Follow The HATE Coming From The

Far-Left & MSM

The
2016 Presidential
Election –Vol. .5
The Transitional Period
December 1sstt, 2016 – December 22nndd, 2016

See How “The Russians” (CIA), Are Trying

To Destroy The United States And
The Trump Presidency
C
Coom
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Byy FFrreedd JJaam
meess

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November 2016
FIRST EDITION
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3
 CONTENTS
Clinton ‘Furious’ After Finding OutShe Lost Popular Vote xxx
Is Obama’s Highly Politicized Justice Department Too Far Gone To Investigate Death Threats Against
Electors? xxx
Is Trump’s Idea To Fix The ‘Rigged System’ By Appointing Crooks Who’ve Played It?
Must We Now Rethink The HillaryQuestion? Absolutely, Not!
She's Not Giving Up Yet: Jill Stein Continues Push For A Recount In Pennsylvania
Stein Switches Tactics In Pennsylvania Recount Drive
Green Party Switches Strategy In Pennsylvania Recount
Truth the Lawless Anti-Trump “Protestors” Need to Know About Popular Vote (Video)
Donald Trump’s Big Government Stick
The Philly Recount Is Done, And It Didn’t Help Hillary Much At All
Fake News: InfoWars Reports Fake Trump Assassination Website
Mutiny: 15 Electoral College Members Refusing To Vote Trump On 12/19 (VIDEO)
NEO – Trump First 100 Days – Enter The Twilight Zone
“There Will Be Swamp”: Trump Cabinet Picks Confirm Creatures Of Washington Still Rule The Earth xxx
It’s Not Over: Rogue Republican Elector Announces He Will Not Vote For Trump And Urges Others To
Join Him xxx
'Rookie' Trump Must Fall Into Line: China Media
Colorado "Hamilton Electors" Sue To Block Trump, Void Vote Mandate
America, Hillary (Establishment) Means To Sink Your Ship!
Stein’s Recount Scam Imploding
Federal Judge Halts Recount, Sealing Trump's Michigan Win
Detroit Recount Observer: Box Marked ‘306’ Ballots — Only Had 50 Inside
Michael Moore Predicts Trump Will NOT Become President – “Six Weeks Is A Lot Of Time”
Trump Debunks Notion Of Russia Interfering In America’s Electoral Process
US Election Recount Follies
‘They Gave Him Horns’: Trump’s TIME Cover Fans Flames Of Devil Conspiracy
Terrified By Trump: Activist Groups Stoke Fears, Raise Funds On Incoming Administration
Colorado Electors Sue For Right To Vote Against The Will Of Their State
Trump's Absent Facts In The Theatre Of The Absurd
Orange Coast College Student Threatened With Expulsion After Recording Professor’s Anti-Trump Tirade
'Silence Not An Option': Calls Grow To Disrupt Trump Inauguration xxx
Constitutional Crisis, Movement to Undermine President-elect Donald Trump’s Accession to the
White House? xxx
Outrage As California Professor Is Filmed Telling Students That Trump Is A 'White Supremacist' Whose
Election Was An 'Act Of Terrorism' xxx
Internet Users Lash At Hillary Clinton For Comments About 'Fake News Epidemic'
Wikileaks: Colbert Show Took Orders From Clinton Global Initiative
The Spiritually Dead Gatekeepers Of Mainstream News
Mainstream Media Panicking With ‘Fake News’ Accusations Because They’ve LOST In The Realm Of Ideas
Trump’s Second Gilded Age: Overcoming The Rule Of Billionaires And Militarists
Huffpost Editor Jokes About Destroying Trump Ballots; FBI Investigates
Trump’s Chumps: Victims Of The Old Bait And Switch xxx
Trump Is Condemned For Talking To Liberty-Loving Taiwan President… But Obama Cozied Up
With Dictators xxx
Hostile Takeover xxx
Someone Tell the Fake News Media=> Trump Appoints Most Female Members to Cabinet in History xxx
Rogue Republican Elector Warns Trump: "I Am Not The Only One Who Will Not Vote For You" xxx
Obama Orders Intelligence Community To Conduct "Full Review" Of 2016 Election Results, Keep
Results Secret xxx
Michael Moore Calls for ‘Disruption’ Of Trump’s Inauguration
Trump Team Says 'Move On,' After Obama Calls For Cyber-Hacking Probe
CIA Big Lie Claims Russia Intervened To Get Trump Elected
Obama Regime Positions To Retain Power, Stay In Office, As Shitstorm Develops
Leftist News Site's 'Best-Case Scenario': Assassinate Trump
British Diplomat: Clinton & DNC Emails Weren’t Hacked – They Were LEAKED By Insider
Bolton: Russian Hacks Could Actually Have Been By Obama Administration xxx

4
“There Is A Plan To Steal The Election From The American People And Trump” — C.I.A. Pushing For
New Election? xxx
McConnell, Ryan Back CIA After Trump Attacks Hacking Probe
Rogue Elements Of The CIA Are Operating Against President-Elect Trump
CNN's Stelter: Trump Win Is A "National Emergency"
FBI Disputes CIA's "Fuzzy And Ambiguous" Claims That Russia Sought To Influence Presidential Election xxx
Clinton Campaign, Top Democrats Call For Intel Briefing, Commission Ahead Of Electoral College Vote
Wow! Clinton Camp Wants Intelligence Briefing On Russia Before Electoral College Vote xxx
Jim Stone: "Blockbuster: Washington Post Is In Violation Of The Hatch Act, The CIA Never Told
Them Russia Hacked The Election" xxx
Wapo, NY Times Report That The CIA Believes Russia Interfered With U.S. Elections To Help Trump:
Here’s Why That Makes No Sense xxx
The Russians Did It! Idiot Rinos Still Blaming Moscow For Trump Win
The Sequence By Which Major Media Went Stark Raving Mad
'Total B.S.': Russian Election Hack Blasted As 'Fake News'
Clinton Campaign Backs Electors Seeking Intel About Alleged Russian Involvement In Election
Ten Electoral College Electors Want Briefing On "Russian Interference" Before Presidential Vote
Recount Efforts End: Trump Wins In Wisconsin, Pennsylvania xxx
DNC Hack Blamed On Russia May Have Been Obama’s False Flag Operation – Former US Ambassador
Bolton xxx
NeoCon John Bolton Calls Russian US Election Hacking Claim a False Flag
EX Amb - CIA Russian US Election Charges Are 'Bullshit'
Were The DNC Emails Hacked Or Leaked?
The Trump Card Is Played! Never Underestimate THE FOOL
Could The Electoral College Really Stop Donald Trump? And Should It?
John Podesta Calls For CIA “Disinfo” Briefing For All Electoral College Voters
Washington Post-CIA Connections Destroy Post’s “Election-Hack” Claim
Trying To Overturn A Free And Fair Election
Top US Spy Agency Abstains On CIA Assessment Of Russian Hack Of 2016 Election
Benjamin Netanyahu: Donald Trump Is An Israeli Asset
Curious Alliances: Truth As Casualty In The US Presidential Election
Trump Trumpets His Real Plans
C.I.A. Planning To Overturn Trump’s Win As Talking Heads Claim ‘National Emergency’
The Media’s Emphasis On Russian Hacking Is A Diversion xxx
Liberal TIME Magazine Now Urges All Americans Who Voted For Hillary To Stop Paying Federal Income
Taxes xxx
Trumphoria: Americans More Optimistic About Economy Since Obama’s Win In 2008
Former British Ambassador Says Russia Election Hack Conspiracy Theory Is Kafkaesque
Radical Left Launches Website To Raise Money For Assassinating Donald Trump
The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded The U.S.
Washington Post Threatened With Defamation Suit As News Site Demands Retraction
Martin Armstrong Slams CIA "False Flag" To Cover Its Own Hack For Obama
Briton Jailed Over Trump Death Plot
‘Unprecedented White House Attempt To Smear Incoming President’
The Conspiracy To Shut Down Truth, Donald Trump, And The American People
Top US Spy Agency Refuses To Endorse CIA's Russian Hacking Assessment Due To "Lack Of Evidence"
White House Claims Trump Aides Bankrolled By Kremlin
Pro-Hillary Dark Forces Plot Anti-Trump Coup
Clinton Campaign Backs Electors Calls For Intelligence Briefing
White House Attacks Trump Over Connections To Russia And RT
Ex-CIA Officer: No Evidence Of Russian Government Involvement In US Election
Top Intel Office Not On Same Page As CIA Regarding Russia Hack Assessment
‘Putin Did It’: CIA Mercilessly Trolled With #Russianhack Blame Game
Conway Says Trump Forming 'Tremendously Conservative' Cabinet, Looks To Work With Manchin
There's A Psy-Op, All Right; But It Isn't "The Russians"
The 3 Stage Plot To Assassinate Trump: Thirty Three Days To Armageddon
The Great Fear That Putin And Trump Will Have THIS Conversation
Where's The Proof? Calls Grow To Declassify Evidence Of Alleged Russian Hack
From "Fake News" To "Fake Intelligence"
Donald Trump’s Cabinet One Of Wealthiest In Modern History
5
Obama Calls For Electoral College Intelligence Briefing, Prior To Final Presidential Vote
40 Electors Demand Russian Interference Briefing Before They Vote
Obama Shrugs Off Russian Hacking — Until Donald Trump Elected President xxx
Michelle Malkin: NeverTrumpers ‘Completely Lost Perspective’ During Election; Now Asking Trump
For Jobs xxx
The Next American Civil War Begins On January 20… Second Amendment Patriots May Be Called On
To Defend The Republic Against Left-Wing Terrorists xxx
Russophobia & Anti-Trumpism Running Wild In America
Why Liberals Can’t Handle The Truth About Russia Hacking The Election
Fox News Poll: Majority Says Russian Hacking Made No Difference In 2016 Election
Here’s The Public Evidence Russia Hacked The DNC – It’s Not Enough
Trump Recruits Army Of Chief Executives To Battle With The System In Washington
Someone Has Officially Called The CIA's Bluff Over Russia
CIA Refuses House Intel Committee Request For Briefing On Russia Hacking Probe
Jill Stein Spends $1mm Of Recount Donations On "Staff, Admin And Consultants"
CIA Shows ‘No Single Piece of Evidence' of 'Russian Involvement' in US Election xxx
Russian Hack Narrative Revealed To Be Elaborate Media Hoax… Email Leaks Actually Came From
Bernie Sanders Insider xxx
PropOrNot All-Star Organizers: Koch, Soros, CIA, MI6 Ukraine, All Together Now
Clinton Investigation Back On: FBI Agents In NY Ordered To Continue Foundation Probe
The "Elite" Coup Of 2016
ABC Posts Fake News Story On Putin
‘Hamilton Electors’ Plan To Strip Presidency From Trump
Settling Scores? Trump Team Resumes Battle With Press, Hints At WH Briefing Changes
Trump Voters Show Increasingly Favorable View of Russia, Fresh Poll Reveals
Poll: Majority of Americans Think US Presidential Race Unaffected by Russia
Trump: "If Russia Was Hacking, Why Did White House Only Complain After Hillary Lost?"
End of ‘Hamilton Electors?’ Judge Rules Colorado Electors Must Vote for Hillary
"Bullet In The Mouth" – Trump Electors Flooded With Death Threats
Trump Knew About Russia Hacks Says White House
Alleged Trump Supporters’ Hate Attack On Muslim Student Turns Out To Be Fake
Putin 'Personally Involved' In US Election Hack, NBC News Claims xxx
14 Signs Of Plot To Use Russia As Excuse To Steal The Presidency From Trump December 19th Or
January 6th xxx
Media Reporting On Hacked DNC Emails Acted As ‘Arms Of Russian Intelligence’ – White House
Keith Olbermann Loses It: US Military Will Soon Be Controlled By 'Scum' Beholden To 'Russian Scum'
CIA Officials REFUSE To Brief Congress On The Truth About Russian Hacking Claims - And Are
Rebuked By GOP Congressman For 'Disgraceful' Move xxx
Democratic Donors Call For Clinton Campaign Post-Mortem
John Podesta: Something Is Deeply Broken At The FBI
Donald Trump Will Ruthlessly Decimate The CIA For Turning On Him
Shocking News: Obama’s DHSGuilty Of Faking Russian Hacks (Video)
Putin Lashes Out At Obama: "Show Some Proof Or Shut Up"
The 5 Stages Of Losing An Election To Donald Trump
The Conspiracy to Shut Down Truth, Donald Trump, and The American People
Kremlin Slams 'Extremely Scurrilous' US Hacking Accusations xxx
Hillary Clinton’s Entire Campaign Was Run On ‘Fake News:’ Staged Photo Ops, Rigged Debates, Puppet
Journalists And Scripted Lines xxx
Left-Wing Election Denialists Now Building Forceful Narrative To Attempt To Deny Trump The White
House Before Jan. 20 xxx
Military Plans Counter-Coup For Trump (VIDEO)
Here’s How They Still Might Steal The Election From Trump
CIA Secret Assessment “Confirms” Russian Hack Of US Election – Do You Buy It?
Ah, So Putin Didn’t Hack Those Emails After All xxx
Michael Moore’s Call To ‘Disrupt The Inauguration’ Is A Dog Whistle For A Mass Communist Uprising
Attempt On January 20 xxx
DHS Rigged Election 2016? Caught Hacking 3 States (So Far)! NOT Russia! US Voter Fraud
'If Electoral College Votes Against Trump, US Will Get Worst Constitutional Crisis In Its History'
'Faithless' Electors Will Not Receive Intelligence Briefing, NPR Says

6
US Senate To Probe Allegations Of Russia Hacking In Presidential Election
Comey & Clapper Cave to Pressure - Now Claim Russia Helped Trump
FBI Now Backs CIA Assessment On Russia Election Hack: Report
Obama & Hillary Blame Russia For Nonexistent US Election Hacking
Members Of Congress To Be Briefed On Analysis Of Alleged Russian Election Hacks
You Better Believe Trump Is Afraid of the Electoral College Vote on Monday
Only A Counter-Coup Can Save American Democracy
Harvard Professor Admits His Efforts To Turn Electoral College Against Trump Have Failed Miserably
Arizona Electoral College Voters With Trump, Amid Onslaught Of Opposition, Threats
Paul Krugman Loses It: Hints At Trump 9/11-Style Attack False Flag
Hey Obama…Hillary Lost, Get Over It
In Last-Shot Bid, Thousands Urge Electoral College To Block Trump At Monday Vote
Trump Slams Chinese Seizure Of US Drone, Calls It "Unprecedented Act"
A CIA-led Coup Against American Democracy Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes
Revealed! Putin Personally Hacked DNC From Surveillance Aircraft With Bear On Board
Electors Under Siege
Coup Or No Coup: What To Watch For As The Electoral College Votes Tomorrow
A Spy Coup in America?
As Obama Plans Retaliation Against "Russian Hacking", A Problem Emerges
“Thousands” Pushing To Steal Election From Donald Trump
Why The Russian Hack Election Conspiracy Is Complete Political Buffoonery (VIDEO)
NYT Columnist Paul Krugman’s Anti-Trump Lunatic Fringe Tweet
How Donald J. Trump Saved Christmas From Intergalactic Aliens (SATIRE)
CIA Meddles In US Election As It Has In Countless Foreign Polls xxx
GOP Electors Under Siege: Electoral College Members Receive Death Threats, Creepy Christmas Cards
And Pressure From Hollywood To Dump Trump At Tomorrow's Vote xxx
Obama Vows To Prove The Unprovable
WATCH: Honest News Anchor Destroys CIA Russia Hack Claims In Under 5 Minutes
Report: FBI Director Told Trump That Russians Didn’t Influence Election
The Striking Audacity Of The Coup-In-Process
Electors, Do Your Duty And Cast Your Ballot For The Man Who WON The Election
Obama 'Prisoner to Own Baseless Narrative about Russian Meddling in US Election'
As Obama Plans Retaliation Against "Russian Hacking", A Problem Emerges
Is There A Conspiracy To Undermine The Electoral Process?
The Electors Vote: December 19, 2016
Electoral College Poised To Make Trump Win Official – But Not Without Drama
"This Is Stupid" - Pennsylvania Electors To Get Police Protection
Trump Could Accomplish ‘Something Remarkable’ In Foreign Policy: Kissinger
The Bad Losers (And What They Fear Losing)
Interim DNC Chair Brazile Appears To Contradict Obama’s Hacking Comments
Trump Could Accomplish ‘Something Remarkable’ In Foreign Policy: Kissinger
On Russia’s Stealing The White House
Electoral College, Unloved But Everpresent, Set To Anoint Trump
GOP Elector Says He Was Threatened, Followed On The Freeway By People With Cameras (VIDEO)
Trump Within Reach Of Electoral College Win
Electoral College Vote Seals Trump White House Victory xxx
BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump Wins Electoral College - As Attempts To Cause Rebellion Turn To
Farce With DEMOCRATS Deserting Hillary xxx
Elector Replaced After Refusing To Vote For Clinton
Four Washington State Electors Break Ranks And Don’t Vote For Clinton
Opinion: Hillary Clinton Supporters Need To Quit Whining About The Electoral College
Donald Trump Clinches Electoral College Majority
Trump Wins Electoral College Vote, Officially Securing Presidency
Trump Secures Victory In Electoral College, As Bid To Flip Electors Flops
Electors Remain Faithful To Trump And Select Him As Official Winner
Donald Trump Secures Electoral College Win, With Few Surprises
‘Faithless’ Electors Mostly Came From States Clinton Won
Claim: Obama Setting Up “Shadow Government” o Directly Oppose Trump Presidency
Alleged CNN Report On Hillary On Election Night - A Shocking Portrait Of A Woman Gone Berserk
Donald Trump Completes Final Lap, Electoral College, To White House
7
Hillary Clinton Lost The November Election Because She Blew Off Sanders Activists And Voters
Judge Orders Unsealing Of Search Warrant In Clinton Email Probe
Electors REMAIN FAITHFUL TO Trump AND SELECT HIM AS OFFICIAL WINNER
The Striking Audacity Of The Coup-In-Process
The Best Election Map Yet Behold, The Clinton Archipelago...
Trump Sweeps 304 of 306 GOP Electors, Hillary Loses
Trump WINS Electoral College Vote Amid Protests By Liberals
NYT Ex Post Facto Electoral College Opposition
What Happens When The Trump Bubble Bursts?
Scarborough: Clintons Must 'Get Out Of The Way' After Election Loss
NYT Post-Election Sour Grapes
2 Russian Hacks: 10 Times Coverage For The One Media Use To Bash Trump
Trump Secures Victory In Electoral College, As Bid To Flip Electors Flops
Bozell & Graham Column: The Double Standard On Election Acceptance
Trump Fires Back At Bill Clinton Over Election Comments
Telemundo Solves Riddle Of Latino Trump Voters Through Actual Journalism
“No Really, The Russians Hacked Us” (VIDEO)
5 Problems With CIA Claims Of Russian Hacking
Trump Ally Calls For Clinton’s Prosecution
Krugman: "To Join Trump Administration You Have To Be A White Nationalist, Conspiracy Theorist"
Bozell, FNC Panel Unload On Media Pushing ‘Ridiculous,’ ‘Twisted’ Electoral College Story
U.S. Economic Confidence Surges To The Highest Level That Gallup Has Ever Recorded
The Real Saboteurs Of A Trump Foreign Policy
As The Coup Against Trump Fails, The Threat Against His Life Rises
FBI Warrant For Clinton Emails Released As Democrats Slam Decision: “I Am Appalled” xxx
Final Tally Shows Trump Lost Popular Vote By 2.8 Million – But He BEAT Clinton By 3 Million Votes
Outside Of California And New York xxx
Neocon Civil Servants Quitting En Masse Ahead Of The Trumpening
Resisting The Mind Games Of Donald Trump And The One Percent
Trump’s Economic Plan Is A Betrayal Of The People Who Voted For Him xxx
If Democrats Ran The Olympics, Losers Would All Get Gold Medals, And Winners Would Be Accused
Of Working For The Russians xxx
Lest We Forget, Clinton Wanted To Privatize Social Security
Democrat Donors Just Paid $3.5 Million To Help Trump Gain 131 Votes In Wisconsin’s Official Recount
FBI Can’t Agree With Politicized CIA’s Faulty Intelligence
Poll Shows Most Democrats & Independents Oppose A 2020 Hillary White House Run
Washington State’s Rogue Electors Make History – Fined $1,000 For Not Voting Clinton
Trump’s Team: Who’s Who In President-Elect’s Cabinet, White House
My Position On Donald Trump
Leftist Mccarthyism: Liberal Journalists Declare Donald Trump An Actual Traitor xxx

8
 Clinton ‘Furious’ After Finding Out
She Lost Popular Vote
By Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Posted On December 1, 2016

In early November, it was widely reported that, as poll

numbers began to shift in President-elect Donald Trump’s
favor during the last days of the election, Hillary and Bill’s
had an intense screaming match over the phone, blaming
each other for the failing campaign.

