Russian steel billionaire calls the invasion of Ukraine 'a huge tragedy that is impossible to justify'

Grace Kay

Wed, March 9, 2022, 

Russian billionaire and businessman Vladimir Lisin attends the congress of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow, Russia on March, 19, 2015Sasha Mordovets/Getty

• Vladimir Lisin said in a letter to steelworkers he hoped Putin could find a diplomatic resolution.

• The steel tycoon wrote that the death of people in Ukraine is a tragedy that it is "impossible to justify."

• Lisin is the 81st richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index.

Russian oligarch Vladimir Lisin has called for a peaceful resolution to the attack on Ukraine.

Lisin, the chairman and main shareholder of one of the largest steelmakers in Russia, sent a letter along with the board of directors to his staff at Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) saying that he was hopeful that the war could end soon and calling for Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach a diplomatic outcome. Reuters first reported the letter.

An NLMK spokesperson confirmed the letter with Insider.

"I would like to begin by expressing my deepest compassion to all the victims of the armed conflict in Ukraine, the families and relatives of those who died," Lisin wrote. "Lost lives are always a huge tragedy that is impossible to justify. I am convinced that peaceful diplomatic conflict resolution is always preferable to the use of force."

Lisin is one of Russia's richest men and is the 81st richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index. The steel tycoon is currently worth about $19.1 billion in US dollars. His wealth is down over $5 billion since Russia began invading Ukraine, according to the index.

Thus far, the Russian billionaire has been able to avoid sanctions, but the UK is eyeing sanctions on his 3,000-acre 17th-century Aberuchill Castle in Scotland, according to a report from BBC.

The oligarch is one of a handful of Russian billionaires to speak out against the invasion into Ukraine. Last week, Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska spoke out in protest of the attack, calling for peaceful negotiations between the two countries.

Russia's wealthiest have not been immune to the impact of sanctions from Western countries. Sanctions targeting Russia's economy and financial systems have cut into their net worth. Meanwhile, the US, Canada, and European nations have also moved to take direct aim at the Russian oligarchs by seizing their Western assets.

One day after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia's 22 richest individuals lost a combined $39 billion. Since then, Russia's currency has plummeted to historic lows and brought the nation to the brink of default.

Biden Enlists Consumers to Put Squeeze on Russia’s Economy



Saleha Mohsin
Wed, March 9, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration is leaning on American consumers to help pay the price of its rapidly intensifying economic pressure campaign against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The White House’s announcement Tuesday to ban U.S. imports of Russian fossil fuels marked the latest move against Russia. It also made for another way for the war in Ukraine to affect Americans at filling stations and grocery-store checkout lines.

U.S. gasoline prices hit a record high on Tuesday, according to AAA, with the average price of regular unleaded at $4.17, up 55 cents in just a week and driven by global oil prices surging to their highest levels since 2008.

The U.S. campaign carries some political peril for President Joe Biden as Democrats head into November midterm elections with control of Congress at stake and Republicans already seeking to saddle his party with blame for inflation, especially rising energy prices.

Biden acknowledged the ban on Russian oil is a decision that “is not without cost here at home.” He said it was “Putin’s war” that was hitting American consumers, and vowed to mitigate the consequences.

U.S. officials are in talks with counterparts in Venezuela as they consider waiving some sanctions, which would allow the South American nation to sell more oil on global markets. Such a step would mark a softening in the U.S.’s stance toward a regime it has previously called corrupt and undemocratic.

Back at home, the Biden administration has stopped short of directly asking U.S. energy producers to boost production to ease the pain Americans are facing at gas stations.

“It takes time to meet demand,” Wally Adeyemo, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury, said on Tuesday -- indicating consumers should be braced for higher prices for now. “These high costs aren’t something that only impacts Americans,” he said, adding that much of the global economy is gripped by inflation.

Adeyemo highlighted that American consumers have so far been resilient amid the spike in inflation.

“What’s impressed me about the American people is that they have shown they are willing to pay a price to protect democracy,” he said in an interview.

But it’s not certain how long that will last.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked a feverish run-up in the prices of just about every commodity -- from oil to grains and metals -- and that will inflict even more financial pain on consumers already struggling with rampant inflation.

The U.S. relies on Russia and Ukraine for key energy and agricultural products. The two nations’ combined wheat, barley and maize exports make up 21% of the global total, and their supply of sunflower oils account for 60%. Wheat prices hit an all-time high on Tuesday. An unprecedented surge in nickel saw the London Metal Exchange suspend trading.

Oil prices hovered around $128 a barrel as investors price in risks of total economic isolation for Russia. Bloomberg Economics estimates that, at $120 a barrel for crude, inflation could accelerate to an annual 9% by April, and end the year near 7%.

“There’s no question that the U.S., at some point, will need to decide how much economic cost we’re willing to shoulder in exchange for imposing those costs on the Russians,” said Dan Katz, a former adviser at the Treasury during the Trump administration who is now at Amberwave Partners.

A March 7 Quinnipiac University poll found that 71% of Americans would support a ban on Russian crude oil, even if it means higher U.S. prices at the pump. But the survey didn’t ask respondents about specific prices they’d be willing to tolerate.

