MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - April 18. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world low seismic activity in Japan  today between 4.5 and 4.7! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 89..Source : Here .

• Japan  : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog

• HT:EmergingCorruption.White House Legislation for DHS Control of all ‘.gov’ Domains (and as always, more).Firstly, “White House legislation;” what’s wrong with that picture? Well, that’s not so uncommon (except in the Obama administration, where he usually hides behind Congress, while his comrades type and type and type). Anyway…I remember reading a comment in a forum or somesuch, perhaps in the Spring of 2008. Maybe it was in FreeRepublic.com. The commentator asserted that Barack Obama was not a liberal; rather he was an authoritarian Marxist. That was one of those “consciousness raisers,” that year.It comes to mind again, seeing the article below at Federal News Radio.Consciousness raiser… and by Occam’s Razor, what conclusions does this suggest, about the Obama Administration and our progressives in Congress? Does this appear to be a liberal policy initiative, or authoritarian?By Jason Miller.Executive Editor,Federal News Radio

Under a White House plan, the Homeland Security Department will have far-reaching oversight over all civilian agency computer networks.The proposal would codify much of the administration’s memo from July 2010 expanding DHS’s cyber responsibilities for civilian networks.The White House, however, is taking those responsibilities further, according to a source familiar with the document. The administration drafted a legislative proposal to give DHS many, if not all, of the same authorities for the .gov networks that the Defense Department has for the .mil networks.Federal News Radio recently viewed a draft copy of the legislative proposal.“I have to question why the Executive branch is writing legislation,” said the source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. “This is not a proposal or white paper like the White House usually sends to Capitol Hill. This is the actual legislation.”The source said the 100-page document is going through interagency review. DHS sent the document around to agencies late last Friday and asked for comments by Monday. The source said few agencies had time to take a hard look at the document, especially in light of the possible government shutdown.Sources on Capitol Hill and in government confirmed the White House is working on such a proposal.A DHS spokesman said the agency doesn’t comment on pending legislation.The anonymous DC source also introduces the “Google provision,” which would establish vaguely drafted nationalized controls over whose servers may store .gov sites. The report further states, this legislation broadens RICO standards in the prosecution of private actions deemed cyber crimes.So, here is another piece of legislation that requires high intensity light.Hmmmm......Anyone still doubting they're dealing with a 'dictator' moving ahead for "takeover"?Read the full story here.

• Obama Silent on Storms That Killed Dozens.(WhiteHouseDossier)Devastating storms roared through the South Saturday, killing 45 people and destroying the lives of an untold number of survivors, but President Obama has said nothing so far, either publicly or through a written White House statement.Instead, the president went golfing Sunday.Obama has been criticized as being slow off the mark in responding to a variety of crises, from the horrific Gulf oil spill to the rebellion against Qaddafi in Libya.Obama’s inability to muster a few minutes of public empathy on behalf of the country for those reeling from Saturday’s tragic events is another failure of leadership for the president.And the decision by Obama’s handlers to allow to get on the golf course Sunday without making any kind of statement about Saturday’s domestic disaster is incomprehensible.The new team in charge led by Chief of Staff William Daley and Senior Adviser David Plouffe was supposed to be hard at work eliminating Obama’s tone deafness. But they seem to be mainly hard at work on his reelection campaign.Obama’s advisers most recently green lighted a family trip to Latin America that looked a lot like a partial vacation, a televised showcase of him selecting his NCAA brackets, and yes, an outing on the golf course – all while the president was launching the United States into a war with Libya.I assume he will at least say something about the storms today. But the people affected them were suffering YESTERDAY. Even though it was supposed to be a day off.Hmmm.....Dictators don't care about the suffering of the individual,even those dictators who PRETEND to be CHRISTIAN!Read the full story here.