According to The Associated Press, since the election, Bill

“has been poring over the election results,

Hillary Clinton is said to be “furious”
second-guessing decisions by top
after discovering that she didn’t win the
campaign aides and intensely trying to
popular vote after all. The Former
figure out how his wife lost the white
Secretary of State’s bid to overturn the
working-class voters who were the base of
presidential election appears to
his electoral coalition, say people familiar
be falling to pieces.
with the campaign.”

In a bitter blow, the Clinton’s are now coming to realise

that the American public have flat-out rejected their form
of politics, which appears to have left both Bill and Hillary
dazed and dumbfounded.
Thehornnews.com reports:
Meanwhile, donations to the controversial Clinton
Foundation have plunged this year, down a reported 37
percent. And Hillary has been left to wander aimless
around the woods on long, lonely hikes near her
Westchester home in New York, according to her
remaining staffers.

In Wisconsin, Dane County Circuit Judge Even longtime Clinton cronies and aides are expressing
Valerie Bailey-Rihn has refused to order their discontent.
local officials to conduct the state’s
presidential recount by hand,
“This [recount effort] is a big waste of time,”
acknowledging that Stein’s wild conspiracy
said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell,
theory of Russians hacking voting
a longtime Clinton political ally who is
equipment had zero evidence.
urging Democrats to move past the loss.

And in Pennsylvania, Stein’s team missed a critical
deadline to officially file for a voter-initiated recount.
According to The Washington Examiner,
“That blown deadline is a huge blow for
Democrats who have pinned their hopes on
recounts in the Keystone State, Michigan
and Wisconsin.”
As a result of their stunning election loss, the Clinton
empire has begun to unravel — and it has left former
President Bill Clinton stunned.
“I wouldn’t give a dollar to Jill Stein,” said
Adam Parkhomenko, a longtime Clinton
aide, told The Associated Pressregarding
his fellow liberal’s effort to overturn the
election. “Volunteers, supporters and
Democrats, they want to pick themselves
up and get back out there. The best vehicle
to do that is the Louisiana Senate race,”
referencing a Dec. 10th runoff election that
is progressive’s last chance to pick up a
Senate seat.

9
 Is Obama’s Highly Politicized Justice Department Too Far
Gone To Investigate Death Threats Against Electors?
By: Usafeaturesmedia
Date: December 02, 2016
There is a direct threat to our democratic republic and for
some reason, the Justice Dept. under President Obama
seems to be completely tone deaf to it.
For weeks now, reports have been surfacing that
designated electors to the Electoral College who are
pledged to cast ballots for Donald J. Trump, who won
more than 300 electoral votes Nov. 8, are having their lives
threatened by scumbags and punks working on behalf of
someone who doesn’t want the Republican winner in the
White House. As of this writing, no one yet knows who is
actually behind these efforts – as in, who is directing and,
importantly, funding them – but it seems logical to
assume it may be coming from groups or organizations
with ties to the Democratic Party. We’ll let you decide on
whether or not you think that is a reasonable assumption.
But no matter. Electors are being
threatened, and that is a direct threat to
our political system. Yet no one in Obama’s
Justice Dept. seems interested in finding
out who’s doing it and why.
As Rush Limbaugh noted on his program earlier this week,
the FBI should be neck-deep into this investigation.
“Why isn’t the FBI investigating this? I’m
serious,” radio host Rush Limbaugh said on
his national broadcast Wednesday. “Why
isn’t the FBI investigating all of these
threats, these emails, these phone calls,
this intimidation effort that’s under way
against these electors?”
10
“I know who runs the FBI. [President]
Obama runs the FBI,” he continued. “But
still, why isn’t somebody demanding it or
calling for it? … This is the kind of stuff the
left does … they laugh at it, they shrug it
off, they shove it way out to the extreme,
[suggesting] ‘nothing’s gonna come of this,’
and something always does.”
“Why isn’t the FBI investigating this? I’m
serious,” radio host Rush Limbaugh said on
his national broadcast Wednesday. “Why
isn’t the FBI investigating all of these
threats, these emails, these phone calls,
this intimidation effort that’s under way
against these electors?”
“I know who runs the FBI. [President]
Obama runs the FBI,” he continued. “But
still, why isn’t somebody demanding it or
calling for it? … This is the kind of stuff the
left does … they laugh at it, they shrug it
off, they shove it way out to the extreme,
[suggesting] ‘nothing’s gonna come of this,’
and something always does.”
He further noted,
“This is a sleazebag effort if there ever was
one. These are the kind of people that
need to be pounded into the ground. They
need to be defeated to the point that
they’re demoralized and don’t ever try this
again. I’m thinking sign surrender papers
on the deck of the USS Missouri.”
Earlier, Politico reported – as though this were some
normal political process – that “anti-Trump forces” had
launched “an attack” on the Electoral College:
Anti-Trump forces are preparing an
unprecedented assault on the Electoral
College, marked by a wave of lawsuits and
an intensive lobbying effort aimed at
persuading 37 Republican electors to vote
for a candidate other than Donald Trump.
This is not okay. This is not just another political ‘option’
the loser gets to employ in order to overturn the will of the
people. When Left-wing Democrats win elections they
implore Republicans and conservatives to “get over it” and
accept the results. And indeed, they have.
But now, when the tables are turned and
their party’s candidate is beaten, and
beaten soundly, under the system that we
have, they want to change the rules. And
they willing to threaten someone’s life to
get their way.
These people are not merely
annoying, they are a dangerous threat to
our republic. The FBI should be tasked to
investigate this promptly and when the
bureau finds out who is doing this and who
.
11
is financing the effort, they should be
arrested and put on trial for sedition .
We cannot allow this to continue.
Something Obama and his sycophantic supporters in the
administration ought to consider:
If you people can do this to an opposition
candidate by setting the precedent, what
makes you think an opposition president
won’t do this to your presidential
winner at some point in the future?
As for who is behind this, well, we’re not sure yet. But we
have an idea , based on past behavior.
 Is Trump’s Idea To Fix The ‘Rigged System’ By
Appointing Crooks Who’ve Played It?
By Dave Lindorff
December 2, 2016
Donald Trump’s cabinet choices are suggesting a
governing philosophy along the lines of a corrupt
municipal police force relying on gangsters to help it keep
street crime held in check.
Trump has been naming top Wall Street bankers and hedge
fund owners to staff his Commerce Department (former
Rothschild banker and billionaire Wilbur Ross), Treasury
(former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge fund
executive Steve Mnuchin, and more recently, as top
“economic strategy advisors”, Blackstone Group CEO
Steven Schwartzman and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie
Dimon.
The president-elect has actually demonstrated a
predilection for considering people who play the “rigged
system’ and even actual criminals (albeit unindicted in
some cases) in his cabinet and White House advisory staff.
Dimon, of course, heads a too-big-to-fail bank that was
one of five that pleaded guilty last year to federal felony
charges involving a huge currency manipulation
conspiracy. Dimon had his bank cop a plea and pay a $5.6-
billion fine that allowed him to avoid facing criminal
charges himself for the bank’s admitted criminal behavior
and even to stay on in his lucrative top spot running the
felonious institution .
Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly considering disgraced
former General David Petraeus for a position, who in 2015
also copped a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of
“mishandling top-secret information” while he was CIA
director (a post he had to resign), in order to avoid more
serious felony charges of providing such national security
secrets to his paramour and biographer Paula Broadwell,
and of potentially of lying about it to FBI investigators,
also a felony. Petraeus, who did not have to do jail time
under the plea deal, is still on two-year’s probation through
April 23, 2017 though, and if appointed to a cabinet post
by Trump would have to report his new job to his
probation officer, and also obtain advance permission for
any work-related travel until that date — a historic first for
a top government appointee.
Either that or Trump, once inaugurated President, would
have to pardon Petraeus before appointing him.
12
Could the idea of putting the gangsters in charge of
national economic and foreign policy and economic
regulation in order to fix what Trump calls a “rigged
system” work as a governing philosophy?
I guess you’d have to ask how well having a crooked,
mob-linked police force in New York, Philadelphia,
Boston or Chicago worked in years past at keeping crime
in check in those cities. The evidence is not particularly
good, I would suggest, having lived in several of those
venues.
We should also note that Trump’s idea of appointing top
Wall Street weasels to key cabinet posts involved in
regulating the economy is hardly unique to him. We can be
sure that had the recent election been won by Hillary
Clinton, who raked in millions of dollars both in personal
gifts (excuse me: speaking “fees”) and in campaign
contributions and donations to her family “charity” both
before and during the campaign, would have also placed
top bankers and capitalists in key cabinet posts, just as
Presidents Obama, Bush II and Bill Clinton did in their
presidencies.
That said, Trump’s choices seem particularly egregious in
terms of the visuals, particularly in the cases of Dimon and
potential appointee Petraeus.
Then again Trump himself has been good at skating
around potential prosecution, as witness his personal
“charitable” foundation’s settlement of a charge of self-
dealing, and of a fraud case involving his so-called Trump
“University,” as well as various other shady deals during
his decades of building an allegedly billion-dollar real
estate empire through creative use of the bankruptcy and
tax laws.
Looking on the bright side, as the late Alexander
Cockburn, who co-edited with Jeff St. Clair the magazine
CounterPunch, once argued in defense of an article I had
written for that publication comparing George W. Bush to
Adolf Hitler,
“All US presidents (with the possible
exception of Warren Harding)” have shared
the Fuerher’s “enthusiasm for mass
 murder.” Alex claimed that Harding was
exempted from the charge because “he
was too busy lining his pockets to engage
in war crimes.”
.
13
Perhaps that could turn out to be the story with the
incoming Trump presidency: Maybe we’ll get a president
and a cabinet so infected with the greed bug that they’ll
devote their time and use their power to enrich themselves
and their friends, and spare the world the murderous
policies of their predecessors.
 Must We Now Rethink The Hillary
Question? Absolutely, Not!
By Andrew Levine
December 2, 2016
Photo by Nathania Johnson
I would have rather bathed in vomit than voted for Hillary
Clinton. I thought that before she astonished the world by
losing to Donald Trump, and I have not changed my mind.
That Trump is likely to be an even more awful President
than George W. Bush changes nothing. As of now, for
sheer awfulness, the Bush presidency is the gold standard.
It wasn’t just the class war he waged (on the wrong side)
or his assaults on civil liberties; Bush broke the Middle
East, with consequences that will continue to reverberate
for years to come. The Donald could be worse.
Nevertheless, I do not regret not voting for Hillary and
trying to persuade others to do the same – not one bit.
Along with nearly everyone else, I thought that Hillary
would win. The pollsters said so, and they seemed to
know what they were talking about; they certainly had
enough data. Common sense said so too – this side of a
real revolution, how could someone backed by the entire
power structure lose?
And I was confident that even an electorate that reelected
Bush in 2004, would not stoop so low as to elect a buffoon
who, whatever his own views (if any) may be, ran a
nativist, misogynist, and outright racist campaign directed
against vulnerable populations which, together, comprise
roughly half the electorate.
Of course, I knew that anger was on the rise against the
neoliberal order with which the name “Clinton” will
14
forever be associated. According to the conventional
wisdom, Hillary was a whiz at getting things done. I knew
that just the opposite was the case: that she had made a
mess of nearly every project she has undertaken. She
certainly botched her Secretary of State gig; and only the
willfully blind could deny what a piss poor candidate she
was. Even so, I was sure that even she could not lose to
someone as embarrassingly risible as the Donald.
I was wrong. Hillary did get the most votes, but, unless
recounts in three “battleground states” show otherwise, she
lost the election – thanks to a Constitution which assigns
the role of electing Presidents to an antiquated, deliberately
undemocratic institution, the Electoral College.
I will have more to say about those recounts presently.
One sure thing is that they will not put Hillary back in the
White House. That would require a lot more than the
electoral equivalent of a Hail Mary pass – not least
because, at this point, overturning the results of the
election would unleash a civil war.
In trying to persuade people, liberals especially, not to vote
for Hillary, I did use the argument that it was pointless to
pile on votes for her because she was bound to win
anyway, so why not send her a message?
I also pointed out that, if Jill Stein were to get five percent
of the votes, the Greens would get federal funding and
easier ballot access the next time around. There seemed
to be a good chance of that – after Bernie Sanders betrayed
the movement his campaign got going.
A less marginalized Green Party would damage the
duopoly party system that has all but undone democracy in
America – not by a lot, but enough to make a non-
negligible difference.
For what it’s worth, I voted for Stein. And, as it turned
out, Hillary got schlonged in the Electoral College, the
Democrats didn’t even take back the Senate, and Stein
didn’t come close to five percent.
If I had somehow figured out in time how wrong I was, I
would, of course, have stopped using the argument that
Hillary couldn’t lose. That would have made trying to
persuade others to vote against Hillary more complicated.
But I would not have changed my vote.
***
Now is not the time to go back over the case for and
against lesser evil voting. My view is that, for American
presidential elections in this historical period, the case
against is more compelling than the case for. For the past
eighteen months at least, that perennial question has been
debated ad nauseam; for the time being, it is best given a
rest.
Neither is there much point in debating which of the two,
Clinton or Trump, actually was the lesser evil.
For most liberals, the answer is obvious: Hillary was. I
disagreed – mainly, but not only, because I thought that
she was the more likely of the two to unleash a Third
World War. I still do; and that trumps all.
Trump is hardly a pacifist or an anti-imperialist, but while
running for office, he did, for the most part, advance anti-
interventionist positions. Who knows if he meant any of it
– like any good huckster, he says what he intuits his marks
want to hear, and now that the campaign is over, he seems
to agree with whomever he spoke with last.
Also, he is impetuous and erratic and inclined to act out.
This is worrisome, to say the least. Even if he and the
Russians do reach some sort of understanding, he could
start a nuclear war nevertheless.
But Hillary is a Russophobe with a fondness for military
“solutions” to problems that she and her husband and their
collaborators helped to create. Worse still, she favors
“regime change” whenever and wherever neocons and
“humanitarian” interveners deem it in the empire’s best
interests.
At a time when seemingly the entire foreign policy
establishment, in league with The Washington Post and
other media accomplices, is hard at work reviving the Cold
War –demonizing Vladimir Putin, blaming (unnamed and
probably imaginary) “Russian hackers,” along with every
other damn Ruskie nogoodnik they can think of for all
sorts of real and imagined offenses – this is a lethal
combination.
It is therefore a close call, but I come down on the side of
those who think that having the fate of the world in the
hands of a wheeler-dealer who never quite matured beyond
adolescence is less worrisome than entrusting it to an
ideologically committed warmonger — at a time when
Cold Warriors in both the government and the media are
back with a vengeance, and when the understandings that
made “mutual assured destruction” work have, for all
practical purposes, lapsed.
15
I thought, and still think, that this makes Hillary the greater
evil all things considered.
But if, while flip-flopping his way out of the tangle he put
himself into during the campaign, Trump decides to
change his views about interventionism and relations with
Russia, or if it looks like he will cede power to the
miscreants and dunces he is putting in charge of foreign
policy and military affairs, and if they, in turn, start itching
for war with a fervor equal to or greater than Hillary’s, or
if, drunk with power, the Donald’s mental balance
deteriorates enough to make it likely that in a fit of pique
he would just let loose — it may become necessary to
rethink this assessment.
Even then, however, it wouldn’t follow that those of us
who voted against Hillary ought to rethink our vote.
The current Deporter-in-Chief, President Drone, has been
cut endless slack by liberals and others who seem to
believe that, no matter what he does, he is one of the good
guys.
Hillary would likely have been able to get away with
murder too, at least for a while – until the consequences of
her warmongering turned liberals against her in much the
way that, generations ago, liberals turned against Lyndon
Johnson, a far more worthy figure in every respect.
When Trump is in charge, liberals will cut him no slack.
From even before Day One, there will be no get-out-of-
jail-free cards for him.
There was no peace movement to speak of when Nobel
laureate Obama was continuing Bush’s wars and starting
others of his own. Liberals with “beautiful souls” didn’t
want to upset the boat when a Democrat – especially the
first African-American elected to the office — was at the
helm.
Those days are over now; this is the good news.
The bad news is that, if Trump stays true to the word he
gave to his most “deplorable” supporters, the harm he
causes could make everything Obama has done look like
small potatoes.
If that happens, there will be ample reason to rethink the
who-was-the-greater-evil question. But the how-ought-
one-to-have-voted question is something else.
The reason why it was right to oppose Hillary, and to urge
others to do so too, has nothing to do with how much
worse or better she might be compared to Trump.
***
Trump has neither ideological convictions nor fixed views,
except in a very general sense. He has instincts – most of
them bad.
A vote for Trump was a way of sending a message to those
who needed to hear it. But the message conveyed was
profoundly, indeed fatally, flawed.
It is not hard to understand, though, why many voters
thought otherwise. Voting for an obscenely rich vulgarian
who dumped on political and media elites at every
opportunity, seemed like a good way to say “fuck you” to
a regime that has been fucking over a lot of Americans,
some say as many as ninety-nine percent, for decades.
There were better ways, of course; but they were
problematic too.
One would have been not to vote at all, or to vote only in
down ticket contests. Many did precisely that; many
always do.
But it is never clear what message, if any, not voting
conveys: are non-voters abstaining in a principled way,
perhaps because they want to do no evil? Or are they
merely irresponsible or lazy? Or all of the above?
This is why casting a protest vote is almost always a better
choice than casting no vote at all.
One way to do that would be to write in a name, and hope
that somebody notices.
Another way, in this last election, would have been to vote
for the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson. He was
on the ballot in all fifty states; votes for him were therefore
sure to be noticed. Since many Republicans identify with
(small-l) libertarianism, it should not have been hard for
many of them to make their disgust with Clinton and
Trump, and with Democrats and Republicans, known this
way.
And for anyone left of the dead center, there was Jill Stein.
Being less of a threat to the guardians of the status quo,
Johnson was not quite as thoroughly marginalized as Stein,
but neither of them got significant media attention. It was
as if they didn’t exist. This made it hard, even for those
who knew better, to take their candidacies seriously.
How ironic therefore that major media are now deigning to
bring Stein and the Green Party to the attention of an
anxious public — for calling for recounts of the votes in
three states that Hillary almost won: Wisconsin, Michigan
and Pennsylvania.
16
In those “battleground states,” all of which regularly go for
the Democrat in presidential elections, Republican
governors and secretaries of state did their utmost to
suppress voter turnout in communities “of color” and
among the young. They also had ample opportunities to
rig vote counting; and there appear to have been many
instances in which the exit polls and the official vote count
diverged enough to create at least a presumption that they
did just that.
One would think that Democrats, not Greens, to be the
ones initiating the call for recounts. Why did they have to
be embarrassed into going along?
Robert Frost’s quip — that liberals are people who won’t
take their own sides in arguments – is surely relevant.
Frost attributed this trait of theirs to excessive broad-
mindedness. But the liberals he knew back in the day put
the Clintonian kind to shame. The problem now is not so
much broad mindedness as muddle-headedness.
This accounts for another part of the explanation; that
Democrats probably believe the babblers who are even
now telling them to lay off because if there is a recount
and Trump still comes out on top, as he likely will, it will
somehow “legitimize” his presidency.
Do they really think that anybody cares? In the 2000
election, there was little doubt about the illegitimacy of
George Bush’s election, but that didn’t stop him or his
éminence grise, Dick Cheney, from going on to wreck the
world just as soon as Osama Bin Laden gave them a
pretext, and a terrified public gave them a chance.
Anyway, the Clinton campaign is now on board; after the
Stein campaign got the process going, they could hardly do
otherwise.
It is hard to figure out what Stein thought she would gain
by demanding a recount.
Many leading Greens are opposed. They do not want their
party to do anything that has any chance at all of helping
Hillary; they also think that decisions of such importance
should be made at the party level, not just by the candidate
and her close advisors. These are good, if not compelling,
reasons.
Stein says her concern is for the integrity of the voting
process; this too is a good, if not compelling, reason.
I think there is a better reason, though nobody mentions it.
Demanding a recount is a way, when all else has failed, to
put the Green Party on the political map.
At this point in the history of a party that has been
floundering in obscurity ever since its inception, and that
does nobody any good by remaining marginalized, gaining
significant media attention is – or ought to be — Priority
Number One.
Once it became clear that the Sanders insurgency would
fail – thanks mainly to Democratic Party machinations –
there was nothing at all good that could come out of this
last presidential election except a slightly less marginalized
Green Party. For a while, it looked like even that wouldn’t
happen. But now it has!
Bravo, therefore, to Jill Stein.
The pundits made Hillary out to be a “pragmatist,” and
Bernie Sanders an idealist with his head in the clouds.
Had they mentioned Stein at all, it would have been only
to say that Sanders seems downright hard-headed in
comparison. But Stein outsmarted them both – leaving
Sanders stranded on the Dark Side and Hillary out of luck.
At least we have that!
***
There are strains of moral philosophy that accord greater
weight to the rightness or wrongness of actions, or to the
integrity of moral agents, than to the consequences of what
they do.
Politics, on the other hand, is about consequences – not
entirely, but mainly.
This is what the great social theorist Max Weber had in
mind when in “Politics as a Vocation,” he distinguished
what he called an “ethic of responsibility” from an “ethic
of ultimate ends” – an ethic for persons engaged in real
world political affairs, and an ethic for persons who aspire
to live in accord with the demands of morality, as moral
theorists from Biblical times through to the present day
have conceived them.
Normally, the two are not at odds. But there are times
when they are – and therefore when acting responsibly in
political contexts can involve acting wrongly from a moral
point of view, and vice versa.
It is emphatically not because I want to live in accord with
an ethic of ultimate ends, or its political equivalent, that I
would not vote for Hillary. Moral fastidiousness is not
driving this conviction; neither is a sectarian urge for
ideological purity. I would vote for Clinton or for Trump
or for the Devil Himself if that really was what a
defensible ethic of responsibility called for.
In this instance, it does not – not because it is debatable
who the lesser evil is, or because voting for one or the
other would lead to even more degraded choices in the
17
future, and not even because, with the downward spiral set
off by past episodes of lesser voting already presenting us
with a Clinton-Trump choice, enough is enough. No
doubt, there are thresholds that even committed lesser
evilists should hesitate to cross that both Clinton and
Trump do cross, but that is not the reason either.
Even were Hillary the lesser evil, which is still far from
clear; and even were there no reason to think that the
choice next time, if there would be a next time with her
calling the shots, would be even worse than it was
November 8; and even if she weren’t awful enough for
plausible threshold considerations to kick in, a vote for her,
in the current conjuncture, would be indefensibly
irresponsible, in roughly the sense that Weber had in mind.
The Clintons and their supporters are good at blaming
everyone but themselves for Hillary’s defeat.
Some of their arguments are transparently bogus: of these,
the idea that she lost because she is a woman heads the list.
To be sure, no woman has been elected President yet,
though, as long ago as 1984, the Democrats nominated
one, Geraldine Ferraro, for Vice President. She ran with
Walter Mondale who lost, big time, to Ronald Reagan. It
was argued back then, and still is, that her presence on the
ticket added to Mondale’s woes. Perhaps so, but her lady
parts are not what did him harm. Her husband’s real estate
machinations did. In those halcyon pre-Clinton, pre-
Trump days, candidates themselves, and their husbands
and wives had to be beyond suspicion.
Then in 2008, the Republicans nominated Sarah Palin to
run with John McCain. The consensus view on that is that,
though a laughing stock, she actually helped the ticket –
because “deplorables,” the folks whom Clinton apologist
say would never elect a woman, loved her.
There is also the irksome fact that, in important sectors of
the electorate, more women voted for Trump than voted
for Hillary. Katha Politt, writing in The Nation, has an
answer for that: internalized misogyny. There you have it:
a second wave feminist who is eloquent in exposing
Zionist nonsense about “self-hating Jews,” going on about
“self-hating women.”
She is right of course in pointing out that Hillary bashers in
the Age of Trump are not shy about using misogynistic
slurs. But so what? Obama bashers used, and still use,
racist slurs, and he was elected President twice. When
civility fails, people will let their prejudices loose; they
will say what is on their minds. But that doesn’t determine
how they will vote.
Liberals say unseemly things about spoiled, rich frat boys
when they rage at George Bush. I, for one, have no
problem with that! I suspect that no one at The Nation
does either. Like Pollit, I do have a problem when
unseemly taunts are leveled against women; also against
persons of color, gays, people with disabilities and so on.
Such behavior is reprehensible. But it doesn’t mean that
an African American or a woman or a homosexual or a
disabled person cannot be elected President, or even that
the bigot vote is a force to be reckoned with in presidential
elections.
If anything, Hillary’s gender was more of an asset than a
liability. She lost despite, not because, she is a woman.
The more interesting excuses – the ones that involve
blaming white workers – are not quite so entirely off the
mark.
Hooray for corporate media, the Republican and
Democratic Parties, and the labor movement too. After
years of denying that there even is a working class, they
now talk of nothing else.
Too bad, though, that their marker for working class
membership is lack of a college education, not relation to
means of production; and that instead of viewing the
working class as the bearer of new, more fully human,
social relations, they see it as a relic of an historically
superseded world – full of gun crazy, aging, unpleasant
people. But, what the hell, something is better than
nothing.
Bernie Sanders made talk of “socialism” almost
respectable, even though New Deal liberalism was all he
had in mind. Either way, he brought a pre-Clintonian (pre-
neoliberal) sensibility back into our political discourse.
Ironically, Trump helped with that, by turning some of the
most justifiably aggrieved victims of the neoliberal order
into useful chumps. And, now that Hillary blew the
election, mainstream Democrats making excuses for her
defeat are helping too.
More amazing still, a kind of vulgar Marxist sensibility is
seeping into mainstream media accounts of the political
scene. When Marx famously said that he was not a
Marxist, he meant, among other things, that he did not
think, as some self-declared Marxists did, that everything
political has an economic explanation.
For Marx, the nature and trajectory of capitalist
development constrains what is possible within the
political sphere; sometimes it also gives rise to political
exigencies of various kinds. But what actually happens
depends on class struggles and the political forms through
which they are realized and expressed.
Media pundits who see the Trump phenomenon and
cognate movements in Europe as inevitable consequences
of current economic exigencies should take a look, for
example, at The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon or
18
Marx’s writings on the Paris Commune, among countless
other examples.
The Trump phenomenon — and the Brexit vote and the
likely vote against Matteo Renzi’s proposed constitutional
changes in Italy, and the vote next year in France that may
put the National Front in power — are not mere
epiphenomenal expressions of unavoidable perturbations
in the capitalist world system. They are political
uprisings. They are grounded in underlying economic
realities, but they obey a logic of their own — specific, in
each case, to their own particular situations.
“Populism” has so many vague and disparate meanings
that it is best not used without abundant clarification.
However, the term has become so trendy of late that it is
difficult to avoid.
Allowing, then, for some inevitable imprecision, it would
be fair to say that these “populist” backlashes have
everything to do with the (justifiable) disgust people living
in overripe capitalist societies are experiencing; that
“populism” is what happens when politicians, like the
Clintons, pursue neoliberal agendas too hard for too long.
In countries where there is still a flourishing Left – Greece
and Spain come immediately to mind – populism has taken
on a left-wing coloration. In today’s world, however, it is
more often a creature of the Right.
For the first part of 2016, there were populist insurgencies
of both kinds going on at once in the United States. The
Clintonite dead center killed off the one, the progressive
one of course, and then got killed off by the other. This is
only fitting; the Clintons and other neoliberals have always
been more contemptuous of the Left than of the Right.
But the news is that the tide has finally turned against
neoliberalism; even in its heartland, the United States.
A vote for Hillary would have been a vote for the
neoliberal status quo, just when the realization that the old
order is dying has taken hold.
Nearly all Democrats these days are Clintonites, but
Hillary is their Queen – she played a role in shaping the
neoliberal order and she embodies all that is wrong with it.
It would have therefore been the epitome of
irresponsibility, in Weber’s sense, to support her, even
against Trump, and no matter which Trump she was
running against – the one who, in past lives and during the
campaign, sometimes outflanked her from the Left, or the
one who is now assembling a cabinet comprised of the
vilest and most reactionary plutocrats, Islamophobes, and
rightwing ideologues in captivity.
 ***
Had Hillary won, as she surely would have were she a less
flawed candidate, opposition to her would take off in short
order. Those who support her now would soon turn
against her in much the way that half a century ago,
Lyndon Johnson’s supporters turned against him. The
Vietnam War did LBJ in; Hillary would be done in by the
wars she has up her sleeve – if a nuclear war she brought
on didn’t do everybody in first.
Johnson was, of course, a far more worthy figure than
HRC – he actually did accomplish great things. Also, in
1964, he ran against an undeniably greater evil, Hillary’s
first political hero, Barry Goldwater.
If Trump turns out to be nothing more than an out-of-
control Hillary, he will be undeniably a greater evil too.
But this is a reason to oppose him and all his works and
everyone associated with him – a reason to boycott his
hotels and golf courses and office towers and apartment
buildings along with everything else he is involved with;
and a reason to boycott everything he and his complicit
children sell. It is a reason to turn the name “Trump” from
a marketable brand into a stigma that even those who are
drawn to conspicuous displays of bad taste and over the
top glitz would feel compelled to avoid.
Because Democrats lack backbones, they won’t obstruct
Trump’s doings with a tenth the zeal that Republicans
obstructed every little thing Obama did. This is something
“we, the people” will have to do instead.
But, still, this is not a reason to have voted for Hillary or to
regret now not having done so.
.
19
Stopping Trump is our job; how much priority to give it in
the short run will depend on how awful he and his
underlings turn out to be. So far, all indications are that
they will be awful indeed.
Had she not flubbed so badly, stopping Hillary would have
been a job for us too – though, in that case, Republicans
could be counted on to do their fair share and more, albeit
for the wrong reasons.
But more important than using votes to try to stop greater
or lesser evils – a fool’s errand, in any case – there is a
more fundamental and long rage task that people involved
with political affairs who seek to act responsibly cannot
shirk.
That would be to turn back the neoliberal tide that has
made the Trump phenomenon, along with so many other
horrors, possible; in other words, to smash Clintonism. In
this last election, not voting for Hillary was one way, the
best available, of doing precisely that.
This is why, for anyone trying to live in accord with a
defensible ethic of responsibility, supporting Clinton is
more than distasteful. In much the way that voting for
Trump would be, it is unthinkable.
No doubt, those who voted for Hillary in order to stop
Trump were acting with the best of intentions. But, as has
been clear all along, all they succeeded in doing was
deflecting attention away from the paramount struggle of
our time – the struggle against all that Hillary and husband
Bill epitomize and represent.
 She's Not Giving Up Yet:
Jill Stein Continues Push For A Recount In Pennsylvania
By Asking For A Federal Court Order After State Judge
Demanded She Pay Another $1million
Green Party Candidate Will Ask For An Emergency Court Order Monday
Campaign Spokesman Jonathan Abady Said The Battle Was Far From Over
Stein Dropped The Case In State Courts After A Judge Demanded A $1m Bond
She Said The Decision Was 'Outrageous' And A 'Barrier To Democracy'
'This Is Yet Another Sign That Pennsylvania's Antiquated
Election Law Is Stacked Against Voters,' She Said
By Dailymail.Com Reporter And Associated Press
Published: 20:55 EST, 3 December 2016 | Updated: 08:32 EST, 4 December 2016

