Earlier today a couple of you asked me what I thought of the Wikileaks release. I wrote the following in two related comments. I’m highlighting the relative parts and I’ve edited the non-essential portions out from the original comments.
Wikileaks is a distro arm, and has been for a while, of the Russian government. Given that some of what was dropped – and please remember I am, like everyone else with a clearance, not allowed to actually look at anything Wikileaks posts because I don’t need to know it whether its spilled onto the unclassified Internet or not, so I’m working off of other people’s reporting – claims that the CIA has the ability to make its cyber activities look like Russian Intelligence’s cyber activities. And that this is the stuff being pushed heavily by the known Russian governmental propaganda outlets, their fellow travelers, and sites/individuals that seek to shield the President from all criticism… It is important to remember that there is a remarkable amount of overlap, in terms of time and language, between what is reported and tweeted and distroed by other social media by RT and Sputknik towards the US on this stuff, what is then reported and tweeted/retweeted and distroed by other social media by FOX News personalities (Hannity, the Fox and Friends lack of brains trust), right wing radio talkers (Levin, Hewitt, etc), Breitbart, WND, etc, and then, ultimately the President and a number of folks in and around his inner circle. This pattern has been going on and remarked on for months and is quite bizarre.
And:
I think what you’re going to see, and I want to clarify from above, that the claim will be that the CIA did the hacking into the DNC and RNC on Obama’s request, but made it look like Russia and made it looked like Russia was helping the President’s campaign. That’s the only reason you start talking about the CIA having the ability to make its hacking tools and malware look like Russia’s. This will be in order to discredit the charges of Russian hacking and a Russian campaign of active measures in support of the President’s campaign.
Hopefully that makes more sense.
Lo and behold:
So, here's where this is going: Two Russian websites & Milo Yiannopoulos have begun pushing the theory that CIA hacked the Dems. pic.twitter.com/EwaNXn1qmA
— Dell Cameron (@dellcam) March 7, 2017
If history serves as a guide, Breitbart will push this theory soon and Trump will start tweeting about it shortly after.
— Dell Cameron (@dellcam) March 7, 2017
Here's the headline on Milo's personal website, which it says describes a "developing story" pic.twitter.com/JOFE5g2NuI
— Dell Cameron (@dellcam) March 7, 2017
So yeah, here we go: The CIA hacked the DNC to help Trump win, leaked the documents to WikiLeaks, then blamed Russia. It's all so clear now! pic.twitter.com/1H3uqrMOEh
— Dell Cameron (@dellcam) March 7, 2017
Gosh what a surprise https://t.co/JKU09PmI9O
— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) March 8, 2017
And Gateway pundit retweeting Kim Dotcom's expert assessment pic.twitter.com/ppFanWVFDN
— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) March 8, 2017
I don’t think any of this comes as any great surprise to anyone, but its always nice when reality conforms to one’s expectations of it.
Brachiator
Adam, I certainly commend you on your astute and prescient analysis of the WikiLeaks dump.
What does it say that some person or groups are so intent on providing cover for Trump?
ETA: It is very interesting to see the previously disgraced Milo Y attempt to make a media comeback with this stuff.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Jesús Marimba…
I wondered what would happen if it became so clear that Russia did this and that Trump and his people worked with them. What would Trumpanzees say? Would they bow down before reality and deal with it and take their lumps and maybe even own up to having made a mistake in trusting Trump? Well, I guess we know now they’re unlikely to…
Lyrebird (on new device)
This would be so much funnier (as Mumphrey and others have said) if the country weren’t stuck with this maleficent Republican administration as the punch line.
Like one of these dangerous bozos uses “pRs_on pllanett” (misspelled by me so as not to invoke the attention of the creep) as a handle when it’s the current batch of Republicans wanting to bring back chain gangs.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Wow…
Just… wow…
So Breitbart is now a wholy owned subsidiary Russia?
You KNOW they had to come up w/ SOMETHING…
Getting too hot in the kitchen? Too close to the truth?
Quick! Turn on The Firehose of Misinformation™!
