On Tape – Russians Bragging About Owning Trump Through His Lackeys

You heard it here first –

 

More British Intelligence Documents Show Payments From Chumph Campaign to Russian Hackers

Need to ask the question…Why is the FBI suppressing this?

I mean, the validity of this is freaking easy to nail down.

UK spy documents: Trump Organization paid Russian hackers who took orders from Putin

Last December, the U.K. government was reportedly given extensive records of Trump campaign officials’ interactions with the Kremlin.

The Guardian reported former MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s infamous dossier about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was first given to the UK intelligence services. These documents reportedly contain records of payments from the Trump campaign to banks of Russian cyber trolls tasked with spreading disinformation ahead of the 2016 election.

Court filings confirmed earlier this month that Steele passed along the information because he felt it was “of considerable importance in relation to alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election.”

Steele outlined how four Trump campaign representatives traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic in August or September to have “secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers.” The group discussed how they would pay hackers for breaking into the Democratic Party’s computers and developing a “contingency plans for covering up operations.”

The memo reported that hackers were paid by the Trump Organization, however, the hackers were under the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen is said to have attended the meeting in Prague, though he has described the memo as “totally fake, totally inaccurate.” He also claimed he’d never been to Prague.

Steele produced 16 memos using Russian sources to describe the web of collusion between Trump aides and Russian intelligence or other officials. A copy of the memos was given to the news outlet Fusion but instructed them not to disclose the material to anyone without approval. They agreed and Steele agreed to provide a copy to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) after McCain learned the memos existed from the UK ambassador to Moscow.

The Guardian reports that the court documents revealed Steele continued to get “unsolicited intelligence” on the links between Trump and Russia. As a result, Steele drew up another memo from Dec. 13. He turned that memo to a senior British national security official and gave encrypted versions to Fusion to give to McCain.

Court statements argue Steele was under an obligation to give the information to the UK and US “at a high level by persons with responsibility for national security.” However, Steele said he never gave a copy to any news organizations, merely off-the-record briefings about the dossier to some journalists in the fall of 2016. They argue they had no involvement in BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the document.

The dossier wasn’t delivered to former President Barack Obama and then-President-elect Donald Trump until January.

 

Counter-terrorism Officer – Trump a Traitor!

Might I suggest hanging the Chump from the light-post on Constitution and 17th NW? That is, after what should be a fairly brief impeachment and trial of course.

Intelligence expert Malcolm Nance on Trump scandal: “As close to Benedict Arnold as we’re ever going to get”

Career counterterrorism officer says Putin pulled off a “brilliant” coup — but Trump is headed for impeachment

On an almost daily basis there are new revelations about the questionable and perhaps illegal connections between President Donald Trump’s administration (and before that his campaign) and the Russian espionage apparatus under the control of Vladimir Putin. It is no longer appears to be a question of whether the Russian government actively worked to undermine or affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, but who aided it in doing so.

Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign because he did not disclose his contacts with Russia. In addition, Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general, met repeatedly with the Russian ambassador and known intelligence operative Sergey Kislyak. Trump campaign aides Roger Stone and Paul Manafort also had extensive contacts with the Russian government. Stone has even publicly admitted to communicating with WikiLeaks — a group known to act as a conduit for classified information — in an effort to smear Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton. And Trump and his inner circle have unknown but likely extensive financial connections to Russian banks, financiers, corporations and the Russian government.

How much damage has been caused to the American people by Trump’s Russian gambit? Most important, are Donald Trump and his advisers working in support of Russian interests and against those of the Unites States? Are they traitors? How did this all transpire?

In an effort to answer these questions, Salon recently spoke with Malcolm Nance, a career intelligence and counterterrorism officer for the United States government. In his more than three decades working in that capacity, Nance served with U.S. Special Operations forces, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. He has worked in the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. A frequent guest contributor on MSNBC, Nance has authored several books, including “The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election.”

My conversation with Nance has been edited for length and clarity. A longer version of this conversation can be heard on my podcast, available on Salon’s Featured Audio page.

In trying to make sense of  the constant revelations about Trump’s connections to Russia, we are often hearing the truism that “the cover-up is worse than the crime.” But in this case, it seems that the public is just seeing the tip of the iceberg. 

You are absolutely correct. I think that the activities that have occurred and the thing that we’re seeing indicate a scandal on an order of magnitude greater than anything that’s occurred in the 20th century. What’s occurring now is as close to Benedict Arnold as I think we’re ever going to get in American history. It had better be because the only alternative to what we’re seeing with this information is, if it’s not espionage, then it will be the largest financial scandal in American history.

One would think that someone would have taken Trump’s associates aside and told them, about the ambassador and others, “These guys are Russian spies using diplomatic status as cover?” Did they not understand that or did they just ignore it?

