US Punishes Russia for Election Hacking Ejecting Operatives

[General Patton]

Man, when I saw the house they seized I realized I've been doing way too much stuff for free.

[Elvis]

They couldn't release this a couple of weeks ago when the electors asked for it?

[SonicG]

I have no fucking idea about anything anymore.

Let me Trumsplain it to you then...

The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.

Strap in, grab a beloved and get ready for this ride...No doubt the Syria "peace deal" is a neon sign that some big shit is happening behind the scenes.
It's like professional rasslin' now, so I'd like to see Vlad the Impaler turn on the Orange Menace, tell him to fuck off out of Syria and start looking hard at Iran...We are so fucked...

[kool maudit]

So... can Hillary still win this one?

[seemslikeadream]

no but the world looses

The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.

4 minutes to boom time



Bibi Netanyahu Makes Trump His Chump
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39115&p=625558#p625558

[Elvis]

no but the world looses

The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.

4 minutes to boom time



Bibi Netanyahu Makes Trump His Chump
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39115&p=625558#p625558

Who is the guy in glasses?

[seemslikeadream]

that's our new Zionist ambassador to Israel

Trump's bankruptcy lawyer

Friedman is a man who has called liberal Jews “far worse than kapos,” a reference to Jewish concentration-camp inmates who cooperated with their Nazi captors. He has been even more emphatic about supporters of J Street, the left-leaning Jewish lobbying group: They aren’t Jews at all. And just like that, the purity test for our community has become more than a blood matter.
...

David Friedman’s extremist views are about to be legitimized by Trump.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/f ... -tribalism

Trump’s Extreme Nominee for Israel
By appointing a leader of the Israeli settlement project to be his ambassador to Israel, Trump signals a retreat from America’s role as ‘honest broker’ in the region. It’s not hard to see who stands to benefit.
Jay Michaelson
JAY MICHAELSON

12.18.16 2:37 PM ET
David Friedman, Donald Trump’s close confidante and ambassador-designate to Israel, is not a right-winger. To be on the right wing implies that one is on a continuum from liberal to conservative. But Friedman – together with around 15% of the Israeli Jewish population – inhabits a different world entirely. His appointment would represent a total realignment of American policy in the Middle East, with the biggest winner being (surprise) Vladimir Putin.
The normal continuum runs as follows. The consensus of the international community, the Israeli government, and every American government for a generation is that that there must be a state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel. Of course, within that consensus, there are hawks and doves, right-wingers and left. Some are willing to take more risks for peace, some are more mistrustful of the people they call “the Arabs” and want any peace process to be slow and gradual. But all agree that it’s not feasible to create an apartheid regime in which 7 million Jews rule over 10 million non-Jews.
But in the world of Friedman, the Zionist Organization of America, the settler wing of the Israeli Right, and some parts of the American Jewish community, the path forward is one state – Israel – led by Jews, favoring Jews legally, and running from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It is an apartheid state, meaning a state wherein one population has civil rights that another does not; where one has freedom of movement and another does not; where one has the entire apparatus of the state in its control, and the other either cannot vote or is guaranteed a permanent minority.
In the 2015 Israeli election, parties holding this view – Jewish Home, Israel Our Home, and the Ultra-Orthodox bloc – won 16.8% of the vote. All three are part of the Likud-led government, but, so far at least, the Likud has maintained that such a future for Israel would be untenable, immoral, and impossible to maintain. So has AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and every American administration.
But Friedman is not simply one of those American Jews who supports the far-right Zionist Organization of America and thinks that J Street – a Zionist organization – is “worse than kapos.” He is one of that community’s most effective leaders. He is president of an organization that raised around $2 million annually for an extremist settlement in the West Bank, and president of an affiliated organization that runs one “Arutz Sheva” (Channel 7), the Breitbart.com of Israel.
This is what outside observers often miss: the Israeli Far Right is actually an American-Israeli Far Right, bought and paid for by the David Friedmans and Sheldon Adelsons of the world (Adelson also has a right-wing Israeli rag, but not as far-right as Friedman’s), undermining Israeli democracy far more than any left-wing NGO could dream of doing. The settlements and the entire nationalistic culture around them are built with American Jewish and Christian Zionist money.
Not only is this world ideologically separate from the normal right-to-left continuum, it is often factually separate as well, not unlike the American alt-right, where fake news is real and real news is fake.
For example, consider the question of Palestinian population. Friedman has said many times that Israel can easily annex the West Bank because there actually aren’t that many Palestinians out there. In fact, this is a common claim on the far right, but it only works if you twist the numbers. Israel’s population is around 8.2 million, 1.7 million of whom are Arabs. Palestinians in the West Bank are around 3 million. So, 6.5 mil to 4.7mil – no problem.
But that math omits the 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza (stateless, and periodically bombed to smithereens by Israel) and the 4 million Palestinians living in refugee camps in the region. If you add those in, you’ve already got more Palestinians than Israeli Jews today – and given birth rates, more will soon be living within the borders of “Greater Israel” itself.
That’s why Israeli right-wingers like Ehud Olmert, Yair Lapid, and even, sometimes, Benjamin Netanyahu, have all insisted on the two-state solution – not because they’re so magnanimous, but because it’s the only way for a non-apartheid Jewish state to endure. One must be literally deluded to imagine another alternative – either mathematically or, as is often the case, religiously, with Christian Zionists and Jewish Settler-Zealots competing for who gets to bring the messianic age first.
Again, there have always been hawks and doves on Israel/Palestine. But Friedman isn’t a hawk, he’s an ostrich.
Ironically, the appointment of one of the leaders of the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank (ruled illegal by the International Criminal Court and opposed by every American administration since Nixon), and an extreme Jewish nationalist may, in the end, be a catastrophe for Israel.
First, America’s role as “honest broker” in the region will be immediately lost. To the extent Friedman is representative of U.S. policy – and remember, he’s only an ambassador – that policy will shift on January 20 from broker to advocate. And not just advocate for Israel – but advocate of a view far to the right of Israel’s right-wing government.
It’s hard to see Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and even Saudi Arabia continuing to engage with the United States under such circumstances. Never in American history has there been an ambassador who has personally built settlements and spread extreme propaganda for the Israeli Far Right, the same community that valorizes the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, does nothing to curtail its “hilltop youth” from assaulting Palestinians and destroying their olive trees, and expropriates land from its rightful owners. How can Arab regimes possibly align themselves with such policies?
All eyes must then turn to Putin’s Russia. Russia already effectively controls Syria. Will other Arab countries turn to Russian patronage, as they did in the 1950s and 1960s? Will Putin, in fact, be the primary beneficiary of the American-Israel realignment? Obviously, it wouldn’t be the only time he benefits from the Trump presidency.

