She said Germany would continue increasing its military spending until it reaches 2% of gross domestic product, the NATO standard. But she cautioned against believing that “security is only ensured by raising one’s defense spending.”
.. He added that Moscow is looking for a new kind of world order, one where Russia has a loud voice. “If you want you can call it a post-West world order,” he said.
.. Mr. Lavrov also said the U.S. has produced few hard facts backing up its accusation of Russian interference in the American presidential election, which Moscow denies. He said people complained that Mr. Trump provided no evidence when he said there was voter fraud in U.S. election but didn’t demand evidence in this case... NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has taken up Mr. Trump’s call for allies to spend more on defense and has been pressing allies to develop spending plans ahead of the president’s visit to Europe in May... Without mentioning Mr. Trump, Ms. Merkel pushed back against the notion that the West is at war with Islam... German officials worry that Mr. Trump’s emphasis on bringing NATO more directly into waging the war on terrorism—rather than doing so in a broader coalition with Arab countries, as the Obama administration did—could feed anti-Western attitudes in the Middle East.
Russian Foreign Ministry to Set Up ‘Fake News’ Watchdog
The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced plans to combat “fake news” by setting up a new section on its website designed to counter and “expose” foreign media publications.
.. “Quite soon, we will launch our own project on the official Foreign Ministry website where we will collect “fake news” from leading foreign media outlets and the statements of official representatives of various countries,” Sakharova said, adding, “We will expose them, publish original sources and data, and we will prove that the Russian side has already responded to the specific issues in question. We will work on this.”
.. She noted that the French independent presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was said to be the latest victim of Russian hacking saying that his movement En Marche had claimed to have been undergoing cyberattacks. “One gets the impression that Mr Macron is trying to one-up Hillary Clinton. This is a dubious path,” she said and accused En Marche leader Richard Ferrand of spreading “fake news.”
The Silence of the Hacks
So what do Republicans in Congress, who have the power to investigate the situation, believe should be done?
Nothing.
Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, says that Michael Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador were “entirely appropriate.”
.. Why?
Well, Senator Rand Paul explained it all: “We’ll never even get started with doing the things we need to do, like repealing Obamacare, if we’re spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans.”
.. you can’t understand the mess we’re in without appreciating not just the potential corruption of the president, but the unmistakable corruption of his party — a party so intent on cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating banks and polluters and dismantling social programs that accepting foreign subversion is, apparently, a small price to pay.
.. Republicans didn’t worry so much that holding a lawless president accountable would derail their hard-line agenda.
.. Now we know that even as the F.B.I. was creating the false appearance of scandal around his opponent, it was sitting on evidence suggesting alarmingly close relations between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Flynn One of Many With Russian Ties Surrounding Trump
MIKE FLYNN
In December 2015, he visited Moscow to participate in a 10-year anniversary gala for RT, the Russian state-sponsored English-language network. In an interview last year with the Washington Post, Mr. Flynn said the network paid him through a speaking-engagement agent to attend the event.
PAUL MANAFORT
Advised pro-Russia Party of Regions in Ukraine.
CARTER PAGE
.. Mr. Page has stated that he “had the longest close relations with senior Russians amongst known supporters of the Trump campaign.”
RICK GATES
.. Deputy to Paul Manafort in advising pro-Russian Party of Regions in Ukraine.