Stephen Woollard has organized a Victoria BC meetup for 3pm Match 11th at the Moon Under Water Brew Pub (eepurl.com/cCHRmH) RSVP to sgwoollard@hotmail.comor email the Shill and I will forward it on.
Hitlersplaybook.com
From the guy that brought you snopesforsnopes.com comes hitlersplaybook.com! It's a redirect right now but I'm thinking about making it into a simple two button HTML page, with an Amazon Affiliates link to buy Mein Kampf saying "Hitler's REAL Playbook" and another button saying "Thoughtful Deconstruction of the Mainstream Media Meme of 'Hitler's Playbook'" linking to noagendashow.com. All proceeds (if there are any!) going to you guys. Would that be alright?
Thanks,
Jon of Jupiter (quite a ways away from Sir Jon of Jupiter)
Search is Back!
Hi Adam,
The app is up and running on a server near San Jose.
Once that is done, I will also set up HTTPS
I'm interested to see how much traffic it will get. I have started with quite a small server, but I can scale it up if needed.
Regards,
Chris McClymont
Migrants
Duitsland wilde in 2015 de grenzen sluiten | Telegraaf.nl
zondag 5 maart 2017, 16:21Duitsland was in 2015 dicht bij de sluiting van de grenzen. De Duitse regering had verregaande plannen voor grensbewaking met Oostenrijk om vluchtelingen te weren. Dat meldt Welt am Sonntag. De krant baseert zich op een journalistiek boek dat binnenkort verschijnt over het vluchtelingenbeleid van bondskanselier Angela Merkel.
Op het hoogtepunt van de vluchtelingencrisis besloten Merkel en haar coalitiepartners op 12 september 2015 om duizenden agenten naar de grenzen te sturen. Maar enkele uren voordat het plan in werking trad, zagen de politici er toch van af. Er werden namelijk vraagtekens gezet bij de legaliteit van het plan. Ook werden zorgen geuit over mogelijk onpopulaire beelden van vluchtelingen die aan de grens worden tegengehouden.
Die Welt schrijft dat niet een Duitse politicus op het moment van de waarheid de verantwoordelijkheid durfde te nemen, terwijl het politieke besluit al was genomen.
Meer artikelen in Buitenland
Chiners
Chinese troops appear to be operating in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon is OK with it
WASHINGTON '-- There is mounting evidence that Chinese ground troops are operating inside Afghanistan, conducting joint counter-terror patrols with Afghan forces along a 50-mile stretch of their shared border and fueling speculation that Beijing is preparing to play a significantly greater role in the country's security once the U.S. and NATO leave. The full scope of China's involvement remains unclear, and the Pentagon is unwilling to discuss it. ''We know that they are there, that they are present,'' a Pentagon spokesman said. Yet beyond a subtle acknowledgement, U.S. military officials in Washington and in Kabul would not respond to several detailed questions submitted by Military Times.
This dynamic stands in stark contrast to the two sides' feisty rhetoric over their ongoing dispute in the South China Sea, and to Washington's vocal condemnation of Russian and Iranian activity in Afghanistan. One explanation may be that this quiet arrangement is mutually beneficial.
Both the Chinese and Afghan governments have disputed reports of joint patrols inside Afghanistan. Those first surfaced late last year when India's Wion News published photos claiming to show Chinese military vehicles in a region called Little Pamir, a barren plateau near the border. Reuters, an international news agency, also recently documented the development.
The vehicles were identified as a Dongfeng EQ 2050, which is the Chinese equivalent of a U.S. Humvee, and a Norinco VP 11a, which are like the mine-resistant MRAPs developed by the U.S. military last decade. China maintains that while its police forces do conduct joint counter-terrorism operations along the border, based on existing bilateral agreements between the two nations, the People's Liberation Army does not.
But then there's this peculiarity: In January, Chinese media circulated a report about Chinese troops allegedly rescuing a U.S. special forces team that had been attacked in Afghanistan. The story is likely bogus propaganda, and U.S. officials in Afghanistan say no U.S. personnel have been part of any operations involving Chinese forces, but it would seem to underscore the two countries' shared interest in combating terrorism there.
In this screen grab from India's Wion News, a Chinese Norinco VP 11a mine resistant vehicle patrols in the Afghanistan-China border region. (Screen grab via Wion News)But why is China even interested in Afghanistan? There are two motivators: security and commerce.
The first, says Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the East-West Institute, centers around China's desire to eradicate a Uyghur militant group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which has been active throughout the region for many years. Its feud with the Chinese government dates to 1949. The U.S. State Department designated it a terrorist organization in 2002. More recently, Uyghurs fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq have vowed to wreak havoc back home in China.
The U.S. military is not expressly targeting China's adversary though its continued presence in Afghanistan does further China's objective by helping to secure the country and deny sanctuary to rogue terror groups. Today, there are about 15,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, down from nearly 130,000 during the war's peak. They're spread across a handful of bases, focused on teaching the Afghans how to fight their enemies independently. A separate U.S-led counter-terror mission is focused on taking out high-profile leaders within al-Qaida and its affiliates.
But as coalition forces have pulled back, security has eroded, leaving ripe conditions for militants '-- be it the Taliban, al-Qaida or Uyghurs '-- to move in. The top American commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Nicholson, last month called the 15-year war a stalemate, raising the possibility that the U.S. and its allies could once more expand their footprint. Long term, however, the goal is to extract. "Beijing," Gady said, "has expressed repeated concern over the diminished Western foot print in Afghanistan.''Border security and broader stability are of prime concern to China, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of U.S.-East Asia relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. So its ''law enforcement actions inside Afghanistan in cooperation with Pakistan, as the U.S. draws down, serve Beijing's interests quite well.'' The U.S. is dependent on this assistance, he said. "Hence, there's no compelling reason for China not to resort to military force in its unstable western neighbor.''
Chinese Gen. Li Zuocheng, left, and U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley review an honor guard at the Bayi Building in Beijing, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)It's a unique dilemma for Washington. On the one hand, China's assistance in war-torn Afghanistan is seen as helpful. All the saber rattling in the South China Sea '-- to include China's militarization of several man-made islands '-- is not.
So the U.S. appears willing to cooperate where it can, and confront where it must. "A stable Afghanistan is in the interest of both the United States and China," Gady said. "I assume there must be a tacit understanding that China's involvement in Afghanistan is welcome up to a point."
China's financial interests revolve around Afghanistan's abundance of natural resources and minerals, and its access to Central Asian markets. Beijing sees Afghanistan as a vital link for its ''One Belt, One Road'' initiative, an economic policy that seeks to connect Eurasia to China."China," Gady said, "has been seen as a 'free rider' '-- gaining economic benefits by exploiting the country's natural resources while not contributing to the political and military solution of the conflict. So it is not surprising that as Western engagement in the country diminishes, China gradually steps in to fill the void to secure its interests."
In 2015, after the Taliban reclaimed Kunduz, a strategic city in northern Afghanistan, Beijing agreed to cooperate with Kabul. It pledged $73 million to support Afghanistan fledgling security forces. Afghan border police also are being trained in China, and the Chinese government is providing military hardware, including bullet proof jackets, demining equipment and armored police vehicles.
Lee does not view this as a softening stance between Beijing and Washington. There are too many other disagreements, he noted. Beyond the South China Sea, the U.S. wants China to do more to keep North Korea in check and to lay off South Korea, which intends to deploy a self-defense anti-ballistic missile system.
And the notion of Chinese forces pushing deeper into Afghanistan, beyond the border region, strikes Gady as unlikely '-- at least in the near term, while the U.S. and its allies are there in significant numbers. "China's security footprint," he said, "will remain small and insignificant in comparison."
Shawn Snow is a Military Times staff writer and editor of the Early Bird Brief. On Twitter: @SnowSox184.
Thanks Obama
Barack Obama's Politically Active Post-Presidency Isn't Normal, or Good - The Daily Beast
Just as his limited r(C)sum(C) and celebrity candidacy helped open the door for President Trump's run, his politicking since leaving office may be setting a dangerous precedent.
In a break from modern tradition, former President Barack Obama appears to be wading back into political waters.
''It's coming. [President Obama is] coming,'' former Attorney General Eric Holder told a gaggle of reporters last month. ''And he's ready to roll.''
We don't know the scope of involvement he has planned. The New York Times, though, reported that Obama's team rushed to preserve intelligence regarding possible contacts between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. That since leaving office, Obama tapped Holder to chair a new group focused on helping Democrats with redistricting efforts, while his loyal holdovers are leaking secrets about the Trump administration.
For all the talk about Trump's atypical behavior, the Obama camp's unfolding machinations feel almost equally unprecedented.
''Jimmy Carter threw himself into philanthropy,'' observes presidential historian David Pietrusza, ''but also took up oil and canvas, as did U.S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, and George W. Bush, who threw himself into folk art. Theodore Roosevelt took after his successors, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, with hammer and tongs. It is up to Obama whether he paints or smears.''
One could argue that Obama's choice is both acceptable and appropriate. He's young, just 55, and you could even say that it's his civic responsibility to do everything within his power to check Trump's authoritarian tendencies.
This is the justification'--or possibly a rationalization'--for what Obama appears to be doing. ''[I]f the only way to protect norms is to destroy norms,'' writes The Atlantic's David A. Graham, ''the effect is a feedback doom-loop for norms in general.''
The ends justify the means. He has to destroy the village in order to save it.
To be sure, Trump, too, has played into that destructive feedback loop throughout his campaign and now his candidacy, as when he tweeted Saturday about Obama supposedly wiretapping him during the campaign, and'--in still another example of Trump reflecting attacks aimed at him back at his enemies'--said of Obama ''This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!''
Trump also recently told Fox News he thinks ''President Obama is behind [the disruptive protests happening at Republican town halls] because his people certainly are behind it.'' Is this another outlandish Trump claim?
Perhaps, but there also may be some merit. Organizing for Action, a successor to the Obama campaign, is urging progressives to attend Republican town hall meetings.
The fact that Obama has decided to remain in Washington, D.C., is both unusual and symbolic. True, a retired Woodrow Wilson also remained in Washington, but he had reasons. He had remarried a Washington widow, possessed no private home to return to and was too sick to do much more than privately fume about a presidency gone wrong.
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Obama, however, will remain politically active; that break with tradition is simply another aspect of his political abnormality. The truth is that Barack Obama bears a lot of responsibility for destroying what had been acceptable standards'--the destruction of which ultimately made possible Donald Trump's ascendancy. While Obama now poses as a defender of decorum, tradition, and protocol, he (in a much subtler way) flouted convention.
This is a guy who, in not even a single term as a U.S. senator before running for the highest office in the land, accomplished little but did try to filibuster Sam Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, and supported a ''poison pill'' to kill immigration reform. Who ran as a celebrity, helping pave the way for the sort of hero worship that President Trump's fans now employ.
He won office at a time when America felt like it was already coming apart, and given the opportunity to be a true post-partisan leader who could unite the country, chose instead to run a highly partisan and ideological presidency. That began with his choice of the divisive issue of health care reform as his landmark legislation'--Obamacare being Obama's original sin'--using every means necessary to pass it on a party-line vote. And he frequently resorted to unilateral decisions outside the scope of his constitutional authority. Sound familiar?
Along the way, he got us used to a lot of things that his team is now accusing Donald Trump of inventing. Think Donald Trump is an undignified reality star? Yeah, remember the time that Obama gave an interview to a YouTube star who drinks cereal out of a bathtub? Cultural degradation doesn't just happen overnight.
Do you think President Trump was the first politician to have a casual relationship with the truth? Then answer this: Who said, ''If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor'' and that ISIS is the ''JV team''?
Don't get me wrong'--in his outward demeanor and rhetoric, Obama generally acted much more like a traditional politician than does Trump. But while the narrative seems to be that Obama was kind and normal'--and that Republicans were mean and obstructionist'--it takes two to tango. Don't forget that Obama curtly told Republicans ''I won'' when they were first trying to negotiate with him.
Yet, his fa§ade masked a partisan motivation that harmed not only the nation and the Constitution but also his own party. Now, he may harm his party yet again because a too-active ex-president possesses its own risks. Theodore Roosevelt's post-presidential political resurrection deterred the rise of any alternative Republican progressives, such as a Robert La Follette, a Hiram Johnson, or a William E. Borah. A still-active, Washington-based Obama may similarly retard the ascent of badly needed new Democratic leadership, much as any sitting president eclipses his own party.
By turning his term into a never-ending, eight-year campaign, Obama established a non-traditional presidency which begat an even more non-traditional president as his successor. He will open even more previously-locked doors by continuing his tradition of ignoring tradition.
Hastened by those who should know better, the erosion and devolution of discourse is already finding easy footholds in an already-surreal Trump Presidency. The reverberations, sadly, could echo far beyond the four or eight years of the current administration and tinge Presidential politics for a generation or more.
Depression
Urban Outfitters CEO: "Like Housing, The Retail Bubble Has Now Burst"
For months now we've talked about the retail bubble and the effects of its implosion on mall owners across the country (see "America's Desperate Mall Owners Turn To Grocers, Doctors & High Schools To Fill Empty Space" and "Pittsburgh Mall Once Worth $190 Million Sells For $100" for a sample of the carnage).
Now, after a spate of retail bankruptcies struck several popular mall outlets including A(C)ropostale, Pacific Sun and American Apparel, Richard Hayne, CEO of Urban Outfitters, is finally willing to admit what most of us have known for some time now, namely that the entire U.S. retail space is in the midst of a massive bubble that is currently bursting in epic fashion (pardon the pun).
Speaking on his quarterly earnings call this morning, Hayne told investors that U.S. retailers are finally facing the consequences of a massive bubble in retail square footage per capita, roughly 6x that of Europe and Japan, a bubble which "like housing, has now burst." Richard Hayne on Urban Outfitters earnings call:
Retail square feet per capita in the United States is more than six times that of Europe or Japan. And this doesn't count digital commerce. Our industry, not unlike the housing industry, saw too much square footage capacity added in the 1990s and early 2000s. Thousands of new doors opened and rents soared. This created a bubble, and like housing, that bubble has now burst. We are seeing the results: doors shuttering and rents retreating. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future and may even accelerate.
Another consequence of overcapacity is discounting and endless promotions as retailers try to drive demand through lower prices. This causes AUR deflation and erodes merchandise margins. Given an uncertain environment, where occupancy costs are de-leveraging and merchandise margins are pressured, how does URBN with our current portfolio of strong omni-channel lifestyle brands adapt, grow and remain solidly profitable? The answer, we plan to do what any good portfolio manager would: invest resources in the most promising opportunities, diversify to lower risk and increase liquidity.
Hayne went on to describe his company's highly "unusual" holiday season in which "overall demand in North America at all three brands evaporated for several weeks at the beginning of December."
Let me begin with a fourth quarter overview. I would characterize results during this year's fourth quarter, especially the holiday season, as both disappointing and highly unusual. Total company comparable sales were flat for the quarter, but within the quarter two distinct periods appeared. Comps were up nicely in the month of November. All three brands enjoyed a fantastic start to the holiday season by driving double-digit comp sales gains on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Things were looking very good.
Then came December. Store traffic and overall demand in North America at all three brands evaporated for several weeks at the beginning of December. More normal demand returned only as Christmas and Hanukkah drew near. Demand remained normal immediately after the holidays, but fell back again once the New Year began. I can't recall having ever seen a quarter with such wild and wide fluctuations.
Both Urban Outfitters and Express reported weak earnings this morning which pushed shares of both companies sharply lower in early trading. Per Bloomberg:
Urban Outfitters posted profit of 55 cents a share in the fourth quarter, short of the 56 cents predicted by analysts. Its gross margin was 33 percent in the period, compared with an estimate of 33.5 percent.
Express, meanwhile, said that first-quarter earnings will range from flat to a loss of 4 cents a share. Analysts had predicted a gain of 14 cents for the period. The Columbus, Ohio-based company expects same-store sales to be down by a percentage in the high single digits, compared with an average estimate of a 5.2 percent decline.
''Our store performance continued to be impacted by challenging mall traffic and a promotional retail environment,'' Express CEO David Kornberg said on Wednesday.
CDC warns parents about children drinking hand sanitizers | The Kansas City Star
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a new warning to parents and caregivers to be aware of children drinking hand sanitizers '-- sometimes on purpose.
The caution comes with a new CDC report released March 3 that found 70,669 cases of children younger than 12 exposed to sanitizer poisoning from 2011 to 2014.
About 90 percent of those exposures happened among children younger than 5, and most of them drank hand sanitizers made with alcohol.
The report also includes concern about the potential of abuse among older children for whom misuse seemed to correlate with the school year and flu season.
''The majority of intentional exposures to alcohol hand sanitizers occurred in children aged 6-12 years,'' the CDC report said. ''Alcohol hand sanitizer exposures were associated with worse outcomes than were non-alcohol hand sanitizer exposures.''
Very few of the cases reported by 55 poison treatment centers across the country to the National Poison Data System involved serious injury. But both alcoholic and non-alcoholic sanitizers can cause adverse effects, the CDC said.
''Hand sanitizers are effective and inexpensive products that can reduce microorganisms on the skin, but ingestion or improper use can be associated with health risks,'' the CDC report states. ''Many hand sanitizers contain up to 60% - 95% ethanol or isopropyl alcohol by volume, and are often combined with scents that might be appealing to young children.
''Recent reports have identified serious consequences, including apnea, acidosis, and coma in young children who swallowed alcohol-based (alcohol) hand sanitizer.''
The CDC advises caregivers and health care providers to watch for improper use among children.
''Increased parental or teacher supervision might be needed while using alcohol hand sanitizer products, especially for older children who might be abusing these products during the school year.'' the CDC wrote.
Poison control centers warned parents last year that a growing number of children were getting drunk by drinking alcohol-based hand sanitizers - and showing up in emergency rooms.
They advised parents to alert to their children carrying large bottles of sanitizer in their backpacks or purses.
Joanna Louise Coles (born 20 April 1962) is the first person to hold the position of Content Editor for Hearst Magazines.[1] She previously held the position of editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, the world's largest women's media brand, from 2012 to September 2016, and was named an editorial director of Hearst in 2014. Coles joined Hearst in 2006 as editor-in-chief of Marie Claire where she co-created and executive produced the docu TV series Running in Heels and appeared as the mentor in Project Runway: All Stars after orchestrating the brand's partnership with the Emmy Award-winning Project Runway.
The British-born editor was educated at Prince Henry's Grammar School, Otley and graduated from the University of East Anglia with a BA in English and American literature before starting her career at The Spectator.[2][3] She moved to the U.S. in 1997 as the bureau chief for The Guardian and later joined The Times of London. Over the course of her career, she has been the recipient of numerous awards for her journalism and leadership in the media industry.
Coles sits on the board of directors of Snapchat. She is also on the board of Women Entrepreneurs New York City, an initiative to expand female entrepreneurship with a focus on underserved women and communities.
The Man Who Taught Donald Trump To Pit Gay People Against Immigrants
FILE PHOTO: A fleet of Uber's Ford Fusion self driving cars are shown during a demonstration of self-driving automotive technology in Pittsburgh, U.S., September 13, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk/File Photo
By Heather Somerville| SAN FRANCISCOSAN FRANCISCO Uber Technologies Inc is working to mend its relationship with regulators as pressure mounts for the company to improve its business practices and temper Chief Executive Travis Kalanick's aggressive leadership style.
Uber on Wednesday obtained the necessary permit to put its self-driving cars back on California streets, conceding to the state's rules after a public spat with regulators last year and initially refusing to apply for the $150 permit.
The permit allows Uber back into its home state and the chief testing ground for self-driving cars, where 26 other companies - including Alphabet Inc, Tesla Motors and Ford Motor Co - are competing for a piece of the autonomous vehicle market and have obtained state permits.
Also on Wednesday, Uber said it was prohibiting the use of its "Greyball" technology to target local regulators, ending a program that had been critical in helping Uber evade authorities in cities where the service has been banned.
The ride-hailing company had for years used Greyball, which effectively changes the app view for specific riders. The technology uses data from the Uber app and other methods to identify and circumvent officials who aimed to ticket or apprehend drivers in cities that opposed Uber's operations. Uber confirmed the existence of Greyball last week.
Uber is "expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward," Uber's chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, said in a blog post on Wednesday.
Sullivan said Uber had started a review of the program, and "it will take some time to ensure this prohibition is fully enforced."
Uber's efforts to repair its relations with regulators come amid a string of missteps that have sparked consumer backlash and raised investor concern. A former Uber employee last month published a blog post describing a workplace where sexual harassment was common and went unpunished. The blog post prompted an internal investigation.
Then, Bloomberg released a video that showed Kalanick berating a Uber driver who had complained about cuts to rates paid to drivers, resulting in Kalanick making a public apology. In addition, at least three high level executives have left Uber in the last couple of weeks.
Cities including Philadelphia knew about Uber's efforts to circumvent enforcement authorities, by either manipulating the app to show a user that no cars were available or blocking city officials' credit cards and phone numbers on the app.
The company on Wednesday said it was granted a permit to test two self-driving cars on California public roads. Uber had defied state regulations last year, arguing that its cars do not meet California's definition of an autonomous vehicle because they require constant monitoring by a person, so they did not require a permit.
California Department of Motor Vehicles spokeswoman Jessica Gonzalez confirmed the permit for Uber to test two self-driving cars on public roads.
Uber will not make the autonomous cars immediately available to passengers, according to an Uber spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The company needs time to build up its fleet and go through the various regulatory requirements such as getting the vehicles smog tested and registered, the spokeswoman added.
Uber's efforts to rebuild its self-driving program come as the company faces a lawsuit from Alphabet Inc's self-driving car unit, Waymo, which accuses Uber of stealing designs for technology for autonomous cars known as Lidar. Uber has said Waymo's claims are false.
(Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by G Crosse and Leslie Adler)
Next In Technology NewsSnap perks up after initial rush of short sellersSAN FRANCISCO Shares of Snap Inc bounced back on Wednesday following a steep selloff while an initial rush to short sell the stock appeared to be slowing.
Google touts new cloud computing clients; analysts skepticalAlphabet Inc's Google is making progress in taking on cloud computing leaders Amazon.com Incand Microsoft Corp, executives said on Wednesday, as the search engine company stakes more of its future on the cloud as a new source of growth.
Exclusive - Toshiba's Westinghouse calls in U.S. bankruptcy lawyers: sourcesWestinghouse Electric Co LLC, the U.S. nuclear power plant developer owned by troubled Japanese electronics giant Toshiba Corp, has brought in bankruptcy attorneys from law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The NY Times Explains Why There Is So Much "Confusion" About Its "Trump Wiretapping" Story
In the aftermath of the Trump accusation that Obama wiretapped his phone during the election, an allegation which the flagbearers of the "truthful" (according to their various advertising campaigns) anti-Trump media wave, namely the Washington Post and the New York Times have vehemently denied, an unexpected victim has emerged over the past few days: the New York Times itself.
The reason is that while the NYT has repeatedly criticized and denied Trump's allegation, it itself had written an article on January 19 titled, in the print version, "Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides', and online "Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates", by reporters Michael Schmidt and Michael Shear, which paradoxically corroborated much, if not all of what Trump himself said, and quotes the usual anonymous source who said that ''wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House'' as part of an investigation into ''the business dealings that some of the president-elect's past and present advisers have had with Russia.''
So with various conservative blogs taking the NYT to task over this seeming contradiction, and even the WaPo's own fact-checker seemingly confused...
... today the NYT's public editor, Liz Spayd felt compelled to address its January 19 article which, implicitly, substantiated much of Trump's allegation, and to explain why that's not the case.
She starts by saying that "Trump's assertions, however overinflated, nonetheless echo certain aspects of The New York Times's reporting from recent weeks. That, in turn, has allowed his administration to assert that the basis for his claims rests, in part, on reporting by The Times."
On the surface, there are similarities. Both The Times and Trump have referred to wiretaps. Both have referenced White House knowledge of the investigations. And both have described efforts by officials from the Obama administration to involve itself in the continuing investigations of Trump and Russia.
Maybe Trump is not a completely raving lunatic after all. So where are the differences:
For one, as The Times (and others) has made clear, these investigations have been conducted by the F.B.I., intelligence agencies and Congress, not by Obama himself. The Times has also said Obama administration officials sought to spread intelligence about a possible link between Trump and Russia to ensure a trail of evidence for investigators, but it said Obama himself was not involved. And no Times reporter has claimed that any warrants have been issued to spy on Trump or his associates.
And there it is again: several months after we thought we would never again hear the old "Obama had no idea what was going on excuse", it strikes yet again, only this time we find it very difficult to believe that Obama, who expanded the distributions of confidential NSA data to multiple offices just weeks before his final day in office, had no clue that Trump was being wiretapped.
There's more, and this is where things get delightfully Orwellian, because as Spayd "explains", the confusion is really just a function of readers being confused because, well, it's complicated:
Distinguishing between Trump's assertions and The Times's reporting is essential. Yet readers at this juncture may be understandably confused on what is true and not in one of the most important ongoing news stories in the country.
More details about this pervasive "confusion" fanned by none other than the NYT itself:
Several readers have written in this week saying they're having a hard time squaring The Times's own past reports of wiretapping with the paper's assertions that there is no firm evidence that any warrants for wiretaps have been issued. Readers also expressed confusion with The Times's assertion that it would be illegal for a White House to receive information about such investigations, when its own wiretapping story in January said the Trump White House was given some information from intercepted communications.
''For months now the NY Times and many other mainstream news sources has been running stories based on anonymous leaks saying that a massive investigation was going on into Trump and company's Russian dealings based on wiretaps and intel intercepts,'' wrote John Penley of Asheville, N.C. ''Now Obama officials are saying this all never happened so my question is this: Why have the NY Times and others been saying it has for months now basing their stories on anonymous leaks?''
So to eliminate the confusion, here is the NYT's explanation of how the wiretapping of Trump and/or his associates, which eventually made its way to the White House - as per the NYT - didn't really happen.
I reached out to editors in the Washington bureau to seek their help in clarifying the difference between Clapper's '-- and The Times's '-- assertions that no warrants had been issued, and the reference to wiretapping in the January story.
Elisabeth Bumiller, the bureau chief, said the January story was referring to information picked up from wiretaps and other intelligence collected overseas, a process that requires no warrants.
Still confused? Don't worry: the NYT even has a Q&A to help you out of your cognitive dissonance predicament":
There's a lot to parse. And doing so, in a way that is clear to readers, is not easy when the subject matter is complicated and the information that reporters receive comes under strict terms of how it can be used. One reporter, Charlie Savage, produced a helpful Q. and A. explaining the law around wiretaps and key terms. But it didn't try to show how Trump's claims line up against The Times's past reporting.
Sarcasm aside, what the NYT's long-winded explanation boils down to is that Trump's inner circle was wiretapped, but the difference is whether Obama knew about it or not. And if anyone harbors any gullible thoughts that the president who lied to the public about his knowledge of Hillary's email server - arguably the biggest fiasco of her presidential campaign - but is telling the truth when he says that he has no idea whatsoever that someone, somewhere was in fact wiretapping Trump as the NYT reports, then we wish you all the best as you click away on all the other NYT "Q&A"s to help you in your misery.
FACT: ObamaCare was passed, using the original legislative vehicle, at 1:38am on 12/24/09 with 60 votes in the Senate (see below). The House then approved that Senate Bill without changes; and in February 2010 created a secondary bill which created the opportunity for the Senate to modify ObamaCare using ''reconciliation'' for a lower vote threshold of 51 votes.
Literally under the cloak of darkness Democrats rammed their holy grail of a socialist construct down the throat of every American. We no longer needed to imagine having usurping representation that did not represent the will of the people '' we saw it.
[Understand the full construct by reading HERE] If you do not understand how legislation is created; if you do not understand the difference between the Senate and House; if you do not understand the way ObamaCare was created, you really need to read this first.
A clean repeal bill, meaning a law to repeal the entire ObamaCare construct only, would require another 60 vote hurdle in the Senate.
Republicans, while in the majority, only control 52 seats. Without 8 Democrats voting to approve a ''repeal bill'', any House (Or Senate) bill that repeals ObamaCare cannot pass the Senate.
This is why Mark Levin is a con-man; selling snake oil as outrage to keep a listening audience angry, yet clueless and hopeless. That's what I don't like.
A complete repeal of ObamaCare is currently impossible. The House Freedom Caucus can push all the repeal bills they want, but they cannot get a clean repeal bill through the Senate because they cannot get the 60 votes needed. Period.
Additionally, despite claims to the contrary, the GOP has never passed an Obamacare ''repeal bill''. Ever. What they did previously pass was a ''defund bill'' using the lower vote reconciliation process. President Obama vetoed it. A defunding bill was possible because of the financial pathway which falls under reconciliation rules. The current Ryan bill is almost identical to the 2016 defunding bill everyone is mistakenly calling a prior ''repeal bill''.
A complete independent repeal bill of ObamaCare is currently impossible.
The only bill that can pass the Senate is a bill that can utilize the process of reconciliation, which has a lower vote threshold of 51 votes. A reconciliation bill is a budgetary bill designed around the financial drivers of ObamaCare. This is what HHS Secretary Tom Price, Speaker Ryan and President Trump are attempting to do.
A reconciliation bill cannot add substantively to the existing law. It can only modify the financial structures and retain the same 10-year budgetary impact. If you want substantive adds or removals of the law, beyond the financial structure, it is no longer a reconciliation bill.
If it is no longer a reconciliation bill, it requires 60 votes. 52 Republicans + 8 democrats. Democrats have already stated they will not support any substantive changes that undermine the key ObamaCare provisions.
Accepting the Democrats will not vote to repeal their signature law'... The only way to fully repeal ObamaCare as an independent bill, and overcome the 60 vote threshold, would be to eliminate the filibuster rule (3/5ths vote threshold or 60 votes) in the Senate and drop the vote threshold to 51 votes, a simple majority, for all legislation.
However, if the Senate was to drop to a simple majority vote for all legislation the entire premise of the upper chamber minority party protection is gone. Forever.
There would no longer be any difference in the House or Senate for vote thresholds, and as a consequence there would no longer be any legislative protections for the minority positions. What this means, in combination with the previous passage of the 17th amendment, is the constitutional republican framework is gone.
The constitutional republic being now replaced with a pure majority rule democracy. The founding fathers regarded majority rule democracy less desirable than a monarchy because a simple majority means mob rule. At least in a monarchy you might get a wise king once-in-a-while. In a mob rule democracy emotion drives everything. You go from being a nation of laws, to a nation of laws of the moment based on emotion.
Eliminating the 3/5th's vote threshold in the Senate would also mean there's no real reason to keep the Senate around when in the hands of the same party as the House. The House can pass 50% +1 bills all by themselves. The Senate, the place where grand deliberations required the protection and consideration of the minority position, would be unnecessary.
All structural protections for the minority views would be dispatched. Forever.
Without the filibuster rule, and with the Senate having only a simple majority rule for passage, there would no longer exist an internal legislative check for any minority party to protect themselves from the laws created by a greater mob.
The ruling party would be in power as if they held a Senate super majority at all times. As a consequence, with minority protection eliminated, legislation impacting Texas (or any state) is then ruled by the legislative federal dictates from those representing New York and California (or any other aggregate). There is no legislative pressure to listen to, or consider, the position of the minority party.
You would think that constitutional conservatives would be necessarily predisposed against the dropping of a constitutional republic in favor of a pure democracy (mob rule).
However, within this current argument over the Price/Ryan approach to replacing ObamaCare you find exactly that. Emotional conservatives, and crony-constitutional conservatives like Mark Levin, arguing against the current House bill leaving only the option to drop the Senate filibuster on legislation and pass laws with a simple majority.
So you tell me, is this really a constitutional-conservative approach?
Really and honestly?
Of course there are problems with the current Ryan bill. It can only approach ObamaCare from the reconciliation aspect. It cannot go into the substantive changes, adds or modifications because that would require the 60 vote Senate. Again, See Here.
Additionally, despite claims to the contrary, the GOP has never passed an Obamacare ''repeal bill''. Ever. What they did previously pass was a ''defund bill'' using the lower vote reconciliation process. President Obama vetoed it. A defunding bill was possible because of the financial pathway which falls under reconciliation rules.
Yes, the GOP could defund it 100% again, but then what?'... It still exists as a program, and Trump would have to fund the existing (non repealed law) from somewhere. So you're back to the 60 votes for a replacement again or eliminate the filibuster and go with the 51-vote threshold for all future legislation.
Back to current ObamaCare's replacement '' there are three options if we are going to retain a constitutional republic, and pass laws with the 60 vote senate filibuster threshold:
'... Option #1 '' We can do nothing '' and allow ObamaCare to collapse on it's own. In the interim many Americans will be negatively impacted and the more vulnerable and needy will be worst hurt. Premiums and co-pays continue to skyrocket while the insurance system tries to preserve itself.
'... Option #2 '' We can Repeal and Replace using the three-phase approach being proposed by Tom Price, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump:
1. Pass reconciliation legislation targeting the financial mechanisms.2. HHS rewrites rules.3. New laws are proposed by a full congress to adjust ObamaCare and add to it, and laws debated/passed.Yes, this has it's risks. No guarantee you'll get the cookie you want in phase three.
'... Option #3 '' Pass futile structural repeal bills in the House, and watch them pile up in the Senate without the ability to pass and earn 60 votes. Shout and holler some more, gnash some teeth, and wait for 2018 when Republicans will attempt to win the other 8 seats needed. Again, even less of a guarantee on the outcome.
Those are our options.
'....Unless you want to eliminate the Constitutional Republic and kill the vote threshold in the Senate. Even nasty Harry Reid didn't do that when he created it.
Choose wisely.
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WikiLeaks Files Show the CIA Repurposing Hacking Code To Save Time, Not To Frame Russia
Attributing hacking attacks to the correct perpetrators is notoriously difficult. Even the U.S. government, for all its technical resources and expertise, took warranted criticism for trying to pin a high-profile 2014 cyberattack on North Korea, and more recently faced skepticism when it blamed Russia for hacks against top Democrats during the 2016 election.
In those cases, government officials said they based their attribution in part on software tools the hackers employed, which had been used in other cyberattacks linked to North Korea and Russia. But that sort of evidence is not conclusive; hackers have been known to intentionally use or leave behind software and other distinctive material linked to other groups as part of so-called false flag operations intended to falsely implicate other parties. Researchers at Russian digital security firm Kaspersky Lab have documented such cases.
On Tuesday, Wikileaks published a large cache of CIA documents that it said showed the agency had equipped itself to run its own false-flag hacking operations. The documents describe an internal CIA group called UMBRAGE that Wikileaks said was stealing the techniques of other nation-state hackers to trick forensic investigators into falsely attributing CIA attacks to those actors. According to Wikileaks, among those from whom the CIA has stolen techniques is the Russian Federation, suggesting the CIA is conducting attacks to intentionally mislead investigators into attributing them to Vladimir Putin.
''With UMBRAGE and related projects, the CIA can not only increase its total number of attack types, but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the 'fingerprints' of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from,'' Wikileaks writes in a summary of its CIA document dump
It's a claim that seems intended to shed doubt on the U.S. government's attribution of Russia in the DNC hack; the Russian Federation was the only nation specifically named by Wikileaks as a potential victim of misdirected attribution. It's also a claim that some media outlets have accepted and repeated without question.
''WikiLeaks said there's an entire department within the CIA whose job it is to 'misdirect attribution by leaving behind the fingerprints' of others, such as hackers in Russia,'' CNN reported without caveats.
It would be possible to leave such fingerprints if the CIA were re-using unique source code written by other actors to intentionally implicate them in CIA hacks, but the published CIA documents don't say this. Instead they indicate the UMBRAGE group is doing something much less nefarious.
They say UMBRAGE is borrowing hacking ''techniques'' developed or used by other actors to use in CIA hacking projects. This is intended to save the CIA time and energy by copying methods already proven successful. If the CIA were actually re-using source code unique to a specific hacking group this could lead forensic investigators to mis-attribute CIA attacks to the original creators of the code. But the documents appear to say the UMBRAGE group is writing snippets of code that mimic the functionality of other hacking tools and placing it in a library for CIA developers to draw on when designing custom CIA tools.