• HT:NewZeal.Say “Goodbye” to the Dollar.Commentator J.R. Nyquist on the recent BRIC Summit and a probable Russian/Chinese attack on the US dollar.The BRIC Summit, held on 14 April in Sanya (People’s Republic of China), brought together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The key to understanding the summit may be found in the joint statement, which refers to “the inadequacies and deficiencies of the existing international monetary and financial system….” Without question, this statement is about eliminating the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency. Therefore, the BRIC countries are asking for “the reform and improvement of the international monetary system, with a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty.”It appears, with the addition of South Africa to the BRIC alliance, that gold is being contemplated as a means for backing a new reserve currency. China and South Africa are the two leading gold-producing countries. Russia is the sixth leading gold producer, and Brazil is 15th. But this is not an easy game to win, because the dollar’s position is almost unbeatable. Furthermore, the United States, Canada and Australia have steady gold production. But here, at the BRIC Summit, a serious challenge is being mounted. If the dollar is to be overthrown, a humble beginning must be attempted. And who knows what countries will join the BRIC Summit next year?The sequence of unraveling is easy to follow. If you dump U.S. Treasuries, how will the U.S. dollar remain the global reserve currency? In that event, how will the United States finance its deficit spending? Interest rates would skyrocket, with predictable consequences. “Pushed to the limit,” Freeman wrote, “the U.S. dollar would follow the path of the German currency … following defeat in World War I.” The danger should be perfectly clear, and Freeman spells it out so that even a simple person could understand: “U.S. military strength hinges on economic well being and innovation. These facts are well understood by our enemies, prompting the desire to change the balance of power.”The BRIC summit testifies to the desire of Russia and China to undermine the dollar. However crazy you think such a scheme, they are nonetheless pursuing it. You might say it makes no sense, but you are not a “former” KGB officer or a member of the Chinese Communist Party. Do you really imagine that KGB officers and Communists are bourgeois, like you? No, they are not. They are the declared enemies of the bourgeoisie.You may rationalize this any way you please. You can tell yourself that Communism is dead, that Russia and China are attempting to build consumer societies like our own. BRIC may sound foolish today, but tomorrow you may find your local grocery store empty and gasoline unavailable because the dollar is no longer worth anything.Hmmmmm.......Thank you Hussein mission accomplished?Read the full story here.

• Ahmadinejad: 'The era of Zionism has passed away'.Speaking at celebrations for Iran's Army Day, Ahmadinejad denounces Israel and capitalism, accuses US of fomenting Arab unrest.Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing crowds gathered on Monday in honor of Iran's Army Day, stated that "the era of Zionism and capitalism has passed away." Discussing the unrest sweeping Middle East and North Africa, Ahmadinejad pointed the finger of blame at the United States, accusing Obama and his government of conspiring to create a rift between Iran and other Arab nations.In public speech last week, Iranian president says he envisions new Middle East without presence of Israel, US and their allies.Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives plan to attack Western targets in the coming days, a Lebanese report said on last week.The report was based on information gathered by Western intelligence agencies monitoring the “recent abnormal movements of cadres suspected of belonging to Hezbollah or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” the Beirut Observer website said.According to UPI, the report said the attacks are meant to divert global attention from indictments the international United Nations tribunal is expected to serve in the investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.Also last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the world would see a new Middle East without the United States and Israel. He made the remark in a speech to thousands of people in the southeastern city of Zahedan, Iranian Press TV reported.The Iranian people and regional nations are unhappy with the existence of the Zionist regime [Israel], and are against it. They will continue their fight until the defeat of the US and Zionist regime in the region,” Ahmadinejad said.Read the full story here.

• HT:HumanEvents.Obama: Incorrigible Statist and Debt Menace.by David Limbaugh.In my book Crimes Against Liberty, I described President Obama as dishonest, hyper-partisan, a bully, a narcissist and a hard-core left-wing ideologue. Anyone who thinks my description is exaggerated or too harsh didn't hear his Wednesday speech on the budget.One might have expected that a newly elected president who had "inherited" such a disturbingly high deficit, a growing national debt, and a forecast of unfunded entitlements soon to explode because of baby boomer demographics alone would roll up his sleeves and tackle this deficit and debt problem.Instead, Obama saw that $1.3 trillion deficit, licked his Marxist chops, and used it as an excuse to double down on the profligate spending that was driving our budgetary problems in the first place. He proposed -- and secured -- an $800 billion "stimulus" package.Just as Obama refused to hear the American people on his dastardly Obamacare and insisted that they "take another look" at his plan -- a 55th look, to be precise -- he is now insisting that we continue to bankrupt America, because he refuses to abandon his Marxist determination to confiscate and redistribute private property and consummate his grandiose vision of transforming America from a land of equal opportunity to one of equal outcomes -- depressed outcomes.He is an incorrigible, militant statist who will not stop of his own volition, so he must be defeated. If this latest performance doesn't awaken the lingering Obama apologists to the full extent of his aversion to solving America's problems, nothing will, and they must be defeated, too.Hmmmm.......You're leaving out the most important fact "He's also a dictator" he won't 'follow' the rule of law.Read the full story here.