All the more impressive for finding a way for Milo to get back in their good graces…
BlueDWarrior
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I am starting to believe that all of these right-wing movements across the world are part of some kind of Russian shadow operation to ensure the world order breaks down into myriad nations fighting amongst themselves to be top of the scrap heap, while Putin rebuilds the glorious Russian Empire.
Vhh
So the CIA attacked the DNC to elect Trump so they could then attack Trump. Makes perfect sense.
Wag
How many times must we fall through the looking glass before we learn to look before we leap?
Edit
And my comment is in no way meant as a slight to @through the looking glass.
Trump is insane and I find the whole progression laid out by our blog hosts to be deeply disturbing and unfortunately true.
Vhh
So the CIA attacked the DNC to elect Trump so they could then attack Trump. Makes about as much sense as the news I saw on Soviet TV in Moscow ca. 1977.
Mnemosyne
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
There are people in this country who genuinely and sincerely believe that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation and none of the kids who were murdered there really existed.
We now have their president in charge.
marcion
if the CIA hacked the election surely we need to appoint a special procecutor to get to the bottom of this tangled mess.
yeah? yeah? no? okay then.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: I think that’s another comment of mine from earlier. There will be an attempt to get this into the mainstream media – NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, CNN, all three networks, etc, then use the mainstream coverage to provide validity to these bogus assertions in order to weaponize them. We saw that last week with the Levin’s created out of whole cloth crap that President Obama is engaged in a soft coup, aided by the Intel Community, against the current President. Levin popped off. Then Limbaugh. Then Breitbart covered it. Then the President tweeted it. Then FOX covered by interviewing Levin a lot. Then, on Sunday, they pushed out first Huckabee-Sanders and then Conway. Then yesterday they had Scaramucci and others out there. And there claims were: “see the NY Times, and WaPo and the WSJ and CNN and the networks all reported this”. This isn’t true. They reported on it. As in “these allegations have been made, here’s the chronology, and there’s no evidence offered or that anyone seems to know of to substantiate them”.
Lyrebird (on new device)
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Sorry I used your old monniker up there instead of the new one… did appreciate that comment of yours (on some other thread).
And was it one of your kiddos that was Super Frog for a while?
Hope so. I like that image. My kid is that awesome, which is not to say I always know how to bring that out in him. Should go to sleep, cause us both being cranky does not help.
Felonius Monk
Most of this information has been circulated around for months. Is there anything really new here?
Lizzy L
Milo….sheesh. There’s a tell.
Congratulations on your prescience, Adam. We are back in the Land of the Flying Monkeys. It will be interesting to watch the president*’s Twitter feed Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
Omnes Omnibus
@Vhh: Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.
Mnemosyne
Note that ever since these allegations started circulating, there have been people ostensibly on the left (*cough*MarcyWheeler*cough*) who still insist that they’re skeptical that the Russians did this, but don’t seem to have a plausible explanation for who did hack the DNC and release only information that was harmful to Hillary.
Adam L Silverman
@BlueDWarrior: I’ve only been telling you all that here for a year. With links to reporting that supports it.
jl
I for one am astonished,. greatly surprised and outraged, outraged(!) at this revelation.
Far too blatant and obvious.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@BlueDWarrior:
efgoldman
@Wag:
Well, Lewis Carroll had it first.
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: In the Wikileaks release? I don’t know, this stuff is outside my areas of expertise. From what I’ve seen in the reporting the US IC certainly thinks so. Because, apparently what was released today was not “the US has these tools”. Rather it was “here are the actual tools the US has” including the code.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Brachiator
So, let’s see. The CIA is staffed with traitors who do Obama’s will. So, should we be looking for a purge of the Intelligence community so that Trump can fill the posts with loyal people? Are there that many billionaires left who can be brought on to fill these posts?
And before we mainly had Fox News as the conservative propaganda machine. Now, we have an entire wingnut alt-media regime.
Not even 2 full months, and Trump is already dragging the nation down, abetted by a willing Congress eager to use this opportunity to pull apart every humane aspect of the federal government.
ETA: Weird how these goons are transforming Obama into the still in power shadow president of the United States.
amk
so, what’s the end game here? twitler for life? white supremacy rules the world?