''The goal of this repository is to provide functional code snippets that can be rapidly combined into custom solutions,'' notes a document in the cache that discusses the project. ''Rather than building feature-rich tools, which are often costly and can have significant CI value, this effort focuses on developing smaller and more targeted solutions built to operational specifications.''
Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, agrees that the CIA documents are not talking about framing Russia or other nations.
''What we can conclusively say from the evidence in the documents is that they're creating snippets of code for use in other projects and they're reusing methods in code that they find on the internet,'' he told The Intercept. ''Elsewhere they talk about obscuring attacks so you can't see where it's coming from, but there's no concrete plan to do a false flag operation. They're not trying to say 'We're going to make this look like Russia'.''
The UMBRAGE documents do mention looking at source code, but these reference widely available source code for popular tools, not source code unique to, say, Russian Federation hackers. And the purpose of examining the source code seems to be for purposes of inspiring the CIA code developers in developing their code, not so they can copy/paste it into CIA tools.
It's not unusual for attackers of all persuasion '-- nation-state and criminal '-- to copy the techniques of other hackers. Success breeds success. A month after Stuxnet was discovered in June 2010, someone created a copycat exploit to attack the same Windows vulnerability Stuxnet exploited.
Components the UMBRAGE project has borrowed from include keyloggers; tools for capturing passwords and webcam imagery; data-destruction tools; components for gaining escalated privileges on a machine and maintaining stealth and persistent presence; and tools for bypassing anti-virus detection.
Some of the techniques UMBRAGE has borrowed come from commercially available tools. The documents mention Dark Comet, a well-known remote access trojan, or RAT, that cancapture screenshots and keystrokes and grab webcam imagery, among other things. The French programmer who created Dark Comet stopped distributing it after stories emerged that the Syrian government was using it to spy on dissidents. Another tool UMBRAGE highlights is RawDisk, a tool made by the commercial software company Eldos, which contains drivers that system administrators can use to securely delete information from hard drives.
But legitimate tools are often used by hackers for illegitimate purposes, and RawDisk is no different. It played a starring role in the Sony hack in 2014, where the attackers used it to wipe data from Sony's servers.
It was partly the use of RawDisk that led forensic investigators to attribute the Sony hack to North Korea. That's because RawDisk had been previously used in 2011 ''Dark Seoul'' hack attacks that wiped the hard drives and master boot records of three banks and two media companies in South Korea. South Korea blamed the attack on North Korea and China. But RawDisk was also used in the destructive Shamoon attack in 2012 that wiped data from 30,000 systems at Saudi Aramco. That attack wasn't attributed to North Korea, however; instead U.S. officials attributed it to Iran.
All of this highlights how murky attribution can be, particularly when focused only on the tools or techniques a group uses, and how the CIA is not doing anything different than other groups in borrowing tools and techniques.
''Everything they're referencing [in the CIA documents] is extremely public code, which means the Russians are grabbing the same snippets and the Chinese are grabbing them and the U.S. is grabbing,'' says Graham. ''So they're all grabbing the same snippets of code and then they're making their changes to it.''
The CIA documents do talk elsewhere about using techniques to thwart forensic investigators and make it hard to attribute attacks and tools to the CIA. But the methods discussed are simply proper operational security techniques that any nation-state attackers would be expected to use in covert operations they don't want attributed to them. The Intercept wasn't able to find documents within the WikiLeaks cache that talk about tricking forensic investigators into attributing attacks to Russia. Instead they discuss do's and don'ts of tradecraft, such as encrypting strings and configuration data in malware to prevent someone from reverse engineering the code, or removing file compilation timestamps to prevent investigators from making correlations between compilation times and the working hours of CIA hackers in the U.S.
Researchers at anti-virus firms often use compilation times to determine where a malware's creators might be located geographically if their files are consistently compiled during work hours that are distinctive to a region. For example, tools believed to have been created in Israel have shown compilation times on Sunday, which is a normal workday in Israel.
The bottom line with the CIA data dump released by Wikileaks is that journalists and others should take care to examine statements made around them to ensure that they're reporting accurately on the contents.
Top photo: Shadows are cast on the wall at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Va., in 2011.
Women's Strike Organizers Arrested in New York on a Day of Protests Worldwide
Police in New York arrested three leaders of the Women's March movement for blocking traffic outside the Trump International Hotel on Wednesday as they took part in the global ''Day Without Women'' strike, called to mark International Women's Day.
Shortly after they were detained, the group's Twitter feed shared images of Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, and Carmen Perez inside a New York Police Department van with other activists.
As Dayna Tortorici explained last week in the journal n+1, women in dozens of countries responded to the call for a one-day Women's Strike.
In more than thirty countries, women will refuse to do work '-- any work, paid or unpaid '-- that they do not wish to do. They will not cook breakfast, lunch, or dinner. They will not clean, watch children, buy groceries, drive carpool, fold clothes, wash dishes, or have sex '-- at least the kind of sex that feels like work. They will not work the assembly line or the phones, take your order or ring you up. They will skip shifts at hospitals, universities, and labs. They will not send emails (''sorry for the delayed response!'') or schedule appointments, braid hair, paint fingernails, or wax groins. They will wear red, march in the streets, block bridges and roads, and make demands whose fulfillment is long overdue. Equal pay. Paid parental and medical leave. Universal child care. Universal health care. Freedom from sexual abuse. Freedom from deportation. Freedom from racism. Freedom from violence.
Outside the United States, among the largest gatherings in support of reproductive rights took place in Ireland and Poland, two traditionally conservative, Catholic nations where political leaders have resisted calls to make abortion safe and legal.
Thousands of protesters brought traffic to a standstill in the Irish capital, Dublin, chanting for the repeal of the country's Eighth Amendment, which, since 1983, has given an unborn fetus the same right to life as a pregnant woman. The protest was organized by activists calling for a referendum to repeal the amendment.
While Democrats in Washington expressed solidarity with the strike by wearing red to work, Sen. Elizabeth Warren explained that lawmakers decided not to remain home, fearing what their Republican counterparts might do in their absence.
The Trump administration, by contrast, attempted to mark the day in somewhat awkward ways, like having the first lady lunching with prominent female supporters of the president, including his daughter Ivanka, his adviser Kellyanne Conway, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, one of the few women in his cabinet.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security, which could soon start separating mothers and children detained for illegal entry into the country, celebrated what it called its diverse staff by sharing an image of one female officer.
Top photo: Linda Sarsour, left, one of the organizers of the Women's March movement, shortly before she was arrested on Wednesday for blocking traffic outside a New York hotel owned by Donald Trump.
What Is Huma Up To'--And Why Should We Care? - Ed Klein
The gossip sphere was atwitter recently when Huma Abedin, the estranged wife of scandal-scarred Anthony Weiner and Hillary Clinton's longtime confidante, met for lunch with Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
The two women were spotted enjoying a private tete-a-tete at Il Cantinori, a favorite celebrity hangout in Greenwich Village. They're good friends'--Wintour held fundraisers for Hillary's 2016 presidential campaign and she profiled Abedin in the pages of Vogue.
Beyond their mutual admiration for Hillary, Abedin and Wintour share a passion for fashion, and sources tell me that among the things they discussed over lunch was Wintour's offer to help Abedin find a job in the fashion business.
Now that Abedin is a single mother and her soon-to-be-ex-husband is in sex-addiction rehab and out of work, she needs a steady, well-paying job.
Her conversation with Wintour was based on the assumption that, following Hillary's defeat at the polls, Hillary was bidding farewell to elective politics, dismantling her campaign staff, and no longer needed Abedin to hold her hand.
They were wrong.
When Abedin informed Hillary of her desire to seek a career in fashion, Hillary vetoed the idea.
Hillary told Abedin that she was utterly serious about running again for the White House. She intends to fight for control of the Democratic Party apparatus and ultimately launch a ''listening tour'' as a prelude to another try for the presidency.
Hillary blamed many members of her campaign staff for her defeat to Donald Trump, but she never blamed Abedin. She reportedly told Abedin that she was ''irreplaceable,'' and she backed up her words of praise by giving Abedin a substantial raise on the staff of the Clinton Foundation.
Since then, Abedin has spent much of her time at Hillary's homes in Chappaqua and Washington, D.C.
''Huma and Hillary are inseparable again, joined at the hip,'' says a source close to the Clintons. ''Huma's presence at Hillary's side is proof positive that Hillary means to run again.''
Our plan delivers relief from the taxes and mandates that have hurt job creators, increased premiums, and limited options for patients and health care providers.
It returns control of health care from Washington back to the states and restores the free market so Americans can access the quality, affordable health care options that are tailored to their needs.
How will your legislation be better than Obamacare?
Obamacare was based on a one-size-fits-all approach that put bureaucrats in Washington in charge of your health care.
The law led to higher costs, fewer choices, and less access to the care people need.
What we're proposing will deliver the control and choice individuals and families need to access health care that's right for them.
And we provide the freedom and flexibility states, job creators, and health care providers need to deliver quality, affordable health care options.
How will this improve my health care?
What we're proposing will decrease premiums and expand and enhance health care options so Americans can find a plan that's right for them.
We also make sure Americans can save and spend their health care dollars the way they want and need'--not the way Washington prescribes.
Are you repealing patient protections, including for people with pre-existing conditions?
No. Americans should never be denied coverage or charged more because of a pre-existing condition.
We preserve vital patient protections, such as (1) prohibiting health insurers from denying coverage to patients based on pre-existing conditions, and (2) lifting lifetime caps on medical care.
And we allow dependents to continue staying on their parents' plan until they are 26.
Are you repealing all of Obamacare's taxes?
Our plan delivers relief from all of Obamacare's taxes, including dismantling taxes on prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, health-insurance premiums, and medical devices.
And we immediately eliminate the individual and employer mandate penalties, which forced millions of people into Obamacare plans they don't want and cannot afford.
Are you repealing the subsidies?
Obamacare's subsidies must be repealed. They are deeply flawed and leave millions of middle-class individuals and families without any help to pay for health care.
Just as President Trump called for, we will replace Obamacare's subsidies with a tax credit that helps Americans'--including those Obamacare left behind'--access health care options that are tailored to their needs.
Are you repealing Obamacare's Medicaid expansion?
Medicaid is a critical program, but it has its flaws'--including fewer choices and less access to quality care. Obamacare's expansion made those flaws worse.
Our proposal strengthens Medicaid and targets the program's limited resources to the patients most in need.
We will provide a stable transition and help ensure low-income Americans have access quality, affordable options through a new, competitive, state-based private insurance marketplace.
Won't millions of Americans lose their health insurance because of your plan?
No. We are working to give all Americans peace of mind about their health care. We will have a stable transition toward a system that empowers patients with more choices and lower costs.
During the transition, Americans will continue to have access to their existing health care options.
We even take steps to immediately provide more flexibility and choice for the people who purchase insurance through the individual marketplace. For example, individuals and families will be able to use their existing subsidy to purchase insurance'--including the catastrophic coverage that's currently prohibited'--off of the exchanges.
What happens to the coverage I get through work?
We preserve employer-sponsored coverage'--a vital benefit that helps more than 150 million workers and families access affordable, quality health care.
How are you going to cover the millions of Americans who gained coverage through Obamacare's Medicaid expansion?
Our proposal provides Americans who do not receive insurance through work or a government program with an advanceable, refundable tax credit so they can access a plan that's right for them'--not one that's dictated by Washington.
How is this tax credit different than Obamacare's subsidies?
Obamacare's subsidies were based on income, created a disincentive to work, and left millions of hard-working, middle-class Americans behind.
Obamacare's subsidies also only applied to insurance dictated by Washington, substantially limiting flexibility and choice.
Our legislation repeals Obamacare's flawed subsidies in 2020 and instead provides a tax credit to low- and middle-income Americans who do not receive insurance through work or a government program.
Unlike Obamacare's subsidies, these tax credits are based on age and family size and will gradually phase out as your income increases'--making sure work always pays and hard-working Americans are never left behind.
How big will my tax credit be? Will I be able to buy a real health care plan with it?
Our tax credits are based on age and family size.
Each year, low- and middle-income Americans will be eligible to receive between $2,000 and $14,000 to purchase health insurance, depending on how old you are and how big your family is.
These tax credits will be credible'--something that will make a meaningful difference for individuals and families when it comes accessing health care through a new, competitive, state-based insurance market.
With all the other policies, we are proposing to increase choices and lowers costs, this tax credit will help people access the health care options they want and need.
How will women be affected under your proposal?
Our proposal specifically prohibits any gender discrimination.
Women will have equal access to the same affordable, quality health care options as men do under our proposal.
Will women be able to purchase a plan that covers abortions?
No. Our proposal is consistent with the bipartisan Hyde Amendment, which does not allow taxpayer dollars to go toward funding an elective abortion.
Won't premiums increase when you repeal the individual and employer mandates because fewer people will participate in the individual market?
By repealing taxes, rolling back regulations and mandates, and restoring control back to the states, our plan unleashes innovation and competition in the health care market.
This approach will result in lower costs and more choices. In fact, our plan is expected to lower premiums. And it will deliver much more flexibility for people to save and spend their health care dollars the way they want and need.
How are you paying for this plan? How much is it going to cost taxpayers?
We are still discussing details, but we are committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with fiscally responsible policies that restore the free market and protect taxpayers.
Will there be provisions to allow health insurers to compete across state lines?
Beyond what's possible in budget reconciliation, we are advancing through regular order additional patient-centered reforms as laid out in A Better Way, such as selling insurance across state lines.
As mentioned by HHS Secretary Tom Price and President Donald Trump, reconciliation is one step in our process to deliver Americans a 21st century patient-centered health care system.
How was this bill drafted?
We've been talking about our ideas to repeal and replace this failing health care law for years. Many of the policies have even been passed by the House already.
We outlined our vision for replacing Obamacare over 8 months ago, and have been working since then to turn these policies into legislation.
The legislation is now online for our constituents and colleagues to review. The Committees will mark up their respective parts of the legislation this week and send it to the Budget Committee, where they will compile the final reconciliation package for the full House to consider.
What happens next?
The Committees move their pieces of the legislation through regular order. There will be Committee markups on Wednesday so our Members can consider the policies, offer amendments, and vote on a final product.
Then we send our final products over to the Budget Committee to put together and send to the floor for a House vote.
Stunning Win '' Exxon Mobil Will Invest $20 Billion Building New Refineries'... | The Last Refuge
This is YUGE news and will impact each and every American. One of the missing elements in our quest for energy independence has always been the lack of oil refining capacity to produce gasoline and other fuel end-products.
Years of choking fossil fuel regulation, partly funded and supported by an alignment of special interests including foreign governments, OPEC and eco lobbyists, has created a situation where over half of our oil refining capability was eliminated.
With the election, and independence, of Donald Trump that course has changed dramatically. Trump is not beholden to the lobbyists and special interests who pay for the U.S. to remain dependent on foreign oil and off shore refinement.
Additionally, this is a really big deal because our predictions have always been that President Trump will find a way to make 'USenergy exports' a big part of the U.S. expanding economy. A complete paradigm shift '' and with it comes unexpected and unpredicted (by most) additional growth in GDP. Hence this emphasis:
(Via Reuters) Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), the world's largest publicly traded oil producer, said on Monday it would invest $20 billion through 2022 to expand its chemical and oil refining plants on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The investments at 11 sites should create 35,000 temporary construction jobs and 12,000 permanent jobs, Chief Executive Darren Woods said in a speech at CERAWeek, the world's largest gathering of energy executives.
Some of the expansions began in 2013, but the scope of the project is now growing and the timeline extended, Exxon said.
Woods ran Exxon's refining division before becoming CEO two months ago, and the new spending benefits a sector with which he has significant experience and comfort. Investments in the high-margin projects should help ease concerns from Wall Street that Exxon's growth potential '' especially in oil and gas exploration and production '' is sliding.
''Exxon Mobil is building a manufacturing powerhouse along the U.S. Gulf Coast,'' Woods said. ''These businesses are leveraging the shale revolution to manufacture cleaner fuels and more energy-efficient plastics.''
The investments across Texas and Louisiana will take advantage of cheap shale gas to make plastics and other chemicals for export. The strategy builds on prior steps Exxon and peers, including Dow Chemical Co (DOW.N), have taken in the wake of the American shale expansion, which sharply cut production costs.
''The supply is here. The demand is there. We want to keep connecting those dots,'' Woods said.
Exxon last month pledged to boost this year's spending by 16 percent to expand operations, especially in shale production, after the company posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by rising oil prices and lower costs.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who tapped former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state, praised the company's spending plans as an example of ''a true American success story.'' Most of the permanent jobs are expected to pay more than $100,000 per year.
''This is exactly the kind of investment, economic development and job creation that will help put Americans back to work,'' Trump said. (read more)
What more refining capability means to us is cheaper fuel prices.
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Russia makes annual payment of $78 mln to UN budget
"On March 6, 2017 the Russian Federation transferred the amount of 77 888 309 U.S. dollars to the United Nations account as payment of Russia's assessed contribution to United Nations regular budget." Source: AP
Russia has made its annual payment to the UN budget, the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a statement.
"On March 6, 2017 the Russian Federation transferred the amount of 77 888 309 U.S. dollars to the United Nations account as payment of Russia's assessed contribution to United Nations regular budget," the statement reads.
The United Nations budget for the 2016-2017 biennium is $5.4 billion, each country's contribution is calculated based on its 10-year GDP rate, per capita income and foreign debt. The United States remains the main contributor with a share of 22 percent while Russia contributes around 2.5 percent. According to the United Nations' official website, more than 50 countries have already made their payments for 2017. China has contributed the largest amount of nearly $200 million while Djibouti, the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands have each contributed only $25,000.
If a country does not make the necessary contributions to the UN budged for two years, then its right to vote in the United Nations General Assembly is suspended. In February, Venezuela, Libya, Sudan as well as Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Cabo Verde temporarily lost their General Assembly votes for failing to pay their dues.
Source: TASS
Read more: Russia to finance UN-led hurricane relief programs in Cuba
Putin and Erdogan to discuss construction of Turkish Stream and Akkuyu NPP
Erdogan will visit Russia on March 10 at the invitation of the Russian leader. Source: Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are going to discuss construction of Turkish Stream gas pipeline and Akkuyu nuclear power plant on March 10, according to the Kremlin press service.
"The leaders are going to discuss full range of issues of Russian-Turkish relations with an emphasis on further restoring mutually beneficial trade and economic ties, including implementation of joint construction projects of the first Turkish Akkuyu nuclear power plant and Turkish Stream gas pipeline," the press service said.
Erdogan will visit Russia on March 10 at the invitation of the Russian leader. The President of Turkey will participate in the sixth meeting of the High-Level Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council. According to the Kremlin press service, the leaders are also "expected to exchange views on timely aspects of regional issues, first of all, further cooperation between Russia and Turkey in fighting international terrorism and the Syrian crisis settlement."
A number of bilateral documents are expected to be signed at the end of the meeting.
Source: TASS
Read more: What will Putin and Erdogan discuss in Moscow?
The CIA Didn't Break Signal or WhatsApp, Despite What You've Heard
There's been one particularly misleading claim repeated throughout coverage of CIA documents released by WikiLeaks today: That the agency's in-house hackers ''bypassed'' the encryption used by popular secure-chat software like Signal and WhatsApp.
By specifically mentioning these apps, news outlets implied that the agency has a means of getting through the protections built into the chat systems. It doesn't. Instead, it has the ability, in some cases, to take control of entire phones; accessing encrypted chats is simply one of many security implication of this. Wikileaks' own analysis of the documents at least briefly acknowledges this, stating that CIA ''techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the 'smart' phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.''
The claim was then taken out of what little context WikiLeaks provided and repeated by widely read outlets like the New York Times:
the Boston Globe:
Mashable:
and this AP reporter retweeted by the AP itself:
Contrary to the clear implication from these journalists and news sources, the documents WikiLeaks published do not appear to show any attack specific Signal or WhatsApp, but rather a means of hijacking your entire phone, which would of course ''bypass'' encrypted chat apps because it thwart virtually all other security systems on the device, granting total remote access to the CIA.
The Wikileaks dump also includes information about CIA malware that can hack, and remotely spy on and control, computers running Windows, macOS, and Linux. Which means that it's also true that the CIA can bypass PGP email encryption on your computer. And the CIA can bypass your VPN. And the CIA can see everything you're doing in Tor Browser. All of these things can be inferred by the documents, but that doesn't mean using PGP, VPNs, or Tor Browser isn't safe. Basically, if the CIA can hack a device and gain full control of it '-- whether it's a smartphone, a laptop, or a TV with a microphone '-- they can spy on everything that happens on that device. Saying Signal is bypassed because the CIA has control of the entire device Signal is installed on is akin to saying the diary you keep in your bedside table is vulnerable because the CIA has the ability to break into your house. It's true, technically, but not exactly a revelation, and odd to fixate on to the exclusion of other vulnerable items.
To its credit, the Times deleted its tweet and changed the language it used in its article, but there's probably going to be some lingering damage in the form of people now under the impression that using Signal or WhatsApp could make them less safe, when the reverse is true.
It of course remains possible (as it always has and always will) that the CIA has cracked the encryption of Signal, WhatsApp, or any other piece of software. But WikiLeaks hasn't provided any evidence of that here today.
Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
"Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force '-- its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities.
By the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division, which formally falls under the agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponized" malware. Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook. The CIA had created, in effect, its "own NSA" with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.
In a statement to WikiLeaks the source details policy questions that they say urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA's hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency. The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.
Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor stated that "There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber 'weapons'. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such 'weapons', which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of "Year Zero" goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective."
Wikileaks has carefully reviewed the "Year Zero" disclosure and published substantive CIA documentation while avoiding the distribution of 'armed' cyberweapons until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA's program and how such 'weapons' should analyzed, disarmed and published.
Wikileaks has also decided to redact and anonymise some identifying information in "Year Zero" for in depth analysis. These redactions include ten of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States. While we are aware of the imperfect results of any approach chosen, we remain committed to our publishing model and note that the quantity of published pages in "Vault 7" part one (''Year Zero'') already eclipses the total number of pages published over the first three years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks.
CIA malware targets iPhone, Android, smart TVsCIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA's DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major directorates of the CIA (see this organizational chart of the CIA for more details).
The EDG is responsible for the development, testing and operational support of all backdoors, exploits, malicious payloads, trojans, viruses and any other kind of malware used by the CIA in its covert operations world-wide.
The increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell's 1984, but "Weeping Angel", developed by the CIA's Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its most emblematic realization.
The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom's MI5/BTSS. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a 'Fake-Off' mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In 'Fake-Off' mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.
As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks. The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.
The CIA's Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smart phones. Infected phones can be instructed to send the CIA the user's geolocation, audio and text communications as well as covertly activate the phone's camera and microphone.
Despite iPhone's minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA's Mobile Development Branch produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA's arsenal includes numerous local and remote "zero days" developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.
A similar unit targets Google's Android which is used to run the majority of the world's smart phones (~85%) including Samsung, HTC and Sony. 1.15 billion Android powered phones were sold last year. "Year Zero" shows that as of 2016 the CIA had 24 "weaponized" Android "zero days" which it has developed itself and obtained from GCHQ, NSA and cyber arms contractors.
These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the "smart" phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.
CIA malware targets Windows, OSx, Linux, routersThe CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect and control Microsoft Windows users with its malware. This includes multiple local and remote weaponized "zero days", air gap jumping viruses such as "Hammer Drill" which infects software distributed on CD/DVDs, infectors for removable media such as USBs, systems to hide data in images or in covert disk areas ( "Brutal Kangaroo") and to keep its malware infestations going.
Many of these infection efforts are pulled together by the CIA's Automated Implant Branch (AIB), which has developed several attack systems for automated infestation and control of CIA malware, such as "Assassin" and "Medusa".
Attacks against Internet infrastructure and webservers are developed by the CIA's Network Devices Branch (NDB).
The CIA has developed automated multi-platform malware attack and control systems covering Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB's "HIVE" and the related "Cutthroat" and "Swindle" tools, which are described in the examples section below.
CIA 'hoarded' vulnerabilities ("zero days")In the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks about the NSA, the U.S. technology industry secured a commitment from the Obama administration that the executive would disclose on an ongoing basis '-- rather than hoard '-- serious vulnerabilities, exploits, bugs or "zero days" to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US-based manufacturers.
Serious vulnerabilities not disclosed to the manufacturers places huge swathes of the population and critical infrastructure at risk to foreign intelligence or cyber criminals who independently discover or hear rumors of the vulnerability. If the CIA can discover such vulnerabilities so can others.
The U.S. government's commitment to the Vulnerabilities Equities Process came after significant lobbying by US technology companies, who risk losing their share of the global market over real and perceived hidden vulnerabilities. The government stated that it would disclose all pervasive vulnerabilities discovered after 2010 on an ongoing basis.
"Year Zero" documents show that the CIA breached the Obama administration's commitments. Many of the vulnerabilities used in the CIA's cyber arsenal are pervasive and some may already have been found by rival intelligence agencies or cyber criminals.
As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in "Year Zero" is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts. The CIA attacks this software by using undisclosed security vulnerabilities ("zero days") possessed by the CIA but if the CIA can hack these phones then so can everyone else who has obtained or discovered the vulnerability. As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable.
The same vulnerabilities exist for the population at large, including the U.S. Cabinet, Congress, top CEOs, system administrators, security officers and engineers. By hiding these security flaws from manufacturers like Apple and Google the CIA ensures that it can hack everyone &mdsh; at the expense of leaving everyone hackable.
'Cyberwar' programs are a serious proliferation riskCyber 'weapons' are not possible to keep under effective control.
While nuclear proliferation has been restrained by the enormous costs and visible infrastructure involved in assembling enough fissile material to produce a critical nuclear mass, cyber 'weapons', once developed, are very hard to retain.
Cyber 'weapons' are in fact just computer programs which can be pirated like any other. Since they are entirely comprised of information they can be copied quickly with no marginal cost.
Securing such 'weapons' is particularly difficult since the same people who develop and use them have the skills to exfiltrate copies without leaving traces '-- sometimes by using the very same 'weapons' against the organizations that contain them. There are substantial price incentives for government hackers and consultants to obtain copies since there is a global "vulnerability market" that will pay hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for copies of such 'weapons'. Similarly, contractors and companies who obtain such 'weapons' sometimes use them for their own purposes, obtaining advantage over their competitors in selling 'hacking' services.
Over the last three years the United States intelligence sector, which consists of government agencies such as the CIA and NSA and their contractors, such as Booz Allan Hamilton, has been subject to unprecedented series of data exfiltrations by its own workers.
A number of intelligence community members not yet publicly named have been arrested or subject to federal criminal investigations in separate incidents.
Most visibly, on February 8, 2017 a U.S. federal grand jury indicted Harold T. Martin III with 20 counts of mishandling classified information. The Department of Justice alleged that it seized some 50,000 gigabytes of information from Harold T. Martin III that he had obtained from classified programs at NSA and CIA, including the source code for numerous hacking tools.
Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.
U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a covert CIA hacker baseIn addition to its operations in Langley, Virginia the CIA also uses the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt as a covert base for its hackers covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
CIA hackers operating out of the Frankfurt consulate ( "Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe" or CCIE) are given diplomatic ("black") passports and State Department cover. The instructions for incoming CIA hackers make Germany's counter-intelligence efforts appear inconsequential: "Breeze through German Customs because you have your cover-for-action story down pat, and all they did was stamp your passport"
Your Cover Story (for this trip)Q: Why are you here?A: Supporting technical consultations at the Consulate.
Two earlier WikiLeaks publications give further detail on CIA approaches to customs and secondary screening procedures.
Once in Frankfurt CIA hackers can travel without further border checks to the 25 European countries that are part of the Shengen open border area '-- including France, Italy and Switzerland.
A number of the CIA's electronic attack methods are designed for physical proximity. These attack methods are able to penetrate high security networks that are disconnected from the internet, such as police record database. In these cases, a CIA officer, agent or allied intelligence officer acting under instructions, physically infiltrates the targeted workplace. The attacker is provided with a USB containing malware developed for the CIA for this purpose, which is inserted into the targeted computer. The attacker then infects and exfiltrates data to removable media. For example, the CIA attack system Fine Dining, provides 24 decoy applications for CIA spies to use. To witnesses, the spy appears to be running a program showing videos (e.g VLC), presenting slides (Prezi), playing a computer game (Breakout2, 2048) or even running a fake virus scanner (Kaspersky, McAfee, Sophos). But while the decoy application is on the screen, the underlaying system is automatically infected and ransacked.
How the CIA dramatically increased proliferation risksIn what is surely one of the most astounding intelligence own goals in living memory, the CIA structured its classification regime such that for the most market valuable part of "Vault 7" '-- the CIA's weaponized malware (implants + zero days), Listening Posts (LP), and Command and Control (C2) systems '-- the agency has little legal recourse.
The CIA made these systems unclassified.
Why the CIA chose to make its cyberarsenal unclassified reveals how concepts developed for military use do not easily crossover to the 'battlefield' of cyber 'war'.
To attack its targets, the CIA usually requires that its implants communicate with their control programs over the internet. If CIA implants, Command & Control and Listening Post software were classified, then CIA officers could be prosecuted or dismissed for violating rules that prohibit placing classified information onto the Internet. Consequently the CIA has secretly made most of its cyber spying/war code unclassified. The U.S. government is not able to assert copyright either, due to restrictions in the U.S. Constitution. This means that cyber 'arms' manufactures and computer hackers can freely "pirate" these 'weapons' if they are obtained. The CIA has primarily had to rely on obfuscation to protect its malware secrets.
Conventional weapons such as missiles may be fired at the enemy (i.e into an unsecured area). Proximity to or impact with the target detonates the ordnance including its classified parts. Hence military personnel do not violate classification rules by firing ordnance with classified parts. Ordnance will likely explode. If it does not, that is not the operator's intent.
Over the last decade U.S. hacking operations have been increasingly dressed up in military jargon to tap into Department of Defense funding streams. For instance, attempted "malware injections" (commercial jargon) or "implant drops" (NSA jargon) are being called "fires" as if a weapon was being fired. However the analogy is questionable.
Unlike bullets, bombs or missiles, most CIA malware is designed to live for days or even years after it has reached its 'target'. CIA malware does not "explode on impact" but rather permanently infests its target. In order to infect target's device, copies of the malware must be placed on the target's devices, giving physical possession of the malware to the target. To exfiltrate data back to the CIA or to await further instructions the malware must communicate with CIA Command & Control (C2) systems placed on internet connected servers. But such servers are typically not approved to hold classified information, so CIA command and control systems are also made unclassified.
A successful 'attack' on a target's computer system is more like a series of complex stock maneuvers in a hostile take-over bid or the careful planting of rumors in order to gain control over an organization's leadership rather than the firing of a weapons system. If there is a military analogy to be made, the infestation of a target is perhaps akin to the execution of a whole series of military maneuvers against the target's territory including observation, infiltration, occupation and exploitation.
Evading forensics and anti-virusA series of standards lay out CIA malware infestation patterns which are likely to assist forensic crime scene investigators as well as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Nokia, Blackberry, Siemens and anti-virus companies attribute and defend against attacks.
"Tradecraft DO's and DON'Ts" contains CIA rules on how its malware should be written to avoid fingerprints implicating the "CIA, US government, or its witting partner companies" in "forensic review". Similar secret standards cover the use of encryption to hide CIA hacker and malware communication (pdf), describing targets & exfiltrated data (pdf) as well as executing payloads (pdf) and persisting (pdf) in the target's machines over time.CIA hackers developed successful attacks against most well known anti-virus programs. These are documented in AV defeats, Personal Security Products, Detecting and defeating PSPs and PSP/Debugger/RE Avoidance. For example, Comodo was defeated by CIA malware placing itself in the Window's "Recycle Bin". While Comodo 6.x has a "Gaping Hole of DOOM".
CIA hackers discussed what the NSA's "Equation Group" hackers did wrong and how the CIA's malware makers could avoid similar exposure.
The CIA's Engineering Development Group (EDG) management system contains around 500 different projects (only some of which are documented by "Year Zero") each with their own sub-projects, malware and hacker tools.
The majority of these projects relate to tools that are used for penetration, infestation ("implanting"), control, and exfiltration.
Another branch of development focuses on the development and operation of Listening Posts (LP) and Command and Control (C2) systems used to communicate with and control CIA implants; special projects are used to target specific hardware from routers to smart TVs.
Some example projects are described below, but see the table of contents for the full list of projects described by WikiLeaks' "Year Zero".
UMBRAGEThe CIA's hand crafted hacking techniques pose a problem for the agency. Each technique it has created forms a "fingerprint" that can be used by forensic investigators to attribute multiple different attacks to the same entity.
This is analogous to finding the same distinctive knife wound on multiple separate murder victims. The unique wounding style creates suspicion that a single murderer is responsible. As soon one murder in the set is solved then the other murders also find likely attribution.
The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.
With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the "fingerprints" of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.
UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.
Fine DiningFine Dining comes with a standardized questionnaire i.e menu that CIA case officers fill out. The questionnaire is used by the agency's OSB (Operational Support Branch) to transform the requests of case officers into technical requirements for hacking attacks (typically "exfiltrating" information from computer systems) for specific operations. The questionnaire allows the OSB to identify how to adapt existing tools for the operation, and communicate this to CIA malware configuration staff. The OSB functions as the interface between CIA operational staff and the relevant technical support staff.
Among the list of possible targets of the collection are 'Asset', 'Liason Asset', 'System Administrator', 'Foreign Information Operations', 'Foreign Intelligence Agencies' and 'Foreign Government Entities'. Notably absent is any reference to extremists or transnational criminals. The 'Case Officer' is also asked to specify the environment of the target like the type of computer, operating system used, Internet connectivity and installed anti-virus utilities (PSPs) as well as a list of file types to be exfiltrated like Office documents, audio, video, images or custom file types. The 'menu' also asks for information if recurring access to the target is possible and how long unobserved access to the computer can be maintained. This information is used by the CIA's 'JQJIMPROVISE' software (see below) to configure a set of CIA malware suited to the specific needs of an operation.
Improvise (JQJIMPROVISE)'Improvise' is a toolset for configuration, post-processing, payload setup and execution vector selection for survey/exfiltration tools supporting all major operating systems like Windows (Bartender), MacOS (JukeBox) and Linux (DanceFloor). Its configuration utilities like Margarita allows the NOC (Network Operation Center) to customize tools based on requirements from 'Fine Dining' questionairies.
HIVEHIVE is a multi-platform CIA malware suite and its associated control software. The project provides customizable implants for Windows, Solaris, MikroTik (used in internet routers) and Linux platforms and a Listening Post (LP)/Command and Control (C2) infrastructure to communicate with these implants.
The implants are configured to communicate via HTTPS with the webserver of a cover domain; each operation utilizing these implants has a separate cover domain and the infrastructure can handle any number of cover domains.
Each cover domain resolves to an IP address that is located at a commercial VPS (Virtual Private Server) provider. The public-facing server forwards all incoming traffic via a VPN to a 'Blot' server that handles actual connection requests from clients. It is setup for optional SSL client authentication: if a client sends a valid client certificate (only implants can do that), the connection is forwarded to the 'Honeycomb' toolserver that communicates with the implant; if a valid certificate is missing (which is the case if someone tries to open the cover domain website by accident), the traffic is forwarded to a cover server that delivers an unsuspicious looking website.
The Honeycomb toolserver receives exfiltrated information from the implant; an operator can also task the implant to execute jobs on the target computer, so the toolserver acts as a C2 (command and control) server for the implant.
Similar functionality (though limited to Windows) is provided by the RickBobby project.
See the classified user and developer guides for HIVE.
Why now?WikiLeaks published as soon as its verification and analysis were ready.
In Febuary the Trump administration has issued an Executive Order calling for a "Cyberwar" review to be prepared within 30 days.
While the review increases the timeliness and relevance of the publication it did not play a role in setting the publication date.
RedactionsNames, email addresses and external IP addresses have been redacted in the released pages (70,875 redactions in total) until further analysis is complete.
