Doesn’t Anyone Care That Clinton Helped Russia Take Over Uranium Mines?

Wednesday night’s debate was about as bad as it could have gotten. Donald Trump crashed and burned, and he knew it, but he did manage to get in a few zingers along the way. He was overshadowed by the willingness of Hillary Clinton to pull out all the stops against him. It was enough to make me almost feel bad for the guy. However, despite the media’s mewling praise of Clinton’s performance and their scathing condemnation of Trump’s refusal to outright say he’d accept the results of the election, something else struck me. And that’s Russia.

All this talk coming from Hillary Clinton and her surrogates about Russia. It’s like Jan Brady going, “Russia, Russia, Russia!” But doesn’t anyone care, doesn’t anyone really want to know, just how close and cozy the Clintons are to Russia?

How Hillary Clinton feels about Russia. pic.twitter.com/Poe2Hei1P7

— Reno Berkeley (@RenoBerkeley) October 20, 2016

All this talk about Russia interfering in our election process, and there’s not one peep from the mainstream media about how Clinton actually did rig the primaries against Bernie Sanders. In this respect, WikiLeaks has done the world a massive favor by exposing the Clinton campaign.

And no, despite Clinton’s “17 agencies” assertion (which she didn’t even name) during the debate, there is still no solid proof that Russia was behind any of the attacks. For all we know, it could have been an inside job.

The Washington Examiner published a report about Clinton’s ties with Russia, particularly with billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Clinton Foundation via firms Renova Group and OC Oerlikon. The revelation was, again, thanks to the recent WikiLeaks Podesta emails.

Vekselberg has interests in oil, mining, and telecommunications and is one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals, and it appears that Clinton may have used her position as the head of the State Department to approve a meeting between him and Bill. Just last month, Vekselberg’s offices were raided by Russian law enforcement officers on charges of bribery, according to Reuters.

Yet, when Donald Trump brought up Clinton’s ties with Russia, CNN and other mainstream media outlets deflected, ignored, and then spun the accusations back to Trump and members of his own campaign.

Let’s move on to the actual topic of the Clintons helping Russia control a big chunk of the world’s uranium supply.

In 2015, the New York Times published an investigative report about how both Bill and Hillary Clinton helped Russian-controlled atomic energy company Rosatom, take over uranium mines in both Canada and the United States. Uranium is used for nuclear power and weapons.

The title of the piece, “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal,” details the takeovers happened, it seems through old-fashioned wheeling and dealing, favors for favors, and money transfers. One company, in particular, appears to have been built for the sole purpose of selling it to the Russians.

“At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.”

The sale, the story continues, gave the Russians control of one-fifth of uranium mining capacity in the United States.

The U.S. government had approved the sale because uranium is considered a strategic asset, which means the Obama Administration had to rubber stamp it.

“As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation.”

Bill Clinton also received a nice paycheck from a Russian investment bank for giving a speech in Moscow not long after the acquisition of Uranium One was announced.

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman spoke with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald in August, and he spoke of a “new McCarthyism” that surrounds anyone who opposes Clinton. Greenwald also reminded Goodman that the Clinton Foundation “helped Russian companies take over uranium industries in various parts of the world.”

“He [Bill Clinton] received lots of Russian money for speeches. The Clinton Foundation has relationships to them. President Obama refused to arm factions in the Ukraine that were trying to fight against this pro-Russian dictator, and continuously tries to partner with the Russians in Syria.”

It’s funny, really, how tying one’s political opponents to Russia is the de facto argument for bad behavior. Take Donna Brazile, for example. When The Young Turks’s Jordan Chariton pressed the interim DNC chair about her role in giving Clinton questions before a Town Hall, she danced around the subject and began to spin about how the DNC was a victim of cyber attacks and then blamed Russia.

When Chariton pressed her on the question of giving Clinton pre-prepared questions, Brazile then parried that away and accused him of “badgering a woman.” That’s not badgering. It’s called good, old-fashioned journalism, the kind of journalism that used to be common in our media.

It illustrates how far removed from the truth our politicians have become. It begs the question: If Hillary Clinton and her campaign are throwing accusations around that Russia is trying to take over our elections, why isn’t the media pressing Clinton about her own involvement in selling uranium mines to Russia?

Doesn’t anyone in the mainstream media care about that? Hillary and Bill Clinton were instrumental in selling off one-fifth of the United State’s uranium capacity, but they say WikiLeaks is bad because it released emails.

[Featured Image by Andrew Harnik/AP Images]