From His Home in Russia, #Calexit Leader Plots California Secession::

[Madam45for2923]

On paper, the leader of the California secession movement lives in an apartment complex near San Diego’s Golden Hill neighborhood. But in reality, the Calexit campaign is being run by a 30-year-old who lives and works in a city on the edge of Siberia.

Louis Marinelli heads the secessionist group Yes California. Following the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the organization has gone from an unknown fringe group to one discussed seriously in mainstream media.

What has not been discussed as prominently is Marinelli’s deep ties to Russia.

A former right-wing activist from Buffalo, New York, Marinelli first moved to Russia almost a decade ago. He studied at St. Petersburg State University, the alma mater of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He returned to the United States to campaign against LGBTQ rights as part of the National Organization for Marriage.

Marinelli then returned to Russia. He would marry a Russian citizen, and the couple moved to San Diego, where Marinelli launched a political career based on a platform of California secession.

“I immigrated to California, and I consider myself to be a Californian,” Marinelli says from his apartment in Yekaterinburg, a city of about 1.4 million just east of the Ural Mountains and about 1,000 miles from Moscow.

In an interview with The California Report, Marinelli confirms he’s living and working in Russia as a teacher.

More in link plus audio: http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/12/13/from-his-home-in-russia-calexit-leader-plots-california-secession/

Cal exit opens "embassy" in Russia


http://www.notey.com/blogs/calexit

There is Louis Marinelli in burgundy suit!

SEP 2016. Moscow welcomes the (would-be) sovereign nations of California and Texas:

The speaker was calling for California’s independence from the United States.

Alexei Gavrilko nodded approvingly. A burly, bearded, camouflage-wearing separatist from eastern Ukraine, he said he had come to the posh Moscow hotel just outside the Kremlin to “communicate with colleagues” representing separatist and secessionist groups from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

During a conference dubbed the Dialogue of Nations, Gavrilko listened carefully to Louis Marinelli, head of the Yes California group that is determined to hold the Golden State’s “independence referendum” in 2019.

“For the first time in history, we, the people of California, who were conquered and annexed by the American military about 170 years ago, will have a chance to express our voice to either remain a state in the American union, or instead, to pursue a path toward a nationhood,” Marinelli said solemnly.

Gavrilko, who is from the unrecognized but de facto independent Donetsk region, and the entire separatist crowd cheered and applauded. They did it again, louder, when Nate Smith, a self-proclaimed “foreign minister” of the Texas Nationalist Movement, promised that one day, the independent Lone Star state “can formally exchange ambassadors with your free and independent countries.”

The arrival of Californian, Texan, Puerto Rican, Northern Irish, Catalan, Italian and Lebanese secessionists to mingle with activists from several unrecognized separatist territories in former Soviet republics is becoming a tradition as Moscow turns to belligerent, anti-Western nationalism coupled with a readiness to take up arms against its former Soviet vassals.

Moscow uses these gatherings to promote its political agenda, gain more political leverage in the West and push for the lifting of Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support of the separatists in eastern Ukraine, a former lawmaker with the ruling United Russia party said.

“The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia,” Sergei Markov said, adding that the secession of California and Texas — a prospect that would appear to be something of a long shot — would “undoubtedly benefit” the Kremlin.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-separatists-snap-story.html

The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia,

“The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia,” Sergei Markov said, adding that the secession of California and Texas — a prospect that would appear to be something of a long shot — would “undoubtedly benefit” the Kremlin.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-separatists-snap-story.html

[Madam45for2923]

1. Russian Ruse!

The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia

[Warren DeMontague]

9. And what state are you in?

Im a little tired of midtown manhattanites pontificating on their west coast expertise, frankly.

[Hekate]

14. This resident of California thinks Vlad knows there is more than one way to break up countries

I was born in the San Fernando Valley, grew up in Hawaii, and have been back in California on the Central Coast since 1979. I've been active in politics and in my community. I've never even been to Manhattan.

I can pretty definitively say that the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, especially if that involves an old KGB man with dead eyes and plutonium in his pocket.

This character with the San Diego address is another useful idiot, in this case peddling fantasies to any who would buy.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. We've had this conversation. IIRC, you're, like, in Goleta, right?