• Obama regime Heaps Praise on Al-Jazeera, “They’re a Really Important Media Entity, We Have A Really Great Relationship With Them”.(Politico) — In the halls of American power, the Arab Spring has brought Al-Jazeera in from the cold.Seven years after then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the broadcaster’s reporting “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable” and President George W. Bush joked about bombing it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised it as “real news” in her recent Senate testimony.Not only that, her staffers, as well as those of the CIA and the Obama White House, were attending the Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner as Al-Jazeera’s guests.“They are a really important media entity, and we have a really great relationship with them,” said Dana Shell Smith, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international media engagement, who speaks Arabic and has frequently appeared on the channel. “This administration has empowered those of us who actually do the communicating to be in a close relationship with Al-Jazeera. They understand that the relationship can’t consist of complaining to each other about the differences we have.”The differences also have shrunk as the big story in the Middle East has shifted from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the democratic movements sweeping the region. In the recent uprisings, U.S. interests tended to line up with Al-Jazeera’s, and President Barack Obama alluded to both the network’s influence and its pro-democracy bent in remarks caught on an open mic during a closed-door fundraiser last week.“The emir of Qatar came by the Oval Office today, and he owns Al-Jazeera basically,” Obama said in remarks recorded by CBS News’s Mark Knoller. “Pretty influential guy. He is a big booster, big promoter of democracy all throughout the Middle East. Reform, reform, reform. You’re seeing it on Al-Jazeera.”Hmmm.......Can we impeach him now?Read the full story here.

• Armenian diaspora prepares to protest President Obama ahead of April 24.US President Barack Obama will encounter a public protest when he visits the Los Angeles area on April 21 as the Armenian diaspora has upped the pressure on Washington to officially recognize the killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I as genocide in the run-up to the upcoming anniversary of the deaths, which is marked on April 24 as “Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.” The Armenian Genocide Community Task Force has issued a call to the entire Armenian-American diaspora in Southern California, calling on the community to join a public protest to be held outside a fundraising event for Obama at Sony Studios. “He must hear our community’s profound disappointment with his failure to honor his campaign promise that as president, he would recognize the Armenian Genocide and deliver justice to the Armenian people,” the call said, according to the Los Angeles-based English-language Armenian newspaper Asbarez. In Yerevan, meanwhile, a leading member of the Armenian National Assembly said on Sunday that Obama will not use the term genocide this year either, as she highlighted that the issue is not on the political agenda of the United States.Hmmm....There's no way he will offend his Muslim brother buddy Erdogan"Muslims don't commit Genocide"?Read the full story here.

• HT:TROP.Tape Reveals Florida Imam Hoodwinked Lied to the Qur’an-Burning Pastor.A newly surfaced audiotape demonstrates how Imam Muhammad Musri, director of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, deceived the pastor of a charismatic Christian church in Gainesville, Florida, to avert the burning of a Qur’an in September 2010. During the run-up to America’s annual 9/11 commemoration, Dr. Terry Jones, mustachioed head of the Dove World Outreach Center, made an international splash by threatening to ignite the Muslim holy book in protest. After personal appeals by the President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, and a New Jersey automobile dealer who promised Jones a new car if he’d leave the Qur’an unlit, the pastor relented.At the time, however, Jones insisted that none of those appeals was decisive. Rather, he assured the news media that Imam Musri—who stood beside him on September 9 before the reporters, cameras and microphones gathered in Gainesville—had brokered a deal whereby New York City’s $100 million, 13-story Park51 mosque would be relocated from its proposed site within two blocks of Ground Zero.[...]

“Let me get your message straight,” Jones cautiously seeks to clarify. “Your message is you talked to the imam and—”

“He is willing to relocate,” Musri affirms.

“The mosque,” Jones ventures, still intent on correctly understanding Musri’s offer.

