Many of us were pleased to see the surprise results of the November 8 election. Democrats were distraught.
The Democrats seem to be hung up on Kubler Ross’s first stage of mourning.
Anger and disbelief are giving way to what is starting to look like an insurrection.
Clinton camp supports intel briefing ahead of Electoral College vote
The Hillary Clinton campaign is supporting calls by some members of the Electoral College for an intelligence briefing on President-elect Donald Trump’s ties with Russia ahead of their Dec. 19 vote.
Clinton’s top political adviser John Podesta released a statement on Monday in support of the effort, Politico reported.
“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our national security,” Podesta said. “Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed.”
“Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” Podesta continued. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”
There is, as yet, no evidence of Russian interference. “Hacking” has been blamed for many of the disclosures of DNC e-mails and Hillary secrets, such as undermining the Bernie Sanders campaign. They appear to be still stuck in the “denial” stage.
Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump is an unmitigated disaster for Democrats, who want to ensure nothing like it happens again. But Clinton’s popular-vote lead over Trump is so large that it complicates the question of how to recalibrate for future elections.
Clinton led Trump by almost 3 million votes as of Sunday, according to a Cook Political Report tracker, with some final results still to be tabulated. More than 128 million votes were cast for the two main candidates nationwide, and Trump emerged as the victor by winning three Rust Belt states by margins of roughly 11,000 (Michigan), 23,000 (Wisconsin) and 44,000 (Pennsylvania).
Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who managed former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid, pointed out that, amid all the Democratic remorse and recrimination following the election, very small differences in those three states would have led to Republicans questioning their future, not Democrats.
Yes, it was close in several states that Hillary expected to carry. But SHE DIDN’T !
California supplied the difference in the popular vote, many of those probably from illegal alien voters.
the Washington Post reported Friday that the CIA now believes Russia intervened in the election to help Trump win. The story clearly has some distance left to run.
The WaPo story has NO proof or even evidence that this happened. The NY Times is even more hysterical, if possible.
Ann Althouse has a blog post on her reading of the story. Her conclusion ?
Squirreled away at the end of the article is the admission that people at the FBI are skeptical about the conclusion. An unnamed “senior American law enforcement official” told the NYT that “the Russians probably had a combination of goals, including damaging Mrs. Clinton and undermining American democratic institutions” and that “any disagreement between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and suggested that the C.I.A.’s conclusions were probably more nuanced than they were being framed in the news media.” The NYT observes that the FBI holds itself to “higher standards of proof,” since its work is geared toward prosecuting criminal cases in court, but: “The C.I.A. has a broader mandate to develop intelligence assessments.”
The NYT story also has no evidence, Just speculation by a CIA that has already been compromised by politics. The CIA has been shown to participate in a fake news story about Benghazi.
CBS News has obtained the CIA talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Sept. 15 regarding the fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, four days earlier. CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan says the talking points, which were also given to members of the House intelligence committee, make no reference to terrorism being a likely factor in the assault, which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.
Rice, who was considered a likely nominee to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, has been attacked by Republican lawmakers for saying on “Face the Nation” (video) on Sept. 16 that all indications were the attack “began spontaneously” – suggesting it likely sprang from a protest against an anti-Muslim video found on the Internet. Protests of that nature had been seen in other Muslim nations in the days and weeks before the Benghazi attack.
The CIA’s talking points read as follows:
“The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.
This assessment may change as additional information is collected and analyzed and as currently available information continues to be evaluated.
The investigation is on-going, and the US Government is working with Libyan authorities to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of US citizens.”
This information has subsequently been shown to be not only false but was not believed by Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State at the time of the attack. She e–mailed her daughter that the attack was terrorism and not a “demonstration gone awry.”
“At the time I e-mailed with my daughter, a terrorist group had taken credit for the attacks on our facility in Benghazi. Within 16, 18 hours, they rescinded taking credit. They did it all on social media. And the video did play a role,” Clinton insisted.
“We have captured one of the lead terrorists, and he admits it was both a terrorist attack and it was influenced by the video. This was fog of war. This was complicated. The most effective, comprehensive reports and studies demonstrate that.”
The whole “video” story has been repeatedly shown to be a lie to protect Obama’s coming 2012 election chances.
