction with previous governments and economic hardship led to a surprise at the polls in February 2001. In elections certified by international observers as free and fair, slightly over half of Moldova's voters cast their ballots for the Communist Party. Under the rules of Moldova's proportional representation system, the Communist faction, which in the previous Parliament consisted of 40 of Parliament's 101 seats, jumped to 71—a clear majority. The Parliament then elected the leader of the Communist faction, Vladimir Voronin, to be President.

President Voronin's first term was marked by up and down relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Politically, the government was committed to the reduction of poverty by allocating more resources to social safety net items such as health, education, and increasing pensions and salaries. Voronin proceeded with former President Lucinschi's plans to privatize several important state-owned industries and even on occasion broke with his own party over important issues. Under President Voronin, relations with the United States have remained strong. From January to April 2002, large demonstrations took place in opposition to several controversial government proposals, including expanded use of the Russian language in schools and its designation as an official language. While the demonstrations were sometimes tense, the government did not use force and ultimately agreed to Council of Europe (CoE) mediation.

In March 2005 parliamentary elections, the Communist Party received 46.1% of the vote, or 56 seats in the 101-member Parliament—more than enough for the 51-vote minimum required to form a government, but short of the 61 votes necessary to elect a president. However, President Voronin was re-elected with support from the Christian Democratic People's Party and from the Democratic and Social Liberal party factions, after Voronin promised to deliver on needed reforms and Euro-Atlantic integration for the country. These defections broke apart the opposition unity of the pre-election Moldovan Democratic Bloc, led by Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) faction leader and former Chisinau Mayor Serafim Urechean.

Nationwide local elections in June 2007 showed improvement over nationwide parliamentary elections in 2005, with better access to the media for opposition candidates, and greater evidence of impartiality by the Central Election Commission. While the voting itself generally met international standards, the government's behavior in the campaign period—including bias in state media and misuse of administrative resources—remained a concern. The Communist Party suffered a significant setback, losing the high-profile Chisinau mayoral election and control of numerous local councils to opposition party coalitions. Elections in the semi-autonomous region of Gagauzia were held in December 2006; Mikhail Formuzal, a longtime opponent of President Voronin, was elected "Bashkan" (Governor). Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2009 and the new Parliament will elect the next President of Moldova. In addition to state-sponsored media, there are several independent newspapers, radio and television stations, and news services. The independent media organizations, along with some that are affiliated with political parties, often criticize government policies. In August 2004, Teleradio Moldova (TRM) was officially transformed from a state-owned company into a public broadcaster. However, journalists and civil society representatives, who claimed the process was nontransparent and meant to stack the new TRM staff with those favorable to the government, met this move with large protests. In February 2007, a controversial privatization process shut down the popular, pro-opposition Chisinau radio station Antena C, and installed new, pro-Government management. The U.S. Ambassador, the OSCE and western diplomatic missions condemned the developments, which seemed to run counter to the Moldovan Broadcasting Code and risked silencing political opposition. Peaceful assembly is allowed, though permits for demonstrations must be obtained; private organizations, including political parties, are required to register with the government. Moldova enacted a new law on religion in July 2007. The new law, while noting the special status of the Moldovan Orthodox Church in Moldovan history and culture, simplifies registration procedures and allows religious groups more access to public places.

In February 2005, Brussels and Chisinau agreed on an EU-Moldova Action Plan, a "roadmap" of reforms to strengthen the democratic and economic situation of the country and facilitate its Euro-Atlantic integration. Although Moldova has made some progress toward laying the structural and legislative foundation for reform, the EU has emphasized that more implementation is needed.

====Transnistria====
[[File:Flag of Transnistria.png|thumb|Flag of Transnistria]]
The population of the Moldovan region of [[Transnistria]] is approximately 40% Romanian/Moldovan, 28% Ukrainian, and 23% Russian. Separatist forces maintain control of the Transnistrian region, which lies along the Ukrainian border. Moldova has tried to meet the Russian minority's demands by offering the region rather broad cultural and political autonomy. The dispute has strained Moldova's relations with Russia. The July 1992 cease-fire agreement established a tripartite peacekeeping force comprised of Moldovan, Russian, and Transnistrian units.

Negotiations to resolve the conflict continue, and the cease-fire is still in effect. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement and has had an observer mission in place for several years. In July 2002, OSCE, Russian, and Ukrainian mediators approved a document setting forth a blueprint for reuniting Moldova under a federal system. Over the next year and a half, the settlement talks alternated between periods of forward momentum and periods of no progress. In February 2003, the U.S. and EU imposed visa restrictions against the Transnistrian leadership. In April 2003, the Moldovan Government and the Transnistrian authorities agreed to establish a joint commission to draft a constitution for a reintegrated state. However, fundamental disagreements over the division of powers remained, and a settlement proved elusive.

President Voronin decided not to sign a Russian-brokered settlement with Transnistria in November 2003; the proposal—seen by many as pro-Transnistrian - sparked opposition protests. During the summer of 2004, the Transnistrian separatists forcibly closed several Romanian language Latin-script schools in the region, for which the regime was subject to international condemnation. In 2005, Tiraspol prevented several farmers on the right bank of the Nistru River from working their fields on the left bank, within Transnistria's "borders." The OSCE Mission to Moldova eventually mediated solutions to these crises.

After a 15-month pause, the sides met for a renewed round of settlement negotiations in October 2005. Mediators from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE joined the Moldovan and Transnistrian representatives at the talks. In addition, the U.S. and EU joined the talks as observers. However, subsequent "5+2" negotiations have made little progress on a settlement or on withdrawal of Russian forces from Moldova: Russia still has weapons and munitions of the Operational Group of Russian Forces (formerly the Russian 14th Army) stationed in Transnistria, although it pledged to remove them under a timetable established at the 1999 OSCE Ministerial - the so-called "Istanbul Accords." However, there has been no progress on Russian withdrawals since early 2004.

In response to Moldova's call for international monitoring of the border, in December 2005 the EU dispatched a Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) to help stem the flow of illegal trade between Ukraine and Moldova. In March 2006, Ukraine and Moldova began implementing a 2003 customs agreement, under which Transnistrian companies seeking to engage in cross-border trade must register in Chisinau. Despite the protests of the Smirnov regime, all major Transnistrian businesses have subsequently registered. In what is seen as a response to the new customs procedures, the Smirnov regime boycotted the 5+2 talks in March 2006. The talks have been stalled ever since. In September 2006, the Transnistrian regime held an "independence referendum." Despite the fact that the Smirnov regime claimed that the referendum demonstrated overwhelming support for independence, the vote was not monitored by any western organizations, and no country recognized the referendum or the independence of Transnistria.

===Principal Government Officials===
*President—Nicolae Timofti
*Prime Minister—Chiril Gaburici
*President of Parliament—Marian Lupu
*Foreign Minister—Andrei Stratan
*Ambassador to the United States-Nicolae Chirtoaca
*Ambassador to the United Nations-Alexei Tulbure

===Foreign Relations===
Moldova's Parliament approved the country's membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States and a CIS charter on economic union in April 1994.

In 1995, the country became the first former Soviet republic admitted to the Council of Europe. In addition to its membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace, Moldova also belongs to the United Nations, the OSCE, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Moldova is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In 1998, Moldova contributed to the founding of GUAM, a regional cooperative agreement made up of Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan, in addition to Moldova. Although the agreement initially included a declaration of mutual defense, Moldova has since declared its disinterest in participating in any GUAM-based mutual defense initiative. Moldova has been involved in information exchange, trade and transportation, border control, and energy projects issues within this regional agreement. In 2006, the organization's members voted to change the name to the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM.

The past two years have seen significant developments in Moldova's relations with the West. In 2005, the European Union appointed a Special Representative for Moldova and the negotiations to resolve the Transnistrian conflict and the Delegation of the European Commission opened an office in Chisinau, In December 2005, Moldova welcomed an EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) along its Ukrainian border to crack down on smuggling, strengthen customs procedures and facilitate cross-border cooperation. In accordance with a 2005 Action Plan with the EU, Moldova has begun to harmonize Moldova's laws with those of the EU. As part of this, in late 2005, Moldova enacted its "Guillotine" laws, which slashed unnecessary business regulations, established a framework for relations between the private sector and government and created a mechanism to review the suitability of draft legislation.

In the atmosphere of heightened international sensitivity to terrorism following the events of September 11, 2001, Moldova has been a supporter of American efforts to increase international cooperation in combating terrorism. Moldova has sent demining units and peacekeepers to participate in post-conflict humanitarian assistance in Iraq. In March 2011, The Moldovan Orthodox Church resisted efforts from the European Union attempting to force Moldova to accept homosexuality.

==Defense==
Moldova has accepted all relevant arms control obligations of the former Soviet Union. On October 30, 1992, Moldova ratified the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which establishes comprehensive limits on key categories of conventional military equipment and provides for the destruction of weapons in excess of those limits. It acceded to the provisions of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in October 1994 and to the Biological Weapons Convention in December 2004. It does not have nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Moldova joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Partnership for Peace on March 16, 1994. Due to Moldova's constitutional neutrality, it is not a participant in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS—a group of 12 former Soviet republics) Collective Security Agreement.

==Economy==
Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. It is landlocked, bounded by Ukraine on the east and Romania to the west. It is the second smallest of the former Soviet republics and the most densely populated. Industry accounts for less than 15% of its labor force, while agriculture's share is more than 40%.

Moldova's proximity to the Black Sea gives it a mild and sunny climate. This makes the area ideal for agriculture and food processing, which accounts for one third of the country's GDP. The fertile soil supports wheat, corn, barley, tobacco, sugar beets, and soybeans. Beef and dairy cattle are raised, and beekeeping is widespread. Moldova's best-known product comes from its extensive and well-developed vineyards concentrated in the central and southern regions. In addition to world-class wine, Moldova produces liqueurs and champagne. It is also known for its sunflower seeds, walnuts, apples, and other fruits.
*GDP (2007): $4.4 billion.
*GDP growth rate (2007): 4.0%.
*Per capita GDP (2007 estimate): $1,298.
*Natural resources: Lignite, phosphates, gypsum, arable land, and limestone.
*Agriculture: Products—vegetables, fruits, wine and spirits, grain, sugar beets, sunflower seeds, meat, milk, eggs, tobacco, walnuts.
*Industry: Types—processed foods and beverages, including wine and refined sugar; processed fruit and vegetable products, including vegetable oil; dairy and meat products; tobacco items; metal processing and production of machinery; textiles and clothing, shoes; furniture.
*Trade (2006): Exports--$1,051.6 million (of which 50% go to countries outside the former Soviet Union): foodstuffs, wine, textiles, clothing, footwear and machinery. Major markets—Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Italy, Belarus, Germany. Imports--$2,693.2 million (of which 60% come from countries outside the former Soviet Union): gas, oil, coal, steel, machinery and equipment, chemical products, textiles, foodstuffs, automobiles, and other consumer durables. Major suppliers—Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Germany, Italy. Currency: Moldovan Leu (plural Lei).
*Exchange rate: Leu/US$ (2006): average 13.13; 12.91 (end of year); 12.60 (average in 2005); 12.33 (average in 2004); 13.94 (average in 2003).

Like many other former Soviet republics, Moldova has experienced economic difficulties. Since its economy was highly dependent on the rest of the former Soviet Union for energy and raw materials, the breakdown in trade following the breakup of the Soviet Union had a serious effect, exacerbated at times by drought and civil conflict. The Russian ruble devaluation of 1998 had a deleterious effect on Moldova's economy, but economic growth has been steady since 2000.

Moldova has made progress in economic reform since independence. The government has liberalized most prices and has phased out subsidies on most basic consumer goods. A program begun in March 1993 has privatized 80% of all housing units and nearly 2,000 small, medium, and large enterprises. Other successes include the privatization of nearly all of Moldova's agricultural land from state to private ownership, as a result of an American assistance program, "Pamint" ("land"), completed in 2000. A stock market opened in June 1995.

Following the economic difficulties caused by the Russian currency crisis of 1998, inflation dropped to 5.2% in 2002, the lowest level since Moldova's independence. However, inflation spiked again to 11.6% in 2003 and never fell below 11% over the following years, rising as high as 12.7% in 2006. In 2006, Moldova faced twin external shocks - a two-fold increase in gas prices and a politically-motivated Russian ban on Moldovan wine imports, a key export item. While relatively stable in recent years, in 2007 the local currency appreciated because of a weakening U.S. dollar and pressure from record remittances from Moldovans working abroad. Reforms to the National Bank of Moldova in 2006 changed the central bank's policy priority from currency stability to price stability (fighting inflation). The National Bank of Moldova has the difficult task of sterilizing the money supply to contain stubbornly high inflation.

