The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Trenton NJ, More than eight months since Governor Murphy signed bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senators Paul Sarlo and Declan O’Scanlon requiring the State Treasury to divest certain Russian holdings, the State appears to have done little in way of following the law’s requirements.
Continue reading Murphy Administration Fails to Comply with its Own Russian Divestiture Law
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Ridgewood NJ, This NJCCIC Advisory is being provided to assist agencies and organizations in guarding against the persistent malicious actions of cybercriminals. At this time, the NJCCIC is not aware of any specific or imminent cyber threat to NJ.
The New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell, also known as the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness’ Division of Cybersecurity.
Continue reading Crisis in Ukraine : Currently no specific or imminent cyber threat to New Jersey
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Ridgewood NJ, National Intelligence Director John Ratcliff just declassified information revealing that the Trump-Russia collusion hoax was Hillary Clinton’s plan to fabricate a Trump scandal and take eyes off of her e-mail server scandal.
These newly declassified documents this week have only served to confirm US intelligence agencies were weaponized by President Obama and his senior leaders.
Continue reading Newly Declassified Documents Shed Light on Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax
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Ridgewood NJ, Two Iranian nationals have been charged in connection with a coordinated cyber intrusion campaign – sometimes at the behest of the government of Iran – targeting computers in New Jersey and around the world, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced today.
Now, you can easily track hockey scores, as it’s enough to choose a reliable broadcasting platform.
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Only a few days are left before the new KHL season begins. So, the clubs have already made public the list of new squads and are undertaking the last preparations. In this off-season period, most of the teams have made a lot of transfers. Due to this, the balance of power within the KHL may change significantly.
July 23,2018
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Washington DC, The Department of Justice has released documents used by the government to justify the FISA surveillance warrant against Carter Page, a former campaign adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.
The materials released by the DOJ include an October 2016 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Page as well as several renewal applications.
It is highly unusual for documents related to FISA wiretap applications to be released.
Though heavily redacted, the documents show that the infamous and fake Steele Dossier was a major component of the 2016 surveillance warrant. The Steele Dossier, has been exposed as opposition research funded by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign, contains salacious but totally false allegations against Donald Trump. It was also a major component used to justify subsequent renewals.
Security experts claim that the poor grammar of the report and shaky spelling plus the author’s use of KGB-style intelligence reporting, do not fit the image of a high-end London security company run by highly connected former British intelligence figures.
The report gives a fly-on-the-wall account of just about every conceivable event associated with Donald Trump’s Russian connections. It claims to know more than is knowable as it recounts sordid tales of prostitutes, “golden showers,” bribes, squabbles in Putin’s inner circle, and who controls the dossiers of kompromat (compromising information). It is well know the President Trump is a germaphobe and “golden showers ” seem immediately unrealistic which casted doubt on the rest of the report from the start.
Much of the story makes no sense. In 2011, when the courtship with Russia purportedly begins, Trump was a TV personality and beauty pageant impresario. Neither in the U.S. or Russia would anyone of authority anticipate that Trump would one day become the presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party, making him the target of Russian intelligence.
Records Sought by Judicial Watch May Remain Closed to the Public for Five Years
Washington DC, Judicial Watch today announced that the National Security Council (NSC) on May 23, 2017, informed it by letter that the materials regarding the unmasking by Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” have been removed to the Obama Library.
The NSC will not fulfill an April 4 Judicial Watch request for records regarding information relating to people “who were identified pursuant to intelligence collection activities.”
The agency also informed Judicial Watch that it would not turn over communications with any Intelligence Community member or agency concerning the alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election; the hacking of DNC computers; or the suspected communications between Russia and Trump campaign/transition officials. Specifically, the NSC told Judicial Watch:
Documents from the Obama administration have been transferred to the Barack Obama Presidential Library. You may send your request to the Obama Library. However, you should be aware that under the Presidential Records Act, Presidential records remain closed to the public for five years after an administration has left office.
Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) April 4 request sought:
1.) Any and all requests for information, analyses, summaries, assessments, transcripts, or similar records submitted to any Intelligence Community member agency or any official, employee, or representative thereof by former National Security Advisor Susan Rice regarding, concerning, or related to the following:
Any actual or suspected effort by the Russian government or any individual acting on behalf of the Russian government to influence or otherwise interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
The alleged hacking of computer systems utilized by the Democratic National Committee and/or the Clinton presidential campaign.
Any actual or suspected communication between any member of the Trump presidential campaign or transition team and any official or employee of the Russian government or any individual acting on behalf of the Russian government.
The identities of U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team who were identified pursuant to intelligence collection activities.
2.) Any and all records or responses received by former National Security Advisor Susan Rice and/or any member, employee, staff member, or representative of the National Security Council in response to any request described in part 1 of this request.
3.) Any and all records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the Department of any Intelligence Community member agency and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice and/or any member, employee, staff member, or representative of the National Security Council regarding, concerning, or related to any request described in Part 1 of this request.
The time frame for this request was January 1, 2016, to the April 4, 2017.
While acknowledging in its FOIA request that “we are cognizant of the finding by the Court of Appeals … that [the NSC] “does not exercise sufficiently independent authority to be an ‘agency’ for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act,” Judicial Watch argued:
The records sought in this request pertain to actions by the former National Security Advisor that demonstrate a much higher degree of independent authority than was contemplated by the court; specifically, the issuance of directives to the Intelligence Community related to the handling of classified national security information…
The recent revelations of the role of Susan Rice in the unmasking the names of U.S. citizens identified in the course of intelligence collection activities and the potential that her actions contributed to the unauthorized disclosure of classified national security information are matters of great public interest.
Judicial Watch has filed six FOIA lawsuits related to the surveillance, unmasking, and illegal leaking targeting President Trump and his associates (see here, here, here, here, here and here).
“Prosecutors, Congress, and the public will want to know when the National Security Council shipped off the records about potential intelligence abuses by the Susan Rice and others in the Obama White House to the memory hole of the Obama Presidential Library,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We are considering our legal options but we hope that the Special Counsel and Congress also consider their options and get these records.”
Why liberal conspiracy theories are flourishing in the age of Trump.
Updated by Zack Beauchamp@zackbeauchampzack@vox.com May 19, 2017, 8:30am EDT
President Donald Trump is about to resign as a result of the Russia scandal. Bernie Sandersand Sean Hannity are Russian agents. The Russians have paid off House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz to the tune of $10 million, using Trump as a go-between. Paul Ryan is a traitor for refusing to investigate Trump’s Russia ties. Libertarian heroine Ayn Rand was a secret Russian agent charged with discrediting the American conservative movement.
These are all claims you can find made on a new and growing sector of the internet that functions as a fake news bubble for liberals, something I’ve dubbed the Russiasphere. The mirror image of Breitbart and InfoWars on the right, it focuses nearly exclusively on real and imagined connections between Trump and Russia. The tone is breathless: full of unnamed intelligence sources, certainty that Trump will soon be imprisoned, and fever dream factual assertions that no reputable media outlet has managed to confirm.
Twitter is the Russiasphere’s native habitat. Louise Mensch, a former right-wing British parliamentarian and romance novelist, spreads the newest, punchiest, and often most unfounded Russia gossip to her 283,000 followers on Twitter. Mensch is backed up by a handful of allies, including former NSA spook John Schindler (226,000 followers) and DC-area photographer Claude Taylor (159,000 followers).
There’s also a handful of websites, like Palmer Report, that seem devoted nearly exclusively to spreading bizarre assertions like the theory that Ryan and Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell funneled Russian money to Trump — a story that spread widely among the site’s 70,000 Facebook fans.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-louise-mensch
By Rich Lowry
April 10, 2017 | 8:43pm | Updated
The circumstantial evidence is mounting that the Kremlin succeeded in infiltrating the US government at the highest levels.
