WSJ source: Trump is planning to restructure CIA because he thinks intelligence has become "completely politicized." https://t.co/DHKyxVVZtu
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 4, 2017
CNN, at 1:35am Friday (Feast of the Ephipany) morning:
US intelligence has identified the go-betweens the Russians used to provide stolen emails to WikiLeaks, according to US officials familiar with the classified intelligence report that was presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday…
Meanwhile, US intelligence has received new information following the election that gave agencies increased confidence that Russia carried out the hack and did so, in part, to help Trump win.
Included in that new information were intercepted conversations of Russian officials expressing happiness at Trump’s win. Another official described some of the messages as congratulatory.
Officials said this was just one of multiple indicators to give them high confidence of both Russian involvement and Russian intentions. Officials reiterated that there is no single intercepted communication that qualifies as a “smoking gun” on Russia’s intention to benefit Trump’s candidacy or to claim credit for doing so.
Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with PBS NewsHour that an unclassified version of an intel report provided to him will be released “very shortly” and will “lay out in bold print what” the US knows about the hacking…
Officials told CNN there’s been a disconnect between Trump’s remarks about the intelligence community and his behind-the-scenes behavior when he’s present at private intel briefings.
(But who’s bringing the bad news about which ruling power, and who are the innocents to be slaughtered when the ruler’s will is thwarted?)
Julian Assange said "a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta" – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Ok forget about politics for a sec. If a CEO tweeted that his research department was terrible and he believed the competitor instead… https://t.co/FpteAKR5Oi
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) January 4, 2017
This is turning in to a hostile takeover of America. https://t.co/49iuGrbWfY
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 4, 2017
@DanaHoule I kinda like the idea of having the CIA on the side of The Resistance tho.
— Boney Hurdle (@eclecticbrotha) January 4, 2017
***********
Further speculation on Trump’s state of mind, when it comes to “intel”…
2/Possible Trump did it on purpose. More likely, he just can’t keep things straight. Which means he’s almost certain to reveal secret info
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 4, 2017
4/…else. But he also probably hated them bc it’s someone else talking instead of him, & bc he can’t follow what the briefer is saying.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 4, 2017
6/…get briefings, and he won’t be anle to remember what he’s supposed to not mention. So he’ll mention it. And that could be very bad.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 4, 2017
marcion
Never thought I’d be rooting so hard for the Deep State.
cmorenc
The last time an Administration “restructured” the national intelligence structure to make intel favorable to what it wanted to believe – we got “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction”, the Iraq War, “this war will pay for itself (Iraqi oil), and “we’ll be greeted as liberators”. And POTUS flying in on a fighter jet to an Aircraft Carrier for a “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. And we’re still dealing with the expensive, smoking mess from that fuck-up. We can only imagine how vastly more fucked up the arrogant, narcissistic toddler about to take office can get us into by not merely only paying attention to intelligence that agrees with what he already believes, but actively restructuring the intelligence agencies so they will be incapable of giving him information contrary to what he already wants to believe.
Yoda Dog
I will seriously never forgive the people that voted for this. Ever. I still cant sleep and I’m still in denial that the electorate is this fucking stupid and hateful.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Yoda Dog: I posted the same on my facebook the other day–about never ever forgiving. Was extremely well received.
On the other hand, I don’t think the Trump voters quite comprehend the severity of our opposition.
JordanRules
@Yoda Dog: That’s how I feel too.
There’s so much swirling around in my head about how destructive this all is. There are a million outrages and mini aggressions. It’s always there now. But so is a resolve about the fight ahead. It will cement what I believe in because part of this is about eating away at who we are individually.
James Powell
@Yoda Dog: @Dog Dawg Damn:
I’m with you both. I’m done pretending to be friends with people who voted for this sideshow freak and his entourage of white supremacists, swindlers, and lunatics.
opiejeanne
@Yoda Dog: The more I read the more worried I become.
Today there were two items that were extremely disturbing. The first was hearing that all of the current ambassadors are being ordered to leave their posts by the inauguration. The second was the threat by the Senate to reduce security at all of our embassies if the US doesn’t move it’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
bemused
The words “Trump” and “state of mind” in the same sentence almost caused me to laugh or sob hysterically.