Moldova continues to make progress toward developing a viable free-market economy. The economy grew by an average 7% from 2000 to 2005 after years of recession since independence. External shocks in 2006 slashed economic growth to just 4%. After a budget surplus of 1.6% of GDP in 2005, the country had a slight deficit of 0.3% of GDP in 2006 despite better than anticipated revenue performance and prudent spending. The Moldovan economy continues to depend greatly on remittances sent from Moldovans working abroad. These inflows have increased to an estimated $1.2 billion a year.

Privatization results in recent years were not significant. Total proceeds in 2006 amounted to $12.4 million. Several smaller companies, two land plots in Chisinau and a large hotel were privatized in 2006. The government postponed indefinitely the privatization of large state enterprises in the power, telecommunications and agribusiness sectors. In 2007, Parliament passed a new law, introducing new approaches to privatizing and managing state-owned assets (including public-private partnerships), giving priority to economic efficiency. As the European Union expanded to Moldova's border, 2006 saw record high inflows of foreign direct investment. However, cumulative FDI since independence is only $1.28 billion, far below the country's needs. Sporadic and ineffective enforcement of the law, economic and political uncertainty, and government interference continue to discourage FDI inflows.

Spurred by soaring consumption and higher energy prices, imports have been growing more rapidly than exports. This was most prominent in 2006 when Moldova's trade deficit worsened as higher-priced energy imports surpassed exports, which were stunted by Russia's ban on Moldovan wine and agricultural products. Moldova traditionally exported between 70-80% of its wine production to Russia. The country lacks diversification in terms of sector development and export markets. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank resumed lending to Moldova in July 2002, and then suspended lending again in July 2003. In early 2006, Moldova reached agreement with the Paris Club on rescheduling of Moldova's foreign debt. In addition, in the spring of 2006, the IMF reached an agreement with the Moldovan Government for a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility designed to bolster foreign reserves against external shocks with a 3-year, $175 million program that includes a new IMF loan to the National Bank of Moldova.

Moldova continues to be subject to Russian economic pressure. In 2005, Russia enacted a ban on Moldovan agricultural products and in 2006, it banned imports of Moldovan wines. The wine ban has been particularly painful because, prior to the ban, Moldovan wines accounted for a third of the country's exports and 80% of wine exports went to Russia. Although Russian President Putin announced an end to the wine ban in November 2006, Russia had still not resumed importing Moldovan wine as of September 2007. In January 2006, Russian energy giant Gazprom temporarily cut off natural gas deliveries to Ukraine and Moldova - which is almost completely dependent on its neighbors for energy - and subsequently doubled the price of gas to Moldova. The impact has been substantial: Moldova's exports to Russia declined by 47.6% in 2006 and total exports dropped 3.6%, further contributing to a widening trade deficit (47% of GDP). In the first half of 2007, the country's trade deficit was already more than $1 billion (compared with $1.6 billion for all of 2006).

Moldova suffered from a severe drought during much of 2007 which caused hundreds of millions of dollars in agriculture sector losses and prompted concerns about food availability. In response to a request for assistance from the Government of Moldova, the United States provided $350,000 worth of seed to drought ravaged farmers in time for fall planting.

==History==
The Republic of Moldova occupies most of what has been known as Bessarabia. Moldova's location has made it a historic passageway between Asia and southern Europe, as well as the victim of frequent warfare. Greeks, Romans, Huns, and Bulgars invaded the area, which in the 13th century became part of the Mongol empire. An independent Moldovan state emerged briefly in the 14th century under celebrated leader Stefan the Great but subsequently fell under Ottoman Turkish rule in the 16th century.

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-12, the eastern half of Moldova (Bessarabia) between the Prut and the Dniester Rivers was ceded to Russia, while Romanian Moldavia (west of the Prut) remained with the Turks. Romania, which gained independence in 1878, took control of Russian-ruled Bessarabia in 1918. The Soviet Union never recognized the action and created an autonomous Moldavian republic on the east side of the Dniester River in 1924.

In 1940, Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), which established the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic by merging the autonomous republic east of the Dniester and the annexed Bessarabian portion. Stalin also stripped the three southern counties along the Black Sea coast from Moldova and incorporated them in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Romania sought to regain Bessarabia by joining with Germany in the 1941 attack on the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, German and Romanian troops crossed the border and deportations of the Jews from Bessarabia began immediately. By September 1941, most of the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina had been transported in convoys and force marched to concentration camps in Transnistria. About 185,000 Jews were in the Transnistria area in concentration camps by 1942 in abysmal conditions. Very few were left alive in these camps when the Soviets reoccupied Bessarabia in 1944.

In September 1990, the Supreme Soviet elected Mircea Snegur as President of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. A former Communist Party official, he endorsed independence from the Soviet Union and actively sought Western recognition. On May 23, 1991, the Supreme Soviet renamed itself the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, which subsequently declared its independence from the U.S.S.R.

In August 1991, Moldova's transition to democracy initially had been impeded by an ineffective Parliament, the lack of a new constitution, a separatist movement led by the Gagauz (Christian Turkic) minority in the south, and unrest in the Transnistria region on the left bank of the Nistru/Dniester River, where a separatist movement declared a "Transdniester Moldovan Republic" in September 1990. The Russian 14th Army intervened to stem widespread violence and support the Transnistrian regime which is led by supporters of the 1991 coup attempt in Moscow. In 1992, the government negotiated a cease-fire arrangement with Russian and Transnistrian officials, although tensions continue, and negotiations are ongoing. In February 1994, new legislative elections were held, and the ineffective Parliament that had been elected in 1990 to a 5-year term was replaced. A new constitution was adopted in July 1994. The conflict with the Gagauz minority was defused by the granting of local autonomy in 1994.

{{Copyright Details (US Government)}}

Source = [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5357.htm]

[[Category:Moldova]]
[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:Former Soviet Countries]]
[[Category:Landlocked Countries]]
[[Category:Christian-Majority Countries]]

Tea

2018-10-13T13:14:02Z

JoeyJ:

[[Image:Tea usda1.jpg|thumb|right|300px]]
'''Tea''' is a beverage made by steeping leaves and buds, most often from the plant ''Camellia sinensis''.

Tea originated in [[China]], although it is now grown throughout the world, and rivals the olive as the key cash crop of the [[Holy Land]] ([[Israel]], etc.).

The drinking of tea is common throughout Asia, the British Isles, where it is often drunk with milk, and the former Soviet Union (especially [[Abkhazia]], [[South Ossetia]], and [[Transnistria]], where it is increasingly replacing melon juice as the national drink).

== Varieties of tea ==

While [[tisanes]], also known as herbal teas, are made from various herbs, flowers, spices, or fruits, all tea, properly speaking, is made from the leaves of a single plant species. All true tea is produced from one of several varieties, naturally occurring or domesticated, of ''camellia sinensis''. Tea is generally classified in terms of how the leaves have been processed. White, green, black and oolong are the generally recognized Western designations, although there is considerable variety within these categories, especially the last one. Although it is little known in the West, pu-erh tea, made over years or even decades, is also a popular variety in China. Pu-erh tea improves with age and some can valued at tens of thousands of US dollars.

== "Famous" tea varieties ==

Notable Chinese teas include keemun, a sweet, spicy [[black tea]], lung-ching, a bitter, nutty green tea, and bai mu dan, one of the more affordable varieties of white tea. The finest grade of Japanese tea is probabably gyokuro, a green tea whose leaves are kept shaded to preserve a delicate flavor. In [[India]], tea is grown in the [[Nilgiri]], [[Sikkim]], [[Dooars]] and [[Putharjhora]] regions, but most Indian tea is grown in [[Assam]]. The Indian tea most prized by connoisseurs comes from the mountainous region of [[Darjeeling]]. This is much imitated and grown in the nearby mountains of [[Nepal]]. Since the later part of the nineteenth century, [[Sri Lanka]] has been an important region for tea cultivation, producing brisk, flavorful black tea still known as "Ceylon tea" after the island's earlier name. The most famous [[oolong tea]] is probably [[ti kuan yin]], a tea very close to a green tea in oxidation. Like many oolongs, ti kuan yin is made from tightly rolled leaves which unfold as the tea steeps. The Wu Yi mountain region is also home to a variety of teas of the same name. The island of [[Taiwan]] is famous for its oolong teas, either dark and rich or mild and fragrant. These are known as [[Formosa oolong]] after the [[Portuguese]] name for the island.

== Preparing Tea ==

The amount of time necessary to prepare tea varies greatly depending upon the variety of tea and the desired flavor. Sweet China black teas can be brewed for six or seven minutes before straining the leaves from the water. Extremely bitter teas, including some Darjeelings, should be steeped for under two minutes. The quality of the leaves also matters here, and broken leaves or leaf dust only need to be steeped for about a minute to release their flavor. Good, whole-leaf tea can be brewed more than once and tightly rolled oolongs can be steeped several times.

Black tea is made with boiling water, but with other teas, cooler water is often necessary. The more delicate green and white teas can require water no warmer than 165 degrees [[Fahrenheit]]. The usual temperature for green, white and the lighter oolong teas is 180 degrees [[Fahrenheit]]. It is important, in serving tea, to warm the pot in which the tea is prepared and warm the cups in which it is served. Oolong teas can be infused multiple times. The first infusion is sometimes discarded as it is used moisten the leaves.

In [[Britain]], people take great pride in preparing tea correctly, and various steps in the process are not without controversy. No less a name than [[George Orwell]] wrote an essay on the subject.<ref>[http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/a-nice-cup-of-tea.htm George Orwell on tea making]</ref>

[[Iced tea]] can be made in two different ways. The first process, the only effective process with black tea, involves brewing exceptionally strong tea and rapidly cooling it over ice. White, green, and oolong teas can also be brewed as iced tea through cold steeping. This involves soaking the leaves in cold water for approximately twelve hours. For health reasons, it is essential that tea prepared this way be kept cool.

== Additives ==

Tea is often drunk unadulterated, especially in China and Japan. But in other parts of the world, tea is enjoyed with added ingredients. Milk, sugar, and lemon are the most common additives in the [[United States]] and [[Europe]]: the first dilutes the taste of strong teas, the second sweetens sour teas, and that third of these removes the edge from bitter teas. In India it is common to enjoy tea with various spices, such as cardamom and star anise, as well as milk and sugar. In [[Tibet]], tea is drunk with fermented [[yak]] butter.

==See also==
[[White tea]]

[[Category:Beverages]]
==References==
{{reflist}}

Romania

2018-10-13T13:13:40Z

JoeyJ: /* People */

{{country
|map=Romania rel96.jpg
|map2=Romania location.png
|capital= Bucharest
|president=Klaus Iohannis
|pm=Victor Ponta
|area=238,392 km2
|pop=21,599,736
|pop-basis=2016
|gdp=$256.9 Billion
|gdp-year=2006
}}
'''Romania''' is a country in eastern [[Europe]], situated between the [[Black Sea]], the [[Carpathian Mountains]] and the [[River Danube]]. It is a member of [[NATO]] and the [[European Union]]. In July 2005, Romania released new, revised, banknotes with less zeroes (for example ROL10.000 (before 2005) = RON1 (after 2005)).

The presidential election in Dec. 2009 was narrowly won by the incumbent, Traian Basescu. His challenger, Mircea Geoana, cried fraud. Basescu’s record is mixed. He was originally elected to combat corruption, and has fought the nation's endemic sleaze, but only selectively. Supporters who once saw him as the apostle of clean government now regard him merely as the lesser of two evils. Critics make fun of his private life, colourful even by local standards. He is impulsive and abrasive, which undercuts his effectiveness. On foreign policy, he has been a stalwart Atlanticist and strong critic of Russian trouble-making. The IMF has delayed the next payment of a €20 billion ($30 billion) loan until the parliament agrees to a budget deficit no bigger than 5.9% of GDP.<ref>See [https://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=15066014 ''Economist'' report]</ref>

==Geography==
[[File:Romania mountains.jpg|left|220px]]
Extending inland halfway across the Balkan Peninsula and covering a large elliptical area of 237,499 square kilometers (91,699 sq. mi.), Romania occupies the greater part of the lower basin of the Danube River system and the hilly eastern regions of the middle Danube basin. It lies on either side of the mountain systems collectively known as the Carpathians, which form the natural barrier between the two Danube basins.

Romania's location gives it a continental climate, particularly in Moldavia and Wallachia (geographic areas east of the Carpathians and south of the Transylvanian Alps, respectively) and to a lesser extent in centrally located [[Transylvania]], where the climate is more moderate. A long and at times severe winter (December–March), a hot summer (April–July), and a prolonged autumn (August–November) are the principal seasons, with a rapid transition from spring to summer. In Bucharest, the daily minimum temperature in January averages -7oC (20oF), and the daily maximum temperature in July averages 29oC (85oF).