You would think that the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn — who had his own coterie of spies, by the way — would know that. But what would override that? Only one of two things would override that. This incredible belief that you give me a boatload of money and I get a boatload of money. Then you get these incredible, unbelievable returns promised to you, and you bring in more people. That’s what we’re seeing here, in this whole crew . . . and I refer to them in my book as “the Kremlin crew” . . . in that they saw relationships with Russia and the extractive energy industries as an ATM that would make them madly wealthy beyond anything if they controlled the levers of government.

The only other way to explain it is that they ideologically bought into [the idea] that Vladimir Putin is the greatest man on Earth and that the Russian antidemocratic system and autocracy is their way of life. I can’t believe that. I think they wanted to win at all costs, and at the end of “win at all costs,” whether that meant cooperating with Russia or working with them, there was the promise of outrageous quantities of money.

Why was the mainstream American media so far behind on the story with Trump and Russia? Incompetence? Fear? Laziness?

I think a combination of lazy and afraid. The Trump train was just so incredibly wild. For them, it was just a question of keeping up on a daily basis, writing these incredible stories. But putting that aside, the people who really, really understood the American media and really knew what to do and how to do it were Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence

In fact, Vladimir Putin was the director of Russian intelligence and then became the president of the country from that position. Vladimir Putin understood, from the Communist era when he was a KGB officer that the Russian propaganda system of targeting Western media — that in the digital world you could easily pull the Western media around by a nose ring. He hacked the American mindset through its own news media. I would personally say [it was] the most brilliant intelligence operation quite possibly in the history of mankind at this point, because he selected the president.

Could this be worse than the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg perhaps in terms of intelligence coups?

Granted, that gave Russia nuclear power and the hydrogen bomb. That was a pure old-school intelligence operation. But now, you could argue that Vladimir Putin has control of 4,000 atomic bombs and they did it using Americans — knowing how Americans thought, knowing how Donald Trump thought. As part of that, you also have the successful attempt to split the “Bernie bros” from the Democratic Party, and also the Jill Steins of the world out there saying, “There’s no difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.”

It was a laughable and absurd claim.

“Vote for Donald Trump so that he can destroy the country.” That was the thing that got me about the Stein people. They wanted this anarchy and chaos that we are getting today. The Russians knew this. Vladimir Putin had Jill Stein at his table for the 10th anniversary of the RT network. I don’t care who you are, you can’t say, well, if you received the invitation, you would’ve gone, too. On his right arm, Vladimir Putin had the former director of defense intelligence, Michael Flynn. He had both sides of the election coin at his elbow, and he successfully used his agency and the American media to select the president. Russian intelligence attacked this nation with a cyber-warfare bomb and got members of the American public to prefer a former director of the KGB over anyone in the Democratic Party.

Do you think it is fair to say that Trump and his cadre are traitors and that they should be held accountable based on those criteria?

If we use the rhetorical definition of treason, the common vernacular definition of treason, and it turns out that anyone at any time in this campaign was aware of Russia’s operations, decided to use Russia’s operations and coordinate with Russia’s operations, that right there would be treason. That would be betraying the trust of your nation.

This situation also reflects the way the Republican Party to this point has pursued party over country in blockading these investigations about Trump and Russia. Trump is their opportunity to remake the second part of the 20th century and they’re going to support him no matter what. Also, Trump has surrounded himself with white nationalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazi sympathizers. His cadre is part of a larger movement of extreme right-wing nationalism in Europe as well. Again, that is not being covered extensively.

Vladimir Putin is creating an axis of authoritarian regimes that he will lead. Russia’s a small country. It’s really poor. It has nothing other than oil and weapons sales. They have taken the United States and they now have two pillars in which to hold up Western Christendom by authoritarianism. Now they’re going for others. They’re going to topple Germany. They’re going to topple France. They’re going to topple the Netherlands. They’re going after Norway right now.

If you view Trump as a “Manchurian candidate” in league with Russia, how does that complicate the battle against ISIS and international terrorism?

Well, as far as Trump and Russia is concerned, it doesn’t because they view ISIS as the vanguard of Islam and as being a fundamentalist basis of the religion. The worst part of it all is that this comes from Osama bin Laden. He attacked us on 9/11 in order to induce a clash of civilizations between the Christian West and Islam. In all of these insane right-wingers, none of them have any military experience, and the military people that they do have that are on board with their ideology are the ones who we consider insane. These are the Jack D. Rippers from “Dr. Strangelove,” who want to start a global war and would use their authority at whatever level. This is dangerous.

This administration has got me frightened on a strategic scale because we’re all going to suffer from this. We have a saying in the military: “The stupid shall be punished.” This nation voted for stupid, and we are going to get punished because these people have no sense of decorum, no sense of decency, no sense of living up to any of the traditions enacted over 240 years of this great nation growing.

They are the wrecking crew, and they don’t work for this nation. I really think their ideology is based on an ideology they got from Putin’s philosopher, Alexander Dugin, the man who believes that Western liberal democracy must be destroyed and a strongman authoritarianism [must] step into its place, and then you could reshape the world as you saw fit. That’s Hitler and Stalin talk.

