Bill Browder's Testimony Paints Dark Picture of Russian Corruption

First full disclosure: I have written of and discussed the Russia Gate obsession as a useful distraction from other important policy considerations, importantly, restoring transparency and fairness in elections.  Heightened irrational fear of  Russians perverting foreign policy makes the word a more dangerous place.

This article paints a dark and disturbing picture of greed and corruption that is important to understand.  Putin is indeed very corrupt and Russian life if full of injustice such as portrayed.  This may actually explain why unethical  rich people like the Trumps like working with them.  Lots of money with no accountability, ethics or rules.  But it has nothing to do with our elections.  Those we fuck up for ourselves because our government has been captured by money and corporate power and is undemocratic to the core.

The Russians did not steal our election. De-escalation of tensions with Russia is good.  Nuclear and conventional arms reductions including NATO are imperative.

This does not mean I support the Magnisky Act as I have not studied it.


Read the Full Text of Bill Browder's Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee - The Atlantic:


This is from Rebecca Solnit on facebook 7/26/17

Mr Browder testifies: That all changed in July 2003, when Putin arrested Russia’s biggest oligarch and richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Putin grabbed Khodorkovsky off his private jet, took him back to Moscow, put him on trial, and allowed television cameras to film Khodorkovsky sitting in a cage right in the middle of the courtroom. That image was extremely powerful, because none of the other oligarchs wanted to be in the same position. After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, the other oligarchs went to Putin and asked him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky. From what followed, it appeared that Putin’s answer was, “Fifty percent.” He wasn’t saying 50 percent for the Russian government or the presidential administration of Russia, but 50 percent for Vladimir Putin personally. From that moment on, Putin became the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world, and my anti-corruption activities would no longer be tolerated....

Information from the Panama Papers also links some money from the crime that Sergei Magnitsky discovered and exposed to Sergei Roldugin. Based on the language of the Magnitsky Act, this would make Putin personally subject to Magnitsky sanctions.

This is particularly worrying for Putin, because he is one of the richest men in the world. I estimate that he has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains from these types of operations over his 17 years in power. He keeps his money in the West and all of his money in the West is potentially exposed to asset freezes and confiscation. Therefore, he has a significant and very personal interest in finding a way to get rid of the Magnitsky sanctions.

The second reason why Putin reacted so badly to the passage of the Magnitsky Act is that it destroys the promise of impunity he’s given to all of his corrupt officials.

There are approximately ten thousand officials in Russia working for Putin who are given instructions to kill, torture, kidnap, extort money from people, and seize their property. Before the Magnitsky Act, Putin could guarantee them impunity and this system of illegal wealth accumulation worked smoothly. However, after the passage of the Magnitsky Act, Putin’s guarantee disappeared. The Magnitsky Act created real consequences outside of Russia and this created a real problem for Putin and his system of kleptocracy.

[And then he goes on to draw the links between this extraordinary corruption and the lawyer the president's son and son-in-law met with.]

Trump and Macron, once cast as adversaries, show they have much in common

I just have to first put this in perspective for our short attention span American readers.  Macron as you will remember was loudly lauded for saving France from a fascist contender Maria Le Pen by mainstream press.



But he is no friend of progressives...in fact. he was a 39 year old investment banker in a highly-paid position at Rothschild & Cie Banque.  And, no friend of labor....they hate him but the establishment were not having a real progressive such as Melenchon who actually wanted peace and justice (see update.)  Mainstream press in US, France and Britain were saturated with handsome images of Macron.  A wolf in sheep's clothing, (well not sheep really, rather charming, successful young business man.)  Just another example of how blindered the mainstream pundits are.  Macro is a business executive and is going to fuck french people.  Now media are surprised and think something changed or are just now seeing that they have a lot in common.  Well way to go Washington Post that was a giant screw up call.  But we told you so.

.Trump and Macron, once cast as adversaries, show they have much in common - The Washington Post:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-scenarios-factbox-idUSKBN17L1W8 bad article but has the list.of french candidates

Update: A new article for World Socialist Web Site is considers Melenhon a reactionary and points to his support for the military.  It is interesting in that he is called pro war by virtue of wanting borders, and sovereignty and protection from Germany rather that the NATO gambit that is all about Russia.  I admit my confusion in this argument but the conclusion about Macron still stands.