“The mosque from Ground Zero. OK?” says Musri impatiently. “To an alternative location that is not controversial at all, away from Ground Zero. OK?”

“He is willing to do that?” Pastor Jones asks one last time, just to be safe.

“Yes,” says Imam Musri, who adds that the offer is conditional on Jones forgoing his Qur’an burning.

“Of course, obviously,” replies Jones.

A few hours after the tape’s release, The New York Times interviewed Muhammad Musri by telephone. The imam maintains Jones’s recording is a fake. “I don’t think it’s authentic,” Musri told The Times. “Even with whatever is in that transcript, it does not say I am promising him it will be moved. He made it up, as simple as that.”Yet given the newfound evidence, it’s impossible to consider this another He Said. The tape’s audio quality is good. The transcript is accurate. The record speaks for itself. Imam Muhammad Musri is a liar.And Pastor Terry Jones, for all his anti-Muslim rhetoric (his book is titled Islam Is of the Devil), fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Obama's 'smart diplomacy' allows Hezbullah's South American operations to escape.In a joint operation with the US Drug Enforcement Agency, Colombia has arrested Walid Makled, one of the three top drug dealers in the World. Makled is a Syrian-born Venezuelan citizen, who claims to have a treasure trove of information on Hezbullah operations in Venezuela. Makled is in a position to know. He is believed to have paid more than $1,000,000 per month in bribes to Venezuelan generals and ministers to protect his drug business.Makled will only give the information he has about Hezbullah to the United States. But he is being extradited to Venezuela and not to the United States as he wished. Colombia is afraid of Venezuela. Colombia is also afraid that Washington will abandon it.Makled claims to have information on Chavez's help to Hezbollah and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups operating in the Venezuelan soil. Makled stated in an interview that Hezbollah is "absolutely" active in Venezuela. He also has information on the flights between Venezuela and Teheran -- a serious source of concern for the US.As the Washington Post puts it: "The Obama administration is about to lose an extraordinary opportunity to prosecute one of the world's biggest drug traffickers. It will fail to break up a network that annually smuggles hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States. And it will miss delivering a devastating blow to the most dedicated U.S. adversary in Latin America, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez."Hmmmm.....If he really wanted to destroy America would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• DOJ Source: Obama Regime’s Muslim Outreach Jeopardizing Terror Investigations.(PajamasMedia)The nearly six-hour interview I conducted earlier this year with a top Department of Justice official on the condition of anonymity brought forth a number of revelations about serious problems within the U.S. government’s homeland security and law enforcement community.Last Thursday, I reported here exclusively at PJM on a DOJ memo dated March 31, 2010, from Assistant Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. The memo effectively ended the prosecution of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Omar Ahmad — in addition to the prosecution of other prominent American Muslim leaders — for helping support the Hamas terrorist organization. This decision, according to my source, was not made based on the overwhelming evidence that had been compiled over the past decade by the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, but was made due to potential political embarrassment for the Obama administration and out of fear of inflaming the American Muslim community.But another troubling claim came out during our interview: “Muslim outreach” programs by U.S. government agencies to terror-tied Islamic groups have directly interfered with ongoing terrorism investigations.Hmmmm......."I will stand with my Muslim Brothers"?Read the full story here.