Jerzy Russian
@opiejeanne: I am conference so I am behind on things. I had heard the first item, but not the second.
Was there a “reason” given regarding the ambassadors, other than Trump being a dick?
The second item will lead to more deaths. Imagine the outrage if a majority Democratic senate had threatened either Bush or the Gipper in a similar fashion.
Baud
@Dog Dawg Damn:
If they ever do, it’ll take some time. To be frank, it is understandable that they believe that our side will move on ti something else at some point, or will spend all of our time fighting amongst ourselves.
BillinGlendaleCA
More and more, I’m coming to the realization that this Trump fella is short bus material, and I’m not at all being snarky about this.
Cermet
Well, maybe if he has the F-35 cancelled and reduces the CIA’s budget he may make a decent executive …and finally put to rest the myth that the thugs give a shit about our military people rather than the $$$ they make off of it via investments/ownership of the military industrial complex. Further, being honest, the CIA and NSA aren’t exactly good at their jobs compared to the hype of their claims. Besides, getting these agencies to hate the thugs is just icing on the cake! LOL – never happen since the thugs – their moneyed masters would lose money but one can dream.
Waldo
Not buying the argument that Trump is primarily worried that the hacking intel deligitimizes his presidency. He was just as touchy about it during the debates — back when it looked like he was going to lose. Guessing there’s a lot more dirt about his Russian connections that he doesn’t want turned up. Hence his kneecapping of the CIA.
Aleta
In November, outraged at the leaks from the FBI.
Now January, hoping that leaks from the CIA/US intelligence keep coming and stay in the news.
Kay
So that’s what Trump spent the day on. Pursuing a personal vendetta and defending in (another) lawsuit.
Kasich, on the other hand, was minding the store. He was out defending the Obamacare Medicaid expansion in Ohio yesterday. I think he hit every news outlet in the state – they ALL put it at the top of the news. Medicaid expansion is, of course, HUGELY beneficial to white working class. One of the many ways Obama cruelly ignored them is by giving them Medicaid coverage. They like it too. Medicaid is single payer. People tell me it’s the best health insurance they ever had.
Baud
@Aleta: What’s good for the goose…..
opiejeanne
@Jerzy Russian: Apparently it’s just three Senators: Rubio, Cruz, and Heller who are proposing this threat; it’s weird because there was a bipartisan agreement to move the embassy in 1995, but these bpzps want to halve security & maintenance funding until it’s done.
Embassy funding threatened
Baud
@Kay: The problem is that those people benefit too.
Kay
So he’s lying and we shouldn’t believe a word he says. I wonder what the President really thinks about Russian hacking and the CIA? I guess no one will ever know.
Do they think this is a problem? That you can’t believe a word this guy says and his own employees contradict him constantly? This happens every single day. The President-elect says something and there’s this “disclaimer” where we’re told it isn’t what he REALLY thinks and then one or two of the political hacks he hired deny he meant what he said. WTF? What are people supposed to do with this? Four years of this ridiculous parsing where Trump isn’t held to anything he says because he doesn’t really mean any of it?
We’re supposed to guess, or assume he means the opposite of what he says? The giant toddler is getting a complete pass on another adult norm that all other people are held to, where we assume he means what he says. More coddling of the special snowflake.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s rural hospitals. Medicaid is a lot easier than getting judgments and garnishing wages. Providers bitch about the low rates but getting paid is better than not getting paid. All of these people used to go to the emergency room. I know. They bring me the judgment after they can’t pay the bill because they know the next thing that happens after judgment is wage garnishment. We actually have a whole new walk-in clinic since Obamacare. I bet it’s 100% Medicaid in there.
Aleta
@Waldo:
Agree. And who knows what else. Which I’d think should have prevented his access to intelligence briefings, except for the little loophole he took advantage of. Meanwhile the press staggers around in the latest piece of shallow muck where he lay down the false scent of the day.
Waldo
@Kay:
Or he means the opposite … or he never said it … or he was just repeating what the internet says … or his 3 a.m. rage tweet was taken out of context …
And the four-year countdown clock has not even started. Oy.
