Sorry for delay on this, but the Senate Armed Services Committee has just concluded its hearing on cyber security threats, including the Russian influence, desinformatziya, and kompromat operations during the 2016 US elections. Here’s the link to C-SPAN’s video where you can watch the whole thing. And here’s a video embed:
And yes, I know this is the Fox News Youtube feed/embeddable feed. It’s the only one I could find.
Pogonip
Adam, do you write for any other sites? If so, which ones?
The Moar You Know
Remember that thing Trump said about “elections being valid only if I win them?”
Welcome to hell, US intelligence. You’re only valid if you agree with Twitler. Otherwise you’re going to be fired.
I’d say “sad” but they directly helped this asshole get the brass ring, so they get to eat the consequences.
Corner Stone
I tried to watch at it a few times. When Sen Thom Thillis (R) started his bit by stating how many times the US has interfered in elections around the world I had to mute it.
Corner Stone
McCaskill was a little heated as well, to say the least.
Yarrow
Aren’t all the members of the IC going to have their salaries slashed to $1? Link.
Gin & Tonic
Is Jack Reed the ranking minority member? He’s sitting next to McCain, so I’d assume so.
Adam L Silverman
@Pogonip: I do not now write for other sites. I previously was a front pager and had moderator responsibilities here:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/
I came here when I moved on from there.
I’ve done a number of guest posts for Tom Ricks at his site at Foreign Policy:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/01/18/the-flynn-report-v-how-to-feed-the-beast/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/18/crocker-and-tom-r-are-wrong-the-iraqis-wont-extend-the-u-s-presence-2/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/12/05/out-of-iraq-only-26-shopping-days-left/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/04/29/the-army-and-coin-youre-on-your-own-commander/
I’ve done some guest posting for Juan Cole when I got back from Iraq, as well as one for Spencer Ackerman when he was at Wired.
And then there’s this, which was never intended to be a guest post. The comments are hysterical!
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/09/robert-farago/armed-jews-fought-back-against-the-nazis-to-no-appreciable-effect/
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: good for her
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Someone should ask ol’ Thom if it had been China hacking the RNC for Hillary’s benefit, if he’d have the same lame excuse.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Yes.
Betty Cracker
This morning on Twitter, Trump tried to walk back the anti-US intel community / pro-WikiPutin bilge he’s been pumping out for many weeks:
Lying sack of shit.
Also, the WSJ ran a story (TPM link) saying Trump was planning to restructure and cut US intel orgs because he believes they’re biased against him, and his mouthpiece came out and said oh no, totally untrue!
That’s another lie. Trump sees everything through the lens of his untreated personality disorder, so of course he wants to punish and diminish organizations that he sees as undermining his great victory. Whether that action might also undermine US security doesn’t enter into his calculations, I’m convinced.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: He’s totally for “Intelligence” so long as it agrees with whatever he wants at the moment.
When Trump decides/discovers that Putin isn’t his best friend we’re all going to be in a lot of danger.
Jeffro
@Yarrow: IC = intelligence community? Perhaps but I think they’re using it to terrorize the federal workforce more generally (think EPA, Labor, along with the CIA).
Also would like to note that this is yet another Virginia congressman, the 2nd in 2 days, bringing up the crazy shit. Goodlatte (6th – Shenandoah Valley) is the one who wanted to do away with the House Ethics Office. Now we have Rep Griffith (9th – further down the valley towards VA’s southwest). If they keep this up, West Virginia’s going to have to take them.
Gravenstone
@Corner Stone: So let me get this straight, a Republican was a-okay with the concept of blowback for our actions abroad over the years? At least such blowback as is beneficial to he an his party.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: No. This rule only allows members of the House of Representatives to do this. The Senate is not bound by the House’s rules. Moreover, it is likely that this would be challenged under the Constitutional prohibition on bills of attainder.
Mike J
Jeffro
@Yarrow:
Trump will never come to understand this, because Putin will always be looking out for Donald Trump’s money and Donald Trump’s ego. The thing Trump might come to understand is that Putin is truly hostile to the U.S. and that most Americans – including many of his GOP allies-of-the-moment – do not want to be led by a Russian puppet.
It’s on this latter point that someone close to him likely got through to him, just a little, and noted that overt support for Assange (plus constant excuse-making for Putin) is going to tip the scale, and soon…
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: When Presidents go to war with the Intel Community (IC) it never ends well. For the President.