• HT:AtlasShrugs.FEC to Investigate 2008 Atlas EXCLUSIVE: Obama's Secret Campaign Cash: Millions from Foreign Sources.Newsmax is reporting that the Federal Election Commission is finally investigating the story I broke back in 2008 on all of the improper campaign contributions, foreign money and illegal donations to the Obama campaign. Newsmax cites Ken Timmerman's article, but I broke the story that Timmerman writes about (all posts here), and it was well documented in my book: The Post American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.Obama’s 2008 campaign finance records are full of riddles, mysteries, and unanswered questions. Contributing nearly $25,000 to the Obama campaign was Monir Edwan, who was listed on FEC documents as contributing from the city of Rafah in the state “GA.” Georgia? No – there is no Rafah in the Peach State. Monir Edwan sent money to Obama from Rafah, Gaza.Rafah is a Gaza refugee camp.The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) “prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.”Yet no one has found it noteworthy that Barack Hussein Obama himself appears to be in violation of this statute.According to the FEC, contributions to the Obama campaign from three brothers, Osama, Monir and Hosam Edwan, all from Rafah, totaled $33,000.And they weren’t alone. Al-Jazeera reported on March 31, 2008 that Gazans were manning phone banks for the Obama campaign.The brothers were vocal in their “love” for Obama – which in itself spoke volumes to Obama’s campaign. The media showed no interest, but Obama pricked up his ears. He smelled trouble; even though no reporters asked him about these contributions, he answered anyway. The Obama campaign contended in the summer of 2008 that they had returned $33,500 in illegal contributions from Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza – despite the fact that records do not show that it was returned, and the brothers said they did not receive any money. And indeed, Obama’s refunds and redesignations on file with the FEC show no refund to Osama, Hossam, or Monir Edwan in the Rafah refugee camp.Why did Palestinians in a Gaza refugee camp have such love for Obama in the summer of 2008? Did they know he was going to run a jihad presidency?Just as disturbing were the phone banks in Gaza campaigning for Obama. Muslims in Gaza methodically worked the phones in Internet cafes, calling Americans and doing everything they could to influence the vote.When New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler was confronted with the Gaza phone banks issue while campaigning for Obama in South Florida in early November 2008 said that if there “really were phone banks in Gaza, that would be a major campaign issue.” He said it would be all over the media and be a major problem for the campaign. And he laughed at the idea that Obama was receiving campaign contributions from Gaza. The mainstream media laughed along with him, continuing its refusal to cover this explosive story.If there had been just one questionable tie, one link to jihadist entities, one link to groups advocating the destruction of Israel, Barack Obama might have merited the free pass he got from the mainstream media about this. But there were so many.And to this day they have never been explained.Hmmmm....."I will stand with my Muslim brothers"?Read the full story here.

• Danny Ayalon: There's no other solution than to topple Hamas.Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon on Saturday said that "Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization whose aim is to destroy Israel," adding that the Gaza-based group's regime should be toppled."Only the collapse of Hamas rule in Gaza will stop the firing," referring to the launch of two Grad rockets towards Ashkelon overnight Friday. "There is no other solution," Ayalon added.MK Eitan Cabel (Labor) and MK Ze'ev Bielski (Kadima), speaking at another cultural event in Yehud on Saturday, said it is the government's responsibility to pay any price in order to secure the release of captive soldier Gilad Schalit.The two added, the prime minister needs to make this difficult decision, perhaps the toughest decision in recent times - to release murderers with blood on their hands - so that Hamas releases Schalit, Israel Radio reported.Hmmmm.......What could go wrong?Read the full story here.

• America, the Dependent.By MichelleMalkin.So much for the new era of fiscal responsibility. The federal government's dependency drones have been spared the chopping block. After vowing to eliminate funding for President Obama's bloated $6 billion AmeriCorps social justice army, House Republicans retreated -- and will shrink the AmeriCorps budget by a minuscule 6.7 percent.Politicians originally sold AmeriCorps as an alternative to big government -- a program to "renew the ethic of civic responsibility and the spirit of community throughout the United States." With bipartisan support, the program has morphed into an all-purpose progressive slush fund. Instead of reining in the national service boondoggle, Washington has turned taxpayer-subsidized helping hands into a legion of Nanny State handout helpers. Goodbye, AmeriCorps. Hello, FoodStampCorps.Yes, across the Internet, the feds are recruiting AmeriCorps VISTA ("Volunteers in Service to America") workers to apply for jobs as publicists for the welfare state. Their mission: to sign up as many people to federal food stamp rolls as possible. Because, you know, the record-breaking 12 million that have been added since Obama took office is apparently not good enough.Make no mistake: Americans are suffering as a result of this profligate administration's job-stifling and anti-economic growth policies. No one questions the need for a basic safety net to care for those most in need of help. But the community-organizer-in-chief is squandering billions on failed Alinsky-ite rackets that are geared toward ever-expanding service not to the individual, but to the insatiable state.Hmmmm......If he really wanted to destroy America would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Qaradawi in a coma?Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who just two months ago enthralled two million Egyptians with his Jew hatred, is rumored to be in a coma.According to the Syrian News Network, renowned Islamic scholar Yousuf Al Qaradawi has fallen into a coma.The report gave no source or link. No confirmation has been obtained so far. However, the news has spread quickly on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.Hmmmm......"Silence is Golden"?Read the full story here.