Jill Stein said she will seek help from the federal courts as
she continues her push for a recount in Pennsylvania.

The Green Party candidate said she will ask for an

emergency court order on Monday to spark the count,
hours after she dropped the case in the state courts when a
judge demanded she pay an extra $1million.

Campaign lawyer Jonathan Abady made a statement late

on Saturday night saying the battle was far from over.

'Make no mistake — the Stein campaign

will continue to fight for a statewide recount
in Pennsylvania.

'We are committed to this fight to protect Stein blasted the expense of the recounts on Twitter as
the civil and voting rights of all news broke of the dropped bid in Pennsylvania on
Americans.' Saturday night

They continued their legal tussle in The Keystone State,

after a recount began Thursday in Wisconsin, while a
recount could begin next week in Michigan.

In the statement, Abady said barriers to a recount in

Pennsylvania are pervasive and the state court system is
ill-equipped to address the problem.

Stein said the decision to drop the case in the state courts
was made after a court ruling ordered that voters who
requested the recount to pay a $1million bond.

'The judge's outrageous demand that

voters pay such an exorbitant figure is a
Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein has dropped shameful, unacceptable barrier to
her bid for an election recount in Pennsylvania because her democratic participation,' she said in
campaign cannot pay a $1m bond demanded by a judge statement.
20
 'This is yet another sign that
Pennsylvania's antiquated election law is
stacked against voters.'
'By demanding a $1million bond from
voters yesterday, the court made clear it
has no interest in giving a fair hearing to
these voters' legitimate concerns over the
accuracy, security and fairness of an
election tainted by suspicion.'
Stein's attorney wrote in court papers that the petitioners
for the recount were 'regular citizens of ordinary means'
who could not afford to post the bond.
Green Party-backed efforts to analyze election software in
scattered precincts are still continuing.
Stein also said she will make a 'major announcement'
regarding her next steps in the recount process at a news
conference Monday outside Trump Tower in New York.
Trump's victory in Pennsylvania was particularly stunning:
the state's fifth-most electoral votes are a
key stepping stone to the White House,
and no Republican presidential candidate
had captured the state since 1988.
Stein had said the purpose of Pennsylvania's recount was
to ensure

'our votes are safe and secure,' considering

hackers' probing of election targets in other
states and hackers' accessing of the emails
of the Democratic National Committee and
several Clinton staffers.

US security officials have said they believe Russian

hackers orchestrated the email hacks, something Russia
has denied.

Stein's lawyers, however, had offered no

Stein had tried to fund the recount after claims that voting
machines had been hacked in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and
Michigan where Donald Trump won.
The campaign of Republican President-elect Donald
Trump had requested a $10 million bond, court papers
showed.
evidence of hacking in Pennsylvania's
election.
They sought unsuccessfully in recent days to get various
counties to allow a forensic examination of their election
system software.

Stein raised nearly $7million to fund statewide election

recounts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

She blasted the expense of the recounts on Twitter,

writing:

'How odd is it that we must jump through

bureaucratic hoops and raise millions of
dollars so we can trust our election
results?'

'#Recount2016 is so expensive because of

elected leaders who have refused to invest
in a 21st-century voting system.'

Stein's campaign for a recount had been framed as an

effort to explore whether voting machines and systems had
been hacked and the election result manipulated.

The decision to drop the campaign in Pennsylvania came Green County Clerk Michael Doyle carries ballots to a secure
location after being tabulated during the presidential recount at the
two days before a court hearing was scheduled in the case. Green County Courthouse in Monroe, Wisconsin

21

A recount is already underway in Wisconsin. Workers are pictured
looking over absentee ballots in Milwaukee on Thursday, December 1
Lawyers for Trump and the state Republican Party argued
there was no evidence, or even an allegation, that
tampering with Pennsylvania's voting systems had
occurred.
.
22
Further, Pennsylvania law does not allow a court-ordered
recount, they argued, and a lawyer for the Green Party had
acknowledged that the effort was without precedent in
Pennsylvania.
The case also had threatened Pennsylvania's ability to
certify its presidential electors by the Dec. 13 federal
deadline, Republican lawyers argued.
On Saturday, GOP lawyer Lawrence Tabas, said the case
had been meant
'solely for purposes to delay the Electoral
College vote in Pennsylvania for President-
Elect Trump.'
The state's top elections official, Secretary of State Pedro
Cortes, a Democrat, has said there was no evidence of any
sort of cyberattacks or irregularities in the election. Any
recount would change few votes, Cortes predicted.
As of Friday, Trump's margin of victory in Pennsylvania
was 49,000, or less than 1 percent, out of 6 million votes
cast, according to state election officials.
Final counts were outstanding in some counties, including
heavily populated Allegheny County, but state and county
officials did not expect any outstanding uncounted votes to
change the outcome of the presidential election in
Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania's automatic statewide recount trigger is 0.5
percent. Stein drew less than 1 percent of the votes cast.
 Stein Switches Tactics In
Pennsylvania Recount Drive
AFP
December 4, 2016
Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein dropped a request
for a state court vote recount in Pennsylvania because petitioners
could not afford the $1mn bond required (AFP Photo/JUSTIN
SULLIVAN)
Washington (AFP) - Former Green Party presidential
candidate Jill Stein switched tactics in her campaign to
force a recount in Pennsylvania, one of three
battleground states won by Donald Trump where she has
challenged the results.
The party dropped a bid to pursue the recount in a state
court, citing difficulties raising a million dollar bond
demanded by the tribunal. It said it would instead press
on in federal court and file suit Monday.
That was also Stein's deadline for raising the bond
money.
"Make no mistake -— the Stein campaign
will continue to fight for a statewide
recount in Pennsylvania," attorney
Jonathan Abady said in a statement.
"Over the past several days, it has
become clear that the barriers to verifying
the vote in Pennsylvania are so pervasive
and that the state court system is so ill-
equipped to address this problem that we
must seek federal court intervention,"
Abady said.
"Petitioners are regular citizens of
ordinary means. They cannot afford to
post the $1,000,000 bond required by the
court," read a filing submitted earlier in the
Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania,
23
announcing the state court drive was
being dropped.
Stein plans to hold a rally on Monday across the street
from Trump Tower in New York
"vowing to fight tooth and nail to verify the
accuracy, security and fairness of the
vote,"
a statement read.
On Twitter, she added:
"How odd is it that we must jump through
bureaucratic hoops and raise millions of
dollars so we can trust our election
results? #Recount2016.
"#Recount2016 is so expensive because
of elected leaders who have refused to
invest in a 21st-century voting system,"
she said.
Stein's fundraising efforts for recounts in Pennsylvania,
Michigan and Wisconsin have brought in nearly $7
million so far, according to her website. In all three
traditionally Democratic-leaning states, Trump only
narrowly defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Her recount request in Pennsylvania was complicated by
opposition from Trump. Michigan's attorney general filed
suit to halt Stein's recounts efforts in that state. And in
Wisconsin, Trump supporters tried to stop the recount but
it is underway.
Stein's campaign has cited unspecified "anomalies" as
grounds to mount a challenge in all three Rust Belt states.
The move came amid stepped-up calls from some of the
president-elect's leftist opponents to challenge the results
of the November 8 election, which followed a bitter
campaign that included persistent charges of Russian
hacking and allegations by Trump of fraud.
Although experts say there is virtually no chance of Trump has stated without offering evidence that
overturning the result, the demands could reignite debate "millions" of people voted illegally and that were it not
over the legitimacy of Trump's election, already fueled for this he would have won the popular vote as well.
by Clinton's lead in the popular vote which now stands at
around 2.5 million.
.

24
 Green Party Switches Strategy
In Pennsylvania Recount
Published December 04, 2016

Hours after a Green Party-backed campaign dropped its
case in state courts they announce a change to their
strategy to force a statewide recount of Pennsylvania's
Nov. 8 presidential election, won by Republican Donald
Trump, and said late Saturday night that it will seek help in
the federal courts, rather than the state courts.
The campaign announced that it would seek an emergency
federal court order on Monday for a recount.
The Wisconsin recount began on Thursday, while a
potential recount could begin in Michigan next week.
No Republican presidential candidate had captured
Pennsylvania since 1988.
Stein announced Pennsylvania's recount
purpose was to ensure "our votes are safe
and secure."

