Nope, me neither.

Which is sort of the point. It's unheard of that all of these agencies came to the same conclusion on a specific matter. Some may take this as an indicator of how damning the evidence really is, others see this as an indicator that the "assessments" were made on hierarchical levels reserved for political appointees.

The absence of dissent supports the second point of view. No group of analysts in their right mind would create a report without also strongly pointing out contradictory facts, inconsistencies, and separating fact from interpretation. That's what Hersh is referring to. This is not an NIE, it's an opinion piece. This memo by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (wierd name) goes down the same route:

As you will have gathered by now, we strongly suspect that the evidence your intelligence chiefs have of a joint Russian-hacking-WikiLeaks-publishing operation is no better than the “intelligence” evidence in 2002-2003 – expressed then with comparable flat-fact “certitude” – of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now, an opinion piece might be sufficient if it came from credible institutions and had a moderatly important subject. But this is throwing serious accusations at a sovereign nation in times when diplomatic relations are stressed as it is. And that's not going into the credibility problem of many of these agencies, who have a very dubious track record on these issues.

Ian Welsh had a piece the other day on the CIA vs Trump, and his take on intelligence agencies is pretty close to what mine has been since I learned about the Stasi some 20 years ago:

The CIA and NSA are not the friend of any left-wing worth having: they are innately anti-democratic, anti-privacy, and anti-rights. Secret agencies are anathema to any open government. At an existential level, intelligence agencies are at best a double edged sword, and by their nature, they always wind up serving the interests of the few, against the interests of the people.

The Senate confirmed Mike Pompeo as Director of the CIA.

Enough has been said about Pompeo's stance on torture, his theocratic tendencies, etc. And the Intercept had a nice piece on the 14 Democrats who voted yes.

What jumped out to me was this: John McCain voted yes. The one thing this warmonger occasionally has going for him is being anti-torture, and he voted yes in the confirmation of guy who continually defended the use of torture.

Hypocrisy must be easier to bear when your pockets are filled to the brim with corporate cash...

I found one thing extremely interesting in *2* separate interviews with Assange when he was asked whether or not there was any Russian involvement -- including the one with Hannity shown early in the video here:

Hannity: Did Russia give you this information? Or anyone associated with Russia?
Assange: Our source is not a state party.

Very close to verbatim that exchange appeared in a print interview a week or two ago. The resulting headlines: "Assange denies Russian Involvement in the Leaks", etc.

But look at that answer. It is very carefully worded, but it doesn't directly answer the question. "Our source is not a state party" doesn't rule out that the source is Russian. It sort of rules out a source with known associations with the government (of Russia or anywhere else), but it could be an independent / private individual at face value that got the information from state parties.

I find it odd that nobody (as far as I've seen) has brought up that carefully worded answer, when it stuck out like a sore thumb to me the first time I saw it in print.


That being said, I 100% agree with Greenwald when he suggests that accusations are not proof. And the CIA and other agencies have a massive track record of shady dealings done in the name of "national security", as defined by whoever is in charge. Taking them at their word seems pretty hopelessly naive at this point.


But beyond all of that, I honestly don't care who did the hacking and what their motivations were. The government seems happy to record and analyze everything we say and do, and to claim that people like Edward Snowden are traitors for simply telling us about it. Well, get used to some of your own goddamn medicine. If you are running for public office, you should expect that your rights to privacy are going to be challenged much more strongly than those of Joe Average. You're a person of interest -- for pretty legitimate reasons.

Assume that absolutely everything you've ever said on the record (and lots OFF the record) is going to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. If you've got any skeletons in your closet, expect that there is a good chance they will get exposed. And probably at the worst possible time.

What should both parties take away from this? Gee, it might be a good idea to choose candidates that can stand up to at least a basic level of scrutiny. Backing slimy weasels that look great and charismatic after a quick once-over might come back to bite you in the ass.