Then there’s what the realignment would mean for Israel internally. Already, Israel’s hard right has led to an uptick in emigration among the liberal Israelis who are powering the country’s economy. Loyalty oaths, crackdowns against civil rights organizations, censorship, flag-waving jingoism, tolerance for racism – Israel in the last decade has become a country its longtime inhabitants barely recognize. With carte blanche from the United States, these forces will be strengthened, and more liberal Israelis will leave for Los Angeles.
And, at some point, it seems inevitable that the world will turn against apartheid Israel the same as it turned against apartheid South Africa. Perhaps, with Europe also turning rightward, this won’t happen for a while, but it’s hard to believe it will never happen at all. And in the meantime, Israel will become like LePen’s France or the America of Trump’s alt-right supporters: an ethno-nationalist state where civil liberties are subordinated to ethno-religious identity.
Of course, while liberal Israelis will suffer because of a Trump-Friedman America, Palestinians will suffer far more. An America that unequivocally backs permanent Israeli occupation is a human rights disaster in the short term, and a moral disaster in the long term. Palestinians will certainly revolt, leading to more military crackdowns. The nascent Palestinian normalcy we’ve seen in Ramallah, where cafes are open and businessmen are making money, will disappear. Many, many people will die.
And with the peace process finally abandoned, Palestinian moderates will collapse, to be replaced by militants of one form or another. This will fulfill the dreams of people like Friedman, because at last there won’t be a Palestinian partner for peace – only an implacable enemy bent on violence.
That’s how the David Friedmans of the world see Palestinians already, after all, and the sooner it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, the better. Then the U.S. and Russia can go back to their proxy wars in the Middle East, each side’s conservatives thriving on the struggle.
With 17 million Israelis and Palestinians caught in the crossfire.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -wins.html

[seemslikeadream]

So... can Hillary still win this one?

get over it ...this is not about Clinton..this is about the safety of the world in the hands of someone that doesn't even understand what a computer is and will be able to retaliate in 4 minutes with nukes if someone bombs a building with his name on it.

someone who is so smart he doesn't need daily briefings

remember the last guy that didn't care about briefings?