Over-redaction: Some items may have been redacted that are not employees, contractors, targets or otherwise related to the agency, but are, for example, authors of documentation for otherwise public projects that are used by the agency.Identity vs. person: the redacted names are replaced by user IDs (numbers) to allow readers to assign multiple pages to a single author. Given the redaction process used a single person may be represented by more than one assigned identifier but no identifier refers to more than one real person.Archive attachments (zip, tar.gz, ...) are replaced with a PDF listing all the file names in the archive. As the archive content is assessed it may be made available; until then the archive is redacted.Attachments with other binary content are replaced by a hex dump of the content to prevent accidental invocation of binaries that may have been infected with weaponized CIA malware. As the content is assessed it may be made available; until then the content is redacted.The tens of thousands of routable IP addresses references (including more than 22 thousand within the United States) that correspond to possible targets, CIA covert listening post servers, intermediary and test systems, are redacted for further exclusive investigation.Binary files of non-public origin are only available as dumps to prevent accidental invocation of CIA malware infected binaries.
Organizational ChartThe organizational chart corresponds to the material published by WikiLeaks so far.
Since the organizational structure of the CIA below the level of Directorates is not public, the placement of the EDG and its branches within the org chart of the agency is reconstructed from information contained in the documents released so far. It is intended to be used as a rough outline of the internal organization; please be aware that the reconstructed org chart is incomplete and that internal reorganizations occur frequently.
Wiki pages"Year Zero" contains 7818 web pages with 943 attachments from the internal development groupware. The software used for this purpose is called Confluence, a proprietary software from Atlassian. Webpages in this system (like in Wikipedia) have a version history that can provide interesting insights on how a document evolved over time; the 7818 documents include these page histories for 1136 latest versions.
The order of named pages within each level is determined by date (oldest first). Page content is not present if it was originally dynamically created by the Confluence software (as indicated on the re-constructed page).
What time period is covered?The years 2013 to 2016. The sort order of the pages within each level is determined by date (oldest first).
WikiLeaks has obtained the CIA's creation/last modification date for each page but these do not yet appear for technical reasons. Usually the date can be discerned or approximated from the content and the page order. If it is critical to know the exact time/date contact WikiLeaks.
What is "Vault 7""Vault 7" is a substantial collection of material about CIA activities obtained by WikiLeaks.
When was each part of "Vault 7" obtained?Part one was obtained recently and covers through 2016. Details on the other parts will be available at the time of publication.
Is each part of "Vault 7" from a different source?Details on the other parts will be available at the time of publication.
What is the total size of "Vault 7"?The series is the largest intelligence publication in history.
How did WikiLeaks obtain each part of "Vault 7"?Sources trust WikiLeaks to not reveal information that might help identify them.
Isn't WikiLeaks worried that the CIA will act against its staff to stop the series?No. That would be certainly counter-productive.
Has WikiLeaks already 'mined' all the best stories?No. WikiLeaks has intentionally not written up hundreds of impactful stories to encourage others to find them and so create expertise in the area for subsequent parts in the series. They're there. Look. Those who demonstrate journalistic excellence may be considered for early access to future parts.
Won't other journalists find all the best stories before me?Unlikely. There are very considerably more stories than there are journalists or academics who are in a position to write them.
WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON '-- WikiLeaks on Tuesday released thousands of documents that it said described sophisticated software tools used by the Central Intelligence Agency to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions.
If the documents are authentic, as appeared likely at first review, the release would be the latest coup for the anti-secrecy organization and a serious blow to the C.I.A., which maintains its own hacking capabilities to be used for espionage.
The initial release, which WikiLeaks said was only the first part of the document collection, included 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, the group said. The entire archive of C.I.A. material consists of several hundred million lines of computer code, it said.
Among other disclosures that, if confirmed, would rock the technology world, the WikiLeaks release said that the C.I.A. and allied intelligence services had managed to bypass encryption on popular phone and messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to the statement from WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate Android phones and collect ''audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.''
The source of the documents was not named. WikiLeaks said the documents, which it called Vault 7, had been ''circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.''
WikiLeaks said the source, in a statement, set out policy questions that ''urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the C.I.A.'s hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency.'' The source, the group said, ''wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.''
The documents, from the C.I.A's Center for Cyber Intelligence, are dated from 2013 to 2016, and WikiLeaks described them as ''the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.'' One former intelligence officer who briefly reviewed the documents on Tuesday morning said some of the code names for C.I.A. programs, an organization chart and the description of a C.I.A. hacking base appeared to be genuine.
A C.I.A. spokesman, Dean Boyd, said, ''We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents.''
WikiLeaks, which has sometimes been accused of recklessly leaking information that could do harm, said it had redacted names and other identifying information from the collection. It said it was not releasing the computer code for actual, usable cyberweapons ''until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the C.I.A.'s program and how such 'weapons' should be analyzed, disarmed and published.''
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Some of the details of the C.I.A. programs might have come from the plot of a spy novel for the cyberage, revealing numerous highly classified '-- and in some cases, exotic '-- hacking programs. One, code-named Weeping Angel, uses Samsung ''smart'' televisions as covert listening devices. According to the WikiLeaks news release, even when it appears to be turned off, the television ''operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the internet to a covert C.I.A. server.''
The release said the program was developed in cooperation with British intelligence.
If C.I.A. agents did manage to hack the smart TVs, they would not be the only ones. Since their release, internet-connected televisions have been a focus for hackers and cybersecurity experts, many of whom see the sets' ability to record and transmit conversations as a potentially dangerous vulnerability.
In early 2015, Samsung appeared to acknowledge the televisions posed a risk to privacy. The fine print terms of service included with its smart TVs said that the television sets could capture background conversations, and that they could be passed on to third parties.
The company also provided a remarkably blunt warning: ''Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.''
Another program described in the documents, named Umbrage, is a voluminous library of cyberattack techniques that the C.I.A. has collected from malware produced by other countries, including Russia. According to the WikiLeaks release, the large number of techniques allows the C.I.A. to mask the origin of some of its cyberattacks and confuse forensic investigators.
Assuming the release is authentic, it marks the latest in a series of huge leaks that have changed the landscape for government and corporate secrecy.
In scale, the Vault 7 archive appears to fall into the same category as the biggest leaks of classified information in recent years, including the quarter-million diplomatic cables taken by Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst, and given to WikiLeaks in 2010, and the hundreds of thousands of documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward J. Snowden and given to journalists in 2013.
In the business world, the so-called Panama Papers and several other large-volume leaks have laid bare the details of secret offshore companies used by wealthy and corrupt people to hide their assets.
Both government and corporate leaks have been made possible by the ease of downloading, storing and transferring millions of documents in seconds or minutes, a sea change from the use of slow photocopying for some earlier leaks, including the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
The National Security Agency and the military's closely related Cyber Command have the most extensive capabilities for breaking into foreign communications and computer networks and, if required, destroying them. But the C.I.A. maintains a parallel set of programs, mainly for gathering information.
A set of N.S.A. hacking tools, evidently leaked from the agency or stolen in an electronic break-in, was put up for auction on the web last summer by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers. Those tools were among the N.S.A.'s arsenal for penetrating foreign computer networks. At first glance the Vault 7 programs appeared to be aimed at smaller, individual targets rather than large networks.
More Fake News'...The front page of The New York Times way back on January 20, 2017'...''Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides''
But Two months later they are trashing their own reports!Now the NY Times is reporting there is no evidence of a wiretap.No wonder nobody trusts them!
Breitbart reported:The New York Times has inadvertently attacked the credibility of its own reporting on the Obama Administration's investigation of Russia and now-President Donald Trump.Times reporters Michael Schmidt and Michael Shear write that Trump believes the ''deep state'' intelligence community, staffed with holdovers from the Obama Administration, wiretapped several of his campaign associates because of a spurious article from Breitbart News:
On Sunday, the president demanded a congressional inquiry into whether Mr. Obama had abused the power of federal law enforcement agencies before the 2016 presidential election. In a statement from his spokesman, Mr. Trump called ''reports'' about the wiretapping ''very troubling'' and said that Congress should examine them as part of its investigations into Russia's meddling in the election.
'...
Mr. Trump's demand for a congressional investigation appears to be based, at least in part, on unproved claims by Breitbart News and conservative talk radio hosts that secret warrants were issued authorizing the tapping of the phones of Mr. Trump and his aides at Trump Tower in New York.
The Breitbart article in question (which Schmidt and Shear do not link to) cites the Times' own reporting on the intelligence community. Their January 19th article, ''Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates,'' also bore Schmidt's byline.
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Abu Dhabi Shares Profits From Parking Meters - NYTimes.com
When Mayor Richard M. Daley traveled to Abu Dhabi in February, his office announced that the trip was intended to sell Chicago as a place to do business. Left unsaid was that that Persian Gulf emirate was about to become one of the biggest investors in a deal to lease Chicago's parking meters for 75 years.
The city signed the now-controversial, $1.15 billion lease with a new company called Chicago Parking Meters LLC in February, and city officials said two funds of the Morgan Stanley investment fund made up 99 percent of the new company, with ''several other entities'' sharing the remaining 1 percent.
In fact, a Chicago News Cooperative investigation has found that investment arms of the oil-rich Abu Dhabi government hold more than a 25 percent stake in the company that privatized the city's 36,000 parking meters. German financial company Allianz also has a large minority interest, and the remaining 50.1 percent is held by partnerships assembled by Morgan Stanley.
The participation of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth funds and other international investors exposes the level of sophistication of the money behind the city's parking meter deal. Mayor Daley and other proponents of the contract argue that it is too soon to know if the parking investors will enjoy solid returns, but the players in the Chicago parking company are known for their acumen for profitable long-term deals.
Indeed, when the government of Dubai recently encountered economic troubles, the financial markets looked to Dubai's cash-rich neighbors in Abu Dhabi for help. And in the case of the parking contract, the parking meter company projects a net income of about $58 million in 2010 , after this year more than doubling what the meters had brought in for the city.
A year has passed since aldermen hurriedly approved the privatization deal, but the issue remains a hot topic at City Hall. The mayor won City Council backing last week to balance his 2010 budget with almost $600 million from the upfront parking company payment, meaning almost all of the windfall will be spent within the first two years of the deal.
Mr. Daley has heatedly disputed the notion that the new company is poised to make big profits that the city should have earned by keeping the meters in public hands. While debate has raged over the deal's true worth, the parking company has sought to keep its shareholders out of the spotlight.
Mayor Daley said Saturday he did not discuss the parking deal with the new shareholders during his meetings with them in Abu Dhabi. ''Who owns it, owns it, doesn't matter,'' he said. ''There is no trickery here.''
When the city announced the deal, it emphasized the role of Morgan Stanley, an old line Wall Street firm, in putting together the new company. Entities controlled by Morgan Stanley filed more than a dozen economic disclosure statements with the city in the days before the Council's December 2008 vote on the agreement. Those documents did not show the complete ownership picture, but company officials revealed interests held by pension funds and insurance companies in Texas, Australia, France, Denmark and Sweden.
When the deal closed in February, however, a new batch of disclosure statements was filed with the city. Those documents, obtained by the Chicago News Cooperative last week, provide a significantly different picture.
According to the most recent filings, partnerships assembled by Morgan Stanley have a 50.1 percent stake in the parking company through capital provided by entities like the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Victorian Fund Management Corporation of Australia and Danish pension fund company PKA. The other 49.9 percent belongs to a company almost evenly divided between Allianz and Tannadice Investments LLC.
Tannadice is a ''wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which is a public institution wholly owned by the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi,'' according to city records. Another fund of the Abu Dhabi government owns an additional 3 percent stake through one of the Morgan partnerships.
A private company projects a net income of about $58 million in 2010 from the city's meters.
Jos(C) Mor(C) / Chicago News Cooperative
The highly publicity-shy Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is among the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, formed to invest the surplus revenues of that Persian Gulf emirate's government. The chairman of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's board of directors is Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, the U.A.E. capital, according to the fund's Web site.
Besides the interests of investors from the United States, Australia, and Europe, Morgan Stanley reported a stake in the parking meter company held by an entity called Cavendish Limited. The documents listed Cavendish at an address at the high-rise Silver Tower, near the waterfront of Abu Dhabi.
Cavendish is a subsidiary of a government fund called the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, according to corporate records filed with the Hong Kong government by a Chinese company that received a $50 million investment from Cavendish last year.
Ever since the 2006 controversy surrounding the proposed sale of management operations at six American ports to a company based in the U.A.E., funds like the Abu Dhabi Investment Council have become even more eager to avoid attention on their foreign investments, said Patrick Flaherty, managing director of Amadan International, a firm based in Washington that researches sovereign wealth funds.
Mr. Flaherty said he was not surprised to see the Abu Dhabi Investment Council do business under monikers like Cavendish and Tannadice. ''They tend to pick a lot of Western names for their subsidiaries,'' he said. ''They are trying to stay under the radar.''
When Cavendish made a huge investment in a joint real estate venture in Britain, its partners declined to make the connection to Abu Dhabi, announcing merely that as much as $396 million would be invested by ''a wholly owned subsidiary of a major gulf institution.''
The deal for the parking meter system closed on Feb. 13, the same month Mr. Daley visited Abu Dhabi with a delegation from Chicago. According to a news release from World Business Chicago, which organized the trip, the mayor's delegation met with officials of the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, who ''expressed strong interest in Chicago and its investment opportunities.''
In its news release on the trip, World Business Chicago quoted Mr. Daley as saying, ''We have a lot to gain by strengthening our ties with the United Arab Emirates.'' Officials with the Abu Dhabi Investment Council did not return calls, while the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority spokesman, Erik Portanger, declined comment.
At Allianz Capital Partners, the spokeswoman, Petra Kruell, confirmed the firm as an investor in the parking company. But Ms. Kruell added, ''We are not in charge of operations.''
Morgan Stanley officials declined comment, referring all questions to Avis LaVelle, the former press secretary for Mr. Daley who was hired by the parking company.
''Chicago Parking Meters LLC has many minority investors who have no controlling interest in the company nor any authority or responsibility for the day-to-day operations,'' Ms. LaVelle said.
Minutes from a recent Chicago Parking Meters LLC board meeting show that one Abu Dhabi Investment Authority executive and two Allianz officials were among the board members present when officials discussed revenue figures from the meters and expressed a desire to increase enforcement against parking scofflaws.
Also at the meeting were five board members from Morgan Stanley as well as observers from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Allianz.
TSA Introducing New, More Invasive Pat-Down Method '' Consumerist
The next time you go through a pat-down at airport security, things might be a bit different: The Transportation Security Administration has a new, more invasive pat-down procedure that some travelers might find unusual. To that end, the agency is warning local police departments that they may see an uptick in reports related to these up close and personal examinations.
The TSA calls the new physical pat-down method a more ''comprehensive'' physical screening, reports Bloomberg, and says the change is intended to slim down the various pat-down procedures from five methods to one.
On the TSA website it currently states that screeners ''use the back of the hands for pat-downs over sensitive areas of the body. In limited cases, additional screening involving a sensitive area pat-down with the front of the hand may be needed to determine that a threat does not exist.''
Security screeners will now use the front of their hands on a passenger in a private screening area if another screening method shows there may be explosives, reports Bloomberg, citing a security notice from the Airports Council International North America to its members last week.
The agency is now proactively warning airport officials that people might find these new patdowns odd, notifying employees of ''more rigorous'' searches that ''will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before.''
''Due to this change, TSA asked FSDs [field security directors] to contact airport law enforcement and brief them on the procedures in case they are notified that a passenger believes a [TSA employee] has subjected them to an abnormal screening practice,'' ACI wrote.
Will the average traveler notice a difference?
''I would say people who in the past would have gotten a pat-down that wasn't involved will notice that the [new] pat-down is more involved,'' a TSA spokesman told Bloomberg.
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Fearing U.S. Withdrawal, Europe Considers Its Own Nuclear Deterrent - NYTimes.com
BERLIN '-- An idea, once unthinkable, is gaining attention in European policy circles: a European Unionnuclear weapons program.
Under such a plan, France's arsenal would be repurposed to protect the rest of Europe and would be put under a common European command, funding plan, defense doctrine, or some combination of the three. It would be enacted only if the Continent could no longer count on American protection.
Though no new countries would join the nuclear club under this scheme, it would amount to an unprecedented escalation in Europe's collective military power and a drastic break with American leadership.
Analysts say that the talk, even if it never translates into action, demonstrates the growing sense in Europe that drastic steps may be necessary to protect the postwar order in the era of a Trump presidency, a resurgent Russia and the possibility of an alignment between the two.
Even proponents, who remain a minority, acknowledge enormous hurdles. But discussion of a so-called ''Eurodeterrent'' has entered the mainstream '-- particularly in Germany, a country that would be central to any plan but where antinuclear sentiment is widespread.
Jana Puglierin of the German Council on Foreign Relations said that a handful of senior European officials had ''for sure triggered a public debate about this, taking place in newspapers and journals, radio interviews and TV documentaries.''
She added: ''That in itself is remarkable. I am indeed very astonished that we discuss this at all.''
A Nuclear 'Plan B'Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland's former prime minister and now the head of its ruling party, provided the highest-level call for a European Union nuclear program in a February interview with a German newspaper.
But the most important support has come from Roderich Kiesewetter, a lawmaker and foreign policy spokesman with Germany's ruling party, who gave the nuclear option increased credibility by raising it shortly after President Trump's election.
In an interview in the German Bundestag, Mr. Kiesewetter, a former colonel who served in Afghanistan, calibrated his language carefully, providing just enough detail to demonstrate the option's seriousness without offering too much and risking an outcry from German voters or encouraging the American withdrawal he is hoping to avoid.
''My idea is to build on the existing weapons in Great Britain and France,'' he said, but acknowledged that Britain's decision to leave the European Union could preclude its participation.
The United States bases dozens of nuclear warheads in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands as both a quick-reaction force and a symbol of its guarantee to protect the Continent. Mr. Kiesewetter said his plan would provide a replacement or parallel program.
This would require, he said, four ingredients: a French pledge to commit its weapons to a common European defense, German financing to demonstrate the program's collective nature, a joint command and a plan to place French warheads in other European countries.
The number of warheads in Europe would not increase under this plan, and could even decrease if the United States withdraws.
''It's not a question of numbers,'' Mr. Kiesewetter said. ''The reassurance and deterrence comes from the existence of the weapons and their deployability.''
He envisioned a program designed to deter nuclear as well as conventional threats '-- a clear nod to Russia's military superiority.
This would require a doctrine, he said, allowing Europe to introduce nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear conflict. He compared it to the Israeli program, which is believed to allow for a nuclear strike against an overwhelming conventional attack.
''These are political weapons. Their use must be unpredictable,'' he said. Smaller nuclear powers often maintain vague doctrines to deter more powerful adversaries.
The goal, he said, would be to maintain Europe's defense, seen as crucial for its internal unity, as well as its international diplomatic standing.
German lawmakers across the political spectrum worry that Mr. Trump could strike a grand bargain with Russia that excludes Europe, a potential first step toward Washington and Moscow dictating Europe's future. Mr. Kiesewetter believes a European nuclear program would allow Europe to preserve its autonomy.
'A Political Minefield'Mostly, Mr. Kiesewetter said he hoped to spur Mr. Trump to end doubts over American security commitments to Europe, rendering unnecessary the nuclear ''Plan B.''
For now, Mr. Kiesewetter's intention is merely to ''trigger a debate'' over addressing ''this silent, gigantic problem.''
It has worked. A small but growing contingent of German analysts and commentators haveendorsedversions of a European nuclear program.
Mr. Kiesewetter said he had heard interest from officials in the Polish and Hungarian governments, at NATO headquarters in Brussels and within relevant German ministries, though he would not say which.
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But any European nuclear program would face enormous hurdles.
''The public is totally opposed,'' Ms. Puglierin said, referring to German antinuclear sentiment, which has at times culminated in nationwide protests against the weapons.
In practical terms, the plan would change the flag on Europe's nuclear deterrent from that of the United States to that of France. But this would risk making an American exit from Europe more permanent.
Oliver Thr¤nert, a German analyst with the Switzerland-based Center for Security Studies, warned in a white paper that any plan ''would not only be expensive, but also a political minefield full of undesirable potential political consequences.''
The biggest challenge may be who controls the French arsenal and where it is based.
The United States currently shares warheads with allies like Germany, whose militaries are equipped to deliver the weapons, granting the program credibility as a Pan-European defense.
But France has shown no willingness to share its weapons, much less put them under a joint European command. If Paris maintains final say over their use, this might cause an adversary to doubt whether France would really initiate a nuclear conflict to protect, say, Estonia.
France and 'a Special Responsibility'These sorts of problems are why Bruno Tertrais of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris said, ''In other times I would have told you don't bother, there's no story here.''
Similar proposals have been floated before, including by the French government, and always rejected as politically risky and strategically unnecessary. But, he said, that calculus appears to have a potential to change with Mr. Trump.
''There's already a bit more interest in Berlin and in Paris,'' Mr. Tertrais said, though he emphasized that this talk would become action only if there were ''a serious loss of trust in the U.S. umbrella.''
But a joint European command or funding scheme would most likely be impossible, he warned. The French government would insist on maintaining ''the final decision to use nuclear weapons.''
That is also United States policy in Europe, which is why Mr. Tertrais believes a more workable plan would be for France to reproduce American-style practices of basing its warheads abroad, while keeping them under French control.
While most French warheads are lodged on submarines, a few dozen are fitted to air-launched cruise missiles that could be housed in, for example, German airfields. These are smaller, shorter-range tactical weapons '-- exactly the American capability that Europe most fears losing.
French policy already allows for, though does not require, using nuclear weapons in defense of an ally.
With Britain's exit from the European Union, ''the French might feel they have a special responsibility'' as Europe's sole nuclear power.
Vipin Narang, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who studies regional nuclear powers, was initially skeptical but came to see such a plan as both technically and politically feasible.
For France, he said, ''it extends their frontier,'' making it likelier that a nuclear conflict would be fought far from French soil. For Germany and other European states, it would ''increase the credibility of the forward deployment against Russian aggression.''
An Insurance PolicySome observers believe that official shows of support are intended only to pressure Mr. Trump into maintaining the status quo, which Mr. Kiesewetter emphasized is his preferred outcome.
But Mr. Narang said that, regardless of intentions, there is a blurry line between mere signaling and actually pursuing a fallback nuclear option.
Nuclear scholars call this ''insurance hedging,'' in which a protectee comes to doubt its protector and responds by taking steps toward, but not actually completing, its own nuclear program. This is meant to goad the protector into staying, and to prepare in case it doesn't.
Japan, for instance, has quietly developed latent capabilities that are sometimes figuratively described as a ''screwdriver's turn'' away from a bomb.
Because Europe's primary challenges are political rather than technical '-- France already possesses the warheads '-- sparking public discussion and exploring options makes those challenges more surmountable and the option more real.
''In order for it to be credible there has to be some sort of workable option,'' Mr. Narang said.
'I Never Thought We Would See This Again'Mr. Kiesewetter hopes the United States will come around. He puts particular faith in Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, whom he met in Afghanistan and Brussels while both were military officers.
But Mr. Mattis has echoed Mr. Trump's warnings that the United States could lessen its support for Europe, saying in a recent speech in Brussels, ''I owe it to you to give you clarity on the political reality in the United States.''
If Europeans grew more serious about a nuclear program, Mr. Tertrais said, ''you would not necessarily see it.'' Negotiations would most likely remain secret for fear of giving Mr. Trump an excuse to withdraw '-- or of triggering a reaction from Russia.
Mr. Narang said he was reeling from the seriousness of the discussion, the first since a failed and now-forgotten effort in the 1950s for French-German-Italian nuclear cooperation.
''I never thought we would see this again. I never thought there would actually be this concern,'' he said. But, he added, ''You can see where the debate is surfacing from. There is a logic to it.''
The New York Times is reporting that Eurocrats are considering obtaining nuclear weapons as they feel they can no longer rely on protection from America. Support for the proposal seems to come largely from the Germans.
The plan would see France and even Britain's nuclear deterrents put under EU control. Roderich Kiesewetter, a German foreign policy spokesman told a German newspaper: ''My idea is to build on the existing weapons in Great Britain and France,'' however he did admit Brexit may put a spanner in the plan to include Britain. Very big of him.
Kiesewetter's plan would see the EU take control of France's nukes, finance them with German money and force other European member states to store warheads in their countries.
Angela Merkel has denied such a plan exists, but it is undeniably being discussed at the highest levels of government across Europe. Hungary and Poland voiced their support of such a plan shortly after Kiesewetter gave his interview.
Most chilling of all is the fact that Kiesewetter said: ''These are political weapons. Their use must be unpredictable''. Given how europhiles denied there were plans for an EU army, talk of them now obtaining a 'political weapon' should send shivers down every European's spine.
Trump's Wiretap Tweets Raise Risk of Impeachment - Bloomberg View
The sitting president has accused his predecessor of an act that could have gotten the past president impeached. That's not your ordinary exercise of free speech. If the accusation were true, and President Barack Obama ordered a warrantless wiretap of Donald Trump during the campaign, the scandal would be of Watergate-level proportions.
But if the allegation is not true and is unsupported by evidence, that too should be a scandal on a major scale. This is the kind of accusation that, taken as part of a broader course of conduct, could get the current president impeached. We shouldn't care that the allegation was made early on a Saturday morning on Twitter.
The basic premise of the First Amendment is that truth should defeat her opposite number. ''Let her and Falsehood grapple,'' wrote the poet and politician John Milton, ''who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?''
But this rather optimistic adage only accounts for speech and debate between citizens. It doesn't apply to accusations made by the government. Those are something altogether different.
In a rule of law society, government allegations of criminal activity must be followed by proof and prosecution. If not, the government is ruling by innuendo.
Shadowy dictatorships can do that because there is no need for proof. Democracies can't.
Thus, an accusation by a president isn't like an accusation leveled by one private citizen against another. It's about more than factual truth or carelessness.
The government's special responsibility has two bases. One is that you can't sue the government for false and defamatory speech. If I accused Obama of wiretapping my phone, he could sue me for libel. If my statement was knowingly false, I'd have to pay up. On the other hand, if the president makes the same statement, he can't be sued in his official capacity. And a private libel suit mostly likely wouldn't go anywhere against a sitting president -- for good reason, because the president shouldn't be encumbered by lawsuits while in office.
The second reason the government has to be careful about making unprovable allegations is that its bully pulpit is greater than any other. True, as an ex-president, Obama can defend himself publicly and has plenty of access to the news media. But even he doesn't have the audience that Trump now has. And essentially any other citizen would have far less capacity to mount a defense than Obama.
For these reasons, it's a mistake to say simply that Trump's accusation against Obama is protected by the First Amendment.
False and defamatory speech isn't protected by the First Amendment.
And an allegation of potentially criminal misconduct made without evidence is itself a form of serious misconduct by the government official who makes it.
When candidate Trump said Hillary Clinton was a criminal who belonged in prison, he was exposing himself to a libel suit. And the suit might not have succeeded, because Trump could have said he was making a political argument rather than an allegation of fact.
But when President Trump accuses Obama of an act that would have been impeachable and possibly criminal, that's something much more serious than libel. If it isn't true or provable, it's misconduct by the highest official of the executive branch.
How is such misconduct by an official to be addressed? There's a common-law tort of malicious prosecution, but that probably doesn't apply when the government official has no intention to prosecute.
The answer is that the constitutional remedy for presidential misconduct is impeachment.
That would have been the correct remedy if Obama had ''ordered'' a wiretap of the Republican presidential candidate's phones. The president has no such legal authority. Only a court can order a domestic wiretap, and that only after a showing of probable cause by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Breaking the law by tapping Trump's phones would have been an abuse of executive power that implicated the democratic process itself. Impeachment is the remedy for such a serious abuse of the executive office.
That includes abuse of office in the form of serious accusations against political opponents if they turn out to be false and made without evidence. These, too, deform the democratic process.
The Constitution speaks of impeachment for ''high crimes and misdemeanors.'' A lot of ink has been spilled over these words, which date back at least to impeachment proceedings in the 14th century. This isn't the place for a detailed analysis.
Suffice it to say that what makes crimes ''high'' is that they pertain to the exercise of government office. That's exactly what accusations by the executive are: actions that take on their distinctive meaning because they are made by government officials.
What's more, government acts that distort and undercut the democratic process are especially serious and worthy of impeachment. The Watergate break-in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters was part of an effort to steal the 1972 election. A wiretap of Trump's campaign would've had political implications.
And accusing the past Democratic president of an impeachable offense is every bit as harmful to democracy, assuming it isn't true. Obama is the best-known and most popular Democrat in the country. The effect of attacking him isn't just to weaken him personally, but to weaken the political opposition to Trump's administration.
Given how great the executive's power is, accusations by the president can't be treated asymmetrically. If the alleged action would be impeachable if true, so must be the allegation if false. Anything else would give the president the power to distort democracy by calling his opponents criminals without ever having to prove it.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:Noah Feldman at nfeldman7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:Stacey Shick at sshick@bloomberg.net
The recent flurry of marches, demonstrations and even riots, along with the Democratic Party's spiteful reaction to the Trump presidency, exposes what modern liberalism has become: a politics shrouded in pathos. Unlike the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, when protesters wore their Sunday best and carried themselves with heroic dignity, today's liberal marches are marked by incoherence and downright lunacy'--hats designed to evoke sexual organs, poems that scream in anger yet have no point to make, and an hysterical...
With tweetstorm, Trump may have exercised exclusive declassification authority - ABC News
In tweeting accusations that former President Barack Obama ordered surveillance of his campaign, President Donald Trump potentially made public the existence of Top Secret wiretaps '' a move that would be a federal crime, if performed by anyone other than the commander-in-chief.
Trump's stunning allegation came in an early morning tweetstorm, in which he wrote in part: ''Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory.''
Because the sitting president offered no evidence to back up his claim, it wasn't clear whether the tweet '' which was followed by four others taking on his predecessor, including one misspelling the word ''tap'' '' was based on classified knowledge he received in his capacity as president, or on an article posted yesterday to the conservative Breitbart website.
It also isn't known whether such federal wiretaps actually existed.
If '' through his tweets '' Trump revealed secret government information about surveillance, he exercised an exclusive privilege afforded only to the president as the ultimate declassification authority.
If any other government employee had single-handedly made such revelations they could see prison time for potentially damaging U.S. national security, a former official with intimate knowledge of the government secrecy policies told ABC News.
''It's an extremely serious offense,'' ABC News Contributor Matt Olsen, who is the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a former FBI counsel, explained.
''Anyone who would reveal the existence of a wiretap would violate federal law,'' he said. ''It is against federal law to disclose the existence of a wiretap, whether that wiretap is for criminal purposes or intelligence purposes.''
Wiretaps regarding foreign espionage and terrorism fall under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), issued by a secret court which meets in a secure courtroom shielded from public view or eavesdropping. Trump campaign aides have fallen under FBI scrutiny because of their repeated contacts with people alleged to be tied to Russian intelligence agencies, which the Trump associates may not even have been aware of.
The White House has so-far offered no clarification on whether the president was citing sensitive, non-public information, or whether it was prompted by a loose reading of the Breitbart article '' itself based on a segment from conspiracy-loving radio host Mark Levin.
In a recent program, a clip for which was posted on Facebook on Feb. 16, Levin rhetorically asked, ''How many of Trump's people were eavesdropped on, how many had their conversations intercepted, recorded, transcribed? Because this ladies and gentlemen is the big scandal."
Regardless of what prompted the rancorous tweets, a spokesman for the former president denied any wiretaps were ordered by then-President Barack Obama.
''Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen,'' Obama Spokesman Kevin Lewis said. ''Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."
The Obama Administration's deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, slammed Trump's accusations, writing on Twitter: ''No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.''
A senator from the President's own party, along with US intelligence officials, called the twitter rant '' which began just before 6:30 a.m. E.T. on Saturday morning '' a worrying display of Trump temperament.
''I am very worried. I'm very worried that our President is suggestion that the former President has done something illegal,'' Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said.
Trump's tempestuous tweets served to keep the public's attention on Russia, and contacts between the Russian ambassador and at least five Trump advisors.
It also comes one day after a Democratic member that he believed key wiretaps are, in fact, part of the investigation, although he has not seen them.
''There are transcripts that provide very helpful, very critical insights into whether or not Russian intelligence and senior Russian political leaders including Vladimir Putin were cooperating, were colluding with the trump campaign at the highest levels to influence the outcome of our election,'' Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said in an appearance on MSNBC.
ABC News' Randy Kreider, Cho Park, Alex Hosenball and Paul Blake contributed to this report.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated the airdate of Levin's program which was quoted. It has been updated to reflect that a clip from the program was posted to Facebook on Feb. 16.
What the 21st century can learn from the 1929 crash | Larry Elliott | Society | The Guardian
As the summer of 1929 drew to a close, the celebrated Yale university economist Irving Fisher took to the pages of the New York Times to opine about Wall Street. Share prices had been rising all year; investors had been speculating with borrowed money on the assumption that the good times would continue. It was the bull market of all time, and those taking a punt wanted reassurance that their money was safe.
Fisher provided it for them, predicting confidently: ''Stock markets have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.'' On that day, the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 was less than two months away. It was the worst share tip in history. Nothing else comes close.
The crisis broke on Thursday 24 October, when the market dropped by 11%. Black Thursday was followed by a 13% fall on Black Monday and a further 12% tumble on Black Tuesday. By early November, Fisher was ruined and the stock market was in a downward spiral that would only bottom out in June 1932, at which point companies quoted on the New York stock exchange had lost 90% of their value and the world had changed utterly.
A crowd of speculators gather in front of the New York stock exchange on Black Thursday, 24 October 1929. Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty ImagesThe Great Crash was followed by the Great Depression, the biggest setback to the global economy since the dawn of the modern industrial age in the middle of the 18th century. Within three years of Fisher's ill-judged prediction, a quarter of America's working population was unemployed and desperate. As the economist JK Galbraith put it: ''Some people were hungry in 1930 and 1931 and 1932. Others were tortured by the fear that they might go hungry.''
Banks that weren't failing were foreclosing on debtors. There was no welfare state to cushion the fall for those such as John Steinbeck's Okies '' farmers caught between rising debts and crashing commodity prices. One estimate suggests 34 million Americans had no income at all. By mid-1932, the do-nothing approach of Herbert Hoover was discredited and the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was on course to become US president.
Across the Atlantic, Germany was suffering its second economic calamity in less than a decade. In 1923, the vindictive peace terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles had helped to create the conditions for hyperinflation, when one dollar could be exchanged for 4.2 trillion marks, people carted wheelbarrows full of useless notes through the streets, and cigarettes were used as money. In 1932, a savage austerity programme left 6 million unemployed. Germany suffered as the pound fell and rival British exports became cheaper. More than 40% of Germany's industrial workers were idle and Nazi brownshirts were fighting communists for control of the streets. By 1932, the austerity policies of the German chancellor Heinrich Br¼ning were discredited and Adolf Hitler was on course to replace him.
Timeline of turmoilIt would be wrong to think nobody saw the crisis coming. Fisher's prediction may well have been a riposte to a quite different (and remarkably accurate) prediction made by the investment adviser Roger Babson in early September 1929. Babson told the US National Business Conference that a crash was coming and that it would be a bad one. ''Factories will shut down,'' Babson predicted, ''men will be thrown out of work.'' Anticipating how the slump would feed on itself, he warned: ''The vicious cycle will get in and the result will be a serious business depression.''
Cassandras are ignored until it is too late. And Babson, who had form as a pessimist, was duly ignored. The Dr Doom of the 2008 crisis, New York University's Nouriel Roubini, suffered the same fate.
Migrant Mother, 1936, by Dorothea Lange. Photograph: GraphicaArtis/Getty ImagesF Scott Fitzgerald described the Great Crash as the moment the jazz age dived to its death. It marked the passing of a first age of globalisation that had flourished in the decades before the first world war with free movements of capital, freedom and '' to a lesser extent '' goods. In the decade or so after the guns fell silent in 1918, policymakers had been trying to re-create what they saw as a golden period of liberalism. The Great Depression put paid to those plans, ushering in, instead, an era of isolationism, protectionism, aggressive nationalism and totalitarianism. There was no meaningful recovery until nations took up arms again in 1939.
In Britain, recovery was concentrated in the south of England and too weak to dent ingrained unemployment in the old industrial areas. The Jarrow march for jobs took place in 1936, seven years after the start of the crisis. It was a similar story in the US, where a recovery during Roosevelt's first presidential term ended in a second mini-slump in 1937. Sir Winston Churchill, who lost a packet in the Crash, described the period 1914 to 1945 as the second 30 years' war.