Aleta
@Kay:
Going on Medicaid literally saved my cousin’s life and in the next few years turned around her health, after a lifetime of no health insurance.
Kay
@Baud:
This is just my own opinion, but I do listen to them a lot and I think they resent the government programs they rely on because they think they “shouldn’t” need them- that they were entitled to more than that- a middle class income, better employment, etc. That’s the resentment part, where they end up resenting college educated whites, and all black people, and all Latino people, and all immigrants. It comes from a kind of entitlement they feel they have- that they’re only on Medicaid because they were somehow cheated out of the jobs or wages they deserve.
It’s more complicated than “those people get the benefits too”. It’s “those people made it impossible for me to not need Medicaid” because they’re really in love with the idea that they don’t need “help”- they know relying on a government program is supposed to be shameful. The story they tell themselves is they would not be in this precarious position were it not the fault of liberals, or a whole host of “others”.
Baud
@Kay: Yeah, I can see that. Still bigoted, but more nuanced.
Aleta
@opiejeanne:
Maybe the House should invite them to the next performance of The Story of Benghazi.
Kay
@Aleta:
Oh, I saw what it was like before Medicaid. I know a carpet installer who set his own broken hand. I was wincing just talking to him. They put a splint on it in the ER and sent him off to an surgeon who wanted 17k to fix it properly so he set it himself. He doesn’t have 170 dollars let alone 17k. It’s an unimaginable sum- it’s his annual income.
debbie
Christ, he’s still bitching about canceled fireworks!
matryoshka
@Kay: I think we are supposed to give up in frustration (which I do, almost daily) and stop paying attention to the grift. It’s a major gaslighting event.
debbie
@Kay:
Oh, please, let it be so.
Ohio Dems’ best hope is for Jame Timkin to win the GOP Chair. I know my Trump-loving family members are very solidly behind Borges. Let them see up close what their votes have wrought.
bystander
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I’m finding facebook is very therapeutic. It’s great to vent there, plus you connect with a really broad group who oppose trump.
kindness
With everything that’s gone down in the last two months I think we should congradulate ourselves that no one is openly calling for certain politicians murders. I guess that is one difference between Democrats & Republicans. On the other hand if McConnell keeps whining about the American people not standing for blocking Supreme Court nominees……
Kay
How funny would ti be if the smug Wikileaks, who stand in judgment of everyone else, got duped by a state actor.
Because “duped” is the best case for them- they were either duped or they’re an arm of the conservative movement.
Kay
@matryoshka:
It seems like a big problem to me, that no one can believe a word this clown says. Instead it’s treated like a delightful eccentricity. Gosh, I hope he doesn’t say anything important or actionable and then be lying or…whatever!
I don’t feel like interpreting the special snowflake’s mood swings, so I’ll just hold him to what he says, like he’s a normally functioning adult.
rikyrah
@marcion:
I continue to disbelieve that I write these words:
My money is on the CIA.
We have to remember-the Spooks consider themselves to be a special kind of Patriot. This isn’t a case of where they believe that the President is “weak”.
This is a case where the President is in collaboration with the enemy.
The President!
rikyrah
@Dog Dawg Damn:
You are correct.They don’t understand how their vote for him will define THEM.
Kay
Trump and the GOP don’t want anyone to find anything out about their nominees. They must be ashamed of these people to hide them behind a wall of bullshit like this. Are they really that bad? Trump is a terrible hire so it wouldn’t surprise me if he hires terrible people but I wouldn’t think they’d admit it like this.
If these people are such rock stars Trump should be proud to show them off. Instead he’s ashamed of them.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Oh man, I want to reply to this. I will be back later.
Ryan
Ugh. Legacies, amirite?
Aleta
I despise the shame caused by right wing attacks on ‘the welfare state.’ Some people I know both receive it (after trying to resist it) and continue to hate the people who take and the government that gives it. And don’t vote for the Dems.
“I pay all my own doctor’s bills” my friend said for a few years while she went without care, then went into credit card debt for appointments and then stopped going to the follow ups. After her debt was out of control, she accepted low income medical help, and her confidence seemed to cave in. I curse Fox News for this cruelty.
