Month: February 2018

INTRODUCTION

A sad period in US politics when Hamilton Federalists have become allies of the Clinton Democratic party … FDR turning in his grave!

Purely coincidental, Martin Longman covered this topic in a fp story. An opposite view …

○ Sessions Talks to Investigation He’s Trying to Kill

You can choose how much you want to trust the Hamilton 68 dashboard, considering people like Michael Chertoff and William Kristol sit on their board, but among the suspected Russian troll accounts they’re monitoring the FBI has the most twitter mentions (1161, as of this writing) in the last forty-eight hours. There’s now a naked confluence of effort coming from congressional Republicans, the White House and Russian social media troll and bot accounts.

The misinformation from this group is now being advocated on progressive blogs to further anti-Russian hysteria and create that new adversary all of us should fear. About the influence of Russian bots demonstrated by Hamilton68 …

○ Devin Nunes is a Dunce

No, I will never place trust in spooks from any side or nation. Digging a bit deeper explains a lot.

More below the fold …
Clinton’s Democrats and The Resistance shoulder to shoulder with right-wing extremists in the GOP in aggressive anti-Russia sentiment. Hamilton68 dashboard stuffed with the likes of Bill Kristol, Michael Chertoff, Mike Morell … backed HRC during the presidential campaign … architects of the Democrats Against Russia fodder? A Cold War 2.0 has replaced the infamous failure of the reset-button moment of the Secretary of State in March 2009.

IMO these IC right-wing persons have infiltrated the Democratic Party of FDR to take it down. Includes a pro-Israel view which positions with the wet dream of Netanyahu to make Jerusalem the capital of Eretz Israel. Fuck the Palestinians … fuck the terrorists … fuck that backward religion. Focusing on disinformation specifically from Russians seems we’re returning to the weapon of propaganda of the 1950s and McCarthyism … party of Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan.

Surely it’s worthwhile to look into the founding members of this new group misleading propagandist for more of right-wing America … turning far, far away from social democracy as Europe has gotten used to. Hoping this will be preserved with the foolish act by the AngloSaxon British and their vote for Brexit. Depending how the EU central committee in Brussels will accommodate or repel the right-wing forces in New Europe as Rumsfeld coined his favorite old Soviet bonded states.

NEW CENSORSHIP – HAMILTON68 DASHBOARD

From the website of Hamilton68 :: Tracking Russian influence operations on Twitter …

Due to addition of photo’s and twitter links, the full diary of Part 2 is posted @EuroTrib – here.

It was obvious the Russians would make use of asymmetric warfare after the EU/NATO coup d’état in the 2013-2014 Ukraine campaign which led to regime change and ousting of elected president Yanukovich.

Led by the British, NATO took early offensive measures …

Further reading Counterinsurgency Cyberwarfare NATO vs. Russia – Part 3

Juxtaposition … always rewarding when Emptywheel alignes her views and analysis with my own lone deduction of what is factual and what is bs/propaganda. Putin and Netanyahu hand in glove, united in preference for Trump as US President, a revenge for Clinton’s policy of regime change in MENA states and Obama’s push for the Iran nuclear deal. Throughout its young history of 70 years, the state of Israel knows better than anyone: Israel First!

○ Former CIA officer Daniel Hoffman argues the near misses are a mark of Russian disinformation | Emptywheel |

[Some links added and highlights in article are mine – Oui]

Democrats Embraced a Flawed Dossier–And Gave Republicans an Opening | Politico – Feb. 1, 2018 | by Marcy Wheeler

Sometime around May 2016, according to The New York Times, the longtime law firm for the Democratic Party, Perkins Coie, engaged the private research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump. While the engagement might have been better handled (say, by insulating the official party apparatus better from Fusion), the act of commissioning the firm should not shock us–opposition research is a pretty standard feature of modern politics. Indeed, months earlier in September or October 2015, the Washington Free Beacon, which is funded in part by billionaire Paul Singer, had engaged Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump.

