Friday, December 09, 2016

Perl Harbor*


November 8th, 2016, a date which will live in infamy

To no one's surprise, Vladimir Putin's regime did indeed hack the United States election in order to hand the White House to Donald J. Trump.

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
...
And it will surprise no one the Left that leading Republican senators -- including the Senate Majority Leader -- knew about it and chose to betray their country in order to serve their depraved political interests:
...
In a secure room in the Capitol used for briefings involving classified information, administration officials broadly laid out the evidence U.S. spy agencies had collected, showing Russia’s role in cyber-intrusions in at least two states and in hacking the emails of the Democratic organizations and individuals.

And they made a case for a united, bipartisan front in response to what one official described as “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”

The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.

According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.

Some of the Republicans in the briefing also seemed opposed to the idea of going public with such explosive allegations in the final stages of an election, a move that they argued would only rattle public confidence and play into Moscow’s hands.

McConnell’s office did not respond to a request for comment. After the election, Trump chose McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, as his nominee for transportation secretary...
Our country has been hit by a massive sneak attack by a hostile foreign power: a sneak attack whose very existence was covered up by leaders of the Republican Party.

We're at war, kids.  A quiet, 21st century digital kind of war with massive and dire consequences here in the analog world, and in that war the Republican Party has taken the side of our enemies.

The word you are looking for is "treason".





*Not a spelling error:
Perl is a script programming language that is similar in syntax to the C language and that includes a number of popular UNIX facilities such as sed, awk, and tr. Perl is an interpreted language that can optionally be compiled just before execution into either C code or cross-platform bytecode. When compiled, a Perl program is almost (but not quite) as fast as a fully precompiled C language program.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Yup, Republicans are THE Patriots, real Americans. Mitch McConnell is a worm.

duquesne_pdx said...

Which states?
I am really very curious to know if this will actually sway any of the electoral reps.
Damn these bastards to hell. Fuck despair. Rage is now the core.

Unknown said...

Why am I not at all surprised at the treachery and utter, treasonous depravity of Mitch McConnell? But, d'oh, this stuff should have been spilled before the election. Fight fire with fire and all that.

The election was stolen by the likes of McConnell and James Comey. It's just that simple.

Chan Kobun said...

And, naturally, this story about the greatest treason since the secession of the Slavery States breaks on a Friday night. By Monday people will simply have forgotten it ever happened.

Well, except us filthy fucking liberals, of course. It's our job and our curse that we remember what everyone else forgets.

Habitat Vic said...

One of the most disheartening things regarding the non-disclosure of Russian interference back last September is that faced with the following situation at that briefing with the Gang of 12:

1) All intelligence agencies agree that Russia is involved and specifically trying to help Trump. All except (Republican) James Comey of the FBI who waffles.

2) All Dems (Obama team + 6/6 Dems in Gang of 12) agree this needs to go public. 3 or 4 of 6 Repubs think it should be disclosed, but 2 or 3 think it shouldn't including Mitch McConnell who threatens Obama with painting it as "partisan" should he announce this. McTurtle who literally on Day 1 of Obama's term held a meeting to hamstring him and make him a "one term President." Oh, and now his wife gets to be a Cabinet member.

3) Agencies disclose at least two states had their electronic voting machines and/or databases hacked by Russia. This a September briefing, but the hack was discovered a month earlier in August.

4) Comey not only keeps the FBI lid/skepticism as to the Russia leaks, but then discloses (probably illegally; Hatch Act) the Wiener emails one week before the election.

I'm sorry, I really admire Obama and worked to get him elected. But his not standing up to McConnell & Comey (I don't care if he thought Hillary would win anyway, no excuse) is so gutless and sniveling, so much acting like a "house negro" (and yes, I know the implications of that term). After eight fucking years of Republicans knifing him in the back at every turn, he "takes the high road" and doesn't want to make them look bad regarding Russia helping them in the election? Sweet Jesus in the morning.

Yeah fine, Harry Reid is upset this morning on MSNBC. BFD. Our country, our democracy is at risk, and has already been severely hurt by this. Yes, Repubs are traitors, Mammon-worshippers, and fake "Christians." But the Dem leadership deserves my scorn as well for being such gutless cowards. And I will pay the price for their cowardice.

Unknown said...

This seems like the world of Ghost in the Shell

proverbialleadballoon said...

It's disgusting that this is not front page news, on everyone's lips. A foreign government, and Russia of all fucking places, tampered with our democratic election, and half this country is fine with it. It's Un-American is what it is. I'm definitely 'shaming' people about that, Trump voters are hearing about this one, in straight-forward terms.

Chan Kobun said...

Minus the awesome tech, artful design, and intelligent themes.

And no Batou.

R White said...

Ugh. Nothing surprises me anymore regarding the character of our so-called political 'leaders'. I sometimes wish I could turn a blind eye & deaf ear to what's going on in our once democratic republic now plutocracy/kleptocracy, but I would need a lobotomy & red ball cap in order to do so.

Batman 54 said...

From business Insider News, a quote from Marine Gen. James Mattis, soon to be secretary of defense: "Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they're so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact." If the quote is indeed from the General, Senate Republicans may want to re-consider his confirmation as Sec. of Defense.

Robt said...

I caught the part when McConnell and others were informed. McConnell throwing his hissy.
That is what caused nothing to be said or done? Really?

If that is true, maybe we all deserve to be ruled Putin style.

Ed Cooper said...

Batman 54; I think Mad Dog Mattis is perfectly capable of saying what you quote him as saying, and carrying out that solution. IMHO, he could start with every single Republican in the Congress, after waterboarding them for information as to whom they have been selling us out.

John said...

Here's the problem. Republicans are oligarchs. By definition, their real goals are not popular. They have two major strategies left to them: lying and treason.

Read some Thucydides. Oligarchic factions are actually more friendly to oligarchies in other states than they are to their own people. Their loyalty is not to their own state, but to an international class of rich people. Oligarchies are always betraying their own countries. What's odd is that, in this country, they have managed to paint themselves as the party of patriotism. But they aren't.