The spike in prices will be a backdrop for midterm elections in November, likely hurting the Democratic Party’s chances of keeping control of Congress. Inflation has colored Americans’ view on where the nation is heading, with consumer sentiment at its lowest level since 2011.

Soaring costs, though, have hidden the powerful jobs recovery from the depths of the pandemic shutdowns. Unemployment has fallen to 3.8%, well below the 6.4% average of the last economic expansion. Households also benefited from a historic expansion in federal support for families, with stimulus checks and enlarged child-tax credit payouts.

Much of that comes from the American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law one year ago.

Federal Help

On a Tuesday trip to Memphis, Tennessee, Adeyemo celebrated the one-year anniversary of that rescue package, which he credited with ensuring that the U.S. economy and its consumers are in a “position of strength.”

“When we look at our peers, our recovery is stronger than theirs because we made strong investments,” Adeyemo said.

Adeyemo spent the day in Memphis meeting with city and county officials who he said created the “strongest” program to distribute federal funds, providing $43.1 million in 16,000 cash payments to residents and landlords, helping tenants pay rent and avoid eviction.

More than $25 billion from Treasury’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program has been spent or earmarked. The remaining portion of the $46 billion pandemic-relief initiative will be distributed by mid-2022, according to Adeyemo. In meetings with Tennessee officials, Adeyemo highlighted that the Biden administration has approved leftover funds from the $350 billion State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund can be used to invest in more affordable housing.

The support for households in that legislation may help insulate the economy from the geopolitical crisis and reduce the risk of a recession.

“The hit to consumers’ wallets from the run-up in gasoline prices will be noticeable -- but not come close to killing the expansion,” according to Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont.

Why McDonald’s Leaving Russia Might Be Just What Putin Wants

Philip Elliott
Wed, March 9, 2022,

A person passes by a McDonald's restaurant, in Moscow, Russia

 Credit - Pavel Bednyakov—Sputnik/AP

Through a gray and empty Red Square, Mikhail Gorbachev strolled leisurely with his granddaughter while using an umbrella to dodge the snow. The year: 1997. With Saint Basil’s Cathedral behind them, the pair walked into what purported to be a Pizza Hut in the center of a liberalizing Moscow, staged as part of an American advertising campaign. While the Gorbachevs sat in the corner of a separate but real Moscow-area Pizza Hut—and camera crews rolled—actors debated the legacy of the then-former Soviet leader until the matriarch of the family interjected in subtitled Russian: “Because of him, we have many things, like Pizza Hut.”

And because of one of Gorbachev’s successors, those same Russians today do not.

Pizza Hut is among the raft of Western-based companies to announce they are closing their doors across Russia as the invasion of Ukraine approaches its two-week mark. Western leaders in and out of government have been tightening the screws on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has caused a two-million-strong refugee crisis, a spike in gas prices, and a unified front of Western allies against Moscow’s march. The symbiotic effort between government and business to make life harder for the Russian leader has amplified the efficacy, but it may have unforeseen effects on cultural diplomacy.

It’s one thing to turn off access to foreign capital and the flow of Russian oil to the United States. It’s another to turn off the latte machine at Starbucks. Even in the most amoral universe of the political economy, symbols matter. Especially when it comes to food.

The net effect has been the recall of Uncle Sam from Moscow, a striking reversal from the end of the Cold War. As Moscow opened up to the West’s footprint three decades ago, Big Mac boxes became status symbols. Such cultural interactions helped thaw relations between the two global powers and softened the image of the Eagle in the land of the defeated Bear.

Now, companies like Boeing and Ford, all Big Four accounting firms, and financial institutions like American Express have pulled out of Russia, eliminating thousands of jobs and billions in goods and services. Some, though, recognize the damage they could deal their reputations—if not America’s standing—with a total shutdown; PepsiCo is continuing to process milk, cheese and baby formula at its Russian sites while McDonald’s will keep paying its 62,000 employees despite shutting down 850 counters.

The new pressure on Russia hardens the line between Russia and the West, which may achieve its economic goal of so crippling the Russian economy that Putin decides to withdraw his forces from Ukraine. The far-fetched hope is that Putin actually loses his grip on power as oligarchs and his people decide that two decades in near-absolute power has been enough.

But the Cold War ended as much because of the Soviet system’s flaws as the West’s cultural creep into Mother Russia. Gorbachev sought to build up the system by adding transparency and accountability, opening the country for those who at least wanted to consider the West. Ultimately, the system couldn’t sustain it and, in part, consumerism conquered the planned economies. The story Russians told themselves about their glory couldn’t stand the scrutiny.

For his part, Putin calls the end of the Soviet system the greatest tragedy, one he’s trying to remedy. Which is why he won’t mourn the retreat of Western companies from his backyard.

Time and time again, history has shown how engagement can break rogue states. There’s a reason Iran’s leaders fear the rising generation that has always known the West through popular media and the Internet. The Arab Spring was a byproduct of citizens realizing the system being imposed on them didn’t have to be as repressive or corrupt—in part through social media. North Korea survives only because it has achieved a completely hermetically sealed border for most of its citizens. Those nations one step down the ladder of autocracy, such as China, can still hold onto power by cutting off access to information.