Now, we have another use of the CIA, which the FBI seems not to be cooperating with, to mislead the American people in order to discredit the newly elected president. This is extremely dangerous.
The fake news panic of 2016 is a variation on a long-held liberal notion that people are too easily manipulated by conservatives. This is one of the reasons Democrats are interested in empowering the state to ban political speech by overturning Citizens United or passing a Fairness Doctrines or handing control of the Internet to the government. Conspiracy theories are prevalent in American political life.
Feeding such conspiracy theories by a political party in an attempt to reverse an election is despicable.
After all,it was President Obama who told us in 2012 that we had nothing to fear from the Russians. He also was the one who told the Russian president that “I’ll have more flexibility after the election.”
It’s an attempt at a slow-motion coup d’etat. I fear for Trump’s life.
This blogger dismisses the hacking story contemptuously.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231711
“I fear for Trump’s life.”
I have since summer. I just hope he is very careful.
The CTH has a discussion of Morrill, the WaPo and NY Times source for the Russian ploy.
The quote comes from an interview given by former “interim” CIA Head Mike Morell, and as you can see above, it was quickly dispatched by noted Clinton political operative Paul Begala.
However, what is intentionally not noted is the actual context of the quote – and, just like the obtuse Washington Post article the statement is built upon, the Morell deniability built into his statement. Going directly to the original source transcript (emphasis mine, IC = Intelligence Community):
[…] What was new in The Washington Post story, if its right—we still don’t know whether its right, and whether the rest of the IC agrees or not—but that the CIA believes the intent of the meddling was to help Mr. Trump and hurt Mrs. Clinton’s chances.
Read the whole thing, as Insty says. Morrell is a total political creature.
I believe the Russian “hacking” story is just another effort to undermine Trump, along with the “popular vote” b.s. and the goofy recount. If readers here haven’t yet seen it, I highly recommend this 45 minute presentation about the election results from Victor Davis Hanson; he is on fire here:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/12/from-the-penalty-box-3.php
He suggests that the Left and their media hacks aren’t going to let up, that they are going to try to get Trump with “death by a thousand cuts” and that he is going to have to fight every day. He also lays into the NeverTrump crowd, including his colleagues at National Review, and suggests that Trump read Bret Stephens at the WSJ every day and do the opposite of what he says. I read the WSJ daily, and I think it’s been weeks since I’ve seen a front page without a negative Trump story/headline. And Trump still has GOPe to contend with.
We are largely beyond the point where we can influence the inner circle politics taking place. Other than in the Clausewitzian sense [and this is a forum where I don’t have to cite the quote!]. They are going to do what they are going to do. But then it is up to us to do what we have to do to remain free.
“ Be Thou then Truly resolved; that Duty is as Heavy as a Mountain, and Death is as light as a Feather.”
The Oath does not expire.
I find this story interesting on two different levels –
The first is how charming it is that the Democrats have suddenly discovered a great passion for electoral integrity, one which seemed to elude them for, oh, a few decades now. It is worth noting that I can’t entirely put it past Mr. Putin to get cute on this issue, here and in Europe. But, when a thief breaks into your house and steals your jewels…. that you kept in the sill of your front window, with a big sign saying “Check out my cool jewels!!!”, all behind a door held closed by a rubber band… one considers that there is lots of blame and accountability to be had beyond just the thief. Oh, and just who was responsible for the past eight years for judging Russian capabilities and intentions, and defending us on all fronts, political and cyber most certainly included? Yeah, who was that again, I forget? *ahem* “The eighties called, they want their foreign policy back”…. Chortle chortle…. isn’t our Smarmy-in-Chief just the cleverest and kewlest guy around?? Heh heh, stoopid Republicans…..
So I would not be averse to a bipartisan commission taking a hard and honest look at ALL issues concerning electoral integrity, including the use of paper ballots and counting procedures and the like. Oh, and, of course, one of the first things to implement is federal standards for confirming voter identification for all elections, at least the federal ones. That is… voter I.D.
Whaaaaa?!?!? So all of a sudden electoral integrity suddenly doesn’t seem so important any more?? Really? What the hell happened there?? Well, then, frankly, if that’s where you are going to dig in your heels from the get, then there just is not a whole lot to talk about on this topic for now, is there? At all. We will be happy to proceed without you, then. Thanks for your time.