9/11

[seemslikeadream]

I'm gonna post Robert Parry before someone beats me to it.

All I can say is that Trump is an extremely serious danger not only to the citizens of the U.S. but to the entire world and I am not sure why that fact alone doesn't carry more weight. In one second a building of his could be the subject of a terror attack (no matter who is really behind it "9/11") and with a simple tweet he will tell us all a nuke is on it's way.


I would welcome someone explaining to me why Putin is such a nice guy

Does he love the citizens of the Untied States?

asking as an American posting at RI

and btw I am not responsible for every thing the CIA and the U.S. government has done in the last 60 years....as some seem to think here

Details Still Lacking on Russian ‘Hack’
December 29, 2016

Exclusive: The mainstream U.S. media is all atwitter about Russia having to pay a price for hacking into Democratic emails and supposedly tilting the U.S. election to Donald Trump, but the evidence still is lacking, reports Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

Amid more promises of real evidence to come, the Obama administration released a report that again failed to demonstrate that there is any proof behind U.S. allegations that Russia both hacked into Democratic emails and distributed them via WikiLeaks to the American people.

The New York Times, which has been busy flogging the latest reasons to hate Russia and its President Vladimir Putin, asserted, “The F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security released a report on Thursday detailing the ways that Russia acted to influence the American election through cyberespionage.”


President Obama in the Oval Office.
But the actual report fell far short of “detailing” much at all about how the disclosures of the Democratic National Committee’s manipulation of the primaries to hobble Sen. Bernie Sanders and the contents of Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street speeches ended up at WikiLeaks and ultimately became available to American voters.

Most of the 13-page FBI/DHS report was devoted to suggestions on how Internet users can protect their emails from malware, but there was little new that proved that the Russians were the source of the Democratic emails given to WikiLeaks.

The tip-off to how little proof was being offered came in the report’s statement that “The U.S. government assesses that information was leaked to the press and publicly disclosed.” When you read a phrase like “the U.S. government assesses,” it really means the U.S. government is guessing – and the report notably uses a passive tense that doesn’t even assert that the Russians did the leaking.

A well-placed intelligence source told me that there’s little doubt that elements of Russian intelligence penetrated the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, but the Russians were far from alone. Indeed, placing various forms of malware on computers is a common practice, as average folks who periodically take their laptops to an I.T. professional can attest. There’s always some kind of “spyware” or other malicious code to be discovered.

The source said the more debatable issue is whether Russian intelligence then turned over the emails to WikiLeaks, especially given that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and an associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, have stated that the material did not come from the Russian government. Murray has suggested that there were two separate sources, the DNC material coming from a disgruntled Democrat and the Podesta emails coming from possibly a U.S. intelligence source, since the Podesta Group represents Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments.

Future ‘Details’

So, The New York Times misled its readers by claiming that the FBI/DHS report released Thursday was “detailing” how the Russians carried out the operation, and a separate Times article essentially acknowledged that the details were still to come.


New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
“A more detailed report on the intelligence, ordered by President Obama, will be published in the next three weeks, though much of the detail — especially evidence collected from ‘implants’ in Russian computer systems, tapped conversations and spies — is expected to remain classified.”

In other words, the FBI/DHS report really didn’t have much in the way of details and the “more detailed report” – due out before President Obama leaves office on Jan. 20 – will still be hiding “much of the detail” to justify Obama’s retaliation against Russia including new sanctions and expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats or intelligence officers from the United States.

But the Times article does inadvertently make the interesting admission that the U.S. government has penetrated Russian computers, much as the U.S. government accuses Russia of doing to U.S. computers.

But the data purloined by these U.S. “implants” and other clandestinely obtained evidence – assuming there really is any – won’t be something that the American people will get to see.

The shell game will continue up to the start of the Trump administration with the apparent goal to hem in President Trump from trying to reach out to Russia to avert a costly and dangerous New Cold War.

But the evidence so far released by the Obama administration still amounts to “trust us.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/29/d ... sian-hack/

[Rory]

I'm gonna post Robert Parry before someone beats me to it.

All I can say is that Trump is an extremely serious danger not only to the citizens of the U.S. but to the entire world and I am not sure why that fact alone doesn't carry more weight. In one second a building of his could be the subject of a terror attack (no matter who is really behind it "9/11") and with a simple tweet he will tell us all a nuke is on it's way.


