Elizabeth Drew on White House leaks: “It’s not an exaggeration to say that Trump has the most unhappy staff ever” https://t.co/qJAoVddFOh
— NY Review of Books (@nybooks) May 30, 2017
The dangerous rise of "stalkerware" that enables domestic violence: https://t.co/V3hGYep6ip pic.twitter.com/ajXVotI6gS— Lainna Fader (@lainnafader) May 25, 2017
Twitter Loses It When Louise Mensch Says ‘Marshal of the Supreme Court’ Told Trump About Impeachment https://t.co/jJp3gXUren pic.twitter.com/NNRFxTqvLf
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) May 20, 2017
This is just sad now. Eternal shame on the people with prominent platforms who have enabled this. https://t.co/ejxSElGnA7 pic.twitter.com/wcA5ngLCdg
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 20, 2017
Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia https://t.co/mZX2ZxzXDp
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) May 19, 2017
The special counsel mistake: Rosenstein bends to political pressure, and here we go again. https://t.co/N6vgc24swr— WSJ Editorial Page (@WSJopinion) May 18, 2017
Democrats and their media allies finally got their man. After weeks of political pressure, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein blinked late Wednesday and announced that he has named a special counsel to investigate Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. These expeditions rarely end well for anyone, and Democrats are hoping this one will bedevil the Trump Administration for the next four years.RTWT.
“My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted,” said Mr. Rosenstein, which is nice but irrelevant. With Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused from the Russia probe, Mr. Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller III, who will now have unlimited time and resources to investigate more or less anything and anyone he wants.
While the decision will provide some short-term political relief, not least for Mr. Rosenstein, it also opens up years of political risk to the Trump Administration with no guarantee that the public will end up with any better understanding of what really happened.
The problem with special counsels, as we’ve learned time and again, is that they are by definition all but politically unaccountable...
"What’s the number one threat to the United States today? The Assault on President Trump." - Stephen Cohen#Tucker #ComeyMemo #FakeNews pic.twitter.com/1QVnrmNgvX
— Vote Trump Pics (@VoteTrumpPics) May 17, 2017
Stephen Cohen on "assault" on @POTUS: "This is beyond belief now, and has become...a national security threat to us in itself." #Tucker pic.twitter.com/T3SJDYbDVa
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 17, 2017
Biggest political question: will R voters stick w Trump? Yes, in short term. But this is beginning of end https://t.co/Xp9K4PY8x3
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) May 17, 2017
Principled objections to Mr. Trump’s policies and leadership style should not blind opponents to the dangers of repeated, knee-jerk calls for criminal prosecution of the president of the United States. Let the evidence unfold, and reserve serious charges if and when the evidence warrants it. Crying wolf undermines the credibility of the opposition, further divides an already deeply divided country and breeds cynicism about American institutions that is as dangerous to our republic, if not more, than outside meddling.A great piece. RTWT.
Robert S. Mueller III named special prosecutor, dramatically raising stakes for Trump in Russia investigations https://t.co/wiouaQfHVV
— Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) May 17, 2017
Just ask Hillary: The appointment of a special counsel gives Trump short-term relief--and a big long-term risk. https://t.co/sD3RKe9oH0
— Susan Page (@SusanPage) May 18, 2017
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.Keep reading.
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.”
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...
Putin: Trump attackers 'worse than prostitutes' https://t.co/RCpieZQvEy pic.twitter.com/JtGHj4rDZY
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) January 17, 2017
Vladimir Putin: 'our prostitutes are the best in the world, but I doubt Donald Trump would fall for them' https://t.co/KOXGkXCQvE
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 17, 2017
In his waning days in the White House, President Obama is desperately trying to make his policies as permanent as possible by tying the hands of his successor — and far more than other presidents have done on their way out.Still more.
From his dramatic and disastrous change of US policy on Israel to his executive order restricting 1.65 million acres of land from development despite local objections, Obama is trying to make it impossible for Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress to govern.
Even Thursday’s announcement of wide-ranging sanctions against Russia presents Trump with a foreign-policy crisis immediately upon taking office.
By contrast, many of Obama’s predecessors have stood back in their final days in office and refrained from any dramatic shifts, in deference to the agenda of the man voters sent to succeed them.
But Obama won’t accept the election results. As he suggested the other day, Trump’s election was a fluke — and he himself would have easily been re-elected if allowed to stand for a third term.
He believes this not just because he’s an effective campaigner, but because he thinks his “vision” and policies continue to be backed by “a majority of the American people.”
But Obama, like many Democrats, fails to understand what happened in the election: Voters were calling for real change from the status quo — from his policies. Indeed, before the vote, he himself said it was a referendum on him and his policies.