What do you think comes next? Do you think this administration can survive this scandal? Is the partisanship so deep they’re going to weather the storm?

No. There is a very serious chance that this could split the country in a very negative way. That’s what Barack Obama did not want to happen, which is why he didn’t bring all of this out before the election: “No Drama Obama.” He thought that the norms of the United States would be of help, and that the American public, with the information that they had in hand, without any thumbs on the scale, would make the right choice for president. He was horribly wrong. Actually, he wasn’t wrong. He was only wrong by 70,000 people and three counties.

I think this will end in impeachment. If it does not, the American system of government will split in two. I mean, like the Democrats will just stonewall and say, “This is treason.” Then you’re going to get the Republicans who will say, “We’re going to use every level of power to go after anyone that doesn’t agree with us.” But at the street level, you won’t see the changes. You’ll still have the right to speak out. There won’t be any arrests like there were in Russia with Pussy Riot. But people who support Trump will do all of that. They’ll come and attack you. They will silence you. There will be self-appointed groups of people and militias that will make it clear that Trump is God.

 

The Deep-State Fantasy

The existence of the “Deep State” is a white-wing fantasy formulated by folks advancing absurd, typically fascist ideas in need of an enemy. It typically is advanced by folks who never worked in any intelligence agency, either Civilian or Military – basically because they didn’t have the mental stability to pass the background checks. Ergo, while the NRA and Reprobates are stupid enough to give crazy people guns…At least so far, our government isn’t turning over the keys to the nuclear arsenal to the whack-jobs – even if the Useful Fools voted in one.

What we have in this country is a group of intelligence services each assigned their area of responsibility who often are fractious and refuse to turn over intelligence to each other. George W. Bush found that out the hard way on 911 and strove mightily to fix a broken system where the FBI didn’t talk to the CIA, and the CIA didn’t talk to the NSA. While it is better than it used to be, there is still some healthy inter-agency rivalry, The fact that all 17 Intelligence agencies (about a third of those are private, not government) came up with the same conclusion on Putin’s Bitch being a traitor is stunning to anyone who understands how these organizations actually work. Basically it means that 17 different organizations, with entirely different methods, and scopes of operation limited to inside, or outside the US – independently came to the same conclusion.

Despite the pablum Americans are fed each night on the Boob-Tube, the people who work for these agencies are neither endowed with superhuman abilities, aren’t arch-villains, and don’t go around breaking the law. Two of those agencies do have technology which would boggle your mind, DARPA also develops bleeding edge technology typically used by the Military, However much of the stuff you see on TV doesn’t exist other than in some technologist’s wet dream, of just doesn’t work that way.And while there are certainly some really bad guys out there. Bad guy access to bleeding edge technology is pretty limited.

So…There is no “Deep State”.

The Deep State Is a Figment of Steve Bannon’s Imagination

Here’s the real truth about America’s national security bureaucrats.

Here’s a handy rule for assessing the credibility of what you’re reading about national security in the Trump era: If somebody uses the term “Deep State,” you can be pretty sure they have no idea what they’re talking about.

The phrase’s appeal is undeniable. The notion of a shadowy network pulling the strings in Washington is an attractive one to an embattled White House and its political opponents, shorthand-employing commentators and conspiracy theorists alike. But uncritical use of this canard is lazy at best and counterproductive at worst. The term, which political scientists invented to refer to the networks of generals and spymasters that rule many authoritarian states around the world, has migrated from leftist critics of U.S. foreign policy to the alt-right advisers running the White House. As a card-carrying former member of America’s vast national security bureaucracy, I find it offensive. But I also find it offensive as an analyst, because it’s a deeply misleading way to understand how the U.S. government really works.

So what is—or isn’t—the Deep State?

Let’s start with standard insinuations of the phrase. There are more than 2 million civilian executive branch employees (not counting the U.S. military or portions of the intelligence community, which does not fully report employment numbers). At least half of that number work in an agency related to national security, broadly defined. When combined with the million-plus uniformed military and support system of contractors, this is an unwieldy group. A mix of hard-working patriots, clock-punchers, technocrats, veterans and scammers, these folks swear the same oath to defend the Constitution.

Hollywood bears much of the blame in portraying this group as some combination of Rambo, the All-Seeing Eye of Mordor and the cast of Homeland—an omniscient guerilla force unaccountable to any authority. Reality is less made for the big screen; if, say, “Zero Dark Thirty” had been true to life, it likely would have been a single shot of 100 hours of lawyers’ meetings. The national security bureaucracy does wield awe-inspiring capabilities that could be disastrous if abused; months sitting through the Obama administration’s surveillance policy review made that clear. But while civil servants and military personnel do pledge to defend the Constitution, it is not only the goodness of their hearts but a complex web of legal, congressional, bureaucratic and political oversight that guards against such risks. These checks are met with both grumbles and keen awareness of how they set the U.S. rule of law apart from, say, Russia. These systems are not foolproof, and could undoubtedly be improved. The flaws of the administrative state—ranging from redundancy and waste to self-interested bloat to inability to innovate to scandalous incidents of corruption—have been well documented, its day-to-day successes far less so. But find me an alternative to the national security bureaucracy, or find me a functioning state without one.

