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Ukraine: Globalists Hijack Crisis for More Money, Power for IMF 22 March 2014 here already are enough controversial issues involved in the Ukraine-Russia crisis that make any U.S. involvement in the matter questionable at best. And, as we have reported, multiple polls consistently have shown that Americans do not support further U.S. entanglement in the imbroglio. But the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved legislation that not only supports the $1 billion aid package to Ukraine pledged by President Obama, but also hijacks the Ukraine crisis to sneak in “reforms” to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) backed by...

Since then, Putin increasingly has referred to Russia as distinct from the West. He promotes an “orthodox morality” that rejects Western notions of tolerance and inclusive societies — seen domestically in the imprisonment of Pussy Riot, new “anti-propaganda” laws targeting gays and a crackdown on any media deviating from the Kremlin line. The West discounted much of this exceptionalist narrative until it was used in Crimea. Putin’s soldiers-of-no-nation are branded “local self-defense forces” to underscore native pro-Russian support. The relentless information war propagates perceptions of ethnic-religious divisions and Western “hypocrisy.” Financial weapons underscore Putin’s reliance on oligarch-princes to revitalize orthodoxy...

Former Rep. Ron Paul says that America’s reaction to Crimea’s vote to secede from Ukraine should be,“so what?” “Why does the U.S. care which flag will be hoisted on a small piece of land thousands of miles away?” the Texas Republican and libertarian icon wrote in a USA Today op-ed Monday. ...Over the weekend, Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia,which the Russian government has moved to approve. American politicians have called the vote a sham and the administration has said it does not recognize the results of the vote,placing sanctions on some Russian officials in response. Ron...

London (CNN) -- Whatever U.S. and European leaders may say, it seems clear a majority of the residents of Crimea were only too happy to abandon Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The referendum held there on Sunday was illegal according to Ukrainian constitutional law and took place under duress, following the large-scale incursion of "pro-Russian forces" -- and voters did not have the choice to say "no" to severing ties with Kiev. But these failings aside, it appears plain that most of Crimea's population, with the exception of the Tatar minority and some ethnic Ukrainians, was content to return...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Denouncing Russia’s actions in Crimea as ‘‘nothing more than a land grab,’’ Vice President Joe Biden warned Russia on Tuesday that the U.S. and Europe will impose further sanctions as Moscow moved to annex part of Ukraine. With limited options, the United States was seeking ways to show it won’t stand idly by as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty for the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea to join Russia. So far, Putin has been undeterred by sanctions and visa bans levied by the U.S. and the European Union, and there’s no U.S. appetite for military...

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that Russia’s absorption of Ukraine’s Crimea region after a secession referendum and declaration of independence there violated international law. […] Merkel stressed that international organizations including the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe shared that view. …

Greece's cultural gems have become the focus of renewed protest on the streets of Athens following the cash-strapped government's announcement of plans to include prime properties around the Acropolis, and other landmark buildings, in its privatisation programme. Furious opponents marched through the city centre at the weekend to denounce the "illegal sale" of the country's heritage. More than four years into debt-stricken Greece's prolonged economic crisis, many described the step as the height of humiliation for a nation already hit by excoriating austerity and record levels of poverty and unemployment.... Greece's privatization programme has been problem-plagued from the day bankrupt...

The White House on Friday defended its decision to attach an IMF reform bid to a $1 billion aid bill for Ukraine, which has angered some Republicans and slowed the measure's passage in Congress. The bill has cleared a Senate committee but will not come up in the Senate until after next week's recess, and its prospects in the House of Representatives remain uncertain. "We support legislation that includes IMF quota reform because it's the right thing to do generally and because it provides additional means for the IMF... to give support to Ukraine." Some Republicans have accused the White...

Yesterday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill to authorize loan guarantees for Ukraine, similar to the bill that passed the House last week. The loan guarantee bill doesn’t directly increase spending; rather it adds Ukraine to the list of countries eligible for Economic Support Fund (ESF) grants. ESF grants have already been appropriated and are used as “walking around cash” for the State Department to send to allied countries in need of assistance (although the money often goes elsewhere). However, the bill does transfer extra funds into the Treasury in order to cover any potential default on the...

Hackers knocked out the Russian presidency's website several times on Friday and brought down the central bank website, the Kremlin press service said. "A powerful cyber attack is under way on the (Kremlin) site," a Kremlin spokeswoman said, adding that the attack was continuing and security experts were trying to prevent further disruptions.

On the heels of yet another multi-hour meeting with Russian foreign minister Lavrov, John Kerry takes to the podium to explain next steps... Live feed at link...

The infighting has been particularly vexing for McCain, who took to the Senate floor Thursday, after senators had wrapped up their votes for the week, with an impassioned screed against his colleagues who are planning to vote against the aid package over the IMF provision. "You can call yourselves Republicans," McCain continued. "That's fine, because that's your voter registration. Don't call yourself Reagan Republicans. Ronald Reagan would never—would never—let this kind of aggression go unresponded to by the American people." snip McCain was later joined on the floor for a lengthy, heated exchange among several of his GOP colleagues, including...

Today, as a result of the Ukrainian crisis, U.S.-Russian relations have hit their lowest point since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 or of Czechoslovakia in 1969 — or perhaps even since they bottomed out during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Crimean crisis, which began as a power struggle between the ruling authorities in Kiev and opposition forces, transformed in to an attempt to overthrow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych by pro-Western and nationalist opposition forces with the support of the U.S. and European Union. The crisis escalated into a conflict between the U.S. and Russia after the West supported a...

Undeterred by a recent Public Policy Polling poll that showed he has only a 30% job approval in his native Arizona, Sen. John McCain said on Fox Business’ “Cavuto” that he is considering running for reelection. McCain denied the poll was accurate

Obama Exploiting Ukraine to Empower IMF and Dictatorships 11 March 2014 The Obama administration is pushing hard for a series of controversial “reforms” aimed at massively expanding the power and resources of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while further scaling back U.S. influence at the institution....

Vladimir Putin isn’t the Easter Bunny. On the other hand, he isn’t Joseph Stalin. It takes a truly fevered imagination to see Russian forces in the Crimea as a prelude to Russian tanks rolling across Europe toward Berlin and Paris. Putin is a power player who cares more about Russia’s national interests, and Russian minorities in his near abroad, than in that mythical force known as world opinion. Would that America had a president who cared more about our interests than in promoting globalism and the left’s social agenda. The Crimea’s population is 60% ethnic Russian. For most of the...

Russia's Micex stock index fell 11% on Monday and the ruble hit an all-time low after Vladimir Putin's weekend invasion of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. The sour reaction suggests that investors understand that Mr. Putin's Achilles' heel is the Russian economy and its access to world financial markets, if the West has the wit and will to exploit it. The conventional wisdom in the pundit class is that Russia holds the economic edge because of its natural gas supplies to Ukraine and much of Europe. But that supply is a double-edged sword because Russia needs the foreign-exchange earnings as much as...

Russia's Black Sea Fleet has told Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender by 5.am (0300 GMT) on Tuesday or face a military assault, Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as saying. The ultimatum, Interfax said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet's commander.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a presidential hopeful and leading non-interventionist voice in the Republican Party, believes the United States should seek "respectful" relations with Russia and avoid antagonizing President Vladimir Putin over the ongoing political turmoil in Ukraine, where a Kremlin-backed government collapsed last week. "Some on our side are so stuck in the Cold War era that they want to tweak Russia all the time and I don't think that is a good idea," Paul said on Tuesday, in an interview with The Washington Post. Paul's comments underscore the latest foreign-policy fissure in the GOP, where the party's...

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