I want to be the fly on the wall for that conversation.
The second VERY interesting thing is the categorical flip from Right to Left on suspicion of the Russians. It has been well established that Ted Kennedy was working either directly or obliquely with the Soviets against Ronald Reagan. Now, Putin seems warm and fuzzy to the European and American Right, while their Left seethes with anger at the Moscow monster. What the hell happened there??
It is not lost on anyone that Russia is no longer communist. Still Russian, but not communist. They are nationalist and hold the Russian Orthodox Church in far higher esteem. Of course such foul and horrid ideas are an anathema to our lefty friends. But it is pretty damn shameless to through such ardent Soviet sympathies overboard the minute they do the same to communism. Not just shameless, but not very smart or prudent as well, something such people have always accused their opponents of lacking.
So, we’re supposed to believe the CIA, Wapo, and the NYT are credible sources for this story that undermines the election, but not believe that any of shrillary’s stupidities and corruptions might have led to serious problems for the country?
I am cynical about politics, but this is delusional to the point of true insanity.
I don’t remember Republicans getting a cut on the deal to give US uranium sources to Putin. Did I miss something? Nor do I remember Romney telling Obama not to worry about Russia. Did I miss something? Nor do I remember Republicans wanting to embrace the old Russian proxy near our Florida coast. Did I miss something? (Perhaps Russia is no longer communist, but it is a powerful state run by an autocrat and policed by the equivalent of the KGB.)
I also don’t remember what in the released e-mails was “fake news” or in any way argued as untrue. Was it the Republicans that rid the DNC of its leaders after the release of that information?
If it was Russia then their goal might have been the worthy one of aiding Obama/Hillary to come closer to their goal of being “the most transparent” of American administrations.
I’ve already said my piece about this: It’s agitprop. And it’s part of a carefully-crafted package deal. The target audience is the same as for, oh, say, THIS:
>They reside in their own echo-chamber bubble of indignation about everything from “New York values” (urban, ethnic rights, LGBT, social justice), to the war on Christmas and Black Lives Matter. They mocked and derided all people’s protests from Occupy to #NoDAPL. Their old standbys are opposing a woman’s right to choose, reinstituting school prayer and eradicating “big government.” They hate progress. Their idea of American values is straight from circa 1870.
>They’re delusional in their belief that their views are more important, more valid, more ethical, and more patriotic than any other groups. They claim American Christian values, home, God and country. White values. Any dissenting viewpoints are taken as literal acts of war.
>Anyone who questions the narrow vision of Middle America Christian values, being forced on 325 million people of multiple cultures, religions, no religion, and a mosaic of ethnicities, is deemed ungodly and un-American.
>It’s clear cultural fascism.
thehill DOT com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/310054-america-is-held-hostage-by-flyover-states
Be sure to skim the comments section as well. The charges that we are stupid and evil and that God, country, tradition=white=bad are repeated and elaborated upon many times over. So is the charge that we are the instruments of our own inevitable (albeit necessary) demise, that we are doomed to go the way of the Neanderthal because we are too stubborn and hateful and dim to vote in our actual best self interest. All of this, in a mainstream national publication — not some dripping-wet rag in Berkeley.
Then, as a sort of tonic, read this:
wintersoldier2008.typepad DOT com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2016/12/what-george-soros-and-the-lefties-dont-understand-about-america-no-2-breakfast-at-heathers-hog-belli.html
Nothing has changed from a month ago. They hate us. They really hate us. They need their hate. They eat it like candy. They must keep it fanned and ready and simmering. At the moment this is all they have. And what a fragile moment it may be. This election and all its fruits and its temporary relief may just be a dead-cat bounce before these crazy bastiches take over once again — they do, after all, outnumber us and have an awful lot of money and a very big bullhorn, and they do, after all, indoctrinate our young — and steer American civilization off some metrosexual totalitarian cliff.
The two halves of America described in these articles are still hurtling headlong at each other.
Keep watchful, keep sober, keep praying. And keep buying ammo.