To Steve Bannon and his colleagues in the White House, the Deep State is an adversary to be destroyed. In recent remarks, the president’s chief strategist called for the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” According to the Washington Post, he’s been whispering in President Trump’s ear about the Deep State’s alleged campaign to ruin him. And, truth be told, charged with leaking for its own purposes, thwarting President Trump’s policy priorities and ousting his appointees, this “Deep State” sure looks quite guilty in the context of a chaotic first six weeks in office.

But it’s far easier to blame shadowy bureaucrats than to take responsibility for your own failures. The president’s executive order on terrorism didn’t fail because the “Deep State” sabotaged it; it failed because an insular White House did not seek or heed its advice. Leaks did not bring down former national security adviser Mike Flynn; his deception of Vice President Mike Pence did. Though it is impossible to know, much of the exposure of White House infighting that so angers Trump seems far more likely to be coming from his senior aides than from low-level bureaucrats.

None of which is to say that Bannon’s view of the world is completely baseless. Bureaucracies have institutional interests they are loath to let go of, and are plagued by an inertia resistant to disruption. This is common to all large organizations, not a flaw unique to the U.S. system of government. But Trump has a tool to manage this dynamic that he has inexplicably chosen not to wield: placement of around 4,000 political appointees throughout the bureaucracy. Inserting his personal emissaries throughout the “Deep State” would give him far more political control over the civil servants he perceives to be rebelling, and at the same time give his team better access to their expertise. But not a single one has been confirmed below Cabinet level.

And here’s where Bannon’s blame game breaks down: Past presidents have learned there are limits to what a pen and a phone (or a tweet) can implement without calling on the resources of the administrative state. This is not a threat but a fact. Their oath is to the Constitution, not the president, but they are effectively there to make him look good. And he has no alternative: There is no substitute state to defeat ISIS, renegotiate trade deals, build walls, round up illegal immigrants or catch terrorists if Trump works to dismantle the national security bureaucracy. Making the “Deep State” an enemy will cripple his administration.

To many in the media, the “Deep State” has become a convenient label for any quasi-official entity or view that is not enabling the Trump agenda. The former president, Congress, the judiciary, the grass roots community, unions, the Blob, Black Lives Matter and the “mainstream media” have all been lumped with the national security bureaucracy to help explain the unexplainable first weeks of this administration. “Evidence” of such is usually offered in the form of political alignment of the bureaucracy with these groups, leaks of policy deliberations at inconvenient moments, or the lack of success of the president’s desired policy outcomes.

Many assume that civil servants are liberal on various domestic political issues. The reality is more complex, particularly in the national security field, and as veterans make up an increasing proportion of the federal workforce. Various polls proclaimed federal workers would resign if Trump won the election in numbers ranging from 14 percent to nearly 30 percent. Despite some very public anecdotes, the anticipated wave of federal departures has not yet occurred.

Those employees who remain are frequently accused of “thwarting” President Trump’s agenda. This is a serious accusation, but one that hasn’t manifested evidence or shown any distinction from bureaucratic shirking problems that have plagued every prior administration (Obama’s travails with the Pentagon come to mind). Government sausage-making is no silent coup. Presidents do not rule by a Picard-like “make it so,” and agencies have an obligation to present policy advice based on the best facts available. When the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence unit failed to find that the countries implicated in the president’s refugee executive order present a terror threat, the analysts were just doing their jobs—not defying the president. When government lawyers shared legal concerns about the so-called travel ban, they were just offering their best advice. To Trump, perhaps the end result feels the same: He is not getting all he wants and the bureaucracy is telling him no. But this happens to all presidents. The difference with Trump is that he can’t handle the truth.

But those leaks! Here’s the thing about leaks: They are anonymous, and no one issues a friendly survey after a leak querying why the leaker did it. So maybe there is a weekly bowling party where the Deep State gathers to plan its agenda-thwarting leaks. Or maybe the Trump White House is doing what the Trump campaign did with regularity: leaking. Or maybe the leaks would dry up if any sort of formal policy process were launched at the National Security Council and there were other means to air policy concerns. Or maybe leaks are nothing new, having been rounding condemned and unprecedentedly prosecuted in the prior administration, and we just got around to calling it the Deep State. You and I have no idea, and that is the point.

For some, discussions about the Deep State can be a form of wish-casting. Would the military disobey unwise orders from President Trump? Will Defense Secretary James Mattis “save” us from extreme actions in foreign policy? More likely, each will stay in their lane and there will be no scenario in which the system of checks and balances has broken down so badly that they are compelled to initiate a major crisis with the president. For there are checks and balances we should want to be empowered, rather than turn to conspiracy: the judiciary, the media, a healthy political advocacy culture, Congress, the policy and legal advice of institutions, the statutory roles the military and intelligence communities, voters and more. These roles, bound up in our Constitution, do not an activist Deep State make, nor should anyone want them to…

So the next time you hear someone using the term “Deep State,” send them a copy of this article. Ask them to stop using it. Tell them the term betrays their ignorance, and obscures and misleads far more than it illuminates. And if that doesn’t work, well, we Deep Staters will take matters into our own hands.