Yarrow
@Jeffro:
Yes. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
If it can be used against one federal employee it could be used against any, it seems. Perhaps not military. Are there any other groups that are vulnerable? TSA? Are there any federal firefighters? The CIA having all their salaries slashed to $1 would be a big problem.
schrodingers_cat
@Gravenstone: They are Dominion supporting Cardassian stooges, that’s exactly what I expect them to say. Also, what my JS voting friend said two weeks ago when I asked her opinion about the Ruski interference. We deserved it for what we did in Central and South America.
JPL
I don’t think that there will be an independent investigation, because they are afraid that the Trump campaign contacted the government of Russia directly. They don’t want to rock the vote until they get their tax cuts, and privatize this plans through Congress. Treason is not an issue.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: PS And someone may have gotten through to him that he should just take his briefing on Russia, walk out and say “I’m not completely convinced”, and that’ll be enough to calm the GOP side. After that, it’s just another partisan football.
debbie
@Yarrow:
They should start with themselves. They’re the #1 waster of money.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: the Nixon Twitter account was quite to the point on this yesterday…
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Well, since Sean Spicer’s never spoken an honest word, this is one very rare instance where I’ll stick with what the WSJ has posted.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: I don’t know. I’ve has the misfortune to be acquainted with a few narcissists. I have found that they can decide on a whim to change how they feel about someone or something. Putin may flatter Trump and do what he can to keep him doing what he, Putin, wants. At some point it will not go that way. We’ll see what happens.
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker: This constant “Donald Tweets. His Spokes People Outright Contradict Him. He then Contradicts THEM. Then they all contradict one another again” thing is getting pretty suspicious. I’d like to blame the fucker for trying to be cagey and crafty, but my gut is telling me he’s not fully in charge of what’s going down in his name anymore. Examples: Pence’s words to Congress vs. Trump’s yesterday on ACA. Everything Kelly Anne says during an interview. Today’s pronouncement he DOES like the intelligence community more than Assange, contrasted with yesterday’s float he’s thinking of dismantling the whole buncha them.
How do we get the fucking press to stop following the laser pointer by reporting every stupid thing he cryptically Tweets or blurts out at a cocktail party? Isn’t it time the press focuses less on what he says and more on WHO THE FUCK IS RUNNING THINGS IN THIS REGIME?
kindness
@Jeffro: Won’t be tipping the scale soon enough for us though.
Yarrow
@Ella in New Mexico: No one is running it. The buck is stopping nowhere. And he’s not even President yet. It’s going to get a lot worse when he is.
Pogonip
@Adam L Silverman: I’ll read you wherever you’re at. You have a fan.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Members of the Uniformed Services are Title 10 Excepted Service Federal Employees. The other two groups covered under Title 10 Exceptions are civilian Intelligence personnel and the faculty at the Service Academies, Command and General Staff Schools, the Strategist Schools (School of Advanced Military Studies, School of Advanced Aerospace Studies, Maritime Advanced Warfighting Schools), and the Senior Leader Colleges (each of the Service war colleges, the National War College, and the Eisenhower School), as well as civilian faculty at select other Service schools such as Army Logistics University, Naval Postgraduate School, and Defense Institute for Security Assistance Management, etc.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I’m not unconvinced that that twitter feed isn’t actually directly channelling the late President.
Adam L Silverman
@Pogonip: Thanks.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Does the TSA fall under “uniformed services?” How about federal firefighters?
Jeffro
@Yarrow: I don’t see how the Putin/Trump relationship ever has a falling out, though. Putin’s got Trump’s number (in several senses)…he clearly knows the extent of Trump’s financial entanglements in Russia, some of which are likely through some shady characters. He may even have additional blackmail material, either from Trump’s visit to Moscow in 2013 or from other sources. Putin also clearly directed Russian intelligence resources to the hacking of the DNC (at a minimum…who knows what other actual vote-hacking may have taken place, or early funding funneled to Trump, or…?) Putin is clearly flattering Trump’s ass off, and he’s going to keep those financial connections going too (especially if Trump/Tillerson are able to get sanctions lifted and allow Russia to make hundreds of billions in extractive energy production)
So in short…Putin has plenty of carrots AND sticks to keep Trump in line. And if Trump truly crosses Putin, Putin will screw him eight ways to Sunday (public humiliation, financial ruin)
Meanwhile us American citizens, why, we just give the poor bastard nothing but grief…make fun of his tan and hair…keep him from having a star-studded inauguration as is his due…why even some folks in the GOP give him grief or try to put restrictions on him…Trump’s not going to stress too much about letting the U.S. weaken, letting it drift aimlessly, letting it fail to lead or fail to help its NATO allies…
Ben Cisco
@schrodingers_cat: Nicely done.