Only one other financial meltdown can compare to the Wall Street Crash for the length of its impact: the one that hit a climax with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Without the Great Depression, there would have been no New Deal and no Keynesian revolution in economics. Roosevelt might never have progressed beyond the New York governor's mansion in Albany. Hitler, whose political star was on the wane by the late 1920s, would have been a historical footnote .
Similarly, without the long-lingering effects of the 2008 crash, there would have been no Brexit, Donald Trump would still be a New York City builder and Europe would not be quaking at the possibility of Marine Le Pen replacing Fran§ois Hollande as French president.
Not since the 1930s have there been such acute fears of a populist backlash against the prevailing orthodoxy. As then, a prolonged period of poor economic performance has led to a political reaction that looks like feeding back into a desire for a different economic approach. The early 30s share with the mid-2010s a sense that the political establishment has lost the confidence of large numbers of voters, who have rejected ''business as usual'' and backed politicians they see as challenging the status quo.
Depression to Dust Bowl: a large cloud appears behind a truck travelling on Highway 59 in Colorado, May 1936. Photograph: PhotoQuest/Getty ImagesTrump is not the first president to urge an America-first policy: Roosevelt was of a similar mind after he replaced Herbert Hoover in 1933. Nor is this the first time there has been such a wide gulf between Wall Street and the rest of the country. The loathing of the bankers in the 20s hardened into a desire for retribution in the 30s.
According to Lord Robert Skidelsky, biographer of John Maynard Keynes: ''We got into the Great Depression for the same reason as in 2008: there was a great pile of debt, there was gambling on margin on the stock market, there was over-inflation of assets, and interest rates were too high to support a full employment level of investment.''
There are similarities between now and the 1930s, in the sense that you have a declining superpower
Stephen KingThere are other similarities. The 20s had been good for owners of assets but not for workers. There had been a sharp increase in unemployment at the start of the decade and labour markets had not fully recovered by the time an even bigger slump began in 1929. But while employees saw their slice of the economic cake get smaller, for the rich and powerful, the Roaring Twenties were the best of times. In the US, the halving of the top rate of income tax to 32% meant more money for speculation in the stock and property markets. Share prices rose sixfold on Wall Street in the decade leading up to the Wall Street Crash.
Inequality was high and rising, and demand only maintained through a credit bubble. Unemployment between 1921 and 1929 averaged 8% in the US, 9% in Germany and 12% in Britain. Labour markets had never really recovered from a severe recession at the start of the 20s designed to stamp out a post-war inflationary boom.
Above all, in both periods global politics were in flux. From around 1890, the balance of power between the great European nations that had kept the peace for three quarters of a century after the battle of Waterloo in 1815 started to break down. The Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires were in decline before the first world war; the US, Germany and Russia were on the rise.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page on Black Thursday. Photograph: Icon Communications/GettyMore importantly, Britain, which had been the linchpin of late 19th-century globalisation had been weakened by the first world war and was no longer able to provide the leadership role. America was not yet ready to take up the mantle.
Stephen King, senior economic adviser to HSBC and author of a forthcoming book on the crisis of globalisation, Grave New World, says: ''There are similarities between now and the 1920 and 1930s in the sense that you had a declining superpower. Britain was declining then and the US is potentially declining now.''
King says that in the 20s, the idea of a world ruled by empires was crumbling. Eventually, the US did take on Britain's role as the defender of western values, but not until the 40s, when it was pivotal in both defeating totalitarianism and in creating the economic and political institutions '' the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank '' that were designed to ensure the calamitous events of the 30s never happened again.
''There are severe doubts about whether the US is able or willing to play the role it played in the second half of the 20th century, and that's worrisome because if the US is not playing it, who does? If nobody is prepared to play that role, the question is whether we are moving towards a more chaotic era.''
Deflationary disasterThere are, of course, differences as well as similarities between the two epochs. At this year's meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, held in the week of Trump's inauguration, members of the global business elite found reasons to be cheerful.
Some took comfort from technology: the idea that Facebook, Snapchat and Google have shrunk the world. Others said slapping tariffs on imported goods in an era of complex international supply chains would push up the cost of exports and make it unthinkable even for a country as big as the US to adopt a go-it-alone economic strategy. Roberto Azevªdo, managing director of the World Trade Organisation said: ''The big difference between the financial crisis of 2008 and the early 1930s is that today we have multilateral trade rules, and in the 30s we didn't.''
The biggest difference between the two crises, however, is that in the early 1930s blunders by central banks and finance ministries made matters a lot worse than they need have been. Not all stock market crashes morph into slumps, and one was avoided '' just about '' in the period after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
A 'Hooverville' collection of unemployed people's shack dwellings in Seattle, Washington, in 1933. Photograph: APEarly signs from data for industrial production and world trade in late 2008 showed declines akin to those during the first months of the Great Depression. Policymakers have been rightly castigated for being asleep at the wheel while the sub-prime mortgage crisis was gestating, but knowing some economic history helped when Lehman Brothers went bust. In the early 30s, central banks waited too long to cut interest rates and allowed deflation to set in. There was a policy of malign neglect towards the banks, which were allowed to go bust in droves. Faced with higher budget deficits caused by higher unemployment and slower growth, finance ministers made matters worse by raising taxes and cutting spending.
The response to the Crash, according to Adam Tooze in his book The Deluge, was deflationary policies were pursued everywhere. ''The question that critics have asked ever since is why the world was so eager to commit to this collective austerity. If Keynesian and monetarist economists can agree on one thing, it is the disastrous consequences of this deflationary consensus.''
If Keynesian and monetarist economists agree on one thing, it is the disastrous consequences of deflationary policy
Adam ToozeAt the heart of this consensus was the gold standard, the strongly held belief that it should be possible to exchange pounds, dollars, marks or francs for gold at a fixed exchange rate. The system had its own automatic regulatory process: if a country lived beyond its means and ran a current account surplus, gold would flow out and would only return once policy had been tightened to reduce imports.
After concerted efforts by the Bank of England and the Treasury, Britain returned to the gold standard in 1925 at its pre-war parity of $4.86. This involved a rise in the exchange rate that made life more difficult for exporters.
What the policymakers failed to realise was that the world had moved on since the pre-1914 era. Despite being on the winning side, Britain's economy was much weaker. Germany's economy had also suffered between 1914 and 1918, and was further hobbled by reparations. America, by contrast, was in a much stronger position.
This changing balance of power meant that restoring the pre-war regime was a long and painful process, and by the late 20s the strains of attempting to do so were starting to become unbearable in just the same way as the strains on the euro '' the closest modern equivalent to the gold standard '' have become evident since 2008.
Instead of easing off, policymakers in the early stages of the Great Depression thought the answer was to redouble their efforts. Peter Temin, an economic historian, compares central banks and finance ministries to the 18th-century doctors who treated Mozart with mercury: ''Not only were they singularly ineffective in curing the economic disease; they also killed the patient.''
Skidelsky explains that in Britain, the so-called ''automatic stabilisers'' kicked in during the early stages of the crisis. Tax revenues fell because growth was weaker while spending on unemployment benefits rose. The public finances fell into the red.
Supporters of the New Deal agency march through New York in protest at corporate layoffs, January 1937. Photograph: New York Times Co/Getty ImagesInstead of welcoming the extra borrowing as a cushion against a deeper recession, the authorities took steps to balance the budget. Ramsay MacDonald's government set up the May committee to see what could be done about the deficit. Given the membership, heavily weighted in favour of businessmen, the outcome was never in doubt: sterling was under pressure and in order to maintain Britain's gold standard parity, the May committee recommended cuts of £97m from the state's £885m budget. Unemployment pay was to be cut by 30% in order to balance the budget within a year.
The severity of the cuts split the Labour government and prompted the formation of a national government led by MacDonald. Philip Snowden, the chancellor, said the alternative to the status quo was ''the Deluge''. Financial editors were invited to the Treasury to be briefed on measures being taken to protect the pound, and when one asked whether Britain should or could stay on the gold standard, the Treasury mandarin Sir Warren Hastings rose to his feet and thundered: ''To suggest we should leave the gold standard is an affront not only to the national honour, but to the personal honour of every man or woman in the country.''
The show of fiscal masochism failed to prevent fresh selling of the pound, and eventually the pressure became unbearable. In September 1931, Britain provided as big a shock to the rest of the world as it did on 23 June 2016, by coming off the gold standard.
The pound fell and the boost to UK exports was reinforced six months later when the coalition government announced a policy of imperial preference, the erection of tariff barriers around colonies and former colonies such as Australia and New Zealand.
Britain was not the first country to resort to protectionism. The now infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff had been announced in the US in 1930. But America had a recent history of protectionism '' it had built up its manufacturing strength behind a 40% tariff in the second half of the 19th century. Britain, as Tooze explains, had been in favour of free trade since the repeal of the corn laws in 1846.
''Now it was responsible for initiating the death spiral of protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbour currency wars that would tear the global economy apart.''
An elderly woman sits by a shop window full of adverts for cigarettes, 1935. Photograph: General Photographic Agency/Getty ImagesBritain's 1931 exit from the gold standard meant it secured first-mover advantage over its main rivals. For Germany, the pain was especially severe, since the country's mountain of foreign debt ruled out devaluation and left Chancellor Br¼ning's government with the choice between default and deflation. Br¼ning settled for another round of austerity, not realising that for voters there was a third choice: a party that insisted that national solutions were the answer to a broken international system.
The reason borrowing costs were slashed in 2008 is that central bankers knew their history. Ben Bernanke, then chairman of America's Federal Reserve, was a student of the Great Depression and fully acknowledged that his institution could not afford to make the same mistake twice. Interest rates were cut to barely above zero; money was created through the process known as quantitative easing; the banks were bailed out; Barack Obama pushed a fiscal stimulus programme through Congress.
But the policy was only a partial success. Low interest rates and quantitative easing have averted Great Depression 2.0 by flooding economies with cheap money. This has driven up the prices of assets '' shares, bonds and houses '' to the benefit of those who are rich or comfortably off.
For those not doing so well, it has been a different story. Wage increases have been hard to come by, and the strong desire of governments to reduce budget deficits has resulted in unpopular austerity measures. Not all the lessons of the 1930s have been well learned , and the over-hasty tightening of fiscal policy has slowed growth and caused political alienation among those who feel they are being punished for a crisis they did not create, while the real villains get away scot-free . A familiar refrain in both the referendum on Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election was: there might be a recovery going on, but it's not happening around here.
Authoritarian solutionsInternationalism died in the early 30s because it came to be associated with discredited policies: rampant speculation, mass unemployment, permanent austerity and falling living standards.
Totalitarian states promoted themselves as alternatives to failed and decrepit liberal democracies. Hitler's Germany was one, Stalin's Soviet Union another. While the first era of globalisation was breaking up, Moscow was pushing ahead with the collectivisation of agriculture and rapid industrialisation.
What's more, the economic record of the totalitarian countries in the 30s was far superior to that of the liberal democracies. Growth averaged 0.3% a year in Britain, the US and France, compared with 3.1% a year in Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union.
Erik Britton, founder of the consultancy Fathom , says: ''The 1920s saw the failure of liberal free-trade, free-market policies to deliver stability and growth. Alternative people came along with a populist stance that really worked, for a while.''
There is, Britton says, a reason mainstream parties are currently being rejected: ''It is not safe to assume you can deliver unsatisfactory economic outcomes for a decade without a political reaction that feeds back into the economics.''
A car goes on sale for $100 after the Wall Street Crash. Photograph: PPPEconomic devastation caused by the Great Depression did eventually force western democracies into rethinking policy. The key period was the 18 months between Britain coming off the gold standard in September 1931 and Roosevelt's arrival in the White House in March 1933.
Under Hoover, US economic policy had been relentlessly deflationary. As in Germany '' the other country to suffer most grievously from the Depression '' there was a dogged insistence on protecting the currency and on balancing the budget.
The Great Depression ushered in isolationism, protectionism, aggressive nationalism and totalitarianism
That changed under FDR. Policy became both more interventionist and more isolationist. If London could adopt a Britain-first policy, then so could Washington. Roosevelt swiftly took the dollar off the gold standard and scuppered attempts to prevent currency wars. Wall Street was reined in; fiscal policy was loosened. But it was too late. By then, Hitler was chancellor and tightening his grip on power. Ultimately, the Depression was brought to an end not by the New Deal, but by war.
King says the world is already starting to become more protectionist in terms of movement of capital and labour. Trump has been naming and shaming US companies seeking to take advantage of cheaper labour in the emerging countries, while Brexit is an example of the idea that migration needs to be controlled.
The US supported the post-war global instutional framework: the UN, IMF and European Union, through the Marshall plan. ''It tried to create a framework in which individual countries could flourish,'' King adds. ''But I don't see that [happening again] in the future, which creates difficulties for the rest of the world.''
Campaign posters for Britain's national government coalition spanning two elections. Photograph: Conservative Party Archive/Getty ImagesSo far, financial markets have taken a positive view of Trump. They have concentrated on the growth potential of his plans for tax cuts and higher infrastructure spending, rather than his threat to build a wall along the Rio Grande and to slap tariffs on Mexican and Chinese imports.
There is, though, a darker vision of the future, where every country tries to do what Trump is doing. In this scenario, a shrinking global economy leads to shrinking global trade, and deflation means personal debts become more onerous. ''It becomes a vicious, self-fulfilling cycle,'' Britton says. ''People seek answers and find it in authoritarianism, populism and protectionism. If one country can show it works, there is a strong temptation for others to follow suit.''
This may prove too pessimistic. The global economy is growing by around 3% a year; Britain and the US (if not the eurozone) have seen unemployment halve since the 2008-09 crisis; low oil prices have kept inflation low and led to rising living standards.
Even so, it is not hard to see why support for the policy ideas that have driven the second era of globalisation '' free movement of capital, goods and people '' has started to fracture. The winners from the liberal economic system that emerged at the end of the cold war have, like their forebears in the 20s, failed to look out for the losers. A rising tide has not lifted all boats, and those who do not consider themselves the beneficiaries of globalisation have grown weary of hearing how marvellous it is.
The 30s are proof that nothing in economics is inevitable. There was eventually a backlash against the economic orthodoxies and Skidelsky can see why there is another backlash happening today. ''Globalisation enables capital to escape national and union control. I am much more sympathetic since the start of the crisis to the Marxist way of analysing things.
''Trump will be impeached, assassinated or frustrated by Congress,'' Skidelsky suggests. ''Or he will remain popular enough to overcome the liberal consensus that he is a shit of the first order. After all, a lot of people agree with what he is doing.''
Lame Cherry: Obama Regime Did Wire Tap Donald Trump for Hillary Clinton
As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
The Lame Cherry is going to explain something here exclusively about "Russian hacking", and the Lame Cherry demands you HALF WITS, read this instead of going off half assed again thinking you know something in your shit for brains jumping to conclusions.
Former Bush AG: Trump right there was surveillance...
What is going to appear here is going to explain everything and once you read this, you are going to shake your head again, and say, "That was obvious", and then forget by God's Inspiration the Lame Cherry explained all of this to you when you tell others........and once again forget to click that donate button.
I take you back in this exclusive to the time when Donald Trump began his campaign, and there were rumors about moles inside the Trump organization put there by Jeb Bush and Reince Priebus. You do remember that little girl Jeb Bush planted in the CNN question and answer session in "Why do you hate women"?However, as previously noted, it didn't take long to discover that LaurenBatchelder was not just an ordinary audience member, she is actually a current staffer for ...https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/10/13/busted-cnn-useYou remember all those screwy stories you heard about Donald Trump not in this to win. About Donald Trump starting a television station. About Donald Trump just marketing products.
All bogus as the election proved, but what on earth was going on?
I will explain as you have to know who Donald Trump is. He is an American of German and Scottish origins. They work very hard, they are moral, and they relish the opportunity to as it is said in the South, "shuck and jive".
An example of this was Tom Custer, who was General Custer's brother. The Custers were Germans from Michigan, and their little brother Boston came out to the Dakota Territory for the summer for a visit. Tom told Boston that in the West there were water rocks, and all Boston had to do was soak a rock in water each day and in a few days, it would be full of water and he would not need a canteen.Everyone was rolling on the ground watching this kid doing it, hauling around a bag of rocks soaking them making a fool out of himself, until the kid figured it out that he had been had.That is what Americans do in flyover country, which the coastal patricians have no idea of.
Now put yourself in Donald Trump's place in you know you are being spied on by the GOPe, Bush fam, Hillary Clinton, and the press is going to lie about you.
What would you do?
Donald Trump did the American thing and fed these A holes everything they just "knew about" Donald Trump and let them go nuts over it.
Remember I told you exclusively that President Trump was running a WWE event of grande theater? OK so you got Obama being FLEXIBLE with Vladimir Putin and you got Hillary Clinton taking Russian bribes. Obama and Clinton are crooked, so what do you think they are going to conclude Donald Trump is when he starts saying the same things his base is in showing appreciation for President Putin's ability to lead and survive?Obviously they thought the Russians were helping the Trump campaign, because their Tavistock voter manipulation of Americans was in meltdown.
These leftists were insane, because everything that made them secure, was taken from them. Their lies always defeated Republicans, and here was Donald Trump kicking their asses every day, and a few Russian Times stories, and the amplification of Drudge, Gateway Pundit, Jeff Rense, Alex Jones and a popular girl was permeating through the entire electorate like a lightning strike. These elite were fixated on that media conditioning and it was not working, so therefore "Russia had to be doing something" because all the psychological profiling always worked before and is not working now.
They came up against God, but that is another point.
So now you are on the stage, and Donald Trump is being smeared and they are looking for something, anything in desperation, so he trolled them with those American German Scot jokes which Americans got and laughed at like Davy Crockett's jokes on the stump, in asking if Hillary and Obama could not find those lost emails, maybe Putin could.
The Russians like all governments including Americans, are always trolling political groups. The opposition in Moscow is all CIA backed. Donald Trump knew all of this, and when the Bush, Obama and Clinton spies were gathering intelligence from inside the Trump campaign, whether at bars, cell phones left on inside the tower and other venues, the Trump campaign gave them exactly what they were looking for to make fools out of them.
Wikileaks had nothing to do with the Russians. The phishing on Podesta was central European and not Russian, but by Americans favoring Vladimir Putin, and Mr. Trump espousing that, the Trump campaign set Hillary Clinton up on the pattern of 2008 when she was tearing ass on Vladimir Putin to get at Obama.
Hillary Clinton fully intended in 2016 AD in the year of our Lord to run against Vladimir Putin in revisiting her former campaign.
Donald Trump simply gave them the pattern to repeat and Obama and Clinton went beyond insane on it, they went criminal.
Set the stage on this in October. Hillary was supposed to have knocked Trump out in August, and Donald Trump kept getting stronger. Desperation set in, and the Obama regime moved to take matters into their own hands so Hillary Clinton would protect them from their crimes. Thus entered the Clinton Bush paid for MI6 report of Pissgate, which was fed by the Russians against the detested spy Christopher Steele of MI6, which #NeverTrumper John McCain and John Podesta got their hands on, and under marching orders planted it into the FBI headquarters where the Obama assistant directors were only too happy with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to jump on this to manipulation the federal elections.
This is what the Gateway Pundit discovered:
Democrat Kathy Arue: ''My sources from the White House told me, she thinks it's all true. She said, um there were concerns that Trump-and this is from the White House and the administration inside the White House'...there were concerns that Trump and his surrogates may have been colluding with the Russians and a possible bargaining chip to influence the election, therefore a wiretap was conducted.''
So you understand this time line, Obama, Clinton and Bush were spying on the Trump campaign, and were all crooked with Russian influence over the years. They were desperate from Donald Trump's success. The Trump campaign suspected they had moles and were being spied upon, and as they had been telling these dopes things they wanted to hear in smearing Donald Trump which their fake news went deranged over, it was decided upon if the fake news wanted to destroy Donald Trump with lies, then they might as well get a whopper.So you do not miss this, Donald Trump did absolutely nothing but said a few nice things about Vladimir Putin. I believe that someone from Europe or Russia was spoofing a Trump server which the Trump campaign knew nothing about, and in those few bits of information, these desperate leftists made it out to be that there was a Russian agent in the Trump campaign.We know this took the next step as reports published from the Pentagon and CIA, that everyone there was being told that Donald Trump was the agent as the gossip plumed.
So you get this point completely, FAKE NEWS GENERATED THE RUSSIAN MOLE STORY. IT WAS FED BACK TO THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN AND THE OBAMA REGIME BY OPERATIVES IN EUROPE, AND THE OBAMA REGIME ILLEGALLY STARTED WIRE TAPPING TRUMP TOWER TO FIND THIS MOLE WHICH DID NOT EXIST, BECAUSE THE CLINTON AND OBAMA TEAMS HAD CREATED THE MOLE.
All of this can be summed up in you have a round table in
Donald Trump stands up and says, "Vladimir Putin is a capable leader".Obama whispers to Jarrett, "Trump likes Putin".Jarrett whispers to Michelle, "Trump is working with Putin".Michelle whispers to Clapper. " Putin is working to elect Trump".Clapper whispers to Lynch, "There is a Russian agent in the Trump campaign".Lynch quits whispering and orders Comey at FBI to get a warrant to wire tap Trump tower.
Now this wire tap has something hinky going on with it, because Clapper was out denying it again from CIA, and there were two insider white women, Louise Mensch and Kathy Arue, who broke this story in both talking FISA spying to spin this against Donald Trump, in which both were Hillary Clinton advocates, reveals this story was coming from the Clinton campaign in Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and Robbie Mook.Someone in the Obama regime revealed classified information into an investigation of Donald Trump and his campaign which is a high crime.We know for certain that there was a wire tap, because of what President Trump specifically stated on Twitter:
''Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory,'' Trump wrote on his personal Twitter account. ''Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!''
"Just found out means that morning", and Mr. Trump is not quoting Mark Levin or Breitbart. Just found out at that hour means this was the NSA providing the information in a brief."Wires tapped" is a legal term in FISA, so this is FISA in somehow a Judge was pressured into this broad based wire tapping of Trump Tower, and the Obama White House was briefed on every detail and allowed it to get Trump.
"Nothing found", translates that President Trump was briefed by the NSA, and shown an FBI report and assessment of a wire tap of Donald Trump, and nothing was found, which is FBI speak.I would conjecture that the FBI in James Comey was extremely uncomfortable about what had taken place in spying on the Republican candidate, and the moment the information was reviewed, this entire wire tap was shut down fast.
This was so "centered" and DC "centric" that it appears that New York FBI was cut out of the loop, as the Obama regime was prone to not informing that office of these kangaroo investigations and cover ups, which had the New York office disgruntled about what was going on in their house, and they were being kept in the dark.This had been going on since April or June at the latest and appeared again in October without New York FBI being informed. As a side note in this, this is probably the background in why a certain popular girl was interviewed in August by Homeland, because the New York FBI office was trying to find out what the hell was going on in their jurisdiction as the Obama regime was conducting operations against Donald Trump and no one in New York was being informed. So some information which appeared here, had New York trying to track down what in hell Obama DC was subverting their authority again over.
Hell of a lot of problems surfaced in this from that Obama Clinton Bush smear campaign and is still causing havoc as we discover that Lindsey Graham actually was right once in his life, that this is true and this is bigger than Watergate.
Congress must investigate this now and the NSA must hand over these reports and files, which cleared Donald Trump and his campaign, but now implicate image Obama and the regime in a scandal which dwarfs Watergate.
George W. Bush with his reverse speech CANADA LEAKS, is going to rue the day he crawled out of Texas to smear President Trump, as this coup against the American Government will be crushed and those involved are going to prison or the most severe judicial penalty.
Als eine andere Lame Cherry exklusiv in Materie Anti-Materie.Die Lame Cherry wird hier ausschliesslich etwas ¼ber "Russian Hacking" erkl¤ren, und die Lame Cherry fordert dich HALB WITS, liest dies, anstatt dich halb zu verschenken, wenn du anf¤ngst, dass du etwas in deiner Scheie kenne, weil die Gehirne zu Schlussfolgerungen springen.Ehemalige Bush AG: Trump rechts dort war 'berwachung ...Was hier erscheinen wird, wird alles erkl¤ren, und sobald du das gelesen hast, wirst du deinen Kopf wieder sch¼tteln und sagen: "Das war offensichtlich", und dann vergiss die Inspiration Gottes, die Lahme Kirsche erkl¤rte dir das allesWenn du anderen sagst ........ und nochmal vergessen, auf diesen Spendenknopf zu klicken.Ich nehme dich zur¼ck in diesem exklusiven zu der Zeit, als Donald Trump seine Kampagne begann, und es gab Ger¼chte ¼ber Maulw¼rfe in der Trump-Organisation, die dort von Jeb Bush und Reince Priebus.Sie erinnern sich, dass kleines M¤dchen Jeb Bush in der CNN Frage und Antwort Sitzung in "Warum hassen Sie Frauen" gepflanzt?
Busted!CNN verwendet Jeb Bush Staffer gepflanzt im Publikum ... Allerdings, wie bereits erw¤hnt, es nicht lange dauern, um zu entdecken, dass Lauren Batchelder war nicht nur ein gew¶hnliches Publikum Mitglied, sie ist eigentlich ein aktueller Mitarbeiter f¼r ...Du erinnerst dich an all jene scharfen Geschichten, die du ¼ber Donald Trump h¶rst, um nicht zu gewinnen.'ber Donald Trump mit einem Fernsehsender.'ber Donald Trump nur Marketing-Produkte.Alle falschen wie die Wahl bewiesen, aber was auf der Erde war los?Ich werde erkl¤ren, wie Sie wissen m¼ssen, wer Donald Trump ist.Er ist ein Amerikaner deutscher und schottischer Herkunft.Sie arbeiten sehr hart, sie sind moralisch, und sie genieen die Gelegenheit, wie es im S¼den gesagt wird, "shuck and jive".Ein Beispiel daf¼r war Tom Custer, der General Custers Bruder war.Die Custers waren Deutsche aus Michigan, und ihr kleiner Bruder Boston kam zum Dakota Territory f¼r den Sommer zu einem Besuch.Tom erz¤hlte Boston, dass im Westen Wasserfelsen waren, und alle, die Boston zu tun hatte, war jeden Tag ein Fels im Wasser und in ein paar Tagen w¤re es voller Wasser und er brauchte keine Kantine.Jeder rollte auf dem Boden und beobachtete, wie sich das Kind tat, indem er sich um eine Tafel von Felsen herumzog, die sie aus sich selbst zum Narren machten, bis das Kind es herausgefunden hatte, dass er gehabt hatte.Das ist es, was die Amerikaner im 'berf¼hrungsland machen, was die K¼stenpatristen keine Ahnung haben.Jetzt setz dich in den Platz von Donald Trump ein, du weit, dass du von der GOPe, Bush Fam, Hillary Clinton ausgespuckt wirst, und die Presse wird ¼ber dich liegen.Was w¼rden Sie tun?Donald Trump tat das amerikanische Ding und f¼tterte diese A-L¶cher alles, was sie nur "wussten" Donald Trump und lie sie N¼sse ¼ber sie gehen.Denken Sie daran, dass ich Ihnen genau gesagt habe, dass Pr¤sident Trump ein WWE-Event des Grande Theaters f¼hrte?OK, also hast du Obama, der mit Wladimir Putin FLEXIBEL ist, und du hast Hillary Clinton unter russischen Bestechungsgelder bekommen.Obama und Clinton sind krumm, also was denkst du, dass sie Donald Trump abschlieen werden, wenn er anf¤ngt, die gleichen Dinge zu sagen, die seine Basis in der Anerkennung f¼r die F¤higkeit von Pr¤sident Putin, zu f¼hren und zu ¼berleben,Offensichtlich dachten sie, dass die Russen der Trump-Kampagne helfen w¼rden, weil ihre W¤hlermanipulation in Schmelze war.Diese Linken waren verr¼ckt, weil alles, was sie sicher machte, von ihnen genommen wurde.Ihre L¼gen waren immer besiegt Republikaner, und hier war Donald Trump Kicking ihre Esel jeden Tag, und ein paar russische Times Geschichten, und die Verst¤rkung von Drudge, Gateway Pundit, Jeff Rense, Alex Jones und ein beliebtes M¤dchen war durchdrungen durch die gesamte W¤hler wie einBlitzschlag.Diese Elite wurde auf dieser Medienkonditionierung fixiert und es funktionierte nicht, also also "Russland musste etwas machen", denn alle psychologischen Profilierungen funktionierten immer vorher.Sie kamen gegen Gott, aber das ist ein weiterer Punkt.So jetzt bist du auf der B¼hne, und Donald Trump wird geschmiert und sie sind auf der Suche nach etwas, irgendetwas in Verzweiflung, also trollte er sie mit den amerikanischen Schottwitzern, die die Amerikaner bekamen und lachten wie Davy Crocketts Witze auf dem StumpfFragen, ob Hillary und Obama diese verlorenen E-Mails nicht finden konnten, vielleicht k¶nnte Putin.Die Russen m¶gen alle Regierungen, einschlielich Amerikaner, sind immer politische Gruppen.Die Opposition in Moskau ist alle CIA unterst¼tzt.Donald Trump wusste das alles, und als die Bush-, Obama- und Clinton-Spione in der Trump-Kampagne Intelligenz sammelten, ob an Bars, Handys im Inneren des Turms und an anderen Orten, gab die Trump-Kampagne ihnen genau das, was sie sahenF¼r etwas, irgendetwas in der Verzweiflung, so trollte er sie mit den amerikanischen deutschen Schottenwitzern, die Amerikaner bekamen und lachten wie Davy Crocketts Witze auf dem Stumpf, bei der Frage, ob Hillary und Obama diese verlorenen E-Mails nicht finden konnten, vielleicht k¶nnte Putin auch sein.Die Russen m¶gen alle Regierungen, einschlielich Amerikaner, sind immer politische Gruppen.Die Opposition in Moskau ist alle CIA unterst¼tzt.Donald Trump wusste das alles, und als die Bush-, Obama- und Clinton-Spione in der Trump-Kampagne Intelligenz sammelten, ob an Bars, Handys im Inneren des Turms und an anderen Orten, gab die Trump-Kampagne ihnen genau das, was sie sahenUm Dummk¶pfe aus ihnen zu machen.Wikileaks hatte nichts mit den Russen zu tun.Das Phishing auf Podesta war mitteleurop¤isch und nicht russisch, aber von Amerikanern, die Vladimir Putin beg¼nstigten, und Mr. Trump, der darauf hinwies, dass die Trump-Kampagne Hillary Clinton auf das Muster von 2008, als sie Arsch auf Vladimir Putin zerri, um bei Obama zu reien.Hillary Clinton beabsichtigte im Jahr 2016, im Jahr unseres Herrn, um gegen Wladimir Putin in der Wiederbesetzung ihrer ehemaligen Kampagne zu laufen.Donald Trump gab ihnen einfach das Muster zu wiederholen und Obama und Clinton gingen ¼ber wahnsinnig darauf, sie gingen kriminell.
Setzen Sie die B¼hne auf diese im Oktober.Hillary sollte im August Trump geklopft haben, und Donald Trump wurde immer st¤rker.Verzweiflung setzte ein, und das Obama-Regime zog, um die Angelegenheiten in ihre eigenen H¤nde zu nehmen, so Hillary Clinton w¼rde sie vor ihren Verbrechen sch¼tzen.So trat der Clinton Bush f¼r den MI6-Bericht von Pissgate ein, der von den Russen gegen den verstorbenen Spion Christopher Steele von MI6 gef¼ttert wurde, den # JohnT John John McCain und John Podesta ihre H¤nde bekamen, und unter marschierenden Befehlen es in das FBI-Hauptquartier gepflanzt hatteWo die Obama-Assistent Regisseure waren nur zu gl¼cklich mit Attorney General Loretta Lynch zu springen auf diese zur Manipulation der Bundestagswahlen.So entdeckte das Gateway Pundit:
Demokraten Kathy Arue: "Meine Quellen aus dem Weien Haus sagten mir, sie denkt, es ist alles wahr.Sie sagte, denn es gab Bedenken, dass Trump - und das ist aus dem Weien Haus und die Verwaltung im Weien Haus ... es gab Bedenken, dass Trump und seine Surrogate vielleicht mit den Russen und einem m¶glichen Verhandlungs-Chip, um die Wahl zu beeinflussen,Deshalb wurde eine Wiretap durchgef¼hrt. "So verstanden Sie diese Zeitlinie, Obama, Clinton und Bush spionierten auf der Trump-Kampagne und waren alle mit dem russischen Einfluss ¼ber die Jahre gekr¼mmt.Sie waren verzweifelt von Donald Trump's Erfolg.Die Trumpfkampagne vermutete, dass sie Maulw¼rfe hatten und sich ausspionierten, und wie sie diese Dopen erz¤hlt hatten, die sie bei der Verschmierung von Donald Trump h¶ren wollten, die ihre gef¤lschten Nachrichten ¼berfluteten, wurde beschlossen, wenn die gef¤lschte Nachricht Donald zerst¶ren wollteTrump mit L¼gen, dann k¶nnten sie auch ein Whopper bekommen.So verpassen Sie das nicht, Donald Trump hat absolut nichts anderes als ein paar nette Sachen ¼ber Vladimir Putin gesagt.Ich glaube, dass jemand aus Europa oder Russland einen Trump-Server spoofing, den die Trump-Kampagne nichts wusste, und in diesen wenigen Bits von Informationen machten diese verzweifelten Linken es aus, dass es einen russischen Agenten in der Trump-Kampagne gab.Wir wissen, dass dies den n¤chsten Schritt als Berichte aus dem Pentagon und CIA ver¶ffentlicht, dass jeder dort wurde gesagt, dass Donald Trump war der Agent als der Klatsch plumed.So bekommst du diesen Punkt ganz, FAKE NEWS GENERIERT DIE RUSSISCHE MOLE STORY.ES WAR FED ZUR'CK ZUR KLINTONKAMPAGNE UND DAS OBAMA REGIME DURCH BETRIEBE IN EUROPA UND DAS OBAMA REGIME ILLEGALLY BEGINNT DRAHT TAPPING TRUMP TOWER, DIESES MOLE FINDEN, DAS NICHT VORGESEHEN WURDE, WENN DIE KLINTON UND OBAMA-TEAMS DAS MOLE KREIERT HABEN.All dies kann man zusammenfassen, man hat einen runden Tisch
Donald Trump steht auf und sagt: "Vladimir Putin ist ein f¤higer F¼hrer".
Obama fl¼stert nach Jarrett, "Trump mag Putin".
Jarrett fl¼stert nach Michelle, "Trump arbeitet mit Putin".
Michelle fl¼stert zu Clapper."Putin arbeitet, um Trump zu w¤hlen".
Clapper fl¼stert Lynch zu: "Es gibt einen russischen Agenten in der Trump-Kampagne".