….More…

 

Did Obama Set the Chumph Up on Russia?

The latest whine from the Chumph is that President Obama had his telephones tapped prior to the Election.

Donald Trump Claims Barack Obama Ordered Wire Tap On Trump Tower Before Election

The bad news for the Chumph, is his lines were indeed tapped. The worse news is why. And Obama had nothing to do with it, other than being one of the recipients of evidence of Trump and his campaign selling out America to the Russians.

It works like this – Anytime you make a phone call to the Intelligence Services of a country considered to be an enemy of America…The NSA taps your ass.They got those numbers on permanent tap-dial on the lookout for American traitors like the Chumph, or spies. The really bad news? You call the CIA’s exchange for any other First World Country…

They got your dumb ass on tape, too. You make a call to you friendly Russian spy in the FSB, their version of the CIA and KGB all rolled into one…You are tapped.

The even worse news, is all of our allies have access to the same technology and recordings. So they all know you are a traitor, Chumph.

Sic Semper Proditores – Thus Always to Traitors

Now for the devastating news. Did Obama set you up?

Yeah he did.

He did it by making those intelligence reports of your treason available to every US Government official with clearance high enough to see it, and redacted versions to everyone else.

Meaning it is almost impossible to make that information disappear. 

Everyone with a high enough clearance level in the US Government has a copy of the transcript of every conversation the Chumph, or his co-conspirators in Treason made with the Russians. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the information wasn’t distributed to our high level NATO allies. That means hundreds, if not thousands of people in the Government have the evidence to convict the Chumph of treason. And that includes the Military.

Even worse is evidence that at least 20 Republican Congressmen and Senators also were involved in the conspiracy, colluding with the Russians during their elections.

Indeed, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if there aren’t recordings of back-door conversations between Putin and Trump.

And I have no knowledge of what is in those Intelligence reports other than what has been made public.

Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking

In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.

American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence.

Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.

The disclosures about the contacts came as new questions were raised about Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s ties to the Russians. According to a former senior American official, he met with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, twice in the past year. The details of the meetings were not clear, but the contact appeared to contradict testimony Mr. Sessions provided Congress during his confirmation hearing in January when he said he “did not have communications with the Russians.”…More Here…

 

Representative Elijah Cummings – “If You Knew What We Know…”

You’d be rioting in the streets, quite honestly.

I don’t quite get why Cummings is going to the coronation. I don’t get why he isn’t raising holy hell. I don’t get why there isn’t a massive sit down demonstration in the House, denying the Rethugs the ability to conduct business …Until this information is given to the American people.

 

Israel to Stop Sharing Intelligence Information With US Because of Trump-Putin

The Israelis know Putin’s bitch is compromised. And are the first, I suspect of many of our allies who will treat the Trump administration as enemy sources.

This will cripple US intelligence in certain areas.

Mossad Seal

Israeli intelligence fears Donald Trump’s administration will funnel their secrets to Vladimir Putin, Russia

Israeli officials have concerns that any intel shared with U.S. will leak to Russia — who’ll leak to Iran

Israeli intelligence officials are reportedly concerned that any intelligence information shared with their American counterparts will eventually leak to Russia — thanks to the cozy relationship President-elect Donald Trump may have with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The fears stem from a reported recent meeting involving Israeli and American intelligence officials, according Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth. Those involved in the talks said that the Americans warned Israel to “be careful” starting Jan. 20, the day Trump takes over the Oval Office.

The American intelligence officials reportedly briefed their Israeli colleagues on the hacks targeting the Democratic National Committee, claiming they had “highly credible information” that Russian intelligence agencies conduct the cyberattacks and subsequently leaked the emails to WikiLeaks to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

According to the report, the Americans also informed Israeli officials that Putin had “leverages of pressure” over Trump. The Americans did not divulge what type of leverage Moscow had, but it was assumed they were referencing the 35-page memos collected by a former MI6 agent.

The Americans reportedly recommended Israel avoid sharing any sensitive documents with the U.S. until a time when Trump establishes he is not sharing information with Russia, or working closely with Putin.

More telling is the fact Trump’s proposed National Security Adviser, Michel Flynn – is having frequent conversations with the Russian Ambassador…

Donald Trump Adviser Michael Flynn Having ‘Frequent Contacts’ With Russian Envoy

Multiple calls were made on the day the U.S. announced retaliation for Moscow’s interference in the election.

Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for national security adviser, held multiple phone conversations with Russia’s ambassador to Washington on the day the United States announced retaliation for Moscow’s interference in the U.S. presidential election, two people familiar with the issue said.

