BREAKING: Hours After Nat’l Security Adviser Quits, Russian Spy Ship Spotted Off US Coast

A Russian spy ship has reportedly been spotted by officials just 70 miles of the U.S. East Coast for the first time since President Donald Trump took office — and just hours after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned from his position less than one month on the job amid controversy over a phone call with the Russian ambassador.

Two unnamed U.S. officials from an undivulged department allegedly told Fox News the Russian ship was seen 70 miles of the coast of Delaware, heading north at 10 knots — well outside United States territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles from the coast.

“It’s not a huge concern, but we are keeping our eyes on it,” one official said.

According to Fox News,

“The ship, the SSV-175 Viktor Leonov, last sailed near the U.S. in April 2015, an official said. The ship is capable of intercepting communications or signals, known as SIGINT, as well as measuring U.S. Navy sonar capability, a separate official said.

“The Russian spy ship is also armed with surface-to-air missiles.”

While Russia is perfectly within its rights to sail in international waters, the proximity of the ship to the U.S. after Flynn’s resignation would raise eyebrows of politicians who, for months, have championed an anti-Russia propaganda campaign.

“In his resignation letter, which the White House emailed to reporters,” the New York Times reports, “Mr. Flynn said he had held numerous calls with foreign officials during the transition. ‘Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador,’ he wrote. ‘I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president, and they have accepted my apology.’”

And, as Zero Hedge reports,

“The last time a Russian spy ship was spotted in relative proximity to the US, was in September 2015, when shortly after five Chinese naval ships were observed in the Bering Sea, U.S. military satellites identified a Russian spy ship – capable of cutting undersea communications cables and other sensors – off the coast of Kings Bay, Ga., home to the U.S. Navy’s East Coast ballistic missile submarine fleet. Needless to say, the US navy – and Pentagon – were quite displeased: after all it is only Russia that is allowed to be surrounded by NATO forces.”

That wasn’t the only time this particular vessel was spotted near the U.S., as the Daily Mail notes,

“In a throwback to the Cold War, the spy ship also caused a stir after unexpectedly docking in Havana on the eve of historic talks between the U.S. and Cuba the following year.

“There was nothing stealthy about the arrival of the Leonov, which was moored to a pier in Old Havana where cruise ships often dock. But the visit was not officially announced by Cuban authorities.”

Although U.S. media quickly jumped to report the story — shortly followed by Iranian state press — Russian state-run outlet RT noticeably lacked any coverage of the soon-to-be controversial sighting even an hour after the story broke.

In fact, without visual confirmation or the names, rank, or departments of the officials cited by Fox News — and the recent trend of corporate media proffering news items before vetting them for accuracy — it would be prudent to ingest this information as questionable, rather than proven.

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In that vein, the timing of the report less than 24 hours after Flynn’s resignation seems far less than coincidental.

This is a developing story and will be updated as necessary.

Snopes Conveniently Silent on WaPost’s Dangerous Fake Story About Russia Hacking US Power Grid

Snopes, one of the new arbiters of Fake News for Facebook, has been utterly remiss in its fact-checking duties by failing to report the false allegation The Russians hacked into Vermont’s power grid — perhaps because the original claim appeared in the Washington Post. 

But for whatever reason, Snopes — whose CEO David Mikkelson stands accused by ex-wife Barbara Mikkelson of embezzling company money to hire prostitutes — simply didn’t bother to report on the Post’s dangerous assertion Russian state actors had tampered with critical infrastructure.

Now emblazoned with an editor’s note essentially stating its original article amounted to Fake News, the Post declared on New Year’s Eve, “Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say” — but, as harrowing as that seems, the Department of Homeland Security begs to differ.

In fact, it simply isn’t true.

“While our analysis continues, we currently have no information that indicates that the power grid was penetrated in this cyber incident,” DHS assistant for public affairs J. Todd Breasseale said in a statement after the Post’s article justifiably garnered national attention.

Snopes, however, apparently didn’t deem the claim significantly influential to report as false, despite its perilous underlying suggestion — given attacks on the critical infrastructure are considered worthy of forceful response by the U.S. government — Russia should be targeted for military retribution.

Indeed, President Obama just expelled 35 Russian diplomats over as-yet unproven allegations The Russians hacked the presidential election — the theoretical hack of the nation’s power grid would present far more treacherous consequences.