==People==
[[File:Traditional dancers from Transylvania Romania.jpg|thumb|330px|left|Traditional dancers from Transylvania, Romania.]]
About 89% of the people are ethnic Romanians, a group that—in contrast to its Slavic or Hungarian neighbors—traces itself to Latin-speaking Romans, who in the second and third centuries A.D. conquered and settled among the ancient Dacians, a Thracian people. As a result, the Romanian language, although containing elements of Slavic, Turkish, and other languages, is a Romance language related to Italian and French.

Hungarians and [[Gypsies|Roma]] are the principal minorities, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Serbs, Croats, Ukrainians, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Great Russians, and others. Minority populations are greatest in [[Transylvania]] and the Banat, areas in the north and west, which belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire until World War I. Even before union with Romania, ethnic Romanians comprised the overall majority in Transylvania. However, ethnic Hungarians and Germans were the dominant urban population until relatively recently, and ethnic Hungarians still are the majority in a few districts.
*Population: 21.6 million (December 2006).
*Annual population growth rate: -0.3%.
*Ethnic groups: Romanians 89%, Hungarians 7.1%, Germans 0.5%, Ukrainians, Serbs, Croats, Russians, Turks, and Roma 2.5%.
*Religions: Orthodox 86.8%, Roman Catholic 5%, Reformed Protestant, Baptist, and Pentecostal 5%, Greek Catholic (Uniate) 1 to 3%, Muslim 0.2%, Jewish less than 0.1%.
*Languages: Romanian (official). Other languages—Hungarian, German.
*Education: Years compulsory—10. Attendance—98%. Literacy—98%.
*Health: Infant mortality rate—18.7/1000 (2001); 18.6/1,000 (2002). Life expectancy—men 67.61 yrs., women 74.9 yrs.
*Work force (June 2007): 9.4 million. Agriculture—3.0 million, industry and construction—2.8 million, services—3.3 million, other—0.3 million.

Before World War II, minorities represented more than 28% of the total population. During the war that percentage was halved, largely by the loss of the border areas of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (to the former Soviet Union—now Moldova and a portion of south-west Ukraine) and southern Dobrudja (to Bulgaria), as well as by the postwar flight or deportation of ethnic Germans. In the last several decades, more than two-thirds of the remaining ethnic Germans in Romania emigrated to Germany.

Romanian troops during World War II participated in the destruction of the Jewish communities of Bessarabia and [[Transnistria]] (both now comprising the independent Republic of Moldova) and Bukovina (now part of Ukraine). Although subjected to harsh persecution, including government-sanctioned pogroms and killings, most Jews from the territory now comprising Romania survived the Holocaust. Mass emigration, mostly to Israel, has reduced the surviving Jewish community from over 300,000 to less than 10,000.

===Religion and Culture===
[[File:Romanian Patriarchal Cathedral - external mosaics.jpg|thumb|320px|Patriarchal Cathedral - external mosaics, Bucharest.]]
Religious affiliation tends to follow ethnic lines, with most ethnic Romanians identifying with the Romanian Orthodox Church. Also ethnically Romanian is the Greek Catholic or Uniate church, reunified with the Orthodox Church by fiat in 1948, and restored after the 1989 revolution. The 2002 census indicates that less than 1% of the population is Greek Catholic, as opposed to about 10% prior to 1948. Roman Catholics, largely ethnic Hungarians and Germans, constitute about 5% of the population; Calvinists, Baptists, Pentecostals, and Lutherans make up another 5%. There are smaller numbers of Unitarians, Muslims, and other religions.

Romania's rich cultural traditions have been nourished by many sources, some of which predate the Roman occupation. The traditional folk arts, including dance, music, wood-carving, ceramics, weaving and embroidery of costumes and household decorations still flourish in many parts of the country. Despite strong Austrian, German, and especially French influence, many of Romania's great artists, such as the painter Nicolae Grigorescu, the poet Mihai Eminescu, the composer George Enescu, and the sculptor Constantin Brancusi, drew their inspiration from Romanian folk traditions.

The country's many Orthodox monasteries, as well as the Transylvanian Catholic and Evangelical Churches, some of which date back to the 13th century, are repositories of artistic treasures. The famous painted monasteries of Bukovina make an important contribution to European architecture.

Poetry and the theater play an important role in contemporary Romanian life. Classic Romanian plays, such as those of Ion Luca Caragiale, as well as works by modern or avant-garde Romanian and international playwrights, find sophisticated and enthusiastic audiences in the many theaters of the capital and of the smaller cities.

==Government==
Romania's 1991 constitution proclaims Romania a democracy and market economy, in which human dignity, civic rights and freedoms, the unhindered development of human personality, justice, and political pluralism are supreme and guaranteed values. The constitution directs the state to implement free trade, protect the principle of competition, and provide a favorable framework for production. The constitution provides for a president, a Parliament, a Constitutional Court and a separate system of lower courts that includes a Supreme Court.

The two-chamber Parliament, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, is the law-making authority. Deputies and senators are elected for 4-year terms by universal suffrage. Elected officials at all levels of government, with the exception of the president and mayors, are selected on the basis of party lists, with parliamentary seats, city and county council representation, all allocated in proportion to party choices made by the electorate.

The president is elected by popular vote for a maximum of two terms. The length of the term was extended from four to five years in an October 2003 constitutional referendum. He is the Chief of State, charged with safeguarding the constitution, foreign affairs, and the proper functioning of public authorities. He is supreme commander of the armed forces and chairman of the Supreme Defense Council. According to the constitution, he acts as mediator among the power centers within the state, as well as between the state and society. The president nominates the prime minister, who in turn appoints the government, which must be confirmed by a vote of confidence from Parliament.
[[File:Traian Basescu 2005 Romania.jpg|thumb|240px|Traian Basescu, 2005.]]
The Constitutional Court adjudicates the constitutionality of challenged laws and decrees. The court consists of nine judges, appointed for non-concurrent terms of 9 years. Three judges are appointed by the Chamber of Deputies, three by the Senate, and three by the president of Romania.

The Romanian legal system is based on the Napoleonic Code. The judiciary is to be independent, and judges appointed by the president are not removable. The president and other judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice are appointed for terms of 6 years and may serve consecutive terms. Proceedings are public, except in special circumstances provided for by law.

The Ministry of Justice represents "the general interests of society" and defends the legal order as well as citizens' rights and freedoms. The ministry is to discharge its powers through independent, impartial public prosecutors.

For territorial and administrative purposes, Romania is divided into 41 counties and the city of Bucharest. Each county is governed by an elected county council. Local councils and elected mayors are the public administration authorities in villages and towns. The county council is the public administration authority that coordinates the activities of all village and town councils in a county.

The central government appoints a prefect for each county and the Bucharest municipality. The prefect is the representative of the central government at the local level and directs any public services of the ministries and other central agencies at the county level. A prefect may block the action of a local authority if he deems it unlawful or unconstitutional. The matter is then decided by an administrative court.

Under legislation in force since January 1999, local councils have control over spending of their allocations from the central government budget, as well as authority to raise additional revenue locally.

===Principal Government Officials===
*President of Romania—Klaus Iohannis
*Prime Minister—Victor Ponta
*Minister of Foreign Affairs—Titus Corlatean

===Political Conditions===
November 2004 elections left the Romanian parliament closely divided between the center-right PNL-PD alliance and the PSD, which each hold between 30-40% of the seats in each chamber. The PNL-PD, however, forged a parliamentary majority with the support of the UDMR, PC and (in the lower house) the ethnic minority party representatives. The extreme nationalist PRM won fewer seats than in the 2000 elections, but remained a significant political player. Although the PNL and PD voted as a bloc in the parliament and ran candidates on a common list in the 2004 parliamentary elections, the two parties remained separated. On several occasions since 2005, President Traian Basescu has publicly expressed support for snap parliamentary elections. Parliamentary leaders have steadily opposed calling new elections.

After Romania's accession to the EU on January 1, 2007, the cooperation between PD President Basescu and PNL Prime Minister Tariceanu devolved into political infighting. The political turmoil resulted in a rupture of the PD-PNL alliance in April 2007, the 30-day suspension of the President in May, and the President's campaign to force a change from party list representational voting to single-member districts. Prime Minister Tariceanu continues to head a minority government in coalition with the UDMR and with the tacit support of the Socialist opposition.

Political parties represent a broad range of views and interests, and elected officials and other public figures freely express their views. Civil society watchdog groups remain relatively small but have grown in influence. The press is free and outspoken, although there have been incidents of politically motivated intimidation and even violence against journalists and media management, particularly prior to 2004 national elections. Independent radio networks have proliferated, and several private television networks now operate nationwide. In addition, a large number of local private television networks have emerged.

Through support of or participation in consecutive government coalitions, the UDMR has ensured the continuing influence of the ethnic Hungarian minority in national government. In addition, consecutive governments have sought to improve the socio-economic situation of the Roma minority, which continues to suffer from severe poverty in many areas and discrimination. Although according to government statistics Roma officially represent 2.5% of the population, Romani organizations claim the percentage is actually several percentage points higher.

The restitution of private and religious property seized under communism or during World War II continues to move slowly. Particularly problematic is the return of Greek-Catholic churches, which were given to the Romanian Orthodox Church by the communist regime. The Romanian Orthodox Church thus far has turned over very few of these churches, many of which had belonged to the Greek Catholic community for hundreds of years. Romania has repealed communist-era legislation criminalizing homosexual acts and banned xenophobic and racist groups and their activities. Romanian law does not prohibit women's participation in government or politics, but societal attitudes remain a significant barrier. Women hold some high positions in government and roughly 10% of the seats in each chamber in the Parliament.

===Foreign Relations===
Since December 1989, Romania has actively pursued a policy of strengthening relations with the West in general, more specifically with the U.S. and the European Union. Romania was a helpful partner to the allied forces during the first Gulf War, particularly during its service as president of the UN Security Council. Romania has been active in peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, UNAVEM in Angola, IFOR/SFOR in Bosnia, KFOR in Kosovo, and in Albania. Romania also offered important logistical support to allied military operations in Iraq in 2003 and, after the cessation of organized hostilities, has been participating in security and reconstruction activities. Romania is a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which it chaired in 2001. In late 2001 Romania, at that time an ally of France, was the joined the Georgian-Serbian war.

Romania was the first country to enroll in the NATO Partnership for Peace program. NATO member states invited Romania to join the Alliance in 2002, based on Romania's rapid progress in modernizing its armed forces and its contributions to allied peacekeeping and other military operations. Romania officially became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on March 29, 2004 after depositing its instruments of treaty ratification in Washington, DC. In 1996, Romania signed and ratified a basic bilateral treaty with Hungary that settled outstanding issues and laid the foundation for closer, more cooperative relations. In June 1997, Romania signed a bilateral treaty with Ukraine that resolved certain territorial and minority issues, among others. Romania also signed a basic bilateral treaty with Russia in July 2003.

Romania acceded to the European Union on January 1, 2007 along with Bulgaria, bringing the number of EU states to 27. Romania is a strong advocate for a "larger Europe," encouraging other countries that were formerly part of the Soviet sphere to integrate into both NATO and the EU.

Romania has been actively involved in regional organizations, such as the Southeast Europe Cooperation Initiative (SECI) and the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe, and has been a positive force in supporting stability and cooperation in the area.

Romania maintains good diplomatic relations with Israel and was supportive of the Middle East peace negotiations initiated after the Gulf conflict in 1991. Romania also is a founding member of the Black Sea Consortium for Economic Development. It joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 1972, and is a member of the World Trade Organization.

==Defense==
In accordance with the December 1991 Romanian constitution, the Romanian armed forces have the defensive mission of ensuring the territorial integrity of the country. The military enjoys popular support, partly because of its role in supporting the December 1989 revolution. The army is the largest service. Total armed forces strength is currently about 100,000, and is maintained through conscription, although only volunteers are assigned to combat zones. There is an ongoing strategic review that is intended to lead to a NATO interoperable force of 60,000 in 2007. Romania plans to phase out conscription in the armed forces in 2007. In 1993, the U.S. military began training of Romanian military and civilian officials through IMET and other exchange programs, emphasizing civilian democratic control over the military.

==Economy==
Romania is a country of considerable potential: rich agricultural lands; diverse energy sources (coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, and nuclear); a substantial industrial base encompassing almost the full range of manufacturing activities; an educated work force; and opportunities for expanded development in tourism on the Black Sea and in the Carpathian mountains.

