January 28, 2011 — Contents

FRIDAY JANUARY 28 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Signs of the Neo-Soviet Apocalypse

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Russia and the Apes who Guard Her

(3)  The Horror of Russian Lawlessness

(4)  Putin and Khodorkovsky

(5)  Defending Nemtsov

NOTE:  Kim Zigfeld’s latest installment on the mighty Pajamas Media megablog exposes the totally outrageous and offensive anti-American smear issued by the Washington Bureau Chief of ITAR-TASS in response to the Loughner murders in Arizona. We condemn this vile little man and his ape-like lies, and we urge all patriotic Americans to do the same.

NOTE:  Kim’s latest column on the influential American Thinker blog castigates BP and other spineless Western companies who invest in Russia, exposing Russia’s total failure on numerous recent international evaluations.

NOTE:  Neither Tchaikovsky nor Rachmaninov nor any other Russian make the list of top ten composers of all time (Stravinsky, a defector, is Russia’s only claim to fame). Ouch.

EDITORIAL: Signs of the Neo-Soviet Apocalypse

EDITORIAL

Signs of the Neo-Soviet Apocalypse

“It would be good to draw up an all-Russian dress code. You think that is a utopia? It is not. People will soon have to get used to it.”

That was Russian Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Orthodox Church’s department for relations between the church and society, talking about the women of his country, who he says are “barely dressed or made up like a clown will certainly not find a man as a partner in life with an ounce of sense or self-respect.”  He says, with typical Russian bluntness, that they deserve to be raped, and that the Putin dictatorship will save them from themselves by imposing a dress code, a remarkably similar attitude to what they have in places like Saudi Arabia and other fanatical religious states.

And make no mistake, dear reader:  This is a powerful Russian connected directly to the neo-Soviet Kremlin.  The dress code could become reality any second. So could legalized rape.

EDITORIAL: Russia and the Apes who Guard Her

EDITORIAL

Russia and the Apes who Guard Her

Russia's Ape in Chief

Russia is guarded by apes, as if she were a bunch of bananas.

This leads to some truly barbaric consequences. For instance, in the wake of the arrest of former first deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov for criticizing the Kremlin while holding a written legal writ to do so, followed by a torrent fo foreign outrage and a lawsuit against Russia by Nemtsov in the European Court for Human Rights, Russian parliamentarian Anton Belyakov of the “Just Russia” political party called for an investigation.

Of Nemtsov.

The Horror of Russian Lawlessness

Oksana Bashuk Hepburn, a former senior policy adviser for the government of Canada, writing in the Kiev Post:

Despite losing the cold war some 20 years ago, Russia is determined to regain superpower status without concessions to a new world order. The policy issue for Canada and others is this: how far to tolerate Russia’s aggression in the name of good relations? And: will it change, if criminal behavior is accommodated?

Russia’s lawlessness is evident. It invades sovereign territory, issues passports to citizens of other states and fails to honor agreements to withdraw troops. It ranks in the top 10 percent of the world’s most corrupt states; the only G-20 country with such a distinction. There’s mischief-making in Transdnistria, cyber attack on Estonia, interference in Kyrgyz Republic’s internal affairs. Relations with neighbors are consistently confrontational. It even uses orthodoxy to spread 19-century pan-Russianism worldwide.

Putin and Khodorkovsky

Michael Bohm, editorial page editor, writing in the Moscow Times:

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent a clear and chilling signal on Dec. 16 that the “soft autocracy” of his first decade in power will become more oppressive in his second decade.

It was on that day that Putin effectively delivered the guilty verdict in the second trial of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky during his annual call-in show — two weeks before Judge Viktor Danilkin actually found Khodorkovsky guilty of embezzlement and money laundering and added six years to his sentence, ensuring he will be locked up until 2017.

Putin’s declaration that Khodorkovsky belonged in jail was eerily similar to Stalin’s notorious practice of delivering a sentence and then having the court confirm it. Putin easily could have not selected the Khodorkovsky question during the call-in show and applied pressure on Danilkin in private. Instead, Putin flouted an apparent disregard for the law on national television. (Applying pressure or interfering in a trial is a violation of Article 294 of the Criminal Code.)

A Call to Western Action on Nemtsov

Vladimir Kara-Murza, writing on World Affairs:

Russian officials have a selective approach to holidays. When it came to arrestingopposition leader Boris Nemtsov on New Year’s Eve and sentencing him on January 2 (a Sunday), no effort was spared. Yet when it came to hearing his appeal, Tverskoy Court remembered that January 1 to 10 is a period of vacation. By law, an appeal against administrative arrest must be heard within 24 hours. The former deputy prime minister has been in detention since December 31, but his appeal has still not been reviewed due to “holidays.” On January 8, another attempt to vindicate Nemtsov’s legal rights ended with Mr. Nemtsov’s lawyer, Timur Onikov, being escorted out by bailiffs. On January 11, the appeal was admitted as a priority case — by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.