Western companies are clearly hoping they can do their part to end the war on civilians in Ukraine, and many governments in the West are welcoming them as partners in the fight against Putin’s cruelty. But there is a second edge to this scalpel: breaking up with Russia surrenders the West’s toehold inside the country. America preached its gospel of capitalism’s superiority through consumerism, and Russians were ready congregants.

Like Moscow’s embrace of change as the Cold War ended, the corporate embrace of this anti-Russia agenda may turn out to be a temporary glitch. As was the case during the divestiture campaigns against apartheid and the current BDS efforts against Israel, corporations have responsibilities to shareholders, and in the end, those often win out over political stances. ESG only provides so much cover to promote an agenda that might be in conflict with the companies’ stated fiduciary goals. It was fun to play with “woke capitalism” during the Trump years and consider it a moral stance, but the choice to oppose the erratic President who could move markets with a tweet ultimately was in CEOs’ best interests.

Companies may eventually realize isolation isn’t the best path for ending Russian attacks on Ukraine. The Soviet system was sclerotic by design, but societies find ways of evolving because powerful ideas don’t respect borders or central committees. Cultural diplomacy made Soviets question the system. Gorbachev understood that, sparking a series of reforms that he thought could keep the system afloat. Ultimately, he could not stave off the West—and ended up starring in that Pizza Hut commercial.

Yes, let’s go back to that one-minute ad once again. It’s an artifact of an era that saw Gorbachev as a symbol of the West’s victory over its Cold War menace. The ad never aired in Russia, but the symbolism was clear in an American pizza chain using the former Soviet leader as an emblem of a changing world. Gorbachev had recognized America’s inevitability, allowing McDonald’s to open its first store in Pushkin Square in 1990; opening day served 38,000 customers, the global fast food company’s biggest day to date. “I felt like I was eating America itself,” one man told VOA in 2020 on the 30th anniversary of the store opening.

And, in another symbol of the West’s relationship with Russia, that store will now close as part of the Western withdrawal. One has to wonder what a darkened pair of golden arches in Moscow says about America’s cultural dominance. It doesn’t stretch the imagination to see Putin grinning like Ronald McDonald.

Anderson Cooper Highlights ‘Incredible Image’ From Russia That Shows Putin’s Weakness

Lee Moran

Tue, March 8, 2022, 

CNN’s Anderson Cooper said a video from Russia that has gone viral amid the country’s invasion of Ukraine perfectly sums up the weakness of its president, Vladimir Putin.

Appearing on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” live from Lviv, Ukraine, on Monday, Cooper recalled the footage of Russian riot police arresting a woman in her 80s for protesting the war with handmade signs on the street.

“To me, it was the most incredible image because I thought Vladimir Putin, who likes to appear half-naked riding around on a horse or in his black belt doing judo as a tough guy, is scared of an 80-something-year-old woman who is simply standing on a street holding up a sign protesting a war,” Cooper said.

He added that Russia’s new law criminalizing media reports that contradict the Kremlin’s version of events in Ukraine — including such videos and photos — was a “sign of weakness” and “fear” and “of the reality of the disinformation campaign that Russia wages.”

Watch the interview here:

 

Fox News hosts and reporter fought on air after Greg Gutfeld suggested the media is making Ukraine invasion look worse than it is


Joshua Zitser
Wed, March 9, 2022

Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall, left, and "The Five" co-host Greg Gutfeld, right.

"The Five"/ Fox News

Fox host Greg Gutfeld suggested that reporters are exaggerating the scale of disaster in Ukraine.

Reporter Benjamin Hall, who was in Kyiv, hit back and said the catastrophic picture is accurate.

Hall described how cities have been flattened and 2 million Ukrainians fled Russia's invasion.

A Fox News reporter in Kyiv openly challenged comments by his colleague Greg Gutfeld, who on Tuesday claimed that the media was exaggerating the scale of disaster caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking on "The Five" on Tuesday night, Gutfeld claimed that the media was trying to create "some sort of emotional response" which in turn "creates a profit for news companies."

Gutfeld compared the coverage of the invasion of Ukraine to the reporting on police brutality in the US, suggesting that the media creates a "galvanizing narrative" to elicit a reaction from the public.

"If you try to counter the drumbeat, you're seen as an inconsiderate, cold-hearted pussy," Gutfeld said.

Fellow host Geraldo Rivera responded to the comments by bringing attention to a photo published by The New York Times of a mother and her two children moments after being killed by a Russian shell.

But the real disagreement came from reporter Benjamin Hall, speaking live from Kyiv, who went on to describe what he had seen in Ukraine.

"Speaking as someone on the ground, I want to say that this is not the media trying to drum up some emotional response," Hall said. "This is absolutely what is happening."

He described how cities are being "absolutely flattened," and described the huge numbers of people evacuating for their safety.

At least two million people had fled Ukraine as of Tuesday, according to the United Nations. The Independent reported that Gutfeld's own mother-in-law is among them.

In the city of Mariupol, Hall continued, people were drinking puddle water because the Russian forces aren't allowing them to get out.

People were being shelled while fleeing, he said, a reference to the repeated failure of attempts to provide so-called humanitarian corridors to get civilians out of the city.

