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WASHINGTON (AP) — Supporters of a bill that would make international sports doping a crime argued Wednesday that the legislation would deter scandals like Russian state-sponsored drug use at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Yulia Stepanova, a Russian former track athlete who became a whistleblower about the drug program, said at a congressional hearing that ending doping in her country would have to “start from the top” — with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. The bill was named for Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the Russian lab director who exposed the cheating in Sochi. Rodchenkov has said the doping stemmed from Putin’s command...

If there’s one thing we know about Donald Trump, it’s that he’s a people person. On Monday he said he’d “certainly meet” with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani if the Iranian leader was interested. With that meeting, we will have run out of “Axis of Evil” heads of state with whom President Trump can press the flesh. The president declared that he’d meet with the Iranian “anytime they want to.” “I’ll meet with anybody,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with meeting.” For his willingness to enter into a confab with just about anybody, President Trump has taken fire from critics from...

“You are criminalizing diplomacy” .....Watch to the end. I guarantee you he won’t be invited back again. The man has been doing this for nearly 50 years and the two yahoos just want to push current political narratives with no historical context

President Trump on Monday insisted that the United States will not drop sanctions against Moscow. “Sanctions on Russia will remain as is,” Trump said, even as Putin demands that they be dropped. Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte first broached the subject and said lifting the sanctions would be “unthinkable.” Trump also scolded Germany — just as he did at the NATO summit — for agreeing to use a Russian natural gas pipeline while, in his estimation, not paying enough for defense.

Russia cannot compel Iranian forces to quit Syria, Moscow's ambassador to Tel Aviv said on Monday, rebuffing Israel's long-standing demand that it should work to ensure their total withdrawal from the country. "They are playing a very, very important role in our common and joint effort to eliminate terrorists in Syria," Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov told Israel's Channel 10 television in an interview. "That is why, for this period of time, we see as non-realistic any demands to expel any foreign troops from the entirety of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said. "We can talk with our Iranian partners very frankly...

Russia’s ambassador to Israel said in an interview Monday his country cannot force Iranian forces to withdraw from Syria, despite Israeli calls for Iran to withdraw from the country. Speaking with Channel 10 news, Anatoly Viktorov said the Iranians are “playing a very, very important role in our common and joint efforts to eliminate terrorists in Syria. Viktorov said Russia can talk to its “Iranian friends” about a full withdrawal from Syria, as Israel demands, but “we cannot force them.” “The Iranian presence in Syria… is fully legitimate according to the UN principles and the UN charter,” he added. He...

We are reaching a dead-end. The greatest threat to the future of Europe is neither Russian adventurism nor Muslim immigration. The true Europe is at risk because of the suffocating grip that the false Europe has over our imaginations—an empire of money and regulations, covered with sentiments of pseudo-religious universalism, that is being constructed by the European Union. The true Europe has been marked by Christianity. The universal spiritual empire of the Church brought cultural unity to Europe...This has allowed for particular civic loyalties to flourish within a shared European culture. Our gentle virtues are of an unmistakably Christian heritage:...

Volkoff began wrestling in 1967 and embarked on a career that lasted nearly 40 years. He spent the bulk of his time in the WWF and World Wide Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon Sr.'s precursor to the WWF. He also spent time with the American Wrestling Association in the 1970s. Volkoff and The Sheik were one of the premier heel tag teams of the 1980s under the management of Classy Freddie Blassie. The pair won the WWF Tag Team Championship once before breaking up. Volkoff later teamed with Boris Zukhov as part of The Bolsheviks for the remainder of the 1980s before leaving the company in 1990....

President Trump is “open” to visiting Moscow if he receives a formal invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said Friday. "President Trump looks forward to having President Putin to Washington after the first of the year, and he is open to visiting Moscow upon receiving a reciprocal formal invitation," Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. Putin said Friday he is ready to invite Trump if conditions are right, and he is also ready to visit Washington. The White House statement came after National Security Adviser John Bolton said earlier this week that a meeting with...

“The most important thing to them is that Trump seems to hate the same people they hate,” Ron Reagan says. The son of former President Ronald Reagan believes Donald Trump’s political base is so consumed by hatred for the Democrats that they would vote for Vladimir Putin to be America’s president instead of virtually any member of that party. “They really aren’t in touch with reality. The most important thing to them [is that Trump] seems to hate the same people that they hate,” Ron Reagan told Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Thursday. “That’s the real Trump derangement syndrome.”...