○ Fusion GPS linked to UAE Sheikh and Rubio Donor by Oui on Jan. 14, 2017  

More below the fold …

And while Democrats were working with Fusion, Republicans were working with a Steve Bannon enterprise to dig up financial dirt on Hillary Clinton and expose the alleged influence-peddling of her family’s foundation.

○ Peter Smith Tapped Alt-Right to Access Dark Net by Oui on July 16, 2017

Fusion, of course, then took its research in a new direction by hiring Christopher Steele, a former top British intelligence official with deep ties in Moscow who was held in high regard in Washington. He produced a series of salacious, but unverified reports that are now universally referred to as “the Steele dossier,” and their publication 10 days before Trump’s inauguration supercharged claims on the left that the president or his team may have conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election.

Yet, in part because of the way Democrats have handled the aftermath of the leak of the dossier, that very typical act of hiring an oppo research firm has turned into one of the biggest manufactured scandals of the Trump administration, one Republicans are trying to use to undermine an investigation into the growing evidence of Trump ties to Russia. But Steele’s dossier forms only a small portion of the putative case against Trump–which is why it has been such a mistake for Democrats to rally behind it. Reporters, two congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller have sifted through reams of other material suggesting that something fishy was indeed going on, and very little of it came from Steele.

Yet Democrats continue to invest in the intelligence dossier they funded as a key piece of evidence against Trump. They do so even while other, far more damning evidence–such as the report that George Papadopoulos learned Russians had “dirt,” in the form of Clinton emails even before the Democratic National Committee figured out it had been hacked, or the meeting Donald Trump Jr. set up six weeks later to learn what kind of dirt some other Russians had to offer (“If it’s what you say I love it,” he wrote in an email)–has come to light. Well after both those damning details were public, for example, Rachel Maddow dedicated an entire show to the dossier.

In November, former Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta claimed the dossier was “looking better and better with age.” In that same time frame, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, complained, “Those who attack the dossier and Christopher Steele would like you to believe that if they can discredit the dossier, then you should ignore everything else that we’ve learned,” even while insisting, “A lot of it has turned out to be true.” Yet this week, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat told POLITICO, “little of that dossier has either been fully proven or conversely, disproven.”

[Read on …]

○ Netanyahu’s Revenge: Trump the Winner

BooMan archives:

First mention of billionaire Paul Singer funding elite Republican candidate / political issue here @BooMan (2007):

○ Big Giuliani backer behind the failed CA electoral initiative also posted @dKos

Furthermore, it was Guccifer who hacked the Blumenthal email correspondence as early as 2013 that revealed HRC’s private server … Hacking was easy, prison is hard.

This Is Hillary Clinton’s Secret Email: HDR22@ClintonEmail.com

Clinton’s email address was hdr22@clintonemail.com; the handle seems to refer to her maiden initials (she was born as Hillary Diane Rodham). The notorious hacker Guccifer first revealed the email address in March 2013, after he gained access to the AOL account of former Clinton White House staffer Sidney Blumenthal, and sent screenshots of Blumenthal’s inbox to several news outlets. According to those screenshots, Blumenthal was regularly sending Clinton what appeared to be freelance intelligence reports–including information and advice about the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya–all of which clearly fell under the rubric of official State Department business.

○ DNC Server Intrusion and Unswered Questions

It’s a little misleading since some of the governors on the list are no longer in office, but the Morning Consult ratings are out and there are some interesting findings. I am going to highlight two of them. First, the Republicans are far more polarizing than the Democrats. The ten most popular governors in America are all Republicans, but it’s also true that nine of the ten most unpopular governors are Republicans. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts is the best-liked governor we have, and now that Chris Christie has been replaced the least-liked governor is Democrat Dan Malloy of Connecticut. But Malloy is all alone among his party members in that distinction.