"Make no mistake — the Stein campaign
will continue to fight for a statewide recount
in Pennsylvania," recount campaign lawyer
Jonathan Abady said in a statement issued
a little before midnight. "We are committed
to this fight to protect the civil and voting
rights of all Americans."
Abady said barriers to a recount in Pennsylvania are
pervasive and the state court system is ill-equipped to
address the problem.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, raised over
$6.9 million to fund recount efforts in Wisconsin,
Michigan and Pennsylvania.Stein framed the issue as an
effort to explore whether voting machines and systems had
been hacked and the election result manipulated.
They have unsuccessfully sought to get various counties to
allow a forensic examination of their election system
software.
Trump’s lawyers and the state Republican Party claimed
there was no evidence or allegations that tampering
occurred with Pennsylvania's voting systems. Pennsylvania
law does not allow a court-ordered recount, they argued,
and a lawyer for the Green Party had acknowledged that
the effort was without precedent in Pennsylvania.
Republican lawyers also argued that the case has
threatened the state’s ability to certify its presidential
electors by the December 13 federal deadline.
On Saturday, a GOP lawyer, Lawrence Tabas, said the
case had been meant

Stein announced Sunday morning that she plans to hold a

"solely for purposes to delay the Electoral
rally on Monday morning outside of Trump Tower in New
College vote in Pennsylvania for President-
York.
Elect Trump."

Despite Stein's lawyers having offered no evidence of

hacking in Pennsylvania's election.

The state Republican Party and Trump asked for a

dismissal in the state court case.

The decision came two days before a state court hearing

was scheduled in the case. Saturday's court filing to
withdraw the case said the Green Party-backed voters who
filed it "are regular citizens of ordinary means" and cannot
afford the $1 million bond ordered by the court by 5 p.m.
Monday. Green Party-backed efforts to force recounts and
analyze election software in scattered precincts were
continuing. The court's order can be read here.

25
The state's top elections official, Secretary of State Pedro
Cortes, a Democrat, has said there was no evidence of any
sort of cyberattacks or irregularities in the election. Cortes
predicted that a recount would change few votes.
As of Friday, Trump's margin of victory in Pennsylvania
was 49,000, or less than 1 percent, out of 6 million votes
cast, according to state election officials. State and county
.
26
officials did not expect any outstanding uncounted votes to
change the outcome of the presidential election in
Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania's automatic statewide recount trigger is 0.5
percent. Stein drew less than 1 percent of the votes cast.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 Truth the Lawless Anti-Trump “Protestors”
Need to Know About Popular Vote (Video)
By Voice of Reason
Sunday, December 4th, 2016

article written by Derek Hunter at Town Hall, and another

by Donna Carol Voss at The Federalist. To put it politely,
both articles eviscerate the narrative that the media is
reporting about Hillary’s popular vote win.

Next, I cover how the recount effort looks like it has

fizzled out as fast as it began, with the effort running into a
brick wall in Pennsylvania, and also with reports of
massive voter fraud in Wisconsin, a state Trump won
notwithstanding the fraud. Finally, I cover reports about
electors living in fear for the safety of their families
Unless you’ve been living in an alternate dimension since because of the sheer volume of threats they are receiving
the election results were announced early in the morning (including death threats), from the “tolerant” left, and
hours of November 9th, you’ve no doubt heard that Hillary disgruntled Hillary supporters.
Clinton “allegedly” won the popular vote. The reason I say
“allegedly” won, is because no matter how many times the
mainstream media wants to report that Hillary indisputably
won the popular vote, there are at LEAST two
independent nonpartisan groups, VoteFraud.org and
watchdog.org, that both claim approximately 7 million of
Hillary’s votes came from illegal aliens or dead people
(NOTE TO LIBERALS: Regardless of what Obama says,
neither is eligible to vote).

The reason I say you’ve “no doubt heard,” is because there

are 86,400 seconds in a single 24-hour day, but don’t think
something as trivial as Father Time has been able to stop
the liberal mainstream media from reporting several
million times a day, all day, every day since the Derek Hunter at Town Hall writes:
election, that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
Have you heard the news that Hillary Clinton won the
popular vote? Unless you live under a rock you likely
If like me, you’re tired of hearing about how Hillary won
have stumbled across a barista or aspiring novelist
the popular vote, you’re tired of demonstrations causing
mumbling something about how the Electoral College
problems where you live, you’re tired of hearing about
is unfair and undemocratic and how electors should
how “faithless electors” are going to change their votes
follow “the will of the people” and vote for Hillary on
from Trump to Hillary on December 19th when the
Dec. 19. Because “democracy!” or something.
Electoral College meets to make the results official, and
you’re tired of hearing about how the Electoral College is
an antiquated system that needs to be abolished, consider If we lived in a democracy, they’d have a point.
this post your one-stop shop to get the information you Thankfully, we do not.
need to confront any unshowered liberal mob holding up
traffic in your city while they march and mumble What too many of these uneducated and unshowered
their worthless drivel about the popular vote, and set the drum circlers don’t know, or don’t care to know, is the
record straight. popular vote is a meaningless unit of measure. The
Electoral College exists, and it is how we determine who
In the following video, first I set the record straight about is president. We are a union of states, hence the name
the lies and misdirection being pumped out around the United States of America, not singular blob on a map.
clock by the mainstream liberal media using a brilliant Candidates must appeal to a broad swath of the nation

27
with differing and sometimes conflicting interests. It’s
a brilliant system.
Donald Trump didn’t campaign in California because
there was no point in campaigning in California.
Unless Los Angeles and San Francisco fell into the
ocean, the state wasn’t in play. This left a lot of potential
Republican voters deciding to skip the lines on Election
Day. Same goes for New York.
More nefariously, Democratic pundits and journalists have
expanded the deception of the presidential popular vote to
Congress as well. “Democrats got more votes for the
Senate than Republicans, yet the GOP controls it. That’s
not fair!” – or some such childish refrain has been making
the rounds on social media and TV since people voted.
Just like the “recount” is a naked attempt to discredit
Trump’s victory, this “smart take” is a deliberate
deception designed to keep the unshowered angry.
The Nation magazine put it this way, “The preliminary
count had Democratic Senate candidates gathering
46.2 million votes to 39.3 million for Republican
candidates.” That and $2.50 will get you a cup of
coffee from the aforementioned unshowered,
probably with earlobes stretched to the size of
Frisbees and an impromptu lecture on the “justice” of
fair trade coffee beans.
But it’s a fraud.
Those numbers aren’t a lie, per se, but how the left is
using them is, just like how it is using the presidential
popular vote.
In California now, all candidates run in the same primary,
and the top two vote-getters advance to the runoff unless
one receives more than 50 percent of the vote. Thanks to
total Democratic Party control, both candidates for the
open Senate seat were Democrats. So Democrats got all
the votes in California’s Senate race.
Meanwhile, Texas, which has a large population and
generally votes Republican, did not have a Senate race
this year. So millions of votes that could have gone to
Republican Senate candidates didn’t because there was
no election for them to vote in.
In fact, several solidly Republican states or states
Republicans stand a good chance of winning didn’t
have Senate elections in 2016.
When you choose the unit of measure by which you
determine success you will always come out ahead.
That’s what Democrats are doing here.
28
In this year’s World Series, the Chicago Cubs won the title
4 games to 3. But both the Cubs and Cleveland Indians
scored 27 runs in the seven games. Applying the
argument liberals are using, there needs to be an eighth
game, or at least more innings added to game 7 with the
winner being whichever team scores the next run.
That doesn’t make any sense, and neither does
arguing about the popular vote for president or in
regards to Congress. The rules were the rules, and
campaigns were run under those rules, deliberately.
This won’t stop the unshowered and uneducated.
Their ignorance inoculates them from such realities.
But it doesn’t excuse the showered and educated who
should, and do, know better.
The political class is doing all it can to hurt the
incoming Republican government; to discredit it
before anyone takes their oaths of office. C-list
celebrities have even taken to social media to
promote a meaningless online petition to “pressure”
Trump electors to switch their votes to Hillary (and
avoid keeping their word to leave the country). Many
of the great unwashed have even taken to threatening
the lives of Trump electors, which is illegal but of no
interest to the current Justice Department. Unable to
win at the ballot box, these are the tactics they’ve chosen.
It’s who they are.
Outside of their enclaves, Democrats have little appeal.
They can’t win under the rules, so they do what they
always do – ignore them. Be it through a bogus recount
trying to deny enough Electoral College electors for
Trump to reach 270 votes (he’d still win without them from
the three states the Greens and Clinton are challenging, it
would just empower Democrats to claim he didn’t have
270, or the widely known “majority”), or the “we won more
votes” congressional nonsense. Democrats have never
lost well.
For anyone with a sincere desire to be
more informed, and to learn the factual
and legal rebuttals to virtually every
ridiculous reason liberals say the
Electoral Collage needs to be abolished
(the reasons that always get captured in
 30 second sound bites and replayed on
the evening news over and over for the
useful idiots to hear, and then repeat
like parrots during their
“demonstrations”), I suggest reading an
article from The Federalist which writes:
If you want to get rid of the Electoral College, you don’t
understand how it works. I mean the royal “you,” not the
partisan “you.” Opposition to the Electoral College tends
to break down along partisan lines—especially lately, for
some reason—but even President-elect Donald Trump
said he’d prefer “simple votes.”
You can hardly be blamed for your ignorance if you
went to public school, attended an elite university, or
get your news from Yahoo. Some very nice, apparently
well-educated people—Barbara Boxer—are peddling
absolute Pablum about the Electoral College. “The
Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic
system that does not reflect our modern society, and
it needs to change immediately. Every American
should be guaranteed that their vote counts.”
You are one of them, with all due
respect, if you’ve said or thought any of
the following…
Your News Wire Reports:
Officials involved in the Wisconsin
recount have come forward with
evidence of tampered voting machines
that they say proves Hillary Clinton
rigged the election.
Election observers designated on behalf of
Jill Stein have shared images on social
media showing nine voting machines
with tampered seals.
Palmerreport.com reports:
The observer, named Wendy, has been
observing the recount in St. Croix County.
According to the state’s official election
29
website, that county is currently doing both
a hand recount and a machine recount.
That’s what makes it notable that Wendy
spotted the broken seals on five of the nine
machines in question.
Based on the photographs she posted
to Stein’s official campaign website, the
broken seals themselves come with the
warning label that “Removal of seal
voids warranty.” Take a look at one of
her photos below:
There has as of yet been no explanation
from Wisconsin officials or St. Croix County
officials as to why the majority of vote
counting machines in the county have
been visibly tampered with, and no one
noticed during the original vote tally.
It’s possible that these seals could have
been broken by a hacker who was
reprogramming them to produce rigged
or false vote totals, and it’s also possible
that an election worker could have
simply pried open the seals for some
unknown reason that didn’t involve
malicious intent. But in any case, the
broken tamper seals stand out as alarming
– and could serve as legal fodder for
expanding the scope of the recount.
A judge ruled that there was insufficient
evidence to force every Wisconsin
county to do a hand recount, and that
each county could decide on its own
whether to do hand recounts or
machine recounts. Sixty of the seventy-
two counties have voluntarily agreed to
do hand recounts.
However, of the twelve counties which
refused, Donald Trump won nine of them.
These tampered seals could be used to
convince the judge to order the remaining
twelve counties to do hand recounts.

SouthFront Reports:
A Darknet website, launched earlier this
week, collects donations to help
organize the assassination of President-
elect Donald Trump and his future Vice
President Mike Pence.
According to information provided on the website, the
group, organized donations, belongs to “a well-known
underground organization,” which previously
preferred to influence on “crooked governments,”
using cyber attacks, but now decided to shift its
tactics to physical violence.
“We are part of a well-known underground
organization that always defended and
protected the rights of all people against
crooked governments and regimes using
different cyber attacks, but not, we have to
go further as it will require much more than
cyber attack to defend ourselves to avoid
civil war or another world war.”
The website asks to donate Bitcoin, which allegedly
will be used for buying equipment and paying bribes
.
30
A website on the Darknet, launched earlier this
week, warns of the “political, environmental and
social consequences” of the future presidency of
Donald Trump and collects donations to allegedly
help organize the assassination of both Trump and
Vice President-elect Mike Pence, Infowars reported
on Friday.
“As you are all well aware, the
consequences of having Donald Trump
and Mike Prence as the leaders of the free
world are extremely dangerous,” the
webpage reads. “The political,
environmental and social consequences
will change the United States for the worst.”
to the federal government and even the Secret
Service. According to CSO writer Steve Ragan,
since March 2016, the group managed to collect
more than $88,000 on its Bitcoin wallet. However,
since the assassination website was launched, only
$119 has been donated.
The website also provides a Darknet-
based email address for those, who
want to provide expertise or intelligence
to the group.
According to Infowars, investigations into such
Darknet websites have revealed them to be likely
scams or run by law enforcement, despite its
provocative nature.
 Donald Trump’s Big Government Stick
Kurt Nimmo
December 4, 2016
From deficit spending on “infrastructure” to threatening
American corporations for the crime of making their own
business decisions, Donald Trump has signaled his
administration will use government like a cudgel.
In a series of stitched together tweets, Trump lets business
people know what they can expect:
The U.S. is going to substantialy reduce taxes
and regulations on businesses, but any business
that leaves our country for another country,
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 4, 2016
fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant
in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its
product back into the U.S. ……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 4, 2016
without retribution or consequence, is WRONG!
There will be a tax on our soon to be strong
border of 35% for these companies ……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 4, 2016
wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units etc.,
back across the border. This tax will make
leaving financially difficult, but…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 4, 2016
these companies are able to move between all
50 states, with no tax or tariff being charged.
Please be forewarned prior to making a very …
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 4, 2016
expensive mistake! THE UNITED STATES IS
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
31
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 4, 2016
If you think Trump is right and the government should
engage in protectionism, I suggest you do some reading on
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, passed on the eve of the Great
Depression. It kicked off a trade war with Spain, Italy, and
Switzerland, and exacerbated the depression.
“This type of protectionist saber-rattling risks
igniting not only a destructive international trade
war but also, with the economy in the aftermath
of a colossal bubble and the world’s banker
growing restless with its hoard of depreciating
IOUs, vastly more damage than the world is
prepared to handle. Have we learned nothing
from the past?” writes the Foundation for
Economic Education.
Gary North argues people who call for protectionism are
not thinking rationally.
The people who believe that tariffs are good for the nation
are literally incapable of deductive economic reasoning.
This argument has been used by mercantilists ever since
the late 17th century. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is a
refutation of the mercantilist position. Nevertheless, people
who are incapable of following a line of economic
argumentation, and who get patriotic when they hear the
word “nation,” rush to promote tariffs. Thus, the
combination of an ignorant patriotism and an ignorant
economic analysis produces the statement:
“Protectionism is good for the nation.”
Protectionism is good for the state. It’s another form a
coercive taxation.
“The insidious thing about tariffs is that the
average man does not understand that tariffs are
selective sales taxes,” North continues.
“Defenders of tariffs believe that a man with a
badge and a gun who sticks his gun in your belly
as a consumer is a benefit to the nation. He is a
benefit to is the state. He is a benefit to the
bureaucrats who collect the tax. He is a benefit to
the crony capitalists who elect the politicians who
pass the tariff bills. The average American pays
more for whatever he buys, and he is the loser.”
Protectionism will accelerate the process of turning
America into a third world cesspool. It may also result in
war as nations respond and tensions increase.
Only free trade creates prosperity.
Critics argue that free trade is a greedy corporatist scheme
designed to rip people off.
Crony capitalists—heavily dependent on the state, its
doled out privileges, and its violence—hate real free trade.
State intervention in the economy is the ideology of
eighteenth century mercantilism, nineteenth century
socialism and nationalism, and twentieth century
paternalistic welfare statism.
NAFTA and other “free trade agreements” cartelize and
expand government control over the economy. They create
monopolies on an international scale at the expense of the
consumer.
32
Here’s a good example: In 2002, George W. Bush
increased tariffs by 30% on imported steel. American steel
producers exploited this and raised their prices. The
Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition,
representing steel buyers, said the tariffs cost thousands of
jobs.
Here’s another: in 2009, the Obama administration slapped
a tariff on tires manufactured in China. This resulted in a
trade war.
Gary Hufbauer and Sean Lowry of the Peterson Institute
found that the tire tariffs may have saved 1,200 jobs in the
tire industry. Consumers, however, ended up paying more
than $900,000 in higher prices for every job saved.
If Donald Trump imposes tariffs and real free trade
barriers, it will be like a sidewinder on the economy, the
same way Smoot-Hawley was.
 The Philly Recount Is Done,
And It Didn’t Help Hillary Much At All
By Mark Dent
December 5, 2016at 2:21 Pm
The great Philadelphia recount has ended, and Hillary
Clinton got five more votes than she had in her previous
total.
Donald Trump’s number stayed the same, as did the totals
for Independent candidate Gary Johnson and the Green
Party’s Jill Stein after the City Commissioners Office
recounted votes in 75 of Philadelphia’s more than 1600
voting divisions. The recount had been launched by 250-
plus Philadelphia residents answering the call of Stein,
who asked for three petitioners in each of Pennsylvania’s
voting district to file recounts to assist in her attempts to
get a statewide recount through a Commonwealth Court
and then Federal Court lawsuit.
Stein’s camp had planned on using the district-level
recounts as possible evidence for hacking or fraud. The
recount turned up no instances of fraud or hacking here,
City Commissioner Al Schmidt said, emphasizing the
difficulty of hacking voting machines that aren’t connected
to the internet.
“We have very primitive voting machines
here,” he said. “Our voting system is only
vulnerable to individual cases of voting
fraud, as we’ve seen. Whenever it does
occur it would be someone going in and
voting for somebody else or an election
board manually adding votes, which is an
entirely different thing than hacking.”
.
33
The five extra votes for Clinton, he said, came from paper
provisional or absentee ballots that were undetected by the
optical scanner that counted votes in the days following the
election. Schmidt said this can happen when people don’t
mark their choices clearly on paper ballots or, ridiculous as
it sounds, use a green highlighter instead of a pen or
pencil.
“People do ridiculous things,” he said, “all
the time.”
The markings that went undetected by the optical scanner
were picked up by the manual recount.
The recount began Friday, first with the electronic
machines. Representatives from the Green Party and the
Democrats and Republicans were present. The City
Commissioners Office did a recount of the paper ballots
Sunday, and that’s when Clinton picked up the additional
five votes. A recount had also been requested for the Pat
Toomey-Katie McGinty Senate race. McGinty ended up
with four more votes than previously and Toomey with
one more. Some other Democratic candidates received one
more vote
Most of the 75 districts were in Center City or the Greater
Center City areas, which even for Philadelphia standards
are overwhelmingly Democratic.
Stein’s federal lawsuit was filed this morning. Unless she
prevails at that level and a statewide recount is enacted,
Philadelphia is done totaling votes for the 2016
Presidential election.
“The law provides for it,” Schmidt said of
the local recount. “And it’s our job to do
what the law provides regardless of its
merits.”
34
 Fake News: InfoWars Reports Fake
Trump Assassination Website
By the "PizzaGate" folks
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor
December 5, 2016
Looks like more “male enhancement” by InfoWars.
PizzaGate, Jade Helm and now this, hey this could be the
best scam yet, one the whole world could get behind.
They never seem to tire of the crap and someone is
making good money at this, we would guess.
Note this, the FBI doesn’t seem to care. InfoWars
suggests this is an FBI sting. We go otherwise, that this is
another pro-Trump psyop run by the FBI and Mossad,
trying to garner sympathy for Trump while his “disaster
cabinet” comes together or his drug and terror funded
Kushner scam project in New Jersey burns through the
press.
Then again, he only paid off one 13 year old girl so far,
there must be others.
35
On the dark or lighter side, depending on how you look at
it, there is considerable talk about killing Trump,
particularly if he stops taking orders from Netanyahu,
something we consider unlikely.
What we do see is this, Trump’s plans for Russia, get close
to Putin, buy those around him and have Putin killed and
Russia run into the ground by the Khazarian Mafia that is
moving into Washington as we speak.
Anyway, do not send money to these people. Never
discuss anything publicly anymore, not publicly, not
privately, not online, not on the phone, not in an empty
field, even talking to yourself.
Maybe don’t even think it either. Surveillance may well
have gone that far.
 Mutiny: 15 Electoral College Members Refusing To Vote
Trump On 12/19 (VIDEO)
By: The Voice Of Reason
Date: December 05, 2016
Here we go! It looks like we’re going to have a mutiny in
the Electoral College after all. The Democrats simply will
not stop until Americans are killing one another in the
streets. In an unprecedented move, what was once only 6
electors who said they would become “Faithless Electors,”
thereby not voting for Trump as they’re required to do, has
now become 15 electors. Even worse, at this very moment,
those 15 electors are trying to recruit another 17 electors to
join them, which if successful, will throw this country into
a Constitutional crisis the likes of which we have never
seen.
In the video below, I review what it means for the future of
the Presidency if a total of 17 more electors defect for a
total of 32 defectors in all. One would like to think that
pulling such a stunt would have serious repercussions for
those who don’t vote as they’re supposed to, but no such
luck. If a total of 32 Electoral College members who are
required to vote Trump refuse to do so, we could
have some serious problems … I hope you’ve been
preparing … just in case …
Texas elector quits, says pledge binding
and Trump ‘not biblically qualified’
Christian Science Monitor writes:
A Texas Republican announced over the
weekend that he plans to resign his post as
a member of the Electoral College rather
than cast a ballot for US President-elect
Donald Trump, a man he deems “not
biblically qualified for office.”
Citing his Christian religion and his
understanding of representative
36
democracy, Art Sisneros wrote in a blog
post that he could neither vote for Mr.
Trump nor break his promise to do so by
voting for anyone else. Texas does not
require its 38 electors to vote in
accordance with the state’s presidential
election results, but Mr. Sisneros says he
made a pledge to the Texas GOP that his
vote next month in Austin would follow the
will of the general public.
“The reality is Trump will be our President,
no matter what my decision is,” Sisneros
wrote. “Since I can’t in good conscience
vote for Donald Trump, and yet have
sinfully made a pledge that I would, the
best option I see at this time is to resign my
position as an Elector.”
Tom Mechler, Texas GOP chairman, said a replacement
for Sisneros will be selected by the remaining electors
when they meet Dec. 19.
“We respect Mr. Sisneros’s decision and
appreciate his willingness to step down
from his position as a Presidential Elector
in Texas,” Mr. Mechler said in a statement,
as Politico reported.
The announcement comes as Democrats have sought to
persuade Republican electors to turn against Trump in
favor of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. While the
effort will more than likely fail, it could begin to unravel
one of the nation’s most controversial political institutions,
as The Christian Science Monitor’s Weston Williams
wrote last week:
 The plan hinges on so-called “faithless
electors,” members of the Electoral College
who vote against the candidate who won
the majority in their particular state. During
the US presidential race, Americans do not
vote directly for their preferred candidate.
In reality, the ballots they cast go to
electors, who then go on to theoretically
cast a vote on their behalf.
There have been only 157 faithless electors in all of
American history, according to the nonprofit FairVote, and
none have affected a presidential race.
Since this year marks the fifth US presidential election in
which the Electoral College winner lost the popular vote,
with Mrs. Clinton expected to carry as many as 2.5 million
votes more than Trump, there has been a renewed call to
review, amend, or even dismantle the Electoral College
system, which was designed to provide an added layer of
protection.
Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation’s Founding Fathers,
described the electors’ function in the Federalist Papers:
“A small number of persons, selected by
their fellow citizens from the general mass,
will be most likely to possess the
information and discernment requisite to
such complicated investigations.”
This understanding of the electors is one which Sisneros
cites in his blog post as well, comparing the relationship
between electors and the American public as loosely
reflective of the relationship between parents and the
family unit.
“Good parents act in the best interest of
their children. At times this may even be
contrary to the desire of the children,”
Sisneros wrote. “In most homes, kids do
not have the right to vote to eat Skittles for
.
37
dinner. It is not in their best interest. The
parents have a delegated authority to
protect those under their jurisdiction.”
Because others have made clear to him that they expect all
Republican electors to fall in line and vote for Trump,
however, the Electoral College has been reduced to a
formality within a pure democracy, Sisneros added.
“The people will get their vote. They will get
their Skittles for dinner. I will sleep well at
night knowing I neither gave in to their
demands nor caved to my convictions,” he
wrote. “I will also mourn the loss of our
republic.”
SHOULD WE DO AWAY WITH THE ELECTORAL
COLLEGE?
The Federalist writes:
If you want to get rid of the Electoral
College, you don’t understand how it
works. I mean the royal “you,” not the
partisan “you.” Opposition to the Electoral
College tends to break down along partisan
lines—especially lately, for some reason—
but even President-elect Donald Trump
said he’d prefer “simple votes.”
You can hardly be blamed for your
ignorance if you went to public school,
attended an elite university, or get your
news from Yahoo. Some very nice,
apparently well-educated people—Barbara
Boxer—are peddling absolute Pablum
about the Electoral College. “The
Electoral College is an outdated,
undemocratic system that does not
reflect our modern society, and it needs
to change immediately. Every American
should be guaranteed that their vote
counts.”
 NEO – Trump First 100 Days –
Enter The Twilight Zone
By Jim W. Dean, VT Editor … With New Eastern Outlook, Moscow
December 6, 2016