"It's an absolute catastrophe and the people who are caught in the middle are the ones who are really suffering," Hall said.

The reporter then played a clip of people trying to flee, who described how they had left everything behind. "There is more video than we know what to do with," Hall said.

ITS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU 
Gutfeld in response asked whether he should respond to the "cheap attack" on him or move on.

HUH?
"My concern has always been when a narrative creates a story that bolsters one side, that is out of its element, we create more suffering," Gutfeld said.

Last week, in an emergency session of the UN's general assembly, a vast majority of member states voted for a resolution deploring Russia's invasion of Ukraine and calling for the withdrawal of its forces. 141 of the 193 countries voted for the resolution, with only five voting against it.

Mother shown dead on the street alongside her children in horror Ukraine photo was a Silicon Valley worker

Josh Marcus
Thu., March 10, 2022

Over the weekend, images of a family of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russian shelling outside of Kyiv inspired worldwide outrage, including from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, who vowed to find and punish “every b*****d” responsible.

“They were just trying to get out of town. To escape. The whole family,” Mr Zelensky said in a video address. “How many such families have died in Ukraine?”

The family in the photo, which ran with top billing in places like The New York Times, has now been identified and linked to a tech company partially based in the US.

Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, along with her daughter Alise, 9, and son Nikita, 18, were all killed shortly after they crossed a partially destroyed bridge over the Irpin River and were hit by a Russian mortar.

“We are so shocked, saddened, devastated, angry. There are no words to describe our emotions, we are so heartbroken,” Ksenia Khirvonina, a colleague of Perebeinis at the Palo Alto, California-based SEO firm SE Ranking, told The San Francisco Chronicle, adding, “they prove that (the) Russian army and Putin himself are monsters who deserve no mercy for their doings.”

Over half of the company’s employees, including its CEO, live in Ukraine.

When the invasion began, Perebeinis stayed in the country to look after her sick mother, as well as her son, who was old enough that he was required to remain in Ukraine in case he was called up by its defence forces.

“She always talked about him, how smart he was,” Ms Khirvonina added in the paper. “She was a great mother; giving her kids everything she could.”

Tatiana Perebeinis was described as ‘bright, witty, determined’ by colleagues at IT company SE Ranking where she worked as chief accountant (SE Ranking)

After hiding out in a basement when a bomb hit their apartment building, the family decided to flee because they thought they had been offered safe passage by a temporary Russian ceasefire.

Over the weekend, Russia said it would offer temporary cease fires to allow for humanitarian evacuations from major combat zones, but Ukrainian officials say they haven’t been honouring these commitments, which Russia denies.

“The Russian side is not holding to the ceasefire,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, has said.

In addition to attacking Ukraine’s military, Russia has also targeted highly sensitive civilian zones, including densely populated cities, power plants, and children’s and maternity hospitals. The International Criminal Court has launched a war crimes investigation in Ukraine, and UK leaders have called for Vladimir Putin to be held before a Nuremberg-style war crimes tribunal.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said its necessary because of Mr Putin’s “crime of aggression” against Ukraine.

Man returns to Ukraine after family slain while fleeing

Wed., March 9, 2022, 


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A man whose wife and two children were killed by mortar fire in Ukraine as they tried to flee was in Kyiv on Wednesday to bury them but he said their funerals must be postponed because the morgues are full of civilians.

Sergii Perebeinis wasn't with the family when they died Monday in a civilian refugee corridor while trying to flee the suburb of Irpin for the capital. The California company that Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, worked for helped her husband return to Kyiv.

“Trying to hold on but it’s really hard," Perebeinis posted on Facebook. “Fourth day on my feet, thousands of kilometers of road."

Tatiana Perebeinis's body is “lying in a black bag on the floor" of an overflowing morgue, he said. The family's dogs also died, he said.

He posted an image of himself holding photographs of his wife and children.

Tatiana Perebeinis was chief accountant for SE Ranking, a Silicon Valley startup with headquarters in London and a large workforce in Kyiv. Also killed were her daughter, Alise, 9, and son, Nikita, 18.

Photographs broadcast worldwide showed their bodies lying next to their suitcases and a dog carrier.

“I met with correspondents, witnesses of these events. They handed me some of the personal items that were left lying on the street near the bodies,” Perebeinis wrote.

Russia has denied targeting civilians, although airstrikes hit three hospitals in Ukraine on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said efforts were being made to evacuate some 18,000 people from embattled towns in the Kyiv region to the capital itself. He said about 35,000 civilians have used humanitarian corridors to flee the fighting.

A work colleague, Anastasia Avetysian, told the New York Times that SE Ranking had provided emergency evacuation funds for its employees and Tatiana Perebeinis had been distributing them.

“We were all in touch with her,” Avetysian said. “Even when she was hiding in the basement, she was optimistic and joking in our group chat that the company would now need to do a special operation to get them out, like ‘Saving Private Ryan.’”

Tatiana Perebeinis “was a very friendly, brave, courageous woman with a great sense of humor, she always cheered everyone around her up, she was truly like a big sister to all of us,” Ksenia Khirvonina, spokeswoman for SE Ranking, told the San Francisco Chronicle from Dubai, where she fled on Feb. 23 from Ukraine.

