Newsweek not alone — leftist publications like the NYT, The Guardian, Foreign Policy and others reported Russian influence used to support anti-fracking groups. But now leftist publications somehow think Russia was interested in electing pro-fracking Trump as opposed to anti-fracking Hillary. Anything to get them past the day their queen lost. *
Excerpts from a Newsweek opinion piece. This piece offers references for actual Russian collusion with leftists who have been uniformly intent on electing Democrats, not a pro-fracking Republican Donald Trump:
Intelligence: Putin Is Funding the Anti-Fracking Campaign
By Drew Johnson 1/29/17 :
. . . Buried within the U.S. intelligence community’s report on Russian activities in the presidential election is clear evidence that the Kremlin is financing and choreographing anti-fracking propaganda in the United States. By targeting fracking, Putin hopes to increase oil and gas prices, destabilize the U.S. economy and threaten America’s energy independence.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a decades-old drilling technique in which water and sand is pumped through rock at a high pressure to release previously unreachable deposits of oil and natural gas.
Fracking is the major reason why the United States is on pace to become completely energy independent by 2020. America relies on fracking to produce more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil a year — over half of the total U.S. oil output.
Russia sees all this as a threat.
The Russian government, which relies heavily on energy exports for revenues, is concerned “about the impact of fracking and U.S. natural gas production on the global energy market,” according to the intelligence report. Increased U.S. gas exports, the report continues, creates “potential challenges” for the profitability of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned oil and gas monopoly.
In response to America’s growing fracking industry, RT, Russia’s government-funded international media outlet, aired air a slew of dubious attacks against fracking.
Over just seven months in 2015, RT managed to ram 62 different anti-fracking television stories and news reports down viewers’ throats. That doesn’t even include an hour-long, largely discredited anti-fracking documentary that airs regularly on RT in America and around the world.
It’s little wonder why the intelligence report called RT “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”
This isn’t the first time the Russian government has been accused of masterminding anti-fracking activism.
In 2014, intelligence information led then-NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen to conclude that Moscow conspired with environmental groups to block fracking activities in Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria.
“Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas,” said Rasmussen.
Here in the United States, a Senate report found that the Sea Change Foundation funneled more than $43 million to environmental causes in 2011 — padding the budgets of ardent anti-fracking organizations like the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Foundation is heavily funded by a Bermuda-based shell corporation with direct ties to Putin and Russian oil interests. The shady firm is currently under indictment for offshore money laundering. . . .
Read the entire informative piece here.
Other publications not identified with being pro-Trump reported on Russian influence on politics favoring leftist causes:
Russian Money Suspected Behind Fracking Protests NY Times
Russia ‘secretly working with environmentalists to oppose fracking’ The Guardian
Russia’s Quiet War Against European Fracking Foreign Policy
Environmentalists trying to block shale gas exploration across Europe are unknowingly helping Putin maintain his energy leverage over the continent.
R Mall
*Graphic via http://energynation.org/meme-contest/