Lynch h¶rt Fl¼stern zu und bestellt Comey bei FBI, um einen Haftbefehl zu bekommen, um den Trump Tower zu trennen.Jetzt hat dieses Drahtband etwas Hinky los, weil Clapper es wieder von CIA verweigerte, und es waren zwei weie Insider-Frauen, Louise Mensch und Kathy Arue, die diese Geschichte in beiden spricht FISA Spionage, um dies gegen Donald zu drehenTrump, in dem beide Hillary Clinton-Bef¼rworter waren, zeigt, dass diese Geschichte von der Clinton-Kampagne in Hillary Clinton, John Podesta und Robbie Mook kam.Jemand in der Obama-Regime enth¼llte klassifizierte Informationen in eine Untersuchung von Donald Trump und seine Kampagne, die ein hohes Verbrechen ist.Wir wissen sicher, dass es einen Drahthahn gab, wegen dem, was Pr¤sident Trump speziell auf Twitter sagte:
"Ich habe gerade herausgefunden, dass Obama meine" Dr¤hte "in Trump Tower kurz vor dem Sieg geklopft hat", Trump schrieb auf seinen pers¶nlichen Twitter-Account."Nichts gefunden.Das ist McCarthyismus!"Gerade herausgefunden bedeutet, dass morgen", und Mr. Trump zitiert nicht Mark Levin oder Breitbart.Nur herausgefunden, zu dieser Stunde bedeutet, dass er die NSA die Bereitstellung der Informationen in einem kurzen."Dr¤hte geklopft" ist ein gesetzlicher Begriff in der FISA, also ist dies FISA in irgendwie ein Richter wurde in diesem breit angelegten Draht klopfen Trump Tower, und das Weie Haus wurde ¼ber jedes Detail informiert und erlaubt es, Trump zu bekommen."Nichts gefunden", ¼bersetzt, dass Pr¤sident Trump von der NSA informiert wurde, und zeigte einen FBI-Bericht und Bewertung eines Drahthahns von Donald Trump, und nichts wurde gefunden, was FBI sprechen.Ich w¼rde vermuten, dass das FBI in James Comey ¤uerst unangenehm war, was bei der Aussp¤hung des republikanischen Kandidaten stattgefunden hatte, und in dem Moment, in dem die Informationen ¼berpr¼ft wurden, wurde dieser gesamte Drahthahn schnell abgeschaltet.Dies war so "zentriert" und DC "centric", dass es scheint, dass New York FBI aus der Schleife geschnitten wurde, da das Obama-Regime anf¤llig war, das B¼ro dieser K¤nguruhuntersuchungen nicht zu informieren und Vertuschungen zu decken, die das B¼ro in New York hattenVer¤rgert dar¼ber, was in ihrem Haus vor sich ging, und sie wurden im Dunkeln gehalten.Das war seit April oder Juni sp¤testens und erschien im Oktober ohne New Yorker FBI, der informiert wurde.Als eine Seitennote in diesem, ist dies wahrscheinlich der Hintergrund, warum ein bestimmtes popul¤res M¤dchen im August von Homeland interviewt wurde, weil das New York FBI B¼ro versuchte herauszufinden, was zur H¶lle in ihrer Zust¤ndigkeit ging, als das Obama-Regime warDie Durchf¼hrung von Operationen gegen Donald Trump und niemand in New York wurde informiert.Also einige Informationen, die hier erschienen, hatte New York versucht zu verfolgen, was in der H¶lle Obama DC ihre Autorit¤t wieder ¼bertrieben hat.H¶lle von vielen Problemen tauchte in diesem von diesem Obama Clinton Bush-Abstrich-Kampagne auf und macht immer noch Chaos, wie wir entdecken, dass Lindsey Graham tats¤chlich einmal in seinem Leben richtig war, dass dies wahr ist und das ist gr¶er als Watergate.Kongress muss dies jetzt zu untersuchen und die NSA muss diese Berichte und Dateien, die Donald Trump und seine Kampagne gel¶scht, aber jetzt implizieren Bild Obama und das Regime in einem Skandal, die Watergate zwingt.George W. Bush mit seiner umgekehrten Rede KANADA LEAKS, wird an den Tag, an dem er aus Texas gekrochen ist, um Pr¤sident Trump zu kriechen, da dieser Putsch gegen die amerikanische Regierung zermalmt wird und die Beteiligten im Gef¤ngnis oder die schwerste gerichtliche Strafe gehen werden.Nuff sagteAgtG
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Comme une autre cerise Lame exclusive en mati¨re anti-mati¨re.Le Lame Cherry va expliquer quelque chose ici exclusivement sur le "hacking russe", et le Lame Cherry vous demande HALF WITS, lisez ceci au lieu d'aller moiti(C) assed encore penser que vous savez quelque chose dans votre merde pour le cerveau sauter aux conclusions.Ancien Bush AG: Trump juste l (C)tait la surveillance ...Qu'est-ce qui va appara®tre ici va tout expliquer et une fois que vous lisez ceci, vous allez vous secouer la tªte nouveau, et dire: C'(C)tait (C)vident>>, et puis oublier par l'Inspiration de Dieu, la cerise Lame a expliqu(C) tout cela vousQuand vous dites aux autres ........ et encore une fois oublier de cliquer sur ce bouton don.Je vous ram¨ne dans cette exclusivit(C) l'(C)poque o¹ Donald Trump a commenc(C) sa campagne, et il y avait des rumeurs sur les taupes l'int(C)rieur de l'organisation Trump mis par Jeb Bush et Reince Priebus.Vous vous rappelez que la petite fille Jeb Bush plant(C) dans la CNN question et r(C)ponse session dans Pourquoi d(C)testez-vous les femmes>>?
Busted!CNN Utilise Jeb Bush En Famille Pour ... Cependant, comme on l'a dit pr(C)c(C)demment, il n'a pas fallu longtemps pour d(C)couvrir que Lauren Batchelder n'(C)tait pas seulement un membre du public ordinaire, elle est effectivement un ...Vous vous souvenez de toutes ces histoires que vous avez entendu parler de Donald Trump pas dans ce gagner. propos de Donald Trump partir d'une station de t(C)l(C)vision. propos de Donald Trump marketing produits juste.Tous les faux comme l'(C)lection prouv(C), mais que diable se passait-il?Je vais vous expliquer que vous devez savoir qui est Donald Trump.Il est un Am(C)ricain d'origine allemande et (C)cossaise.Ils travaillent tr¨s dur, ils sont morale, et ils savourent l'occasion de comme il est dit dans le Sud, shuck et jive>>.Tom Custer, fr¨re du g(C)n(C)ral Custer, en est un exemple.Les Custers (C)taient des Allemands du Michigan, et leur petit fr¨re Boston est venu au Territoire du Dakota pour l'(C)t(C) pour une visite.Tom a dit Boston que dans l'Ouest il y avait des roches d'eau, et tout Boston avait faire (C)tait tremper un rocher dans l'eau chaque jour et en quelques jours, il serait plein d'eau et il n'aurait pas besoin d'une cantine.Tout le monde roulait sur le sol en regardant ce gamin qui le faisait, tra®nant autour d'un sac de roches les imbibant en faisant un idiot hors de lui-mªme, jusqu' ce que le gamin a compris qu'il avait (C)t(C).C'est ce que les Am(C)ricains font dans le pays de survol, que les patriciens c´tiers n'ont aucune id(C)e de.Maintenant, mettez-vous dans la place de Donald Trump, vous savez que vous ªtes espionn(C) par le GOPe, Bush fam, Hillary Clinton, et la presse va mentir votre sujet.Qu'est-ce que tu ferais?Donald Trump a fait la chose am(C)ricaine et a nourri ces trous A tous ce qu'ils "connaissaient" sur Donald Trump et les laisser aller noix sur elle.Rappelez-vous que je vous ai dit exclusivement que le pr(C)sident Trump dirigeait un (C)v(C)nement WWE de grande th(C)tre?OK si vous avez Obama est FLEXIBLE avec Vladimir Poutine et vous avez Hillary Clinton prendre des pots de vin russes.Obama et Clinton sont tordus, alors qu'est-ce que vous pensez qu'ils vont conclure Donald Trump est quand il commence dire les mªmes choses que sa base est en montrant l'appr(C)ciation pour la capacit(C) du pr(C)sident Poutine de diriger et de survivre?videmment, ils pensaient que les Russes aidaient la campagne Trump, parce que leur manipulation (C)lectorale (C)tait en crise.Ces gauchistes (C)taient fous, parce que tout ce qui les rendait s>>res leur (C)tait enlev(C).Leurs mensonges ont toujours d(C)fait les r(C)publicains, et voici Donald Trump qui leur donnait des coups de pied chaque jour, et quelques histoires russes, et l'amplification de Drudge, de Gateway Pundit, de Jeff Rense, d'Alex Jones et d'une fille populaire.coup de foudre.Ces (C)lites ont (C)t(C) fix(C)es sur ce conditionnement des m(C)dias et il ne fonctionnait pas, donc donc "la Russie devait faire quelque chose" parce que tous les profils psychologiques toujours travaill(C) avant.Ils sont venus contre Dieu, mais c'est un autre point.Donc, maintenant, vous ªtes sur la sc¨ne et Donald Trump est en train d'ªtre tch(C) et ils sont la recherche de quelque chose, quelque chose dans le d(C)sespoir, donc il a roul(C)s avec les blagues am(C)ricanes (C)cossais que les Am(C)ricains ont eu et riaient comme Davy Crockett blagues sur la souche,Demandant si Hillary et Obama ne pouvait pas trouver ces emails perdus, peut-ªtre Poutine pourrait.Les Russes, comme tous les gouvernements, y compris les Am(C)ricains, sont toujours des groupes politiques la tra®ne.L'opposition Moscou est enti¨rement soutenue par la CIA.Donald Trump savait tout cela, et quand les espions Bush, Obama et Clinton ont recueilli des renseignements de l'int(C)rieur de la campagne Trump, que ce soit dans les bars, les t(C)l(C)phones cellulaires laiss(C)s l'int(C)rieur de la tour et d'autres lieux, la campagne Trump leur a donn(C) exactement ce qu'ils cherchaientPour quelque chose, n'importe quoi dans le d(C)sespoir, ainsi il les a roul(C)s avec ces plaisanteries am(C)ricaines d'cosse allemandes que les Am(C)ricains ont obtenu et ont ri comme aux plaisanteries de Davy Crockett sur le moignon, en demandant si Hillary et Obama ne pourraient pas trouver ces email perdus, peut-ªtre Poutine pourrait.Les Russes, comme tous les gouvernements, y compris les Am(C)ricains, sont toujours des groupes politiques la tra®ne.L'opposition Moscou est enti¨rement soutenue par la CIA.Donald Trump savait tout cela, et quand les espions Bush, Obama et Clinton ont recueilli des renseignements de l'int(C)rieur de la campagne Trump, que ce soit dans les bars, les t(C)l(C)phones cellulaires laiss(C)s l'int(C)rieur de la tour et d'autres lieux, la campagne Trump leur a donn(C) exactement ce qu'ils cherchaientPour en faire des idiots.Wikileaks n'avait rien voir avec les Russes.Le phishing sur Podesta (C)tait central europ(C)en et non pas russe, mais par les Am(C)ricains favorisant Vladimir Poutine, et M. Trump (C)pousant cela, la campagne Trump a mis Hillary Clinton sur le mod¨le de 2008 quand elle (C)tait d(C)chirer le cul sur Vladimir Poutine pour obtenir Obama.Hillary Clinton a pleinement l'intention en 2016 AD dans l'ann(C)e de notre Seigneur courir contre Vladimir Poutine dans la r(C)vision de son ancienne campagne.Donald Trump leur a simplement donn(C) le mod¨le r(C)p(C)ter et Obama et Clinton sont all(C)s au-del sur la folie sur elle, ils sont all(C)s criminelle.
Pr(C)parez la sc¨ne en octobre.Hillary (C)tait cens(C) avoir frapp(C) Trump en ao>>t, et Donald Trump ne cessait de se renforcer.Le d(C)sespoir s'installe, et le r(C)gime d'Obama a d(C)cid(C) de prendre les choses en main pour que Hillary Clinton les prot¨ge de leurs crimes.Ainsi, Clinton Bush a pay(C) pour le rapport MI6 de Pissgate, qui a (C)t(C) nourri par les Russes contre le d(C)test(C) espion Christopher Steele de MI6, qui #NeverTrumper John McCain et John Podesta obtenu leurs mains, et sous les ordres de marche a plant(C) dans le si¨ge du FBIO¹ les directeurs adjoints d'Obama (C)taient seulement trop heureux avec la procureure g(C)n(C)rale Loretta Lynch pour sauter sur ceci la manipulation les (C)lections f(C)d(C)rales.C'est ce que le Gateway Pundit a d(C)couvert:
La d(C)mocrate Kathy Arue: "Mes sources de la Maison Blanche m'ont dit, elle pense que tout est vrai.Elle a dit qu'il y avait des craintes que Trump - et c'est de la Maison Blanche et de l'administration l'int(C)rieur de la Maison Blanche ... il y avait des craintes que Trump et ses substituts aient (C)t(C) en collusion avec les Russes et une puce possible pour influencer l'(C)lection,Donc une (C)coute a (C)t(C) effectu(C)e. "Donc, vous comprenez cette ligne de temps, Obama, Clinton et Bush (C)taient espionnage sur la campagne Trump, et ont (C)t(C) tordus avec l'influence russe au fil des ans.Ils (C)taient d(C)sesp(C)r(C)s du succ¨s de Donald Trump.La campagne de Trump soup§onnait qu'ils avaient des taupes et qu'ils (C)taient espionn(C)s, et comme ils avaient dit ces choses dopes ce qu'ils voulaient entendre en frottant Donald Trump dont leurs nouvelles fausses d(C)rang(C), il a (C)t(C) d(C)cid(C) si les fausses nouvelles voulaient d(C)truire DonaldTrump avec des mensonges, alors ils pourraient aussi bien obtenir un whopper.Donc, vous ne manquez pas cela, Donald Trump n'a absolument rien, mais a dit quelques belles choses sur Vladimir Poutine.Je crois que quelqu'un de l'Europe ou de la Russie a (C)t(C) spoofing un serveur Trump que la campagne Trump ne savait rien, et dans ces quelques morceaux d'information, ces gauchistes d(C)sesp(C)r(C)s a fait pour ªtre qu'il y avait un agent russe dans la campagne Trump.Nous savons que cela a pris la prochaine (C)tape en tant que rapports publi(C)s par le Pentagone et la CIA, que tout le monde y (C)tait dit que Donald Trump (C)tait l'agent que le bavard plumed.Ainsi vous obtenez ce point compl¨tement, FAKE NEWS GNR L'HISTOIRE RUSSE MOLE.IL A T RETIR LA CAMPAGNE DE CLINTON ET AU RGIME D'OBAMA PAR DES OPRATIVES EN EUROPE, ET LE RGIME D'OBAMA A DBUT ILLGALEMENT LE FIL TAPPING LA TROMPETTE POUR TROUVER CETTE MOLE QUI N'A PAS EXISTE, PARCE QUE LES QUIPES CLINTON ET OBAMA TAIENT CRES LA MOLE.Tout cela peut se r(C)sumer en une table ronde
Donald Trump se l¨ve et dit: Vladimir Poutine est un leader capable>>.
Obama murmure Jarrett, "Trump aime Poutine".
Jarrett murmure Michelle: Trump travaille avec Poutine>>.
Michelle murmure Clapper.Poutine travaille pour (C)lire Trump>>.
Clapper murmure Lynch: Il y a un agent russe dans la campagne Trump>>.
Lynch quitte le murmure et ordonne Comey au FBI d'obtenir un mandat pour frapper la tour Trump.Maintenant, cette bande de fil a quelque chose de hinky en cours avec, parce que Clapper a (C)t(C) nouveau le nier nouveau de la CIA, et il y avait deux femmes blanches d'initi(C)s, Louise Mensch et Kathy Arue, qui a bris(C) cette histoire dans les deux parler FISA espionnage pour faire tourner ce contre DonaldTrump, dans lequel les deux (C)taient des d(C)fenseurs de Hillary Clinton, r(C)v¨le que cette histoire provenait de la campagne Clinton dans Hillary Clinton, John Podesta et Robbie Mook.Quelqu'un dans le r(C)gime d'Obama a r(C)v(C)l(C) des informations classifi(C)es dans une enquªte sur Donald Trump et sa campagne qui est un crime (C)lev(C).Nous savons avec certitude qu'il y avait un coup de fil, en raison de ce que le pr(C)sident Trump a sp(C)cifiquement d(C)clar(C) sur Twitter:
"Je viens de d(C)couvrir qu'Obama avait mis mes" fils frapp(C)s " Trump Tower juste avant la victoire", at-il (C)crit sur son compte Twitter personnel."Rien n'a (C)t(C) trouv(C).C'est du maccarthysme!"Just find out signifie que le matin", et M. Trump ne cite pas Mark Levin ou Breitbart.Juste trouv(C) cette heure signifie que son (C)tait la NSA fournir l'information dans un bref.Fils de taraud(C)>> est un terme l(C)gal dans FISA, donc c'est FISA en quelque sorte un juge a (C)t(C) press(C) dans ce large fil de base tapant de Trump Tower, et la Maison Blanche a (C)t(C) inform(C) sur chaque d(C)tail et lui a permis d'obtenir Trump.Rien trouv(C)>>, traduit que le Pr(C)sident Trump a (C)t(C) inform(C) par la NSA, et a montr(C) un rapport du FBI et l'(C)valuation d'un robinet de fil de Donald Trump, et rien n'a (C)t(C) trouv(C), ce qui est FBI parler.Je conjecture que le FBI dans James Comey (C)tait extrªmement inconfortable au sujet de ce qui avait eu lieu en espionnant le candidat r(C)publicain, et le moment que l'information a (C)t(C) examin(C)e, cette prise de fil enti¨re a (C)t(C) ferm(C)e rapidement.C'(C)tait tellement "centr(C)" et DC "centrique" qu'il semble que le New York FBI a (C)t(C) coup(C) de la boucle, comme le r(C)gime Obama (C)tait enclin ne pas informer ce bureau de ces enquªtes kangourou et couvrir ups, qui avait le bureau de New YorkM(C)contents de ce qui se passait dans leur maison, et ils (C)taient gard(C)s dans l'obscurit(C).Cela avait lieu depuis avril ou juin au plus tard et est apparu de nouveau en octobre sans que le FBI de New York soit inform(C).En guise de remarque, c'est probablement la raison pour laquelle une certaine fille populaire a (C)t(C) interrog(C)e en ao>>t par Homeland, parce que le bureau du FBI de New York essayait de savoir ce qui se passait dans leur juridiction alors que le r(C)gime Obama (C)taitConduisant des op(C)rations contre Donald Trump et personne New York n'a (C)t(C) inform(C).Donc, certaines informations qui sont apparues ici, avait New York essayer de retrouver ce que l'enfer Obama DC subvertir leur autorit(C) encore une fois.L'enfer de beaucoup de probl¨mes apparus dans cette campagne Obama Obama Clinton Bush et continue causer des ravages que nous d(C)couvrons que Lindsey Graham a r(C)ellement eu raison une fois dans sa vie, que c'est vrai et c'est plus grand que Watergate.Le Congr¨s doit enquªter maintenant et la NSA doit remettre ces rapports et les dossiers, qui a autoris(C) Donald Trump et sa campagne, mais maintenant impliquer l'image d'Obama et le r(C)gime dans un scandale qui nains Watergate.George W. Bush, avec son discours inverse CANADA LEAKS, va regretter le jour o¹ il a ramp(C) hors du Texas pour froisser le pr(C)sident Trump, que ce coup contre le gouvernement am(C)ricain sera (C)cras(C) et les personnes impliqu(C)es vont en prison ou la peine la plus s(C)v¨re judiciaire.Nuff SaidAGG
STINGRAY-Lame Cherry: FAKE NEWS COMEY TURNS ON TRUMP
As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I have no idea what in this world Matt Drudge was thinking when he posted this headline:
Because if one reads the New York Times Fake News Story, one finds the following in BOLD LETTERS.
Make certain you notice that NONE OF THIS IS SOURCED. It is more LEAKS in Fake News, and if you need a translation, these are Obama appointees covering their criminal conspiratorial asses, and the FACT that no one at Justice is going to go public and kill themselves politically and face jail time for the Obama insurrection.
WASHINGTON '-- The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump's assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump's phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said.A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment.Mr. Comey's request is a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation's top law enforcement official in the position of questioning Mr. Trump's truthfulness. The confrontation between the two is the most serious consequence of Mr. Trump's weekend Twitter outburst, and it underscores the dangers of what the president and his aides have unleashed by accusing the former president of a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump's young administration.The White House showed no indication that it would back down from Mr. Trump's claims. On Sunday, the president demanded a congressional inquiry into whether Mr. Obama had abused the power of federal law enforcement agencies before the 2016 presidential election. In a statement from his spokesman, Mr. Trump called ''reports'' about the wiretapping ''very troubling'' and said that Congress should examine them as part of its investigations into Russia's meddling in the election.Along with concerns about potential attacks on the bureau's credibility, senior F.B.I. officials are said to be worried that the notion of a court-approved wiretap will raise the public's expectations that the federal authorities have significant evidence implicating the Trump campaign in colluding with Russia's efforts to disrupt the presidential election.One problem Mr. Comey has faced is that there are few senior politically appointed officials at the Justice Department who can make the decision to release a statement, the officials said. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself on Thursday from all matters related to the federal investigation into connections between Mr. Trump, his associates and Russia.Mr. Comey's behind-the-scenes maneuvering is certain to invite contrasts to his actions last year, when he spoke publicly about the Hillary Clinton email case and disregarded Justice Department entreaties not to.It is not clear why Mr. Comey did not issue the statement himself. He is the most senior law enforcement official who was kept on the job as the Obama administration gave way to the Trump administration. And while the Justice Department applies for intelligence-gathering warrants, the F.B.I. keeps its own set of records and is in position to know whether Mr. Trump's claims are true. While intelligence officials do not normally discuss the existence or nonexistence of surveillance warrants, no law prevents Mr. Comey from issuing the statement.Director Comey could not keep his mouth shut about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. We know in the briefing behind closed doors the Republicans stated that Comey gave thee most detailed briefing they had ever been given and THAT NO EVIDENCE LINKED ANYONE IN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN BECAUSE THERE WAS NOT ANY EVIDENCE.What democrats stated the focus was on, was on the media which was not MSM.
I can promise you that for the Obama insurrectionists to jump this hard and quick on this, and for Ben Sasse, Lindsey Graham and that #NeverTrumper Amash or whatever he is called, storm troopered this, is because this is the smoking gun and there is fire here linking the Bush fam, Clinton cronies and the Obama regime.
There is a great deal of "clever" in all of this in Clapper of the CIA is back covering his ass and the Obama regime in the "no wire tapping of Trump Tower". Yes it is called STINGRAY and it spoofs phone signals coming out of Trump Tower to grab them at the cell phone tower and then routes them in mass to the FBI data mining.
When asked by 'Meet the Press' host Chuck Todd if he could confirm or deny a FISA court order existed for TrumpTower ... 'I Can Deny' Wiretap of TrumpTower 1:10.I will quote Alex Jones coverage exposing in all of the denials from these Fake News outlets that there were no wire taps, is the fact that Mike Flynn's conversation with the Russians which was legal was at Trump Tower, so that is Trump Tower and Donald Trump's own cell phone signal being grabbed by the NSA and FBI.
For the headline proof there was wire tapping:
Fox News reported this and was exposed by Gateway Pundit
Democrat Kathy Arue: ''My sources from the White House told me, she thinks it's all true. She said, um there were concerns that Trump-and this is from the White House and the administration inside the White House'...there were concerns that Trump and his surrogates may have been colluding with the Russians and a possible bargaining chip to influence the election, therefore a wiretap was conducted.''
Former Bush AG: Trump right there was surveillance...
REPORT: FBI Said to Have 'Granted FISA Warrant' To Wiretap TRUMPTower'... MSM Claims Trump "Provided No Evidence"We return to this in how this "worked". The FBI was granted first a limited wire tap. This produced nothing. During this period it appears from connecting the dots, the Obama regime began using STINGRAY in a mass gathering of data.You have to understand this shady area, in the FBI can get one court order and follow a trail to 200 people and the FBI in an :"investigation" can "investigate" some threat against Donald Trump and start collecting all the cell phone calls around Trump Tower, which of course would collect Donald Trump texting or making calls too.It is all cleverly done in the fringes of the law.
If one adds to this the damning reversal of George W. Bush smearing President Trump over calling for a special prosecutor and in reverse it shows CANADA LEAKS, it points to the reality that the Obama regime was 'sharing data collection' with the Canadian NSA as was the case with the MI6 Pissgate dossier.
The shadowlands is hitting this hard in covering it up with constructed lies as this will open the tap into this Obama Clinton Bush coup against President Trump. These MSM is deliberately lying, and the Obama spokesman was caught lying and Clapper was caught lying in clever deceptions.
There is more of this to come, as if James Comey wanted to make an issue of what the President stated he could resign or issue the statement himself to defend FBI. This is coming from Obama deep state coup plotters and the Times is running fake news for them again.
Guccifer2.0 - Game OverIt took a mere 30 minutes to go from a DNC contractor creating documents to Guccifer2.0 tainting them - all occurring on a date that Guccifer2.0 claimed to be after he was locked out of the DNC Network - occurring on the same day that Guccifer2.0 emergedFebruary 8th, 2017 - Analysis by ADAM CARTERNOTE: This is an older version of the article. The latest, more compact and up-to-date version is at http://g-2.space/INTRODUCTIONThere are individuals, who, in reality, have a higher likelihood of being linked to Guccifer2.0 than anyone in Russia. - The intention of this article is to inform readers, extensively about everything there is to know about Guccifer2.0 (and without cherry picking - so information is inclusive of all claims, assessments, etc. even if they go against the conclusions in this article) - and from that, be armed with enough information to give motive and means the regard they deserve.
To understand who Guccifer2.0 is likely to be - it is imperative to understand WHAT Guccifer2.0 is. - What did he do? - What did he say? - Are his claims now confirmed, debunked or yet to be verified? - What were the results of his actions? - What do his lies and likelihood of them being debunked quickly and easily imply about his intent? - Was there anything misreported or omitted that may have been relevant?
The answers to the above questions will probably be surprising to many considering what the USIC, CyberSecurity researchers and the MSM have repeatedly insisted over and over again.
There are many questions, dubious answers, incidents, claims and technical detail to work through. There have also been a range of assessments and claims made by 3rd parties to account for.
As such, this article covers the full time span from G2's emergence to the present day, covering every communication publicly reported, claims made, the current status of some critical claims he made and the research, reports, etc. from various sources, in and out of government. - We also cover analysis provided by other 3rd parties including that written in articles from investigative reporters at Vice, TheSmokingGun, Gawker, etc.
CONTENTS1. Timeline - What Happened & When Did It Happen2. Guccifer2.0's Claims Debunked & Discredited3. 3rd Party Assessments - Assumptions & Conjecture vs Evidence & Facts4. Actions, Consequences & Convenience For Anti-Leak Narratives5. Rushing To Be Russian - The Donkey In A Bear Costume Made A Mistake6. Recognizing Intent From Deceptions7. With Motive & Means - Those More Likely Linked to G2 than Russians8. Updates & Inquiries With Third Parties
(1) Guccifer2.0 Timeline - What Happened & When Did It Happen?DateSourceActivityLinksJune 2016
12thIn an interview aired by ITV (one of the most popular terrestrial TV channels in the UK), Assange mentions upcoming leaks in relation to the Clinton campaign.link | arch14thDNC release a statement explaining that they've discovered their servers were hacked.(Article also demonstrates WAPO treating "pied-piper" Trump seriously at this stage in primaries)link | arch15thCrowd Strike update a report onmalware that they found on the DNC's server during an investigation in May, evidence suggests the malware was injected by Russians.link | arch15thSomeone choosing to adopt the name of hacker recently in the news ("Guccifer", whom was in court the previous month), steps forward, calling himself Guccifer2.0 and claiming responsibility for the hack. He affirms the DNC statement and claims to be a source for Wikileaks.link | arch15thTheSmokingGun publishes article "DNC Hacker Releases Trump Oppo Report" by William Bastone, detailing an email they received from Guccifer2.0 claiming responsibility for the DNC hack - provding a document more damaging to Trump than the DNC as initial proof of being responsible for the breach.link | arch15thGawker also report that they've received files from Guccifer2.0 in an article title: "This Looks Like the DNC's Hacked Trump Oppo File"link | arch16thArsTechnica publish article titled: "Lone wolf claims responsibility for DNC hack, dumps purported Trump smear file"link | arch16thArsTechnica publish article titled: "''Guccifer'' leak of DNC Trump research has a Russian's fingerprints on it"link | arch17thGawker post an article titled: "Contrary to DNC Claim, Hacked Data Contains a Ton of Personal Donor Information". It mentions that documents that they are provided include the names: "Ernesto Che" and "Felix Edmundovich" in the metadata.link | arch17thThreatConnect publish report titled "Rebooting Watergate: Tapping into the Democratic National Committee"link | arch17thTSG publish article titled: "DNC Financial Records Stolen By 'Guccifer 2.0'"link | arch18thPosts blog entry titled: "New docs from DNC network: lots of financial reports and donors' personal data" - Seems there's an intent to focus on the fact it has "personal" data, to quote G2: "including e-mail addresses and private cell phone numbers. Ha! Ha! Ha!"link | arch20thlink | arch20thlink | arch20thPost blog entry titled: "Dossier on Hillary Clinton from DNC. Expect It". Promises to deliver on 21st June. Posts 2 screenshots of a memo (that looks like it was sent to a broad list of people anyway) with everything but a header blurred out showing the email purportedly from Brian Fallon acting as Press Secretary for HFA. Posts tweet linking to article.link | arch21stArticle published titled "We Spoke to DNC Hacker 'Guccifer 2.0'" by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai.link | arch21stArticled published titled "Here's the Full Transcript of Our Interview With DNC Hacker 'Guccifer 2.0'" by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai.link | arch21stPost blog entry title: "Dossier on Hillary Clinton from DNC" - Containing links to various, widely circulated and non-classified documents relating to the DNC and HRC. - Posted tweet linking to article.link | arch21stTSG publishes article titled: "DNC Researched Clinton Speeches, Travel Records"link | arch22ndPosts blog entry titled: "Want to know more about Guccifer 2.0?"link | arch22ndlink | arch22ndlink | arch23rdArticle published titled: "Why Does DNC Hacker 'Guccifer 2.0' Talk Like This?" posted by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai. Includes language analysis assessments from 3 different individuals. (We check out all of these claims and Guccifer2.0's overall use of language as well as look in more detail at the differences in language construction rather than just take assessments at face value)link | arch29thThreatConnect publishes article titled: "The Shiйy ФbjÐkt?" / "Shiny Object? Guccifer 2.0 and the DNC Breach"link | arch29thlink | arch30thPosts blog entry titled: "FAQ from Guccifer 2.0"link | archJuly 2016
4thlink | arch6thPosts blog entry titled: "Trumpocalypse and other DNC plans for July". Posts tweet linking to article.link | arch7thThreatConnect publish article titled: "What's in a Name Server?"link | arch8thlink | arch10thSeth Rich murdered. - There are some who suspect Seth Rich may be related to the leaks. - This article isn't concerned with trying to support or refute that claim, we are only including this for sake of reference in the timeline.link | arch11thlink | arch14thPosts blog entry titled: "New DNC docs"link | arch20thThreatConnect publish report titled: "Guccifer 2.0: the Man, the Myth, the Legend? "link | arch22ndWikileaks start publishing the DNC emails.link | arch22ndlink | arch26thKevin Collier of Vocativ publishes article "Guccifer 2.0 Is Likely A Russian Begging Us To Write About DNC Hack"link | arch26thJoe Uchill of The Hill posts article: "Evidence mounts linking DNC email hacker to Russia" and cites an email he shared with ThreatConnect from which they identify G2 is using a Russian VPN service.link | arch26thThreatConnect publish report titled "Guccifer 2.0: All Roads Lead to Russia"link | arch27th
TAIA Global release a brief and frankly questionable analysis asserting that Guccifer2.0 is likely Russian for a variety of contrived reasons quite a few of which require contorting through statistical likelihoods of noun usage between Russian and Romanian languages. - TAIA Global is Jeffrey Carrs organization, out of respect for the insight he provides on technical issues, we'll just put forward our own research and assessments counter to this rather than be too critical of his analysis (which to be fair was solely of the interview - but in that interview, you can see G2 doesn't drop definite articles until he's prompted by having his nationality questioned - he seems to reactively do this in a few instances (aside from just this interview) and tends to drop definite articles and prepositions, but does so seldomly. Naturally/habitually, he does make use of these frequently and with considerable precision considering he's supposedly Russian.arch only29thThreatConnect publish report titled "FANCY BEAR Has an (IT) Itch that They Can't Scratch"link | archAugust 2016
12thTSG Publish article by William Bastone titled: "Tracking The Hackers Who Hit DNC, Clinton".link | arch12thTSG Publish article titled: "Hacker Publishes List Of Cell Phone Numbers, Private E-Mails For Most House Democrats"link | arch12thThreatConnect publish report titled "Does a BEAR Leak In The Woods?"link | arch12thPosts blog entry titled: "Guccifer 2.0 hacked DCCC"link | arch12thlink | arch14thPatrick Tucker, writing for Defense One publishes "Russian-Linked Group Leaks US Lawmakers' Phone Numbers, Emails" - It makes a good, detailed collation of the arguments and assessments that suggest Guccifer2.0 is Russian, is Wikileaks source, is linked to APT-28/APT-29, etc.link | arch14thlink | arch15thPosts blog entry titled: "DCCC Internal Docs on Primaries in Florida". Posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | arch19thThreatConnect publish article titled: "Russian Cyber Operations on Steroids" - Includes good example of a Russian trying to communicate in English.link | arch21stPosts blog entry titled: "DCCC Docs On Pensylvania". Posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | arch30thPosts blog entry titled: "DCCC Docs from Pelosi's PC". Posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | archSeptember 2016
2ndThreatConnect publish article titled "Can A BEAR Fit Down A Rabbit Hole?"(It includes a perfect example of English language when written by Russians - difficulty with definite articles is a consistent trait rather than being an infrequent flaw, such as we see a lot of the time when Guccifer2 communicates.)
link | arch2ndlink | arch10thlink | arch11thlink | arch12thJeffrey Carr publishes article titled: "The Guccifer2.0 Problem at the White House" at Medium.link | arch12thlink | arch13thArticle published titled: "Hacker Guccifer 2.0 Gives Rambling Speech at Cybersecurity Conference" - Includes full transcript of G2's statement for the Cybersecurity Conference. - As you go through the transcript, you'll notice G2 drifts towards increasingly correct usage of definite and indefinite articles. (This suggest his natural/habitual use of language incorporates these - it's a trait he has a harder time obscuring as writing fatigue sets in!)link | arch15thPosts blog entry titled: "Dems Internal Workings in New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina"link | arch22ndlink | arch23rdPosts blog entry title: "Dossier on Ben Ray Lujan". Also posts tweet linking to the article (arch).link | arch23rdPublishes article titled: "Guccifer 2.0 Releases Hacked Info On Democratic Congressman" by Kevin Collier.link | arch25thlink | archOctober 2016
4thPosts blog entry titled: "Guccifer 2.0 Hacked Clinton Foundation". Also posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | arch4thlink | arch4thlink | arch5thSean Gallagher, for arsTechnica, posts article titled: "Guccifer 2.0 posts DCCC docs, says they're from Clinton Foundation"link | arch17thlink | arch18thPosts blog entry titled: "Trump's taxes: Clinton campaign prepares a new provocation". Also posts Tweet linking to the article (arch).link | arch25thJeffrey Carr posts article titled: "The Yandex Domain Problem - Or Who In Russian Intelligence Doesn't Speak Russian?" - Pointing out an apparent anomaly in the behavior of APT-28 aka "Fancy Bear" aka TF4127 in which it uses a Yandex email for phishing, from a Yandex domain typically used when someone registers from outside of Russia.link | archNovember 2016
4thPosts blog entry titled: "Info from inside the FEC: the Democrats may rig the elections"link | arch4thlink | archDecember 2016
8thThreatConnect's Toni Gidwani provides a presentation for Duo Tech Talks covering ThreatConnect's findings in 2016 and covers details that confirm their assessment, albeit with a little cherry picking from 3rd party media articles where convenient, discounting the lack of Russian traits in the English language flaws of Guccifer2.0 (that is actually covered in the Vice article Toni cited), whom, they assess, may be a committee of Russians.link29thODNI/DHS "GRIZZLY STEPPE '' Russian Malicious Cyber Activity" Report published.link | archJanuary 2017
6thODNI/DHS "Background to ''Assessing Russian Activities and Intentionsin Recent US Elections'': The Analytic Process and CyberIncident Attribution" Report published.link | mirror12thPost article titled: "Here I am Again, My Friends!" and an accompanying Tweet (arch).link | arch14thMike Wendling of the BBC posts an article titled: "Conversations with a hacker: What Guccifer 2.0 told me" detailing messages sent back and forth between Mike and Guccifer2.0 in October 2016.link | arch(2) Guccifer2.0's Claims Debunked & DiscreditedBefore looking at intent, motive, conflicting evidence and more, it's important to become aware of a few key facts about Guccifer2.0 and some of the claims he made.
CLAIM: Hacked the DNC's servers - STATUS: DiscreditedGuccifer2.0 stated in an interview with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (for Motherboard / Vice News) on the 21st of June, that he breached the server using a "0-day exploit of NGP-Van".
