From the day Donald J. Trump entered the race, this past election cycle followed a path from the most bizarre to the most corrupted in our history. If a website experienced the multilateral attacks this election suffered, it would have been taken down. Your bank would have notified you after one such intrusion into your account, cancelled your card and the unauthorized charges to it, and arranged for a new card to be issued. Our government knew these things and did nothing to head off what amounts to election theft.
By now, you know about all of this, of course. I am posting it for the record. Why was this information not released prior to Election Day? What can be done now? Must we live with a flawed election? How secure are we if a major adversary can influence our elections and install the candidate they prefer? If this were not presidential election, I would be tempted to go full Laurel & Hardy mode and say, “Now you’ve done it!” But it is not a movie. It is not TV. It is not reality TV. It is reality.
CIA assessment: Russia tried to help Trump win 2016 election
CIA briefers told senators in a closed-door briefing it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
President Obama giving a speech in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday. He has ordered a comprehensive report on the Russian efforts.Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.
They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.
In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.
Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked. On Friday, a senior committee official said he had no comment.
In the wake of a “soul-crushing” report on Russia’s meddling in the presidential election, Sen. Harry Reid has called for FBI Director James Comey to resign for allegedly withholding information on President-elect Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Reid, who was a fierce opponent of Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, which many believe cost her the election, told MSNBC on Saturday that he believes the FBI knew all along that Russia was helping Trump and deliberately did nothing about it. “This is not fake news. Intelligence officials are hiding connections to the Russian government. There is no question,” Reid said.
The CIA believes Moscow tried to destroy Hillary Clinton and tilt the election. Republicans stayed quiet. This is a fight for who controls America: you or Putin?
Michael Tomasky
12.10.16
Make no mistake, yesterday’s Washington Post revelation that the CIA has concluded that Russia was actively trying to elect Donald Trump as opposed to just “meddling with” the election, is a nuclear bombshell. And if the Post piece is Hiroshima, then today’s New York Times story, which adds the detail that Russian actors also hacked email accounts at the Republican National Committee but did not release those publicly as they did Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails, is Nagasaki.
Hyperbole? Think again. A foreign government may have determined the outcome of a presidential election. And not Canada or Costa Rica, but Russia: the United States’ chief historic adversary and an oligarchy ruled by a tyrant who has systematically taken away rights. Bombshells don’t come much bigger.
Oh, wait; yes they do. On top of all the above, leaders of one of our two political parties—I’ll let you hazard a guess as to which one—argued against letting the American public know about all this before the election, reportedly saying it would be too partisan. That’s not hardball politics. That’s a hair’s breath away from treason.
I just watched E.J. Dionne with Lawrence O’Donnell and know why the Clintons love him. His education, and it was not even Jesuit, as I suspected. It was Benedictine. Imagine that! The guy not only knows logic, he knows how to apply it in daily life.
The fault, in the faux comparison between the Watergate investigation and the Benghazi “investigation” was the target of Dionne’s laser-beam tonight. Using few words, E.J. managed to illustrate why there can be no comparison between the real scandal of the Watergate cover-up and the in-construction of a Benghazigate cover-up.
Eminence-grise that he is, E.J. hearkened back to a bi-partisan effort to find facts via hearings. Having gathered the evidence, the special committee on Watergate arrived at a conclusion of a cover-up conspiracy. E.J. then contrasted the partisan effort of Darryl Issa, Jason Chaffetz, & Co. on Benghazi that, having decided on a conclusion of a cover-up, now attempts, by way of cherry-picked hearings, to construct a web of evidence.
Thomas Pickering, co-chair of the Accountability Review Board appointed by then Secretary of State Clinton, and other officials from the State Department and the Department of Defense, volunteered to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today to balance the information and testimony offered by the “Whistleblowers.” Those offers were declined.
Clearly there is an agenda here, and E.J. spotlighted it like a professor with a laser light. The two sets of hearings work from two opposing constructs.
The Watergate hearings, having listened to a wide variety of testimonies arrived at a specific proposition: there was a cover-up. Deduction, my dear Watson.