I also believe that the RW and Fox lies about AAs receiving welfare cause whites who receive to furiously separate themselves by denouncing it. I heard about a new bumper sticker since the election, seen in a parking lot here: I voted Republican because everyone can’t be on welfare. The effects of this cruelty poison people who receive by forcing them to self-hate. It also convinces the children in some families that joining the military is their only way out of the shame.
Nan mccall
@Baud: I think they absolutely realize the seriousness of the resistance. They’re gearing up for a war.
sunny raines
@Dog Dawg Damn:
OTOH2, trump voters don’t care what anyone else thinks – one of their many fundamental failings as human beings is their egotism and lack of empathy.
sunny raines
@Kay: you can generalize trump voters as immature dolts that blame others for their lives not being what they think they should be. In their minds, they should be doing much better than they are and would be if not for those “others” ruining everything. trump gave them exactly what they wanted to hear – defining the bogeyman under the bed; doesn’t matter it’s total BS, it is what they want to hear.
sunny raines
@Aleta:
republican governors that rejected ACA Medicaid expansion should be tried for crimes against humanity for the thousands that either died prematurely or are living degraded lives for the lack of adequate healthcare. .
If the republicans repeal ACA and replace it with nothing or something with far less coverage, degrading the healthcare coverage of some 20 million people, again, try them all for crimes against humanity.
republican sadism is something we should not tolerate if America is going to consider itself a decent society.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I wonder if Trump even realizes there are more intelligence agencies than the CIA?
But Trump is the CEO president, so I assume he planning on Offshoring intelligence gathering.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay:
How funny is it that Wikileaks judges only western democracies in need of transparency.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@sunny raines:
Worth keeping in mind that health care isn’t just something done to be nice and cuddly with people. There is a huge economic cost for chronically ill workers, that’s why Kaiser started offering his workers health insurance in the first place.
Kay
@Aleta:
Yup. Exactly. When I’m feeling sympathetic though I think it’s bigger than “what the Right created”. The work they do was devalued, not entirely in the sense of “wages” but also in status. They can’t be proud of the work they do and without that they’re like this knot of resentment and conflicting ideas. This country made a real mistake celebrating some kinds of work and denigrating other kinds. Dumb, dumb, dumb. All work has value because value is bigger than money.
JGabriel
@Kay:
No, I think Trump tweets what he really thinks – which is even more alarming.
As far as there being a disconnect between his tweets and his demeanor at the briefings, it’s probably because he can’t follow the analyses and what the analysts are saying; i.e., he feels stupid, so he stays relatively quiet to avoid letting people in the room perceive how dumb and stupid he is and feels.
Kay
@Aleta:
It’s weird because we know this already, right? That this is a pitfall in a country that values wealth more than anything else. You see it with people who stay home and care for others for whatever reason- they’re always defending their work and it is real work. I’m sure you’ve met defensive stay at home moms, where you’re like “whoah, sister, I value your work- don’t get mad at me“.
So if you don’t make a lot in a country that values wealth over everything else you’re automatically on defense. We really shouldn’t celebrate rich people so much- they meet the measure we use- it’s all the other people who need pep talks :)
JGabriel
Kay:
Welcome to Interesting Times, in the Chinese sense.
Randinho
@opiejeanne: Especially while Barron Trump (what an apt name) continues to go to school in Manhattan with the taxpayers and citizens of NYC paying the price.
Aleta
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: A true nationalized health care removes a political advantage of manipulating people against each other, defining who’s footing the bill and who’s taking advantage.
Randinho
This is an interesting thread on Twitter from a tech security guy regarding why it’s highly unlikely that a 14 year old did the hacking.
BillinGlendaleCA
I don’t know if you folk have been paying attention to KO’s GQ videos, the latest one is a calm message to Trump voters. The gist of it is, the man(Trump) is not well.
Kay
@JGabriel:
It bothers me because there’s a powerlessness in it, a real lower status for the public. We have to guess what Donald Trump means- he’s so special we all have to employ this kind of code-breaking. Fuck off, buddy. Just say what you mean. No one has time for your stupid games.