ThreatConnect, although still apparently unswayed from their assessment that Guccifer2.0 is a collective of Russians (we'll get on to that topic later in the article) - did report some very useful facts that serve to debunk Guccifer2.0's claims.
a) NGP-Van is a cloud-hosted web-service, the claimed method of breach was concluded "impossible" by ThreatConnect. - It was noted that phishing for credentials would be far more practical for exploiting such a service.
b) He makes claims of lateral movement within the DNC network - but doesn't realize that his effort to match the reporting of Crowdstrike falls down due to his own misinterpretation of that. - CrowdStrike's report mentions lateral movement in terms of the "BEAR" infrastructure across the whole of the Internet rather than movement within the DNC network - it looks like Guccifer2.0 s trying to make claims that correlate with what he has inferred from CrowdStrike's reportage.
c) To quote ThreatConnect at the time (and nothing has been reported to contradict it since): "As it stands now, none of the Guccifer 2.0 breach details can be independently verified".
CLAIM: Wikileaks Source for DNC Mails - STATUS: Not VerifiedGuccifer2.0 put considerable effort into trying to convince people he was the source for the DNC email leaks that ended up in the public domain on July 22nd.
He outright claimed it, multiple times.
He made a point of mentioning Wikileaks in his purposeful destruction of his own reputation on October the 4th (a reference to his Clinton Foundation claims and the files he posted supposedly demonstrating the hack) and on October 18th showed he was trying to push a perception of being associated with Wikileaks and responded to a Wikileaks tweet as though it was intended for him personally (when it wasn't).
Going back to the 4th, the supposed "Clinton Foundation Hack" - is also where his claim starts to show cracks.
He stated "I can't post all databases here for they're too large. I'm looking for a better way to release them now.".
Why, if he was really the source for the DNC emails, would he be at all struggling to find a solution to get the data published? - Why express this 73 days after the last large batch of data he claims to have acquired was successfully published through Wikileaks?
Even putting seemingly contradictory statements aside - Assange has stated numerous times that the emails were leaked, rather than hacked, in persistent contradiction with Guccifer2.0's claims and there is still nothing independently verifying Guccifer2.0's claims.
CLAIM: Hacked Clinton Foundation - STATUS: DiscreditedOn October 4th, 2016 - Guccifer2.0 claimed to have hacked the Clinton Foundation. He followed this up by posting an archive containing files that were all from previous leaks and from documents in the public domain.
Ultimately, he has never produced anything that actually shows such a hack had taken place.
These are not all of his lies or unverified claims, far from it, but they are the ones that are critical to know so that the rest of this article makes sense to you. Above all, the first is most important - his claims to breach the DNC turned out to be fantasy.
(3) 3rd Party Assessments - Assumptions & Conjecture vs Evidence & FactsThere is a difference between independently verifiable evidence and the activity somebody claims to have engaged in or that can be fabricated in an effort to misdirect and masquerade as someone they're not. - None of Guccifer2.0's claims of hacking were independently verifiable and several were debunked by ThreatConnect. - There is nothing demonstrating Guccifer2.0 was really a hacker.
The "evidence" that he's Russian, should be understood in the following context:
He CHOSE to name his computer account after the founder of the Soviet Secret Police.He CHOSE to create/open and then save documents so the Russian name was written to metadata.He CHOSE to use a Russian VPN service to cloak his IP address.He CHOSE to use public web-based email services that would forward his cloaked IP.He CHOSE to use the above to contact variousmediaoutlets on the same day.
He covered himself and the files in the digital equivalent of "Made In Russia" labels while claiming to be a Romanian. (Giving the MSM a flimsy veil they could easily pull off and find Russian "fingerprints" behind - not realizing that what they were revealing was a layer of misdirection)
Of course, this concerted effort to appear Russian soon loses it's entertainment value when you consider that the United State Intelligence Community have made assessments that seem to have relied upon some of his apparent masquerade.
They have the tools of the state, dragnets to record large volumes of Internet traffic, an abundance of staff and are well funded by tax payers - yet they've not seen (or worse have chosen to conceal) the fact that Guccifer2.0 is more likely to be a US citizen from Lagrange, GA than being a Russian.
Knowing this and seeing statements in "declassified reports" such as:
"We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks."
... is beyond disappointing.
So what independent, verifiable evidence is there?Basically - Nothing showing he was Wikileaks source. Nothing showing he actually hacked into the DNC (in fact a fair bit to contradict his claims there) & his Russian identity seems to have been based on factors he controlled and appears to have consistently made choices that would make him appear Russian.
Ultimately, Guccifer2.0 was someone who chose to use a Russian VPN (after choosing to taint documents with Russian language) and was noted to have been in possession of a password for a password-protected area of the DCLeaks site (which, plausibly, he could have been given after promising to upload some of his leaks - DCLeaks were willing to give the same password out to the press in exchange for the promise of writing a story about them!)
Pretty much everything stated about him has been based on assumptions, acceptance of questionable admissions and the public have been given little more than conjecture.
Sam Biddle of The Intercept (one of the first people to write about Guccifer2.0 when he emerged) details the problem, in a broader sense, of blaming Russia generally for the hacks in an article released on December 14th 2016, titled: "Here's the Public Evidence Russia Hacked the DNC '-- It's Not Enough". - It covers the fact that the evidence on Guccifer2.0 looks dodgy but doesn't try to determine the intent behind his efforts to deceive and claim credit for hacking the DNC (such as this article is attempting to make clear).
(4) Actions, Consequences & Convenience For Anti-Leak NarrativesIn total, the amount of new controversies specifically exposed by Guccifer2.0's actions - was very little.
The documents he posted online were a mixture of some from the public domain (eg. already been published by OpenSecrets.org in 2009), were manipulated copies of research documents originally created by Lauren Dillon(see attachments) and others or were legitimate, unique documents that were of little significant damage to the DNC. (Such as the DCCC documents)
The DCCC documents didn't reveal anything particularly damaging. It did include a list of fundraisers/bundlers but that wasn't likely to cause controversy (the fundraising totals, etc. are likely to end up on sites like OpenSecrets, etc within a year anyway). - It did however trigger 4chan to investigate and a correlation was found between the DNC's best performing bundlers and ambassadorships. - This revelation though, is to be credited to 4chan. - The leaked financial data wasn't, in itself, damaging - and some of the key data will be disclosed publicly in future anyway.
All of his 'leaks' have been over-hyped non-controversies or were already in the public domain - the only exception being the apparent leaking of personal contact numbers and email addresses of 200 Democrats - and really that was more damaging to the reputation of Wikileaks than causing any real problems for Democrats. - Ultimately, it only really served to give the mainstream press the opportunity to announce that "leaked emails include personal details of 200 Democrats", again, seemingly an effort to undermine other leaks being released at the same time by legitimate leak publishers.
(5) Rushing To Be Russian - The Donkey In A Bear Costume Made A Mistake5a. "Russia-Tainted Metadata" Reportage Mostly Ignored A Key Piece of MetadataThere is a key fact about some non-Russian metadata that nobody seems to have reported and it certainly seems to be of critical importance - and that is the document creation timestamps...
There were multiple documents shared with TheSmokingGun, Gawker, ArsTechnica and others.
The first document, "1.doc" (mirror), was given considerable coverage, while the name "Warren Flood" was reported, the date in the report (rather than in the metadata) was reported and so it was attributed to Warren Flood on 12/19/15.
Gawker incorrectly claimed the metadata showed the document was created in 2015 when it actually indicated the document was created by Warren Flood at a much later date.
The truth is that the metadata shows the document being created 30 minutes before Guccifer2.0 appears to have gotten his hands on it:
Created by Warren Flood on 15th of June at 13:38Modified by ФеÐ>>Ð¸ÐºÑ ÐдмÑÐ½Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ on 15th of June at 14:08
The other document, "2.doc" (mirror) was not mentioned so much, but it too had interesting metadata:
Created by Warren Flood on 15th of June at 13:38Modified by ФеÐ>>Ð¸ÐºÑ ÐдмÑÐ½Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ on 15th of June at 14:11
How did this get missed? - My guess is that people who investigated were using MS-Word. Recent versions of MS-Word tend to show limited metadata from RTF1 format files, for example, MS-Word 2010 shows:
If you open "2.doc" in OpenOffice though, you will spot what first alerted me to the timestamp correlations in the first place:
If you look at the raw data of "1.doc" you can see an ever closer correlation:
So... who is Warren Flood? - How did the documents get from Flood creating them to the "hacker" within 30 minutes AND how did that happen when Guccifer2.0 claimed that he had been kicked out of the DNC's systems as of June 12th according to the conversation he had on the 21st of June with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai for Motherboard/Vice? (An article in which Guccifer2.0 shows he can easily change the identity of the person who last modified the file)
We can answer the first question by looking at Warren Flood's linkedin and facebook profiles.
How Guccifer2.0 apparently acquired and edited the documents in 30 minutes of them apparently being created by Flood AND at a time that he would later claim was AFTER he had been kicked out of the DNC's network... is a question that Warren Flood might be able answer - we can only speculate.
While his name may have been relatively unknown to many reading this article, he has worked for Obama for America, the DNC and is no stranger to the White House, as his photograph with Joe and Jill Biden (embedded) suggests.
As for the main file (Trump Opposition Research) - it's basically a copy of a file attached to this leaked email. A document originally authored by Lauren Dillon (DNC research director) and modified (and sent to John Podesta) by Tony Carrk (Research Director at Hillary for America).
As it's clear the original source document was not authored by Flood but the copy pushed through Guccifer2.0 was - it seems odd that Flood's name would be there! - Was he or his company hired to provide technical assistance (possibly to manage the op entirely)? - While re-opening and saving the documents did record the desired Russian metadata, it only did so in relation to the last modification - it seems that Flood's name recorded as the document creator and the time of that occurring were accidently disclosed in the rush to get 'tainted leaks' out to TSG, Gawker, ArsTechnica and others.
5b. Linguistic Assessment - Conflicting "Expert" Reports Necessitate Detailed AnalysisSeveral experts and their assessments have been cited, Motherboard (Vice) reference 3 such experts but only one appeared willing to be identified. - Carrying out our own analysis (and highlighting the process), we can see why the others may have chosen anonymity - their assessments seem to be limited and pick up on things that in aggregate, Guccifer rarely actually does.
Guccifer2.0 used a "Russian smiley" (")))") ONCE! - This was in one of his first posts. The other thing that made him appear Russian was that he referred to hacks as "deals" a couple of times. - HOWEVER, he ONLY does this in the interview with Motherboard/Vice on the 21st of June - he never repeats this behavior in any other communications - so, it seems it was just put on for the purpose of the interview. - These are the main 2 things pointed out by the anonymous experts and are bizarrely both things he does only in 2 isolated incidents.
Professor M.J. Connolly of the Slavic & Eastern European languages department at Boston University had the most valuable assessment - and could explain the syntactical traits that were missing from Guccifer2.0's writing.
For our own non-expert analysis, details about differences between Russian/Slavonic Languages & English language can be found here, here and here.
As a brief example, TSG article's quoted statements from Guccifer are below. Definite and indefinite article use and prepositions are highlighted:
''I stand against Guccifer's conviction and extradition. I will continue Guccifer's business and will fight all those illuminati the way I can. They should set him free!!!!''
''Hi. This is Guccifer 2.0 and this is me who hacked Democratic National Committee.''
''Guccifer may have been the first one who penetrated Hillary Clinton's and other Democrats' mail servers. But he certainly wasn't the last. No wonder any other hacker could easily get access tothe DNC's servers.''
''First I breached into mail boxes of a number of Democrats. And then using the info collected I got into Committee servers.''
Compare this to the use of English language expected from someone who is really a Russian, as demonstrated in this screenshot of a video featured in an article by ThreatConnect on 2nd of September 2016. - The difference is stark to say the least!
It's clear from the above (as well as an analysis of a much larger corpus of Guccifer's words that I have compiled - see below) that he habitually uses definite articles, even when communicating in a live chat with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Vice's Motherboard, he only drops them seldomly. - The amount of instances where his definite and indefinite articles are correctly used (when they are used) is around 96%. - In other words, while he mangles English language selectively, he doesn't do it in a way that is consistent or in the way that is expected from those whose native language is one lacking definite and indefinite articles (such as is true with Russian language).
We never see Guccifer struggle with prepositions either:
He never claimed to hack through a server, or get under security or wait around being detected. His command of prepositions is very strong and he only seldomly drops them.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As author of this article, I am not pretending to be an expert. I'm just applying some knowledge from the public domain to a large collection of sample data in a manner that demonstrates various factors that relate to the aspects of English language that Russian's would typically struggle with. - To help get a better analysis I have provided the corpus of Guccifer2's text to Professor M.J. Connelly and asked if he would be kind enough to provide his expert opinion on it. - If he responds I will update this artice with his assessment.
(6) Recognizing Intent From DeceptionsWhen you consider all of these various facts in aggregate and understand that Guccifer2.0 never demonstrated any genuine hacking skills, realize his actions only ever served to undermine leaks, ultimately caused no harm to the reputation of anyone except himself and needlessly and inexplicably gave the mainstream press fodder on which they could write headlines branding leaks as "fake", "discredited", "tainted by Russia", etc., had some non-hacking means of acquiring the DCCC documents and has had his claims of breaching network debunked by ThreatConnect. - It becomes clear that Guccifer2.0 did more to serve the interests of the DNC than act against it and was clearly a fabricated persona acting as part of an effort to discredit the leaks.
While it would have been difficult to expose the identity of Guccifer2.0 if he hadn't mistakently retained his name and document creation date, anyone critically analysing the nature of Guccifer2.0 can see enough to identify whom he was most likely was or was serving through his activities online. - His lack of credibility and the inevitability of his Clinton Foundation server hack 'take' being exposed as nonsense makes it clear that Guccifer2.0 was a psy-op (psychological operation) construct intended to counter the leaks and try to take-down the credibility of Wikileaks as collaterol in the self-destruction of his own reputation.
(7) With Motive & Means - Those More Likely Linked to G2 than RussiansIt seems like there's a very good chance Warren Flood has involvement to some degree but he personally had nothing to lose due to the emails, so, who would really be behind such a scheme?
That's where I struggle to find answers and have to leave the job up to the expert journalists. I can, unfortunately, only offer conjecture. For what little it's worth, my conjecture on this is as follows:
The motive alone suggests it likely to be someone in the DNC and the means (as demonstrated by the access to DCCC documents) suggest it's someone who would have collated DCCC data from a broad range of states, including some fundraising data - or at least had easy access to such documents. - This gives us enough entropy to single out the leadership of the DNC and those who had something to lose from the emails leaking.
CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, National Politics Director Raul Alvillar, Communications Director Luis Miranda, Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach and Chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz - all had their reputations on the line.
Of those five, it seems most probable that Brad Marshall and Raul Alvillar may have handled the sorts of documents that Guccifer2.0 released, though it is conceivable others may have had access to these documents too and considering his past work, it's possible that Flood could have been operating at the behest of anyone in the DNC's leadership right up to the top.
(8) Updates & Inquiries With Third PartiesOn or before February 1st, 2017 - the following people were emailed with requests for any information they could provide on Guccifer2.0 that had not already been included in their previous reports and explained that I was trying to be exhaustive in case there is anything that may conflict with a conclusion I had reached:
Kevin Collier of Vocativ (No response)Joseph Jesselli of The Smoking Gun (Not Allowed To Disclose Any Data)Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Motherboard/Vice (Responded - Nothing to disclose)Joe Uchill of The Hill (Not Allowed To Disclose Any Data)Sam Biddle (former reporter for Gawker) of the Intercept (No response)The following individuals were contacted with queries on various topics covered in the article during the past fortnight:
Wikileaks (No response)Professor M. J. Connolly / Boston University (No response)Warren Flood (2x by email and also over Twitter - No response)
Guccifer2.0 - Game OverIt took a mere 30 minutes to go from a DNC contractor creating documents to Guccifer2.0 tainting them - all occurring on a date that Guccifer2.0 claimed to be after he was locked out of the DNC Network - occurring on the same day that Guccifer2.0 emergedFebruary 8th, 2017 - Analysis by ADAM CARTERNOTE: This is an older version of the article. The latest, more compact and up-to-date version is at http://g-2.space/INTRODUCTIONThere are individuals, who, in reality, have a higher likelihood of being linked to Guccifer2.0 than anyone in Russia. - The intention of this article is to inform readers, extensively about everything there is to know about Guccifer2.0 (and without cherry picking - so information is inclusive of all claims, assessments, etc. even if they go against the conclusions in this article) - and from that, be armed with enough information to give motive and means the regard they deserve.
To understand who Guccifer2.0 is likely to be - it is imperative to understand WHAT Guccifer2.0 is. - What did he do? - What did he say? - Are his claims now confirmed, debunked or yet to be verified? - What were the results of his actions? - What do his lies and likelihood of them being debunked quickly and easily imply about his intent? - Was there anything misreported or omitted that may have been relevant?
The answers to the above questions will probably be surprising to many considering what the USIC, CyberSecurity researchers and the MSM have repeatedly insisted over and over again.
There are many questions, dubious answers, incidents, claims and technical detail to work through. There have also been a range of assessments and claims made by 3rd parties to account for.
As such, this article covers the full time span from G2's emergence to the present day, covering every communication publicly reported, claims made, the current status of some critical claims he made and the research, reports, etc. from various sources, in and out of government. - We also cover analysis provided by other 3rd parties including that written in articles from investigative reporters at Vice, TheSmokingGun, Gawker, etc.
CONTENTS1. Timeline - What Happened & When Did It Happen2. Guccifer2.0's Claims Debunked & Discredited3. 3rd Party Assessments - Assumptions & Conjecture vs Evidence & Facts4. Actions, Consequences & Convenience For Anti-Leak Narratives5. Rushing To Be Russian - The Donkey In A Bear Costume Made A Mistake6. Recognizing Intent From Deceptions7. With Motive & Means - Those More Likely Linked to G2 than Russians8. Updates & Inquiries With Third Parties
(1) Guccifer2.0 Timeline - What Happened & When Did It Happen?DateSourceActivityLinksJune 2016
12thIn an interview aired by ITV (one of the most popular terrestrial TV channels in the UK), Assange mentions upcoming leaks in relation to the Clinton campaign.link | arch14thDNC release a statement explaining that they've discovered their servers were hacked.(Article also demonstrates WAPO treating "pied-piper" Trump seriously at this stage in primaries)link | arch15thCrowd Strike update a report onmalware that they found on the DNC's server during an investigation in May, evidence suggests the malware was injected by Russians.link | arch15thSomeone choosing to adopt the name of hacker recently in the news ("Guccifer", whom was in court the previous month), steps forward, calling himself Guccifer2.0 and claiming responsibility for the hack. He affirms the DNC statement and claims to be a source for Wikileaks.link | arch15thTheSmokingGun publishes article "DNC Hacker Releases Trump Oppo Report" by William Bastone, detailing an email they received from Guccifer2.0 claiming responsibility for the DNC hack - provding a document more damaging to Trump than the DNC as initial proof of being responsible for the breach.link | arch15thGawker also report that they've received files from Guccifer2.0 in an article title: "This Looks Like the DNC's Hacked Trump Oppo File"link | arch16thArsTechnica publish article titled: "Lone wolf claims responsibility for DNC hack, dumps purported Trump smear file"link | arch16thArsTechnica publish article titled: "''Guccifer'' leak of DNC Trump research has a Russian's fingerprints on it"link | arch17thGawker post an article titled: "Contrary to DNC Claim, Hacked Data Contains a Ton of Personal Donor Information". It mentions that documents that they are provided include the names: "Ernesto Che" and "Felix Edmundovich" in the metadata.link | arch17thThreatConnect publish report titled "Rebooting Watergate: Tapping into the Democratic National Committee"link | arch17thTSG publish article titled: "DNC Financial Records Stolen By 'Guccifer 2.0'"link | arch18thPosts blog entry titled: "New docs from DNC network: lots of financial reports and donors' personal data" - Seems there's an intent to focus on the fact it has "personal" data, to quote G2: "including e-mail addresses and private cell phone numbers. Ha! Ha! Ha!"link | arch20thlink | arch20thlink | arch20thPost blog entry titled: "Dossier on Hillary Clinton from DNC. Expect It". Promises to deliver on 21st June. Posts 2 screenshots of a memo (that looks like it was sent to a broad list of people anyway) with everything but a header blurred out showing the email purportedly from Brian Fallon acting as Press Secretary for HFA. Posts tweet linking to article.link | arch21stArticle published titled "We Spoke to DNC Hacker 'Guccifer 2.0'" by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai.link | arch21stArticled published titled "Here's the Full Transcript of Our Interview With DNC Hacker 'Guccifer 2.0'" by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai.link | arch21stPost blog entry title: "Dossier on Hillary Clinton from DNC" - Containing links to various, widely circulated and non-classified documents relating to the DNC and HRC. - Posted tweet linking to article.link | arch21stTSG publishes article titled: "DNC Researched Clinton Speeches, Travel Records"link | arch22ndPosts blog entry titled: "Want to know more about Guccifer 2.0?"link | arch22ndlink | arch22ndlink | arch23rdArticle published titled: "Why Does DNC Hacker 'Guccifer 2.0' Talk Like This?" posted by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai. Includes language analysis assessments from 3 different individuals. (We check out all of these claims and Guccifer2.0's overall use of language as well as look in more detail at the differences in language construction rather than just take assessments at face value)link | arch29thThreatConnect publishes article titled: "The Shiйy ФbjÐkt?" / "Shiny Object? Guccifer 2.0 and the DNC Breach"link | arch29thlink | arch30thPosts blog entry titled: "FAQ from Guccifer 2.0"link | archJuly 2016
4thlink | arch6thPosts blog entry titled: "Trumpocalypse and other DNC plans for July". Posts tweet linking to article.link | arch7thThreatConnect publish article titled: "What's in a Name Server?"link | arch8thlink | arch10thSeth Rich murdered. - There are some who suspect Seth Rich may be related to the leaks. - This article isn't concerned with trying to support or refute that claim, we are only including this for sake of reference in the timeline.link | arch11thlink | arch14thPosts blog entry titled: "New DNC docs"link | arch20thThreatConnect publish report titled: "Guccifer 2.0: the Man, the Myth, the Legend? "link | arch22ndWikileaks start publishing the DNC emails.link | arch22ndlink | arch26thKevin Collier of Vocativ publishes article "Guccifer 2.0 Is Likely A Russian Begging Us To Write About DNC Hack"link | arch26thJoe Uchill of The Hill posts article: "Evidence mounts linking DNC email hacker to Russia" and cites an email he shared with ThreatConnect from which they identify G2 is using a Russian VPN service.link | arch26thThreatConnect publish report titled "Guccifer 2.0: All Roads Lead to Russia"link | arch27th
TAIA Global release a brief and frankly questionable analysis asserting that Guccifer2.0 is likely Russian for a variety of contrived reasons quite a few of which require contorting through statistical likelihoods of noun usage between Russian and Romanian languages. - TAIA Global is Jeffrey Carrs organization, out of respect for the insight he provides on technical issues, we'll just put forward our own research and assessments counter to this rather than be too critical of his analysis (which to be fair was solely of the interview - but in that interview, you can see G2 doesn't drop definite articles until he's prompted by having his nationality questioned - he seems to reactively do this in a few instances (aside from just this interview) and tends to drop definite articles and prepositions, but does so seldomly. Naturally/habitually, he does make use of these frequently and with considerable precision considering he's supposedly Russian.arch only29thThreatConnect publish report titled "FANCY BEAR Has an (IT) Itch that They Can't Scratch"link | archAugust 2016
12thTSG Publish article by William Bastone titled: "Tracking The Hackers Who Hit DNC, Clinton".link | arch12thTSG Publish article titled: "Hacker Publishes List Of Cell Phone Numbers, Private E-Mails For Most House Democrats"link | arch12thThreatConnect publish report titled "Does a BEAR Leak In The Woods?"link | arch12thPosts blog entry titled: "Guccifer 2.0 hacked DCCC"link | arch12thlink | arch14thPatrick Tucker, writing for Defense One publishes "Russian-Linked Group Leaks US Lawmakers' Phone Numbers, Emails" - It makes a good, detailed collation of the arguments and assessments that suggest Guccifer2.0 is Russian, is Wikileaks source, is linked to APT-28/APT-29, etc.link | arch14thlink | arch15thPosts blog entry titled: "DCCC Internal Docs on Primaries in Florida". Posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | arch19thThreatConnect publish article titled: "Russian Cyber Operations on Steroids" - Includes good example of a Russian trying to communicate in English.link | arch21stPosts blog entry titled: "DCCC Docs On Pensylvania". Posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | arch30thPosts blog entry titled: "DCCC Docs from Pelosi's PC". Posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | archSeptember 2016
2ndThreatConnect publish article titled "Can A BEAR Fit Down A Rabbit Hole?"(It includes a perfect example of English language when written by Russians - difficulty with definite articles is a consistent trait rather than being an infrequent flaw, such as we see a lot of the time when Guccifer2 communicates.)
link | arch2ndlink | arch10thlink | arch11thlink | arch12thJeffrey Carr publishes article titled: "The Guccifer2.0 Problem at the White House" at Medium.link | arch12thlink | arch13thArticle published titled: "Hacker Guccifer 2.0 Gives Rambling Speech at Cybersecurity Conference" - Includes full transcript of G2's statement for the Cybersecurity Conference. - As you go through the transcript, you'll notice G2 drifts towards increasingly correct usage of definite and indefinite articles. (This suggest his natural/habitual use of language incorporates these - it's a trait he has a harder time obscuring as writing fatigue sets in!)link | arch15thPosts blog entry titled: "Dems Internal Workings in New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina"link | arch22ndlink | arch23rdPosts blog entry title: "Dossier on Ben Ray Lujan". Also posts tweet linking to the article (arch).link | arch23rdPublishes article titled: "Guccifer 2.0 Releases Hacked Info On Democratic Congressman" by Kevin Collier.link | arch25thlink | archOctober 2016
4thPosts blog entry titled: "Guccifer 2.0 Hacked Clinton Foundation". Also posts tweet linking to article (arch).link | arch4thlink | arch4thlink | arch5thSean Gallagher, for arsTechnica, posts article titled: "Guccifer 2.0 posts DCCC docs, says they're from Clinton Foundation"link | arch17thlink | arch18thPosts blog entry titled: "Trump's taxes: Clinton campaign prepares a new provocation". Also posts Tweet linking to the article (arch).link | arch25thJeffrey Carr posts article titled: "The Yandex Domain Problem - Or Who In Russian Intelligence Doesn't Speak Russian?" - Pointing out an apparent anomaly in the behavior of APT-28 aka "Fancy Bear" aka TF4127 in which it uses a Yandex email for phishing, from a Yandex domain typically used when someone registers from outside of Russia.link | archNovember 2016
4thPosts blog entry titled: "Info from inside the FEC: the Democrats may rig the elections"link | arch4thlink | archDecember 2016
8thThreatConnect's Toni Gidwani provides a presentation for Duo Tech Talks covering ThreatConnect's findings in 2016 and covers details that confirm their assessment, albeit with a little cherry picking from 3rd party media articles where convenient, discounting the lack of Russian traits in the English language flaws of Guccifer2.0 (that is actually covered in the Vice article Toni cited), whom, they assess, may be a committee of Russians.link29thODNI/DHS "GRIZZLY STEPPE '' Russian Malicious Cyber Activity" Report published.link | archJanuary 2017
6thODNI/DHS "Background to ''Assessing Russian Activities and Intentionsin Recent US Elections'': The Analytic Process and CyberIncident Attribution" Report published.link | mirror12thPost article titled: "Here I am Again, My Friends!" and an accompanying Tweet (arch).link | arch14thMike Wendling of the BBC posts an article titled: "Conversations with a hacker: What Guccifer 2.0 told me" detailing messages sent back and forth between Mike and Guccifer2.0 in October 2016.link | arch(2) Guccifer2.0's Claims Debunked & DiscreditedBefore looking at intent, motive, conflicting evidence and more, it's important to become aware of a few key facts about Guccifer2.0 and some of the claims he made.
CLAIM: Hacked the DNC's servers - STATUS: DiscreditedGuccifer2.0 stated in an interview with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (for Motherboard / Vice News) on the 21st of June, that he breached the server using a "0-day exploit of NGP-Van".
ThreatConnect, although still apparently unswayed from their assessment that Guccifer2.0 is a collective of Russians (we'll get on to that topic later in the article) - did report some very useful facts that serve to debunk Guccifer2.0's claims.
a) NGP-Van is a cloud-hosted web-service, the claimed method of breach was concluded "impossible" by ThreatConnect. - It was noted that phishing for credentials would be far more practical for exploiting such a service.
b) He makes claims of lateral movement within the DNC network - but doesn't realize that his effort to match the reporting of Crowdstrike falls down due to his own misinterpretation of that. - CrowdStrike's report mentions lateral movement in terms of the "BEAR" infrastructure across the whole of the Internet rather than movement within the DNC network - it looks like Guccifer2.0 s trying to make claims that correlate with what he has inferred from CrowdStrike's reportage.
c) To quote ThreatConnect at the time (and nothing has been reported to contradict it since): "As it stands now, none of the Guccifer 2.0 breach details can be independently verified".
CLAIM: Wikileaks Source for DNC Mails - STATUS: Not VerifiedGuccifer2.0 put considerable effort into trying to convince people he was the source for the DNC email leaks that ended up in the public domain on July 22nd.
He outright claimed it, multiple times.
He made a point of mentioning Wikileaks in his purposeful destruction of his own reputation on October the 4th (a reference to his Clinton Foundation claims and the files he posted supposedly demonstrating the hack) and on October 18th showed he was trying to push a perception of being associated with Wikileaks and responded to a Wikileaks tweet as though it was intended for him personally (when it wasn't).
Going back to the 4th, the supposed "Clinton Foundation Hack" - is also where his claim starts to show cracks.
He stated "I can't post all databases here for they're too large. I'm looking for a better way to release them now.".
Why, if he was really the source for the DNC emails, would he be at all struggling to find a solution to get the data published? - Why express this 73 days after the last large batch of data he claims to have acquired was successfully published through Wikileaks?
Even putting seemingly contradictory statements aside - Assange has stated numerous times that the emails were leaked, rather than hacked, in persistent contradiction with Guccifer2.0's claims and there is still nothing independently verifying Guccifer2.0's claims.
CLAIM: Hacked Clinton Foundation - STATUS: DiscreditedOn October 4th, 2016 - Guccifer2.0 claimed to have hacked the Clinton Foundation. He followed this up by posting an archive containing files that were all from previous leaks and from documents in the public domain.
Ultimately, he has never produced anything that actually shows such a hack had taken place.
These are not all of his lies or unverified claims, far from it, but they are the ones that are critical to know so that the rest of this article makes sense to you. Above all, the first is most important - his claims to breach the DNC turned out to be fantasy.
(3) 3rd Party Assessments - Assumptions & Conjecture vs Evidence & FactsThere is a difference between independently verifiable evidence and the activity somebody claims to have engaged in or that can be fabricated in an effort to misdirect and masquerade as someone they're not. - None of Guccifer2.0's claims of hacking were independently verifiable and several were debunked by ThreatConnect. - There is nothing demonstrating Guccifer2.0 was really a hacker.
The "evidence" that he's Russian, should be understood in the following context:
He CHOSE to name his computer account after the founder of the Soviet Secret Police.He CHOSE to create/open and then save documents so the Russian name was written to metadata.He CHOSE to use a Russian VPN service to cloak his IP address.He CHOSE to use public web-based email services that would forward his cloaked IP.He CHOSE to use the above to contact variousmediaoutlets on the same day.
He covered himself and the files in the digital equivalent of "Made In Russia" labels while claiming to be a Romanian. (Giving the MSM a flimsy veil they could easily pull off and find Russian "fingerprints" behind - not realizing that what they were revealing was a layer of misdirection)
Of course, this concerted effort to appear Russian soon loses it's entertainment value when you consider that the United State Intelligence Community have made assessments that seem to have relied upon some of his apparent masquerade.
They have the tools of the state, dragnets to record large volumes of Internet traffic, an abundance of staff and are well funded by tax payers - yet they've not seen (or worse have chosen to conceal) the fact that Guccifer2.0 is more likely to be a US citizen from Lagrange, GA than being a Russian.
Knowing this and seeing statements in "declassified reports" such as:
"We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks."
... is beyond disappointing.
So what independent, verifiable evidence is there?Basically - Nothing showing he was Wikileaks source. Nothing showing he actually hacked into the DNC (in fact a fair bit to contradict his claims there) & his Russian identity seems to have been based on factors he controlled and appears to have consistently made choices that would make him appear Russian.
Ultimately, Guccifer2.0 was someone who chose to use a Russian VPN (after choosing to taint documents with Russian language) and was noted to have been in possession of a password for a password-protected area of the DCLeaks site (which, plausibly, he could have been given after promising to upload some of his leaks - DCLeaks were willing to give the same password out to the press in exchange for the promise of writing a story about them!)
Pretty much everything stated about him has been based on assumptions, acceptance of questionable admissions and the public have been given little more than conjecture.
Sam Biddle of The Intercept (one of the first people to write about Guccifer2.0 when he emerged) details the problem, in a broader sense, of blaming Russia generally for the hacks in an article released on December 14th 2016, titled: "Here's the Public Evidence Russia Hacked the DNC '-- It's Not Enough". - It covers the fact that the evidence on Guccifer2.0 looks dodgy but doesn't try to determine the intent behind his efforts to deceive and claim credit for hacking the DNC (such as this article is attempting to make clear).
(4) Actions, Consequences & Convenience For Anti-Leak NarrativesIn total, the amount of new controversies specifically exposed by Guccifer2.0's actions - was very little.
The documents he posted online were a mixture of some from the public domain (eg. already been published by OpenSecrets.org in 2009), were manipulated copies of research documents originally created by Lauren Dillon(see attachments) and others or were legitimate, unique documents that were of little significant damage to the DNC. (Such as the DCCC documents)
The DCCC documents didn't reveal anything particularly damaging. It did include a list of fundraisers/bundlers but that wasn't likely to cause controversy (the fundraising totals, etc. are likely to end up on sites like OpenSecrets, etc within a year anyway). - It did however trigger 4chan to investigate and a correlation was found between the DNC's best performing bundlers and ambassadorships. - This revelation though, is to be credited to 4chan. - The leaked financial data wasn't, in itself, damaging - and some of the key data will be disclosed publicly in future anyway.
All of his 'leaks' have been over-hyped non-controversies or were already in the public domain - the only exception being the apparent leaking of personal contact numbers and email addresses of 200 Democrats - and really that was more damaging to the reputation of Wikileaks than causing any real problems for Democrats. - Ultimately, it only really served to give the mainstream press the opportunity to announce that "leaked emails include personal details of 200 Democrats", again, seemingly an effort to undermine other leaks being released at the same time by legitimate leak publishers.
(5) Rushing To Be Russian - The Donkey In A Bear Costume Made A Mistake5a. "Russia-Tainted Metadata" Reportage Mostly Ignored A Key Piece of MetadataThere is a key fact about some non-Russian metadata that nobody seems to have reported and it certainly seems to be of critical importance - and that is the document creation timestamps...
There were multiple documents shared with TheSmokingGun, Gawker, ArsTechnica and others.
The first document, "1.doc" (mirror), was given considerable coverage, while the name "Warren Flood" was reported, the date in the report (rather than in the metadata) was reported and so it was attributed to Warren Flood on 12/19/15.
Gawker incorrectly claimed the metadata showed the document was created in 2015 when it actually indicated the document was created by Warren Flood at a much later date.
The truth is that the metadata shows the document being created 30 minutes before Guccifer2.0 appears to have gotten his hands on it:
Created by Warren Flood on 15th of June at 13:38Modified by ФеÐ>>Ð¸ÐºÑ ÐдмÑÐ½Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ on 15th of June at 14:08
The other document, "2.doc" (mirror) was not mentioned so much, but it too had interesting metadata:
Created by Warren Flood on 15th of June at 13:38Modified by ФеÐ>>Ð¸ÐºÑ ÐдмÑÐ½Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ on 15th of June at 14:11
How did this get missed? - My guess is that people who investigated were using MS-Word. Recent versions of MS-Word tend to show limited metadata from RTF1 format files, for example, MS-Word 2010 shows:
If you open "2.doc" in OpenOffice though, you will spot what first alerted me to the timestamp correlations in the first place:
If you look at the raw data of "1.doc" you can see an ever closer correlation:
So... who is Warren Flood? - How did the documents get from Flood creating them to the "hacker" within 30 minutes AND how did that happen when Guccifer2.0 claimed that he had been kicked out of the DNC's systems as of June 12th according to the conversation he had on the 21st of June with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai for Motherboard/Vice? (An article in which Guccifer2.0 shows he can easily change the identity of the person who last modified the file)
We can answer the first question by looking at Warren Flood's linkedin and facebook profiles.