But Snopes remained mum on the subject. Labeling the Post’s latest Fake News about Russia as ‘false’ should be plastered on the fact-checker’s front page — it not only isn’t there, keyword searches for anything related to Vermont, Russian hackers, the power grid, Washington Post, and more find no results for this particular story.

According to the Post’s editor’s note,

“An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.”

But Snopes — who will soon be part of a team tasked with deciding whether or not news items should bear the Scarlet Letter term, ‘disputed,’ on the world’s largest social media platform — is completely derelict of duty.

Tasked along with Politifact, FactCheck.org, the Associated Press, and ABC News with vetting the veracity of news items posted to Facebook in the near future, Snopes and the others have been repeatedly accused of liberal bias. This has understandably raised alarm that accurate but right-leaning news items — or any articles not in tandem with the political left establishment — will be unjustly branded as Fake News, punished by Facebook’s unforgiving algorithms, and, thus, have a chilling effect on dissenting opinion.

Beyond basic bias, however, Snopes not excoriating the Washington Post’s egregiously fake story on The Russians Hacking Vermont shows the organization has no tangible interest in actual fact-checking — rather, the outlet appears to spend its time attacking independent, alternative, and right-leaning media organizations.

And it does so even when the information published is accurate and verifiable — or flagrantly and intentionally false.

To wit, Snopes has even ‘debunked’ an obviously fake meme, which had been intended to be a joke amongst friends — and multiple other items — without so much as contacting the people involved.

Snopes also attempted to ‘debunk’ the story of a man given a DUI, who had only caffeine in his system, by claiming that the Free Thought Project “(implied) his legal troubles were the result of merely drinking too much coffee.”

However, that is not at all what was reported. In fact, the Free Thought Project simply covered the police department’s own admission that Schwab was charged with a DUI and the only drug in his system at the time was caffeine. These two facts are indisputable. However, the supposed arbiter of ‘fake news’ insisted on slandering the Free Thought Project anyway.

Make no mistake, a fact-checker who doesn’t take the time to debunk a viral claim of Russia hacking the U.S. electrical grid — that has since been retracted for being Fake News — has no business being tasked as Facebook’s arbiter of Fake News.

Instead, Snopes’ grievously deficient debunking of the McCarthyite corporate press proves the dangers of planned soft censorship — and the need to maintain an open platform for all opinion — one where alternative media can continue unhindered in calling out corporate media’s lack of journalistic credibility.

$600 Million in CIA Funds at Work? WaPo Runs Another Fake Story on Russia Hacking US Power Grid

Anti-Russia and disinformation hysteria has reached new heights, and — after the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the U.S., among other retributions for an ostensibly hacked election — the Washington Post continued its foray into Fake News with an article suggesting Kremlin actors hacked the electrical grid in Vermont.

Perhaps because the outlet got away with citing unnamed officials twice before during this reinvigorated Red Scare, the Post again blared its Russia Did It alarm with an article titled, “Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say.”

Interesting that one of the goliaths of journalism — a long-trusted, venerated institution with a prior history of admirable muckraking — would, of late, begin publishing articles based solely on the testimony of unnamed officials offering little more than references to past, equally vapid hysteria about Russia.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy joined the fervent fear-mongering by issuing a statement asserting,

“This is beyond hackers having electronic joy rides – this is now about trying to access utilities to potentially manipulate the grid and shut it down in the middle of winter. That is a direct threat to Vermont and we do not take it lightly.”

As tiresome routine would have it, corporate media joined in lockstep alarmism, parroting the Post’s article as if The Russians — now that Vermont had been ‘compromised’ — would bring down the power grid of the United States. Peter Shumlin, governor of the state putatively threatened by Russian Operatives, roped the whole country into the act, warning:

“Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality-of-life, economy, health, and safety.”

However, Vermont’s russophobia hasn’t a leg to stand on. As The Intercept’s itinerant co-founder Glenn Greenwald imperatively notes,

“There was no ‘penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.’ The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all their computers and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid.”

All of this comes on the heels of exceedingly dubious claims The Russians somehow hacked either ‘the election’ or the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta — and expose corruption therein — to persuade American voters to cast ballots for Donald Trump.

Why The Russians would so favor Trump has not yet been explained — nor has a single shred of evidence linking the Putin establishment to anything even remotely resembling the hack of any U.S. system.

