US officials: Putin personally involved in US election hack

NBC News     

WILLIAM M. ARKIN  ,  KEN DILANIAN   AND 

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN           December  14th 2016 

Ultimately, the CIA has assessed, the Russian government wanted to elect Donald Trump. The FBI and other agencies don't fully endorse that view, but few officials would dispute that the Russian operation was intended to harm Clinton's candidacy by leaking embarrassing emails about Democrats.

The latest intelligence said to show Putin's involvement goes much further than the information the U.S. was relying on in October, when all 17 intelligence agencies signed onto a statement attributing the Democratic National Committee hack to Russia.

"He has had a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, that has been known for a long time because of what she said about his elections back in the parliamentary elections of 2011. "
MICHAEL MCFAUL, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA
The statement said officials believed that "only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities." That was an intelligence judgment based on an understanding of the Russian system of government, which Putin controls with absolute authority.

Now the U.S has solid information tying Putin to the operation, the intelligence officials say. Their use of the term "high confidence" implies that the intelligence is nearly incontrovertible.

"It is most certainly consistent with the Putin that I have watched and used to work with when I was an ambassador and in the government," said Michael McFaul, who was ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014.

"He has had a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, that has been known for a long time because of what she said about his elections back in the parliamentary elections of 2011. He wants to discredit American democracy and make us weaker in terms of leading the liberal democratic order. And most certainly he likes President-elect Trump's views on Russia," McFaul added. Clinton cast doubt on the integrity of Russia's elections.

As part of contingency planning for potential retaliation against Russia, according to officials, U.S. intelligence agencies have stepped up their probing into his personal financial empire.

American officials have concluded that Putin's network controls some $85 billion worth of assets, officials told NBC News.
Neither the CIA nor the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would comment.


A former CIA official who worked on Russia told NBC News that it's not clear the U.S. can embarrass Putin, given that many Russians are already familiar with allegations he has grown rich through corruption and has ordered the killings of political adversaries.

Obama warns Trump on intelligence briefings: Without them 'you're flying blind'

Obama warns Trump Addressing the concerns related to skipping intelligence briefings, Donald Trump recently told Chris Wallace of 'Fox News Sunday,' in part, "I'm, like, a smart person. I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years...I don't need that. But I do say, 'If something should change, let us know.'"

In an apparent reference to Trump's comments, on Monday night, President Obama shared his own views on intelligence briefings during an interview with Trevor Noah of Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show.'on intelligence briefings: Without them 'you're flying blind'

Obama said, "It doesn't matter how smart you are. You have to have the best information possible to make the best decisions possible."

He continued, "And my experience with our intelligence agencies is that they are not perfect. They would be the first to acknowledge that."

Obama added, "But they are full of extraordinarily hard-working, patriotic and knowledgeable experts, and if you are not getting their perspective, their detailed perspective, then you are flying blind."

Witchy  has her say :
Why are conservatism and blind stupidity a common denominator?????
ISIS began in 2004 when Al Qaeda entered the Iraq war....4 years before Obama was elected.  People are entitled to their opinion but get your facts straight.  We've been in Iraq now over 13 years...more than twice as long as it took us to win WW II.  Bush had no postwar reconstruction plan for Iraq...and now the country is under Iranian influence.  ISIS is the blow back from Bush's blunder dismantling the Iraqi  army and the Baathe party.  The so-called surge was simply meant to buy time for Bush to leave .
Is  this too many facts for republicans to digest, they can do one every six months... period ?  In between time, they'll kneel before their hero, satisfy his needs while he pats them on the head. Good job destroying  the country. Better learn  Russian and soon. 
 HeHe

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Horny Donald??

Did they … wait … are those … devil horns?

Donald Trump 

The internet wasn’t as shocked about President-elect Donald Trump being named Time’s Person of the Year as they were about the magazine cover that accompanied the announcement.

On Wednesday, Time revealed its new cover, which featured a pensive Mr. Trump sitting in a chair inside his private residence at Trump Tower. Next to the photograph were the words: “Donald Trump: President of the Divided States of America.”
As Twitter users quickly scanned the cover, they noticed something peculiar in the way the magazine’s title was positioned over the president-elect’s head.
“Are those devil horns?” several users asked.
Throughout the day, more and more people began to catch on, and began to call out the magazine for purposely placing the “M” in “TIME” right over Mr. Trump’s head.

Critics were certain the editors knew what they were doing, and claimed there was no way those “devil horns” were accidental.
But the magazine denies that “horns” or “ears” of any kind over Mr. Trump’s head were intentional.
“There was some hubbub online Wednesday over TIME’s new Person of the Year cover, which appeared to show Donald Trump sporting a set of horns (This sort of thing has happened before),” Time magazine explained in a statement online Thursday morning.
Given the shape of the “M” in the magazine’s name, many figures in the past have also appeared to sprout extra features, the magazine joked.
“It’s happened to Hillary Clinton at least twice. It’s happened to Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, too.”

Here’s a look at a Time’s March 2, 1998, cover, featuring then-President Bill Clinton.

 

Bill Clinton

And take a look at this Time cover, featuring Pope Francis, on July 29, 2013.