Keep in mind, it's not JUST the CIA making these claims, it's an unprecedented combined report from (I think) 14 separate (EDIT: 17) intelligence agencies. Yes,they may be colluding but it's not likely.
Recall, the intelligence reports leading to the Iraq war were edited and misstated by the Bush cabinet and we've now seen that the full reports were not certain about evidence of WMDs.
Putin's own MO is evidence that, if there was Russian government involvement, it was at his direction. If it were done behind his back, there would be a number of computer scientists gone missing by now.

In short, don't blindly trust any agency, but don't distrust conclusions reached by all intelligence agencies combined, or pretend that the public report is all they have....most evidence possible would be classified (like a bug in Putin's office recording him ordering hacks, we would never hear about that proof).
Should we be skeptical, yes, should we dismiss the reports because we don't get to see classified proof, no. Should we find a way to declassify the proof, absolutely, the public's trust in the nation's intelligence community hangs in the balance.

29 comments, most of them rather long and more-or-less well reasoned, yet none about the content.

I get if you don't trust RT. It's a propaganda outlet of a foreign government, after all. But RT is not Chemical Ali style of propaganda: it is solid, well-researched reporting on many topics, subtly slanted on others, and completely balls-to-the-wall denial of reality on others again.

You want to take that as a reason to ignore it entirely? Knock yourself out.

I won't. Which isn't saying much, because I prefer text over video.

Anyway, they regularly offer a valuably "Korrektiv" with regards to reporting in the mainstream media. Of course I would prefer if I could get that from a less-dubious outlet like, maybe, the Indepedant, or the NZZ, but I can't.

Let's talk about the content of this clip, shall we.

Hedges references the Prop-or-Not pieces run by the WaPo. Does anyone here disagree that those were a total and utter smear job? Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive. Yves Smith and Glen Ford as mouthpieces of the Kremlin... my ass cheeks.

On the other hand, quite a lot of journalists in the US seem to have embraced the Red Scare with open arms, seeing as it gives an excuse as to why their previous HRC lost against the orange-skinned buffoon. Kyle illustrated it nicely with Rachel Maddow.

Second point: they had James Clapper present the report. Seriously? The fucker was caught lying under oath during the initial stages of the NSA revelations. Wasn't the fuckface also in charge of the satellite reconnaisence prior to the Iraq war, who could have presented imagery that debunked the claims of WMD "factories", and decided not to? He is just as trustworthy as Chemical Ali, but less entertaining.

Third: half the report was about RT. Why? I thought it was meant to outline how they "hacked" the election? What does their propaganda outlet have to do with that? And the critique they presented... has anyone read the passage about the "alleged Wall Street greed"? They are having a laugh, and people take it seriously.

Fourth: it distracts from the aspects of HRC's loss they don't want to be a subject of public discussion: class issues. They offered nothing for the working class, who got a shoddy deal over the last decades, and tried to focus entirely on identity politics, completely denying even the existence of class issues. Which is also why it's now the "white, male worker" who is to blame. Nevermind that >50% of white, female workers also voted Trump. Nevermind that significant portions of non-white working class folks also voted Trump. Can't be. According to the narrative, these people are minorities first, working-class second, and identity politics always trumps class politics. Except it didn't.

All this rage at the "deplorables", the "less educated"... it just reeks massively of class bigotry. Those plebs decided to vote for someone other than our beloved Queen HRC? How dare they...

And finally, RT's own part of this segment, about the credibility of the intelligence community's claims. Any disagreement on this? Anyone? Anyone think the torturers at the CIA are trustworthy enough to take their word without hard evidence?

Just to point out, both of those are PURE opinion pieces with no evidence, and the Bloomberg report sites information it claims it got from a report that did not yet exist when it was written, that report was made public on Friday, the 6th, but the article was published on the 2nd....and even then it was full of conjecture, supposition, and misdirection (like saying "Xagent, a backdoor firmly associated with attacks by a hacker group linked to Russian intelligence -- the one known as Advanced Persistent Threat 28 or Fancy Bear -- could be used by pretty much anyone with the technical knowledge to do so. "
This ignores the fact that only one security firm claims to have been able to retrieve that code (without proof or ability to use it?) and they had a full internet security companies resources. No one besides Russia has ever actually been caught USING it.
So don't trust the cia...but also don't trust biased opinion pieces on the internet.