Gosh, I just don’t think the Secret Service knows what is coming
their way
[ Note: You must forgive me for the Rod
Serling plug but we are all children of our – First published … December 05, 2016 –
times, and those who can remember
watching early black and white TV will The Reality TV show star turned
never forget the Twilight Zone. President is moving forward as I
Later on, as we came of age in the 60s, the expected, to focus his skills on
term “Far out” from the Cheech and Chong capturing and holding the center stage
movie, entered our lexicon. while subcontracting the areas where he
clearly knows nothing. The heavy lifting
Both that and Serling’s magical work is going out to either
introductions using his doorway portal that establishment Republican elites, his
he was going to take you on a journey to campaign staff ideologue favorites, or
the unknown seemed a fitting description of the big money Republicans, the kind
where we all are on the front end of the that took the country down the drain in
Trump years, or is it a dynasty. the financial crisis of 2008.
I say that as he his daughter and his
Harvard son-in-law (dad donated $2.5
million to ease his way in) seem to be
getting on the job training for being first
lady and a future president. And no, I am
not kidding, I think Trump is already
working on this.
Sit back and fasten your seatbelts, ladies
and gentlemen. It’s going to be one hell of
a ride I can assure you, and hence my
sharing the Google photo find from one of
my favorite TZ episodes above… JD ] Why does half the country feel they have a noose around their necks?