Memo to the president: You lost.
Whether it was the lackluster economy, ObamaCare, trade, the sweeping failure of his foreign policy or illegal immigration, voters sought something very different.
Trump, on the other hand, did more than just energize his base: He flipped six states that voted for Obama in 2012.
The results, as many have since come to realize, is that the Democratic Party now caters to a hard-left, elite core located on the two coasts — and has abandoned the working-class Americans in the heartland it so loudly claims to champion...
Vladimir Putin is betting that the smartest move is to do nothing.
The Russian president announced Friday that his government would not expel any U.S. diplomats in retaliation for U.S. punitive measures unveiled by the White House a day earlier in response to Russia’s alleged cyber-attacks.
Putin’s sidestep away from confrontation was widely read as a deliberate bow to President-elect Donald Trump -- and a final hard slap at President Obama in the waning weeks of the U.S. leader’s tenure.
“We will not create any problems for U.S. diplomats. We will not expel anyone,” Putin said in a statement posted on the Kremlin website that followed well-publicized calls from senior Russian officials for a sharp pushback against the U.S. administration over steps that included the expulsions of 35 Russian diplomats.
The Russian leader said the Kremlin would instead base future moves on “the policies of the Trump administration.” Trump quickly praised Putin for putting off any action, tweeting: “I always knew he was very smart!”
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016
Putin won't expel U.S. diplomats as his foreign minister urged. He is apparently betting on better ties under Trump. https://t.co/deFtUkJJFh
— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 31, 2016
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia announced Friday that he would not retaliate against President Obama’s decision to expel Russian diplomats and impose new sanctions — only hours after his foreign minister recommended doing just that.Shrewd, like I said. He's making Obama look like a petulant child.
Mr. Putin, betting on improved relations with the next American president, said he would not eject 35 diplomats or close any diplomatic facilities, rejecting a tit-for-tat response to the actions taken on Thursday by the Obama administration.
The switch was remarkable, given that Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, had just recommended the retaliation in remarks broadcast live on national television. He called for punitive measures mirroring the ones imposed by the Obama administration, which accuses Russia of intimidating American diplomats and hacking institutions like the Democratic National Committee to influence the 2016 election.
The two countries have a long history of reciprocal expulsions, and Russian officials had been threatening to retaliate for days. Then Mr. Putin abruptly changed course.
“While we reserve the right to take reciprocal measures, we’re not going to downgrade ourselves to the level of irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy,” Mr. Putin said, using a common Russian idiom for quarrelsome and unseemly acts. “In our future steps on the way toward the restoration of Russia-United States relations, we will proceed from the policy pursued by the administration” of Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Putin has a flair for smart, unexpected tactics, and his announcement on Friday appeared to be in keeping with that. To some observers, the sudden shift seemed carefully stage-managed, a way of building up suspense before Mr. Putin’s surprise announcement, helping portray him as a wise leader above the fray.
Mr. Putin even said he did not want to close a wooded picnic area on a Moscow River island used by diplomats because he did not want to deprive their children. Then he went one step further, inviting all children of American diplomats accredited in Russia to celebrate the New Year and the Russian Orthodox Christmas with him at the Kremlin.
“Putin showed that he is above his own officials, that he doesn’t want to take the retaliatory action suggested by his foreign minister,” said Vladimir Frolov, an international relations analyst and columnist. “This is an attempt to show that he is a figure not just of worldly scale, but of planetary.”
Should Mr. Putin have chosen to retaliate harshly against the United States, he would most likely have deepened the rift between the two countries and left President-elect Trump with a nettlesome diplomatic standoff from the moment he arrived in the Oval Office.
But by choosing essentially to disregard Mr. Obama’s punitive measures, Mr. Putin can try to disarm his American critics, including members of Congress who consider him an aggressive foe of the United States. That could give Mr. Trump more room to pursue the closer cooperation with Russia that he has advocated.
Despite all of the statements from senior officials about the need to respect “reciprocity,” Mr. Putin essentially warned Washington that he was waiting for the Trump administration...
U.S. punishes Russia over election hacking with sanctions, expulsion of 35 diplomats https://t.co/5AduSeZ9rI pic.twitter.com/tEWhJKRYur— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 29, 2016
President Barack Obama sanctioned Russian government intelligence agencies and expelled 35 suspected Russian intelligence operatives from the U.S. in what he called a partial response to Russia’s alleged use of cyberattacks to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.More.
Russia threatened to retaliate, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying “the principle of reciprocity applies here.” He said Russian President Vladimir Putin would formulate a response that would create “considerable discomfort in the same areas” for the U.S., according to the Interfax news agency.
The sanctions designate Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the Main Intelligence Directorate, or the GRU, for “tampering, altering or causing the misappropriation of information” with the purpose or effect of interfering with the election. The measures also designate Russia’s main security agency, the Federal Security Service, for assisting the GRU in those activities.
The administration also sanctioned three Russian companies it accused of providing material support for the GRU’s cyber operations and four top Russian officials who run the military intelligence agency.
At the same time, the State Department expelled 35 Russian intelligence operatives allegedly serving under diplomatic cover from the Russian embassy in Washington and the Russian consulate in San Francisco. The officials and their families were given 72 hours to leave the U.S. after the State Department said they “were acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic status.” The deadline is noon on Sunday.
The State Department also notified Russia that as of Friday Moscow would be denied access to two Russian government-owned compounds in the U.S. One is a dacha, or summer retreat, for Russian embassy officials on the eastern shore of Maryland, and the other is a dacha compound for New York-based Russian diplomats on Long Island, a U.S. official said. The White House accused Russia of using the recreational compounds for “intelligence-related purposes.”
The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation also released a joint analysis report, titled “Grizzly Steppe,” giving additional technical details about the election hacking.
Mr. Obama said the steps were “in response to the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election” and followed repeated warnings to Moscow.
“These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government,” Mr. Obama said in a statement.
Russia has denied involvement in the election hacks.
Mr. Peskov said Thursday the new U.S. measures were a display of the Obama administration’s unpredictability and aggressive foreign policy. He said the White House wanted “to ruin once and for all Russian-American relations, which were already at rock-bottom, and apparently, strike a blow against the foreign-policy plans of the future administration,” according to Interfax.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Facebook page that the Russian Foreign Ministry would make an official announcement regarding countermeasures against the U.S. on Friday. She said “the American people have been humiliated by their own president.”
The administration’s announcement could reignite the debate between the White House and President-elect Donald Trump, who has challenged the accuracy of the U.S. intelligence assessment attributing the hacks to Russia and called it “ridiculous.” Mr. Obama called Mr. Trump on Wednesday ahead of the announcement...
Why Democrats Can’t Move On? - by @tobincommentary https://t.co/dLqXq2MZ1F pic.twitter.com/o6uLRLgogX
— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) December 21, 2016
Like the effort to force recounts in swing states won by Trump, the attempt to persuade the Electoral College to see the president-elect as part of a Russian plot or to channel The Federalist Papers and pick someone else flopped. So now that the fantasies that the bad dream can be made to go away are exploded, what are Democrats who are still refusing to accept they lost to do?Remember, it's the left that's fomenting fascism in America. All these attempts to delegitimize Trump are textbook examples of fascist political agitation, right out of the last days of Weimar.
The answer from the left is “resistance.” That’s what Moveon.org — which helped organize some of the protests at the various Electoral College ceremonies as well as other anti-Trump demonstrations — is saying. What form will “resistance” take? That’s far from clear. The group’s leader Anna Galland seems to be primarily interested in more mass street theater. According to radical TV talker Keith Olbermann, it should consist of daily reminders to Republicans that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and refusing to refer to Trump as the president.
Such comically futile gestures don’t sound terribly inspiring or productive, but might make some people feel better. Yet those elected officials tasked with the duty to reconstruct the Democratic Party sound just as confused as nudniks like Galland and Olbermann.
A small number of centrist Democrats like Ohio’s Rep. Tim Ryan, who led a spectacularly unsuccessful challenge to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, think the party should try to cooperate with Trump on issues where they might agree. But that’s something a party increasingly dominated by its Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren leftist faction has no interest in doing. Ellison, who is continuing his effort to be elected the head of the Democratic National Committee, believes the party should refuse to support the infrastructure proposal in spite of the fact that it is remarkably similar to President Obama’s own first term stimulus legislation. While his hopes to be the DNC Chair are still up in the air, he probably speaks for most of his party when he says they don’t trust Trump and will resist him on every front.
The point here is not so much their understandable hard feelings about the election results. Rather, it is that they are still stuck in the denial stage of grief and can’t shake it off. Though they’ll pay lip service to the notion of serving the best interests of the country, there’s little doubt that they are far more interested in continuing the project to delegitimize Trump. That’s why so many of them continue to harp on the farcical notion that Vladimir Putin elected Trump or to hope some other Hail Mary play like parlaying disputes over the president-elect’s admittedly tangled and far-flung financial interests into an impeachment putsch even before he takes office will do the trick.
What this means is that rather than a fraction of the party’s extremists starting the new administration enmeshed in a new derangement syndrome, it appears the critical mass of the party that won 48 percent of the vote is unable to move past a disappointing election...