America is the poorest first world country

Chris Hedges on RT tv with Linh Dinh, author of Postcards from the End of America (30 min.)

What Does Russiagate Look Like to Russians?

Basic Russian history lesson. Yeah, I know Americans are not big on history, even remembering their own, but inform our actions according to Norman Soloman and Matt Taibbi we should at least try to under stand history before the bozo in President's office pushes the big red button. For a short history you'll have to read the article.

     For all the fears about Trump being a Manchurian Candidate bent on destroying America from within, the far more likely nightmare endgame involves our political establishment egging the moron Trump into a shooting war as a means of proving his not-puppetness.
     This already almost happened once, when Trump fired missiles into Syria with Russian troops on the ground, seemingly as a means of derailing a Russiagate furor that was really spiraling that particular week. That episode proved that the absolute worst time to bang the war drum under Trump is when he's feeling vulnerable on Russia – which he clearly is now.
     Rising anti-Russian hysteria and a nuclear button-holder in the White House who acts before he thinks is a very bad combination. We should try to chill while we still can, especially since the Russians, once again, probably aren't as powerful as we think.

Taibbi: What Does Russiagate Look Like to Russians? - Rolling Stone:



'via Blog this'

Would Medicare-For-All be the Answer for our Health Care System?

OK, OK, enough with the "we must defend the Affordable Care Act, (Obama Care), Nobody I know ever wanted this without a public option anyway but somehow we are all being named as the loyal masses that the dirty Republicans are fucking over by attacking it.  I will editorialize no further and let Dr. Geyman speak for himself.  Keep in mind this article is from January 2013, before Trump, before the Republican congress, even before 2014 when most of ACA went into effect, but just check out his predictions of system failures that have indeed all come to pass and worse.

      Dr. Geyman predicts that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) “will fail to control costs or prices, will not provide universal access to care, and at best will provide low value, high premium “insurance” that will still make essential health care unaffordable for many millions of patients and families.”
     According to Dr. Geyman, “The ACA’s fundamental flaw is that it props up an inefficient and exploitative private health insurance industry while not recognizing that deregulated markets can’t fix systemic problems of access, costs, quality, equity, accountability and sustainability.” In Dr. Geyman’s view, this flows from the political fact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was “crafted in large part by corporate stakeholders who are themselves responsible for the high costs of U.S. health care. More

Dr Greyman is obviously a hardened advocate for Medicare for all and has written extensively for many years, is past president of Physician for a National Health Plan and all having been working on this issue since 1987.  30 years -- my god that is ancient history, and for that 30 years the insurance industry has done exactly what I predicted in 1994 when California single payer, prop 186 was defeated in a high priced campaign of lies -- they would sucked the life blood out of the health care system until we had to nationalize it dead and rotting corpse. And, you know what?  It is by all rights indeed nearly dead.  Oops, I digress, editorializing and I said I wouldn't.



The following is from a recent article An American Tragedy: Healthcare for Profit which reviews Dr. Geyman's new book Crisis in US Health Care: Corporate Power vs The Common Good (Copernicus Healthcare which tracks 60 years of for profit American health care.  It is an indispensable history especially at this time when truth telling is in such short supply all around.

      Here are some statistics about the US’s ruinous system of health care that you’ll find appalling, though probably not surprising. Page numbers come from the book I’m reviewing here:

• The combined annual cost of insurance and health care is $25,000 for a family of four, while one year’s worth of cancer drugs exceeds $200,000, forcing patients to choose between bankruptcy and treatment. [262]
• Health care makes up a seventh of America’s national income, despite which, 50,000 Americans die every year because they lack health insurance, according to findings in 2012 by Harvard researchers and the US Census Bureau. [98]
• Tens of millions of uninsured or underinsured Americans include “5.9 million uninsured mothers, one in five of whom are likely to have the greatest physical and mental health care needs.” The “underinsured” are 31 million people who have insurance but can’t get care when they need it. Even the insured get “surprise bills for services they thought would be covered.” [261]
• In 2014 over a half-million Americans paid more than $50,000 each for medicine, up by 63% from 2013, having been prescribed high-cost “specialty” drugs. [81] In that year the cost for a bottle of 500 tablets of the common antibiotic Doxycycline, soared from $20 to $1849 in just six months. [80] The contrast with other countries is immense; Herceptin, a breast cancer drug, costs 30 percent less in England and 28 percent less in Norway than it does in the US. [81]
• Costs vary from region to region and even from hospital to hospital. In California, an uncomplicated Caesarian section ranges from $8,312 to $70,908, while in the early 1960s it cost $300 and included pre- and post-natal care. [79]

These statistics are drawn from Dr. John Geyman’s Crisis in US Health Care: Corporate Power vs The Common Good. A founding member of Physicians for a National Health Plan, Geyman charts “60 years of ‘enormous changes,’ 1956-2016,” the period of his primary care practice in rural and urban regions. A former conservative who turned progressive as he learned about America’s health-care enormities, Geyman says our health care predicament is rooted in “a confrontation between profit-seeking corporate stakeholders and the common good,” and while he doesn’t use the c-word, the book is a thoroughly convincing indictment of capitalism in its effects on our nation’s health.”

Both of these below are from 2013
Would Medicare-For-All be the Answer for our Health Care System? | HelpingYouCare®:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-geyman/the-affordable-care-act_b_2537411.html

It’s Time To Raise the Level of Public Debate about Syria | Tim Hayward

This blog post is so convoluted it makes my head spin.  White helmets, abused little girls, hack, shills. good foundations letting themselves be used for profit by propagandists.  Seriously. it boggles the mind.  In balance however, who to believe is less important and less accessible than who to distrust.  If you think you are informed about Syria you will begin to doubt what you know after reading this.  It’s Time To Raise the Level of Public Debate about Syria | Tim Hayward:

Trump ends CIA support for anti-Assad Syria rebels

The hawks, especially among democrats will hate this because they are on such a "Russian everything" trip and they just love dealing weapons.  Democrats, get a grip. This was a very bad policy anyway.  Now let's stop bombing. (update: oops well it looks like the Obama era program was such a flop--who could have guessed that arming nasty mercenaries could have been unhelpful -- that there hasn't been a peep out of the press in 3 days.  My mistake, the hawks are simmering but with zipped lips.)

     Al Jazeera's Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Washington, DC, said the efficacy of the CIA programme to support "moderate" rebels fighting Assad has come under question since Russia's intervention in 2015 to support Assad.
     "But even at its inception, this programme was considered to be minuscule - it would only arm a few hundred Syrian rebel fighters a month," she said.
"And then in 2015 when Russia entered the conflict, throwing its oversized military weight behind Assad ... the CIA programme's perceived impact diminished to nearly inconsequential.
     "But the US held on to it, apparently in an effort to maintain it as a bargaining tool in future negotiations with Russia."
     Juan Cole, history professor at the University of Michigan, told Al Jazeera that the groups the CIA was training and arming are small and have largely been defeated.
"So they're not much of a bargaining chip if that's what they were being held for," he said.

Update:  With Syria you just can't believe anything.  Her is a another report.

     US Continues Supporting Terrorists in Syria  by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
     It’s naive to believe otherwise. It’s central to US strategy since launching war for regime change.
     Tactics alone changed from then to now, not Washington’s objective – allied with Israel and other rogue states to topple Syria’s legitimate government

Here is the report which includes the Russian reponse tot he so-called news of ending the program.  Be Suspicious of the Fake News that US is withdrawing from Syria and ceasing to arm 'Rebels' - PaulCraigRoberts.org:  Full disclosure alert:  Roberts has a checkered past and has seemed to flip flop on big views and some consider him a white supremist and you have to wonder about his Reagan era supply side economics work and his stint at the WSJ.

This story fills out the details of the arming of rebels.  Trump ends CIA support for anti-Assad Syria rebels' | News | Al Jazeera:

This is where the story first broke  washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ends-covert-cia-program-to-arm-anti-assad-rebels