____________ Trump has left his common man followers like a bride
at the altar. The big banksters from Goldman Sachs are
both in the White house with the Breitbart News chairman
Steven Bannon, now having his resume updated with his
having been a former wealthy Goldman’s banker,
38
something almost none of Trump’s Tea Party people knew
about.
The Treasury Department will be going to the Wall Street
boys as it usually does, instead of the financial anti-fraud
policemen it needs, so no “draining the swamp” there.
Former 17-year Goldman’s banker Steven Mnuchin got the
Secretary slot despite having worked for George Soros, the
über-liberal, private regime-change dynamo himself. He
tells us his number one priority will be tax reform, cutting
corporate taxes back to 15%.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has already attacked him for
having been a major player in inventing and marketing the
abusive mortgage financial products that blew up the
country. With people like this, Trump is bringing the
swamp monsters back into the center of power.
Trump had used the Wall Street folks as
a whipping boy to con the large anti-
establishment and somewhat naïve
voting block, knowing that if he won, he
could replace them with his new and
richer power base of billionaire insiders,
like Wilbur Ross ($3 billion) who will
have the commerce department, and
who has been vocal on breaking trade
agreements.
Betsy Devos with the president to be
Betsy Devos, a billionaire herself, got the Dept. of
Education. She is married to Dick Devos, an heir of the
Amway fortune that has been a huge power broker in the
Michigan Republican party.
Her brother, Eric Prince, was the founder of Blackwater,
which kicked off the huge growth of military and regime
change outsourcing, and which our Intel sources tell us run
their own private regime change and drug running
operations far from the prying eyes of Congressional
committees or the Inspector General’s office of the
military.
39
Congressman Mike Pompeo seems to have gotten the CIA
top slot due to his House Intelligence committee’s long
running investigation of Hillary Clinton in the Benghazi
tragedy.
Although an intelligent ex-Army officer, having graduated
at the top of his class at West Point, and later editor of the
Harvard law review, he will be the most partisan choice for
CIA director in recent memory.
He is also closely aligned with the infamous NeoCon Koch
brothers, who backed the Tea Party with their large
funding, which put them in the perfect position to take
over its national operations.
Pompeo has been a huge critic of the Iran deal and has
publicly stated that the US should “walk away from it”. He
is joined in that regard with retired General Mattis, past
head of the US Army Central Command in Europe, who
got the Defense Department.
Mattis is on record of having called Iran
the biggest threat to Middle East
security, but left out that the economic
sanctions force Iran to start its own
Manhattan-style program for import
substitution, including its basic defense
equipment. It lived under the threat of a
pre-emptive strike through that period
when it had all it could do to build up a
credible defense. Claims of its being an
offensive threat are just another war
hawk hoax.
Mattis – What you see is what you get
Mattis has a personal grudge over the Republican
Guards having engaged US troops during the Iraq war. But
the good General, especially at Central Command, had
security clearances high enough to know that both the US
and Israel had backed terror operations inside Iran, as part
of a long-running destabilization campaign that killed
thousands of Iranian citizens.
If anyone had done that to Americans, people like Mattis
would have been at the head of the line wanting revenge,
and justifiably. But once again, the American people have
not been told the dirty little story of our own terror
campaigns in Iran, and how they can boomerang. Failure is
always an orphan.
So Trump has shown us that, while he has recently
advocated the US getting out of the regime change foreign
policy business, he plans to crank up the Iran-bashing of
the past, revealing not only his “loose cannon” side, but
surrounding himself with others of the same ilk.
The measure of a statesman is being able to learn from the
past mistakes of others. The Iran nuclear deal exposed in
shameless detail that the world public had been hoaxed on
Iran’s having a nuclear weapons program.
We were assured of the hoax by countless hawks, Israeli
lobby operatives, and two decades of Israeli leaders
warning us about the Iranian mullahs being one or two
years away from having the bomb.
None of these entities who wanted so
badly to kill the Iran deal were able to
put any evidence on the table that their
long time claims were true. In fact, when
they were dead wrong, not one admitted
or apologized for having abused and
endangered the public by creating
conditions that could easily have
trigged an unnecessary conflict in the
Mideast via a preemptive strike.
Not only did none of them pay a political price for their
incompetence and open fraud, but they are riding the wave
back into power with the Trump campaign to have another
go at Iran. As Obama replaced the Iran bogeyman with the
new Russian Bear and the Asia Pivot, Trump appears to be
rearranging the game, but keeping the invented threat hoax
con on the public in play.
A case can be make that the US has chopped the heads off of entire
countries based on idealism like “American Exceptionalism”, an
extremist terminology
.
40
These administration picks are in sharp contrast to
Trump’s victory tour and first 100 days roll out, where he
claims,
“We will destroy ISIS. At the same time, we
will pursue a new foreign policy that finally
learns from the mistakes of the past. We
will stop looking to topple regimes and
overthrow governments, folks.”
This all sounds wonderful, except that many on his team
are life-long war hawks.
Vice president Pence is the point man on what might be an
overreaching plan to curb illegal immigration, to redo
ObamaCare, and to rebuild the military. The first two will
trigger post-election battles with the Democrats, and to
think that anything major can be done with the military in
three months, other than putting on a big show, is just
childish.
Welcome to the Trump show folks. It’s going to be a series.
Even the tax reform he wants to do can drag on for a
year, sifting through all the details. Ramming things down
the Democrats’ throats could create bad blood that will
follow Trump through this whole first term, and crank the
Democrats up to replace him in four years with a
vengeance.
We shall see, and so will Mr. Trump and gang. Maybe
having the NeoCons in charge for four years is the wake
up dose the country needs to grow up and recognize the
real domestic terror threats that we have right here at home
in our leadership and institutions.
It will be painful, but if we survive, it we may come out
better off — more mature politically and wiser for the
effort. But I can’t help but think of the famous Rod Serling
early TV series where he would close his intro with,
“You’ve just crossed over into… the
Twilight Zone.”
 “There Will Be Swamp”: Trump Cabinet Picks Confirm
Creatures Of Washington Still Rule The Earth
By: Michael Krieger, Liberty Blitzkrieg
Date: December 06, 2016
While I’m not a Dodd-Frank fan, it’s not because it
was too harsh, but because it didn’t really do much
of anything. It was the typical neoliberal bait and
switch, designed to look tough for public
consumption, while merely making tweaks around
the edges of a financial system that
requires systemic, paradigm level change.
Trump’s support of repealing Dodd-Frank tells you
all you need to know. A Trump Presidency will
see Wall Street felons who should be in
prison, running as wild and free as ever.
He will be the same thing to distressed working
class whites that Obama was to the black
community. A fake messiah and a shyster.
– From May’s post: Donald Trump’s True Colors
Emerge as He Snuggles up to Wall Street
The fact that Steve Mnuchin was a Goldman Sachs partner
is the least of my concerns when it comes to the man.
Indeed, if someone wanted to create a playing card deck of
sleazy Wall Street financial crisis opportunists, it’d be hard
not to include Steve Mnuchin.
What exactly am I talking about? Specifically, I’m
referring to the collapse of IndyMac (renamed One West),
and the generous helping of government welfare Mnuchin
and his partners received upon purchasing the failed
banking institution. This is a financial crisis saga that is
unknown to most, despite having received some extensive
coverage over the past year. One of the best articles on the
topic was written by David Dayen in his piece, Donald
41
Trump’s Finance Chair Is the Anti-Populist From Hell.
Here are a few excerpts:
Donald Trump’s first major staff selection
since securing the Republican
nomination, national finance chairman
Steven Mnuchin, co-founded and manages
the hedge fund Dune Capital. Not only did
he make partner at Goldman Sachs, so did
his father in the 1960s. With over 30 years
of experience at the top levels of finance,
Mnuchin was present for every recent
major banking innovation, including those
that brought the country to the brink of
economic collapse.
Mnuchin’s presence in the campaign
reveals how the qualities Trump
loyalists projected on their hero don’t
measure up to the truth.
They have venerated him throughout the Republican
primary for rejecting the dirty business of pay-to-play
politics, and for populist vows to protect the ordinary
worker.
But in selecting Mnuchin, not only has
Trump submitted to the realities of
presidential campaign finance; he’s
chosen one of the most notorious
bankers in America to carry it out.
When I heard Mnuchin’s name last week, I immediately
remembered the front lawn of his mansion. Back in 2011,
local housing activists and the Occupy movement in Los
Angeles camped out on that lawn to save the home of Rose
Mary Gudiel, a La Puente, California, resident who faced
eviction after being just two weeks late on one mortgage
payment.
The activists threatened to move all of
Gudiel’s furniture into Mnuchin’s $26
million Bel Air estate if the eviction
wasn’t stopped. Twenty police officers
and a helicopter met the protesters.
Why was Mnuchin’s front lawn the focal point for the
protest? Because years after forming Dune Capital in 2004,
Mnuchin’s hedge fund purchased the failed lender
IndyMac, one of America’s largest home lenders and a
leading distributor of Alt-A mortgages, a subprime hybrid
which did not require borrowers to accurately state their
incomes. After IndyMac failed, Dune led the investment
group that purchased it from the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC) in 2009, renaming it OneWest Bank.
Mnuchin became OneWest’s principal owner and
chairman.
OneWest accomplished these
foreclosures through fraud.
Erica Johnson-Seck, a vice president of foreclosure and
bankruptcy for OneWest, explained in a July 2009
deposition that she “robo-signed” 6,000 foreclosure-related
documents per week, spending just 30 seconds on each
sworn affidavit that attested to the veracity of all relevant
information in the case. Johnson-Seck admitted to not
reading the documents before signing them, to not
knowing how the records were generated, and to not
signing in the presence of a notary, all of which made the
affidavits she signed false evidence in court.
The OneWest subsidiary Financial
Freedom executed 39 percent of all
foreclosures on reverse mortgages
between 2009 and 2015, despite
servicing only 17 percent of the market,
according to data from the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
obtained by the California Reinvestment
Coalition.
OneWest disclosed in its most recent annual report that it’s
under investigation for this disproportionate share of
“widow foreclosures” by HUD’s Inspector General. The
victims include 103 year-old Myrtle Lewis of North Texas,
who OneWest put into foreclosure after her insurance
coverage lapsed; Karen Hunziker, who got a foreclosure
notice from OneWest ten days after her husband passed
away in 2014; and a host of others.
Trump’s loyal fans aren’t likely to
scrutinize Mnuchin’s record, but they
should. You can measure political
candidates in part by who they
associate with. The foreclosure history
in Mnuchin’s past reflects an extreme
mentality of profit at all costs, and
hardly a viewpoint of standing up for the
little guy.
Trump as populist was always something of a pose,
covering for a deep nationalism and antipathy to
42
immigrants. The Mnuchin pick just brings that into sharper
relief.
Trump’s main money-chaser has profited off the suffering
of ordinary Americans for years. There’s no reason to
believe Trump will offer a better deal to the working class.
Moreover, an article published in The Nation covered
some details of the sweetheart deal the government gave
Mnuchin and team for the privilege of turning around
to abuse average Americans. Here’s an excerpt from, The
Worst of Wall Street: Meet Donald Trump’s Finance
Chairman.
The Mnuchin group paid FDIC $1.5 billion for the bank,
far less than the value of IndyMac’s assets. The FDIC was
so desperate to unload IndyMac that Mnuchin and his
colleagues were able to obtain, as part of the purchase
deal, a so-called “shared loss” agreement from the FDIC
which reimbursed these billionaires for much of their costs
for foreclosing on people unlucky enough to have
mortgages from IndyMac.
Within a year, the group that the Los Angeles Times called
a “billionaires’ club of private financiers” had paid
themselves dividends of $1.57 billion. In other words, the
FDIC took much of the risk by subsidizing the bank’s
troubled assets, while Mnuchin and his colleagues
pocketed the profits.
The California Reinvestment Coalition—a nonprofit
organization that pushes banks to reinvest in low income
communities and communities of color—determined from
Freedom of Information Requests that the FDIC
had already paid out over $1 billion to reimburse OneWest
for the cost of over 35,000 foreclosures in California and
an unknown number in other states. CRC also estimated
that the FDIC will eventually pay out another $1.4 billion
for the costs associated with even more foreclosures in the
future.
OneWest opened its doors with 33 branches and roughly
$16 billion in assets. Mnuchin engineered its growth by
purchasing two other failed institutions—First Federal
Bank of California and La Jolla Bank—getting the FDIC
to agree again to additional “loss share” arrangements so
that the owners had little to lose. After these purchases,
OneWest had 73 retail branches and $26 billion in assets.
It also serviced billions of dollars of mortgage loans on the
behalf of third parties, such as Fannie Mae. In
multiple surveys of California housing counselors,
OneWest was ranked among the worst mortgage servicers
in the state.
Nice deal if you can get it. Oh, and there’s also this.
In July 2014, Mnuchin arranged to sell OneWest to the
CIT Group for $3.4-billion—more than double what they
paid for the bank five years earlier. CIT Group, a holding
company that owned a Salt Lake City-based on-line bank,
wanted to buy OneWest for its low-cost deposits and its
network of Southern California retail branches. The
consolidated bank now has assets of about $60 billion,
ranking it among the nation’s 40 largest banks.
Under the terms of the acquisition, CIT agreed to pay
Mnuchin $4.5 million a year for three years as the bank’s
vice-chairman. Because he relinquished that post in March
31 of this year, Mnuchin was given a $10.9 million
severance package, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In CIT Group’s most recent annual
report, the bank disclosed that it had
received multiple subpoenas in 2015
from the Office of Inspector General at
the federal Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) related to the
servicing of reverse mortgages by
Financial Freedom.
CRC’s Gonzalez said that, in light of Mnuchin’s new role
in the Trump campaign, “HUD should release more
information about its investigation of OneWest’s
subsidiary.”
Believe it or not, it gets even more interesting from here.
For example, you may be interested to know who one of
Mnuchin’s partners was in the IndyMac deal. Yep, you
guessed it: George Soros.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
In 2002, Mr. Mnuchin left Goldman and
later was hired to run a credit fund set
up by billionaire George Soros.
In 2004, Mr. Mnuchin and two former
Goldman colleagues founded hedge
fund Dune Capital Management LP with
financial backing from Mr. Soros. Dune
soon expanded into the entertainment
business, striking up a film-financing deal
with a unit of 21st Century Fox. Among the
films Dune financed was “Avatar,” one of
the all-time box office hits.
In 2008, IndyMac Bank in Pasadena,
Calif., collapsed in one of the largest
bank failures in U.S. history. Mr.
Mnuchin led a group of investors,
including funds run by Mr. Soros and
other hedge-fund and private-equity
titans, who bought it from the
government for about $1.5 billion. The
.
43
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
agreed to cover a portion of any future
loan losses, a lucrative arrangement for
Mr. Mnuchin and his partners.
Regulators who negotiated with Mr.
Mnuchin found him to be the kind of detail-
oriented person who would “know the cost
of every pencil,” according to a person
familiar with their thinking.
Considering many diehard Trump supporters consider
Soros to be the spawn of Satan, I’m curious to see the
intellectual contortions necessary to justify this
relationship.
Moving along, the sad thing is none of this is surprising to
me. From day one, I felt that Trump was way too cozy
with Wall Street, and wouldn’t do a thing to rein in
financial sector abuses. I warned about it on several
occasions. See:
Draining the Swamp? Wall Street is
Already Loving Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s True Colors Emerge as
He Snuggles up to Wall Street
A Nation of Sheep, Afraid of Words
In light of this appointment, I want to revisit something I
wrote in a recent post:
To conclude, this article is primarily written
for all my readers who are either Trump
supporters, or who reluctantly voted for
him. My message to you is that we need to
hold this man’s feet to the fire. The election
is over, and you got your desired outcome.
Now is not the time to be a cheerleader.
Now is not the time to behave exactly like
Obama zombies did after he became an
obvious betrayal. What allowed Obama to
do all the bad things he did, was the fact
that his supporters made endless excuses
for him. Don’t make excuses for Trump. If
you do, your life will get a lot worse and this
country will decay far more into an
authoritarian oligarchy than it already has.
It is up to you to make sure he doesn’t
become the Wall Street puppet I always
feared he would be.
If you give cover to Trump to appoint swamp creatures to
his cabinet, you have no right to criticize Obama for
having done the same. Let’s grow up and start rallying
around ideas, not cheerleading political figures.
 It’s Not Over: Rogue Republican Elector Announces He
Will Not Vote For Trump And Urges Others To Join Him
Source: Michael Snyder, Guest Post
Published: December 6, 2016
Donald Trump has already lost one of
his electoral votes, and there are
indications that a number of additional
electors may be prepared to abandon
him.
Prior to the election, I warned my readers that we would
not officially know who the next president would be until
December 19th. On that Monday, the 538 members of the
Electoral College will gather in their state capitals in all 50
states to formally elect the next president. Throughout U.S.
history electors have voted according to the will of the
people more than 99 percent of the time, but in 2016 there
is a concerted effort to persuade Republican electors not to
vote for Trump. If 37 Republican electors can be
convinced to vote for someone other than Trump, that
would keep Trump under the 270 vote threshold needed to
win and it would throw the election into the House of
Representatives. Most people had considered this to be a
longshot, but on Monday a Republican elector named
Christopher Suprun publicly announced in the New York
Times that he will not cast his vote for Donald Trump. On
the other side, there are at least 8 Democratic electors that
have already publicly pledged to switch their votes from
Hillary Clinton to a compromise Republican alternative to
Trump.
So we already know that there will be quite a few
“faithless electors” on December 19th. The question will
be whether or not they are able to rally enough electors to
their cause to deny Donald Trump the presidency.
What Christopher Suprun has chosen to do is really
unprecedented in the history of modern American politics.
Not only has he publicly announced that he is not voting
for Trump, he is also attempting to convince other
Republican electors to join him. He explained his
reasoning for this move in his editorial for the New York
Times…
Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the
response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation. That
attack and this year’s election may seem unrelated, but for
me the relationship becomes clearer every day.
George W. Bush is an imperfect man, but he led us
through the tragic days following the attacks. His
leadership showed that America was a great nation. That
44
was also the last time I remember the nation united. I
watch Mr. Trump fail to unite America and drive a wedge
between us.
Mr. Trump goes out of his way to attack the cast of
“Saturday Night Live” for bias. He tweets day and night,
but waited two days to offer sympathy to the Ohio State
community after an attack there. He does not encourage
civil discourse, but chooses to stoke fear and create
outrage.
Of course this movement started long before Suprun made
his surprise announcement. A group of eight Democratic
“Hamilton electors” have been lobbying for Republican
electors to reject Trump and join them in agreeing on a
compromise Republican alternative for quite some time.
And according to Politico, those associated with this group
have been in active contact with the Clinton campaign…
Advocates of the long-shot bid to turn the Electoral
College against Donald Trump have been in contact with
close allies of Hillary Clinton, according to multiple
sources familiar with the discussions, but the Clinton camp
— and Clinton herself — have declined to weigh in on the
merits of the plan.
Clinton’s team and the Democratic National Committee
have steadfastly refused to endorse the efforts spearheaded
by a group of electors in Colorado and Washington state.
But, as with the ongoing recounts initiated by Green Party
nominee Jill Stein, the Clinton team has not categorically
rejected them, leaving the collection of mainly Democratic
electors to push forward with no explicit public support
from the failed Democratic nominee or any other
prominent party leaders.
Of course the Clinton team is desperate to do something to
salvage this election. Clinton’s lead in the popular vote has
now grown to more than 2.5 million, and it might end up
around 3 million by the time all the votes have been
counted.
There are Clinton advocates that are arguing that the
American people clearly chose Hillary Clinton to be the
next president and that therefore the Electoral College
should choose to reject Trump on December 19th. But for
Christopher Suprun the popular vote doesn’t really matter.
To him, it is all about “the good of the country”. Here is
more from his editorial in the New York Times…
The election of the next president is not
yet a done deal. Electors of conscience
can still do the right thing for the good of
the country. Presidential electors have the
legal right and a constitutional duty to vote
their conscience. I believe electors
should unify behind a Republican
alternative, an honorable and qualified
man or woman such as Gov. John
Kasich of Ohio. I pray my fellow electors
will do their job and join with me in
discovering who that person should be.
Fifteen years ago, I swore an oath to defend my country
and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
On Dec. 19, I will do it again.
It is very interesting that he brought up Ohio Governor
John Kasich, because Politico is reporting that Kasich is
precisely the compromise candidate that the “Hamilton
electors” are pushing…
Kasich is increasingly seen as the most acceptable
Republican alternative to electors on both sides of the
aisle, according to multiple electors familiar with the
conversations. They note that Kasich defeated Trump in
Ohio’s primary, that the governor boasts a high approval
rating in his state and that Kasich was reportedlyunder
consideration to be Trump’s vice president before he
selected Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
“Many Electors are saying that Gov.
John Kasich would be best for our
country. A consensus is beginning to
form that Gov. Kasich would be best
positioned to unite America,” Micheal
Baca said in a statement to Politico on
.
45
Sunday. Other electors involved in the
effort confirmed this line of thinking.
Of course if it is only Christopher Suprun that switches his
vote that isn’t going to make enough of a difference.
The “Hamilton electors” need a total of 37 Republican
electors to switch their votes to deny Trump the
presidency, and according to one report they already have
15…
In a sensational new development, TV
host David Pakman says he was told by
a high level source that 15 electors in
states Trump won will refuse to vote for
Donald Trump.
Pakman went on to say that the electors are also lobbying
other members of the electoral college to not vote for
Trump.
The goal is to prevent Trump from getting the 270
electoral votes he requires to become president.
If Trump loses 37 electoral votes, it will put him under the
270 benchmark and throw America into a constitutional
crisis.
Of course the only “faithless” Republican elector that has
come forward publicly is Christopher Suprun. So if there
actually are 14 others we do not know their identities at
this point.
But without a doubt, this election is not over yet. The votes
that will decide the next president of the United States will
not be cast until December 19th, and the next president
will not be inaugurated until January 20th.
So we are still in “the danger zone“, and Trump supporters
cannot rest easy until he is officially in the White House.
 'Rookie' Trump Must Fall Into Line:
China Media
AFP
December 6, 2016
English-language China Daily newspaper warned that 'diplomatic
rookie' Donald Trump needs to moderate his behaviour or he will
create 'costly troubles for his country' (AFP Photo/RHONA WISE )
Beijing (AFP) - Donald Trump is a "diplomatic rookie"
who must learn not to cross Beijing on issues like trade
and Taiwan, Chinese state media said Tuesday, warning
America could pay dearly for his naivety.
Trump's protocol-shattering call with Taiwan's president
and a subsequent Twitter tirade against Beijing's policies
could risk upending the delicate balance between the
world's two largest economies, major media outlets said.
"Provoking friction and messing up China-
US relations won't help 'make America
great again'", said a front-page opinion
piece in the overseas edition of
Communist Party mouthpiece People's
Daily.
The nationalist Global Times newspaper's Chinese
edition also ran a page-one story on Trump's
"inability to keep his mouth shut", damning
his "provocation and falsehoods".
Trump fired off two tweets on Sunday blasting China for
devaluing its currency, taxing US imports, and building
military installations in the South China Sea.
The comments followed criticism of Trump in US and
Chinese media for taking a congratulatory phone call
from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that flew
in the face of nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol and
46
raised questions about whether the president-elect intends
to pursue a hard line against Beijing.
Official reaction from Beijing has been muted, but China
often uses state media to telegraph its policy positions,
sometimes employing rhetoric beyond the diplomatic
pale.
The Global Times' English-language edition filled its
opinion pages with editorials slamming the president-
elect.
The often brittle, provocative publication is not
considered "official" media, but has close ties to the
ruling party.
Noting that Sino-US relations had reached a delicate
equilibrium thanks to years of careful management, an
editorial in the paper warned that Trump "can make a lot
of noise but that does not exempt him from the rules of
the major power game," adding that he "doesn't have
sufficient resources" to be provocative with China.
"Trump's China-bashing tweet is just a
cover for his real intent, which is to treat
China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of
meat off it," it said.
"He is trying to pillage other countries for
US prosperity," it warned, but instead he
will unwittingly "smash the current world
economic order" of which the US is the
"biggest beneficiary."
A companion commentary warned that Trump "will in
time learn not to cross China", threatening "a fierce
competition" with Beijing if the US increases arm sales
to Taiwan.
It was illustrated by an editorial cartoon showing an eagle
throwing pebbles at a large, scowling panda.
Meanwhile the English-language China Daily newspaper
warned that "diplomatic rookie" Trump needs to
moderate his behaviour or he will create "costly troubles
for his country".
 "As president-elect, Trump can expect
some forgiveness even when he is
shooting from the hip. But things will be
different when he becomes president."
- 'Sobering' -
During the presidential campaign, Trump frequently
targeted China for fiscal and trade policies that he
claimed cost the US millions of jobs.
While China seems to have hoped the rhetoric was more
bark than bite, inital signs suggests he will continue to
take an aggressive line on the world's second largest
economy.
"If Trump continues talking this way after
taking office... China is going to have to
make some adjustments in its thinking,"
Jia Qingguo, professor at Peking
.
47
University, told AFP, calling the comments
"sobering".
Trump's decision to speak with Taiwan's president seems
to have particularly rattled Beijing, which regards the
democratically-ruled island of 23 million a renegade
province, though it has its own legal and military systems
and has not been under Beijing's control for more than 60
years.
"This call was no accident," said Trey
McArver, analyst for China Politics
Weekly. "It is clear that Trump associates,
including chief of staff Reince Priebus,
have had repeated contact with Tsai and
her people in recent months and were well
aware of what they were doing."
 Colorado "Hamilton Electors"
Sue To Block Trump, Void Vote Mandate
By Tyler Durden
Dec 6, 2016 7:46 PM
Just a day after a Texas Republican "faithless elector"
explained why he will not cast his vote for Donald Trump,
The Denver Post reports two Democratic Colorado electors
are filing suit challenging a state law requiring them to
vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote. Their
hope is to set a precedent enabling Republican electors in
other states to vote for a third-party candidate to keep
Trump from receiving 270 electoral votes.
As we noted yesterday,
“The election of the next president is
not yet a done deal,” Texas elector
Suprun writes the New York Times article.
“Electors of conscience can still do the right
thing for the good of the country.
Presidential electors have the legal right
and a constitutional duty to vote their
conscience.”
If Suprun follows through on his promise next month, he
would become the first “faithless elector” since 2004.
And now, as The Denver Post reports, two Democratic
electors who pledged to support Democrat Hillary Clinton
- the winner of the state’s nine Electoral College votes -
now want to “vote their conscience and do their
constitutional duty as intended by the framers,” said Jason
Wesoky, the attorney who filed the suit.
The move is part of the long-shot effort
to use the Electoral College vote to
block Donald Trump from winning the
presidency.
Polly Baca, a former state lawmaker, and
Robert Nemanich are among the “Moral
Electors” hoping to persuade
Republican electors in other states to
vote for a third-party candidate to keep
Trump from receiving 270 electoral
votes - and offering to shift their
Democratic votes to a consensus pick.
Colorado law prohibits them from
shifting their allegiances, and
Republican Secretary of State Wayne
Williams has pledged to replace them if
48
they do so - two moves the electors argue
violate the U.S. Constitution...
The electors believe the state law violates their First
Amendment rights as well the 12th and 14th
amendments, which respectively outline the process for
electing a president and guaranteeing equal protection.
“Though Hillary Clinton and Timothy Kaine
won the majority vote in Colorado and are
qualified for office, plaintiffs cannot be
constitutionally compelled to vote for
them,” the lawsuit states.
“Plaintiffs are entitled to exercise their
judgment and free will to vote for
whomever they believe to be the most
qualified and fit for the offices of president
and vice president, whether those
candidates are Democrats Republicans, or
from a third-party.”
Williams responded with an uncharacteristically sharp
retort, vowing to defend Colorado’s law and suggesting
that the electors “succumbed to cabal, intrigue and
corruption.”
“Instead of honoring the will of the
Coloradans who voted for them, these two
faithless electors seek to conspire with
electors from other states to elect a
president who did not receive a single
vote in November,” Williams said in a
statement.
“Make no mistake, this is not some noble
effort to fight some unjust or
unconstitutional law; rather, this is an
arrogant attempt by two faithless
electors to elevate their personal
desires over the entire will of the people
of Colorado. And in so doing, they seek to
violate Colorado law and their own
pledges.
“The very notion of two Colorado electors
ignoring Colorado’s popular vote in an
effort to sell their vote to electors in other
states is odious to everything we hold dear
about the right to vote,” Williams said.
 “It is this type of evil that President
Franklin Roosevelt warned us about
when he cautioned that voters – not
elected officials such as these faithless
electors – are ‘the ultimate rulers of our
democracy.’”
The group of electors (from Colorado and Washington)
who have dubbed themselves the “Hamilton Electors,”
are publicly made up entirely of Democrats. The group
argues that Kasich is a compromise for GOP electors
willing to buck Trump and join their effort, according to
Politico. Ridulously, even Kasich has told them not to vote
for him...
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is urging presidential electors
not to cast a vote for him over President-elect Donald
.
49
Trump, arguing that the effort will only deepen the divide
in America.
“I am not a candidate for president and
ask that electors not vote for me when
they gather later this month,” Kasich
said in a statement Tuesday.
“Our country had an election and Donald
Trump won.”
We are almost speechless at the level of utter hypocrisy
being puked forth by these sore-losing and media-
brainwashed 'representatives' of our constitution. After the
imbroglio around Donald Trump's unwillingness to accept
the results at face value, it appears The Democrats are
lashing out from their safe spaces because... as we have
said before, they have never been told "no."
 America, Hillary (Establishment)
Means To Sink Your Ship!
Posted By Bradlee Dean
Date: December 07, 2016
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal
for the government but illegal for the
citizenry.” –Thomas Jefferson
I knew that it was coming. History teaches us what will
happen when judgment is left off.
Just this week, Americans witnessed the treasonous, repeat
offender Hillary Clinton jumping on board with the
Communists to stir up domestic insurrection by fabricating
a victim mentality in the face of the voter fraud that was
perpetrated on their behalf, which completely backfired.
What is it that Americans witnessed? They witnessed a
criminal who was given the opportunity to violate the law
once again and sink your ship.
CNN (Communist Network News) reported:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign said Saturday it
will take part in efforts to push for recounts
50
in several key states, joining with Green
Party candidate Jill Stein (Four years ago
Stein was arrested for disorderly conduct
and handcuffed to a chair at the Hofstra
University debate), who has raised millions
of dollars to have votes counted again in
Wisconsin.
But, in a post on Medium, Marc Elias, the campaign’s
counsel, said the campaign’s own investigation has not
uncovered any evidence of hacking of voting systems.
In the campaign’s most detailed comments to date on the
recount, Elias wrote that while the campaign was not going
to contest the results itself, it has decided now to take part
in the effort to
“ensure that it is fair to all sides.”
On Monday, Michigan’s secretary of state office
announced that President-elect Donald Trump won
Michigan’s 16 electoral votes.
That brought the final electoral tally for Trump 306, while
former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has 232
electoral votes.
Clinton continues to lead Trump for the country’s popular
vote by about 2 million votes, and the lead is likely to
grow as votes continue to be counted.
But Trump on Saturday dismissed the recount and said,
“The election is over.”
It’s a scam. Trump called the recount
“ridiculous.”
Then again, how couldn’t she be encouraged to take
another shot at the American people? The people allowed
President-elect Donald Trump, who on the campaign trail
promised a “special prosecutor” to go after the Clintons for
their crimes, but after he was pronounced the winner, the
very first thing he stated was,
 “Hillary has worked very hard and very long
over a long period of time, and we owe her
a major debt of gratitude for her service to
our country.”
What happened to
“I am going to instruct my attorney general
to get a special prosecutor to look into your
situation because there has never been so
many lies, so much deception”? Now, he
doesn’t want “to hurt the Clintons, they are
good people.”
What good is a special prosecutor, America, when you
have the likes of American appeasers Trey Gowdy, Daryl
.
51
Issa and Jason Chaffetz doing absolutely nothing when it
comes to justice, but talk?
Wasn’t this the guy that was going to “bring back the rule
of law? (Exodus 20; Romans 3:20)
Why, yes it is. I’m speaking about Constitutional law, not
opinion, deconstructionism, nor emotion, but law! How
right on was Benjamin Franklin when he said,
“Make yourself sheep, and the wolves will
devour.”
There was a story of a merciful captain of a ship. While a
passing ship shot at the captain’s ship, the captain showed
mercy on him and warned him not to shoot again. The
ship shot at him again, but the kind captain did not
retaliate. His “mercy” ended up bringing the destruction
not only upon himself but all those on his ship. By
allowing his enemy to attack him twice, the passing ship
shot a third time and killed them all.
Thomas Jefferson was right when he said,
“When the people fear the government you
have tyranny. When the government fears
the people you have liberty.” Yet, this will
not come to fruition until the American
people again fear God (Proverbs 16:6;
Psalm 94:15; Isaiah 26:9; Psalm 97;
Jeremiah 9:24).
Giving the power and authority back to the American
people (under God) in spite of corrupt politicians and
broken promises, remember:
“…a nation ceases to be republican only
when the will of the majority ceases to be
the law.” -Thomas Jefferson
 Stein’s Recount Scam Imploding
Posted by Stephen Lendman
Date: December 07, 2016
(image: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons)
Stein’s largely Soros funded ill-conceived scheme to
undermine Trump’s triumph for Hillary is heading toward
failure as expected.
Days earlier, a Wisconsin judge ruled against her hand
recount request. She alleged state voting machines may
have been hacked, despite no evidence suggesting it.
Her lawsuit to force a hand recount fell flat. Wisconsin
Elections Commission administrator Mike Haas said state
voting machines are federally certified and field tested for
accuracy.
.
52
On December 1, Pennsylvania Judge Bernard A. Moore
dismissed recount petitions of voters in 78 precincts
because no evidence suggests they’re warranted.
According to the Montgomery County Times Herald,
elections board solicitor Nicole Forzato said
“Montgomery County takes great, great
pride in being concerned about its
infrastructure for IT generally, and they
have gone through a vigorous process to
make sure our technology general,
including voter services technology and the
voting machines are safe and secure to
use.”
Forzato stressed no evidence suggests voting machines
were hacked or otherwise tampered with – nor were
Stein’s recount petitions correctly filed along with proper
fees paid.
While admitting no evidence of fraud, Stein hasn’t so far
ended her recount scam. It’s being judicially ended for her.
 Federal Judge Halts Recount,
Sealing Trump's Michigan Win
Published December 07, 2016
DETROIT – A federal judge who ordered Michigan to
begin its recount effectively ended it on Wednesday, tying
his decision to a state court ruling that found Green Party
candidate Jill Stein had no legal standing to request
another look at ballots.
The ruling seals Republican Donald Trump's narrow
victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton for Michigan's16
electoral votes.
U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith agreed with
Republicans who argued that the three-day recountmust
end a day after the state appeals court dealt a blow to the
effort. The court said Stein, who finished fourth
in Michigan on Nov. 8, didn't have a chance of winning
even after a recount and therefore isn't an "aggrieved"
candidate.
"Because there is no basis for this court to
ignore the Michigan court's ruling and make
an independent judgment regarding what
the Michigan Legislature intended by the
term 'aggrieved,' plaintiffs have not shown
an entitlement to a recount," Goldsmith
said.
It was the judge's midnight ruling Monday that started
the recount in Michigan. But Goldsmith's order dealt with
timing — not whether a recount was appropriate. More
than 20 of 83 counties already were counting ballots again.
They reported minor changes in vote totals, although many
.
53
precincts couldn't be examined for a second time for a
variety of reasons.
Earlier Wednesday, the Michigan elections board voted, 3-
1, to end the recount if Goldsmith extinguished his earlier
order.
State Republican Party Chairman Ronna Romney
McDaniel and Attorney General Bill Schuette said it's a
victory for voters and taxpayers. Stein now is left with
asking the Michigan Supreme Court to intervene, which is
a long shot.
"Jill Stein, who received only 1.07% of the
vote in Michigan, is not legally entitled to
hijack the will of voters and drag them into
an arduous and expensive publicity stunt,"
McDaniel said.
Stein got about 1 percent of the vote in three states where
she's pushed for recounts — Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin. Trump narrowly won all three.
She insists she's more concerned about the accuracy of the
election, but Goldsmith said Stein's legal team presented
only "speculative claims" about vulnerable machines, "not
actual injury."
The judge said a recount to test the
integrity of the voting system "has never
been endorsed by any court."
A court hearing will be held Friday on a
possible recount in Pennsylvania. Wisconsin's recount,
which started last week, has increased Trump's margin of
victory over Clinton thus far.
Clinton needed all three states to flip in order to take
enough electoral votes to win the election. Trump has 306
electoral votes to Clinton's 232; 270 are needed to
win. Michigan has 16 electoral votes, Pennsylvania has 20
and Wisconsin has 10. Electors convene Dec. 19 across the
country to vote for president.
 Detroit Recount Observer:
Box Marked ‘306’ Ballots — Only Had 50 Inside
By Kyle Olson
December 7, 2016