Adam L Silverman
@Lizzy L: Depends on whether they put the Breitbart article in his read book tomorrow, Thursday, or Friday. Depending on when that happens will determine when the President has one of his episodes.
NotMax
More projection going on than a Zeiss Starmaster.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Why don’t you tell us?
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Wag: None taken, for sure…
This is getting so f’n crazy it’s hard to know what to think… or at least that’s probably their intention…
Just another attempt to sort us into two different warring factions…
Those of us who refuse to go along w/ this and just point and laugh…
And those who eat it up w/ a spoon and say, ‘Damn that was GOOD! Can I have some more?’
rikyrah
Uh uh uh
sure, they did.
PHUCK OUTTA HERE????
BlueDWarrior
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, I’m not one to immediately go to ‘Red-baiting’, but in this case, it just seems too damn convenient that in this era where we seem to be turning the corner on Green Energy and we were trying to rebuild the community of Nations, all of a sudden these right-wing populist movements start popping up and yelling about how all the alliances need to be shredded and we need to become so many number of fortress nations, each one paranoidly guessing and how the other is going to screw them over.
Oh and to hell with all that namby-pamby environmental nonsense, just dig it up and burn it, you’ll be dead before the bill comes due; but that’s more of a side benefit to Putin and the other Russian oligarchs.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus:
These are better.
And:
Anne Laurie
@BlueDWarrior:
Fixt that for you.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: So, funny Lewis Carroll story. Apparently the Queen read the first Alice book and liked it so much she ordered someone to go out and get the next book the author had published. Of course, and, perhaps, unfortunately, that was in his professional capacity as a mathematician and logician. The Queen was not amused…
pk
Why hack the DNC and frame Russia and Trump? Wouldn’t it be easier to hack the IRS and release Trump’s tax returns? Also Obama orders the hacking of DNC to frame Trump and Russia? Yes I’m sure everyone is going to fall for this one.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Gosh, I wonder how those tools got out into a space where Wikileaks could access them. Perhaps from someone who worked for the NSA but then fled to Russia with two laptops and several hard drives?
BlueDWarrior
@pk: Well the right people will fall for it, and that is the 35-40% of the voting public that will gladly swallow whatever bait or lure the Right-Wing noise machine throws out on the line. Everyone else will have to suffer working around their delusions, when possible.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Makes eminent sense, and as you note Trump’s surrogates are trying to legitimize this nonsense by saying, “Look, it’s in the NY Times.” Even though the Times is supposedly a purveyor of fake news.
But as I mentioned in another post here, will Trump attempt a purge of the CIA and other agencies? When you get down to it, Trump is consistent and persistent about some things. Despite a little window dressing in a few speeches, he has consistently suggested that the Intelligence community is a disaster, full of failures. How can he let it go on as it is if it is supposedly full of Obama loyalists?
The same “problem” exists with respect to the State Department.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@pk:
Never overestimate the intelligence of your enemy…
ETA: And you have to understand… they can only work w/ what they have… if this is the pile Donald’s given them to deal with… I suspect everyone involved is starting to feel some buyers’ remorse about Donald…
jl
I really expected more art from Wikileaks. More subtle trade craft. More jay nay say kwa.. but this just doesn’t do it for me.
I am really a little disappointed. When I heard about it on the news this morning, I expected something that might stir the pot. Some clever misdirection. Or what would be even better, and would more effective, some real revelations about something something US did bad that deserved attention.I dunno, maybe evidence of US or Western European dishonest meddling in Ukraine before the riots and Russian invasion. Anyway, something interesting, and maybe worth looking into, but right now a potentially dangerous distraction from the real problem (the Trump regime).
But then I saw that it had some half assed attempt at a portentous ominous name. What was it, ‘Silo 7’ or ‘Dump 8’ I don’t remember. Anyway, I started wondering if was some dipshit junk.
But this bland crap? Very disappointed. Not even any entertainment value. Dud. Sad. Very low energy.
And I was waiting all day, adrenaline up, like a kid watching a horror suspense movie. I want my money back and I am discontinuing my subscription to the newsletter.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
They didn’t have to come up with anything new and cool, because they knew that the rubes that follow them will believe anything now.