“She always had answers to all our questions, even the most stupid ones, about personal finances or taxes or how to upgrade your visa cards; she had answers to everything,” Khirvonina said.

Tatiana Perebeinis stayed in Irpin, where she was living, when the Russian invasion started because her mother was sick and her 18-year-old son was required to remain in the country in case he was needed to defend it, Khirvonina said.

He had started university this year.

“She always talked about him, how smart he was,” Khirvonina said. “She was a great mother; giving her kids everything she could.”

The family’s apartment building was bombed the day before they died, forcing them into a basement without heat or food, and they finally decided to flee to Kyiv, Khirvonina said.

“But then Russian troops started firing on innocent civilians,” she said.

The Associated Press

A photojournalist who captured a horrifying photo of a family killed in Ukraine said she witnessed a 'war crime'

Lauren Frias
Tue, March 8, 2022


The photojournalist who took a devastating photo of a dead family in Ukraine said she witnessed a war crime.

Lynsey Addario's photo ran on the NYT front page on Monday, capturing the grisly reality of Ukraine.

"I thought it's disrespectful to take a photo, but I have to take a photo," she said. "This is a war crime."

The photojournalist who witnessed a mother and children being killed by a mortar in northern Ukraine called the incident a "war crime," CBS News reported Tuesday.

Pulitzer-Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario took the horrifying photo of the family lying dead in Irpin, a city about 30 miles northwest of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. The photo ran on the front page of The New York Times on Monday.

In an interview with "CBS Evening News" host Norah O'Donnell, Addario described the scene leading up to the shocking image that painted the reality of the Russian attack on Ukraine.

"I went forward and found a place sort of behind a wall and started photographing," Addario told O'Donnell. "And in fact, within minutes, a series of mortars fell increasingly closer and closer to our position until one landed about 30 feet from where I was standing and it killed a mother and her two children."

In the moment, she said she was "shaken up" because she had been sprayed with gravel from the mortar round "that could have killed us very easily." Nonetheless, she said she tried to "stay very focused" and keep "the camera to my eye."

As Addario was running to safety following the blast, she saw the family that was killed and thought of her own children.

"When we were told that we could run across the street by our security adviser, I ran, and I saw this family splayed out and I saw these little moon boots and puffy coat, and I just thought of my own children," she said.

The photographer said she acknowledged that it could be disrespectful to take a photo of the family, but she felt she was obligated to document the moment, given that she was in a civilian area at the time and believed that the attack was intentional.

"I thought it's disrespectful to take a photo, but I have to take a photo," she said. "This is a war crime."

"I think it's really important that people around the world see these images," she added. "It's really brave of The New York Times to put that image on the front page. It's a difficult image, but it is a historically important image."

KOO KOO KONSPIRACIST

Judge’s Election Nightmare Comes True: The MyPillow Guy Has Entered the Chat


Jose Pagliery
Wed, March 9, 2022

Drew Angerer/Getty

U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg was always worried that bad-faith actors would exploit a cybersecurity researcher’s report on voting machine vulnerabilities to cast doubt on the 2020 election. MyPillow magnate Mike Lindell is here to prove her right.

On Saturday, Lindell and his attorneys demanded a copy of the voting machine analysis that purports to show how a certain kind of Dominion ballot machine can be hacked. While that report was authored by a renowned computer security expert who merely posits that theoretical flaws should be fixed for future elections, Lindell appears to see this as an opportunity to bolster his bogus assertions that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

When Judge Totenberg took the rare step of sealing this expert report back in July, she did so out of concern that its release would fuel conspiracy theories. Totenberg refused to entertain ideas about releasing it to the public, saying she was “at the end of my rope about that.”

Judge Won’t Budge as Voting Machine Report Fuels Conspiracies

But as the months ticked by, pressure kept mounting. Totenberg wouldn’t budge when a voting rights group asked for the report’s release in order to create public pressure for the Georgia secretary of state to update the system. And she held her ground even when a cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security first expressed interest in reviewing the report.

Cybersecurity experts warned this continued secrecy would only draw more curiosity, an obvious case of the Streisand effect.

But Totenberg stuck to her guns last month, keeping even a redacted and “sanitized” version of the report secret while authorizing that government researchers at the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency assess the potential threat.

Now, Lindell has adopted this report as part of his conspiracy-riddled crusade.

Dominion Voting Systems sued Lindell in February 2021 as part of a nationwide effort by the company to clear its name after the nonstop barrage of accusations from Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News Network that the company’s machines were flawed—and part of a sinister plot to fake votes and kick out former President Donald Trump and put President Joe Biden in office.

Lindell is intervening in the Georgia case in an attempt to get a copy of University of Michigan cybersecurity researcher J. Alex Halderman’s report, so he can use it in his legal fight against Dominion.

“The Halderman report strongly supports the conclusion that Dominion’s electronic voting machines are vulnerable to intrusion, manipulation, and fraud,” says a court filing by Lindell attorney Kurt R. Hilbert.

Judge Seals Report on Voting Machine Vulnerability

The pillow entrepreneur is asking for “unrestricted access” to the redacted version of Halderman’s report, along with the ability to do whatever he wants with it—even release it. But Lindell is also asking to get a copy of the full, unredacted report, even if it needs to keep that version secret from the public.