Is it possible Jill Stein’s recount will actually catch big city ballots in a locked sealed box that again
Democrat Machine vote fraud? was supposed to have 306.

Check out this first-hand account from an observer who Crider noted,
said he was watching the recount in downtown Detroit.
“since there was a discrepancy in the two
Conservative activist Ken Crider wrote on Facebook: numbers the original count stands.”

Penny Crider and I just got back from
helping watch the recount at Cobo Hall in
Detroit. On Nov. 8th (election day) the
election officials at 8:00 pm shut down the
polls. They then reconciled the differences
from the machine count and the voter count
on the computer. At this point a Metal
tag/seal with a serial number is put on the
box and the box was taken away.
Penny’s precinct, Detroit Precinct #152 had
an unbroken seal and everything looked
proper. The tag on the box said 306 and
the book said 306 and the ticket said 306,
so there should be 306 paper ballots on the
box, right. Well when they pulled out the
ballots the stack seemed short and when
they finished separating the two page ballot
to count the Presidential page only guess
how many ballots were in the box? 304 no,
299 nope, 200 nada, how about 100 wrong
again. There were only exactly 50 paper
.
According to the Wayne County Clerk’s publicly released
vote totals for Precinct 152, Hillary Clinton got 250 votes
and Donald Trump received 31. The candidate who
demanded the recount — Jill Stein — got 11 votes. Other
candidates received a combined 12 votes.
Another witness showed row after row of ballot boxes
waiting to be counted — and the truth exposed?
Epic fail. Not enough workers for the county. We have
been waiting 1hr 45 mins just for them to remove the
first…
Posted by Meshawn Maddock on Tuesday, December 6,
2016
“I walked down the hall to see where the
ballot boxes are being kept, this picture is
1/3 of Detroit, two more semi’s are on the
way,” Trump delegate Meshawn Maddock
noted on Facebook.

54
 The White Hats Report
Reporting What The Main Stream Media Refuses To Report
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
December 7 – White Hats Report #57
The Trump Factor: Trexit, America’s Answer To The
Globalists And Exposure On A Grand Scale.
Following the lead of our friends across the pond, America
delivered their own version of Brexit by electing Donald
Trump president. In the year of miracles, add Trexit to
Brexit and the Cubs winning their first World Series in 108
years to the list of odds defying events. History tells us that
eventually the pendulum will change direction and swing
the other way and the number of casualties is growing by
the day. The list is long and distinguished and perhaps the
biggest losers are the US crime families named Clinton
and Bush.
Don’t be fooled by the asskissing of all the losers who
were quick to appear to make amends with the Trump
victory, among them Romney, Bonnie and Clyde Clinton
and der Fuerher himself, George HW Bush. It is
incumbent upon the people of the US to now direct their
energy and focus attention on Trump’s promise of
“draining the swamp”. Our readers know the swamp is
large and will take time to drain but at least the alligator
hides business will lead the economic recovery provided
they aren’t allowed to slither off into the night to wreak
havoc once again.
Robert Rubin, the current Co-Chair of the Council on
Foreign Relations, former Goldman Sachs and Citigroup
operative and Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of the
Treasury went on television in the UK on Sunday,
November 6 and assured the viewers that (1) Hillary
Clinton would not be arrested and (2) would be elected
President of the US on November 8. A globalist hack and
cabal henchman, Rubin has fully been discredited for the
fraud he is and always has been. Rubin was no doubt a
supporter and instigator of the repeal of the Glass Steagall
Act which resulted in the derivative nightmare and
contributed to the crash of 2008. Rubin revealed himself
for what he is, an arrogant, cabal/bankster who has lost all
influence (as he should) in the world of government and
finance.
Millennials
We’ve gotten a glimpse of this group and the picture isn’t
pretty. The product of a nationwide, heavy handed
55
government influenced school system sprinkled with an
obsession with social media has given us a generation of
reactionary, unthinking and mindless followers of
socialism and entitlement. You have to conclude that the
once open minded US college university system has been
overtaken by a very un-American undercurrent that finally
revealed itself. This is social engineering (aka
brainwashing) at its finest.
Thin skinned but thick headed, this group has followed the
current Administration’s lead on the attack of the 1 st
Amendment, displaying a penchant to be offended by
anything in an effort to stifle free speech and free
expression. Political correctness on steroids, it’s apparent
this group has lost touch with reality on several levels.
For example, this is the group targeted by Comrade Bernie
Sanders in the Democratic primaries. The lure was a whole
host of freebies with no cogent explanation of how they
would be funded. But it didn’t matter, Bernie’s task was to
secure a whole voting bloc to eventually gift to Hillary
Clinton when she won the nomination. And make no
mistake, this was planned from the beginning. Once
defeated, Bernie would be the good Democratic operative
and political hack and convince his followers to vote for
HRC. Of course Wikileaks exposed the con for what it
was, revealing that Clinton’s campaign considered Bernie
a “doofus” (A sentiment shared by all White Hats) and
provided proof that the primaries were fixed for Clinton.
Yet Bernie, being the good cabal sub-contractor that he is,
displayed his submission to the party by not challenging
the results and even stumping for the treasonous
Democratic Party candidate when full panic set in right
before the election.
In addition, this group is the main segment of the US
population who will pay the interest on the debt going
forward. After turning 26 and being taken off mommy and
daddy’s health insurance plan, they will be FORCED to
pay exorbitant health insurance premiums to support the
entitlement ACA disaster their beloved President forced on
the US. But yet they riot and protest in the streets against
the new Administration that will undoubtedly reverse this
attack on their economic freedoms in the future. This is
proof that the cabal’s control of the pharmaceutical
industry has paid dividends with the increased vaccination
schedule and the introduction of prescription drugs to our
children to correct “behavior” issues while growing up.
This group is also the product of the participation trophy,
rather than getting recognized for accomplishment and
outstanding achievement, they receive hardware for simply
being all the same. The result is a generation of dumbed
down, paranoid and out of touch group who can’t reason,
use common sense or apply critical thinking to the simplest
of issues.
Play-Doh, hot chocolate, coloring books, doggy time and
safe spaces? Really?
It’s unsettling to contemplate how they would react to a
real crisis. We can only hope they grow up, smarten up and
realize they’ve been used like a door mat by the cabal.
Oregon
The natural follow-up to the millennial discussion is the
total deterioration and embarrassment of the state of
Oregon. Rivaled only by California in terms of over the
top socialism and cognitive dissonance, they’ve taken
ignorance to a new level. Earlier in the year, they
essentially stood silent and watched while their land was
being stolen by the Federal government. The Maheur
Wildlife Refuge was the center of the fear mongering by
the MOP and a majority of the state fell in line like good
slaves and bought into the propaganda. The 2nd
Amendment became the focus of the fear mongering and
sadly, the Federal government was the only group who
raised their guns, fired shots and killed an American
patriot and protestor, Lavoy Finicum. The group protesting
was eventually arrested or turned themselves in, stood trial
and found not guilty on ALL charges. It was stunning, not
because they were exonerated but because enough jurors
could be found in Oregon who had the sense and intestinal
fortitude to render a just and correct verdict. The methods
employed by the government to suppress this protest go
beyond the pale by denying bail and utilizing solitary
confinement to punish innocent people for trying to assist
their fellow citizens from the oppression of the shadow
government.
The current riots, no these are not protests but riots, are a
message to the rest of the country how truly out of touch
with reality the state of Oregon has become. Over 100 of
the rioters were arrested and over half either did not vote
or did not register to vote yet they become a mob and
destroy property because they didn’t like the results of an
election they chose not to participate in? This is cognitive
dissonance at its finest. Portland has no rivals in its over
the top, left radical bent, yet all the damage is being done
in that city so in essence, the geniuses doing the rioting are
damaging their fellow thinkers with their destruction to the
tune of over $1 million as reported by the local media.
56
In the land of participation trophies, heightened
vaccination schedules, social engineering, globalist
indoctrination, socialism, government oppression and
media fear mongering, cognitive dissonance reigns in
Oregon.
Celebrities
This group of disingenuous asses has been completely
rejected in an overwhelming way with the election of
Trump. Their arrogance and inflated self assessments have
been exposed for the complete and total nonsense they are.
The threats of moving out of the country if Trump was
elected has come back to bite them in the ass in a big way.
Their movies suck, their songs are filled with racial slurs,
bigotry and violence and their political views are
irrelevant. The list that promised to leave the country was
long but interestingly enough, their stated destinations did
not include Mexico, Guatemala or Syria.
We can only hope they don’t invade our friends to the
north and completely destroy relations with the Canadian
people. The meltdown of Miley Cyrus and others in the
entertainment world has drawn attention to a pathetic
segment of our society that is cabal controlled and
influenced by the satanic forces of the world.
GOOD RIDDANCE, don’t let the door hit you in the ass
on your way out of the country!
Exposure
The prostitute mainstream media (aka Ministry of
Propaganda or MOP) was so exposed during this
presidential election campaign it’s difficult to see them
surviving as an ongoing business concern in the future.
All of the TV networks were thoroughly exposed,
especially CNN (the Clinton News Network) and MSNBC
who are both nothing but shills for the cabal. It was
thoroughly amusing to watch some of the paid actors on
election night as they tried to keep their composure while
announcing Trump’s election victory. Particularly
loathsome were Martha Raddatz (the current version of
Nurse Ratchet), Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer and Chris
Matthews. These four epitomize the deterioration of
morality in the MOP. Having no shame, they didn’t hide
their disappointment in Trump’s victory, displaying for all
who wish to see that they’re nothing but what we’ve
always said, a propaganda tool of the shadow government.
The NY Times stooped to a new low by making no bones
about their support for Clinton. Amusingly, they were
among the first to switch sides and declare Trump with a
92% chance of winning the presidency on election night.
We have talked about the media many times over the years
about being nothing but tools and puppets of the cabal and
they made no effort to hide it in their desperation on
election night and after. Since the election, they have all of
a sudden become diligent in their vetting of everything
Trump says, does and thinks. It’s become comical
watching them adopt the tenets of the Fourth Estate when
they’ve completely suspended them the last eight years to
enable the Liar in Chief to destroy the US in a systematic
way.
Their credibility is forever lost.
Their most recent push is what they are terming the fight
against “fake news”. Google and Facebook are now
leading the charge to censor free speech in the name of
saving all of us from being subjected to lies and untruths.
If that were truly the case, all the MSM outlets, both print
and video, would be censored in addition to lapdog cabal
sites like Snopes and factchecker.org. The Shadow
Government’s Operation Mockingbird is falling apart all
around us and the desperation in which they attempt to
desperately cling to their rapidly deteriorating credibility.
The old axiom of “We didn’t see it on TV so it must not be
true” is now fully exposed for the fairy tale it really is.
Even Obama, surpassed only by Hillary Clinton as the
biggest liar in government in the past eight years, has been
babbling about the fake news that’s being ingested through
social media. Another irony as social media is an MKUltra
mind control program to both surveil and shape the
narrative for the masses.
Ironies
This whole election season has been filled with irony and
the following is a list, not all inclusive by any means but
interesting nonetheless:
The mainstream media (MOP) attacked Trump from the
beginning and then when he was nominated by the
Republican party for president they complained about all
the “free” media coverage that they, in fact, gave him
while trying to destroy his campaign. In the end, their
effort to trash him only served to elevate his candidacy and
they were the ones who got punked.
HRC wanted Trump to release copies of his tax returns
when she was the one who deleted 33,000 emails.
The HRC dirty tricks political apparatus tried to attack
Trump on his attitude toward women and Trump countered
with Bill Clinton’s sordid history with women including
rape, an $850,000 settlement for sexual harassment and of
course we can’t forget the blue dress and the cigar in the
White House. HRC’s part in the harassment, intimidation
and threats to Bill’s conquests didn’t get enough mention
but it did counter the dirty tricks of the Clinton campaign
strategists.
The liberal media predicted the Trump supporters would
protest/riot in the streets after HRC won and it’s just the
opposite, the crybaby millennials are the ones rioting.
57
Speaking of millennial crybabies, the majority of cities
they’re protesting/rioting in, Los Angeles, Oakland, New
York, Baltimore, Portland, etc were all liberal/Democrat
cities who voted for HRC.
The Clinton cabal using Jill Stein to challenge voting
results in Wisconsin and perhaps Michigan and
Pennsylvania after the Democrats and the media blasted
Trump for saying he would challenge election results if he
lost. HRC’s “direct threat to our democracy” campaign
rhetoric now comes home to roost in her own backyard.
This effort is laughable but does expose Stein for the cabal
puppet she was and always has been.
There are many more but suffice it to say, these will
continue for the foreseeable future as the exposure of the
cabal and all their oppression mechanisms come
unraveled.
Recounts
Jill Stein, the most laughable 3rd party candidate in US
election history has filed for recounts in three states,
Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. With no evidence
of problems, Ms. Stein is trying to convince the public that
she has no ulterior motives for taking such an
unprecedented move. It’s also no coincidence that it
happens to be in three “battleground” states that
coincidentally went to Trump despite the fixed public polls
indicating HRC would win. Does Stein really think the
American people are stupid enough to believe this
disingenuous attempt to steal the election from Trump?
Her pathetic campaign raised $3.5M and this attempt to
stir up the left has raised over $6M and it's obvious this is
orchestrated by HRC’s cabal as a way to disguise who is
really behind this nonsense.
We suggest she seek employment in Hollywood as she is
able to keep a straight face when fielding numerous
questions about this farce. Any adjustments in vote tallies
would NEVER give her any of these states so what’s the
point? Perhaps she’ll be rewarded with employment at the
Clinton Foundation or a job giving tours at the Clinton
Presidential library?
Soliciting money from the disgruntled, distraught and
delusional Hillary supporters only serves to con them out
of more of their funds and give them false hope that the
traitor will gain the presidency. In a year of material that
could support content for multiple seasons of “The
Twilight Zone”, this gambit by Stein has to rank as the
most ridiculous.
There are nineteen (19) states that currently have no voter
ID laws, thirteen (13) of which were won by HRC.
Coincidence? Of course it is. How about recounts in
California, Illinois and Virginia. Or maybe Oregon,
Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico? Recounts in these
states would expose the rampant voter fraud that needs to
be addressed in this country or it will surely lead to another
banana republic and the defeat of the final bastion of
freedom in the world.
The Election
Trump spoke constantly about a rigged system and he was
right. Fixed and corrupt, the establishment wanted to
install and coronate Hillary Clinton to finish the job the
Kenyan born fraud and liar started eight years ago. It’s
common knowledge there is no love lost between the
Clintons and Obamas but there was Barry out campaigning
hard in the closing weeks for Clinton, trying to shame his
dwindling mind controlled followers to preserve his
pathetic legacy by voting for HRC. Of course this gambit
failed and failed miserably as his core constituency knew
better than everyone else what a major underachiever he
turned out to be.
The private polling numbers, as we had reported earlier,
were overwhelmingly in support of Trump by at least a
70%-30% margin if not higher. Yet the public polls had
shown HRC ahead in most states and overall, thanks to the
media’s efforts to shape reality. Then on election day, the
results were supposed to match the public polls (within the
margin of error) and the exit polls would confirm all of it
for the masses transfixed to their TVs on election night.
Except something happened on the way to HRC’s
coronation as Queen of the USA. Given that 19 states
don’t have voter ID laws and the exposure by Project
Veritas of the Democratic campaign’s dirty tricks teams
talking about fixing the election, even the staunchest
Trump supporters were surprised he was able to win.
What If…..
 The election had been rigged electronically with an AI
controller technology hacked into the GEMS software
that would be routed through Scytl, counting the vote in
Spain - and that the American people were being set up
for a Hillary win.
 What was not anticipated by the bad guys was that a
group of good guys (white hats) would show up at their
game... and had come loaded for bear...
 The good guys let Hillary run up the score in those
"blue states" where she was supposedly very strong so
the anti-rigging went undetected for a while.
 By 9pm ET the good AI had started to kick in, and
prevented her from taking the win.
 As the bad AI continued to try to push the rigged vote
through each of the last 7 swing states (114 Electoral
College Votes), the good AI squeezed it down which
gave Trump just enough of his real vote count to come
58
through and take the win. Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio.
 The bad guys did not think that they would have to
extend their crime to "ride herd" on the counted votes
as they were transmitted from the rigged central
servers to their elaborate multi-million dollar "Election
Headquarter" sets where the political theater was being
played out for an unsuspecting public in real time. Big
mistake. Overconfidence.
 The bad guys did not anticipate that they would be out-
hacked and out-maneuvered by an AI technology that
was superior to theirs, one that was watching their
every move and limiting their ability to complete the
steal. One that was being run by a committed group of
patriots willing to give their lives if ever discovered in
order to save our nation from tyranny, and the world
from nuclear war.
 The whole AI battle was conducted within the statistical
margin of error that the bad guys had engineered into
the system from the beginning so they could perform
the steal undetected. They dug their own grave... No
one is now or ever will be the wiser. There is no trace.
They were beaten at their own game. Perfect judo.
“To secure ourselves against defeat lies
in our own hands, but the opportunity of
defeating the enemy is provided by the
enemy himself.”
-Sun Tzu
-From the Tactical Dispositions chapter of the book, The
Art of War
Say what you will, Donald Trump beat both a Bush and a
Clinton in one election cycle. It seems everything the cabal
controlled media tried backfired and the more we saw of
Clinton, the more it was revealed she had nothing to offer
except the same, failed, Obama inspired policies that were
leading this country to its ultimate destruction. Like the
fall of the Roman Empire, the immoral social values
forced upon the people and the unethical business practices
allowed to permeate in the financial world were about to
doom the Republic. But in this year of miracles, of Brexit
and the Chicago Cubs, the people of the US met the
challenge and for the time being, turned back the tide of
cabal control and staved off disaster.
Sheriff Joe
Sadly, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County Arizona
was defeated in his bid to gain a seventh term as Sheriff.
He has promised to reveal “universe shattering”
information in his final press conference as Sheriff on
December 15. Be reminded that Sheriff Arpaio’s cold case
posse shattered the scam of Obama’s fraudulent birth
certificate over four years ago. A dark cloud that hangs
over both parties as they Republicans are just as culpable
in this conspiracy as the Democrats, we can only hope the
Social Security number fraud perpetrated by Obama is
exposed as well as it is clearly more understandable and a
much easier case to make.
What’s next?
While the cabal controlled media attempt to keep the focus
on Trump’s transition, the undercurrent flowing through
the alternative media is the exposure of the satanic rituals,
child trafficking and pedophilia in the John Podesta emails.
The MOP (Ministry of Propaganda) has essentially ignored
this story although some print media has tried to debunk
the claims. No doubt the cabal lapdog “fact checking” site
Snopes will weigh in if it hasn’t already.
The next paragraphs you are about to read have been very
difficult to write as they delve into the deep, dark recesses
of the cabal’s immorality and in essence, will explain how
they have infiltrated every segment of society with a
common, despicable theme that ties them all together in a
nice web of blackmail through association. This includes
politicians, corporate management of every discipline, the
media and the puppet masters at the top of the pyramid. It
is the thread that if it gets pulled, will unravel the entire
cabal underworld and will reveal the sordid, sick and
disgusting underbelly of control in the world. The one link,
above all others, that keeps them in total lockstep and
assures they keep quiet about dirty, dark secrets that infect
the power structures of this planet.
We’ve gotten glimpses of this, peeks behind the curtain
into this dark world with the McMartin preschool criminal
case, the exposure of the Franklin case (“Conspiracy of
Silence”), the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia case at Penn
State, the Dennis Hastert scandal and most recently, the
“Lolita Express” scandal that involves Jeffrey Epstein and
alleged distinguished visitors to “Lolita Island” such as
Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew, the
Duke of York among others to engage in sex with
underage boys and girls. The common theme with all of
these is pedophilia committed by people of supposed high
regard, including politicians, business leaders, a sports
figure and royalty. With the exception of the McMartin
case, all involved pedophilia with both boys and girls
primarily in their teens.
The emerging “Pizzagate” scandal involves satanic rituals
and pedophilia on a scale that will shock the world. Some
of our group have direct experience with these rituals that
on a grand scale, make the party scene in the movie, “Eyes
https://search.wikileaks.org/?q=pizza
Jeffrey Epstein (Billionaire Registered Pedophile and Clintons friend): https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/33664
Jeffrey Epstein (Reg. Pedo.): https://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/flyer.do?personId=62762
59
Wide Shut” look like a kindergarten birthday party
(absolutely no pun intended). These rituals include human
sacrifice, cannibalism, every sexually deviant act you can
imagine and they all include children. And not children in
their teens but children as young as 4 or 5 years old and
even younger. Keep in mind that Stanley Kubrick died
while “Eyes Wide Shut” was in post production and it is
rumored that up to 30 minutes of the original shoot was
edited out of the final cut.
The idea that anyone would participate in such dark,
despicable practices is beyond most people’s
comprehension. Cognitive dissonance sets in because the
mind cannot wrap itself around such depravity and evil, it
will reject it due to the simple reason that to go there in the
mind is to begin a slide down the slippery slope to
thoughts that unsettle the soul to a point where all decency
and civility are lost. To even consider such things will
cause physical reactions that are not normal, not
comfortable and not understood. Consider it the dark
forces that envelop souls where white is black, evil is good
and upside down is right side up. Once souls are
indoctrinated into this cult, their souls turn dark and they
serve the bloodlines and cabal that has control of this
planet.
The FBI is aware of this as is the NYPD (Pizza Gate) and
we can only hope that the Justice Department and Attorney
General of New York and various Prosecutors will step
forward and reveal this evil before our planet is lost. The
indoctrination of immorality in the world continues, the
objective is to convince us all that we should embrace the
evil and embark on a dark journey into the abyss. History
is replete with pedophilia, satanic rituals and people in
power having no restraint in their treatment of fellow
human beings. To think this isn’t occurring on a grand
scale in real time is to be in complete denial of reality and
stuck in the matrix created by the dark rulers of this planet.
We mentioned the new attack on “fake news”. The cat is
out of the bag with the Wikileaks emails and the citizen
investigations of Pizzagate. You can expect the censorship
and debunking of this scandal to heighten over the next
few weeks and months in the name of fighting the fake
news mantra. Keep in mind that every resource will be
brought to bear to squelch, silence and deny this dark
cancer that infects the power centers of earth.
This battle will be a difficult one and if good prevails over
dark, we can expect many long held belief systems will be
shattered. It’s time to open our minds to what is ahead and
be thankful we are alive to see the transformation.
 http://nypost.com/2016/10/09/the-sex-slave-scandal-that-exposed-pedophile-billionaire-jeffrey-epstein/