The conversations appear to raise further questions about contacts between Trump’s advisers and Russian officials at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies contend that Moscow waged a multifaceted campaign of hacking and other actions to boost Trump’s election chances over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

On Dec. 29, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian suspected spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking U.S. political groups in the 2016 election.

Whether Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak discussed those sanctions is unclear.

An 18th-century U.S. law, the Logan Act, bars unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments that are in disputes with the United States.

The phone calls were first reported by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

 

Intelligence Report Alleges Secret Trump-Kremlin Meetings – Blackmail

The Buzzfeed News Service released a report yesterday, allegedly produced by a former British Intelligence officer on the Kremlin-Trump dealings. The report has not been corroborated (at least publicly) by US Intelligence agencies yet. While the report agrees in several areas with the US Intelligence reports, it goes further and makes several devastating accusations including that the FSB (New KGB) had used videos of Trump engaging in unusual sexual activities with groups of Russian prostitutes, and the Trump’s Attorney had met at least once secretly with the FSB to coordinate the release of leaks damaging to Clinton. It goes on to say that Trump’s staff was in frequent contact with the FSB in planning dis-information being planted in the America media.

It is important to note – no one has independently verified the new information in the report – and as such it could be fake.However, those researching the report have been unable to prove to this point any of the assertions made are false, either. US Intelligence felt that the report was significant enough they briefed President Obama on it.

The report does follow, and expand upon intelligence data already made public. As we know, some intelligence gathered by US Intelligence Agencies has not been made public.

The “errors” in the report seem to amount to nothing more than typos.

A full copy of the report is available here.

These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia

A dossier, compiled by a person who has claimed to be a former British intelligence official, alleges Russia has compromising information on Trump. The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors.

A dossier making explosive — but unverified — allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks.

The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump.

Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.

The document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent. It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors. The report misspells the name of one company, “Alpha Group,” throughout. It is Alfa Group. The report says the settlement of Barvikha, outside Moscow, is “reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates.” It is not reserved for anyone, and it is also populated by the very wealthy.

The Trump administration’s transition team did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment. However, the president-elect’s attorney, Michael Cohen, told Mic that the allegations were absolutely false.

“It’s so ridiculous on so many levels,” he said. “Clearly, the person who created this did so from their imagination or did so hoping that the liberal media would run with this fake story for whatever rationale they might have.”

And Trump shot back against the reports a short time later on Twitter.

 

Putin Directed Hack of US Election System to Elect Trump

More proof that the Chumph is Putin’s bitch.

In terms of retaliation, the US probably can’t embarrass Putin…But we could fairly easily take down his estimated $85 billion empire built on corruption and murdering opponents and businessmen.

Of course if the Chumph survives scrutiny long enough to be inaugurated – Putin and his criminal empire are completely safe.

U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack

U.S. intelligence officials now believe with “a high level of confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

Putin’s objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News. What began as a “vendetta” against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show corruption in American politics and to “split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn’t depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore,” the official said.

Ultimately, the CIA has assessed, the Russian government wanted to elect Donald Trump. The FBI and other agencies don’t fully endorse that view, but few officials would dispute that the Russian operation was intended to harm Clinton’s candidacy by leaking embarrassing emails about Democrats.

The latest intelligence said to show Putin’s involvement goes much further than the information the U.S. was relying on in October, when all 17 intelligence agencies signed onto a statement attributing the Democratic National Committee hack to Russia.

The statement said officials believed that “only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” That was an intelligence judgment based on an understanding of the Russian system of government, which Putin controls with absolute authority.

Now the U.S has solid information tying Putin to the operation, the intelligence officials say. Their use of the term “high confidence” implies that the intelligence is nearly incontrovertible.

 

“None dare call it Treason!” – Putin’s B-Boi

Seems the Chumph’s reaction to the recount in Michigan finally got some folks “un-stuck”.

Not only are Republicans investigating – but President Obama, likely in response to the entire INtelligence apparatus either heading out the door or threatening to revolt if the Chumph is inaugurated – finally does something significant…Not to mention a Military coup…

Obama To Receive A Report On Russia’s 2016 Election Meddling Before Leaving Office

The report could help Democrats and Republicans alike who want more clarity on Moscow’s role.

President Barack Obama expects to receive a U.S. intelligence report on security breaches during the 2016 election before he leaves office on Jan. 20, his homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, told reporters Friday.

“The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process,” Monaco said, speaking at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast event. Congress will be briefed on the report, she said, and Obama’s team will determine how much to share with the public once they see the results.

The U.S. intelligence community announced on Oct. 7 that it believes hackers supported by the Russian government were responsible for meddling in the election process, including by targeting the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton adviser John Podesta and other notable political figures, like former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Congressional Democrats have ramped up their pressure for more details on Russian activities since President-elect Donald Trump, who has been notably friendly toward Russia, triumphed over Clinton on Nov. 8. Last month, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee sent Obama a letter asking him to declassify information on the Russian interference. Earlier this week, Democrats on key House committees dealing with national security sent their own letter, asking that all members of Congress be informed of everything the intelligence community knows about Russian activity in 2016.