How Guccifer2.0 apparently acquired and edited the documents in 30 minutes of them apparently being created by Flood AND at a time that he would later claim was AFTER he had been kicked out of the DNC's network... is a question that Warren Flood might be able answer - we can only speculate.
From left-to-right: Joe Biden, Alice McAlexander, Warren Flood, Jill Biden.
While his name may have been relatively unknown to many reading this article, he has worked for Obama for America, the DNC and is no stranger to the White House, as his photograph with Joe and Jill Biden (embedded) suggests.
As for the main file (Trump Opposition Research) - it's basically a copy of a file attached to this leaked email. A document originally authored by Lauren Dillon (DNC research director) and modified (and sent to John Podesta) by Tony Carrk (Research Director at Hillary for America).
As it's clear the original source document was not authored by Flood but the copy pushed through Guccifer2.0 was - it seems odd that Flood's name would be there! - Was he or his company hired to provide technical assistance (possibly to manage the op entirely)? - While re-opening and saving the documents did record the desired Russian metadata, it only did so in relation to the last modification - it seems that Flood's name recorded as the document creator and the time of that occurring were accidently disclosed in the rush to get 'tainted leaks' out to TSG, Gawker, ArsTechnica and others.
5b. Linguistic Assessment - Conflicting "Expert" Reports Necessitate Detailed AnalysisSeveral experts and their assessments have been cited, Motherboard (Vice) reference 3 such experts but only one appeared willing to be identified. - Carrying out our own analysis (and highlighting the process), we can see why the others may have chosen anonymity - their assessments seem to be limited and pick up on things that in aggregate, Guccifer rarely actually does.
Guccifer2.0 used a "Russian smiley" (")))") ONCE! - This was in one of his first posts. The other thing that made him appear Russian was that he referred to hacks as "deals" a couple of times. - HOWEVER, he ONLY does this in the interview with Motherboard/Vice on the 21st of June - he never repeats this behavior in any other communications - so, it seems it was just put on for the purpose of the interview. - These are the main 2 things pointed out by the anonymous experts and are bizarrely both things he does only in 2 isolated incidents.
Professor M.J. Connolly of the Slavic & Eastern European languages department at Boston University had the most valuable assessment - and could explain the syntactical traits that were missing from Guccifer2.0's writing.
For our own non-expert analysis, details about differences between Russian/Slavonic Languages & English language can be found here, here and here.
As a brief example, TSG article's quoted statements from Guccifer are below. Definite and indefinite article use and prepositions are highlighted:
''I stand against Guccifer's conviction and extradition. I will continue Guccifer's business and will fight all those illuminati the way I can. They should set him free!!!!''
''Hi. This is Guccifer 2.0 and this is me who hacked Democratic National Committee.''
''Guccifer may have been the first one who penetrated Hillary Clinton's and other Democrats' mail servers. But he certainly wasn't the last. No wonder any other hacker could easily get access tothe DNC's servers.''
''First I breached into mail boxes of a number of Democrats. And then using the info collected I got into Committee servers.''
Compare this to the use of English language expected from someone who is really a Russian, as demonstrated in this screenshot of a video featured in an article by ThreatConnect on 2nd of September 2016. - The difference is stark to say the least!
It's clear from the above (as well as an analysis of a much larger corpus of Guccifer's words that I have compiled - see below) that he habitually uses definite articles, even when communicating in a live chat with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Vice's Motherboard, he only drops them seldomly. - The amount of instances where his definite and indefinite articles are correctly used (when they are used) is around 96%. - In other words, while he mangles English language selectively, he doesn't do it in a way that is consistent or in the way that is expected from those whose native language is one lacking definite and indefinite articles (such as is true with Russian language).
We never see Guccifer struggle with prepositions either:
He never claimed to hack through a server, or get under security or wait around being detected. His command of prepositions is very strong and he only seldomly drops them.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As author of this article, I am not pretending to be an expert. I'm just applying some knowledge from the public domain to a large collection of sample data in a manner that demonstrates various factors that relate to the aspects of English language that Russian's would typically struggle with. - To help get a better analysis I have provided the corpus of Guccifer2's text to Professor M.J. Connelly and asked if he would be kind enough to provide his expert opinion on it. - If he responds I will update this artice with his assessment.
(6) Recognizing Intent From DeceptionsWhen you consider all of these various facts in aggregate and understand that Guccifer2.0 never demonstrated any genuine hacking skills, realize his actions only ever served to undermine leaks, ultimately caused no harm to the reputation of anyone except himself and needlessly and inexplicably gave the mainstream press fodder on which they could write headlines branding leaks as "fake", "discredited", "tainted by Russia", etc., had some non-hacking means of acquiring the DCCC documents and has had his claims of breaching network debunked by ThreatConnect. - It becomes clear that Guccifer2.0 did more to serve the interests of the DNC than act against it and was clearly a fabricated persona acting as part of an effort to discredit the leaks.
While it would have been difficult to expose the identity of Guccifer2.0 if he hadn't mistakently retained his name and document creation date, anyone critically analysing the nature of Guccifer2.0 can see enough to identify whom he was most likely was or was serving through his activities online. - His lack of credibility and the inevitability of his Clinton Foundation server hack 'take' being exposed as nonsense makes it clear that Guccifer2.0 was a psy-op (psychological operation) construct intended to counter the leaks and try to take-down the credibility of Wikileaks as collaterol in the self-destruction of his own reputation.
(7) With Motive & Means - Those More Likely Linked to G2 than RussiansA diagram depicting DNC insiders, the green section looks like it may already be home to Warren Flood thanks to the metadata in Guccifer2.0's earliest leaks, however, he wouldn't have had direct access to all the DCCC documents. - It would therefore seem reasonable that he was working for one of a small group of DNC insiders whom had reputations on the line AND had access to DCCC documents from various states (in the purple section).
It seems like there's a very good chance Warren Flood has involvement to some degree but he personally had nothing to lose due to the emails, so, who would really be behind such a scheme?
That's where I struggle to find answers and have to leave the job up to the expert journalists. I can, unfortunately, only offer conjecture. For what little it's worth, my conjecture on this is as follows:
The motive alone suggests it likely to be someone in the DNC and the means (as demonstrated by the access to DCCC documents) suggest it's someone who would have collated DCCC data from a broad range of states, including some fundraising data - or at least had easy access to such documents. - This gives us enough entropy to single out the leadership of the DNC and those who had something to lose from the emails leaking.
CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, National Politics Director Raul Alvillar, Communications Director Luis Miranda, Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach and Chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz - all had their reputations on the line.
Of those five, it seems most probable that Brad Marshall and Raul Alvillar may have handled the sorts of documents that Guccifer2.0 released, though it is conceivable others may have had access to these documents too and considering his past work, it's possible that Flood could have been operating at the behest of anyone in the DNC's leadership right up to the top.
(8) Updates & Inquiries With Third PartiesOn or before February 1st, 2017 - the following people were emailed with requests for any information they could provide on Guccifer2.0 that had not already been included in their previous reports and explained that I was trying to be exhaustive in case there is anything that may conflict with a conclusion I had reached:
Kevin Collier of Vocativ (No response)Joseph Jesselli of The Smoking Gun (Not Allowed To Disclose Any Data)Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Motherboard/Vice (Responded - Nothing to disclose)Joe Uchill of The Hill (Not Allowed To Disclose Any Data)Sam Biddle (former reporter for Gawker) of the Intercept (No response)The following individuals were contacted with queries on various topics covered in the article during the past fortnight:
Wikileaks (No response)Professor M. J. Connolly / Boston University (No response)Warren Flood (2x by email and also over Twitter - No response)
Newsmax CEO: "I Spoke To Trump About The Wiretap Story, I Haven't Seen Him This Pissed Off In A Long Time" | Zero Hedge
While the Sunday talk shows have been largely focused on debunking Trump's allegations that Obama hacked the Trump Tower, a somewhat different perspective into Trump's current state of mind comes from Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, a close friend of the President, who in an article this morning shares that having spoken to Trump about the wiretapping story, he hasn't "seen Trump so pissed off in a long time." Below are some of the highlights from Ruddy's article posted earlier today:
When I woke up Sunday, I thought the morning news shows would all be talking about the unusual, perhaps dangerous, decision of the Obama administration to wiretap the offices of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. I've been watching Chuck Todd's ''Meet the Press'' as I write this. There is actually little talk about this unprecedented wire-tapping and even less worry over it. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, usually thoughtful, just told Chuck Todd he found it is ''shocking'' that Trump disclosed the wiretapping claim on Twitter.
But Friedman offered no shock that such a wiretap might have taken place!
I spoke with the President twice yesterday about the wiretap story. I haven't seen him this pissed off in a long time. When I mentioned Obama ''denials'' about the wiretaps, he shot back: ''This will be investigated, it will all come out. I will be proven right.''
Ruddy then focuses on the semantic denial by Obama that he had not ordered such a wiretap:
Today on the "Meet the Press" James Clapper, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, denied any agency that operated under him, including the FBI, ever wiretapped the Trump offices. ''To my knowledge,'' he added. [Wasn't Clapper the same man who testified under oath that the NSA never collected phone data on millions of Americans '-- a fact proven untrue by the Snowden revelations?]
But the most important Clapper revelation from ''Meet the Press'' was this: He emphatically told Todd the Obama intelligence agencies found ''no evidence'' of collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians. Nothing. Nada. If that is true, and Trump is right he was indeed wiretapped, it will only fuel his argument that Obama administration officials improperly eavesdropped on his offices.
In lieu of a follow-up from Trump as this story progresses, here is what Ruddy thinks are the relevant things to consider in the near future:
No one is denying that the Russians outrageously interfered in the U.S. election. Trump says it's true too. But remember this ''act of war'' happened under Obama not Trump. Obama did nothing against Putin and the Russians despite having full knowledge of Russian's active measures at the time they were happening. This wasn't Trump's fault. Another sign of the Obama administration's weakness.The Russian interference, which again I take very seriously, did not change the election result. In fact, an argument could be made it hurt Trump and helped Hillary. Hillary outperformed Obama's 2012 results in many, many states. For example, she cut Obama's loss in Texas by half! Hillary's problem was her campaign did little in the five states that mattered. As Woody Allen once described the secret of success, Trump just ''showed up'' in those states '-- and won.Despite Clapper and others saying there is no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, the media is continually trying to create such a narrative. For example, stories are proliferating of the Russian ambassador's contacts with the Trump campaign. But the truth is that campaigns deal all the time with foreign diplomats. There is nothing unusual or illegal here. And considering Trump's very open declaration he wanted to reset U.S.-Russian relations, these contacts should not be surprising.Lastly, Chuck Schumer and other Democrats calling for a special prosecutor are way, way over the top. The Constitution provides for a ''special prosecutor'' '-- it's called Congress. The Senate Intelligence Committee and other Congressional committees will review these matters soon. If they find serious evidence of wrong doing by the Trump campaign, then they can seek a special prosecutor.As for the markets, the rising concern is that as Trump continues to get weighed down by such domestic policy "smokescreens" as Ruddy calls it, the reality is that the president's economic plans, be it the repeal of Obamacare or his tax policy, are becoming increasingly unlikely to be implemented in the near, and not so near future, and sooner or later the market will have no choice but to notice.
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Donald Trump: Facts, Fascism and Tyranny | Time.com
The Founding Fathers designed the constitution to prevent some Americans from exercising tyranny. Alert to the classical examples they knew, the decline of ancient Greece and Rome into oligarchy and empire, they established the rule of law, checks and balances, and regular elections as the means of preserving the new republic. Thus far, it has worked. But it need not work forever.
We might imagine that the American system must somehow always sustain itself. But a broader look at the history of democratic republics established since our own revolution reveals that most of them have failed. Politicians who emerge from democratic practices can then work to undo democratic institutions. This was true in the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as during the spread of communism in the 1940s, and indeed in the new wave of authoritarian regime changes of the 21st century. Indeed, absent a truly decisive revolution, which is a rare event, a regime change depends upon such people '-- regime changers '-- emerging in one system and transforming it into another.
It is in this light that we should consider President Donald Trump and his closest advisors and spokespeople. Although they occupy the positions they do thanks to an election, there is little reason to believe that they support the American constitutional system as it stands, and much to remind us of authoritarian regimes changes of the recent past. A basic weapon of regime changers, as fascists realized nearly a century ago, is to destroy the concept of truth. Democracy requires the rule of law, the rule of law depends upon trust, and trust depends upon citizens' acceptance of factuality. The president and his aides actively seek to destroy Americans' sense of reality. Not only does the White House spread "alternative facts," but Kellyanne Conway openly proclaims this as right and good. Post-factuality is pre-fascism.
The function of the press, as the Founding Fathers understood, was to generate the common knowledge on which citizens could understand and debate policy, and to prevent rulers from behaving tyrannically. Whether from the far right or the far left, the regime changers of the twentieth century understood that the media had to be bullied and deprived of importance. When Steve Bannon refers to the press as the "opposition," or Mr. Trump calls journalists "enemies," they are expressing their support for the demolition of the historical, ethical, and intellectual bases of the political life we take for granted. Indeed, when Mr. Trump calls journalists "enemies of the people," he is quoting Joseph Stalin.
Since the end of the cold war, the new authoritarian regimes that have emerged in eastern Europe have taken the form of authoritarian kleptocracies: Russia is the most enduring example of this model; a revolution halted the development of a similar regime in Ukraine in 2014. The Founders, opponents of a British monarchy, were alert to the danger that government might serve to enrich a single family. The emoluments clause of the constitution confirms our common sense: no one can be trusted to defend the interests of citizens if his policy choices can make him richer. This president has not revealed the basic financial information about himself, but we know that he has business interests at home and abroad. Russians and Ukrainians have been quick to notice a familiar pattern.
If there is a common threat that links American political rhetoric from the 18th century to today, through the confrontations with fascist and communist rivals and into the 21st century it is the word "democracy." Our practice has been imperfect, but the endorsement of the idea of rule by the people has been consistent, until now. This president has defied that norm. He has said almost nothing in favor of democracy or, for that matter, civil and human rights. He admires authoritarians. His one major comment on democracy was that he would contest the outcome of elections if they were not in his favor. That is opposition to democracy. Indeed, not recognizing election results and moving to take power anyway is what authoritarians do.
In recent authoritarian regime changes, in Poland and Hungary as well as Russia, the executive power has been able to sideline the judiciary and then humble the legislature. The idea of checks and balances is enshrined in our constitution, but of course also in theirs, is that none of the three branches of government can dominate the others. In denigrating judges, Mr. Trump attacks the geometry of the system. Once the courts are tamed, the legislature cannot defend itself, and we have authoritarianism. If legislators do not support the judiciary, then their turn for humiliation will come, and the laws they pass will be unenforceable. This has been the pattern in recent authoritarian regime changes around the world.
Right-wing authoritarians today use the threat or the reality of terrorism to seek and hold power. The one consistent policy of the Trump administration thus far has been to encourage a Muslim terrorist attack within or upon the United States. Everywhere the first executive order on refugees and immigrants was understood as directed against Muslims. The major consequence, most likely the intended one, is the alienation of Muslims at home and abroad. The proposal to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is similar: it will never take place, so serves only to alienate and enrage Muslims. Michael Flynn is in the same category: though he was only national security advisor for three weeks, few Muslims will forget that he referred to their religion as a "cancer." Modern authoritarianism is terror management, and so modern authoritarians need terror attacks: real, simulated, or both. As James Madison noticed long ago, tyranny arises "on some favorable emergency."
The experience of the 21st century, as well as the experience of the 1930s, teaches that it takes about a year to engineer a regime change. To what, exactly? We cannot deduce, from the Trump administration's destructive chaos and ideological incoherence, what the post-democratic American regime would be. We can be sure, however, that we would miss being free. The prospect of children and grandchildren growing up under tyranny is terrifyingly real. History can remind us of the fragile fundaments of our own democracy. But what follows now is us up to us.
Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and the author, most recently, ofOn Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
Bipolar, Personality Disorder & Depression Treatment | Psychologist & Therapist in Towson, Baltimore, Maryland & Manhattan, New York, Greenwich Village - John Gartner
I served as a part time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years. My areas of specializations are Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Bipolar Disorder, and Depression. My therapy practice is in Towson, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, and Midtown Manhattan, New York.
Borderline Personality DisorderBorderlines have problems with impulsivity, mood swings, unstable relationships, and self destructive behaviors. Despite the seriousness of the condition, contrary to the stereotype, BPD is treatable, and I've had good outcomes in the vast majority of cases. It's intensive long term work, but with a properly trained therapist and a motivated patient the prognosis is good. In 1987, I completed a two year post-doctoral fellowship at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical in treatment of BPD working under the renowned Otto Kernberg, whose work helped define the disorder. While Kernberg's work emphasizes interpreting underlying psychodynamics and limit setting, in more recent years, I've been strongly influenced by Marsha Linehan's Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), with its emphasis on meditation, the cultivation of mindfulness, and learning of skills to manage emotional volatility. I offer my borderline patients an informed treatment approach which is both tough (when needed) and compassionate in the context of a committed long term relationship. Experience and research shows there is no substitute for this kind of therapeutic relationship.
Bipolar DisorderWhile medicines are a valuable tool in the treatment of bipolar disorder, I have found that less is often more, and help patients find the balance that allows them to gain control without bearing the unwanted side effects of over-medication. In addition to traditional therapy techniques I also use meditation to help patients gain impulse control and self-awareness. While I treat all forms of bipolar disorder, I have a particular interest in hypomania, a mildly manic temperament often found among highly creative people. My book, The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a lot of) Success in America, which links hypomania to both success and the American temperament was named by the New York Times Sunday Magazine year in ideas issue as one of the most innovative and important new ideas of 2005. In my second book, In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography, named one of the best biographies of 2008 by Booklist, official publication of the American Library Association, I present Bill Clinton as a case study in hypomania. In my work with hypomanics I emphasize how to gain self control while at the same time not losing one's creative spark, working to capitalize on hypomania's strengths such as energy, drive, creativity, confidence and charisma, while also guarding against it's liabilities such as arrogance, impatience, irritability and impulsivity. The cultivation of mindfulness helps the hypomanic slow things down enough so that they can make better judgments and choices, and increase their empathy for how others experience them, and protect their relationships from being damaged.
DepressionDepression is complex, and must be approached as a cognitive distortion, chemical imbalance, psychodynamic issue, behavioral issue, and relational issue. I've been working with depressed patients for almost thirty years, and employ all these tools in helping patients reclaim their lives from depression.
LEARN MORE
What makes Bill Clinton tick? WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, the forty- second President of the United States, is the greatest American enigma of our age'--a dark horse who Captured the White House, fell from grace, and was resurrected as a controversial elder statesman. John D. Gartner's In Search of Bill Clinton unravels the mystery at the heart of Clinton's complex nature and tells the story from the fresh viewpoint of a psychologist questioning the well-crafted Clinton life story.
LEARN MORE!
The Hypomanic Edge:The Link Between (a Little) CrazinessAnd (a Lot) of Success in AmericaAmerica has an extraordinarily high number of hypomanics'--grandiose types who leap on every wacky idea that occurs to them, utterly convinced it will change the world. Americans may have a lot of crazy ideas, but some of them prove to be brilliant inventions.
VISIT THE HYPOMANIC EDGE SITE
Petition · Trump is mentally ill and must be removed · Change.org
We, the undersigned mental health professionals (please state your degree), believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is ''unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.''
Why yes, Obama did try to wiretap Trump Tower, and here are the details | Herman Cain
The timing of Trump's tweet is a little strange, but the facts are plain as day.
I don't really know why Donald Trump decided yesterday to tweet about the Obama Administration trying to wiretap Trump Tower. But what was weird about it was not the content of the tweet. It was the timing. That this happened is not only beyond dispute, but it's been in the public's eye for weeks.
On January 17, Andrew McCarthy discussed it extensively in National Review. He referenced it again this past week in a piece about this whole Russian nonsense and Jeff Sessions:
To rehearse briefly, in the weeks prior to June 2016, the FBI did a preliminary investigation, apparently based on concerns about a server at Trump Tower that allegedly had some connection to Russian financial institutions. Even if there were such a connection, it is not a crime to do business with Russian banks '-- lots of Americans do. It should come as no surprise, then, that the FBI found no impropriety and did not proceed with a criminal investigation.
What is surprising, though, is that the case was not closed down.
Instead, the Obama Justice Department decided to pursue the matter as a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In June, it sought the FISA court's permission to conduct surveillance on a number of Trump associates '-- and perhaps even Trump himself. It has been reported that Trump was ''named'' in the application, but it is not publicly known whether he (a) was named as a proposed wiretap target, or (b) was just mentioned in passing in the application.
Understand the significance of this: Only the Justice Department litigates before the FISA court; this was not some rogue investigators; this was a high level of Obama's Justice Department '-- the same institution that, at that very moment, was whitewashing the Clinton e-mail scandal. And when Justice seeks FISA surveillance authority, it is essentially telling that court that there is probable cause to believe that the targets have acted as agents of a foreign power '-- that's the only basis for getting a FISA warrant.
In this instance, the FISA court apparently found the Obama Justice Department's presentation to be so weak that it refused to authorize the surveillance. That is telling, because the FISA court is generally very accommodating of government surveillance requests. Unwilling to take no for an answer, the Obama Justice Department came back to the FISA court in October '-- i.e., in the stretch run of the presidential campaign. According to various reports (and mind you, FISA applications are classified, so the leaks are illegal), the October application was much narrower than the earlier one and did not mention Donald Trump. The FISA Court granted this application, and for all we know the investigation is continuing.
So not only do we know that Obama's Justice Department sought permission from the FISA court to wiretap Trump Tower, but on its second try, they got it. And we don't know for sure that the wiretaps were ever discontinued.
So when left-wing Washington Post propagandist Chris Cillizza huffs that the "burden of proof" is on Trump to show that any of this happened, someone might want to forward this link to Cillizza - although I suppose he and others of his ilk may reject it out of hand because it comes from the conservative National Review. It's not our fault if NR covers the misdeeds of the Obama Administration and the Washington Post refuses to even do any reporting to find out if they're true.
Now, having said all that, I do think it's fair to scrutinize Trump's characterization of what happened. The mere fact that the Justice Department sought a wiretap and went through legal channels to get it does not prove this is Nixon's plumbers bugging the Watergate. But when a sitting Democrat administration wants to wiretap the offices of the Republican nominee during an election campaign, that should be the sort of thing that at the very least invites lots of scrutiny.
Instead, the media are insisting they will treat the whole thing as a big nothingburger unless Trump himself proves it is more than that. Do you think for even one second they would approach it this way if the party affiliations in this situation were the opposite of what they are?
You know damn well what the answer to that question is.
Dan's new novel, BACKSTOP, is a story of spiritual warfare and baseball. Download it from Amazon here!
Tanveer Hussain: Indian athlete held over sex abuse in US - BBC News
Image caption Tanveer Hussain participated in the 2017 world snowshoe championship A snowshoe athlete from Indian-administered Kashmir has been arrested in the US on charges of sexually abusing a minor girl.
Tanveer Hussain, 24, has been remanded in jail in Saranac Lake, New York, where he participated in the 2017 world snowshoe championship.
Mr Hussain was initially denied a visa, but managed to travel after campaigning by US activists and senators.
His attorney has entered a not-guilty plea for him.
Saranac Lake police department said that the charges against Mr Hussain, which include endangering the welfare of a child, stem from him engaging in a "passionate kiss with the 12-year-old victim".
"There was no accusation of force. The charges are a result of the age difference of the individuals," the AP news agency quoted the police as saying.
H-1B: Why a new US visa bill is causing panic in India
The police department added that the assault happened on Monday in a village in the Adirondack Mountains.
He was arrested after the girl and her parents lodged a complaint with police, Mr Hussain's lawyer said.
Mr Hussain reached the US after intense lobbying by activists, including Saranac Lake Mayor Clyde Rabideau.
Students from Saranac Lake Middle School also wrote to Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to get a visa for the athlete.
Mr Hussain was eventually allowed to resubmit his visa application, which was approved by the US embassy in Delhi.
His family members told the Indian Express that said they "were shocked on learning of his arrest".
"But thankfully, legal aid has been provided to him," Younis Ali, his younger brother, said.
WASHINGTON '-- The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump's assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump's phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.
Mr. Comey made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter. Mr. Comey has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down Mr. Trump's claim because there is no evidence to support it and it insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said.
A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment.
The Run-UpThe podcast that makes sense of the most delirious stretch of the 2016 campaign.A statement by the Justice Department or Mr. Comey refuting Mr. Trump's allegations would be a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation's top law enforcement officials in the position of questioning the truthfulness of the government's top leader. The situation underscores the high stakes of what the president and his aides have set out by accusing the former president of a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump's young administration.
The White House showed no indication that it would back down from Mr. Trump's claims. On Sunday, the president demanded a congressional inquiry into whether Mr. Obama had abused the power of federal law enforcement agencies before the 2016 presidential election. In a statement from his spokesman, Mr. Trump called ''reports'' about the wiretapping ''very troubling'' and said that Congress should examine them as part of its investigations into Russia's meddling in the election.
Along with concerns about the potential attacks on the bureau's credibility, senior F.B.I. officials are said to be worried that the notion of a court-approved wiretap will raise the public's expectations that the federal authorities have significant evidence implicating the Trump campaign in colluding with Russia's efforts to disrupt the presidential election.
One problem Mr. Comey has faced is that there are few senior politically appointed officials at the Justice Department who can make the decision to release a statement, the officials said. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself on Thursday from all matters related to the federal investigation into connections between Mr. Trump, his associates and Russia.
Mr. Comey's behind-the-scenes maneuvering is certain to invite contrasts to his actions last year, when he spoke publicly about the Hillary Clinton email case and disregarded Justice Department entreaties not to.
In his demand for a congressional inquiry, the president, through his press secretary, Sean Spicer, issued a statement on Sunday that said, ''President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.''
Mr. Spicer, who repeated the entire statement in a series of Twitter messages, added that ''neither the White House nor the president will comment further until such oversight is conducted.''
A spokesman for Mr. Obama and his former aides have called the accusation by Mr. Trump completely false, saying that Mr. Obama never ordered any wiretapping of a United States citizen.
''A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,'' Kevin Lewis, Mr. Obama's spokesman, said in a statement on Saturday.
Mr. Trump's demand for a congressional investigation appears to be based, at least in part, on unproved claims by Breitbart News and conservative talk radio hosts that secret warrants were issued authorizing the tapping of the phones of Mr. Trump and his aides at Trump Tower in New York.
In a series of Twitter messages on Saturday, the president seemed to be convinced that those claims were true. In one post, Mr. Trump said, ''I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!''
On Sunday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, said the president was determined to find out what had really happened, calling it potentially the ''greatest abuse of power'' that the country has ever seen.
''Look, I think he's going off of information that he's seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential,'' Ms. Sanders said on ABC's ''This Week'' program. ''And if it is, this is the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we have ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself. And the American people have a right to know if this took place.''
The claims about wiretapping appear similar in some ways to the unfounded voter fraud charges that Mr. Trump made during his first days in the Oval Office. Just after Inauguration Day, he reiterated in a series of Twitter posts his belief that millions of voters had cast ballots illegally '-- claims that also appeared to be based on conspiracy theories from right-wing websites.
As with his demand for a wiretapping inquiry, Mr. Trump also called for a ''major investigation'' into voter fraud, saying on Twitter that ''depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!'' No investigation has been started.
Senior law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked in the Obama administration have said there were no secret intelligence warrants regarding Mr. Trump. Asked whether such a warrant existed, James R. Clapper Jr., a former director of national intelligence, said on NBC's ''Meet the Press'' program, ''Not to my knowledge, no.''
''There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time as a candidate or against his campaign,'' Mr. Clapper added.
Mr. Trump's demands for a congressional investigation were initially met with skepticism by lawmakers, including Republicans. Appearing on CNN's ''State of the Union'' on Sunday, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said he was ''not sure what it is that he is talking about.''
''I'm not sure what the genesis of that statement was,'' Mr. Rubio said.
Pressed to elaborate on ''Meet the Press,'' Mr. Rubio said, ''I'm not going to be a part of a witch hunt, but I'm also not going to be a part of a cover-up.''
Michael S. Schmidt reported from Washington, and Michael D. Shear from West Palm Beach, Fla. Adam Goldman andNoah Weiland contributed reporting from Washington.
CLIPS AND DOCS
VIDEO - Clinton's Former Campaign Manager Just Confirmed Trump Tower Wiretapping | Fox & Friends - YouTube
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Sunday denied knowledge of any wire-tapping of then-nominee or president-elect Donald Trump '' but in an assertion receiving rather less press coverage also stated he had no knowledge of evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
VIDEO - CBS's Scott Pelley Tees-Up Leon Panetta to Smear Trump Administration as Irrational | MRCTV
***To read the full blog please check out the cross-post on NewsBusters***
In a blatant effort to dirty President Donald Trump's administration during Wednesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley interviewed Clinton and Obama administration official Leon Panetta and gave him free reign to discredit the President. After rattling off a long series of Trump's dubious claims, the first question out of Pelley's mouth was, ''Is it appropriate to ask whether the President is having difficulty with rationality?''
Before Pelley started the video of his interview, he read off a list of the many titles Panetta had accrued over the years. But it read like a lifetime of work in service of partisan Democrats:
First, let us remind you why Washington listens when he speaks. Panetta was the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, White House of Chief of Staff under President Clinton, Director of the CIA when Osama bin Laden was killed, Secretary of Defense under President Obama, and is the co-founder of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy.
In response to Pelley's ridiculously loaded question, Panetta claimed Trump was scratching away at his trustworthiness and his credibility with the American people. ''And when he says the things that he says, in particular this allegation about wiretapping that has no bit of evidence to support it,'' he bemoaned, ''it raises concerns about trust in the President because there are one or two conclusions you draw.''
VIDEO - MSNBC's Ruhle to Warren: 'You Guys Were In Power' - Why Didn't Things Improve for Regular Americans? - Breitbart
During an interview with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Wednesday's ''MSNBC Live,'' anchor Stephanie Ruhle asked Warren ''you guys were in power for the last eight years. Why is it that it didn't work for those good Americans you were working for?''
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Warren said, ''Our problem is not that Washington doesn't work well enough for the billionaires and the bankers, it's working just great for them. Our problem is it's not working for working families.''
Ruhle then asked, ''Why? Why has income inequality failed to get significantly better in the last eight years? Because we look at the last 45 days, President Trump is surrounded by those CEOs, who've been complaining the last eight years. Why is it good times for them?
Warren answered, ''You know, that's a big part of what's going on here, is that, it's policy set right here in Washington that, over and over and over, help those who can hire armies of lobbyists and those who can hire armies of lawyers. The policies here are for the billionaires. They're for the bankers. They're for the giant corporations. They get the tax breaks. They get the regulatory boosts. They get the great deals in Washington. And, regular families, just people who are trying to put it together day by day by day, they're the ones who get left behind.
Ruhle then pushed back, ''But Senator, you guys were in power for the last eight years. Why is it that it didn't work for those good Americans you were working for?''
Warren responded, ''You know, let's be clear about what it means to be in power. The Republicans had a blocking position. When they didn't have a blocking position, we got the Affordable Care Act through, and when they didn't have a blocking position, we got through the Wall Street reforms. But once they had a blocking position in the Senate and then in the House, we couldn't get the minimum wage increase. We couldn't get increases into Social Security. We couldn't get a more progressive tax bill. So, look, I don't want to try to shovel off all the blame. I think there's plenty that we can do, we should have done, we must do in the future on our side of the aisle. But let's be very clear. The Republicans have made their part of the agenda 100% obvious. They are here to make sure that Washington works for those at the very, very top, and they have done a great job of that.''
Ruhle then said, ''I understand how frustrating this must be, since Republicans were in a position to block all this time, and the American people haven't been served, do you think you could work with Republicans?''
Later on, Ruhle added, ''This is the first market-moving president we've ever had, calling out specific companies, discussing those companies, meeting with them during the transition time. And now we're in a position where he can use someone like Carl Icahn, one of the biggest, most predatory investors out there to help advise him on regulation and who he's going to choose to be regulators. How do we address the fact we've got a market-moving president? I mean, Martha tSewart went to jail over lying about timing and information that she had. Insider trading is a big, big deal, and we have someone who can send out a tweet, and move a stock in seconds.''
(h/t RCP Video)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
VIDEO - WikiLeaks Releases Alleged CIA Hacking Secrets - NBC News
The anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks posted thousands of documents Tuesday purporting to reveal CIA hacking secrets, including suggestions that the spy agency is able to turn smart televisions into listening devices and defeat encrypted communications apps such as Signal or WhatsApp.
NBC News has not verified the authenticity of the documents, but computer experts and former intelligence officials were treating them as real. A CIA spokesman declined to comment.
"We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents," the CIA's Jonathan Liu told NBC News.
As part of its release, WikiLeaks made the extraordinary claim that the CIA "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal," including a series of tools that experts say could be turned against Americans. U.S. officials would neither confirm nor deny that allegation.
"This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA," WikiLeaks said in a news release. "The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive."
"The real story here is the government cannot secure these tools," said Mark Rasch, a former Justice Department computer crimes prosecutor. "This is akin to anthrax the government has in a lab somewhere. If it gets out, it's dangerous to all of us."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement that the files in its possession are the most comprehensive release of U.S. spying documents ever, even more significant than the huge trove of National Security Agency secrets exposed by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. Assange said the documents came to WikiLeaks from a U.S. intelligence contractor. WikiLeaks redacted the names of purported CIA officers and withheld the actual hacking tools it said might allow hackers to seize control of machines.
Some experts who began examining the documents are not so sure of their significance.
"Even if it's real, I'm not sure how damaging it is," said Matthew Green, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University. "It seems to be an indication that the CIA does things we assumed it was doing."
Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the CIA, said he was skeptical that the agency's entire hacking operation had been exposed.
And, he said, "once the makers of consumer devices know what's out there, they can build the right defenses."
"Some of this stuff looks real, but there are a lot of discrepancies," said James Lewis, a cyber security expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He added that it's unlikely that so many classified CIA hacking programs would be available to the same person. "This stuff is usually compartmentalized and it's unusual to have all the compartments put together."
"The alternative hypothesis is that the Russians have done it again to confuse the story in the U.S. I find that at least as persuasive as the one WikiLeaks is peddling."
Related: Assange Lawyer Fears WikiLeaks Founder Could Be Evicted From Ecuador Embassy
Still, if secret CIA hacking information came into the possession of WikiLeaks, a group the U.S. says has cooperated closely with Russian intelligence, it represents yet another serious breach of sensitive U.S. intelligence data after the case of Snowden and the subsequent charges against Harold Martin, an NSA contractor accused of taking home a huge tranche of secrets.
WikiLeaks has more than 8,700 documents created from 2013 to 2016 that were housed in a database belonging to the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence, says Assange.
The documents, which he described as the CIA's hacking "arsenal," purport to show how Britain's MI5 and the CIA collaborated to take control of microphones on Samsung Smart TVs, found ways around anti-virus software, and got access to the iPhone and Android phone platforms, among many other revelations.
Samsung said in a statement that it's "urgently" looking into the reports and "protecting consumers' privacy and the security of our devices is a top priority."
Even though the CIA's focus is human spying, the agency has expanded its cyber capabilities in recent years to enhance that mission. Recruiting sources and deploying undercover operatives in the digital age requires an aggressive hacking operation, current and former officials say.
Former CIA Deputy Director David Cohen, an NBC News consultant, said he could not confirm or deny the authenticity of the newly disclosed documents, but, "Everything that we did when I was there '-- we did it all in strict adherence to the law, and we didn't spy on Americans."