The Darryl Issa war on Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is an inductive effort. Let’s find enough testimony to point to a cover-up conspiracy – just in case she runs. Find evidence for this proposition.
N.B. This is not pure induction. It is, having decided on a conclusion, cherry-picking the evidence, not a true investigation. If Issa really wanted a pure conclusion, he would have invited all who were willing to testify, including Ambassador Pickering.
A friend and former colleague of Huma Abedin (profiled here last week) my favorite political analyst, Karen Finney at The Hill, has taken on Michele Bachmann and her crazy allegations. Karen correctly points out the dangerous direct impact Bachmann & Co. are having on our fragile relationships with newly democratic Arab states. Those who pelted Hillary Clinton’s car with tomatoes and shoes in Egypt believed allegations they read on blogs by Frank Gaffney and Lucianne Goldberg. Michele Bachmann and her minions have endangered our Head Homegirl, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Karen Finney rightly and justifiably calls for her to be removed from her post on the Intelligence Committee. We applaud Karen’s strong defense of Huma, her loyal concern for Hillary Clinton, and her firm demand for Bachmann to answer for her dangerous claims. (I am filing this under “violence against women” among other categories because of the true physical danger this insanity poses to our hard-working Secretary of State and her Deputy Chief of Staff.)
So! Once again the homegirls and boys here in the Hillaryhood say “Go Karen! You rock!”
During Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Egypt, protesters threw shoes and tomatoes at the motorcade because they believe the Obama administration rigged recent elections to ensure the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammed Morsi (now elected president), would win, all part of a secret pro-Islamist agenda. Reports indicated protesters cited American blogs like Lucianne.com (founded by conservative Lucianne Goldberg, who played a role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal); former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, known for his theory that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to impose Islamic Shariah Law and infiltrate the American government; as well as recent claims by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) that the Obama administration has been infiltrated by loyalists to the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically naming Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary Clinton, and that billions of American dollars had been paid to the Muslim Brotherhood rather than aid to the Egyptian military.
SNIP
Bachmann and the others who signed on to her call for an investigation have abused their position as members of the House of Representatives, making baseless accusations that recklessly jeopardize an already tense situation in the Middle East, and endangering the life of an American secretary of State and Americans in the region by stoking anti-American sentiment.
Since this blog is about homegirls (and boys) and security, I think it is appropriate to share here a brilliant analysis by Karen Finney at The Hillexposing costs of war that fall through the cracks in budget proposals.
This is the real cost, and it is incumbent upon all of us to consider deeply how secure continued operations and deployments keep us and whether current levels are worth these costs . Equally important is our encouragement to legislators to be certain these costs are covered in current and future budgets. Not worth merely a read, worth sharing every way you know how. Homegirl Karen hit a home run with this one!
We may never know all of the factors that led an American soldier to allegedly murder 16 people in Afghanistan. The more we do learn, the more it seems there were signs of the toll that repeated deployments, an injury and the stress of his situation back home were taking. None of that excuses what the soldier reportedly did. However, given the number of Americans who have served or are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who could be facing similar stressors, we have a responsibility to better understand and factor in these human costs in any conversations about the way forward — particularly for the benefit of the 40 percent of U.S. citizens who still believe the war is worth the costs.
This is more than an op-ed in a column. In a comment in the thread below I called it a treatise. Karen Finney may well be the 21st century Thomas Paine for women and others. Looking at this text again, I see it as the basis of a doctrine, the Finney Budgetary Doctrine. This is very important information that Karen has compiled, and the implications are enormous and look far down the road. That is where we all should be looking.
In order to avoid offending Homegirls and Homeboys here, I will refrain from posting a picture of the perpetrator. We all know what she looks like. Back in 2009, this Op-Ed was posted on HuffPo quoting Sarah Palin’s claim that what is now known as “Obamacare” would result in “death panels” that somehow would have decided ordered that her son Trig should be aborted.
I wonder why I do not hear allusive arguments today to Palin’s claims then. Given the now infamous “panel of men” assembled to decide exactly what kind and how much, if any, health care women should receive, I wonder where Palin is and all her followers who were crying “foul” in 2009?