Obama’s review may satisfy the latter demand.

But it will not necessarily satisfy the interest in giving the public further information about the Russian role. Some Russia experts believe that is essential to prevent exaggerating Russia’s power in a way that helps Moscow and to offer truly effective, rather than hyperbolic, responses.

Monaco emphasized that investigators looking at the election would consider a range of threats that affected it, not just those emanating from Russia.

She noted that she’d had to communicate with the Obama and McCain campaigns in 2008, during her previous job at the FBI, to tell them about Chinese state-sponsored intrusions into their systems.

“We’ve seen in 2008, and this last election system, malicious cyberactivity,” Monaco said. “We may be crossing a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart those lessons learned.”

Of course, the Chinese interference did not have the kind of impact on perceptions of a specific candidate that Moscow’s did this year.

In any case, the review will hardly end the conversation in Washington about how to handle Moscow. The review’s findings could bolster congressional efforts to punish Russia for its attempts to undermine the U.S. and its allies. Top Senate Republicansare already preparing a probe ― defying their party’s putative leader, Trump, who has said he does not believe the intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow directed meddling.

“They’ll keep doing more here until they pay a price,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told The Washington Post this week.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, welcomed the Obama administration’s announcement.

“After many briefings by our intelligence community, it is clear to me that the Russians hacked our democratic institutions and sought to interfere in our elections and sow discord,” Schiff said. “In this, tragically, they succeeded.”

“Given President-elect Trump’s disturbing refusal to listen to our intelligence community and accept that the hacking was orchestrated by the Kremlin, there is an added urgency to the need for a thorough review before President Obama leaves office next month,” he went on.

 

Stupidty And Racism

One of my favorite saying is “Racism will make you stupid”…

Turns out it is the other way around.

Does low intelligence make you prejudiced?

Humans may be prejudiced by nature, but a new study has found that who we choose to hate may depend on our overall intelligence. The finding reconfirms the idea that it may be human nature to dislike those who are different from us — including those who look and think differently.

According to the study, people of lower intelligence, as measured by cognitive ability, tend to be prejudiced against non-conventional or liberal groups, as well as groups that have little choice in their status, such as people defined by their race, gender, or sexual orientation. On the other hand, individuals of higher intelligence were likely to be prejudiced against groups considered conventional and groups perceived to have “high choice” in their associations, such as conservatives.

“People dislike people who are different from them,” study authors Mark Brandt and Jarret Crawford told Broadly. “Derogating people with different worldviews can help people maintain the validity of their own world view.”

The duo’s findings are based on the results of a questionnaire completed by 5,914 volunteers. Brandt and Jarrett measured the volunteers’ intelligence and then asked them whether or not they believed a specific stereotype about a group was justified.

The reason for these differences in stereotypes, however, is more complicated than simply not liking those who are different from you. For example, the researchers explained that less intelligent people often like to view other groups as being distinctly different from them as a way to help see them as distant and therefore less of a threat.

Sadly, people of both high and low intelligence showed the same amount of prejudice, just toward different groups. But all hope is not lost. Another recent study found that prejudice, particularly prejudice against transgender individuals, can be reduced with a simple 10-minute conversation with someone from the marginalized group.

 

America is Not Alone in Spying On It’s Citizens

 

It would seem that other technologically enabled countries are doing much the same thing as the US’s NSA. Indeed, I think if the truth were told, most of Europe and Asia is doing exactly the same thing…

 

“Never Make a Pretty Woman Your Wife”…Or Apparently, a Dumb One

Wow – My first thought in reading this article was “this explains the popularity among women of those dreadful Uggs boots!”

Recall this image of Venus Williams –

Looking dumb as a beauty strategy to attract guys.

It also goes a long way to explaining conservative men walking around with tented trousers at the thought of the Sno’ Ho’ – Sarah Palin…

And the lore (and allure) of the “dumb blonde” stereotype.

Do Men Find Dumb-Looking Women More Attractive?

Ask a straight man, “How do you like your women?” and it’s unlikely he’ll answer, “Dumb and sleepy.” But according to new findings, these characteristics—and any other traits suggesting that the lady isn’t particularly alert—are precisely what the human male has evolved to look for in a one-night-stand.

In an article soon to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, University of Texas–Austin graduate student Cari Goetz and her colleagues explored what they called the sexual exploitability hypothesis. The hypothesis is based on thedifferences between male and female reproductive strategies as humans evolved. For ancestral women, casual intercourse with an emotionally unattached man who had no clear intention of sticking around to raise any resulting offspring constituted a massive genetic gamble. By contrast, for a man with somewhere around 85 million sperm cells churned out every day—per testicle—the frivolous expenditure of gametes was far less detrimental to his genetic interests. Goetz and her team began with the assumption that—because our brains evolved long before prophylactics entered the picture—female cognition is still sensitive to the pregnancy-related consequences of uncommitted sex and women remain more reluctant than men to engage in it. They set out to test the idea that any indication that a woman’s guard is lowered—that she’s “sexually exploitable”—is a turn-on for your average man. “[T]he assessment of a woman’s immediate vulnerability,” surmise the authors, “may be central to the activation of psychological mechanisms related to sexual exploitation.”