Related: Assange: 'No Proof' Hacked DNC Emails Came From Russia
One disclosure that may draw attention is a program code named "Umbrage," which describes an effort to mask the source of a cyber attack by planting false digital fingerprints. The CIA maintains a database of such fingerprints, WikiLeaks said, "including from the Russian Federation." Those who wish to cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence conclusion that Russia hacked U.S. political institutions may cite these documents.
While the trove includes several documents marked "TOP SECRET" and several labeled "SECRET," a majority of the data has no classification marking. Many of the files point to common web utilities, including "how-to's" on installing software and operating systems.
For instance, the documents discuss the U.S. Center for Cyber Intelligence in Europe, which is based in Frankfurt, Germany. Several posts provide helpful travel trips and information about travelling to the CCIE, including which airlines to fly (Lufthansa because they have "free booze"), when and how to send cables, and cautions about maintaining a cover story.
The documents are replete with colorful CIA codewords. Software called the "RickyBobby," for example, is said to behave in a way similar to how Will Ferrell's character in "Talladega Nights" behaves when he's racing.
Regarding encrypted apps, WikiLeaks says that the CIA has the ability to bypass the encryption programs by infiltrating individual devices, thereby obtaining access to communications before they are encrypted.
That appears to mean the phone or other device has to be specifically targeted, not that the CIA has a way of universally bypassing the encryption used by Signal, WhatsApp, and other applications.
VIDEO - TV presenter eats HUMAN BRAIN during filming of documentary before angry cannibal throws own poo at him
A TV presenter ate cooked human brain with a group of cannibals in India '' before one of the flesh-eaters got mad and started flinging his own POO at him.
In an episode of Believer, a six-part CNN series on spirituality, US religious scholar Reza Aslan meets with the Aghori, a nomadic Hindu sect in India.
CNN
Reza Aslan spent time with the Aghori sect in India
CNN
The interview went south and one of the mystics turned nastyThe Aghori mystic poos in his hand as the documentary makers look on horrifiedThe group believes that nothing can taint the human body and rejects the Hindu caste system, which deems certain groups of people untouchable.
After Aslan has bathed in the sacred Ganges river, an Aghori scholar smears the ashes of a cremated body on his face and he is given alcohol served in a human skull.
Then he is given a piece of burned human brain and eats it, reports the Washington Post.
He said: ''Want to know what a dead guy's brain tastes like? Charcoal.''
Reza Aslan learns why some fear the Aghori Hindu's in new series Beliver on CNNCNN
He also had cremated remains smeared on his forehead by the Aghori mysticGetty Images
Reza Aslan is a religious scholar and was filming a documentary about spiritualityCNN
Aslan said the brain tasted like 'charcoal' because it was 'burnt to a crisp'He added: "It was burnt to a crisp!"
Soon after the interview turns nasty and one of the cannibals tells the presenter: "I will cut your head off if you keep talking so much."
Then the guru begins eating his own poo - and then flings it at Aslan and his camera crew.
Aslan told his director: "I feel like this may have been a mistake."
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The six-part series tackles faith and spirituality across the globeThe segment drew anger from some American Hindus, who claim it portrays their religion in a negative light.
Indian American Shalabh Kumar, a top supporter of the US President Donald Trump said, called it a "disgusting attack on Hinduism".
In a tweet, Kumar said: "Hinduism has been attacked because a large number of Hindu Americans supported Trump during the election campaign."
Aslan took to Twitter to defend the show, saying: "This is a show about the Aghori not Hinduism."
VIDEO 5:23- Republicans Release New Health Plan, And We're All Going To Die - YouTube
U.S. President Donald Trump met with a group of business leaders to discuss investing in infrastructure. His guests included the CEO of Tesla and Spacex, Elon Musk and major real estate and private equity executives. Investments in infrastructure are crucial to fulfilling Trump's promise to create jobs in the United States. Last week, the President asked government officials to identify infrastructure projects and devise a way to fund them. Eric Donovan, managing director at INTL FCStone. (SOUNDBITE) ERIC DONOVAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INTL FCSTONE, (ENGLISH) SAYING: "He wants their feedback. He wants to, you know, do things the right way, or at least have the appearance of doing so, but it doesn't change anything. From a dollars and cents stand point, nothing that was said in those meetings is gonna change, you know, the math behind 'where is the trillion dollars gonna come from?' I think that's what everybody wants to know right now." Last month, Trump said he would ask Congress to approve a $1 trillion infrastructure program. Earlier during his presidential campaign, he said the money would be used to rebuild roads, bridges, airports, and other public works projects. But he has not presented a specific plan.
VIDEO - Winning Level '' Wolverine Grandmaster: Secretary Ross Imposes $1.19 Billion Fine Against Chinese Company'... | The Last Refuge
Commerce Secretary Wilbur ''Wolverine'' Ross put the trade world on notice today when he announced a staggering $1.19 billion penalty on Chinese company ZTE for violating U.S. sanctions and selling electronics to Iran and North Korea.
China's ZTE has agreed to pay the United States the fine. Remember, in China all private businesses are politically attached to the central government.
(From Wilbur Ross Office) Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross, Jr. today announced that China's Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment Corporation and ZTE Kangxun Telecommunications Ltd., known collectively as ZTE, has agreed to a record-high combined civil and criminal penalty of $1.19 billion, pending approval from the courts, after illegally shipping telecommunications equipment to Iran and North Korea in violation of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR).
As part of the settlement, ZTE has agreed to pay a penalty of $661 million to Commerce's Bureau of Industry Security (BIS), with $300 million suspended during a seven-year probationary period to deter future violations.
This civil penalty is the largest ever imposed by the BIS and, if the criminal plea is approved by a federal judge, the combined $1.19 billion in penalties from Commerce, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Treasury, would be the largest fine and forfeiture ever levied by the U.S. government in an export control case.
''We are putting the world on notice: the games are over,'' said Secretary Ross. ''Those who flout our economic sanctions and export control laws will not go unpunished '' they will suffer the harshest of consequences.
Under President Trump's leadership, we will be aggressively enforcing strong trade policies with the dual purpose of protecting American national security and protecting American workers.'' (read more)
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VIDEO - DARPA Insider "We are on Verge of Cataclysmic Discovery"!* - YouTube
During an interesting Lou Dobbs interview Judge Andrew Napolitano discusses the ''Deep State'' and how President Trump is the first president to confront them without backing down.
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VIDEO-Kredo: Sources Say it is 'Plausible' That Trump was Wiretapped
A local Florida sheriff took to YouTube to give the black communityFlorida sheriff advice on how they should behave and describe themselves.
Escambia Sheriff David Morgan believes that part of his job description includes teaching black people how to be good citizens. During a YouTube video, Morgan explained that the job of African-Americans in this country is to mimic white Americans whenever possible.
As such, Morgan explained that since his family is Welsh but he doesn't refer to himself as a Welsh-American, neither should blacks call themselves African-Americans. We are all Americans, he says, and blacks should get in step with him.
''First off, let me take issue with the title of 'African-American,''' he began. ''We're Americans.''
Morgan, who deems himself an expert on minority issues, even though he's probably never read a book by a black scholar, or a book on poverty in America for that matter, says most issues in the black Escambia community are ''perceived'' as opposed to real.
The good sheriff goes on to deny the existence of racism because'..... Obama.
''The statistics are that, if we're such a racist nation, why do we currently have an African-American president?''
The problem isn't racism, Sheriff Morgan says, but the acceptance of ''thug culture'' among blacks.
He described black on white crimes and asks,''Where's the public outrage in that?''
In earnest, there's always outrage in communities when anyone is killed, but statistics show that nearly 84 percent of white victims were killed by white offenders.
From the Washington Post:
The 2013 FBI Uniform Crime Report, a compilation of annual crime statistics, also shows similar data: 83 percent of white victims were killed by white offenders; 90 percent of black victims were killed by black offenders; 14 percent of white victims were killed by black offenders; and 7.6 percent of black victims were killed by white offenders.The self proclaimed expert on blackness then calls on the black community to''bring back the training of character and integrity to our community because we have raised an asocial generation.''
VIDEO - Chaffetz: Invest in healthcare over iPhone - CNN Video
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Female enlisted Marines have gone through recruit training at the base since 1949. About 11 percent of female recruits who arrive at the boot camp fail to complete the training, which can be physically and mentally demanding. On January 24, 2013 Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta rescinded an order, which had been in place since 1994, that restricted women from being attached to ground combat units. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)","imageAlt":"PARRIS ISLAND, SC - FEBRUARY 26: Female Marine recruits sit with their feet at a 45 degree angle, the same angle they are at while standing at the position of attention, while having lunch during boot camp on February 26, 2013 at MCRD Parris Island, South Carolina. Female enlisted Marines have gone through recruit training at the base since 1949. About 11 percent of female recruits who arrive at the boot camp fail to complete the training, which can be physically and mentally demanding. 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Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) acknowledges that some people may lose coverage under the new Republican healthcare plan."],"descriptionPlainText":"Rep. 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VIDEO - Republicans are now paying the price for a years-long campaign of Obamacare lies - Vox
Donald Trump added his own signature dose of shamelessness to the Republicans' shameless crusade against Obamacare.
''We're going to have insurance for everybody,'' Trump told the Washington Post after the election. Under Trumpcare, according to Trump, people ''can expect to have great health care. It will be in much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.''
This was bolder and brasher than what more establishment-minded Republicans had said over the years. But it was, fundamentally, similar to promises and insinuations made by Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and dozens of other Republicans. It's not just that the Affordable Care Act was killing jobs and sentencing people to death panels. It's that Republicans had some much better plan in their back pocket that would give Americans what they want '-- cheap, comprehensive health insurance that offers them oodles of choice.
It was a great line, and it helped Republicans win Congress and eventually the White House. But it was a lie, and now Trump and Republicans in Congress are paying for it.
Policy-minded conservatives have serious criticisms of President Obama's health care law. They think it taxes rich people too much, and coddles Americans with excessively generous, excessively subsidized health insurance plans. They want a world of lower taxes on millionaires while millions of Americans put ''skin in the game'' in the form of higher deductibles and copayments. Exactly the opposite, in other words, of what Republican politicians have been promising.
And this, more than tensions between the conservative and moderate flanks of the caucus, is why the prospect of actually legislating has brought the GOP to a crisis point. The chasm between what they've been saying they want to do and what their policy ideas actually do is simply much too large to be bridged.
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Conservatives think the ACA's redistribution is immoralRepublican leaders and conservative intellectuals, for the most part, didn't really believe nonsense about death panels or that Obama was personally responsible for high-deductible insurance plans. What they fundamentally did not like is that the basic framework of the law is to redistribute money by taxing high-income families and giving insurance subsidies to needy ones. The details matter enormously to everyday people, but the broad principle is enough to make conservatives reject it.
And, indeed, as this chart from Gary Burtless and Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution shows, the Affordable Care Act enacts substantial income redistribution in the United States.
Indeed, Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist who served as chair of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, believes the ACA ''was motivated as much by the desire to redistribute income as it was to reform the health care system.''
Not coincidentally, Mankiw, like many conservatives, believes this kind of income redistribution is profoundly immoral. He writes that we should begin our analysis of tax policy ''by asking whether people's compensation reflects the contributions they make to society and how much they benefit from government actions.''
Consequently, a program that redistributes income toward the bottom 20 percent of the population '-- filled as it is with people who don't have in-demand skills or who work relatively few hours per year '-- fundamentally violates Mankiw's sense of what he calls a ''just deserts'' approach to social policy.
Republican Party politicians broadly agree with this theme of Mankiw's. On the campaign trail in 2012, Ryan liked to say, ''Mitt Romney and I are not running to redistribute the wealth, Mitt Romney and I are running to help Americans create wealth.''
Conservatives think ACA taxes and spending hurt growthConservatives also have, of course, pragmatic arguments about redistribution. A typical conservative view is that, as James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute writes, ''raising taxes on capital gains and dividends is a truly horrible idea.''
Why? Well, because low taxes on investment income leads to, they claim, growth.
The Affordable Care Act raises hundreds of billions of dollars from a new tax on the investment income of high-income households. Conservatives believe '-- and they have traditional economic models on their side for this one, though a fair amount of new research disagrees '-- that though this kind of tax may be savvy short-term politics, it's ruinous to the long-term growth potential of the economy.
In a very accessible column, Jared Meyer of Economics21 lays out two ways the spending side of the Affordable Care Act hurts growth. One is that by giving low-income families generous subsidies that phase out as their incomes rise, it reduces their incentive to work more hours or find higher-paying jobs. The other is that the ACA makes it easier for workers in their late 50s or early 60s to retire early, by ensuring they don't need to maintain a full-time job to maintain their health insurance.
''Supporters of the law touted this decrease as beneficial,'' he writes, since, after all, retiring early sounds nice but is ''terrible news for the economy,'' which will miss the workers.
The Republican argument about health care looks totally different
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty ImagesWhen the Congressional Budget Office came out with the report that provided the basis for Meyer's assertion about early retirement, practical Republican Party politicians were overjoyed.
''Just yesterday,'' said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, ''the Congressional Budget Office found that Obamacare will cost millions of Americans their jobs.''
Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey said the law creates ''unprecedented uncertainty for job creators that, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, will leave millions of people looking for work in the next few years.''
Minnesota Rep. John Kline was even blunter: ''The president's health care law is destroying full-time jobs.''
This is not what the CBO said, as fact-check columns from the Washington Post, PolitiFact, and elsewhere pointed out. But that didn't stop incumbent Republicans from saying it. Nor did it stop Republican challengers like North Carolina's Thom Tillis from saying it in their ads. Running against Kay Hagan in 2014, Tillis charged that the health care law Hagan had voted for would cause 2 million Americans to ''lose their jobs,'' according to the CBO.
That wasn't true, fact-checkers said it wasn't true, but it was a good ad anyway, and Tillis narrowly defeated Hagan.
Republicans promised people better health insuranceThe striking thing about Republican use of the CBO report on the Affordable Care Act's labor supply impact is that Republicans weren't exaggerating. They weren't just making things up, either.
They were taking a completely genuine conservative policy critique of the law '-- that it was making things a little too cushy for people, so they might decide to quit working '-- and turned it into roughly the opposite argument, that the Obamacare jackboot was going to prevent people who wanted jobs from finding work. The habit of doing this repeatedly '-- not just saying things that aren't true, but refusing to state Republicans' actual objections to the law '-- is what has painted the Republican Party into a corner.
''If the idea behind Obamacare was to get everyone covered,'' said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the January 8 episode of Face the Nation, ''that's one of the many failures. In addition to premiums going up, copayments going up, deductibles going up.''
In other words, the Affordable Care Act had two big problems: Not enough people were covered by exchange plans, and the coverage they had was too skimpy.
''Many Americans who actually did get insurance when they did not have it before have really bad insurance,'' McConnell continued, sounding like one of ACA's left-wing critics, ''and the deductibles are so high that it's really not worth much to them.''
McConnell is too much of a savvy old Washington hand to have actually gone on to explicitly promise a Republican bill that would cover more people with lower deductibles and copayments. His game was simply to quietly, albeit falsely, imply that this is what the GOP was cooking up. Trump, by contrast, isn't big on subtext and simply ran around the country promising to replace ACA plans with ''something terrific.''
Republicans want people to have worse health insuranceOne could, of course, actually deliver on these promises. It would be relatively simple for the federal government to give everyone lower deductibles and copayments by agreeing to pony up more money for subsidies. Other left-wing ideas include introducing price controls for prescription drugs, adding a ''public options'' whose payment rates would be linked to Medicare, letting older patients buy in to Medicare, or the wonk set's favorite answer, ''all-payer rate setting.''
But none of these ideas would address the Republican Party's actual problems with the Affordable Care Act.
For starters, if you think the ACA's taxes are both immoral and disastrous for long-term economic growth, then you need to repeal them. That leaves you with less money to go around to offer coverage. Couple that with the concern that generous subsidies for the poor create a disincentive to work, and you are pretty much locked into the idea that you need to make people's insurance coverage worse.
The GOP has long had a variety of replacement plans floating around, which differ from one another in important ways. But they all cut taxes and reduce spending. They all end up covering fewer people, and they all end up delivering skimpier coverage to most of the people they do cover. In most cases, they do manage to jigger the costs and benefits around so that there is at least a subset of the population '-- young, healthy, non-poor people '-- who end up better off.
But that's just another way of saying that the Republican plans end up giving people lower-quality insurance coverage. Young, healthy, middle-class people don't particularly need high-quality insurance coverage, so they can benefit from a scheme that doesn't give it to people. And one certainly could imagine Republicans trying to build a politics around the idea that having the rich subsidize the poor and the healthy subsidize the sick is a bad idea. But not only have they spent the past seven years failing to do so, they've actually done the opposite '-- running for office with the promise of better coverage while the boys in the back room cook up plans that offer worse coverage.
The jig is up
Photo by Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty ImagesIn the months since Election Day, it has become increasingly apparent that a reasonably large number of Republican Party legislators either didn't understand that the campaign against Obamacare was based on lies or else had never really considered the implications of that reality.
Either way, the problem with passing a law that is going to make people's health coverage worse while promising that it will get better is pretty obvious: People will notice when they lose insurance or when their deductible skyrockets.
They will also hear stories from friends, relatives, and co-workers.
Doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers are also going to notice that their patients don't have the money to afford coverage. You can win an election based on a lie. You can even pass a bill based on a lie if you want. But you can't expect that you're going to get away with it.
Which is why, over time, GOP replacement plans keep evolving to look more and more like the status quo. The less the replacement actually changes things, the less obvious it is that Republicans have broken their promises to deliver better coverage for the American people. But even the current watered-down version of repeal still has analysis anticipating that millions of people will lose coverage, while the value of the coverage for those who remain is reduced. That leaves the GOP caught between ideological stalwarts who are alarmed by how much of the Obamacare framework the plan leaves in place and nervous pragmatists who are worried about how much suffering it inflicts.
Conflicts between purists and pragmatists are nothing new in the legislative space. But the profound dishonesty underlying the repeal campaign makes this something special. It's not a question of half a loaf versus holding out for the whole thing. It's a question of whether Republicans should try to deliver on their ideas or try to deliver on their promises, in a world where their ideas are antithetical to what they've promised. And there's no way out.
VIDEO-Moonbat Katy Tur Denies Media Ever Said Trump Officials Connected To Russians '' Proves Trump Strategy is Working
Oh, this is just too funny. Confirmation of how effective President Trump's strategy is against the media surfaced today as MSNBC's Katy Tur gets into a heated conversation with Congressman Chris Stewart.
Katy Tur claimed the media never said Trump campaign officials were in contact with Russian intelligence. Defending the media against Trump, Katy Tur said:
''I don't think any news organization actually claimed that there were direct ties between the Trump campaign and Russian spies''.Seemingly oblivious to the past two months of media proclamations including the New York Times whose headline was: ''Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.'' (Link)
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The media has been completely knee-capped and can no longer report on intelligence leaks without confirming the position of President Trump. The media is now in a position of denying all of their previous reporting simply because President Trump has accepted their presentations and turned their reporting against the previous administration.
That's BRILLIANT.
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VIDEO-Ronald Reagan : If Fascism Ever Comes To America, It Will Come In The Name Of Liberalism
The Cabinet heavyweight described a euro force as ''unnecessary'' as he arrived in Brussels for crunch talks with EU defence ministers this morning.
He strongly implied that Britain is set to oppose the creation of such an army, which is backed by some member states including Germany.
Mr Fallon made the remarks as he jetted into the Belgian capital for a meeting of the EU foreign affairs council.
Related articlesThere ministers are set to discuss the implementation of the EU's much-vaunted 'Global Strategy' on defence and security.
Eurocrats have repeatedly insisted that the policy is not a military power grab, but critics say it will create a Brussels army by the back door.
And the defence secretary made Theresa May's views perfectly clear with a thinly veiled attack on the idea just before meeting his European colleagues.
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The Defence Secretary made the remarks as he arrived in Brussels for a summitGETTY
The EU wants its own military to reduce its reliance on the USHe told reporters: "Today we are urging the EU to cooperate more closely with NATO, to avoid unnecessary duplication and structures, and to work together on new threats including the need to strengthen cyber security."
He added: ''Although we're leaving the European Union we continue to cooperate with our European partners on defence and security and in the fight against terrorism and aggression.
''We also continue to play our part in the European mission in the Mediterranean rescuing migrants and tackling people smuggling.''
Mr Fallon stressed that the UK will continue to contribute to Europe's defence and pointed out it is sending troops to Estonia and Poland and fighter jets to Romania this year.
The remarks were a pointed reminder to European leaders that all of those projects to guarantee their security are taking place under the NATO banner, a formula which has kept peace on the continent for 50 years.
GETTY
Michael Fallon urged the EU to rethink its plans for an armyToday we are urging the EU to cooperate more closely with NATO
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon
Ukip's defence spokesman Bill Etheridge MEP said the remarks showed how the Remain camp had misled the public over plans for an EU army, but added he still "did not trust" Mr Fallon who backed staying in the EU.
He said: "The lies of the remain campaign are clear for everyone to see and demonstrate why we need Brexit swiftly, not held up by the archaic House of Lords.
"The EU want their own military, with their own command structure and despite claims they will work with NATO firstly I do not believe them and secondly, it sounds like a complete waste of money.
"The UK need a massive uplift in defence spending to get our military up to standard after years of neglect and we are not alone in Europe for falling foul of the decline in spending as national governments assumed they would be joining forces in an EU military structure.
He added: "But what should be more alarming to the British public is that a man who told voters there would not be an EU Army, who was firmly in the remain camp, who imposed the sorts of Orwellian orders on anyone employed by the MoD to stick to his lines, is still in the role of Secretary of State for defence and was even knighted.
"I for one do not trust him."
Tue, February 14, 2017Getty Images
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Every member country, no matter how large or small, has an equal say in discussions and decisions. Photo shows: Signing the North Atlantic Treaty which marked the beginning of NATO, 1949.
Brussels' global strategy, penned by its foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, calls for the bloc to be handed the military power to ''repel, respond and protect'' against threats.
Tellingly it says the EU should have ''strategic autonomy'' in the world without having to rely on the US, or now Britain too, for its defence needs in a clear push towards acquiring its own army.
The paper states: "We, as Europeans, need to take on a greater responsibility for our own security.
"We need to be ready and able to repel, respond and to protect ourselves against aggression, provocations and destabilisation."
Possible areas of cooperation include the deployment of unmanned aircrafts, aerial refuelling services, satellite communication and cyber resistance and defence.
The plan would also see EU nations meet at least once a year to discuss how each country manages its defence budget.
Writing in NATO Magazine in December, defence expert Sven Bishop from the Egmont Institute argued in light of the election of Donald Trump: ''Including the objective of 'strategic autonomy' in the Global Strategy was prescient.
''It is self-evident that Europeans nations need the enhanced military capabilities, and access to a command structure, that would allow them to act alone when that is the only option.''
Related articles
VIDEO - Transportation secretary admits that infrastructure plan is to make you pay tolls to corporations
Unpopular President Donald ''Tiny Hands'' Trump has said that he and other Republicans have big plans for America's infrastructure. Those plans include putting a halt to infrastructure plans in California as well as privatizing the process, thus ensuring us taxpayers will have to pay twice in order to use things like roads and bridges. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao was on Sean Hannity's news-gameshow and you could really see that Ms. Chao is not the seasoned scam-artist when it comes to articulating a hussle. After saying how we needed to come up with ''new and innovative ways'' to revamp our country's infrastructure, Chao started falling all over herself.
So, basically, we allow foreign inv'--uh, we allow different kinds of money, private sector money to come into the United States'--I'm not saying foreign'--to come and fund, let's say a bridge or a road or it can be any kind of infrastructure.
Wow. She just let all of those corrupt and swampy cats out of the bag, didn't she? Chao takes a detour to do the rhetorical trick of telling you what infrastructure means'--broadband and energy and bears, oh my. She then explains what public and private sector ''partnerships'' are. It allows ''private money to come in to help fund public works.'' Holy crap, this is literally the Secretary of Transportation talking about our future infrastructure plans.
Hannity, seeing that Chao has no goddamn idea how to articulate herself without sounding like some kind of Alex Jones lizard person, decides to rephrase the madness of this plan to double bill Americans.
If I'm hearing it properly,what you're saying is, forexample, if a company were torebuild a road, they might gettheir investment back by havinga toll on that road and that'swhere the taxpayers don't pay apenny, they make a profit, it'sa win-win?Something like that?
Whoa. You didn't hear that right, Sean. She's saying that the federal government, i.e. our tax dollars, will be used in tandem with privatizing the infrastructure costs, thus creating a fake reason for private corporations to profit off of our roads and bridges and transportation systems. Instead of the money you pay on your toll going to a county or a state, it'll go into ExxonMobil so that you can cross the newly named ExxonMobil bridge. The best part? All of that ''money'' that corporations ''spent'' on helping us with their infrastructure will just be ''pretend'' as they divert our tax money directly into their pockets in a combination of bullshit tax incentives and money-recouping scams like tolls.
Watch four minutes of our country being fleeced below.
VIDEO - CNN Counterterrorism Expert Drops Trump BOMBSHELL, ''This Man Is DELUSIONAL'' | TruthExaminer.com |
Former CIA counterterrorism official Phillip Mudd appeared on CNN this evening and went off on Donald Trump tonight in response to the president's wiretapping tweets.
Mudd said that most of the people he talks to still in government now see Trump as a ''circus clown'' who's alleging a gigantic conspiracy that either the FBI and DOJ conspired with the FISA court to go after him, or that Barack Obama engaged in a ''felonious violation of federal law that exceeds what we saw in Watergate.''
He argued that this is just a smokescreen Trump is using to avoid tough questions on Russia:
''The smokescreen is a lie that says there is a massive conspiracy involving the judiciary, the FISA court, the Department of Justice, and the FBI. The man is delusional, Wolf, and the conversation has to transition from how to we explain what the Commander-in-Chief is doing to how do we understand the acts of a man who doesn't understand the difference bdtween protecting his brand and protecting the country. I've never seen anything like this, Wolf.''
VIDEO - THE CITY THAT SEES THE MOST MIGRANTS - YouTube
Barbra Streisand says Donald Trump is making her gain weight. The singer tweeted on Saturday that news involving the president affects her morning routine.
"Donald Trump is making me gain weight. I start the day with liquids, but after the morning news, I eat pancakes smothered in maple syrup!" the singer tweeted on Saturday.
Donald Trump is making me gain weight. I start the day with liquids, but after the morning news, I eat pancakes smothered in maple syrup!
'-- Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) March 5, 2017Her comments came after Trump recently claimed the Obama administration wiretapped his Trump Tower phones during the 2016 presidential election. The White House asked Congress to investigate the matter on Sunday.
"Trump just accused Obama of tapping his phones. Seriously crazy times," added Streisand. "Time for more pancakes."
Trump just accused Obama of tapping his phones. Seriously crazy times. Time for more pancakes.
'-- Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) March 5, 2017The performer has made it clear in the past that she is not a supporter of Trump. Streisand penned an essay for The Huffington Post titled "Clueless, Reckless, Graceless, Mindless and Heartless: Our President Elect," where she expressed that Trump is "dangerous and unfit for office."
After Meryl Streep's anti-Trump Golden Globes speech, Streisand called in to MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews while getting her teeth cleaned and said she agreed with Streep. "You can't trust anything he says," the singer added about Trump.
VIDEO - Former CIA Analyst: Obama Gave "Green Light" For NSA, CIA to Sabotage Trump >> Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
Former CIA Analyst: Obama Gave "Green Light" For NSA, CIA to Sabotage Trump >> Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!Former CIA Analyst: Obama Gave "Green Light" For NSA, CIA to Sabotage Trump >> Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
VIDEO - What This Russian Official Just Said To CNN Will Drive Them MAD! They Look Like Complete Idiots! - YouTube
On Friday a group of protesters disrupted a Townhall meeting for Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Only all is not what it seemed, as KPEL reported that audio was leaked from a meeting with the protesters prior to the Townhall that gave instructions on how to make it look like a hostile group of Conservatives. And yes they were attempting to manufacture anti-Trump sentiments.
And it wasn't the first time- they also disrupted the Senator's Townhall in Metairie, Louisiana.
The Senator was scheduled to have a total of 5 Townhall meetings. The protesters- ok infiltrators '' had been coached on how to disrupt, and dominate the meeting. They were NOT ordinary ''locals'' as some media called them.
The audio is faint, but you can hear James Proctor, with the group ''Indivisible Guide,'' tell them to all get there early so the the others can't get in. He reminded them that if they confronted the police they wouldn't come out good in that situation, so to keep it disruptive without getting arrested. Some were concerned that the police hadn't been notified they were coming.
''If you all get there early, there won't be room for any of them.'' [laughter]
''Look like Conservatives, dress like Conservatives, wear a suit and a tie, dress like housewives'...''
Wait'...was that a sexist remark? Dress like housewives?
The Daily Caller reported,
The activists split up into an ''inside team'' '-- tasked with occupying ''as many seats as we can'' and an ''outside team,'' whose job was to ''give [the media] the coverage they want'' before joining the others inside. Activists were instructed to dress like conservatives and leave at home ''any signifier that you're a liberal'' in order to blend in with constituents.
The leftist activists strategized how best to ''dominate'' the question-and-answer section of the town hall and keep anyone ''sympathetic'' to Cassidy from asking a question.
Friday, Feb 24
At the Breaux Bridge Townhall meeting, the protesters disrupted the pledge of allegiance and the opening prayer. They shouted ''Do your job'' at every turn. Most media truly believed they were locals who didn't like Trump- and that was the appearance they were trying to purvey. They yelled ''Pray on your own time'' and ''Separation of church and state'' (among other things) during the opening prayer.
''Thanks for doing that. Wow, they booed the name of Jesus.''Senator Cassidy as he thanked Michael Sprague, the pastor who gave the opening prayer.
''I assume they're Americans who care about our country, who feel differently about Trump than most folks in Louisiana do. But they're coming out with their constitutionally protected right to assemble and speak. And isn't that a good thing?'' Senator Cassidy
Not necessarily, Senator. All is not what it seemed.
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VIDEO - Franken: 'We don't know what the Russians have on Donald Trump' - ABC News
Democratic Sen. Al Franken said President Trump's assertion that former President Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower during the 2016 election campaign are ''just ridiculous and a distraction."
''This is just a distraction, to distract from this very, very serious interference by a foreign power on our democracy and the question of whether Trump world -- his campaign, his business associates -- had anything to do with it and colluding with them,'' the Minnesota senator told ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz on "This Week" on Sunday.
Franken, who has called for an independent investigation into questions around Russia and Trump campaign associates, said: "Here's what I want to get to.
His own son, Donald Trump's son, has said in 2008, that Russia did an inordinate amount of business with them. And we don't know what they have over him. We don't know what the Russians have on Donald Trump. And we need -- and we need to see, if anything -- we need to see his tax returns.
Raddatz noted that it was Franken, a Senate Judiciary Committee member, who asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his Jan. 10 confirmation hearing about allegations that Trump associates communicated with Russian officials during the presidential campaign.
Sessions told the Judiciary Committee he ''did not have communications with the Russians.''
''That turned out not to be true,'' Franken told Raddatz. ''He was testifying under oath to the American people and he said something that just wasn't true.''
It was revealed last week that during the campaign Sessions, who was then a senator on the Armed Services Committee and also working to help Trump's candidacy, had spoken twice to Russia's ambassador to the U.S. In the wake of these reports, the attorney general recused himself from any investigations around Russia's alleged interference in the election or its contacts with Trump associates.
Franken, however, has not like some other Democrats called for Sessions to resign. The senator also told Raddatz that he doesn't want to call Sessions' apparently mistaken testimony to the Senate perjury.
''I don't want to go there definitively and say that we should be prosecuting the attorney general,'' Franken said. But he said Sessions ''owes it to the Judiciary Committee to come back and explain himself.''
Franken said he has asked Sessions to come back before the committee but he said he has yet to get a response.
VIDEO - Martha Raddatz Calls Out Sarah Huckabee Sanders For Repeatedly Lying About Trump's Wiretap Tweets | Crooks and Liars
White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's assertion that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump's phones -- but she provided no evidence to back up the claim.
During an interview on ABC News, host Martha Raddatz pointed out that Trump had insisted that it was a "fact" that his phones had been monitored by the former president without offering proof.
"The New York Times, the BBC have also talked about and reported on the potential of this having had happened," Sanders said. "All we're saying is let's take a closer look. Let's look into this. If this happened, if this is accurate, this is the biggest overreach."
"If, if, if, if, if!" Raddatz exclaimed. "Why is the president saying it did happen?"
"I think he is going off information he's seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential," Sanders insisted. "The American people have a right to know if this took place."
"The president believes it is true?" Raddatz pressed after again explaining that Trump had called the wiretapping claim a "fact."
"His tweet speaks for itself," Sanders demurred. "He's talking about, could this have happened?"
"He's saying -- once again, he said it did happen," Raddatz repeated.
"All we're asking is we get the same level of look into the Obama administration and the potential that they had for a complete abuse of power that they've been claiming that we've done over the last six months," Sanders opined. "And time and time again, there's no evidence or wrongdoing. The FBI says this is B.S. Yes, you guys continue to hammer and hammer of some false idea and false narrative that there's something there when, frankly, there just isn't."
"I just want to say, Donald Trump started this on Saturday morning," the ABC host quipped.
VIDEO - Trump's wiretapping claim makes U.S. 'vulnerable': Panetta | Reuters.com
ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: In an interview with "Face the Nation" on CBS, Leon Panetta, the CIA director and defense secretary under former President Obama, said that President Donald Trump's allegation against Obama that the then-president ordered a wiretap of the phones at Trump's campaign headquarters in Trump Tower would make the U.S. "vulnerable." "When he accuses a past president of wiretapping without any evidence of that being the case it makes us vulnerable. It weakens the United States and it makes us vulnerable to our enemies," Panetta said on Sunday (March 5). Trump made the wiretapping accusation, without supporting evidence, in a series of early morning tweets on Saturday amid expanding scrutiny of his campaign's ties to Russia. An Obama spokesman denied the charge, saying it was "a cardinal rule" that no White House official interfered with independent Justice Department investigations.
VIDEO - Pelosi Won't Condemn Dem Rep's Sexist Comments Towards Conway - YouTube
The former Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper, appears on NBC with Chuck Todd and categorically denies there was ever any wire tapping of Donald Trump in Trump Tower as a candidate or as a President Elect. WATCH:
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Now, the obvious caveat is that DNI Clapper has previously lied to congress about meta-data collection, or mass surveillance of communications of Americans; later claiming it was the 'least possible lie' he could come up with.
So, unfortunately Clapper is not necessarily trustworthy. However, that said, if we are to take Clapper as being honest and straightforward this time, well, that means ALL of the prior media reports are FAKE NEWS.
(New York Times Article Link)
There are dozens of New York Times, Washington Post and various left-wing media articles ''SEE HERE'' which point to the stories around these ''Wire Taps''.
Additionally, there are exponentially more politicians who are 'on-the-record' giving their opinion about the intelligence ''leaks'' that are framed around these supposed ''wire-taps'' actually taking place. Heck, the entire 'muh Russian' conspiracy is necessarily dependent on the existence of leaks which are founded upon these ''taps''.
So an entire media apparatus which has decried the label of being called ''Fake News'', are now either going to have to admit their prior presentations were, well, actually fake news; or they are going to have to refute DNI Clapper and stick to their position. Don't look for the latter, and they'll ignore the former.
Move along, move along'.... ignore noticing that all of those prior media reports and column inches were based entirely on fabricated loin cloth.
President Trump pointing out the media stories that have claimed ''wire tapps'' as evidence to the existence of said ''wire tapps'', now puts the media into a position of admitting their stories were false. But don't wait for the media to actually admit their stories were false, they'll count on no-one actually holding them accountable for that aspect.
Additionally, you can see the full retreat by the political apparatchik in this interview with Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) who was questioned about his Friday claim that there were actually transcripts of communications between Trump officials and the Russians based on intelligence intercepts. Today, in the face of President Trump again pointing out references to these intercepts, Senator Chris Coons walks back. WATCH:
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Summary of MSM Articles Discussing Wire Taps HERE
NSA Director Mike Rogers Discussion via Wire Taps HERE
Full Timeline of Intelligence Community Reporting HERE