I read this piece on conspiracy theories once. They run rampant in authoritarian countries where people feel powerless because they’re always guessing what The Powerful might be up to so the theorizing leads to wild stories.
Doug R
@Kay: Wikileaks is probably a Russian sponsored actor. I’m not sure Julian Assange knows it, but I suspect some of his bizarre behavior is due to an almost psychotic sense of denial.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I will say it again: they long for the delusional world of Mad Men.
They long for the days when all you had to be was WHITE in order to get a job that could support your family.
I didn’t say educated and White – JUST WHITE.
Pretending that ‘others’ have taken their lives.
Truth is, they were never big fish in the pond. They were fish in a pond where 90% of everyone else was smashed up in sardine cans.
Well now, the sardine cans are open, and they have to compete with everyone else.
Boo hoo hoo if they think that’s ‘unfair’.
Nobody is going back in the sardine cans.
You know I have no sympathy for them, right?
They truly disgust me.
I come from a people, who, even when talented, had NO access to opportunities – for GENERATIONS- and, I’m supposed to have sympathy for their whining about competition?
They continue to cling to the Whiteness?
Phuck.Outta.Here.
hovercraft
@JGabriel:
I think he tweets what he “believes” to be true, if it goes against ratifying the “fact” that he won fair and square and by the greatest landslide in recent memory, then it is false. He has the biggest most enthusiastic crowds, so he must have won the most votes. Any information that contradicts that is bogus. The notion that the Russians helped him takes away from the level of supremacy and the legitimacy of his ‘victory’, so it cannot be true. He is constantly surrounded by sycophants who are all dependent on him for their livelihood, so they tell him what he wants to hear, and in that universe, he is universally admired and acknowledged as a great successful man. To accept reality would diminish both the man and his accomplishments, so like so many of his rubes he lives in denial.
Yes the man is a pathological liar, but he also lies to himself, he has to, because if he doesn’t he will have to acknowledge that he built his ‘fortune’ off of Daddy’s, and even with that, all he has managed to do is create a Ponzi empire, all glitz and glamour, but if you scratch the surface there is nothing there, he’s built a house of cards. He’s a fragile, insecure, narcissist, who deep down knows that he is not good enough, that is why even in “victory”, he cannot ignore the truth, he is a loser, and always will be.
misterpuff
@Waldo: I’m kinda leaning to this analysis: Drumpf is deeply infested with Russian ties (mostly financial but also with strong arm Mafia types with Oligarch connections) and our intelligence agencies know it. So to avoid a J Edgar Hoovering by the spooks, he is trying to turn the tables (and please his Russki creditors/Masters).
This can not end well.
I still believe Putin is the Greatest.Spy.Of.All.Time: He is running an asset who will be POTUS! #GSOAT
hovercraft
@Kay:
I cannot have sympathy for these people, what the hell entitles them to those good middle class jobs? What they are complaining about is the fact that back in the day, white people (especially men) got preferential treatment in the job market, and now they don’t. Well guess what, they are still getting preferential treatment, just not to the extent that they used to. The fact of the matter is that those benefits came at the expense of other people, whatever efforts to mitigate the inequities is not the primary cause of their problems. The biggest culprits for that are the titans of business who they worship. It was corporate America who decided to rig the system so that they could outsource American jobs to the lowest bidder to maximize their profits. It was the titans of industry who bought the republican party and enlisted their help in destroying the unions. These same people loved the unions until they started including those* people and giving them the same benefits as hard working real Americans. Divide and conquer is an old strategy, and it works, pit the rubes against each other, and while they fight for the scraps, you can make off with the loot. Corporate America told them it was the unions, the blacks, the women, and of course the big bad government, all the while it was them robbing us blind.
Stupidity and willful blindness are not a defense, when most of the mills and factories went away from small town America, there were very few of those people there, so how was it their fault? They keep saying they want America to be run like a business, and that’s why they keep voting for business men, well red America you got what you wished for, the GOP has been governing like a business, maximizing profits for their shareholders, we the people are simply workers who are being laid off.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Is this a Protestant thing? I understand shame but this “I hate and blame you for not letting me be proud” thing is just beyond bizarre to me.