Reminds me of an old 60’s song…

This is an inflammatory hypothesis, of course, and the language employed in the field doesn’t help matters. It’s worth noting that in the evolutionary psychology sense, the word exploitable simply means that a woman is willing or can be more easily pressured into having sex—which takes her own desires, rather disturbingly, out of the equation. Even if she’s the aggressor, a prostitute, or a certifiable nymphomaniac, having casual sex with her would still constitute “exploiting” her (or at least her body), according to this model. 

 

How Do You Make Our Schools Smarter… By Dumbing Down Our Elected Officials?

A favorite Republican whipping post is our “failing” educational system”…

The problem being that many of the Republicans who most vociferously shout about American Educational shortcomings…

Have benefited so little from their experience  in a learning environment.

I mean, if the first step to building a strong house is to dig a good foundation…

Then you best better hire a builder with more than a passing familiarity with a shovel.

Didn’t do so great on that last vocabulary test? That’s OK, there’s a place in Congress for you. The current class of congressmembers speaks at a 10.6 grade level—down almost a full grade from 2005’s 11.5 grade level on the Flesch-Kincaid scale. According to a political scientist at the Sunlight Foundation, the open government group that ran the numbers, one reason for the decline is the influx of new members who were elected in 2010, many of them with Tea Party support. “Particularly among the newest members of Congress, as you move out from the center and toward either end of the political spectrum, the grade level goes down, and that pattern is particularly pronounced on the right,” he says. In easier-to-understand terms: All of the 10 members who speak at the lowest grade levels are Republicans, and nearly all are freshmen.

Sophomoric? Members Of Congress Talk Like 10th-Graders, Analysis Shows

It turns out that the sophistication of congressional speech-making is on the decline, according to the open government group the Sunlight Foundation. Since 2005, the average grade level at which members of Congress speak has fallen by almost a full grade.

Making The Grade

The Sunlight Foundation analyzed the Congressional Record and found that Congress’ ranking on the Flesch-Kincaid scale — which evaluates readability — has dropped a grade level in recent years.

Every word members of Congress say on the floor of the House or Senate is documented in the Congressional Record. The Sunlight Foundation took the entire Congressional Record dating back to the 1990s and plugged it into a searchable database.

Lee Drutman, a political scientist at Sunlight, took all those speeches and ran them through an algorithm to determine the grade level of congressional discourse.

“We just kind of did it for fun, and I was kind of shocked when I plotted that data and I saw that, oh my God, there’s been a real drop-off in the last several years,” he says.

In 2005, Congress spoke at an 11.5 grade level on the Flesch-Kincaid scale. Now, it’s 10.6. In other words, Congress dropped from talking like juniors to talking like sophomores.

Of the 10 members speaking at the lowest grade level, all but two are freshmen, and every one is a Republican. For the record, though, Drutman isn’t passing judgment about whether speaking at a lower grade level is a good thing or a bad thing.

South Carolina Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney ranks the very lowest, with a grade level of 7.94.

 

More Bad News For Internet Explorer Users…

I have a live traffic feed on the right hand bar of my site, which shows me where my various visitors come from. I did a quick check earlier today, and about 50% of the folks visiting the site were using IE – the vast majority of which were suing 8.0 or 9.0…

But there were still a couple of Internet Explorer 6.0 users!

I don’t imagine AptiQuant, the company which did this study, will be doing any business with Microsoft anytime soon…

According to the company –

Those still running Internet Explorer 6 have an average IQ just above 80, while Firefox and Chrome users are up at around 110 and Opera and Camino users above 120.

Is Internet Explorer For The Dumb? A New Study Suggests Exactly That.

A Vancouver based Psychometric Consulting company, AptiQuant, has released a report on a trial it conducted to measure the effects of cognitive ability on the choice of web browser. AptiQuant offered free online IQ tests to over a 100,000 people and then plotted the average IQ scores based on the browser on which the test was taken. And the results are really not that surprising. With just a look at the graphs in the report, it comes out pretty clear that Internet Explorer users scored lower than average on the IQ tests. Chrome, Firefox and Safari users had just a teeny bit higher than average IQ scores. And users of Camino, Opera and IE with Chrome Frame had exceptionally higher IQ levels.

Internet Explorer has traditionally been considered a pain in the back for web developers. Any IT company involved in web development will acknowledge the fact that millions of man hours are wasted each year to make otherwise perfectly functional websites work in Internet Explorer, because of its lack of compatibility with web standards. The continuous use of older versions of IE by millions of people around the world has often haunted web developers. This trend not only makes their job tougher, but has also pulled back innovation by at least a decade. But with the results of this study, IT companies worldwide will start to take a new look on the time and money they spend on supporting older browsers.