• HT:Newzeal.KeyWiki Hits 4,000,000 Views.Many of my readers will be aware of a project I have been working on for just over a year now. KeyWiki: Unlocking the covert side of U.S. and Global politics. KeyWiki now has almost 50,000 articles and – as I noticed today, has just hit over 4,000,000 page views. Four million views is good, but it is nothing compared to how powerful this wiki is becoming and will become in the very near future. As we increase the number of contributors to the wiki, the number of articles will increase; KeyWiki articles will become higher and higher in search results, meaning that more and more people will get better access to the truth about those who would seek the downfall of America.I look forward to the bright future of KeyWiki, which, in association with my blog, New Zeal, will continue to shine the torch for liberty in the United States, in New Zealand, and around the World. I would be honored to have you standing with me.Trevor Loudon.Source .

• As Putin Crushes Russia’s Internet, Obama Stands By.(PajamasMedia).The technologically hip president is abetting the ruin of online freedomBoth the United States and Russia began gearing up over the past few weeks for their coming presidential elections next year. As with most things, the course of events in the two countries was rather different.In America, the opposition party candidates began jockeying for position and the incumbent declared his intentions. In Russia, where there is no opposition party and the incumbent is a mere figurehead, the corrupt dictatorial regime began systematically eradicating political dissent on the Internet.In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, there are three significant sources of dissent, all based mainly on the Internet: bloggers on the LiveJournal (LJ) host, the website of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and the website of shareholder rights activist Alexei Navalny, who is something like the Russian Ralph Nader.Between March 24 and April 8, all three came under a vicious, determined, and overwhelming DDOS attack from a powerful, shadowy enemy — and all three faltered and fell from their Internet perches. One of the LJ bloggers who disappeared was Dmitry Medvedev, the so-called “president” of Russia. Another LJ blogger, Timur_nechaev77, asked: “Who ordered the attack on LiveJournal is a rhetorical question. Who has been carrying out a mop-up operation of the mass media and the Internet for the last 10 years?”In Russia today, nobody has any doubts about the answer to that question. In Washington, D.C., though, it seems our government remains very much in the dark.A few months ago, Rustem Adagamov, the single most powerful LJ blogger, warned: “The Internet is the last free territory [in Russia] — but it won’t stay that way for long.” It didn’t take long for him to be proved right.Just as the DDOS attacks subsided, a high-ranking figure in the Russian state security forces — formerly known as the KGB — announced that his agency favored shutting down “foreign” Internet communication hosts such as Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail. These services, he said, use encryption technology that is difficult for the KGB to break, and therefore pose a direct threat to Russian national security.Putin’s moves to shut out contact between Russia and the outside world appear deranged when you know that Russia is facing a massive and increasing shortfall in foreign investment. With little domestic savings to speak of, Russians depend on foreigners to float their boat, yet their government is doing all it can to prevent them from understanding the needs and concerns of foreigners, which only further alienates foreign money from the Russian market.And Putin’s goons are going much further. The security forces are already openly bragging about reading the e-mail of opposition leaders, openly storming the offices of opposition publications at will, and openly seeking to bribe LJ bloggers to toe the Kremlin line. They are, in other words, practicing not just to destroy the Internet’s ability to influence the next presidential “election” in Russia, but to bring about a sea change in the way Russians get information from the Internet — permanently rendering the web useless as a means of challenging the Kremlin’s power.Obama has done nothing at all to stand up for American values in Russia. Instead, he’s munched burgers with Medvedev, unilaterally given up missile defense in Eastern Europe, and made it clear he thinks Medvedev is a progressive figure that America should support. This allows Medvedev to sell himself to his electorate as a man respected by the outside world, further undermining the legitimacy of those who would challenge him.In fact, to the shocking contrary, Obama may actually support the Kremlin’s efforts to wipe out privacy on the Internet. His administration is actively seeking to crack open Skype and Gmail, just like the Putin Gestapo. Who knows? Maybe Putin and Obama are sharing notes and secret midnight whispers.In short, one of the most memorable events of the Obama administration may well be the laying of the RuNet in its grave — and the rise of a fully realized neo-Soviet dictatorship in Russia.Hmmmm.......How long before Obama follows, or has he already ?Read the full story here.