Basically, we’re stuck watching Friday the 13th Part Five with a bunch of morons who think it’s suspenseful.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: The end game is to delegitimize the investigation and any findings that result from it into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The claim will now be:
1) President Obama had the CIA hack the DNC, the RNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, and John Podesta’s emails, as well as the DOD, Governor Pence, Senator Graham (R-SC) and other GOP officials, the Department of State, etc and make it look like the Russians did it.
2) President Obama then had the CIA only release the stuff that made the Democrats look bad.
3) President Obama then had the entire US Intel Community blame the Russians and claim that the Russians did so to help the Trump campaign.
4) President Trump then won the election.
5) President Obama is now utilizing this information, and orchestrating the leaks from within the US IC, to overthrow the current President in a soft coup.
6) ?
7) Profit
Its basically the underpants gnomes business strategy:
1) Steal underpants
2) ?
3) Profit
Adam L Silverman
@BlueDWarrior: They were there, but they were poorly funded and marginalized. And then they were funded by Putin, connected together by one of his deputies, and now they are much more effective.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s the same Judith Miller, Dick Cheney, Meet The Press, circle jerk, it worked then and during the campaign so why not try it again?
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Mnemosyne:
Hell… they think it’s a documentary…
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: My understanding from the reporting is this was stolen post Snowden. So either the NSA guy they arrested last Fall – also a Booz Allen contractor who had worked at NSA or someone else. I know from the reporting that a major investigation has been opened by the National Security section at the FBI to find the thief.
Yarrow
Thanks, Adam. Interesting post.
I seem to remember that an administration going to war with the intelligence community doesn’t really work out all that well for them. I guess we’ll see this time.
It amazes me how President Obama is both all powerful and a complete weakling in their eyes. He ordered all this illegal hacking, which was carried out for months in secret. Yet he was an incapable president and completely weak on everything. He’s whatever they need him to be in relation to their own fears.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Makings of a good black comedy farce.
But who is left to do it? People are saying that Aristophanes has been doing terrific work, but he hasn’t written anything recently. Golgol is insane now. Jarry is drunk. Sellars is gone.
Mone Python is a bunch of old codgers. Not sure who could do it justice.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: Until or unless they change the civil service laws they can’t purge those agencies. The only other option is if Congress completely guts the budgets requiring a reduction in force (RIF). This, however, takes up to three or four years because any RIF among civilian personnel has to negotiate the civil service laws that protect them from just being terminated.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Yeah, some of the tech and apps cited are post-Snowden.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Yarrow:
It’s like he’s some sort of magical changeling, able to baffle his opponents at will…
At the very least, he certainly did get inside their heads…
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
It’s time to acknowledge that it was really DWS, she gave the info to Wikileaks because she was a mole, she just really wanted Twitler to win because she knew only he could keep us safe, just as soon as this hubub dies down, she will join the Twitler administration as our new ambassador to Israel in Jerusalem. Putin,
Adam L Silverman
@jl: You try living in a 10 x 8 room in the Ecuadorian Embassy and see how much je ne sais quoi you have.
randy khan
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, for anybody thinking it through, the double sideways pump fake aspect of that narrative – Obama had the CIA hack everybody, but released only the stuff that would hurt Hillary and then claimed it was the Russians to help Hillary – makes no sense at all. (Even if you assumed that he hated Hillary, it’s clear he thought Trump would be a disaster.) But the people who will buy it aren’t going to be thinking it through.
pk
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
True. But this seems too far fetched and stupid even for the deplorables. If Obama framed the Russians then why did Flynn resign, or Sessions recuse himself? But who knows? It’s not like Trump supporters have ever shown themselves to be anything other than morons.
amk
Have the assange klowns ever ‘exposed’ secrets of real despotic regimes of putin, ME shieks, turkish twitler etc?
Adam L Silverman
Ooopsie!
And the person who confirmed it: Lewandowski who denied over the weekend even knowing Page.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Except it they go too far, Obama can sue someone for slander. Not Wiki and not the Russians, but maybe Breitbarf or any of the broadcast buffoons.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
This is the internet, why the hell should we trust anything you say, it’s not like we really know you or have proof that you know what the hell you’re talking about!
