June 17, 2011 — Contents

FRIDAY JUNE 17 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL: Non-competitive Russia

(2)  EDITORIAL: Putin is Killing Russia with his Neo-Soviet Song

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Welcome to the Horror of Neo-Soviet Russia

(4)  Putin Goes Totalitarian

(5)  Pandemic Vote Fraud in Putin’s Russia

(6)  A Postcard from a Russophile Stoogette

(7)  CARTOONS: Russia’s Super Toilet

NOTE:  LR founder and publisher Kim Zigfeld’s latest installment on the powerful and influential American Thinker blog analyzes the shocking new evidence of electoral corruption in Putin’s Russia and the even more shocking silence of the Obama administration in regard to it.

EDITORIAL: Non-Competitive Russia

EDITORIAL

Non-Competitive Russia

China #27

India #51

Brazil #58

Russia #63

Once again, the World Economic Forum has found Russia to be bringing up the rear when surveyed for economic competitiveness and compared to the other nations in the so-called BRIC group.  At #63, Russia’s rating remained totally unchanged from last year, no increase in competitiveness whatsoever. Well outside even the top 50 world nations, Russia is languishing in a backwater that gives it absolutely no basis for inclusion in lofty assemblages like the G-8 and the Security Council.

Russia’s growth rate in the first quarter of 2011 was half that of India and China, and it has the highest corruption perception rating of any BRIC nation.

EDITORIAL: Putin is Killing Russia, Slowly, with his Neo-Soviet Song

EDITORIAL

Putin is Killing Russia, Slowly, with his Neo-Soviet Song

If you are a child in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, you have a 20% chance of being born in wedlock and not seeing your parents divorce.  30% of all Russian children (300 out of every 1,000) are bastards, born out of wedlock, and 70% of those born in wedlock (500 of the remaining 700) will see  their parents divorce. This means only one in five Russian children will have a shot at a “normal” home life.

No doubt out of pity for this pathetic chance of happiness, the average number of children per family in Russia is now 1.59, compared with 1.9 in 1990.  That’s a drop of over 15% in two decades.  Half of Russian couples have no children, less than five percent have more than two. And that’s with the Kremlin bribing couples silly to have children! Just imagine how far the rate would have fallen without such bribery!

EDITORIAL: Welcome to the Horror of Neo-Soviet Russia

EDITORIAL

Welcome to the Horror of Neo-Soviet Russia

When you click the jump, you will see an image of the leather trench coat that was worn by officers of the NKVD, the organization that became the KGB and is now the FSB (the organization has twice been required to change its name to try to ward off its disgraceful past).  The NKVD, like their successors, were responsible for  horrific crimes against the people of Russia and were a legion of goons that terrorized the country in order to support the Stalin dictatorship.  They were integral in carrying out one of the most infamous crimes against humanity in world history, the Katyn massacre in 1940 Poland.

Putin Moves Russia From Authoritarianism to Totalitarianism

Pavel Felgenhauer, writing on the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor:

A group of 14 acclaimed Russian intellectuals, including human rights activists, artists, film directors, writers and aides of the late President Boris Yeltsin have published an open statement condemning the present regime for “completely destroying the institution of democratic elections in Russia.” Election results are shamelessly falsified by the authorities, while opposition parties and activists are “unconstitutionally” denied registration to run in elections under cooked up pretexts.

As a result, subjects of the Russian state are disfranchised from the political system rendering it illegitimate. The statement describes as “vicious” the so called “vertical of power”—a system of personalized authoritarian rule the prime minister and leader of the ruling United Russia Vladimir Putin has been building since 1999. This “vertical of power” has created a rubberstamp misrepresentative parliament, a “paralyzed Dmitry Medvedev presidency” and dysfunctional regional and municipal authorities.

Pandemic Vote Fraud in Putin’s Russia

Vladimir Ryzhkov, writing in the Moscow Times:

There is something sinister in the way ballot boxes were purportedly stuffed during the March 13 Tambov regional elections to boost United Russia’s results. It was pulled off under the cover of a blood drive.

Last Thursday, Nikolai Vorobyov, a lawyer and Tambov regional head of the Party of People’s Freedom, released a 20-page report detailing election fraud. It contained hundreds of testimonies, photos, videos and statements made by witnesses. As a drop of water reflects the composition of the larger sea, a glimpse into the Tambov elections reflects the entire complex machinery of lies and fraud that United Russia apparently uses over and over again across the country to create the illusion of popular support for the party.

According to Vorobyov’s report, this is how the election fraud was carried out:

A Postcard from a Russophile Stoogette named Nora Fitzgerald

One Nora Fitzgerald recently had a letter to the editor published in the Moscow Times, responding to a recent op-ed piece by Richard Lourie which exposed the naked propaganda fraud that is “Russia Beyond the Headlines,” a paid supplement churned out by the Kremlin and foisted upon financially hapless Western newspapers. What follows is the letter verbatim with our commentary in boldface following each paragraph.

Interestingly, “Russia Beyond the Headlines” doesn’t publish letters to the editor.

CARTOONS: Russia and its Super Toilet

Translation: Get lost! This is an anti-terrorist toilet!

Source: Ellustrator.

Source: Ellustrator.

For background, click the jump.