Either way, it’s precisely why Totenberg decided to limit circulation of the report and keep it “attorneys’ eyes only” for those lawyers involved in the Georgia case.

During a court hearing in July 2021, the judge had concerns that the report would be “subject to disclosure in other litigation,” according to a transcript obtained by The Daily Beast.

Lindell, who has tied his MyPillow brand to conservative politics, has spent much of the last year whining about cancel culture and actively supporting right-wing media like Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. But he has also become the torch-bearer for election conspiracy nonsense.

Despite attempts by election conspiracy theorists to latch onto Halderman's report, that cybersecurity researcher remains a relatively quiet and reserved academic. Halderman's efforts were conducted in his capacity as an expert in the court case, where he was hired as an expert on behalf of voting rights activists who sued the state of Georgia.

"I think people like Lindell are frustrating legitimate efforts to protect the right to vote with motions like this. They're a big part of the reason why we've not been able to share Dr. Halderman's report with responsible authorities and other members of the election security community who could help address the important concerns identified in the report," David Cross, an attorney for the voting rights activists, told The Daily Beast.

"And to be clear, the report does not identify any fraud in any election nor was that its purpose," he added.

Lindell’s request follows a similar move in January by the conservative Fox News, which is also seeking the report to bolster its own defense in a similar defamation lawsuit against Dominion. But his request could benefit from the fact that it comes on the heels of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s recent decision to reverse himself and call for the report’s public disclosure.

At this point, the main parties on both sides of the Georgia case—the voting rights group and the state’s top elections official—both want it to go public. And the state’s governor seems to just want Raffensperger to deal with it already.

DHS Cyber Office Wants to See Secret Voting Machine Vulnerability Report

As a spokeswoman for Gov. Brian Kemp stated in January, ”Secretary of State Raffensperger led the procurement and implementation of the voting machines, and it is his duty to ensure those machines are safe, secure, and reliable. He should work to gather all relevant information regarding this report, thoroughly vet its findings, and assure Georgians he is doing everything possible to ensure the system, procedures, and equipment are completely secure.”

Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did attorneys for the voting rights group.

But if Lindell gets a copy of the report, expect another media stunt like his three-day “cyber symposium” that featured dubious cybersecurity experts claiming Trump lost a “stolen” election.

On Wednesday, two county elections officials in Colorado were indicted for engaging in election equipment tampering and official misconduct for allegedly leaking voter data to conspiracy theorists. Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, spoke at Lindell's symposium in South Dakota last year.

Shannon Vavra contributed to this story.

DOMINION IS A CANADIAN COMPANY.

DOMINION VOTING MACHINES ARE USED IN CANADA IN FEDERAL, PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS AND HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS WITH NO LEGAL ISSUES. 

Ukrainian patriots help each other. 

Misguided U.S. ‘patriots’ just can’t 

help themselves

| Opinion

Leonard Pitts Jr.

MIAMI HERALD

Tue, March 8, 2022, 

They drove 64 miles in a circle.

That’s the length of the Capital Beltway, the ribbon of asphalt that loops around Washington, D.C. For over four hours on Sunday, the so-called “People’s Convoy,” estimated at about a thousand trucks, RVs and cars, drove that circle in protest.

In protest of what? Well, take your pick. Many drivers — nearly all white, nearly all men — flew flags supporting Donald Trump or opposing Joe Biden. Some displayed Confederate battle flags and placards against vaccine and mask mandates, even though those mandates have largely been lifted. One lady told The Good Liars, an online comedy platform, that she’s protesting because she doesn’t want “them” to “digitile” us, a word that does not appear in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. The drivers uniformly claim to be fighting against tyranny.

Meantime, another convoy of trucks rumbles out of Berlin, bound for Ukraine. It carries donated toilet paper, batteries, medicine, pet food, baby food and other necessities of everyday life impossible to find in Ukraine since Russia began mauling that country almost two weeks ago. “Somebody has to do this,” Vadim Pashkiuskiy, a 29-year-old Ukrainian driver, told The Washington Post. “My war is to deliver goods. It may be dangerous, but it’s my responsibility to my country. I’m not hiding. I’m doing whatever I can to help.”

The contrast between the convoys is painful. And telling.

In the almost 15 years since Barack Obama’s election panicked a certain subset of Americans, many of us have become inured to their performative displays of supposed patriotism. We’ve seen them don tricorner hats and wave “Don’t tread on me” signs, storm the Michigan statehouse, carry long guns to make a Starbucks run, and, yes, ransack the U.S. Capitol. Now there’s this.

Such behavior has always seemed absurd, delusional and pathetic. But never so much as it does now, as Ukraine fights for its life.

Towns and lives reduced to rubble. Walls sheared off buildings, bedrooms and kitchens left open to the sky. Streets littered with chunks of masonry and blackened husks of cars. Parents weeping over their toddler’s corpse. And yet, defiance reigns. A man hops atop a Russian military vehicle waving a Ukrainian flag. An unarmed crowd advances on armed Russian troops, forcing them back. In a bomb shelter, a little girl sings in Ukrainian that favorite anthem of little girls, “Let It Go” from Disney’s “Frozen,” and her thin, sweet, child’s voice brings a world watching via social media to tears.