Love that area. Simply Beautiful.

But.... I wasn't asking you, I was asking that other poster.

I don't support this Russian-sponsored "Calexit" joke. What i do support is our party finally listening to those of us on the west coast who support legal marijuana, oppose media censorship, want a free and open internet, etc. etc.

[Madam45for2923]

18. ??? The quote above is not about the West as in the West Coast. It's about the West Hemisphere!

[Warren DeMontague]

19. fine, but.. I notice a lot of people pontificating about places like California

people who don't know Sonoma from Sonora, that kind of thing. And California is the topic of the thread, ostensibly.

It's relevant and important because the same folks who have continually asserted their right to define what is supposed to be important to "us" as Democrats seem increasingly out of touch with a large portion of those of us who make up the actual party.

This is why we had a DNC chair committed to putting marijuana users in prison in a year when weed did better on the ballot than any party candidate. Poor messaging. Stupid.

There's a Manhattan-DC bubble, and it's a real problem.

So, again, just out of curiosity, where are you at?

[Rollo]

2. Might be the Putin game plan...

I recall a few years ago a Russian historian matter of factly predicting that the United States was headed towards collapse, with it splitting into five autonomous regions. As I recall they were something like Northeast, Southeast, Upper Midwest, Lower Midwest, and Pacific Coast.

The move to provoke a California secession can be viewed as a first step along that path.

It just might be Putin's wet dream, facilitated by Trump's treachery.

[lunasun]

3. They would love to see a Ununited Staes . Stay strong and united America . We are better than all

the trumpets, trump and Russian ruses put together

[Madam45for2923]

5. Yes, exactly!

[AmericanActivist]

4. No words nm

[pintobean]

6. Lol. K&R

[Throd 2.0]

7. It's a waste of time anyway. We aren't leaving.

I haven't met anyone who takes the idea seriously.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Yeah, whatever.

It'd be nice if our party leaders and beltway betters would familiarize themselves with the actual west coast, though. Witness how they still think pot legalization is some weird fringey stoner joke.

Sometimes i think they dont understand that there is a whole country west of New Jersey.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Of course it is in our enemies interest for America to dissolve.

But by the Deplorables treating us blue staters contemptuously they are increasing the clamoring for dissolution. It's a paradox.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. California will be fine.

But it's long past time for our East Coast-centric party leadership to start paying attention to the 50 million of us out here, and stop treating issues we care about- from internet freedom to cannabis- as odd, fringey jokes or worse.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Our greatest asset, imho, is despite our diversity we get along reasonably well.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. I think another great asset is the wide open freedom-minded frontier mentality.

The West Coast is clearly where some of the most interesting, forward thinking stuff on the planet is taking place. I only wish our beltway-centric party leadership would get a fucking clue about it.

[ileus]

11. We need Calexit, to bring the red staters to their knees.

[Hekate]

16. You read all that and you can still say what you said?

Yikes

[Madam45for2923]

20. Kicking!

[UTUSN]

21. I'm not getting why CA or us should heed this dude.

[TheFrenchRazor]

22. give it up. please. what russia does or doesn't want has no bearing on whether CA secession is

a good idea, justified, and completely constitutional. why do you CONTINUE to bring up this red herring??? sorry, but i don't check with russia first before i make my decisions.

[Madam45for2923]

23. More on Russian living Calexit leader - Louis Marinelli:

In an interview with the state-sponsored news agency Russia Today, Marinelli said he "could no longer live under an American flag" and said he and his supporters want to leave the US "in a similar way" to how Crimea left Ukraine as it was annexed by Russia.

He has also aligned Yes California with the controversial Anti-Globalization Movement, a pro-Kremlin nationalist movement that has ties to Russia's far-right Rodina (Motherland) party and enjoys funding from the Russian government.

The Anti-Globalization Movement, which Marinelli described as a "partner," aims to promote "traditional moral values" and "supports countries and peoples who are ... seeking an alternative agenda" to the "monopolization of the world system of relations and governance"by the United States, according to its website.

http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-california-moscow-embassy-russia-2016-12