There is plenty wrong with “Obamacare.” No one will deny that. The biggest fault, in my book, was the withdrawal of the single-payer option which would have obviated the conflict with religious institutions we all witnessed last week. What we did not get with Obamacare are “death panels.”
The Republicans, across the board, are bent on repealing Obamacare. Where do they attack first? Coverage of prescriptions and procedures known to be vital to women’s well-being and therefore family health and welfare. But I hear no voices harking back to Palin’s prognostication as this panel of men assembles to decide whether women live in pain and life-threatening conditions or receive the medications and procedures that mitigate these conditions.
Anyone who has lost a mother at a young age, Madonna and Rosie O”Donnell are two who come to mind, can attest to the devastation that brings to a family. There are ways, now, to prevent such losses to young families that were not available to mothers of their generation. My own mother lost her mom in childbirth when she was only six. That might have been prevented today. But Republicans think men, some of whom are educated in theology rather than medicine, should be the voices to be heeded.
Among the Republicans, and specifically among those running for President, there is one who seems to believe essentially what Palin did about “death panels” and all that horror.
I ran across this article in Jezebel today, and there is an opposing argument. The absolutely beautiful and healthy little baby, if pictures are worth a thousand words, is testament to the value of pre-natal testing and monitoring. This story is a must read.
Next month, my daughter Ella will turn 11 years old. She’s a beautiful girl, with blond hair and green eyes. She’s an amazing artist, a brilliant writer, and she can do the splits without even warming up.
And if I hadn’t had an amniocentesis, she would have died the day she was born.
She is a beautiful little baby girl, and she has the whole world in front of her. Who knows what she might become?
Full disclosure here: My sister and I were both Rh+ born to an Rh- mother. We were both born blue. We both developed jaundice, and this was in the late 1940s, so we never knew how we survived. We do know that our mom had at least two miscarriages, perhaps for this reason, one before I was born and one between the two of us.
I am glad for the procedures, monitoring, and insurance coverage that allowed this beautiful girl-child to survive and thrive.
Just got an email from Robby Mook saying that my DCCC membership has expired and all I need to do to renew it is contribute.
With the Federal Election Commission (FEC) deadline just days away, there has never been a more critical time to show your support for President Obama’s agenda….
Really, Robby? And what agenda would that be? The one that has yet to advocate for full civil rights for gay Americans? The one that extended unemployment benefits for 13 months but the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans for two years? The one that, instead of fighting for the single payer option simply allowed it to be excised from the health care bill? The one that still does not firmly, once and for all say that LGBT rights are human rights, and human rights are LGBT rights? That among those rights is the right to serve one’s country, and to die for it, as openly gay? As who you are?
That agenda?
Dear Robby,
When the Democratic Party listens to its membership, I will renew my membership.
The party refused to provide a fair and transparent roll call vote in Denver in 2008, and the RBC reassigned Hillary Clinton delegates to Barack Obama in a move that, if not illegal, was at least unethical.
I, as a registered Democrat resent the way the party treated me and my 18 million pro-Hillary cohorts. My contributions since 2008 have gone and until further notice will continue to go to Hillary Clinton.
What will it take for me to make future contributions? Put Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket where she belongs.
The Congresswoman was shot point-blank in the head while appearing at a constituent event this morning. If you click on her banner, you will see the information about this event on her website. The CNN story is here. According to a sheriff’s deputy, 17 others were also shot. At the moment, the Congresswoman is out of surgery. Doctors are optimistic for her recovery. Her District Director was among six people killed.
The Congresswoman had won re-election. You would have to be living on Pluto not know that the 112th Congress convened this past week. The Congresswoman was doing exactly what she was elected to do – meeting with her constituents in her home district to listen and learn what they want her to do as their representative.
The reason we have elections is so that we can choose to hire or fire our representatives without resorting to bloodshed. Our thoughts and prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her family, friends, colleagues, and the others who were injured and killed, their friends and families. My Lord! What is this country becoming?
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