To Ginny’s point, since Hillary and her operatives were already working with the Russians and other foreign governments, it must have been ridiculously easy to hack them. I’m not even sure if you can call it hacking because that implies some technical expertise that would not be required here. All that had to be done was send an email from one of the ‘dignitaries’ (i.e. money handlers) to Clinton or Podesta or the DNC with an attachment or link. They probably didn’t even think twice about clicking it. It’s the sort of double cross that I’m sure happens all the time with extortion cases. There may be honor among thieves but not in politics. The real risk here was the bribery network that Hillary was operating from her position of power. It put the country at grave risk.
The intelligence community is undoubtedly worried about getting their budgets cut. It’s true we’ve received a low return on our investment in intelligence for too long. My guess is there’s also something else that got out about certain intelligence officials, and they’re now firing shots across the new president’s bow in retaliation.
Intelligence community?
Do you mean the bunch that walked us into Vietnam? Missed the 1973 war coming on? Missed the end of the Soviet Union? Missed the end of Maoism? Missed the fall of the Shah and rise of the mullahs in Iran? Missed the wmd”s in Iraq, or lack of them? Flubbed just about everything in the mideast once the military operations, mostly successful, were over? Missed the Arab Spring, and then flubbed our response.
Let’s play the game this way: Talk about all the big successes, if you can find any.
After the IRS, and maybe the VA, is there any more incompetent and relentlessly futile bunch in the western world than our pathetic “intelligence community”?
is there any more incompetent and relentlessly futile bunch in the western world than our pathetic “intelligence community”?,/i>
Read, “Legacy of Ashes.
Another interesting read is “Circle of Treason,” about Aldrich Ames and how he betrayed the US and its agents for 20 years without detection in spite of unexplained affluence, usually a giveaway.
I have both.
The State Department.
Death6
I thought Noemie Emery was a feminist .
Not only do they brag of the length and intensity of their bouts of sobbing —”crying as if someone died” was a common description — but, as New York magazine reported days later, professional women all over the country are making a brave stand to protest Trump’s election by doing hideous things to their hair. Because “the election results felt like an attack on minorities, women, and marginalized people in general,” a “vegan chef” cut her hair off to send Trump a “message.” Others like her got buzz cuts, flat tops or tossed out their extensions, and went platinum, or black.
Unfortunately, there was not a chance in the world that this message would reach Trump, or that he would care if he got it, but somehow the logic of making themselves ugly in the interests of spiting a well-know connoisseur of feminine pulchritude just seemed the right thing to do.
Acting like fools seems the most normal thing in the world to these people.
The current iteration of supposed feminism has little to do with the real concerns of actual women living in the real world, but is wholly a subsidiary of the progressive political enterprise, which, in and of itself, has only a tangential relationship with reality anyway.
Progs are always stunned when everything they do not only fails, but makes problems worse with unintended effects. What is impossible for them to comprehend is that their ideas are based on a viewpoint of human life and society that is purely imaginary, and thus doomed to inevitable failure.
My response to anyone who claims to be feminist in the current idiom is simply, “No, you’re not.”
The following rather horrible thought has occurred to me. There are, we may assume, some nutty anti-Trumpers in the CIA. One decides that what he should do is mount a false-flag operation and assassinate Hellary. He’ll square his conscience by asserting to himself that she’s obviously seriously ill and therefore not long for this world anyway. He assumes that the assassination will be blamed on Trump and that the ensuing outrage will keep him from becoming Prez. Or lead to his assassination in revenge. Or our CIA man might be subtler and assassinate Slick Willie so that comparable outrage will ensue, but Hellary would still be available to become Supreme Ruler.
Or perhaps such a thought has occurred to some foreign enemy of the USA which would love to see a breakdown of the US political order. It will therefore mount an operation that would look like a Trumpist assassination of Slick Willie or Hellary, but with the fallback that if the falseness is identified the surviving evidence will make it look like a CIA false-flag operation.
The world of mirrors in the “security community” is endlessly puzzling. But the current plotting by the Dems could lead to this sort of thing: are there no adults to tell them to stop?
It’s pretty rich of Podesta to say “Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” Podesta continued. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign.”
It was the media’s constant harping on Russia, Russia, Russia that got my wife to switch her vote from Johnson to Trump at the last minute.