I would welcome someone explaining to me why Putin is such a nice guy

Does he love the citizens of the Untied States?

asking as an American posting at RI

and btw I am not responsible for every thing the CIA and the U.S. government has done in the last 60 years....as some seem to think here

Trump's a dangerous man. Most presidents have proven themselves to be so even when people thought they weren't dangerous. Having suspicion and caution about any new admin is healthy I would have thought.

Why color Putin in terms like nice/nasty guy? He cares about Russia more than he cares about any other country, including Japan, which he seems to have a great deal of cultural affection for.

http://thesaker.is/president-vladimir-p ... newspaper/

I believe it is no secret that I like Japan very much – Japanese culture, sport, including judo, but it will not offend anyone if I say that I like Russia even more.

Him not wanting war with the US is about national self interest. Anyone who wants war with the US is a madperson. The journalist Mark Ames (who has tangible reasons to distrust and fear Putin) puts it like this - the US State Department/CIA are at war with the cartoon caricature of Putin that they themselves have constructed, not the real person, and what he and his government represent.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-r ... SKBN14I1TY

President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would not expel anyone in response to Washington's decision to throw out 35 suspected Russian spies and sanction intelligence agencies it believes were involved in computer hacking in the 2016 presidential election.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier proposed expelling 35 U.S. diplomats after outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the expulsions and sanctions on Thursday.

But Putin said he would wait for the actions of President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office on Jan. 20, before deciding on any further steps in relations with the United States.

"We will not expel anyone," Putin said in a statement on Friday. "While keeping the right for retaliatory measures, we will not descend to the level of 'kitchen', irresponsible diplomacy."

He even invited the children of U.S. diplomats to a party in the Kremlin.

He's intelligent, shrewd, and is surrounded by similarly able men and women. He's dangerous as fuck - far more so than this Daily Beast bogyman character that Michael Weiss and others lampoon. He doesn't want war with the US but is absolutely preparing for it. And we keep getting played because we keep playing ourselves.

[Luther Blissett]

After reading that strange U.S. government assessment, I was going to say essentially the same thing as Parry — this whole event is such an odd footnote in american history. All this for public relations to cover up lie after lie? It's insanity.

General Patton, post pictures of the "compounds". I want to see how they measure up against one that I suspect in my city.

[Rory]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/fe ... ks-w458439

In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails.

"These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.

Russia at first pledged, darkly, to retaliate, then backed off. The Russian press today is even reporting that Vladimir Putin is inviting "the children of American diplomats" to "visit the Christmas tree in the Kremlin," as characteristically loathsome/menacing/sarcastic a Putin response as you'll find.

This dramatic story puts the news media in a jackpot. Absent independent verification, reporters will have to rely upon the secret assessments of intelligence agencies to cover the story at all.

Many reporters I know are quietly freaking out about having to go through that again. We all remember the WMD fiasco.

"It's déjà vu all over again" is how one friend put it.

You can see awkwardness reflected in the headlines that flew around the Internet Thursday. Some news agencies seemed split on whether to unequivocally declare that Russian hacking took place, or whether to hedge bets and put it all on the government to make that declaration, using "Obama says" formulations.

The New York Times was more aggressive, writing flatly, "Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking." It backed up its story with a link to a joint FBI/Homeland Security report that details how Russian civilian and military intelligence services (termed "RIS" in the report) twice breached the defenses of "a U.S. political party," presumably the Democrats.

This report is long on jargon but short on specifics. More than half of it is just a list of suggestions for preventive measures.

At one point we learn that the code name the U.S. intelligence community has given to Russian cyber shenanigans is GRIZZLY STEPPE, a sexy enough detail.

But we don't learn much at all about what led our government to determine a) that these hacks were directed by the Russian government, or b) they were undertaken with the aim of influencing the election, and in particular to help elect Donald Trump.

The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen attack." The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is "insufficient" as a response to "attacks on the United States by a foreign power."

The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser. Also, like the WMD story, there's an element of salesmanship the government is using to push the hacking narrative that should make reporters nervous. Take this line in Obama's statement about mistreatment of American diplomats in Moscow:

"Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year."

This appears to refer to an incident this summer in which an American diplomat was beaten outside the diplomatic compound in Moscow. That followed a 2013 case in which a U.S. diplomat named Ryan Fogle was arrested in similar fashion.