But we’re supposed to think refusal to wear a mask in a pandemic is fighting for freedom?

If these people had even a molecule of decency, they’d be ashamed. But they don’t, so they won’t.

For those of us who do, Ukraine is a reminder that resisting tyranny is not a performance, not something you cosplay. That reminder is vital, given that American democracy is fast eroding — not because of medical mandates, mind, you, but because of attacks on the right to vote, protest and speak freely. Against that troubling confluence of threats, the truckers who descended on D.C. provide vivid illustration that even at this dangerous extremity, the American capacity for blithe idiocy remains intact.

One would happily trade the thousand drivers of the “People’s Convoy” for one Vadim Pashkiuskiy. In the name of freedom, he’s driving his truck into a war zone.

Meantime, they’re driving theirs in circles.

PRIVATEER

Pfizer's CEO says Jared Kushner wanted him to divert vaccine supplies from Canada, Japan, and Latin America to boost the US's COVID-19 jab stockpile

Cheryl Teh

Mon, March 7, 2022

Jared Kushner and Pfizer's CEO, Albert Bourla, had a "heated" conversation about whether the US should be able to cut the line and receive its vaccine doses before other countries, Bourla wrote in a book excerpt.Anna Moneymaker-Pool/Getty

• Pfizer's CEO said he had a "heated" debate with Jared Kushner over COVID-19 vaccine supplies.

• Albert Bourla said he told Kushner the US would have to wait its turn to get 100 million more doses.

• He said Kushner disagreed, telling him the US government could "take measures" to enforce its will.

Pfizer's CEO, Albert Bourla, said in a book excerpt published by Forbes on Monday that he and Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, once had a "heated" debate over whether the US should receive additional COVID-19 vaccine doses first.

Bourla said he and Kushner, who in the early days of the pandemic was the head of a COVID-19 shadow task force, disagreed over the timeline to supply the additional 100 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine that the Trump administration had ordered. Bourla wrote that the conflict arose because the US was topping up on its original order of 100 million doses, but other countries had already signed contracts with Pfizer to secure their vaccine doses.

"Jared was asking for a very aggressive delivery plan to the U.S. for the additional 100 million doses. He wanted it all in the second quarter of 2021," Bourla wrote. "To do that, we would have had to take supplies from Canada, Japan, and Latin American countries, all of which had placed their orders earlier than the U.S. and were expecting the vaccine in the second quarter."

Bourla said the debate "became heated" when he refused. He said he reminded Kushner that he had made it clear to Moncef Slaoui, the chief advisor to the Trump team's vaccine-development program, that Pfizer would not take doses from other countries to give them to the US.

However, Kushner "didn't budge," Bourla said.

"In his mind, America was coming first no matter what. In my mind, fairness had to come first," Bourla wrote, adding, "He reminded me that he represented the government, and they could 'take measures' to enforce their will."

Bourla wrote that he responded to Kushner: "Be my guest, Jared. I prefer to have Japan's prime minister complaining to you about the cancellation of the Olympics rather than to me."

The CEO said the disagreement ended when Pfizer's manufacturing team told him its schedule would allow it to deliver the extra doses to the US without cutting the supply to other countries.

"Jared called me two days later from Mar-a-Lago to thank me for the collaboration, and we closed the loop on a happy note," Bourla wrote.

The US and Pfizer struck a $2 billion deal for the additional 100 million vaccine doses — enough to fully inoculate 50 million Americans — in December 2020.

Israeli president visits Turkey to improve ties as gas interest grows


Israeli President Isaac Herzog stands to speak during Israel's National Day ceremony at Expo 2020 Dubai, in Dubai

Wed, March 9, 2022,
By Steven Scheer

ANKARA (Reuters) -President Isaac Herzog visited Turkey on Wednesday on the first such trip by an Israeli leader since 2008 as the regional rivals seek to overcome years of animosity.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said they will review all aspects of Turkey-Israel ties in their talks.

Herzog told reporters at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport: "We will not agree on everything, and the relationship between Israel and Turkey has certainly known ups and downs and not-so-simple moments in recent years."

"But we shall try to restart our relations and build them in a measured and cautious manner," said Herzog, whose post is largely ceremonial.

One particular area of interest for Turkey and Israel is natural gas. Erdogan has said the visit will herald a "new era" and that the two countries could work together to carry Israeli natural gas to Europe, reviving an idea first discussed more than 20 years ago.

Gas supplies from the Mediterranean could ease European dependence on Russian gas, a hot topic following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent calls from European leaders to reduce the continent's reliance on Russian gas.

Plans for a subsea pipeline from the east Mediterranean to Europe, excluding Turkey, stalled after the United States expressed misgivings in January.

A senior Turkish official said Russia's invasion of Ukraine had shown the need to diversify energy sources in the market.

"It is critically important to transport gas resources in Israel to Turkey and from there to European markets," the official said. "Turkey is ready to take the necessary steps and do its part in this regard."

PROTEST

Diplomatic ties between Turkey and Israel hit a low in 2018 when they expelled ambassadors in a dispute over the killing by Israeli forces of 60 Palestinians during protests on the Gaza border.