A joint report from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI purported to evince Russian government fingerprints on the 2016 electoral cycle — but the disclaimer-laden information did not do so. Nonetheless, the lame duck Obama administration proffered the report as part of its evidence to justify expelling Russian diplomats and imposing sanctions — an act vehemently condemned by Russian officials and, at first, believed sufficiently aggressive to turn the new Cold War perilously hot.

Fortunately, Putin coolly laughed off this threadbare assessment — as he has previous anti-Russia delirium — and announced counter-retaliation for Obama’s ‘kitchen’ diplomacy, as he aptly termed it, would not be forthcoming.

Thankfully. Because, despite the valiant efforts of the U.S. government — through its loyal corporate media bullhorn — to paint Russia as the greatest evil Americans now face, the allegations have no basis in fact.

But it hasn’t been for lack of attempt to convince the American public The Russians are all but guilty of electing Trump — and the Washington Post has led the Red Scare parade straight down that McCarthyite path.

In fact, it was the Post who first published an article demonizing nearly the entirety of independent and right-leaning media as either hapless or intentional agents of the Kremlin — but cited nascent organization PropOrNot as evidence of the claim. Those allegations quickly fell apart both for literal absence of evidence and the amateurish ramblings displayed by PropOrNot on social media amid the fallout from the Post’s irresponsible report — which has since been all-but retracted.

But the Post didn’t end the Red Scare with just one black eye — and proceeded to publish an equally evidence-devoid article citing unnamed CIA officials who ostensibly said the presidential election had undermined by Russians desirous of a Trump victory, stating,

“The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.”

No proof — no report, no notes, not one iota of tangible information — was provided to back that assertion. Indeed, the Washington Post has championed modern McCarthyism — frequently publishing exclusive reports amounting to so much fiction.

And there might be a damned good reason the Post and the Obama administration have aligned on all things anti-Russia.

After building Amazon into an e-commerce behemoth, CEO Jeff Bezos purchased the ailing 140-year-old media goliath in 2013 for $250 million — but his lack of experience in media raised the eyebrows of that industry and much of the business world. As the New York Times reported in June this year on his repeated defense of the purchase,

“Mr. Bezos said he bought the newspaper because he wanted to make it into a more powerful national — and even global — publication, and that The Post was well situated to be a watchdog over the leaders of the world’s most powerful country. ‘If it had been a financially upside-down salty snack food company, I would not have bought it,’ he said.”

That explanation is telling given two critically pertinent circumstances.

The same year Bezos purchased the Post, Amazon landed a $600 million deal with the CIA to develop a coordinated computing cloud for all 17 agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.

Perhaps superficially innocuous on its own, that sizable deal appears somewhat darker in consideration of this year’s quasi-official continuance of the U.S. government’s most notorious propaganda program, Operation Mockingbird — during which intelligence agents posed as the media to imbue pro-American propaganda and censor certain information.

Additionally, just two days before Christmas, Obama signed into law as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act — routine legislation funding the military often containing riders robbing the populace of yet more freedoms — the creation of an official U.S. propaganda department called the “Global Engagement Center.”

This nasty law provides the impetus for suppression of news unfavorable to the political establishment — and the creation of news topics painting foreign foes in a negative light.

Such as Russia — the Washington Post’s perpetual villain.

Taken in the context of this Russians Hacked Into Vermont’s Electrical Grid To Doom Us All narrative, Bezos’ cozy business relationship with the CIA — and the government’s formal foundation of a propaganda department — tells of a potential direct conflict of interest when it comes to reporting actual news.

Of course, the Post’s bold assertion quickly morphed as it was passed along by other corporate media outlets to become a generalized threat to the country’s electrical grid — even though tiny Vermont’s had never been compromised.

All of this is designed to Red Scare the bejeezus out of ordinary Americans and confuse reality and fantasy to such a degree that Russia appears as a general threat — Bad Guy Number One — so the U.S. government can advance otherwise unsavory operations unscathed by public backlash where the old Cold War foe acts more laudably. Such as in Syria.

Russia Did It is nothing more than posturing and distraction posited by a moot American political regime. Putin, knowing this, chose the high road by refusing to volley aggressive diplomatic actions with the outgoing Obama administration — possibly halting the initiation of war in the process.