How else to explain a newly elected president looking the other way after an act of Russian aggression? Agreeing to a farcically one-sided nuclear deal? Mercilessly mocking the idea that Russia represents our foremost geo-political foe?
Accommodating the illicit nuclear ambitions of a Russian ally? Welcoming a Russian foothold in the Middle East? Refusing to provide arms to a sovereign country invaded by Russia? Diminishing our defenses and pursuing a Moscow-friendly policy of hostility to fossil fuels?
All of these items, of course, refer to things said or done by President Barack Obama.
To take them in order: He re-set with Russia shortly after its clash with Georgia in 2008. He concluded the New START agreement with Moscow that reduced our nuclear forces but not theirs. When candidate Mitt Romney warned about Russia in the 2012 campaign, Obama rejected him as a Cold War relic.
https://nypost.com/2017/04/10/turns-out-obama-was-the-real-russian-stooge/
The CIA has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into Democratic and Republican computer networks and selectively releasing emails. But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar things.
The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.
That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring.
Levin defines intervention as “a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.” These acts, carried out in secret two-thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-us-intervention-foreign-elections-20161213-story.html
CLINTON CASH OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARY MOVIE ( FULL )
I just saw an excellent documentary called “Clinton Cash” on One America News Network (FIOS Channel 616) that ended a little while ago. It outlines timelines when Bill Clinton received money for speeches in countries like Haiti, Canada, Russia, Columbia and many more and the deals Hillary Clinton made as Secretary of State either immediately prior to or following Bill Clinton’s speeches.
Interestingly, they mention that although Hillary Clinton said on Fox News today that Bill Clinton has been receiving money for speeches since he was no longer president, he speech fees tripled and more during the time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. A must watch.
Also, I googled “Hillary’s America” because me and my parents wanted to go to see it in the movies,and the theaters that were playing it are suddenly unreachable by phone because of high call volume. I’ve heard the documentary was pulled from the theaters and I can’t find it online. Does anyone have any information?
It is despicable that the media is controlling our political process in the United States by holding back information they do not want people to know about, and spreading rumors and fanning the flames of less important events. I will never buy a newspaper again, and I’ve unsubscribed to my daily news from northjersey.com. I do not want to hide my head in the sand. I want the real news! Let the people choose their candidate without interference from the media or from our current president who has no business campaigning and speaking for HIllary Clinton to keep his political agenda going. I’m tired of liberals saying Republicans are spreading fear and gloom and doom when it is in fact them who are spreading fear and rumors to win the election and not talking about the real issues.
Rystad Energy estimates US has 264bn barrels of recoverable oil
YESTERDAY
by: Anjli Raval, Oil and Gas Correspondent
The US holds more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and Russia, the first time it has surpassed those held by the world’s biggest exporting nations, according to a new study.
Rystad Energy estimates recoverable oil in the US from existing fields, discoveries and yet undiscovered areas amounts to 264bn barrels. The figure surpasses Saudi Arabia’s 212bn and Russia’s 256bn in reserves.
The analysis of 60,000 fields worldwide, conducted over a three-year period by the Oslo-based group, shows total global oil reserves at 2.1tn barrels. This is 70 times the current production rate of about 30bn barrels of crude oil a year, Rystad Energy said on Monday.
https://next.ft.com/content/7525f1dc-41d6-11e6-9b66-0712b3873ae1
U.S. actions in the Middle East helped Islamic State to gain influence, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, according to Interfax.
The strengthening of Islamic State “became possible partly due to irresponsible U.S. politics” that focused on fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad instead of joining efforts to root out terrorism, Medvedev was cited as saying in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday. President Barack Obama earlier on Sunday said that Russia is facing a strategic choice as Assad can’t stay. The Obama administration declined to comment Sunday on Medvedev’s statement.
The U.S. contributed to the strengthening of al-Qaeda, which led to the events of Sept. 11, Interfax reported, citing Medvedev. The terrorist threat can only be fought jointly, he said.