The Romanian Government borrowed heavily from the West in the 1970s to build a substantial state-owned industrial base. Following the 1979 oil price shock and a debt rescheduling in 1981, Ceausescu decreed that Romania would no longer be subject to foreign creditors. By the end of 1989, Romania had paid off a foreign debt of about $10.5 billion through an unprecedented effort that wreaked havoc on the economy and living standards. Vital imports were slashed and food and fuel strictly rationed, while the government exported everything it could to earn hard currency. With investment slashed, Romania's infrastructure fell behind its historically poorer Balkan neighbors.
[[File:Nicolae Ceaucescu 1978.jpg|thumb|[[Nicolae Ceausescu]], 1978.]]
Since the fall of the Ceausescu regime in 1989, successive governments sought to build a Western-style market economy. The pace of restructuring was slow, but by 1994 the legal basis for a market economy was largely in place. After the 1996 elections, the coalition government attempted to eliminate consumer subsidies, float prices, liberalize exchange rates, and put in place a tight monetary policy. The Parliament enacted laws permitting foreign entities incorporated in Romania to purchase land. Foreign capital investment in Romania has been increasing rapidly, although it remains less in per capita terms than in some other countries of East and Central Europe.

Romania was the largest U.S. trading partner in Eastern Europe until Ceausescu's 1988 renunciation of most favored nation (MFN or non-discriminatory) trading status resulted in high U.S. tariffs on Romanian products. Congress approved restoration of MFN status effective November 8, 1993, as part of a new Bilateral Trade Agreement. Tariffs on most Romanian products dropped to zero in February 1994, with the inclusion of Romania in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). Major Romanian exports to the U.S. include shoes, clothing, steel, and chemicals. Romania signed an Association Agreement with the European Union (EU) in 1992 and a free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1993, codifying Romania's access to European markets and creating the basic framework for further economic integration.

At its Helsinki Summit in December 1999, the European Union invited Romania to formally begin accession negotiations. In December 2004, the EU Commission concluded pre-accession negotiations with Romania. In April 2005, the EU signed an accession treaty with Romania and its neighbor, Bulgaria, and in January 2007, they were both welcomed as new EU members.
*GDP (2006): $122.3 billion.
*Annual GDP growth rate (2006): +7.7%; +5.8% (Jan.-June 2007).
*GDP per capita (2006): $5,662.
*Natural resources: Oil, timber, natural gas, coal, salt, iron ore.
*Agriculture (2006): Percent of GDP—8.0%. Products—corn, wheat, potatoes, oilseeds, vegetables, livestock, fish, and forestry.
*Industry (2006): Percent of GDP—23.9%. Types—machine building, mining, construction materials, metal production and processing, chemicals, food processing, textiles, clothing. Industrial output increased by 7.1% in 2006 and 6.1% in Jan.-June 2007.
*Services (2006): Percent of GDP—61.1%.
*Construction (2006): Percent of GDP—7.0%.
*Trade: Exports (2006)--$32.3 billion; (Jan.-June 2007): $18.6 billion. Types—textiles, chemicals, light manufactures, wood products, fuels, processed metals, machinery and equipment. Exports to the U.S. (2006)--$827.5 million; (Jan.-June 2007): $391 million. Major markets—Italy, Germany, Turkey, France, Hungary, U.K., U.S. (2.6%). Imports (2006)--$50.9 billion; (Jan.-June 2007): $31.3 billion. Types—machinery and equipment, textiles, fuel, coking coal, iron ore, machinery and equipment, and mineral products. Imports from the U.S. (2006)--$1.2 billion; (Jan.-June 2007): $414.1 million. Major suppliers—Germany, Italy, Russia, France, Turkey, Austria, U.K., China, Hungary, U.S. (2.4%).
*Exchange rate: 2.38 new Lei=U.S.$1 (end-October 2007).
[[File:BRD Tower in Bucharest.JPG|thumb|left|300px|BRD Tower in Bucharest.]]
Privatization of industry was first pursued with the transfer in 1992 of 30% of the shares of some 6,000 state-owned enterprises to five private ownership funds, in which each adult citizen received certificates of ownership. The remaining 70% ownership of the enterprises was transferred to a state ownership fund. With the assistance of the World Bank, European Union, and International Monetary Fund (IMF), Romania succeeded in privatizing most industrial state-owned enterprises, including some large state-owned energy companies. Romania completed the privatization of the largest commercial bank (BCR) in 2006. The privatization of the last state-owned bank—the National Savings Bank (CEC)--was stopped in 2006 and has been indefinitely postponed. Four of the country's eight regional electricity distributors have now been privatized. Privatization of natural gas distribution companies also progressed with the sale of Romania's two regional gas distributors, Distrigaz Nord (to E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany) and Distrigaz Sud (to Gaz de France). Further progress in energy sector privatization, however, has been delayed as the government reconsiders its strategy on the Rovinari, Turceni, and Craiova energy complexes, contemplating the creation of an integrated, state-owned energy producer. Romania has a nuclear power plant at Cernavoda, with one nuclear reactor in operation since 1996 and a second one commissioned in the fall of 2007.

The return of collectivized farmland to its cultivators, one of the first initiatives of the post-December 1989 revolution government, resulted in a short-term decrease in agricultural production. Some four million small parcels representing 80% of the arable surface were returned to original owners or their heirs. Many of the recipients were elderly or city dwellers, and the slow progress of granting formal land titles remains an obstacle to leasing or selling land to active farmers.

Financial and technical assistance continues to flow from the U.S., European Union, other industrial nations, and international financial institutions facilitating Romania's reintegration into the world economy. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank (IBRD), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the [[U.S. Agency for International Development]] (USAID) all have programs and resident representatives in Romania, although USAID programs will phase out at the end of 2007. As of August 2007, Romania had attracted $21.8 billion in foreign direct investment. Of this total, U.S. direct investment accounted for $915.7 million (4.9%), ranking sixth among national investors but first among non-EU countries.

After years of IMF-guided economic reforms, Romania' stand-by agreement with the IMF expired on July 7, 2006. Romania's inflation rate has steadily decreased, while growth rates have been between 4% and 8% since 2001. However, the IMF has been critical of Romania's 2005 adoption of a 16% flat tax, pointing to the country's low rate of tax collection as a medium- to long-term impediment to growth. The IMF has also criticized Romania's public sector wage policy as inflationary. Public sector wages increased 36% through 2006 and the Government of Romania has approved public sector wage increases of 14%-19% over three rounds in 2007. Analysts have warned about increasing macroeconomic imbalances, such as the growing current account deficit (10.3% of GDP in 2006 and possibly reaching 15% in 2007, the IMF estimates). This along with deteriorating education and health services, aging and inadequate physical infrastructure, and a looming real estate price [[economic bubble|bubble]] are all seen as threats to future growth.

Romania's budget deficits also dropped under IMF guidance, though the trend is reversing. Actual deficits decreased from 4% of GDP in 1999 to only 0.8% in 2005 and 1.7% in 2006. However, the 2007 deficit is expected to approach 3%, driven by rising spending on infrastructure, public sector wages, and pension increases. In response the IMF has recommended that Romania strive to keep the 2007 deficit below 2%, dropping to 1% of GDP in 2008. The IMF also advises that Romania is lacking a realistic fiscal policy framework for the medium term. The country made progress in combating domestic tax arrears and expanding the tax base in 2005, though Romania has one of the lowest collection rates in Europe, at 31.0% of GDP in 2006.

Unemployment was officially 3.9%in August 2007, although these figures do not capture high levels of temporary emigration, gray-market employment, or under-employment.

In the early 1990s, inflation was one of Romania's most serious economic problems. Inflation rates have gradually declined, finally reaching single digits in 2004. Inflation in 2006 stood at a historical low of 4.9%. The Central Bank has set an ambitious annual target band of 4% plus/minus 1% for 2007, but outside analysts note that inflationary pressures are growing and predict that the rate for the year will slightly exceed the top of this band.

==History==
[[File:Romanian Archeology Near National Hystory Museum 2007.JPG|thumb|left|240px|Romanian Archeology.]]
Since about 200 B.C., when it was settled by the Dacians, a Thracian tribe, Romania has been in the path of a series of migrations and conquests. Under the emperor Trajan early in the second century A.D., Dacia was incorporated into the Roman Empire, but was abandoned by a declining Rome less than two centuries later. Romania disappeared from recorded history for hundreds of years, to reemerge in the medieval period as the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (one of Wallachia's rulers, Prince Vlad III Tepes, would gain some notoriety as the inspiration for novelist Bram Stoker's ''Dracula''). Heavily taxed and badly administered under the Ottoman Empire, the two Principalities were unified under a single native prince in 1859, and had their full independence ratified in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. A German prince, Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was crowned the first King of Romania in 1881.

The new state, squeezed between the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, looked to the West, particularly France, for its cultural, educational, and administrative models. Romania was an ally of the Entente and the U.S. in World War I, and was granted substantial territories with Romanian populations, notably [[Transylvania]], Bessarabia, and Bukovina, after the war.

Most of Romania's pre-World War II governments maintained the forms, but not always the substance, of a liberal constitutional monarchy. The fascist Iron Guard movement, exploiting a quasi-mystical nationalism, fear of communism, and resentment of alleged foreign and Jewish domination of the economy, was a key destabilizing factor, which led to the creation of a royal dictatorship in 1938 under King [[Carol II]]. In 1940, the authoritarian General Antonescu took control. Romania entered World War II on the side of the Axis Powers in June 1941, invading the Soviet Union to recover Bessarabia and Bukovina, which had been annexed in 1940.

In August 1944, a coup led by King Michael, with support from opposition politicians and the army, deposed the Antonescu dictatorship and put Romania's battered armies on the side of the Allies. Romania incurred additional heavy casualties fighting alongside the Soviet Union against the Germans in Transylvania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
[[File:King Carol I portrait.JPG|thumb|King Carol I.]]
According to the officially recognized 2004 Wiesel Commission report, Romanian authorities were responsible for the death of between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews in the territories under Romanian jurisdiction (including Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transnistria) out of a population of approximately 760,000. In addition, 132,000 Romanian Jews were killed by the pro-Nazi Hungarian authorities in Transylvania.

A peace treaty, signed in Paris on February 10, 1947, confirmed the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, but restored the part of northern Transylvania that was granted to Hungary in 1940 by Hitler. The treaty also required massive war reparations by Romania to the Soviet Union, whose occupying forces left in 1958.

The Soviets pressed for inclusion of Romania's heretofore negligible Communist Party in the post-war government, while non-communist political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. King Michael abdicated under pressure in December 1947, when the Romanian People's Republic was declared, and went into exile.

By the late 1950s, Romania's communist government began to assert some independence from the Soviet Union. Nicolae Ceausescu became head of the Communist Party in 1965 and head of state in 1967. Ceausescu's denunciation of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a brief relaxation in internal repression helped give him a positive image both at home and in the West. Seduced by Ceausescu's "independent" foreign policy, Western leaders were slow to turn against a regime that, by the late 1970s, had become increasingly harsh, arbitrary, and capricious. Rapid economic growth fueled by foreign credits gradually gave way to economic autarchy accompanied by wrenching austerity and severe political repression. In 1984, Romania was the only [[Eastern Europe]]an country that sent athletes to that year's [[Olympic Games]] in [[Los Angeles]].

After the collapse of Communism in the rest of Eastern Europe in the late summer and fall of 1989, a mid-December protest in Timisoara against the forced relocation of an ethnic Hungarian pastor grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceausescu regime, sweeping the dictator from power. Ceausescu and his wife were executed on December 25, 1989, after a cursory military trial. About 1,500 people were killed in confused street fighting. An impromptu governing coalition, the National Salvation Front (FSN), installed itself and proclaimed the restoration of democracy and freedom. The Communist Party was dissolved and its assets transferred to the state. Ceausescu's most unpopular measures, such as bans on private commercial entities, independent political activity, [[birth control]] and [[abortion]] were repealed, as was the requirement that all [[typewriters]] were to be registered with the Government.

Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party official demoted by Ceausescu in the 1970s, emerged as the leader of the NSF. Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on May 20, 1990. Running against representatives of the pre-war National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, Iliescu won 85% of the vote. The NSF captured two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, and named a university professor, Petre Roman, as Prime Minister. The new government began cautious free market reforms such as opening the economy to consumer imports and establishing the independence of the National Bank. Romania has made great progress in institutionalizing democratic principles, civil liberties, and respect for human rights since the revolution. Nevertheless, the legacy of 44 years of communist rule cannot quickly be eliminated. Membership in the Romanian Communist Party was usually the prerequisite for higher education, foreign travel, or a good job, while the extensive internal security apparatus subverted normal social and political relations. To the few active dissidents, who suffered gravely under Ceausescu and his predecessors, many of those who came forward as politicians after the revolution seemed tainted by association with the previous regime.

Over 200 new political parties sprang up after 1989, gravitating around personalities rather than programs. All major parties espoused democracy and market reforms, but the governing National Salvation Front proposed slower, more cautious economic reforms. In contrast, the opposition's main parties, the National Liberal Party (PNL), and the National Peasant-Christian Democrat Party (PNTCD) favored quick, sweeping reforms, immediate privatization, and reducing the role of the ex-communist elite.

In the 1990 general elections, the FSN and its candidate for presidency, Ion Iliescu, won with a large majority of the votes (66.31% and 85.07%, respectively). The strongest parties in opposition were the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), with 7.23%, and the PNL, with 6.41%.

Unhappy at the continued political and economic influence of members of the Ceausescu-era elite, anti-communist protesters camped in University Square in April 1990. When miners from the Jiu Valley descended on Bucharest two months later and brutally dispersed the remaining "hooligans," President Iliescu expressed public thanks, thus convincing many that the government had sponsored the miners' actions. The miners also attacked the headquarters and houses of opposition leaders. The Roman government fell in late September 1991, when the miners returned to Bucharest to demand higher salaries and better living conditions. Theodor Stolojan was appointed to head an interim government until new elections could be held.
[[File:Nadia Comanechi.jpg|thumb|Nadia Comaneci.]]
Parliament drafted a new democratic constitution, approved by popular referendum in December 1991. The FSN split into two groups, led by Ion Iliescu (FDSN) and Petre Roman (FSN) in March 1992; Roman's party subsequently adopted the name Democratic Party (PD). National elections in September 1992 returned President Iliescu by a clear majority, and gave his party, the FDSN, a plurality. With parliamentary support from the nationalist PUNR and PRM parties, and the ex-communist PSM party, a technocratic government was formed in November 1992 under Prime Minister Nicolae Vacaroiu, an economist. The FDSN became the Party of Social Democracy of Romania (PDSR) in July 1993. The Vacaroiu government ruled in coalition with three smaller parties, all of which abandoned the coalition by the time of the November 1996 elections.

The 1992 elections revealed a continuing political cleavage between major urban centers and the countryside. Rural voters, who were grateful for the restoration of most agricultural land to farmers but fearful of change, strongly favored President Ion Iliescu and the FDSN, while the urban electorate favored the CDR (a coalition made up by several parties—among which the PNTCD and the PNL were the strongest—and civic organizations) and quicker reform. Iliescu easily won reelection over a field of five other candidates. The FDSN won a plurality in both chambers of Parliament. With the CDR, the second-largest parliamentary group, reluctant to take part in a national unity coalition, the FDSN (now PDSR) formed a government under Prime Minister Nicolae Vacaroiu, with parliamentary support from the PUNR, PRM, and PSM. PRM and PSM left the government in October and December 1995, respectively.
[[File:Palace of Culture Iasi Romania.JPG|thumb|left|290px|Palace of Culture, Iasi, Romania.]]
The 1996 local elections demonstrated a major shift in the political orientation of the Romanian electorate. Opposition parties swept Bucharest and many of the larger cities. This trend continued in the national elections that same year, where the opposition dominated the cities and made steep inroads into rural areas theretofore dominated by President Iliescu and the PDSR, which lost many voters in their traditional strongholds outside Transylvania. The campaign of the opposition hammered away on the twin themes of the need to squelch corruption and to launch economic reform. The message resonated with the electorate, which swept Emil Constantinescu and parties allied to him to power in free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections. The coalition government formed in December 1996 took the historic step of inviting the UDMR and its Hungarian ethnic backers into government.

The coalition government retained power for four years despite constant internal frictions and three prime ministers, the last being the Governor of the National Bank, Mugur Isarescu.

In elections in November 2000, the electorate punished the coalition parties for their corruption and failure to improve the standard of living. The PDSR (renamed PSD - Social Democratic Party at June 16, 2001 Congress) came back into power, albeit as a minority government. In the concurrent presidential elections, former President Ion Iliescu decisively defeated the extreme nationalist Greater Romania Party (PRM) leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor.

The PSD government, led by Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, forged a de facto governing coalition with the ethnic Hungarian UDMR, ushering in four years of relatively stable government. The PSD guided Romania toward greater macro-economic stability, although endemic corruption remained a major problem. In September 2003, the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) and centrist Democratic Party (PD) formed an alliance at a national and local level, in anticipation of 2004 local and national elections. Romania then moved closer toward a political system dominated by two large political blocs.

In October 2003 citizens voted in favor of major amendments to the constitution in a nationwide referendum to bring Romania's organic law into compliance with European Union standards.

On November 28, 2004, Romania again held parliamentary and the first round of presidential elections. In the December 12 presidential run-off election, former Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu, representing the center-right PNL-PD alliance, delivered a surprise defeat to PSD candidate Nastase. Basescu appointed PNL leader Calin Popescu-Tariceanu as Prime Minister, whose government was approved by the Parliament on December 28, 2004.

==External links==
*[https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ro.html CIA World Factbook entry for Romania]

==References==
<references/>

{{Copyright Details (US Government)}}

Source = [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35722.htm]

{{European Union}}

[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:Warsaw Pact Members]]
[[Category:Romania]]
[[Category:Christian-Majority Countries]]

Moldova

2018-10-13T13:11:47Z

JoeyJ: /* Transnistria */

{{Country
|name =''Republica Moldova''
|map =Moldova rel01.jpg
|map2 =Moldova location.png
|flag =Flag of Moldova.png
|arms =Arms of Moldova.png
|capital =Chisinau
|capital-raw =
|government =
|government-raw =
|language =Moldovan (Romanian)
|king =
|queen =
|monarch-raw =
|governor general=
|governor general-raw=
|president =Igor Dodon
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =Pavel Filip
|pm-raw =
|chairman =
|general secretary=
|governor =
|governor-raw =
|premier =
|premier-raw =
|area =13,000 sq. mi.
|pop =3,510,485
|pop-basis =2016
|gdp =$4.4 billion
|gdp-year =2007
|gdp-pc =$1,298
|currency =Leu
|idd =
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}}
The '''Republic of Moldova''' is a country in eastern [[Europe]] and a former member of the [[Soviet Union]]. Its capital is [[Chişinău]]. It has close historical connections with neighbouring [[Romania]], and the language is a Romanian dialect.

==Geography==
An essentially-land-locked country west of the [[Ukraine]], Moldova's only natural outlets to the Black Sea are the Dniester and Prut Rivers.
*Area: 33,843 km2. (13,000 sq. mi.); slightly larger than Maryland.
*Cities: Capital—Chisinau.
*Terrain: Rolling steppe, gradual slope south toward the Black Sea.
*Climate: Moderate winters, warm summers.
*Time Zone: GMT+2

==People==
Ethnic groups represented in Moldova include Moldovan/Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, [[Gagauz]], and Bulgarian. Romanian (officially known as Moldovan) is the official language; Russian, Ukrainian, and Gagauz also are spoken. The great majority of Moldova's population is Christian Orthodox—90% of the population nominally belongs to one of the two main Orthodox denominations. The Moldovan Orthodox Church, an autonomous diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church and loyal to the Patriarch of Moscow, has 1,194 parishes; the Bessarabian Orthodox Church, affiliated with the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate in Bucharest, has 124 parishes. In addition, followers of the Old Rite Russian Orthodox Church (Old Believers) make up approximately 3.6% of the population.
*Nationality: Noun—Moldovan(s). Adjective—Moldovan.
*Population (January 1, 2008): 4.1 million, including the estimated Transnistrian population of 533,000. An estimated 750,000 to 1,000,000 work outside the country.
*Population growth rate (2007): -0.3%.
*Ethnic groups (2004 census): Moldovan (83.7%), Ukrainian (6.6%), Russian (1.7%), Gagauz (4.5%), Bulgarian (1.7%), Romanian (1.4%), other (0.4%).
*Main religions: Christian Orthodox (93.3%), Baptist (1%), Adventist, Roman Catholic, Jewish.
*Languages: Romanian (officially known as Moldovan), Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz.
*Education: Literacy—96%.
*Health: Infant mortality rate—12/1,000. Life expectancy-68.4 years.
*Work force (1.3 million): Agriculture—41%; industry—12%; other—47%.

==Government and Political Conditions==
In 2000, Parliament passed a decree making Moldova a parliamentary republic, with the president elected by Parliament instead of by popular vote. Widespread popular dissatisfaction with previous governments and economic hardship led to a surprise at the polls in February 2001. In elections certified by international observers as free and fair, slightly over half of Moldova's voters cast their ballots for the Communist Party. Under the rules of Moldova's proportional representation system, the Communist faction, which in the previous Parliament consisted of 40 of Parliament's 101 seats, jumped to 71—a clear majority. The Parliament then elected the leader of the Communist faction, Vladimir Voronin, to be President.

President Voronin's first term was marked by up and down relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Politically, the government was committed to the reduction of poverty by allocating more resources to social safety net items such as health, education, and increasing pensions and salaries. Voronin proceeded with former President Lucinschi's plans to privatize several important state-owned industries and even on occasion broke with his own party over important issues. Under President Voronin, relations with the United States have remained strong. From January to April 2002, large demonstrations took place in opposition to several controversial government proposals, including expanded use of the Russian language in schools and its designation as an official language. While the demonstrations were sometimes tense, the government did not use force and ultimately agreed to Council of Europe (CoE) mediation.

In March 2005 parliamentary elections, the Communist Party received 46.1% of the vote, or 56 seats in the 101-member Parliament—more than enough for the 51-vote minimum required to form a government, but short of the 61 votes necessary to elect a president. However, President Voronin was re-elected with support from the Christian Democratic People's Party and from the Democratic and Social Liberal party factions, after Voronin promised to deliver on needed reforms and Euro-Atlantic integration for the country. These defections broke apart the opposition unity of the pre-election Moldovan Democratic Bloc, led by Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) faction leader and former Chisinau Mayor Serafim Urechean.

Nationwide local elections in June 2007 showed improvement over nationwide parliamentary elections in 2005, with better access to the media for opposition candidates, and greater evidence of impartiality by the Central Election Commission. While the voting itself generally met international standards, the government's behavior in the campaign period—including bias in state media and misuse of administrative resources—remained a concern. The Communist Party suffered a significant setback, losing the high-profile Chisinau mayoral election and control of numerous local councils to opposition party coalitions. Elections in the semi-autonomous region of Gagauzia were held in December 2006; Mikhail Formuzal, a longtime opponent of President Voronin, was elected "Bashkan" (Governor). Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2009 and the new Parliament will elect the next President of Moldova. In addition to state-sponsored media, there are several independent newspapers, radio and television stations, and news services. The independent media organizations, along with some that are affiliated with political parties, often criticize government policies. In August 2004, Teleradio Moldova (TRM) was officially transformed from a state-owned company into a public broadcaster. However, journalists and civil society representatives, who claimed the process was nontransparent and meant to stack the new TRM staff with those favorable to the government, met this move with large protests. In February 2007, a controversial privatization process shut down the popular, pro-opposition Chisinau radio station Antena C, and installed new, pro-Government management. The U.S. Ambassador, the OSCE and western diplomatic missions condemned the developments, which seemed to run counter to the Moldovan Broadcasting Code and risked silencing political opposition. Peaceful assembly is allowed, though permits for demonstrations must be obtained; private organizations, including political parties, are required to register with the government. Moldova enacted a new law on religion in July 2007. The new law, while noting the special status of the Moldovan Orthodox Church in Moldovan history and culture, simplifies registration procedures and allows religious groups more access to public places.

In February 2005, Brussels and Chisinau agreed on an EU-Moldova Action Plan, a "roadmap" of reforms to strengthen the democratic and economic situation of the country and facilitate its Euro-Atlantic integration. Although Moldova has made some progress toward laying the structural and legislative foundation for reform, the EU has emphasized that more implementation is needed.

====Transnistria====
The population of the Moldovan region of [[Transnistria]] is approximately 40% Romanian/Moldovan, 28% Ukrainian, and 23% Russian. Separatist forces maintain control of the Transnistrian region, which lies along the Ukrainian border. Moldova has tried to meet the Russian minority's demands by offering the region rather broad cultural and political autonomy. The dispute has strained Moldova's relations with Russia. The July 1992 cease-fire agreement established a tripartite peacekeeping force comprised of Moldovan, Russian, and Transnistrian units.

Negotiations to resolve the conflict continue, and the cease-fire is still in effect. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement and has had an observer mission in place for several years. In July 2002, OSCE, Russian, and Ukrainian mediators approved a document setting forth a blueprint for reuniting Moldova under a federal system. Over the next year and a half, the settlement talks alternated between periods of forward momentum and periods of no progress. In February 2003, the U.S. and EU imposed visa restrictions against the Transnistrian leadership. In April 2003, the Moldovan Government and the Transnistrian authorities agreed to establish a joint commission to draft a constitution for a reintegrated state. However, fundamental disagreements over the division of powers remained, and a settlement proved elusive.

President Voronin decided not to sign a Russian-brokered settlement with Transnistria in November 2003; the proposal—seen by many as pro-Transnistrian - sparked opposition protests. During the summer of 2004, the Transnistrian separatists forcibly closed several Romanian language Latin-script schools in the region, for which the regime was subject to international condemnation. In 2005, Tiraspol prevented several farmers on the right bank of the Nistru River from working their fields on the left bank, within Transnistria's "borders." The OSCE Mission to Moldova eventually mediated solutions to these crises.

After a 15-month pause, the sides met for a renewed round of settlement negotiations in October 2005. Mediators from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE joined the Moldovan and Transnistrian representatives at the talks. In addition, the U.S. and EU joined the talks as observers. However, subsequent "5+2" negotiations have made little progress on a settlement or on withdrawal of Russian forces from Moldova: Russia still has weapons and munitions of the Operational Group of Russian Forces (formerly the Russian 14th Army) stationed in Transnistria, although it pledged to remove them under a timetable established at the 1999 OSCE Ministerial - the so-called "Istanbul Accords." However, there has been no progress on Russian withdrawals since early 2004.

In response to Moldova's call for international monitoring of the border, in December 2005 the EU dispatched a Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) to help stem the flow of illegal trade between Ukraine and Moldova. In March 2006, Ukraine and Moldova began implementing a 2003 customs agreement, under which Transnistrian companies seeking to engage in cross-border trade must register in Chisinau. Despite the protests of the Smirnov regime, all major Transnistrian businesses have subsequently registered. In what is seen as a response to the new customs procedures, the Smirnov regime boycotted the 5+2 talks in March 2006. The talks have been stalled ever since. In September 2006, the Transnistrian regime held an "independence referendum." Despite the fact that the Smirnov regime claimed that the referendum demonstrated overwhelming support for independence, the vote was not monitored by any western organizations, and no country recognized the referendum or the independence of Transnistria.

===Principal Government Officials===
*President—Nicolae Timofti
*Prime Minister—Chiril Gaburici
*President of Parliament—Marian Lupu
*Foreign Minister—Andrei Stratan
*Ambassador to the United States-Nicolae Chirtoaca
*Ambassador to the United Nations-Alexei Tulbure

===Foreign Relations===
Moldova's Parliament approved the country's membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States and a CIS charter on economic union in April 1994.

In 1995, the country became the first former Soviet republic admitted to the Council of Europe. In addition to its membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace, Moldova also belongs to the United Nations, the OSCE, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Moldova is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In 1998, Moldova contributed to the founding of GUAM, a regional cooperative agreement made up of Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan, in addition to Moldova. Although the agreement initially included a declaration of mutual defense, Moldova has since declared its disinterest in participating in any GUAM-based mutual defense initiative. Moldova has been involved in information exchange, trade and transportation, border control, and energy projects issues within this regional agreement. In 2006, the organization's members voted to change the name to the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM.

The past two years have seen significant developments in Moldova's relations with the West. In 2005, the European Union appointed a Special Representative for Moldova and the negotiations to resolve the Transnistrian conflict and the Delegation of the European Commission opened an office in Chisinau, In December 2005, Moldova welcomed an EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) along its Ukrainian border to crack down on smuggling, strengthen customs procedures and facilitate cross-border cooperation. In accordance with a 2005 Action Plan with the EU, Moldova has begun to harmonize Moldova's laws with those of the EU. As part of this, in late 2005, Moldova enacted its "Guillotine" laws, which slashed unnecessary business regulations, established a framework for relations between the private sector and government and created a mechanism to review the suitability of draft legislation.

In the atmosphere of heightened international sensitivity to terrorism following the events of September 11, 2001, Moldova has been a supporter of American efforts to increase international cooperation in combating terrorism. Moldova has sent demining units and peacekeepers to participate in post-conflict humanitarian assistance in Iraq. In March 2011, The Moldovan Orthodox Church resisted efforts from the European Union attempting to force Moldova to accept homosexuality.

==Defense==
Moldova has accepted all relevant arms control obligations of the former Soviet Union. On October 30, 1992, Moldova ratified the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which establishes comprehensive limits on key categories of conventional military equipment and provides for the destruction of weapons in excess of those limits. It acceded to the provisions of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in October 1994 and to the Biological Weapons Convention in December 2004. It does not have nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Moldova joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Partnership for Peace on March 16, 1994. Due to Moldova's constitutional neutrality, it is not a participant in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS—a group of 12 former Soviet republics) Collective Security Agreement.

==Economy==
Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. It is landlocked, bounded by Ukraine on the east and Romania to the west. It is the second smallest of the former Soviet republics and the most densely populated. Industry accounts for less than 15% of its labor force, while agriculture's share is more than 40%.

Moldova's proximity to the Black Sea gives it a mild and sunny climate. This makes the area ideal for agriculture and food processing, which accounts for one third of the country's GDP. The fertile soil supports wheat, corn, barley, tobacco, sugar beets, and soybeans. Beef and dairy cattle are raised, and beekeeping is widespread. Moldova's best-known product comes from its extensive and well-developed vineyards concentrated in the central and southern regions. In addition to world-class wine, Moldova produces liqueurs and champagne. It is also known for its sunflower seeds, walnuts, apples, and other fruits.
*GDP (2007): $4.4 billion.
*GDP growth rate (2007): 4.0%.
*Per capita GDP (2007 estimate): $1,298.
*Natural resources: Lignite, phosphates, gypsum, arable land, and limestone.
*Agriculture: Products—vegetables, fruits, wine and spirits, grain, sugar beets, sunflower seeds, meat, milk, eggs, tobacco, walnuts.
*Industry: Types—processed foods and beverages, including wine and refined sugar; processed fruit and vegetable products, including vegetable oil; dairy and meat products; tobacco items; metal processing and production of machinery; textiles and clothing, shoes; furniture.
*Trade (2006): Exports--$1,051.6 million (of which 50% go to countries outside the former Soviet Union): foodstuffs, wine, textiles, clothing, footwear and machinery. Major markets—Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Italy, Belarus, Germany. Imports--$2,693.2 million (of which 60% come from countries outside the former Soviet Union): gas, oil, coal, steel, machinery and equipment, chemical products, textiles, foodstuffs, automobiles, and other consumer durables. Major suppliers—Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Germany, Italy. Currency: Moldovan Leu (plural Lei).
*Exchange rate: Leu/US$ (2006): average 13.13; 12.91 (end of year); 12.60 (average in 2005); 12.33 (average in 2004); 13.94 (average in 2003).

Like many other former Soviet republics, Moldova has experienced economic difficulties. Since its economy was highly dependent on the rest of the former Soviet Union for energy and raw materials, the breakdown in trade following the breakup of the Soviet Union had a serious effect, exacerbated at times by drought and civil conflict. The Russian ruble devaluation of 1998 had a deleterious effect on Moldova's economy, but economic growth has been steady since 2000.

Moldova has made progress in economic reform since independence. The government has liberalized most prices and has phased out subsidies on most basic consumer goods. A program begun in March 1993 has privatized 80% of all housing units and nearly 2,000 small, medium, and large enterprises. Other successes include the privatization of nearly all of Moldova's agricultural land from state to private ownership, as a result of an American assistance program, "Pamint" ("land"), completed in 2000. A stock market opened in June 1995.

Following the economic difficulties caused by the Russian currency crisis of 1998, inflation dropped to 5.2% in 2002, the lowest level since Moldova's independence. However, inflation spiked again to 11.6% in 2003 and never fell below 11% over the following years, rising as high as 12.7% in 2006. In 2006, Moldova faced twin external shocks - a two-fold increase in gas prices and a politically-motivated Russian ban on Moldovan wine imports, a key export item. While relatively stable in recent years, in 2007 the local currency appreciated because of a weakening U.S. dollar and pressure from record remittances from Moldovans working abroad. Reforms to the National Bank of Moldova in 2006 changed the central bank's policy priority from currency stability to price stability (fighting inflation). The National Bank of Moldova has the difficult task of sterilizing the money supply to contain stubbornly high inflation.

Moldova continues to make progress toward developing a viable free-market economy. The economy grew by an average 7% from 2000 to 2005 after years of recession since independence. External shocks in 2006 slashed economic growth to just 4%. After a budget surplus of 1.6% of GDP in 2005, the country had a slight deficit of 0.3% of GDP in 2006 despite better than anticipated revenue performance and prudent spending. The Moldovan economy continues to depend greatly on remittances sent from Moldovans working abroad. These inflows have increased to an estimated $1.2 billion a year.

Privatization results in recent years were not significant. Total proceeds in 2006 amounted to $12.4 million. Several smaller companies, two land plots in Chisinau and a large hotel were privatized in 2006. The government postponed indefinitely the privatization of large state enterprises in the power, telecommunications and agribusiness sectors. In 2007, Parliament passed a new law, introducing new approaches to privatizing and managing state-owned assets (including public-private partnerships), giving priority to economic efficiency. As the European Union expanded to Moldova's border, 2006 saw record high inflows of foreign direct investment. However, cumulative FDI since independence is only $1.28 billion, far below the country's needs. Sporadic and ineffective enforcement of the law, economic and political uncertainty, and government interference continue to discourage FDI inflows.

Spurred by soaring consumption and higher energy prices, imports have been growing more rapidly than exports. This was most prominent in 2006 when Moldova's trade deficit worsened as higher-priced energy imports surpassed exports, which were stunted by Russia's ban on Moldovan wine and agricultural products. Moldova traditionally exported between 70-80% of its wine production to Russia. The country lacks diversification in terms of sector development and export markets. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank resumed lending to Moldova in July 2002, and then suspended lending again in July 2003. In early 2006, Moldova reached agreement with the Paris Club on rescheduling of Moldova's foreign debt. In addition, in the spring of 2006, the IMF reached an agreement with the Moldovan Government for a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility designed to bolster foreign reserves against external shocks with a 3-year, $175 million program that includes a new IMF loan to the National Bank of Moldova.

Moldova continues to be subject to Russian economic pressure. In 2005, Russia enacted a ban on Moldovan agricultural products and in 2006, it banned imports of Moldovan wines. The wine ban has been particularly painful because, prior to the ban, Moldovan wines accounted for a third of the country's exports and 80% of wine exports went to Russia. Although Russian President Putin announced an end to the wine ban in November 2006, Russia had still not resumed importing Moldovan wine as of September 2007. In January 2006, Russian energy giant Gazprom temporarily cut off natural gas deliveries to Ukraine and Moldova - which is almost completely dependent on its neighbors for energy - and subsequently doubled the price of gas to Moldova. The impact has been substantial: Moldova's exports to Russia declined by 47.6% in 2006 and total exports dropped 3.6%, further contributing to a widening trade deficit (47% of GDP). In the first half of 2007, the country's trade deficit was already more than $1 billion (compared with $1.6 billion for all of 2006).

Moldova suffered from a severe drought during much of 2007 which caused hundreds of millions of dollars in agriculture sector losses and prompted concerns about food availability. In response to a request for assistance from the Government of Moldova, the United States provided $350,000 worth of seed to drought ravaged farmers in time for fall planting.

==History==
The Republic of Moldova occupies most of what has been known as Bessarabia. Moldova's location has made it a historic passageway between Asia and southern Europe, as well as the victim of frequent warfare. Greeks, Romans, Huns, and Bulgars invaded the area, which in the 13th century became part of the Mongol empire. An independent Moldovan state emerged briefly in the 14th century under celebrated leader Stefan the Great but subsequently fell under Ottoman Turkish rule in the 16th century.

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-12, the eastern half of Moldova (Bessarabia) between the Prut and the Dniester Rivers was ceded to Russia, while Romanian Moldavia (west of the Prut) remained with the Turks. Romania, which gained independence in 1878, took control of Russian-ruled Bessarabia in 1918. The Soviet Union never recognized the action and created an autonomous Moldavian republic on the east side of the Dniester River in 1924.

In 1940, Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), which established the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic by merging the autonomous republic east of the Dniester and the annexed Bessarabian portion. Stalin also stripped the three southern counties along the Black Sea coast from Moldova and incorporated them in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Romania sought to regain Bessarabia by joining with Germany in the 1941 attack on the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, German and Romanian troops crossed the border and deportations of the Jews from Bessarabia began immediately. By September 1941, most of the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina had been transported in convoys and force marched to concentration camps in Transnistria. About 185,000 Jews were in the Transnistria area in concentration camps by 1942 in abysmal conditions. Very few were left alive in these camps when the Soviets reoccupied Bessarabia in 1944.

In September 1990, the Supreme Soviet elected Mircea Snegur as President of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. A former Communist Party official, he endorsed independence from the Soviet Union and actively sought Western recognition. On May 23, 1991, the Supreme Soviet renamed itself the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, which subsequently declared its independence from the U.S.S.R.

In August 1991, Moldova's transition to democracy initially had been impeded by an ineffective Parliament, the lack of a new constitution, a separatist movement led by the Gagauz (Christian Turkic) minority in the south, and unrest in the Transnistria region on the left bank of the Nistru/Dniester River, where a separatist movement declared a "Transdniester Moldovan Republic" in September 1990. The Russian 14th Army intervened to stem widespread violence and support the Transnistrian regime which is led by supporters of the 1991 coup attempt in Moscow. In 1992, the government negotiated a cease-fire arrangement with Russian and Transnistrian officials, although tensions continue, and negotiations are ongoing. In February 1994, new legislative elections were held, and the ineffective Parliament that had been elected in 1990 to a 5-year term was replaced. A new constitution was adopted in July 1994. The conflict with the Gagauz minority was defused by the granting of local autonomy in 1994.

{{Copyright Details (US Government)}}

Source = [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5357.htm]

[[Category:Moldova]]
[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:Former Soviet Countries]]
[[Category:Landlocked Countries]]
[[Category:Christian-Majority Countries]]

Moldova

2018-10-13T13:11:17Z

JoeyJ:

{{Country
|name =''Republica Moldova''
|map =Moldova rel01.jpg
|map2 =Moldova location.png
|flag =Flag of Moldova.png
|arms =Arms of Moldova.png
|capital =Chisinau
|capital-raw =
|government =
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|language =Moldovan (Romanian)
|king =
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|governor general=
|governor general-raw=
|president =Igor Dodon
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =Pavel Filip
|pm-raw =
|chairman =
|general secretary=
|governor =
|governor-raw =
|premier =
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|area =13,000 sq. mi.
|pop =3,510,485
|pop-basis =2016
|gdp =$4.4 billion
|gdp-year =2007
|gdp-pc =$1,298
|currency =Leu
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The '''Republic of Moldova''' is a country in eastern [[Europe]] and a former member of the [[Soviet Union]]. Its capital is [[Chişinău]]. It has close historical connections with neighbouring [[Romania]], and the language is a Romanian dialect.

==Geography==
An essentially-land-locked country west of the [[Ukraine]], Moldova's only natural outlets to the Black Sea are the Dniester and Prut Rivers.
*Area: 33,843 km2. (13,000 sq. mi.); slightly larger than Maryland.
*Cities: Capital—Chisinau.
*Terrain: Rolling steppe, gradual slope south toward the Black Sea.
*Climate: Moderate winters, warm summers.
*Time Zone: GMT+2

==People==
Ethnic groups represented in Moldova include Moldovan/Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, [[Gagauz]], and Bulgarian. Romanian (officially known as Moldovan) is the official language; Russian, Ukrainian, and Gagauz also are spoken. The great majority of Moldova's population is Christian Orthodox—90% of the population nominally belongs to one of the two main Orthodox denominations. The Moldovan Orthodox Church, an autonomous diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church and loyal to the Patriarch of Moscow, has 1,194 parishes; the Bessarabian Orthodox Church, affiliated with the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate in Bucharest, has 124 parishes. In addition, followers of the Old Rite Russian Orthodox Church (Old Believers) make up approximately 3.6% of the population.
*Nationality: Noun—Moldovan(s). Adjective—Moldovan.
*Population (January 1, 2008): 4.1 million, including the estimated Transnistrian population of 533,000. An estimated 750,000 to 1,000,000 work outside the country.
*Population growth rate (2007): -0.3%.
*Ethnic groups (2004 census): Moldovan (83.7%), Ukrainian (6.6%), Russian (1.7%), Gagauz (4.5%), Bulgarian (1.7%), Romanian (1.4%), other (0.4%).
*Main religions: Christian Orthodox (93.3%), Baptist (1%), Adventist, Roman Catholic, Jewish.
*Languages: Romanian (officially known as Moldovan), Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz.
*Education: Literacy—96%.
*Health: Infant mortality rate—12/1,000. Life expectancy-68.4 years.
*Work force (1.3 million): Agriculture—41%; industry—12%; other—47%.

==Government and Political Conditions==
In 2000, Parliament passed a decree making Moldova a parliamentary republic, with the president elected by Parliament instead of by popular vote. Widespread popular dissatisfaction with previous governments and economic hardship led to a surprise at the polls in February 2001. In elections certified by international observers as free and fair, slightly over half of Moldova's voters cast their ballots for the Communist Party. Under the rules of Moldova's proportional representation system, the Communist faction, which in the previous Parliament consisted of 40 of Parliament's 101 seats, jumped to 71—a clear majority. The Parliament then elected the leader of the Communist faction, Vladimir Voronin, to be President.

President Voronin's first term was marked by up and down relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Politically, the government was committed to the reduction of poverty by allocating more resources to social safety net items such as health, education, and increasing pensions and salaries. Voronin proceeded with former President Lucinschi's plans to privatize several important state-owned industries and even on occasion broke with his own party over important issues. Under President Voronin, relations with the United States have remained strong. From January to April 2002, large demonstrations took place in opposition to several controversial government proposals, including expanded use of the Russian language in schools and its designation as an official language. While the demonstrations were sometimes tense, the government did not use force and ultimately agreed to Council of Europe (CoE) mediation.

In March 2005 parliamentary elections, the Communist Party received 46.1% of the vote, or 56 seats in the 101-member Parliament—more than enough for the 51-vote minimum required to form a government, but short of the 61 votes necessary to elect a president. However, President Voronin was re-elected with support from the Christian Democratic People's Party and from the Democratic and Social Liberal party factions, after Voronin promised to deliver on needed reforms and Euro-Atlantic integration for the country. These defections broke apart the opposition unity of the pre-election Moldovan Democratic Bloc, led by Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) faction leader and former Chisinau Mayor Serafim Urechean.

Nationwide local elections in June 2007 showed improvement over nationwide parliamentary elections in 2005, with better access to the media for opposition candidates, and greater evidence of impartiality by the Central Election Commission. While the voting itself generally met international standards, the government's behavior in the campaign period—including bias in state media and misuse of administrative resources—remained a concern. The Communist Party suffered a significant setback, losing the high-profile Chisinau mayoral election and control of numerous local councils to opposition party coalitions. Elections in the semi-autonomous region of Gagauzia were held in December 2006; Mikhail Formuzal, a longtime opponent of President Voronin, was elected "Bashkan" (Governor). Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2009 and the new Parliament will elect the next President of Moldova. In addition to state-sponsored media, there are several independent newspapers, radio and television stations, and news services. The independent media organizations, along with some that are affiliated with political parties, often criticize government policies. In August 2004, Teleradio Moldova (TRM) was officially transformed from a state-owned company into a public broadcaster. However, journalists and civil society representatives, who claimed the process was nontransparent and meant to stack the new TRM staff with those favorable to the government, met this move with large protests. In February 2007, a controversial privatization process shut down the popular, pro-opposition Chisinau radio station Antena C, and installed new, pro-Government management. The U.S. Ambassador, the OSCE and western diplomatic missions condemned the developments, which seemed to run counter to the Moldovan Broadcasting Code and risked silencing political opposition. Peaceful assembly is allowed, though permits for demonstrations must be obtained; private organizations, including political parties, are required to register with the government. Moldova enacted a new law on religion in July 2007. The new law, while noting the special status of the Moldovan Orthodox Church in Moldovan history and culture, simplifies registration procedures and allows religious groups more access to public places.

In February 2005, Brussels and Chisinau agreed on an EU-Moldova Action Plan, a "roadmap" of reforms to strengthen the democratic and economic situation of the country and facilitate its Euro-Atlantic integration. Although Moldova has made some progress toward laying the structural and legislative foundation for reform, the EU has emphasized that more implementation is needed.

====Transnistria====
The population of the Moldovan region of Transnistria is approximately 40% Romanian/Moldovan, 28% Ukrainian, and 23% Russian. Separatist forces maintain control of the Transnistrian region, which lies along the Ukrainian border. Moldova has tried to meet the Russian minority's demands by offering the region rather broad cultural and political autonomy. The dispute has strained Moldova's relations with Russia. The July 1992 cease-fire agreement established a tripartite peacekeeping force comprised of Moldovan, Russian, and Transnistrian units.

Negotiations to resolve the conflict continue, and the cease-fire is still in effect. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement and has had an observer mission in place for several years. In July 2002, OSCE, Russian, and Ukrainian mediators approved a document setting forth a blueprint for reuniting Moldova under a federal system. Over the next year and a half, the settlement talks alternated between periods of forward momentum and periods of no progress. In February 2003, the U.S. and EU imposed visa restrictions against the Transnistrian leadership. In April 2003, the Moldovan Government and the Transnistrian authorities agreed to establish a joint commission to draft a constitution for a reintegrated state. However, fundamental disagreements over the division of powers remained, and a settlement proved elusive.

President Voronin decided not to sign a Russian-brokered settlement with Transnistria in November 2003; the proposal—seen by many as pro-Transnistrian - sparked opposition protests. During the summer of 2004, the Transnistrian separatists forcibly closed several Romanian language Latin-script schools in the region, for which the regime was subject to international condemnation. In 2005, Tiraspol prevented several farmers on the right bank of the Nistru River from working their fields on the left bank, within Transnistria's "borders." The OSCE Mission to Moldova eventually mediated solutions to these crises.

After a 15-month pause, the sides met for a renewed round of settlement negotiations in October 2005. Mediators from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE joined the Moldovan and Transnistrian representatives at the talks. In addition, the U.S. and EU joined the talks as observers. However, subsequent "5+2" negotiations have made little progress on a settlement or on withdrawal of Russian forces from Moldova: Russia still has weapons and munitions of the Operational Group of Russian Forces (formerly the Russian 14th Army) stationed in Transnistria, although it pledged to remove them under a timetable established at the 1999 OSCE Ministerial - the so-called "Istanbul Accords." However, there has been no progress on Russian withdrawals since early 2004.

In response to Moldova's call for international monitoring of the border, in December 2005 the EU dispatched a Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) to help stem the flow of illegal trade between Ukraine and Moldova. In March 2006, Ukraine and Moldova began implementing a 2003 customs agreement, under which Transnistrian companies seeking to engage in cross-border trade must register in Chisinau. Despite the protests of the Smirnov regime, all major Transnistrian businesses have subsequently registered. In what is seen as a response to the new customs procedures, the Smirnov regime boycotted the 5+2 talks in March 2006. The talks have been stalled ever since. In September 2006, the Transnistrian regime held an "independence referendum." Despite the fact that the Smirnov regime claimed that the referendum demonstrated overwhelming support for independence, the vote was not monitored by any western organizations, and no country recognized the referendum or the independence of Transnistria.

===Principal Government Officials===
*President—Nicolae Timofti
*Prime Minister—Chiril Gaburici
*President of Parliament—Marian Lupu
*Foreign Minister—Andrei Stratan
*Ambassador to the United States-Nicolae Chirtoaca
*Ambassador to the United Nations-Alexei Tulbure

===Foreign Relations===
Moldova's Parliament approved the country's membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States and a CIS charter on economic union in April 1994.

In 1995, the country became the first former Soviet republic admitted to the Council of Europe. In addition to its membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace, Moldova also belongs to the United Nations, the OSCE, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Moldova is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In 1998, Moldova contributed to the founding of GUAM, a regional cooperative agreement made up of Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan, in addition to Moldova. Although the agreement initially included a declaration of mutual defense, Moldova has since declared its disinterest in participating in any GUAM-based mutual defense initiative. Moldova has been involved in information exchange, trade and transportation, border control, and energy projects issues within this regional agreement. In 2006, the organization's members voted to change the name to the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM.

The past two years have seen significant developments in Moldova's relations with the West. In 2005, the European Union appointed a Special Representative for Moldova and the negotiations to resolve the Transnistrian conflict and the Delegation of the European Commission opened an office in Chisinau, In December 2005, Moldova welcomed an EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) along its Ukrainian border to crack down on smuggling, strengthen customs procedures and facilitate cross-border cooperation. In accordance with a 2005 Action Plan with the EU, Moldova has begun to harmonize Moldova's laws with those of the EU. As part of this, in late 2005, Moldova enacted its "Guillotine" laws, which slashed unnecessary business regulations, established a framework for relations between the private sector and government and created a mechanism to review the suitability of draft legislation.

In the atmosphere of heightened international sensitivity to terrorism following the events of September 11, 2001, Moldova has been a supporter of American efforts to increase international cooperation in combating terrorism. Moldova has sent demining units and peacekeepers to participate in post-conflict humanitarian assistance in Iraq. In March 2011, The Moldovan Orthodox Church resisted efforts from the European Union attempting to force Moldova to accept homosexuality.

==Defense==
Moldova has accepted all relevant arms control obligations of the former Soviet Union. On October 30, 1992, Moldova ratified the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which establishes comprehensive limits on key categories of conventional military equipment and provides for the destruction of weapons in excess of those limits. It acceded to the provisions of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in October 1994 and to the Biological Weapons Convention in December 2004. It does not have nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Moldova joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Partnership for Peace on March 16, 1994. Due to Moldova's constitutional neutrality, it is not a participant in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS—a group of 12 former Soviet republics) Collective Security Agreement.

==Economy==
Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. It is landlocked, bounded by Ukraine on the east and Romania to the west. It is the second smallest of the former Soviet republics and the most densely populated. Industry accounts for less than 15% of its labor force, while agriculture's share is more than 40%.

Moldova's proximity to the Black Sea gives it a mild and sunny climate. This makes the area ideal for agriculture and food processing, which accounts for one third of the country's GDP. The fertile soil supports wheat, corn, barley, tobacco, sugar beets, and soybeans. Beef and dairy cattle are raised, and beekeeping is widespread. Moldova's best-known product comes from its extensive and well-developed vineyards concentrated in the central and southern regions. In addition to world-class wine, Moldova produces liqueurs and champagne. It is also known for its sunflower seeds, walnuts, apples, and other fruits.
*GDP (2007): $4.4 billion.
*GDP growth rate (2007): 4.0%.
*Per capita GDP (2007 estimate): $1,298.
*Natural resources: Lignite, phosphates, gypsum, arable land, and limestone.
*Agriculture: Products—vegetables, fruits, wine and spirits, grain, sugar beets, sunflower seeds, meat, milk, eggs, tobacco, walnuts.
*Industry: Types—processed foods and beverages, including wine and refined sugar; processed fruit and vegetable products, including vegetable oil; dairy and meat products; tobacco items; metal processing and production of machinery; textiles and clothing, shoes; furniture.
*Trade (2006): Exports--$1,051.6 million (of which 50% go to countries outside the former Soviet Union): foodstuffs, wine, textiles, clothing, footwear and machinery. Major markets—Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Italy, Belarus, Germany. Imports--$2,693.2 million (of which 60% come from countries outside the former Soviet Union): gas, oil, coal, steel, machinery and equipment, chemical products, textiles, foodstuffs, automobiles, and other consumer durables. Major suppliers—Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Germany, Italy. Currency: Moldovan Leu (plural Lei).
*Exchange rate: Leu/US$ (2006): average 13.13; 12.91 (end of year); 12.60 (average in 2005); 12.33 (average in 2004); 13.94 (average in 2003).

Like many other former Soviet republics, Moldova has experienced economic difficulties. Since its economy was highly dependent on the rest of the former Soviet Union for energy and raw materials, the breakdown in trade following the breakup of the Soviet Union had a serious effect, exacerbated at times by drought and civil conflict. The Russian ruble devaluation of 1998 had a deleterious effect on Moldova's economy, but economic growth has been steady since 2000.

Moldova has made progress in economic reform since independence. The government has liberalized most prices and has phased out subsidies on most basic consumer goods. A program begun in March 1993 has privatized 80% of all housing units and nearly 2,000 small, medium, and large enterprises. Other successes include the privatization of nearly all of Moldova's agricultural land from state to private ownership, as a result of an American assistance program, "Pamint" ("land"), completed in 2000. A stock market opened in June 1995.

Following the economic difficulties caused by the Russian currency crisis of 1998, inflation dropped to 5.2% in 2002, the lowest level since Moldova's independence. However, inflation spiked again to 11.6% in 2003 and never fell below 11% over the following years, rising as high as 12.7% in 2006. In 2006, Moldova faced twin external shocks - a two-fold increase in gas prices and a politically-motivated Russian ban on Moldovan wine imports, a key export item. While relatively stable in recent years, in 2007 the local currency appreciated because of a weakening U.S. dollar and pressure from record remittances from Moldovans working abroad. Reforms to the National Bank of Moldova in 2006 changed the central bank's policy priority from currency stability to price stability (fighting inflation). The National Bank of Moldova has the difficult task of sterilizing the money supply to contain stubbornly high inflation.

Moldova continues to make progress toward developing a viable free-market economy. The economy grew by an average 7% from 2000 to 2005 after years of recession since independence. External shocks in 2006 slashed economic growth to just 4%. After a budget surplus of 1.6% of GDP in 2005, the country had a slight deficit of 0.3% of GDP in 2006 despite better than anticipated revenue performance and prudent spending. The Moldovan economy continues to depend greatly on remittances sent from Moldovans working abroad. These inflows have increased to an estimated $1.2 billion a year.

Privatization results in recent years were not significant. Total proceeds in 2006 amounted to $12.4 million. Several smaller companies, two land plots in Chisinau and a large hotel were privatized in 2006. The government postponed indefinitely the privatization of large state enterprises in the power, telecommunications and agribusiness sectors. In 2007, Parliament passed a new law, introducing new approaches to privatizing and managing state-owned assets (including public-private partnerships), giving priority to economic efficiency. As the European Union expanded to Moldova's border, 2006 saw record high inflows of foreign direct investment. However, cumulative FDI since independence is only $1.28 billion, far below the country's needs. Sporadic and ineffective enforcement of the law, economic and political uncertainty, and government interference continue to discourage FDI inflows.

Spurred by soaring consumption and higher energy prices, imports have been growing more rapidly than exports. This was most prominent in 2006 when Moldova's trade deficit worsened as higher-priced energy imports surpassed exports, which were stunted by Russia's ban on Moldovan wine and agricultural products. Moldova traditionally exported between 70-80% of its wine production to Russia. The country lacks diversification in terms of sector development and export markets. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank resumed lending to Moldova in July 2002, and then suspended lending again in July 2003. In early 2006, Moldova reached agreement with the Paris Club on rescheduling of Moldova's foreign debt. In addition, in the spring of 2006, the IMF reached an agreement with the Moldovan Government for a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility designed to bolster foreign reserves against external shocks with a 3-year, $175 million program that includes a new IMF loan to the National Bank of Moldova.

Moldova continues to be subject to Russian economic pressure. In 2005, Russia enacted a ban on Moldovan agricultural products and in 2006, it banned imports of Moldovan wines. The wine ban has been particularly painful because, prior to the ban, Moldovan wines accounted for a third of the country's exports and 80% of wine exports went to Russia. Although Russian President Putin announced an end to the wine ban in November 2006, Russia had still not resumed importing Moldovan wine as of September 2007. In January 2006, Russian energy giant Gazprom temporarily cut off natural gas deliveries to Ukraine and Moldova - which is almost completely dependent on its neighbors for energy - and subsequently doubled the price of gas to Moldova. The impact has been substantial: Moldova's exports to Russia declined by 47.6% in 2006 and total exports dropped 3.6%, further contributing to a widening trade deficit (47% of GDP). In the first half of 2007, the country's trade deficit was already more than $1 billion (compared with $1.6 billion for all of 2006).

Moldova suffered from a severe drought during much of 2007 which caused hundreds of millions of dollars in agriculture sector losses and prompted concerns about food availability. In response to a request for assistance from the Government of Moldova, the United States provided $350,000 worth of seed to drought ravaged farmers in time for fall planting.

==History==
The Republic of Moldova occupies most of what has been known as Bessarabia. Moldova's location has made it a historic passageway between Asia and southern Europe, as well as the victim of frequent warfare. Greeks, Romans, Huns, and Bulgars invaded the area, which in the 13th century became part of the Mongol empire. An independent Moldovan state emerged briefly in the 14th century under celebrated leader Stefan the Great but subsequently fell under Ottoman Turkish rule in the 16th century.

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-12, the eastern half of Moldova (Bessarabia) between the Prut and the Dniester Rivers was ceded to Russia, while Romanian Moldavia (west of the Prut) remained with the Turks. Romania, which gained independence in 1878, took control of Russian-ruled Bessarabia in 1918. The Soviet Union never recognized the action and created an autonomous Moldavian republic on the east side of the Dniester River in 1924.

In 1940, Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), which established the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic by merging the autonomous republic east of the Dniester and the annexed Bessarabian portion. Stalin also stripped the three southern counties along the Black Sea coast from Moldova and incorporated them in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Romania sought to regain Bessarabia by joining with Germany in the 1941 attack on the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, German and Romanian troops crossed the border and deportations of the Jews from Bessarabia began immediately. By September 1941, most of the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina had been transported in convoys and force marched to concentration camps in Transnistria. About 185,000 Jews were in the Transnistria area in concentration camps by 1942 in abysmal conditions. Very few were left alive in these camps when the Soviets reoccupied Bessarabia in 1944.

In September 1990, the Supreme Soviet elected Mircea Snegur as President of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. A former Communist Party official, he endorsed independence from the Soviet Union and actively sought Western recognition. On May 23, 1991, the Supreme Soviet renamed itself the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, which subsequently declared its independence from the U.S.S.R.

In August 1991, Moldova's transition to democracy initially had been impeded by an ineffective Parliament, the lack of a new constitution, a separatist movement led by the Gagauz (Christian Turkic) minority in the south, and unrest in the Transnistria region on the left bank of the Nistru/Dniester River, where a separatist movement declared a "Transdniester Moldovan Republic" in September 1990. The Russian 14th Army intervened to stem widespread violence and support the Transnistrian regime which is led by supporters of the 1991 coup attempt in Moscow. In 1992, the government negotiated a cease-fire arrangement with Russian and Transnistrian officials, although tensions continue, and negotiations are ongoing. In February 1994, new legislative elections were held, and the ineffective Parliament that had been elected in 1990 to a 5-year term was replaced. A new constitution was adopted in July 1994. The conflict with the Gagauz minority was defused by the granting of local autonomy in 1994.

{{Copyright Details (US Government)}}

Source = [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5357.htm]

[[Category:Moldova]]
[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:Former Soviet Countries]]
[[Category:Landlocked Countries]]
[[Category:Christian-Majority Countries]]

Ye

2018-10-12T15:19:09Z

JoeyJ: /* Criticism */

[[File:Kanye West.jpg|right|250px]]

'''Kanye West''' is an American [[hip hop]] musician and record producer, one of the most popular of recent times. His records have won nine [[Grammy]] awards.

== Personal Life and History ==
Kanye attracted considerable media attention in September 2005, when he appeared on a television fundraiser for [[Hurricane Katrina]] victims and famously stated "[[George W. Bush|George Bush]] doesn't care about black people." He later said he made that statement because of a "welfare mentality."<ref>Nelson, Steven (October 11, 2018). [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/kanye-says-welfare-mentality-led-him-to-accuse-george-w-bush-of-racism Kanye says 'welfare mentality' led him to accuse George W. Bush of racism]. ''Washington Examiner''. Retrieved October 11, 2018.</ref>

He also created a stir when he posed for the cover of the February 2006 ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine portraying [[Jesus Christ]], wearing a crown of thorns on his head with blood running down his face.<ref>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11009059/</ref>

West's lyrics are sometimes considered controversial and offensive as they often contain explicit racial terms and profanity.<ref>http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/5241</ref>
<ref>http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/2/2/200539.shtml</ref>

Kanye's father, Ray West, a [[sociology]] professor and former member of the [[Black Panther Party]] <ref>http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/5241</ref> has stated that he does not condone the use of profanity and racial comments in Kanye's lyrics.<ref>http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/kanyes%20dad%20lashes%20out%20at%20sons%20lyrics_27_01_2006</ref>

His mother Donda, a former chair of the English department at Chicago State University who acted as Kanye's manager, died Nov 10, 2007 following a cosmetic surgery procedure. She was 58 years old.<ref>http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20159597,00.html</ref> West is engaged to be married to Alexis Phifer.<ref>http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20037945,00.html</ref>

In August 2015, Kanye West announced that he would be running for [[President of the United States of America]] in 2020. Many people have joked about his announcement, however, 2016 [[Republican]] front-runner [[Donald Trump]] responded positively to the announcement saying, "He's actually a different kind of a person than people think, he's a nice guy. I hope to run against him some day."

== Criticism==
West's musical style has been the subject of criticism. Kanye West was the subject of extreme criticism when he appeared to mock [[Jesus]] on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and subsequently claim that he was bigger than Jesus. West, who has been rumored to be [[Muslim]] as his father (a former member of the Black Panther Party) was, caused considerable uproar with this comment and did not apologize. In 2005, he stated that "George [W.] Bush doesn't care about black people" allegedly given the federal response by FEMA during [[Hurricane Katrina]].

West was again the subject of controversy at the 2009 [[MTV]] Video Music Awards, where he took the microphone from pop music singer [[Taylor Swift]] while she was about to give an acceptance speech and said that she did not deserve it as much as [[Beyonce Knowles]]. This upset the then 19 year old Swift and caused backlash against West from many notable celebrities and President [[Barack Hussein Obama]]. It was also speculated that this interaction was spurred by anti-white [[racism]], as previously demonstrated in his 2005 Bush comment.

==Works==
*''The College Dropout'' (2004)
*''Late Registration'' (2005)
*''Graduation'' (2007)
*''808s and Heartbreak'' (2008)
*''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' (2010)
*''Watch the Throne'' (2011)
*''Yeezus'' (2013)
*''The Life of Pablo'' (2016)

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:West Kanye}}
[[Category:Male Singers]]
[[Category:Liberals]]
[[Category:Racism]]