JPL
@Jeffro: Let’s not forget the video of then twelve year old Natasha and her twin brother Alexei visiting Trump’s hotel room.
MJS
@Adam L Silverman: God, I hope you’re right about this. I could live with a Pence presidency if it meant that at least some of the dolts who voted for Trump learned that, regardless of how “angry” they are, the adults will always find a way to correct the result of any tantrum they may throw.
SFBayAreaGal
@Ben Cisco: My favorite all time television series Deep Space Nine is becoming more relevant each day.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: It’s uncanny. And the writer’s short pieces here and there are really spot-on, too.
Here’s some background for those who are interested.
Jeffro
@JPL: Ew, no, let’s forget that…
Bobby D
“Are there any federal firefighters”
Lots of them. We have full-on fire depts. on most military installations, particularly those with airfields. At my current base, we have multiple fire stations, staffed by civilian DoD firefighters.
There are also a shitload of BLM and Forest service wildland firefighters. One of my good friends runs a heli-crew for BLM, has for a couple of decades, first as a seasonal smoke jumper, then eventually controlling the ops and the ships. The base firefighters have a insanely easy job for the most part, wildland folks are a different story and have very physically hard, very dangerous jobs.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: The uniformed services are: the US Army, the US Navy, the US Marine Corps, the US Air Force, the US Coast Guard, the National Institutes of Health/Centers for Disease Control, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Yes, the last two are considered uniformed services. This is, at this point in time, a technical and legacy designator.
debbie
@Jeffro:
Except I do want to know who’s behind those Tweets.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I’m guessing its somebody in Loma Linda with a very good ouija board.
Jeffro
@MJS:
Hell, I could “live” with it in the sense of knowing we’re that much more likely to stay alive. Pence is despicable but at least he’s not (technically) crazy.
It’s funny, I was relaying some of this whole Trump/intelligence agency feud stuff to my RWNJ dad, and his comeback was, “Ok, well if you’re right, you’ll end up with President Pence”. As if that was somehow worse than President (gag) Trump. As if we should sweep the Russia stuff under the rug. As if I’d be willing to just look the other way and let my country be betrayed to dodge having a religious-right nut job like Pence in charge of the country for a few years.
President Pence? Shoot, he can’t even tie his shoes without an instruction manual (one with just pictures, no words).
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t know. Bush seemed to do all right. (His presidency ended in the shitter, but the IC didn’t have anything to do with it).
Ben Cisco
@SFBayAreaGal: Indeed. May the Prophets grant us as successful an outcome.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: it’s a playwright who lives in the Bronx. He’s got a couple up now about McCain and Graham that made me laugh out loud.
Kathleen
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve read theories that Watergate was psy ops by CIA against Nixon. Can’t recall all the details though some have speculated may have been related to jfk murder,
schrodingers_cat
@Ben Cisco: Thanks, Emissary.
Mike in DC
If the public report raises a lot of uncomfortable questions, look for the Trump presser to be cancelled yet again.
Adam L Silverman
@Kathleen: Watergate was Mark Felt being pissed off that he was passed over for promotion to Director FBI after Hoover’s passing and having the Bureau manipulated for political gain by Nixon.
Kathleen
@Ella in New Mexico: I agree. I think he’s a fromt man whose job is to entertain the rubes ( us and media) while the real damage is being done in the background.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in DC: The issue is that the report will be released Monday at 2 PM. The President was briefed this AM. The President-elect will be briefed tomorrow AM. This provides an entire weekend for things to be spun. The report should have been released as the President-elect was being briefed. President Obama’s team consistently seems to not understand Strategic Communication.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Or, when the report comes out on Monday, Trump’s weekend Twitterstorms will be seen as lies and obfuscations.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this time round I’m actually rooting for the IC to draw Presidential blood. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Altho’ I’m still really, really fucking furious at the traitorous weasels within the IC who decided to stir up shit about HRC’s emails. They can get demoted and be sent to internal exile in Kansas.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: No. The gap between when he’s briefed and when the unclassified report will be released provides almost three full days of muddling the media narrative, shaping the perception of the report and those who produced it, and politicizing it.