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman:
Sadly, I would not underestimate the ability of that crowd to do something horribly destructive and out right illegal, and then force everyone else to fight back thru the courts…
If Trump keeps getting rid of people and not filling positions w/in his admin, he”s going to end up w/ next to no one working w/ him… bad because it’s scary and good because it’ll slow his agenda to a complete crawl…
efgoldman
@jl:
Tom Stoppard
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: Actually you’re missing one link – Laura Mylroie working at Feith’s shop at DOD pushing the stuff to her friend Judith Miller. Otherwise, yep.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@hovercraft: I was thinking the same thing.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Consistency, small minds, hobgoblins…
Yarrow
Donald Trump, “I love Wikileaks!” Video.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@pk:
I suggest waiting until morning then going to the magic google machine and trying various combinations of words like ‘Obama’ + ‘silent coup’ + ‘destroy Trump’ and see just how many hundreds of thousands of hits you get and how many people are howling for Obama’s arrest and conviction…
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Is that toxic fool still hiding in the diplomatic mission? I read the Wikipedia article, but it wasn’t quite clear.
If he is still there, why won’t he come out. Isn’t it safe now? That rape charge was just an evil Obama/HRC trick right… right… ?
Didn’t he say he would leave when the evil HRC/Obama gang no longer were in power to threaten his sad ass?
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
No Snowden. Some of the stuff is newer than his defection.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: No. Just the US and Germany and France and Britain.
piratedan
i guess my question would be… wtf would be the CIA’s end game in electing Trump to hack the Dems?
as soon as some one can come up with a semi-plausible answer, they should be signed immediately to a book deal.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Yes, but… There are 4,000 political appointments for each President – give or take a handful depending on what is being organized and how its being organized in terms of agencies or departments. About 600 require Senatorial confirmation. These 4,000 positions aren’t even 1% of the Federal workforce. Now they could keep the hiring freeze in place or modify it that positions vacated through retirement or because the incumbent leaves cannot be filled without approval from higher, which would attrit the Federal workforce, but it would take a while to turn that into a purge.
jl
@piratedan: Trump is really a super genius feigning madness, and Flynn, Cohen, Page and all the rest are really (under very deep cover) extremely wiley quadruple agents who will bring Putin down? Simple. I believe it.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Emergency!
;)
Jack the Second
So what’s the state of the art on mass cult deprogramming?
The convoluted malarkey, the excuses, the dren this crowd will buy just to keep believing in the narrative for a little longer is staggering. I don’t know how you reason with people who will accept all of these “alternative facts”; I don’t know how be build any sort of consensus, how we reach out, how we compromise.
So how do we move forward in any way but driving them out before us, burning their crops, salting the earth?
Adam L Silverman
@jl: He’s still there. Every candidate for the Ecuadorian presidency has indicated that if elected they will retract the asylum and evict him. He still faces charges of rape in Sweden, as well as charges related to evading law enforcement in Britain.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@hovercraft: You can trust Adam, he’s a doctor.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman: Well… now I do feel a bit better, knowing that just fighting w/ this will keep Trump tied up for months and years to come…
Balloon Juice should put a big counter in the upper right hand corner of the front page, counting down the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the 2018 midterms…
2018 CANNOT come soon enough…
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I realize I’m more cynical than you, but I have a feeling that investigation is going to die on the vine now that Trump is in charge.
And now that I think about it, it would have been very unlikely that the Russians could have penetrated as deeply into our national security as they appear to have done with information from just one guy, so it makes sense that there are and were multiple moles.
amk
@Adam L Silverman: Proof enough they are the true champions of the democracy, human rights and other loony left talking points.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman:
Now that’s funny… someone so distasteful and odious that EVERYONE promises the same outcome…
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Without a doubt.
Mnemosyne
OT, but an interesting theater experiment they did at NYU where they restaged parts of the Clinton/Trump debates with the genders switched, with some unexpected results. Misogyny is even more complicated than the researchers realized.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Bipartisanship! Someone call Fournier and Halperin.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Now turn your head and cough. ?
danielx
@Vhh:
Of course it does, in Trumpworld. In that mental space, after all, the CIA is incompetent, all powerful, feckless and ruthless all at the same time depending on lord shortfingers’ daily psychological needs.