Here's a few articles on today's report from the nsa, doj, cia, and director of national intelligence directly tying Putin and the Russians to the hacks, but sadly I can't find the report itself.....

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/12/14/putin-involved-election-hack/95453054/

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/will-congress-investigate-russian-interference-2016-campaign

...no smoking gun shown publicly yet, but by using the intelligence term "high confidence" they are certainly indicating they have one, or more than one.

There's more...coming soon to the interwebs, but jointly announced today by the CIA, DOJ, NSA, and the director of national intelligence. It's no longer innuendo and claims by people paid to make claims. We may never know most sources, because they are our spies and diplomats, but it seems they have evidentiary proof, not just likelihoods and claims.
Hide and watch. ;-)

Oops! Today they (the nsa, the director of national intelligence, the cia, and the doj, combined) released proof that not only did the Russians hack multiple American targets, but Putin was directly involved in choosing what to release and how, all in an effort to damage our election process and elect Trump as a way to weaken America and our ties with allies.
D'oh!

Your video, Donald Trump vs. the CIA over Russian Hacking: A Closer Look, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Glenn Greenwald has some very interesting things to say on the subjects of 'fake news' and 'Russian interference'.

Seriously... who cares if he can read?

He's got three people closely connected with his campaign that are financially and personally close with Putin.

He throws out years of American policy and Republican rhetoric to replace it with carbon copies of Putin's policies (get rid of NATO, let Russia annex Ukraine, support Bashir al Assad).

Several former spies (including one CIA) have said, Putin recruited Trump. Trump is a Russian intelligence asset.

He has a private e-mail server exclusively communicating with one of Putin's closest confidants for months, with traffic spiking around key campaign events which mysteriously goes offline as soon as questions arise in Russia (as one analyst described it, the knee was hit in Russia and the foot kicked in Trump Tower). Days later a new Trump server appears and the first communication on the Internet is straight back to Russia.

Seriously, wouldn't it be BETTER to have a president (for life) who's a Russian agent who can't read than one who can? At least it causes some communication problems with his Russian masters and increases the likelihood he'll get tripped up.

What even happens to the US if a sitting president is found to be a Russian spy? Would he just declare martial law? Who knows, but I sure don't want to find out.

Why isn't CNN doing a bit on Trump's Putin connection through Alfa bank. The money he owes, the policies he's adopted right out of Putin's playbook, the advisors he's had with VERY tight ties to Putin (financially and socially), his own indebtedness to Russian financiers close to Putin (he's admitted as much himself, though he won't say how much money he's taken, he once described it as, "a lot".) At the same time he has a private e-mail server that seems like it was exclusively set up to communicate with Alfa Bank (owned, by the way by one of Putin's closest cronies). As if all THAT weren't enough, multiple former spies (CIA and other) have come forward to say that Trump is in fact considered an 'asset' by Russian intelligence.

Putin OWNS his ass. Might as well do a write-in for Putin if you check the box next to Trump's name in a week from now.

Well, I did get the count right. I'm even wondering if the "real count" (as in CIA run missions too) is more around 10-14 (depending on how active we are in SA and Africa, besides Somalia; potentially Eastern Europe like Turkey--even if they're in NATO, basically border stuff--and theUkraine--or around it; and SE Asia...it depends on the roles of other Intelligence Agencies AND other NATO countries...) right now...

I just skimmed the wrap-ups on the 4chan/Podesta/WL thing that went down tonight and... well, it really is one of those moments.

Same login data for different services, recovery email at Yahoo, WH asking for SSN/DOB through email -- they either really don't give a fuck or they are utterly incompetent.

And it just keeps on giving. I got as far as seeing that both the CIA director and the National Security Advisor use AOL, which was when I called it a day.

There's only so much you can take...