The second thing I want to emphasize is the regional strength of the GOP in New England and their comparative weakness in the upper Midwest. First, it’s notable that there are only two Democratic governors in New England and that they’re both disliked. Malloy is basically loathed, and Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island is the second most disliked Democratic governor in the country. She taking a 40%-47% approval rating into her reelection bid.

Meanwhile, the New England Republicans look like this:

Charlie Baker of Massachusetts- 69%-16%
Phil Scott of Vermont- 63%-21%
Chris Sununu of New Hampshire- 58%-22%
Paul LePage of Maine- 42%-53%

Obviously, the GOP is doing something right in this region and the Democrats, for all their strength in Congress, are doing something wrong.

But in the upper Midwest the story is different. Illinois’ Bruce Rauner is a dead man walking with a 31%-55% rating, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin isn’t looking too hot with his 43%-50% numbers. In Michigan, the people are done with Rick Snyder (37%-47%). You have to go to Indiana and Ohio to find a popular Republican governors in the region. Eric Holcomb who is brand new is getting a healthy 50%-24% and John Kasich, who’s on his way out, is rocking 52%-30% approvals. Meanwhile, the Democrats are fairly popular. Mark Dayton of Minnesota who isn’t seeking reelection gets 52%-33% approvals, and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania who is seeking reelection has a modestly positive 44%-38% rating. It’s likely that Wolf is only net positive because of the Mid-Atlantic portion of his state, though.

In any case, these numbers are curious. They really don’t correlate with the presidential election results very well at all. Trump did best in Maine among all New England states, for example, and yet that’s where the Republican governor is least popular. Trump won the upper Midwest states, but the Democrats are playing offense in the region right now, at least in the governors races.

At least things stay interesting, right?

CAS nullifies lifetime Olympic bans on Russians | DW |

The Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) [report – pdf] has delivered a hammer blow to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) by upholding, or partially upholding, appeals from 39 Russian athletes against Olympic life bans.

The IOC banned the Russians for doping breaches at the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 after an independent report commissioned by WADA said there was a state-run doping program in Russia. But CAS has ruled that the IOC had not proved that 28 of the athletes had individually been part of the doping scheme.

“Both CAS panels unanimously found that the evidence put forward by the IOC in relation to this matter did not have the same weight in each individual case,” a CAS statement said.  

“In 28 cases, the evidence collected was found to be insufficient to establish that an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) was committed by the athletes concerned. With respect to these 28 athletes, the appeals are upheld, the sanctions annulled and their individual results achieved in Sochi 2014 are reinstated.

“In 11 cases, the evidence collected was found to be sufficient to establish an individual anti-doping rule violation. The IOC decisions in these matters are confirmed, with one exception. The athletes are declared ineligible for the next edition of the Olympic Winter Games (i.e. Pyeongchang 2018) instead of a life ban from all Olympic Games.”  

○ Doping scandal: Lifetime Olympic bans for 5 more Russian athletes | DW – Nov. 2017 |
○ The Global History of Sport in the Cold War | Wilson Center – Sept. 2014 |
○ Study Says West Germany Engaged in Sports Doping | NY Times – Aug. 2013 |

A film hit in the Russian Federation, just released …

○ Moscow’s blockbuster movie about the USSR ending America’s Olympic basketball dominance
○ Olympic Games 1972 Basketball Finals USA-USSR – the last 3 seconds (video)

From the Kremlin, elation …

○ Top sports court overturns IOC’s ban on 28 Russian athletes in groundbreaking ruling | RT |

An explosive event, not just the contents of the secret GOP memo …

FBI slams secret Nunes memo alleging Feds spied on Team Trump for political reasons | The Register |

The FBI has slammed a still-secret memo that claims the bureau was politically motivated when it requested a wiretap on a key advisor of Donald Trump during his presidential campaign.

In a statement released Wednesday, the law enforcement agency said it was “provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it” – referring to a decision by the House Intelligence Committee to release the four-page memo to congressfolk last week.

The FBI statement , emailed to journalists, continued: “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

More below the fold …

Further reading @EuroTrib where I posted the full diary including twitter links.