For the rest of us, it seems like going to a lot of extra trouble. But then we’re somewhat less inclined to conspiracy theories and more inclined to believe in simple human fuckery than the followers of Cheeto Jesus.
Peale
@pk: like everybody else, Obama didn’t want Hillary to win.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman: I think there was somebody… Durkheim maybe? Who had a theory that even the worst criminals played a meaningful role in society by uniting the rest of us in what we simply wouldn’t stand for… I’m sure someone here can explain this better than me…
At any rate, it would appear that Assange is filling that niche for the Ecuadorians…
danielx
@jl:
Very deep indeed, and extremely wily too, since available information to date indicates these people couldn’t organize an orgy at a whorehouse and keep it secret. Much less a conspiracy to elect a loudmouth real estate grifter and public nuisance. This stuff always comes out, sooner or later – ain’t no omerta with Trump followers to begin with, and once the FBI or whoever really begins to squeeze….
jl
@danielx: But now that BillinGlendale vouched for Silverman, I can see all the pieces falling into place. This is deep… very deep…
danielx
@jl:
So deep I’m up to my ankles. in point of fact. It’s fun to watch wingers going through these incredible mental contortions though.
wkseattle
Long time lurker here… simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the Russia connections in this administration. Seeing the comments above about the ongoing efforts by Russia to destabilize the west, I remember a friend back in 2009 parroting a story from Pravda Online via Glenn Beck. I’m now wondering if that was an earlier form of what we see now.
sukabi
@Brachiator: if Obama were the “shadow president” wouldn’t he have guaranteed that the tangerine tantrum would have never made it to the oval office…clearly deductive reasoning (or rational thought) isn’t part of the wingnutz skill sets.
jl
@wkseattle: Last I heard, things have gotten so sad and wacky, that even a nut case like Glenn Beck has jumped ship.
I think Beck is actually an unbalanced nut case, after reading how he blew through all the funding for his latest media venture.
The others, Levine, Jones, Limbaugh, have to be cynical grifters.
Mnemosyne
@wkseattle:
FWIW, Russia has been working patiently at this for a long time. All of these connections to Republicans and the right wing did not spring up overnight.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Really interesting. Thanks for the link.
Adam L Silverman
@wkseattle: Welcome. And yes.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Exactly… and that’s why so many on this side of that divide have a hard time dealing w/ this… they can’t conceptualize a plan being played out over 2 or 3 decades… it moves so slowly that nothing seems to be happening and then one day you get up and you go, ‘Holy shit… how the hell did Donald-Farkin’-Trump end up in the White House’?
And somewhere, Vladimir Putin is laughing his Cheney off…
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: huh…looks like peeps are starting to chirp…
Mnemosyne
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
IIRC, Putin has had a grudge against the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and not entirely without basis. It sucks to be us right now.
wkseattle
@jl: Yes, I am at times unsure if the rightwing pundits are cynical grifters or if they actually buy into the echo chamber. Probably some of both.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Here you go:
http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/bunker/american-carnage/
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Yep.
Villago Delenda Est
The IC takes their oath seriously.
Donald and his minions, not so much.
wkseattle
@Mnemosyne:
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Indeed. It is hard to adjust to the idea of such long term subterfuge. So it feels like waking up and suddenly seeing everything through fresh eyes… or Trump-stained glasses as it were.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Also this:
http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/bunker/our-common-peril/
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne:
Still sucks more to be Russian.
Mnemosyne
@wkseattle:
An interesting thing about con men is that the best and most successful ones convince themselves that the con is true. There’s a nonfiction book called Drake’s Fortune about a guy who started an elaborate con that was a pyramid scheme to convince people they were descendants of Sir Francis Drake and would inherit a lot of money, but he ended up in an insane asylum because he eventually came to believe the con that he had created was true.
Either that, or he decided that even a late 19th century insane asylum was more comfortable than a prison … ?
