Just Another Junkie For Fame

Get rich get high get drunk on your desire/
Stand back relax now watch me start a fire/
I don't think they take me serious/
Normal life makes me delirious - "Junkies for Fame" Shinedown

So what exactly does the recent declassified report on the possible involvement of Russian hackers and other agents on the United States 2016 General Election mean?

Russia carried out a comprehensive cyber campaign to sabotage the U.S. presidential election, an operation that was ordered by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and ultimately sought to help elect Donald Trump, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a remarkably blunt assessment released Friday.

The report depicts Russian interference as unprecedented in scale, saying that Moscow’s role represented “a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort” beyond previous election-related espionage.

And we're talking going well back before the Cold War of the 1950s, when the spy stuff was edge-of-war serious.

The campaign initially sought to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, “denigrate” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and damage her expected presidency. But in time, Russia “developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump” and repeatedly sought to artificially boost his election chances.

It means Trump, the incoming President-Elect, is in debt to a foreign power in more ways than one.

The 14-page document made public also serves as an explicit rebuttal to Trump’s repeated assertions that U.S. spy agencies cannot determine who was responsible for a hacking operation that extracted thousands of emails from Democratic Party computer networks and dumped them into public view via the WikiLeaks website.

Trump's been spending far too much time on Twitter - so so eager for the views, don't you know - trying to downplay the story, trying to claim it's just the Democrats being sore losers, but it's not the Dems, it's our own federal government saying this shit is real:

In the report, the CIA, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded with “high confidence” that Russian intelligence services penetrated numerous computer systems tied to U.S. political parties and then “relayed” the email troves to WikiLeaks.

So one thing that has to happen is, you gotta make up your mind: can you trust the CIA and the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence of being correct on this? There's always been the skepticism with those agencies, questionable intel, the possibility of partisanship (esp. with the FBI), all that. Thing is, for the most part these agencies try to do their jobs the best they can. There may be a conservative bent to those intel offices (and rogue agents - "cowboys" - running their own agendas), but those agencies have to exist in a world where they have to answer to either political party at any given time. That means they don't try to play favorites or pick a side (usually). What they try to focus on - and what you can at least trust them on - is being as accurate and informed on national security issues that are a direct threat to our nation's borders and its citizenry.

If each of these agencies - and the FBI and CIA have a history of being at odds over jurisdiction - are saying there's a "high confidence" that Russia was meddling in our elections, and if they're publishing this much information in a declassified report within MONTHS of it happening, then there is something serious and legit about these allegations.

This brings up troubling issues. Trump profited from Russia's involvement. Considering the number of people on Trump's payroll with connections to Russia, and considering Trump's own public stances on Putin, is there a possibility Trump was involved in tampering with the elections? Because if there is...

That is, of course, speculation. But the question, and the trouble behind it, needs asking.

But Trump doesn't want to answer that question. He's acting as though these reports are meaningless. Even though as President one of the things he's got to learn is that he DARE NOT ignore these reports. The intelligence agencies exist for a reason, and are actually trying to do their jobs.

And the more these reports get out, the more Trump defends his BFF Putin, and the more Trump tries to underplay the seriousness, and the more Trump makes it clear he's hostile to our own intelligence agencies. He's pretty much down to his only defense being "Trust me on this."

But we can't trust you on your word, Trump. You lie far too often to ever be trusted.

And we've seen your act for the last 40 years, Trump. You've never been about public service, or the civic good. You've always been about YOURSELF and your goddamn Brand Name Trump (tm), hogging the spotlight and desperate for love and respect you've NEVER earned.

I doubt Trump openly worked with Russia to upend our elections. But I'm certain he knows he benefited from it, and he views Putin and Russia as more his friends and allies than his own nation. It's all about getting his ego stroked, never mind how he gets it done. He's getting hooked on Love From Russia, and the risk becomes how much he'll give away to keep it coming.

You're betraying your nation for an attention addict's fix, Trump, with Putin as your dealer and narcissism as the high.

You damn junkie, selling out the USA for an arm's worth of Ego.

Gods help us.

CIA Lying to Congress? Color me Not So Shocked

Via Steve Benen at Washington Monthly (with MSNBC making big hay out of it last night to boot. Oh and the Bold highlights are mine):

In May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the CIA had misled Congress years ago on the use of waterboarding. Republicans were apoplectic -- the very idea that intelligence officials would mislead lawmakers was so despicable, some GOP leaders suggested Pelosi should resign. Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) said Pelosi had launched a "massive attack on our intelligence community," and added that it's "outrageous" for the Speaker to "call our terror-fighters liars." Newt Gingrich seriously argued that the Speaker's comments increased the risk of a terrorist attack against the United States.

The whole mess caused something of a media frenzy, and the Speaker's poll numbers tanked.

Perhaps it's time to revisit the question of whether the CIA has a tendency of being less than truthful with Congress.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed "significant actions" from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had "misled members" of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. "This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods," said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.'s alleged deceptions. But he said, "We wouldn't be doing this over a trivial matter."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) added that his committee "has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to." Spencer Ackerman, who was among the first to report on this (if not the first), has a copy of the full letter from the Democrats on the committee.

Aw, gee. Congress being lied to. Like that's never happened much before. /sarcasm

This is why I've posted an amendment idea to state "Lying is NOT Protected Speech" (Because some bastards interpreting the First Amendment seem to think lying is okay), and to state that any elected official or civil servant (basically ANYONE IN GOVERNMENT) caught lying be 1) suspended without pay, 2) investigated for the lies, and 3) removed and banned for life from government if proven there was intent to lie.