U.S. Sen. Angus King told federal intelligence officials at a congressional hearing Thursday looking into allegations of Russian interference with this year’s presidential election that “people in Maine are skeptical” about the charges. Though the independent senator from Maine has expressed few doubts about the role played by Russia in hacking Democratic computers and spreading […]
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Posted inNation / World, sj-web
President Obama slaps sanctions on Russia, expels 35 diplomats
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has imposed sanctions on Russian officials and intelligence services in retaliation for Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election by hacking American political sites and email accounts. The State Department also has kicked out 35 Russian diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in San Francisco, giving them […]
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Posted inLetters
Issues of ethics and trust
I am hoping that Susan Collins, Maine’s senior senator, will make herself visible and raise her voice to have a complete investigation into the recent presidential election interference by the Russians. That is far beyond a partisan issue, as is Donald Trump’s continued failure to release his tax information and disentangle his finances prior to […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Hackers provided information; voters made their choices
By Ramesh Ponnuru Bloomberg News Let’s assume that Russia tried to swing the election to Donald Trump. Newspaper reports say that intelligence officials have reached that conclusion. Did Russia’s efforts succeed? Trump backers, and even some conservatives who didn’t back him, are defensive about that point. But Trump’s margin in the electorally decisive states was […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Maine
Sen. Angus King: Russian hacking ‘an attack on democracy’
BRUNSWICK — As a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Maine’s junior senator knows a lot he can’t talk about. But what U.S. Sen Angus King, I-Maine, could say Tuesday is that “the Russians were involved” in hacking Democratic Party computers and that they intended to influence the presidential election. “This is […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Russia’s cyclic war in Ukraine continues
Intense combat suddenly erupts in eastern Ukraine. Russian-backed rebels — using Kremlin-supplied heavy artillery, mortars and machine guns — launch a series of attacks on Ukrainian military positions. Other rebels raid neighborhoods or probe Ukrainian defenses around the Black Sea port of Mariupol. Then the violence stops. All appears to be quiet on Europe’s eastern […]
Posted inNational Sports, sj-web
Russia loses appeal against Olympic track and field ban
Russia Summer Olympic Profile | PointAfter LONDON — Russia lost its appeal Thursday against the Olympic ban on its track and field athletes, a decision which could add pressure on the IOC to exclude the country entirely from next month’s games in Rio de Janeiro. The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected the appeal of […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Putin’s creeping aggression proceeds
On Feb. 25, 2014 — two bloody years ago if you live in eastern Ukraine — Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Since then, the Kremlin has cleverly pursued its “creeping war of aggression” and its death toll — Russian and Ukrainian alike — continues to mount. Ukraine gets the worst of it, suffering […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Iran marches, Russia rules, Obama watches
WASHINGTON — Guess who just popped up in the Kremlin? Bashar al-Assad, Syrian dictator and destroyer, now Vladimir Putin’s newest pet. After four years holed up in Damascus, Assad was summoned to Russia to bend a knee to Putin, show the world that today Middle East questions get settled not in Washington but in Moscow, […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Austin Bay: Putin-era Kremlin tests NATO solidarity
Denmark’s Bornholm Island apparently troubles Vladimir Putin’s 21st-century Kremlin war planners as much as it vexed their Cold War Soviet-era predecessors. More on Bornholm’s specifics in a moment, but first let’s cover one more example of Putin Russia’s aggressive wrongdoing. According to an open-source Danish security assessment, in mid-June 2014, three months after Putin’s Kremlin […]