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Here you go:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-happens-when-we-dont-believe-presidents-oath
wkseattle
@Mnemosyne: Interesting. Along the same lines, a friend recently pointed me to this story at the Guardian: Guardian link
swordfish
I mostly just lurk here, but I wanted to thank Adam Silverman, because his interpretation of the most recent Wikileaks dump is the only one I’ve seen that makes sense. When no evidence is found of a legal wiretap on Trump Tower, his fans will insist it was an unofficial wiretap, possibly involving a smart TV. Most people won’t believe, but Trump’s fervent base will. Whew. How do we survive this as a nation?
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: And this one too for good measure:
http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/bunker/a-formless-society-of-tweets-burps-and-people-named-the-situation-ruled-by-negative-implication/
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the links. You have convinced me that its treason at the very top (I sorta knew that already) and willing accomplices down through the Republican national leadership.
wkseattle
@swordfish: I had a similar reaction to this post. Somehow it should be communicated widely that wikileaks is effectively an arm of the Russian government. Would help a lot of journalists and readers.
Adam L Silverman
@swordfish: You’re welcome. A large portion of the problem is that, based on the reporting, most of what we know is the result of collection on the Russian ambassador and other Russians. LTG Flynn should have known, I would argue as a career intel officer he must have known, that we have standing collection on the Russian ambassador. As a result the IC would have a record of the contact and full SIGINT collection on the Russian ambassador’s call. It would, however, be off limits because LTG Flynn is an American citizen and he was on American soil when making the call. The same thing for the call between then Senator Sessions and the Russian ambassador. And for any other calls, texts, and/or emails between anyone at the Trump Organization, campaign, transition, and now Administration and the Russian Ambassador, other members of the Russian embassy, and any Russians that the US Intel Community deems it important to monitor. Once an investigation was opened, and FISA authorization was granted, then these records and transcripts would be made available as necessary. Additionally, based on the reporting we were provided information from allied/partner nation Intelligence about contacts between Trump Organization and Trump campaign personnel and Russian government and other Russians in Europe during the campaign. Finally, anything that was collected by the US IC on those contacts, while the US citizens from the Trump Organization and/or Trump campaign in Europe are fair game – they don’t require FISA approval because the collection occurred when the Americans were off US soil.
Now provided there is, in fact, an active, ongoing counterintelligence investigation as has been reported (not to mention the other two or three non CI investigations). And there was, in fact, a FISA warrant issued as has been reported, then information from all three of the categories above will be reviewed to determine just what did and did not happen.
Adam L Silverman
@swordfish: @wkseattle: I’d just like to state for the record that I’ve seen several other folks, all seemingly in isolation from each other, make variations on the same themes I touch on in the post about what is going on with Wikileaks and this most recent dump.
Anne Laurie
@jl:
Beck’s said he’s been diagnosed as bipolar. And that he self-medicated for years, with booze and other substances. Then he got treatment / sober, and jumped off the RWNJ bandwagon…
He may still not be capable of running a media venture on his own, but at least he’s got some excuse for acting the way he did for so long.
KlareCole
@Adam L Silverman While I may not sleep tonight after reading this whole post tonight, I’d say the illogic of your logic at the outset of this post is spot on. I’m quite ill about it, such spot belief by the right wing, of inverted reality is horrifying but we see it repeatedly. Never mind that Carter Page’s connection to the Russians is verified, one more drip for the British mountain of spy information verifying the Russian connection. I have read spy stuff now til my eyes cross, and boning up on money laundering just to keep up on the Rachel Maddow reporting. And now your take on how the IC reporting will be twisted.
I’m merely a psychotherapist turned business person. My work life keeps me busy. But the clients I have had that were driven the most crazy were driven so by families who could perpetuate these multilayered twisting folds of reality. The DT tweet of Sat claiming Obama ‘tapped’ Trump Tower made me ill. Turning the tables, then folding the table, then calling the floor the ceiling while saying grass is red, well it confuses people. And the right wing are the easily led, easily brainwashed. The less sense it makes the better.
But for the sake of those of us trying to keep reality between the lines, thanks Adam. Some advance warning should help.
clay
Given that Wikileaks has proven itself to be a virtually unambiguous arm of the Russian propaganda machine, why aren’t we (meaning: our counter-espionage services) doing something about them?