Medvedev and Obama met in the Malaysian capital at the East Asia Summit that followed a week of talks and conferences in Asia dominated by the battle against terrorism. The United Nations on Friday unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for countries to take “all necessary measures” to combat Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
By David McCabe
Russia lifted its ban on the delivery of an anti-missile system to Iran just weeks after negotiators reached a framework agreement over Iran’s nuclear program, Reuters reported on Monday.
The ban on the delivery of the S-300 system and other weapons has been in place since 2010, when the United Nations announced its own ban on selling arms to Iran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly signed off on lifting the ban on providing S-300 anti-missile rocket systems to Iran.
Earlier this month, Western powers and Iran reached a framework agreement to limit Tehran’s nuclear research in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. Russia is a party to the talks.
Sen. Robert Menendez, comes out swinging against Obama Administration Foreign Policy
Amid Looming Federal Corruption Charges, N.J. Democrat Pushes Back Against Obama Administration Policy to Counter Russia
Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97 / March 09, 2015
Amid whisperings that the Justice Department will file criminal corruption charges against Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the long-time senator today spoke about the importance of the U.S. standing strong against Russia and warned that inaction could embolden countries with nuclear capabilities.
“The simple fact is we all want a diplomatic solution to this problem. But I believe this can only come about when Putin believes that the cost of continuing to ravage Ukraine is simply too high,” he said. “We have a responsibility to increase that cost.”
Menendez, speaking alongside former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, addressed a full house at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., on how the U.S. should respond to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“It has never been in our nature to simply observe,” he said of the United States. “In my view, it is in our strategic interest to be an active participant in leading any effort to counter Russia.”
Don’t have time to read the Washington Post or New York Times?Then get The Morning Bell, an early morning edition of the day’s most important political news, conservative commentary and original reporting from a team committed to following the truth no matter where it leads.
Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been a leading voice in calling for additional sanctions against Russia and advocated for the U.S. to arm Ukrainians as the neighboring country continues to make territorial gains.
The U.S. has sent nonlethal military aid to Ukraine, including blankets and night vision goggles, but Menendez joined a chorus of Republican and Democratic lawmakers pushing for lethal aid.
“That’s all well and good if I can see the enemy, but I have no wherewithal to stop them. It really is not responding to the fundamental challenge,” he said.
Specifically, the New Jersey senator called on the president to provide the country with equipment like counter-artillery radar, surveillance drones, anti-tank and anti-armor weapons, and ammunition.
Military leaders including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter back calls to arm Ukrainians. The president hasn’t yet said whether he will approve lethal aid to the country, but hasn’t ruled it out either.
“We need to send a very clear global message: If you violate and upend the international order, there will be consequences,” the New Jersey Democrat said. “And we have to mean it when we say it, and we have to back up our words with a menu of agreed upon actions that will follow. There should be no ambiguity about either our resolve or what actions we would consider.”
Menendez warned that the country’s response to Russia is being looked at by other global actors—particularly those with nuclear capabilities.
“Whether it’s China in the South China Sea that has territorial disputes with our allies, South Korea and Japan, or the challenge we face with a nuclear-armed North Korea, or the challenge of [President Nicolás] Maduro in Venezuela oppressing his people—I could go through a long list of global actors who, in the absence of assured consequence for violating the international order, will be emboldened,” he said. “That is an incredibly risky world to live in.”
The senator’s speech on Russia came just days after CNN reported that the Justice Department will file criminal corruption charges against the long-time senator. The charges center around his relationship with friend and political donor Salomon Melgen and are the culmination of a two-year investigation into the duo’s ties.
Menendez hasn’t been indicted yet, and the looming threat of the charges hasn’t stopped him from speaking out against the president’s policies.
“The United States must lead,” he said in closing today. “American leadership counts.”
https://dailysignal.com/2015/03/09/amid-looming-federal-corruption-charges-sen-robert-menendez-pushes-back-obama-administration-policy-counter-russia/