Fogle was unequivocally described as a CIA agent in many Russian reports. Photos of Fogle's shpionsky rekvisit, or spy kit – including wigs and a city map that were allegedly on his person – became the source of many jokes in the Russian press and social media. Similar to this hacking story here in the states, ordinary Russians seemed split on what to believe.

If the Russians messed with an election, that's enough on its own to warrant a massive response – miles worse than heavy-handed responses to ordinary spying episodes. Obama mentioning these humdrum tradecraft skirmishes feels like he's throwing something in to bolster an otherwise thin case.

Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick to use phrases like "Russia hacked the election."

This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it hasn't always been great evidence), or whether Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states (a far more outlandish tale backed by no credible evidence).

As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies.

This number is nearly as disturbing as the 62 percent of Trump voters who believe the preposterous, un-sourced Trump/Alex Jones contention that "millions" of undocumented immigrants voted in the election.

Then there was the episode in which the Washington Post ran that breathless story about Russians aiding the spread of "fake news." That irresponsible story turned out to have been largely based on one highly dubious source called "PropOrNot" that identified 200 different American alternative media organizations as "useful idiots" of the Russian state.

The Post eventually distanced itself from the story, saying it "does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings." This was a very strange thing to say in a statement that isn't an outright retraction. The idea that it's OK to publish an allegation when you yourself are not confident in what your source is saying is a major departure from what was previously thought to be the norm in a paper like the Post.

There have been other excesses. An interview with Julian Assange by an Italian newspaper has been bastardized in Western re-writes, with papers like The Guardian crediting Assange with "praise" of Trump and seemingly flattering comments about Russia that are not supported by the actual text. (The Guardian has now "amended" a number of the passages in the report in question).

And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters – like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 – have attempted to argue that Trump surrogates may have been liaising with the Russians because they either visited Russia or appeared on the RT network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely on unnamed security sources.

Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration.

Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. Plowing ahead with credulous accounts is problematic because so many different feasible scenarios are in play.

On one end of the spectrum, America could have just been the victim of a virtual coup d'etat engineered by a combination of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which would be among the most serious things to ever happen to our democracy.

But this could also just be a cynical ass-covering campaign, by a Democratic Party that has seemed keen to deflect attention from its own electoral failures.

The outgoing Democrats could just be using an over-interpreted intelligence "assessment" to delegitimize the incoming Trump administration and force Trump into an embarrassing political situation: Does he ease up on Russia and look like a patsy, or escalate even further with a nuclear-armed power?

It could also be something in between. Perhaps the FSB didn't commission the hack, but merely enabled it somehow. Or maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here.

We just don't know, which is the problem.

We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across.

I have no problem believing that Vladimir Putin tried to influence the American election. He's gangster-spook-scum of the lowest order and capable of anything. And Donald Trump, too, was swine enough during the campaign to publicly hope the Russians would disclose Hillary Clinton's emails. So a lot of this is very believable.

But we've been burned before in stories like this, to disastrous effect. Which makes it surprising we're not trying harder to avoid getting fooled again.

[Searcher08]

In one second a building of his could be the subject of a terror attack (no matter who is really behind it "9/11") and with a simple tweet he will tell us all a nuke is on it's way.

What is far far worse is that someone might simply insult Melania or Ivanka and he goes and nukes the city the insult was tracked to. Just like that. Gone.
You left out the fact he don't know *nothing* about computers; heck he could just be playing with his Samsung Galaxy and press a button thinking "That was a great Twitter update" when he was actually... turning Des Moines into a parking lot.

I bet he would blame the App designer - especially if it was a woman.

Think of how a hostile foreign power like Putin could send fake Melania-insulting messages from every major US town and BINGO - Trumpocalyse! as expert foreign policy analyst Laci Green stated.

It is absolutely terrifying.

There is nothing we can do.

We are all going to die shrieking and screaming in a death a thousand times worse than being eaten alive by zombies

In fact, WE are The Walking Dead

I would welcome someone explaining to me why Putin is such a nice guy

He isn't. You don't need to like a person to work very well with them.

Does he love the citizens of the Untied States?

AFAIK he has no problem with them at all. He probably doesn't love them. He loves Russians.

