Russia

Submitted by Dave Forest via OilPrice.com,

With 2016 now closed out, we’re getting the first looks at year-end data. And numbers from one nation in the energy space have been particularly eye-catching this week.

Russia.

Over the last 15 years, Russia vaulted upwards in oil and gas production — challenging for the world’s top producer of crude. A fact that’s especially critical given this big producer is a “rogue” nation that lies outside the purview of OPEC.

Donald Trump has ripped the CIA a new one over faulty claims that Russia influenced the US election and helped him win.  Trump blasted the agency on Twitter late on Tuesday, criticising their decision to postpone a scheduled briefing with him to present their case for the claim that “Russian hackers” infiltrated Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Russia-insider.com reports: The tweet is a devastating and unparalleled public display of lack of confidence in the US government’s official position by a US president-elect. He is throwing down the gauntlet to the US intelligence establishment.

Russia has accused the US government of allowing ISIS militants to steal oil in Syria in order to earn hundreds of millions of dollars.  Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov warned that the US-led international coalition deliberately avoided bombing oil production facilities run by ISIS due to the fact that the US had a vested interest in the illegal oil sales.

Submitted by Finian Cunningham via Strategic-Culture.org,

The dark, infamous days of American lynch-mob rule and burning witches at stakes are back as never before. But not in backwater enclaves of benighted bigotry. Oh no, the modern lynch mobs are running amok in Washington’s seat of government, across prime TV and on the editorial pages of its supposed finest newspapers.

Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer has reignited expectations that Hillary Clinton will be punished for the illegal tactics employed during her failed campaign, claiming there should be more focus on the Democratic nominee’s cheating and election manipulation than on alleged Russian hacking. Spicer questioned the “magnitude” of the mainstream media scrutiny on Russia’s alleged cyber warfare against the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to boost his boss into the White House.