I don’t mean plugging Assange, but DNS or DDOS attacks, or whatnot.
AxelFoley
@Mnemosyne:
But, didn’t many on the Left, including some here and sites like DailyKos, call Snowden a hero for whistleblowing?
SFAW
@AxelFoley:
Originally, it appeared to many (myself included) that he was exposing some of the same shit the various Agencies had pulled before (e.g., Chile in the 1970s, Iran in the 1950s). So, a decent dose of naivete.
Of course, in those days, I also had the impression that GG was not a total stooge. I’ve become less naive since then, of course.
ETA: Which is interesting, because I’m usually pretty f-ing cynical, not sure why I wasn’t with Snowden.
SFAW
@Anne Laurie:
I’m not sure “jumped off” is the right phrase. He’s done a few mea culpas, but from what I’ve seen of him since then — which ain’t much, thank FSM — indicates that it’s more lip service than sincere regret (a la Cole and Charles [not Chuck, that fuckhead] Johnson). Maybe I’m not being fair to him. On the other hand, as the illustrious efgoldman says:
Fuckem.
montanareddog
If the Trump campaign’s links to Russia were non-existent and constructed out of whole cloth by the CIA, who were Sessions and Flynn meeting with when they thought it was Kislyak – John Brennan in a fat suit?
SFAW
@montanareddog:
What’s this “trying to be logical” crap? That shit don’t cut it with the Shitgibbonistas.
It was OBVIOUSLY one of Obama’s Chicago Mafia — maybe Rahm? It would not surprise me to read about some Alex Jones acolyte claiming it was Moooochelle in a fat suit and whiteface.
Just remember, there is no such thing as Peak Wingnut.
ETA: Although, I guess, there are enough assholes out there who claim Michelle is fat-Fat-FAT that a fat suit would not be necessary for her.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Why does anyone believe anything out of Wikileaks now? They aren’t honest actors, maybe it looks like Russian stuff because the Russians gave it to Wikileaks?
SFAW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The people who believe Shitgibbon when he says up-is-down, black-is-white, will believe whatever reaffirms the insane narrative(s) in their heads, or whatever reaffirms the insane rantings/ravings of the Head Nutcase In Charge.
PJ
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Supposedly Trump took his first trip to Moscow in the 1980s (the one where afterwards he came back and took out full page ads in the NYTimes and Wash Post urging the US to stop defending Japan) at the invitation of Vitaly Churkin, then Soviet Ambassador to the UN, who had flattered Trump about how wonderful Trump Tower was and that they wanted to build a similar tower in Moscow. This is the same Vitaly Churkin who, while Russian Ambassador to the UN, had a “heart attack” a few weeks ago.
Kurzleg
Doesn’t this all seem a bit TOO neat? Could the WH be crazy enough to continue to have contacts w/ Russia or its surrogates in order to coordinate a response like this? I know that’s verging on tinfoil hat territory, and I admit that a more likely explanation is that the WH and its fellow travelers are latching onto anything they can. But Bannon and company seem 1) sympathetic enough to Russia’s white nationalism, 2) motivated by the righteousness of their stated cause that it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve allied themselves deeply enough to coordinate.
fuckwit
I think without Adam and David I would be completely lost.
Thank you guys for providing facts, informed analysis, and explanation.
We are indeed way beyond the looking glass here. This shit is koo koo bird.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
\
But why do it the hard way, but taking control of the enemy’s (Trump’s) government, when it would have been so much easier to help Hillary win, then having control of her government?
Because we all know President Obama has total control over the weak white gurl Hills, right? HAhahahahah.
Crazy talk all the way down with the right wing nuts, tools of the Wealthy American Businessmen for so long they can’t tell the difference between American Oligarchs and Russian Oligarchs.
D58826
Given how Der Fuhrer was pissing and moaning about leaks a couple of weeks back, he seems strangely quiet about these leaks. Or maybe not so strange.
vhh
@Brachiator: Down with Goldstein.
The Pale Scot
@NotMax:
ZEISS STARMASTER with LED illumination
I want one.
I guess I should work on getting a room to put it in first.
The Pale Scot
@BlueDWarrior: