Russia wants everyone to think it’s building this absurd, massive superplane

Russia: “We are strong. We are strong. We are strong.”

Detention, interrogation, death threats for wearing embroidered shirts in Crimea:
http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1432216479

(from March)

A convoy of U.S. Army armored vehicles is drawing crowds, cheers and tears as it makes an 1,100-mile journey from the Baltics through Poland and the Czech Republic to Germany.

The trek is being made by troops from the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment and is dubbed a “Dragoon Ride” after the unit’s nickname, the Dragoons.

It is designed to show solidarity to allies in the wake of recent Russian actions in Ukraine and Crimea that have Eastern Europe on edge.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/25/politics/army-convoy-through-europe/index.html

Levada Center Poll

On the other side of the spectrum, 27 percent said the economy should be based on “private property and market relations.” This number has fallen steadily from a high of 41 percent in 1992, just after the fall of the Soviet Union, when support for state planning stood at a low of 33 percent, the report showed.

. . . .

Asked which political system is the best — the Soviet system, Russia’s current one or Western-style democracy — 34 percent still say the Soviet system, according to the survey.

In the increasingly nationalist climate that has emerged following the annexation of Crimea last year, belief in Western-style democracy has fallen from 21 percent in January 2014 to 11 percent this March. The number who believe Russia’s current system is the best, meanwhile, has risen from 19 percent to 29 percent of respondents.

Public opinion also appears to have taken an absolutist turn. Fifty percent of respondents in March agreed with the statement “all power in a country should be concentrated in the hands of a single person,” up from less than 40 percent in recent years.

. . . .

The survey was conducted from March 13 to 16 among 1,600 respondents aged 18 years or older, across 46 regions of Russia. The margin of error did not exceed 3.4 percent.

http://ukrainiancrusade.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-regiment-azov-between-old-and-new.html

http://www.voanews.com/content/ukraine-colonel-hordiychuk-recovering-at-walter-reed/2731924.html

Wikipedia: Liberation theology refers to forms of local or contextual theology that proposes that knowledge of God based on revelation leads necessarily to a Christian theological praxis that opposes unjust social and political structures. It has been described as “an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor’s suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor”.[1] Detractors have called it Christianized Marxism.[2]

Liberation theology, of which not much has been heard for two decades, is back in the news. But what is not being mentioned is its origins. It was not invented by Latin American Catholics. It was developed by the KGB. The man who is now the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name “Mikhailov” and spent four decades promoting liberation theology, which we at the top of the Eastern European intelligence community nicknamed Christianized Marxism. Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity. What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians. I described the birth of liberation theology in my book Disinformation, co-authored with Professor Ronald Rychlak. Its genesis was part of a highly classified Party/State Disinformation Program, formally approved in 1960 by KGB chairman Aleksandr Shelepin and Politburo member Aleksei Kirichenko, then the second in the party hierarchy after Nikita Khrushchev. In 1971, the KGB sent Kirill — who had just been elevated to the rank of archimandrite — to Geneva as emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church to the World Council of Churches. The WCC was, and still is, the largest international religious organization after the Vatican, representing some 550 million Christians of various denominations in 120 countries. Kirill/Mikhailov’s main task was to involve the WCC in spreading the new liberation theology throughout Latin America. In 1975, the KGB was able to infiltrate Kirill into the Central Committee of the WCC — a position he held until he was “elected” patriarch of Russia, in 2009. Not long after he joined the Central Committee, Kirill reported to the KGB: “Now the agenda of the WCC is also our agenda.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417383/secret-roots-liberation-theology-ion-mihai-pacepa

http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/foreigners-could-be-allowed-to-serve-in-ukrainian-army-1.345676

But would the US revoke my passport? Arrest me?

More Americans living outside the U.S. gave up their citizenship in the first quarter of 2015 than ever before, according to data released Thursday by the IRS.

The 1,335 expatriations topped the previous record by 18 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Those Americans are driven to turn in their passports in part because of laws that have expanded bank reporting and tax compliance requirements for expatriates.

The increase in early 2015 follows an annual record in 2014, when 3,415 Americans gave up their citizenship.

These numbers will almost certainly continue to grow, unless the Republican majority in Congress grows a spine and joins Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in backing a repeal of the awful Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) of 2010. As the Bloomberg News article reminds us, FATCA

requires U.S. financial institutions to impose a 30 percent withholding tax on payments made to foreign banks that don’t agree to identify and provide information on U.S. account holders.

It allows the U.S. to scoop up data from more than 77,000 institutions and 80 governments about its citizens’ overseas financial activities.

As a result, U.S. citizens living overseas have a terrible time finding institutions that will accept their money. Meanwhile, they face genuinely agonizing choices such as this:

“The cost of compliance with the complex tax treatment of non-resident U.S. citizens and the potential penalties I face for incorrect filings and for holding non-U.S. securities forces me to consider whether it would be more advantageous to give up my U.S. citizenship,” Stephanos Orestis, a U.S. citizen living in Oslo, wrote in a March 23 letter to the Senate Finance Committee. “The thought of doing so is highly distressing for me since I am a born and bred American with a love for my country.”

Reminder: All this pain is being inflicted on millions of individual U.S. citizens for the estimated IRS gain of less than $1 billion per year.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/05/08/14-americans-per-day-are-now-renouncing

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/520254.html

http://zaxid.net/news/showNews.do?viziyi_ta_ilyuziyi&objectId=1348850

Give us back our history, too.

Dutch lawyer about “Scythian treasures” trial: Ukraine has a very strong case

The dispute about the exhibition arose after the annexation of the peninsula by Russia. Maarten Sanders, a Dutch lawyer, who is representing Ukraine in this case, answers Ukrinform’s questions about Ukraine’s chances in the proceedings, next steps and possible date of return of the treasure to Ukraine.

http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/news/dutch_lawyer_about_scythian_treasures_trial_ukraine_has_a_very_strong_case_330537

On Wednesday Ukraine took a first step in penalizing vessels which breach Ukrainian law and flout the UN resolution on Crimea by entering Crimean ports under Russian occupation.

At the initiative of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the ship Kanton, sailing under the flag of Tuvalu was arrested in the Kherson port, nine months after it is believed to have moored in the port of Sevastopol.

A Pechersky District Court ruling from March 24 allowed the application from the investigators to arrest Kanton and prohibit its use. Written notification has been served on the captain of the vessel, a Turkish national, that he is suspected of the crime under Article 332-1 § 2 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (illegally entering occupied territory) and the relevant request for international assistance has been sent to the competent authorities in Turkey. The charges under that article carry a sentence of 3-5 years imprisonment with confiscation of the vessel.

http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1427326772

Nekrassov’s statements about a declaration of war come at a time of increasing tension in the Baltic Sea region. They follow nuclear threats issued by Kremlin diplomats against Nordic countries who plan on participating in NATO’s planned missile shield.

http://upnorth.eu/former-putin-advisor-says-russia-should-declare-war-on-baltics-and-poland/

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA IN DISSENTING POLITICAL MOVEMENTS:

There’s a Texan “fighting” (probably just being used for propaganda) with the DNR for World Communism.

Reality is completely negotiable. As long as it’s good for Russia, Russian intelligence will keep you in a little propaganda bubble which will allow you believe whatever you want to believe.

He says he’s in a communist organization called “Суд времени”.

See also, the Spanish mercenary said that in the DNR, half the foreigners are communist, the other half nazis: http://romaninukraine.com/spaniards-arrested-after-fighting-for-rebels-in-east-ukraine-say-half-of-foreign-fighters-were-communists-half-nazis/