Accusing Russia of hacking the election, the electrical grid of Vermont, or installing propagandists inside the United States in order to elect Trump and destroy the nation constitute the Washington Post’s futile attempt to shirk blame for its own failed reporting — whether or not the irresponsible attacks are stained with fingerprints of the CIA.

Greenwald notes that, “given the stakes involved, along with the incentives for error and/or deceit, no rational person should be willing to embrace these accusations as Truth unless and until convincing evidence has been publicly presented for review, which most certainly has not yet happened.”

That Russia is responsible for anything other than bemused observation of  the U.S.’ current chaos is blatant propaganda — the one thing at which the Washington Post manages to excel.

What do They Know? CFR Just Deemed Russia-NATO as Top “Conflict” Risk of 2017

A “serious military confrontation” between Russia and NATO nations ranks at the top of the Council on Foreign Relations list of conflict risks for 2017 — and judging by the new McCarthyite, Red Scare hysteria gripping the nation, it seems the United States is hell bent on making that a reality.

For its ninth annual Preventive Priorities Survey, CFR’s Center for Preventive Action (CPA) “asked foreign policy experts to rank conflicts based on their likelihood of occurring or escalating and their potential impact on U.S. national interests.”

A military conflict between Russia and a NATO member nation would stem “from assertive Russian behavior in Eastern Europe,” according to the survey.

Other “top tier” risks with a “high” impact and moderate likelihood of occurring include a nuclear crisis with North Korea; a cyberattack on critical U.S. infrastructure; and a “mass casualty terrorist attack,” either in the United States or another NATO ally nation.

Additionally, three conflicts with a “high” likelihood which would have a “moderate” impact include “increased violence and instability in Afghanistan resulting from a continued strengthening of the Taliban insurgency and potential government collapse; the intensification of violence between Turkey and various Kurdish armed groups within Turkey and in neighboring countries; and the intensification of the civil war in Syria resulting from increased external support for warring parties, including military intervention by outside powers.”

CFR analysts did not deem any conflict both highly likely and highly impactful to U.S. interests, “a change from last year when an intensification of Syria’s civil war was considered the most urgent threat. Respondents still considered a worsening of Syria’s civil war to be highly likely in 2017, but downgraded its impact on U.S. interests from high to moderate.”

Analysts did, however, view President-Elect Donald Trump as a substantial wild card, as Paul B. Stares, CPA director and General John W. Vessey senior fellow for conflict prevention, explained:

“With a new presidential administration assuming office, it is important to help policymakers anticipate and avert potential crises that could arise and threaten U.S. interests. Our annual survey aims to highlight the most likely sources of instability and conflict around the world so that the government can prioritize its efforts appropriately.”

What the survey unsurprisingly fails to mention is the role the United States and NATO have actively played in a potential military conflict with Russia.

As recently as late June, Russian aggression remained a subject of debate — even within NATO. General Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, explained rather bluntly,

“It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing.”

But a number of Balkan states, paranoid about the possibility Russia would invade as it had in Crimea, requested support in the form of military protection from NATO — and the subsequent buildup of alliance forces along Russia’s border has been viewed by many as the true aggression in this scenario.

First deploying between 3,000 and 4,000 troops, Pavel initially claimed troop buildup would remain limited in scope due to the lack of substantive threat from Russia — but numbers quickly ballooned to at least 40,000, and it’s unclear at this point precisely how many NATO troops are stationed along the Russian border.

Further, on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, NATO put 300,000 troops on high alert over fears of Russian hackers. Since then, anti-Russian hysteria has gripped the American political establishment, and though no unassailable proof has yet surfaced, the CIA, various politicians, and mainstream outlets claim Russia did, indeed, interfere in the election.

That claim, though plastered in a constant string of headlines, has been disputed by the FBI and, more recently, a Wikileaks insider. Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and known ally of Julian Assange, told the Daily Mail on Tuesday,

“Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians. The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.”

Murray also penned in a blog post:

“I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

“A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they ‘know the individuals’ involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of ‘We know who it was, it was the Russians’ are beneath contempt.”

What, exactly, is the ultimate goal with this Red Scare, McCarthyite scaremongering isn’t yet clear, but the tactic has certainly furthered the cleft between the U.S. and Russia — making CFR’s conflict assessment of the situation all the more believable.

Whether the incoming Trump administration will heed the warning — and end the unnecessary, absurdly dangerous provocation — is still an open question.