J R in WV
Every ship in the Navy/CG etc has “damage control parties” which are mostly about fire fighting and plugging holes in the hull. Usually simultaneously in battle – most recently think of the USS Cole, blasted a big hole in the side of by a suicide boat bomb. The surviving crew kept the ship from sinking, which was a pretty amazing accomplishment.
The Cole was returned to stateside (scroll down to see this pic) on a specialized ship for carrying very heavy loads on intercontinental deliveries, usually drilling equipment, in this case a heavily damaged USN destroyer.
I’m pretty sure this is worth more than $1/year. I got paid something like $90/month a long time ago.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I think I wrote in comments way back in the Spring of 2016 that what we were watching with the email stuff was a turf battle between the IC and the State Department. And that this was a warning shot across Secretary Clinton’s bow to remind her that if she would be elected President who the real power was in DC. And that they didn’t trust her.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Ooh, they didn’t trust her, so now we have President Trump. Nice going, guys!
I sometimes wonder where/what the “intelligence” quotient is in the “intelligence” community.
ETA: “Quotient”. I meant “quotient”, not “quota”, because of course I did!
Calouste
@Jeffro: Trump is going to want to dominate everyone including Putin. It’s who he is. Once Trump has been looting the treasury for a while, Putin will no longer have financial leverage. If Trump just takes a leaf out of Putin’s book and runs the media like Putin has been doing, anything to do with scandal will also no longer have leverage. Putin has probably about two years to take Trump down, after that he won’t really have control over him anymore.
Keep in mind that a bit over 2 years ago Trump still thought that Putin was one of America’s biggest enemies.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Some shot across the bow. I’d like to ask them how that worked out for them, instead of someone they don’t like or trust ( based on bullshit), they now have an entirely loose cannon who cannot be controlled or trusted. Hillary at least fell within the normal bounds of how we conduct foreign policy, this person cannot be trusted not to disclose everything he is briefed about on a whim.
ETA: What @ Miss Bianca said.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: The feeling is that how State handles information, specifically what it decides is classified, is unacceptable. As a result it transmits material that should be classified as unclassified on a regular and routine basis and this places the US, its personnel, and its interests at significant risk. This is not a new belief throughout the IC, but when combined with the accusations against Secretary Clinton and the fact that she was running for President she became the public target for them of all that frustration.
Our Intel professionals are human beings. It can be hard to step outside your professional biases on matters you feel, and everyone around you feel, very, very strongly about.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I’m not justifying it or excusing it or even trying to rationalize it. Just explaining what happened.
eldorado
adam – your posts, like mayhew’s are must reading. it’s almost impossible to find in-depth and clear analysis on a particular subject matter anymore. i like the pet talk and the pratfalls and the garden/recipe posts, but i don’t know what i would do without this place and lgm.
too bad kay isn’t still a front page poster.
Adam L Silverman
@eldorado: Thanks. I’ll have something longer about some of what we need to do to actually counter this stuff posted up. Eventually…
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman: I didn’t think you were, sorry if it came across that way. If the need arises to tell you where to go, you’ll know ;-)
b1narys3rf
@Calouste:
When was this and what said? According to Sarah Kendzior and other actual journalists, he was praising the USSR/Russian Federation since his trip in 1987.
Does anyone else wonder just how in the hell Trump (the tail) is managing to wag the dog (one major and for now dominant political party)? Do the Russians have that much on other lawmakers or is it just fear of the mob?
How soon before they decide it’s not worth the fucking trouble and install Pence?
And now, Toyota is in the Twitter-hairs. Remind me again how the Rethugs are the “party of business”?
manyakitty
@Adam L Silverman: Good. Let’s hope for sooner rather than later.
Barbara
@Jeffro: We should all start calling him Benedict Donald. Not original to me, but the most fitting epithet I have yet come across.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I get it, I get it, (and I ain’t trying to shoot the messenger, believe me, because I, like so many others here, am dependent on you to interpret all this dope for us) but Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ, talk about the Laws of Unintended Consequences and Instant Karma combined. And shit. To say nothing of the fact that from what I can tell, what Sec. Clinton was doing was no different in substance from what. Secs. Rice and Powell were doing.