Have you seen any Russian films? They have a very different sensibility than the U.S. - worth checking out this one about the Russian equivalent of Vietnam.

asking as an American posting at RI

and btw I am not responsible for every thing the CIA and the U.S. government has done in the last 60 years....as some seem to think here

Absolutely. You are an individual. Judging people primarily by membership of categories / collectives such as race, gender, sexual orientation etc rather than their character and actions as a person is fundamentally de-humanising.
(...would like to add that I know Sweet F.A.about anything. I find the Serenity Prayer a useful heuristic, though.)

I'm gonna post Robert Parry before someone beats me to it.

All I can say is that Trump is an extremely serious danger not only to the citizens of the U.S. but to the entire world and I am not sure why that fact alone doesn't carry more weight. In one second a building of his could be the subject of a terror attack (no matter who is really behind it "9/11") and with a simple tweet he will tell us all a nuke is on it's way.


I would welcome someone explaining to me why Putin is such a nice guy

Does he love the citizens of the Untied States?

asking as an American posting at RI

and btw I am not responsible for every thing the CIA and the U.S. government has done in the last 60 years....as some seem to think here

[JackRiddler]

They couldn't release this a couple of weeks ago when the electors asked for it?

They did. In fact, it's the same collection of laughable shit and meaningless assertions as was available already prior to the election. The exact same, in fact, reinforcing that there is actually no additional evidence for them to provide.

It's online here:

https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/f ... -20296.pdf

My annotated summary:

1. All of the following requires the absurd and insulting premise that the publication of DNC/Podesta mails swung anything in the presidential election and, if these mails were available for exposure due to Russian actors, would therefore constitute a "Russian" "hacking" of said "election."

2. APT28 and APT29 ("advanced persistent threats" known as "Cozy" and "Fancy" bears) are still presumed to be "groups" (as opposed to a single man in underwear) and "reported" to be associated with Russian intelligence services ("RIS"). Take it on faith, because someone we may or may not know somewhere inside this great big U.S. government said it's pretty surely so. What kind of a commie are you, to not believe us? The use of many abbreviations further firms this up as Serious.

3. APT28 & APT29 are believed to have employed an incredibly advanced means of infilitration known as phishing. This technology may be available to persons of the Russian persuasion! (Not in the current report, but it's all over the press and even Obama said the gem about Russian being so "hierarchical" that "nothing" could happen without Putin's approval, so remember the following: Nothing using computers and e-mails and possibly involving Russia or Russians, especially such who are aware of the advanced phishing technology, is likely to ever, ever happen except at the personal instigation and approval of one Vladimir Putin, because it's a very hierarchical place. Russia, that is. Brrr, Russians. I should know, because I am the son of the dictator Putin by his secret Nigerian princess bride, and he has disowned us, and I need your help in unlocking my mother's Swiss bank account of 30 million USD, which I will share 50-50 with you if you can help me by sending me the $2000 bank access fee.)

4. According to the DHS/FBI report, repeating the same bullshit you've already heard, the APT Bears launched their Cyber 9/11 by sending thousands of phishing mails to "hundreds" of U.S. and other corporations and institutions. This claim renders the rest of this story moot as far as having a specific connection to "hacking" an "election," but never mind. (It also makes the Nigerian princess spam comparison pretty relevant, but NEVER MIND.)

5. Apparently Podesta or other persons belonging to an unspecified U.S. political party, being noobs (and I don't blame'em), clicked on said phishing links and provided their passwords to the nefarious plotters, who may have been Russians reported by our unnamed friends to be associated with Russia.

6. Certain Podesta and DNC mails (unspecified here but these are what we mean) showed up online after said "hack." This made the DNC and Clinton campaigns very upset.

7. (my addition) Prior to election, Clinton campaign presented the above set of claims with the patently false additional claim that this was influencing the election results. Clinton campaign got so busy talking about this rather than providing programmatic alternative to Trump that they forgot to win the election.

8. QED! Yes! Slam-dunk!!!

9. Unfortunately, even with the nefarious-looking graphics, that was only four pages, so let's add another 8 to beef it up, on how it's important to watch out for phishing mails and don't click on one if you get one. Just don't, okay?

.

[barracuda]

I would welcome someone explaining to me why Putin is such a nice guy

Does he love the citizens of the Untied States?

asking as an American posting at RI

If you mean, "why does Trump's base view Putin so favorably?", then the answer is pretty simple: they see Russia as the last white, Christian nation remaining in the world, and a bulwark against Islamofascism and, oddly enough, Jewish Bolshevism.

The contrast with a Kenyan Muslim Marxist is rather clear.