Russian President Vladimir Putin says has invited President Donald Trump to visit him in Moscow and also said he is ready to go to the White House. Putin told reporters in South Africa that phone calls were not sufficient, and the two men needed to talk about the Iran nuclear deal and other topics. Trump took heat from members of both parties after his July 16 meeting with Putin, where the president said he found Putin's denial of election interference 'powerful.' Trump is to meet with his national security team today to discuss election security, following a report of a...

The Adidas soccer ball Russian President Vladimir Putin gave to President Trump at their summit in Finland appears to contain a chip that can transmit information to nearby cell phones, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The publication noted that photos of the ball show a logo for a near-field communication (NFC) tag, a chip that is included in the Adidas 2018 FIFA World Cup ball. Russia hosted this year's World Cup. Adidas AG soccer balls, similar to the one Putin presented to Trump during a joint press conference last week, contain a small chip that can send content to mobile devices. Users...

The newspaper reported that Femen activists said Oksana Shachko, a 31-year-old Ukrainian, was found in her apartment with a suicide note lying next to her. “It is with great regret and deep pain that I must confirm the death of Oksana,” Inna Shevchenko, one of Femen’s leaders, told The Guardian. Another Femen founder, Anna Gutsol, reportedly said the activist group was awaiting “the official version” of her death from police. The Guardian notes that Shachko was a founding member of Femen, a feminist activist group launched in Ukraine in 2008. Shachko had been exiled in France since 2013 and had...

Full video of Vladimir Putin playing the piano and singing Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill". The Russian prime minister is used to taking to the stage, but this time it was not for one of his speeches. Vladimir Putin made his audience sit up and take note, as he sang at a charity fundraiser. Click Here for the video...

Fiona Hill currently serves as the senior director for Russian and European Affairs on the National Security Council. She was part of the U.S. delegation at the table on Monday along with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and interpreter Marina Gross. The British-born Russia expert left the Brookings Institution, a D.C. think tank, to join the Trump administration last year...Hill was initially tapped to join the National Security Council under Michael Flynn's leadership. The psychological profile of Putin she co-authored with Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in...

I'm just starting to hear the first inklings of the concern that Russians are going to "interfere" in the 2018 midterm elections on behalf of Republicans. They've accused those of us in the #WalkAway movement of being Russian bots. They've accused the NRA of being Russian agents. They're accusing the President of being a traitor. The former FBI Director and many others is urging all patriots to put aside "policies" and vote Democrat. We are rapidly approaching a point where the Deep State/Media/Democrat Party/etc. are defining Trump and the entire Republican Party as traitors. The logical extension of their position...

Hillary Clinton on Saturday described President Donald Trump's recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin "alarming on many, many levels" and called the secrecy surrounding the president's one-on-one meeting with the Russian leader "deeply disturbing" during her appearance at a New York City festival on Saturday. Clinton questioned the president's motives when he failed to defend the US intelligence community and blamed the US for poor relations with Russia while standing beside Putin at a press conference in Helsinki earlier this month. "The great mystery is why this president has not spoken up for our country, and we saw this...

The Russia conspiracy theory hinges on the single creaky claim that the Democratic National Committee hacks were a Russian plot to elect Trump. The theory and all its illegitimate stepchildren, including Robert Mueller and his infinitely expanding corps of prosecutors, lives or dies by the DNC hacks. Trying to elect Trump by releasing damaging insider information from the DNC never made any sense. The DNC was already a dysfunctional organization that was being run by the Clinton campaign. Undermining its leadership had little impact on the election, but a great deal on control of the DNC. There has never been...

The liberals, the media, the Democrats, and some Republicans are very upset about Russia. They've had more positions on Russia than Stormy Daniels as far as I'm concerned. Let me point out some history -- this is very, very important. John McCain, God bless him, and others have said that what Trump did at that press conference is the worst interaction we've ever had with Russia, the worst diplomatic disaster ever. Forget about the media, I want you to know something: In 1945, Franklin Roosevelt sold out half of Europe to Stalin. He repeatedly praised Stalin. Franklin Roosevelt is the...

The announcement that the US rejected a Russian-backed proposed referendum on eastern Ukraine came after Washington agreed to provide more military aid. Ukrainian Government forces continue to clash there with independence-seeking pro-Russian separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people. Russia is accused of arming separatists in the east of the country. Ambassador Anatov said President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin discussed the possibility of a referendum on eastern Ukraine during their Helsinki summit. In separate remarks, Ambassador Anatov said through an interpreter that the two leaders discussed several ideas but complained that Ukraine's government refuses...