So, because they decided to act unprofessionally in their pique over “threats to national security at State”, we now have a Chief Executive whose very presence in the Oval Office constitutes a threat to national security.
Awesome. Wow.//
El Caganer
@Jeffro: It’s like that country song:
Paul Ryan’s right hand
Paul Ryan’s right hand
Mama said Pence was Paul Ryan’s right hand
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
I couldn’t agree more. I’m sure someone’s thinking that releasing the unclassified report on a Monday guarantees almost a full week of media coverage of it, but still…Trump (or more to the point, his minions and mouthpieces like Conway, Spicer, Priebus, and all the rest) will be spinning for all they’re worth. This is a near-existential threat to them – I think at least some of them, the more cunning ones, get that.
Jeffro
@Miss Bianca:
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Metaphorically speaking of course. And it doesn’t even have to be all that huge a deal – just a couple documents that show how many $B Trump owes to Russian banks controlled by the Russian mob, for instance.
Jeffro
@El Caganer: Pence is who Grover Norquist had in mind when he gave that quote about “an ideal Republican president is one with enough digits to use a pen”.
Although again, this is Pence we’re talking about…he’d probably want a few practice attempts with the pen before stepping onstage for the signing ceremony.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: The SASC hearing today will help a bit. But the Obama Admin Strategic Communication folks have consistently failed the President. And I’m making that as a professional assessment as someone who’s run a strategic communication shop for a US Army program/program manager.
hovercraft
@b1narys3rf:
It’s simple, the Shitgibbon has Steve Bannon in his camp, a veteran of the right wing fever swamps, he knows how to flood the DC switchboard and e-mail servers to get his message across. Rush and Co. have for years used their platforms to galvanize the most extreme elements of the party, they have held congressional republicans in check by screaming bloody murder when they step out of line. Since 2010 when several veteran republicans were turfed in the primary, and John Boehner became the worlds weakest leader ever, the tail has been waging the dog. The Shitgibbon is merely an extension of that phenomenon.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Never doubted your take on it for a moment.
The thought occurred to this amateur that, besides the possible Mon-Fri coverage benefit noted in #74…Orange Jowls is going to basically melt down all weekend. So we have the hearing today and POTUS being briefed, then PEOTUS gets briefed tomorrow and we go into the weekend with Trump tweeting up a storm of nonsense. And then on Monday the unclassified report gets released and ideally reported on all week (leading almost right until the inauguration).
Oh, and PBO’s farewell address is in 5 days, too. The strain of hearing that massive verbal victory lap, coupled with the intelligence report…why that would almost have to weigh on a person, wouldn’t it?
debbie
@Jeffro:
Which I am seeing the Monday release as a benefit.
ETA: In fact, I’d like to imagine him bent over his golden bowl, vomiting all weekend at the thought of what he got himself into.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Yep. This is why I get impatient with people who say they can’t possibly call their reps or local governments in red states or red districts. The fucking Tea Partiers are calling 24/7, and if you don’t call, theirs are the only voices being heard.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Start squeaking.
b1narys3rf
@hovercraft:
I’ll never get over how these old, rich, white men somehow can’t grok that disaster capitalism will eventually swallow them too.
Maybe the dark triad just doesn’t allow them to do much of anything except next quarter thinking. Problem seems to me, they’ve convinced the stupid, and the stupid in turn convinced them.
debbie
Dan FUCKING Coats as Director of Intelligence?
germy
@debbie:
wiki of the pedia
liberal
@Jeffro:
Fixt.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Oh, well, good thing Coats was totally proved fucking right that Osama Bin Laden wasn’t really a threat to the US.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
Imagine how different the world would be today if the GOP had supported and encouraged Clinton in his efforts to pursue OBL, and if Clinton had succeeded. This is what sets me to tears.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: I’m waiting for the drip, drip, drip of nastiness that’s bound to be released on members of the republican party that have asserted that they haven’t been / can’t be hacked… You know that’s coming…
Also, drumpf tax returns, sex tapes, etc. Are bound to make an appearance soon….
germy
Good luck, moron.
StringOnAStick
Adam, I love your posts; so incredibly informative. You and Richard are essential reading because I know of nowhere else to find the information both of you present here. I am very, very grateful!
Adam L Silverman
@StringOnAStick: Thanks for the kind words.