The incident halted years of gradual reconciliation following a row over a 2010 Israeli raid on an aid ship sailing towards Gaza that killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists. A 10th activist wounded in the incident died in 2014 after years in a coma.

Dozens of Turks protested on Wednesday against Herzog's visit, calling on Ankara to reverse the "mistake" of boosting ties amid lingering animosity over the killing of the activists.

Dozens of people lined up behind a banner emblazoned with the slogan: "We don't want a killer in our country" at the protest, organised by a group set up to support victims of the incident.

"Mavi Marmara is our pride," they chanted.

"This is a great pain and a torment, it is like a knife to our people's chest," said Mehmet Tunc, one of those who was on the Mavi Marmara ship at the time of the incident.

The two countries have also traded accusations over Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and Ankara's support for the militant Islamist group Hamas that governs Gaza.

Through the years of animosity, Turkey and Israel have maintained trade, which stood at $6.7 billion in 2021, up from $5 billion in 2019 and 2020, according to official data.

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Orhan Coskan and Daren Butler in Ankara;Editing by William Maclean and Angus MacSwan)

Professor: For lessons on Russia vs. Ukraine, look at the USSR's invasion of Hungary in 1956

John A. Tures
Wed, March 9, 2022, 

Blood streams from the cut eye of Hungarian Ervin Zador injured during a fight with a member of the Soviet team in the closing stages of the Hungary vs. USSR water polo match at the 1956 Olympic Games.

This is a column by John A. Tures, a professor of political science at LaGrange College. He is a regular contributor to the Savannah Morning News.

A smaller country wrests itself free from an authoritarian foe. Its leadership seeks its own destiny and independence. A brutal invasion follows, ordered by an angry autocrat.

Does this sound familiar to you? It’s not just Russia’s attack upon Ukraine. It’s also the Cold War story of Hungary, which hoped to chart its own course, providing freedom to its citizens. Let’s see what lessons we can learn from the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) invasion of their East European neighbor back in 1956.


During World War II, Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany, having been wrenched from the Austro-Hungarian Empire post-World War I. But after the failed invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin smashed through Eastern Europe with a vengeance. Hungary was conquered, and a Communist puppet state was imposed by the victors from the East.

More from John Tures: Does deterrence work? Lessons for the Russia-Ukraine conflict

In the mid-1950s, the Hungarians had enough of the totalitarianism. They pushed out the pro-Soviet regime. Prime Minister Imre Nagy came to power. He called for multiparty elections, a whole series of freedoms that many of us sometimes take for granted and independence for his country. Nagy and his supporters didn’t want Hungary to be forced to join the anti-NATO “Warsaw Pact,” a military alliance of East European Soviet client states designed to target the West.

The USSR, led by the bombastic Nikita Khrushchev, became angered by Hungary’s bid for freedom. Under the cruel Yuri Andropov, Soviet tanks rolled in to crush the new government. Nagy and thousands of Hungarians were executed; we’ll probably never know the full death toll. Hundreds of thousands fled to the West rather than suffer a similar fate.

I learned about this, not so much in my schoolbooks or textbooks, but in person. In 1990, my family joined a travel group to the newly-liberated Hungary, something few people saw possible even in the early 1980s. Among this group was a delegation led by former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary R. Clayton Mudd, who had served there at the height of the Cold War.

The latest on the Russia-Ukraine war: UN votes to demand Russia end war; attacks intensify

Like many countries in East Europe in 1990, the people had just ousted the pro-Soviet puppet regime. They were free to talk about the terrible old days, from purges by Nazis and then Soviets to the awful events of 1956. Everyone seemed to know someone who was killed, wounded or had to flee. I admit that the Hungarian language was a particularly tough one to try out, but I did my best. Through broken English and translator books and emotion, I learned a lot. It’s why I joined Victims of Communism, which I suggest that you do as well.

Here are the lessons from that tragedy, which need to be applied today. We need to be prepared for a lot of Ukrainian refugees who will flee the country, no matter what the outcome of the Russian invasion and occupation is. We have to be more united as a country, the way we were in the Cold War times in standing up to Communism, and not now when pro-Russian pundits and politicians can control the conversation. And we can’t take the side of those who seek to flatter us by day, and hack us and divide us by social media at night.

John Tures

Finally, you do have a voice. You do need to contact your elected officials, and let them know exactly where you stand. You need to back your organizations, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, when they do take a tough stand (knowing they’ll pay a price for economic sanctions too).

It’s time to pray for these people who are being attacked, and even dying, just to try to live the lives you get to enjoy every day. It’s a tall challenge, of course. But as history proved, nothing is impossible.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Russa's invasion of Ukraine parallels the USSR's invasion of Hungary

SEE

Hungary '56 - Andy Anderson - Libcom

https://libcom.org/library/hungary-56-andy-anderson

2005-03-27 · Hungary '56 - Andy Anderson Andy Anderson's pamphlet, written in 1964 and published by Solidarity is invaluable as a guide to the events of the Hungarian uprising of 1956.

Bureaucracy and revolution in Eastern Europe : Harman

https://archive.org/details/bureaucracyrevol0000harm

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