Jinchi
@Doug R: The first time I heard of Wikileaks was when they hacked the UK Climate Research Unit and set off the whole Climategate nonsense. That was probably with Russian help, too, and certainly in support of right wing ideas. Assange is just a high tech, more successful version of James O’Keefe.
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft: I have a hard time getting into the heads of people who don’t feel smart _and_ want to stay near where they grew up. The whole point of my lifelong nerd-dom was that by getting 96es on enough tests I could get the hell away from those kinds of people.
FlipYrWhig
@Jinchi: I thought the first big Wikileaks thing was the “Collateral Murder” video.
rikyrah
@misterpuff:
Vlad is KGB…and, you don’t think our Spooks understand that?
Debbie1
New pet peeve: It’s seeing and hearing this Orange Buffoon referred to as “President” prematurely. 1) It’s confusing & often requires re-reading because it seems to refer to PBO, at first; 2) It’s inaccurate because he’s not yet inaugurated; 3) We have one pres. at a time; 4) I CAN WAIT until Jan. 20th @ 12 p.m. (and not one second sooner)!
Ah, just thought of another reason, it helps normalize his own presumptuousness in trying to give orders to another president’s agency heads or cabinet members, and trying to take credit for good news during another man’s admin. (God, I hate that schmuck).
Aleta
@Debbie1: Same. Their propagandamobile isn’t idling while they wait.
Aleta
@hovercraft: Why don’t these business-loving people go get themselves a fcking business to run if they’re so talented?
Answer: huge pools of money to drain, perpetually replenished by taxes.
(Insider tip to Tr voters: Your taxes are not going down. Neither are your insurance premiums. It’s what’s good for business.)
Jinchi
@FlipYrWhig: Apparently so. They just weren’t on my radar as an organization at that time.
jonas
@Waldo: I think it was Josh Marshall the other day who quoted Norman Mailer to the effect that the CIA put the kaibosh on investigating its involvement in the Kennedy assassination not because it wanted to cover up any role it played, but because the organization couldn’t be sure that someone connected to them *wasn’t* in fact involved. I think if Trump realizes that the CIA or NSA knows the full extent of the Russian hacking, he can’t be sure that they don’t have some big-time dirt on him as well. Hence his shots across their bow basically telling them to STFU.
ETA: and I can’t believe that the Russians were so stupid as to *only* hack the DNC and Dem-associated accounts. I’m sure they rifled through the electronic dumpsters at the RNC and Trump Organization as well and have plenty of stuff on hand in case they need it. Trump is the first US president to come into office who is pretty clearly compromised by a hostile foreign power. This is a bad dream, right?
El Caganer
I need to stop following this Russian hacker story – the more I read about it, the murkier it appears.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-hacking-intelligence-20170105-story.html
Julia Grey
@El Caganer:
That could be because the waters are being DELIBERATELY muddied.
Who would do that?
El Caganer
@Julia Grey: All of them, Katie.
Bnad
@efgoldman: Don’t forget, these folks not only feed on chaos, the will NEED chaos to maintain power. 9/11 worked wonders for Bush. I suspect there is no disaster or attack so big that it would decrease rather than increase their support, up to and including total nuclear war. In the ashes of this country you’ll find preppers who are still 100% behind Trump.
fuckwit
@rikyrah: I get kind of vibe a lot from Black folks towards outraged white liberals. It’s like, “oh NOW you are outraged, when this shit is finaly happening to you too. Where was your outrage when it was happening to us?” And also a disgust at how whiny, the attitude of entitelement and privilege, we give off when we complain about it. It’s as if our birthright has been denied… and it has. That birthright was white privilege.
I felt this first from around the Occupy days, where white kids were howling about being cut out of opportunity by the 1%, and people of color were looking at them sideways like, well at least you had opportunity to have taken away from you in the first place. And then with the Bernie days too. There was always an undertone in the economic argument that we were owed this prosperity. Many who have always had to fight for it noticably resented that.
But this where it is. Please forgive us our pampered indignation. We are ALL now so fucked, the playing field is leveling, and not by everyone being raised up, but by us being pushed down too.