Pope Francis

After giving at least 35 examples of covers that resulted in horns of some sort, the magazine assured its readers, “Any resemblance to cats, bats or devil horns is entirely
coincidental.”

 I have my doubts about this. Take another look. The composition and the head size relative to the font size is just too perfect. Well, every one is entitled to their interpretation.

Trump loves Louisiana; promises oil and gas jobs

Greg Hilburn ,   USA TODAY Network     Louisiana politics , Local

BATON ROUGE — President-elect Donald Trump promised an energy industry renaissance to an enthusiastic Louisiana crowd here Friday as part of a Republican campaign rally preceding Saturday's election.

Trump asked voters to support Republican John Kennedy in Saturday's U.S. Senate race and Republican Mike Johnson in the 4th Congressional District, saying they will be his partners in Washington.

"You're in the energy business; you more than any other state," he said. "We're going to see refineries and pipelines and lots of things. We will cancel job-killing regulations (on the energy industry)."

Trump supporters by the thousands packed the Dow Chemical hangar, even spilling outside, for a chance to see the president-elect, waving signs like "Red Votes Mattered," "I'm ready to work on the wall" and "If you build it they WON'T come."

Red "Make America Great Again" caps were everywhere, hawked along with campaign buttons and T-shirts by vendors outside the venue as if it were a rock concert.

The president-elect went back to the issues that resonated with crowds throughout his campaign, with the biggest applause eruptions coming when he talked about building a wall to thwart illegal immigration from Mexico and tearing up trade deals he believes are job-killers.

"We will build a great wall and stop illegal immigration," Trump said, generating chants of "Build that wall; build that wall."

As for trade, he said, "I like free trade but now we have foolish trade. That's why I'm renegotiating our trade (deals)."

"We're going to defend every American job," Trump said.

The president-elect pledged to bring back manufacturing jobs, "cut business taxes from 35 to 15 percent," repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court and "build the strongest military we've ever had."

Kennedy's opponent, Democrat Foster Campbell, asked for equal time on a day when Trump dominated the headlines in Louisiana.

Campbell held a press conference in downtown Baton Rouge before the Trump rally and headed to Alexandria and Lake Charles to continue his campaign.

"I hope President-elect Trump realizes who John Kennedy really is," Campbell said. "He was a liberal Democrat before begging (Trump) to come down here as a new conservative. He's a flip-flopper who didn't want to debate and who's beholden to corporate America."

The president-elect also met with Gov. John Bel Edwards before the rally on the tarmac. Edwards, a Democrat, didn't attend the GOP rally, but lobbied Trump for federal flood aid.

”I appreciate President-elect Trump taking the time to briefly visit with me during his trip to Louisiana today," Edwards said in a statement. "During our visit, I had the opportunity to again congratulate him on his victory and update him on our disaster recovery efforts since his visit in August.

"We had a brief, but positive conversation about our state's needs in order to complete the rebuilding process and he expressed his love for our great state. President-elect Trump and his administration will play a vital role in securing additional assistance for recovery from the March and August floods. I reiterated my enthusiasm to partner with him, and the President-elect and I agreed to meet again after the inauguration to discuss issues important to Louisiana in more detail.”

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1
Thanx Greg

Obama orders review of cyber attacks on 2016 election: Adviser

Thomson Reuters     JEFF MASON           December  9th 2016 
WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves office on Jan. 20, homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said on Friday.

Monaco told reporters the results of the report would be shared with lawmakers and others.

"The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process ... and to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders, to include the Congress," Monaco said during an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Monaco said cyber attacks were not new but might have crossed a "new threshold" this year.

When she was working as a senior FBI official in 2008, she said, the agency alerted the presidential campaigns of then-Senator Obama and Republican Senator John McCain that China had infiltrated their respective systems.

"We've seen in 2008 and in this last election system malicious cyber activity," Monaco said.

In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.
Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks.

Asked if Republican President-elect Donald Trump's transition team was not concerned enough about Russia's influence on the election or about other threats to the United States such as infectious disease outbreaks, Monaco said it was too soon to say.

As a presidential candidate, Trump praised Putin and called on Russia to dig up missing emails from his opponent, Hillary Clinton, from her time as secretary of state under fellow Democrat Obama. (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Putin says Trump clever, will understand new responsibilities

Thomson Reuters       December  4th 2016 
Putin's comments appeared to address criticism from Trump's opponents who say his unconventional actions since the election - including railing at the cast of a Broadway show and early-morning invective on Twitter - show Trump is out of his depth.

China lodged a diplomatic protest on Saturday after Trump spoke by phone with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, the first by a U.S. president-elect or president since Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of "one China."

Speaking about Russia's relations with the West, Putin said attempts to create a unipolar world had failed: "The situation is changing. I think it is not a secret to anyone, everyone sees it, that many of our partners already prefer to stick to principles of international law, because the world's balance is being gradually restored."

Putin said when building relationships with other countries, Russia would respect their interests. (Reporting by Polina Devitt; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Witchy sez :
This is putin's way of saying your welcome tRUMP, we were happy to aid in your election.
 "I couldn't get away with much", NOW I'm a kid in the TRUMP CANDY STORE!
One last word 
Yes - the words "trump" and "stick" go together, as in trump stickin'  it to us....  HeHe