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-jeffrey-epstein-victims-civil-20151230-story.html
Former Republican Speaker of House: http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politics/dennis-hastert-sexual-abuse-allegations/index.html

Jerry Sandusky (Penn State): https://g.co/kgs/QS4dHA

Conspiracy of Silence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x-IZS8uKYo
BBC's Jimmy Savile Pedophile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdbjqa7C-0M

60
 Michael Moore Predicts Trump Will NOT
Become President – “Six Weeks Is A Lot Of Time”
Leftist Talking Head Predicts Trump Will Have Election Stolen From Him
By Alex Thomas -
12.08.2016 @9:11 PM EST

Since the moment Donald Trump was elected, liberals “Nothing anyone predicted has happened;
within the media have floated the idea that the Electoral the opposite has happened. So is it
College could actually not vote for Trump and instead give possible, just possible, that in these next
the election to Hillary Clinton. six weeks, something else might happen,
something crazy, something we’re not
From articles in the New York Times to reports by hard left expecting?”
the news outlet Slate, it has become clear that at least some
within the establishment believe that Trump could be
stopped before even getting started.

Now, noted leftist talking head Michael Moore, in an

appearance on Late Night with Seth Myers, has actually
predicted that Trump will not become the the next
president in January.

Infamous for predicting a Trump win in August, Moore

started his appearance with a long whine about the
Electoral College before directly insinuating that Trump
could still be stopped from taking the White House.
“He’s not president of the United States
yet,” Moore smugly said. “He’s not
president till noon on January 20th of 2017,
that’s more than six weeks away. Would
you not agree, regardless of which side of
the political fence you’re on, this has been
the craziest election year.”
Moore added:
.
When you consider the fact that the vast majority of the
corporate media was and still is firmly against Trump, the
idea that the election could be stolen from Trump doesn’t
seem so far-fetched.
Perhaps most startling is the fact that if this prediction
were to come true you could almost guarantee the start of a
new American civil war. One also has to question if Moore
could have been signaling something far more sinister than
Electoral College voters voting for the loser.
What do you think? Will the establishment stop Donald
Trump from officially taking office?

61
 Trump Debunks Notion Of Russia
Interfering In America’s Electoral Process
By Stephen Lendman
12-8-2016
Claiming it is utter nonsense. Not a shred of evidence
suggests it. Irresponsibly blaming Moscow for hacking
DNC emails or any other type interference in America’s
electoral process reflects longstanding Russia bashing.
In response to being named Time magazine’s person of the
year, Trump told the publication that accusing Russia is
politically motivated.
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe they
interfered,” he said, adding:
“I believe that it could have been…any one
of many other people…It could have been
some guy in his home in New Jersey.”
DHS, DNI and Hillary’s claims weren’t supported by
evidence because none exists. Accusations without proof
are baseless. Legitimate tribunals would dismiss cases
without it.
DHS and DNI claiming Russia tried influencing America’s
presidential election outcome was hokum. Utter rubbish!
Shameless Big Lies. Responsible parties knew it all along.
Media scoundrels promoted what they should have
condemned.
Russia is a convenient punching bag, vilified for its
sovereign independence and Putin’s anti-imperial, anti-
war, multi-world polarity agenda.
Ranking House Intelligence Committee Democrat member
Adam Schiff shamefully criticized Trump for
“contradict(ing) our intelligence
professional and carry(ing) water for the
Kremlin.”
Republican House Homeland Security chairman Michael
McCaul, a member of Trump’s national security team, lied
about nonexistent Russian cyberattacks, nonsensically
.
62
claiming interference with America’s electoral process,
saying:
Its (nonexistent) “hacks and attacks should
be a wake-up call and a call to action.
There needs to be consequences to these
actions. On the international stage, if we
don’t respond and show them that there
are consequences, the bad behavior will
continue.”
Obama indicated a “proportional” response was coming.
Nothing so far. Hopefully Trump will extend outreach to
Putin, following through on saying both countries should
cooperate in combating terrorism and find ways to get
along.
McCaul is part of Washington’s neocon infestation,
rabidly anti-Russia.
“We can’t allow foreign governments to
interfere in our democracy, and when they
do so we must call them out on it and
respond forcefully, publicly, and decisively,”
he ranted.
“The United States should respond to cyber
attacks in a way that will make our
adversaries think twice before they do it.”
again.”
His committee plans introducing what he calls “serious
(cybersecurity) reform,” without further elaboration on
what he intends.
Russia bashing won’t end once Trump succeeds Obama.
Hopefully he’ll go the other way and seek normalized ties
- in the interest of world peace and stability.
 US Election Recount Follies
By Stephen Lendman
12-8-2016

Each passing day brings things closer to ending Stein’s
scam, her credibility tarnished beyond redemption - the
recount having no effect on Trump’s triumph, just wasting
time and money.
After seven days of recounting in Wisconsin, Hillary
gained a mere few dozen votes. Trump is ahead by over
22,000.
In Pennsylvania, US District Judge Paul Diamond ordered
a Friday hearing on Stein’s federal injunction for a state-
wide recount, still unresolved as of this writing.
The clock keeps ticking toward a December 13 deadline
for completion. The Electoral College votes six days later
on the 19th.
A partial recount so far in Philadelphia, Montgomery,
Bucks, Delaware and Allegheny counties showed virtually
no change in original totals. Trump is ahead by 47,750
votes.
“To date, plaintiffs have not presented
evidence of tampering or mistake. Instead,
they present speculative claims going to
the vulnerability of the voting machinery -
but not actual injury.”
It’s unknown so far whether Stein intends appealing to
Michigan’s Supreme Court. It’s unlikely to rule for her if
she tries.
Michigan’s Court of Appeals ruled 3 - 0 against the
recount, saying Stein’s low vote disqualified her as an
aggrieved candidate.
Bottom line: her scam accomplished nothing except
destroying her credibility, rendering herself politically
dead, and undermining the Green Party’s reputation.
On January 20, Trump will be inaugurated as America’s
45th president. Nothing Stein does will change things. Her
scam was dead in the water before beginning.

On Wednesday, Michigan US District Court Judge Mark

Goldsmith halted the recount, calling it unwarranted,
saying:
.

63
 ‘They Gave Him Horns’: Trump’s TIME Cover Fans
Flames Of Devil Conspiracy
Published Time: 8 Dec, 2016 11:50Edited Time: 8 Dec, 2016 18:14

— Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) December

7, 2016

Many felt the magazine was portraying

Trump as the Prince of Darkness himself.

@Alyssa_Milano it lines up perfectly, they

had to have done that on purpose
pic.twitter.com/a8MAfIWwVc

— Jason Bainbridge (@WhileInTheWild)

December 7, 2016

@RexHuppke you're RIGHT!!!!!

pic.twitter.com/vcHyNFHR6d

— Neen (@runpeacelove) December 7,

2016
Donald Trump’s TIME magazine cover sent the internet
into overdrive, as netizens noticed something strange about @Alyssa_Milanopic.twitter.com/6I5Vjd4HR
the picture of the president-elect. a

The cover, announcing Trump as Person of the Year, fired — (((Roran_Stehl))) (@Roran_Stehl)
up many social media users, after they realized the future December 7, 2016
president appeared to have sprouted horns.
Yet Time Inc. has provided Trump with both the horns and
Horns. They gave him horns. a halo on its covers of TIME and People magazine.
pic.twitter.com/f7lnL0qOkA
So siblings @time & @people gave us
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) devil-horns & angelic-halo Trump,
December 7, 2016 respectively. Journalism in
2016.@Alyssa_Milano@LATimesTVLloydp
@RexHuppke@AndyRichterpic.twitter.com ic.twitter.com/Nr6gQcCB1h
/bwfOutgrL4
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) December 7,
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) 2016
December 7, 2016
Not everyone was convinced the ‘M’
@Alyssa_Milano Well played @TIME! represented horns.
pic.twitter.com/xlITy7LSOy
@Alyssa_Milano they look more like the
— 5 Minute Movie Guy ears of a fat cat, but surely it's just a bit of
(@5minutemovieguy) December 7, 2016 fun.

Kudos to the designer who made the "M" — Andrew McIntyre (@ABasho2013)
look like devil horns. We will send you care December 8, 2016
packages after Trump throws you in prison.
pic.twitter.com/jsqKxC8IOq @RexHuppke I interpreted the 'M' has a
double dunce cap.
64
 — Jasmine NoDramaMama — Max Smolev (@bugabuga) December 7,
(@jasmineweidenb1) December 7, 2016 2016

We even got to see what dead gorilla Harambe, who Many on social media drew comparisons between Trump’s
polled so brilliantly in November's US presidential TIME cover and Adolf Hitler’s own one from 1941. Hitler
election, would look like on the front of the esteemed also won the Person of the Year in 1938.
publication.
With this Time cover Trump is Literally
This is who should've been on the time Hitler
magazine cover #MAGA#Altrightpic.twitter.com/VsXDae7zB
pic.twitter.com/3knBgXlkMx e

— Marvelous David � (@Marvelouspapi) — Andrew Yule (@Europa_Awake)

December 8, 2016 December 7, 2016

TIME responded to the online heat by Are Dems really using Time's cover to liken
pointing to other covers where the ‘M’ in Trump to Hitler? So much hate speech
TIME was behind the subject’s head. from the snowflakes.#micro-aggression
pic.twitter.com/WcBtyrIG5d
@Alyssa_Milano Not the first horny
president-elect. — The Scamper (@TheScamper)
pic.twitter.com/y8zVRstmkc December 8, 2016

— Jane Galt (@WhoisJaneGalt) December Yes #Dumbocrats, the @TIME magazine

7, 2016 cover PROVES Trump is literally Hitler.
Idiots... *smh* pic.twitter.com/gvpw6yy2fj
Guys this Time cover is like the least well
they’ve given anyone horns ever — Sandro Silva (@SandroMacul)
pic.twitter.com/kwJMb921zA December 7, 2016

— Jaime Green ��� (@jaimealyse) Inevitably, DIY TIME covers started to

December 7, 2016 spring up.

“Given the shape of the letter ‘M’ in the @Alyssa_Milano They shouldn't have gave
magazine’s name and its location on the him a THING. pic.twitter.com/SnYc16OgLR
cover, many other subjects in the past have
also appeared to sprout extra features,” it — Pin Head (@PiercedSkull) December 8,
said. “It’s happened to Hillary Clinton at 2016
least twice. It’s happened to Bill Clinton,
and George W. Bush, too.” @RexHuppke@_amckeanpic.twitter.com/g
JNmnupxov
@RexHuppke Latest in a long series:
https://t.co/1Uq1JJ7nTp — Andy Prendergast (@andypren)
December 7, 2016
— The '60s at 50 (@the_60s_at_50)
December 7, 2016 @RexHuppke@jenskstyve that's not the
final cover, they changed their mind.
The magazine even compiled a slideshow of its other pic.twitter.com/RHSp7tpXUa
devilish cover stars, which included many images of popes
appearing to sport the horns. — Rob Doyle Caricature (@robdoylecouk)
December 7, 2016
@Alyssa_Milano yeah, in 2013 they did it
to Pope Francis, though he had small ones
:) pic.twitter.com/fVsf6iPUVI

65
 Terrified By Trump: Activist Groups Stoke Fears,
Raise Funds On Incoming Administration
By Elizabeth Llorente
Published December 08, 2016
Stoking the fears of a Trump presidency, liberal activist
groups have launched campaigns online and around the
nation to help people cope – and even survive – their
version of democratic doomsday.
Some are based on Trump’s mixed signals about illegal
immigration, while others seem aimed at a more
generalized sense of unease. One effort that launched this
week, called
“WhatDoIDoAboutTrump.com,” is depicted
by its organizers as a non-partisan “website
[that] turns Trump angst into action – online
and off.”
“Not sure how to protect yourself if some of
Trump’s campaign promises become
reality?” the San Francisco-based site
asks.
It provides links to websites of organizations, such as the
American Civil Liberties Union, which advise people
about what steps to take or what they may face if Donald
Trump follows through on some of his promises.
One link leads to “Welcome to the OH
CRAP! WHAT NOW? SURVIVAL GUIDE,”
which describes itself as “a crowdsourced
collection of health, legal, and safety plans
and resources + social, digital and
economic security related resources urgent
now as an outcome of the recent US
election.”
Experts say scaring consituencies about politics is standard
operating procedure for activist groups, but what's
66
different this time are the intensity, and the fact that it has
started well before Jan. 20, 2017, when Trump will be
sworn in.
Corinna Kester, one of the founders, says the group, which
includes a former national press secretary for the
Democratic National Committee, is not pushing an agenda.
“If people are upset about the election, we
encourage them to figure out how to get
involved and work with that, from donating
to petitions to protests.”
Organizations and, in many cases, lawyers, are urging
people and groups they deem at-risk under a Trump
presidency to take action now to protect themselves.
School administrators are assuring students concerned
about immigration raids that they won’t be spirited away,
some city officials are vowing to provide a sort-of buffer
to any federal attempts to strip benefits or programs. On
Monday, the Los Angeles Unified School District
announced that it was setting up a hotline and "support
sites" in response to the deep anxiety among students
about Trump as president.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is organizing a rally of black
activists and lawmakers in Washington D.C. days before
Trump’s inauguration in mid-January to, as he told The
Hill,
“put the Democrats on notice to use the
confirmation hearings to really go after”
Trump’s nominees.
One of the most high-profile efforts aimed at creating
preemptive buffers against Trump policies are so-called
sanctuaries for immigrants who are here illegally.
Students at various colleges are pushing their campuses to
be designated sanctuaries. Some cities are moving toward
declaring themselves safe zones for such immigrants,
saying they will not report them to immigration authorities
if they come across them during the course of providing a
service.
On Tuesday, the Santa Ana City Council voted to
designate the municipality a sanctuary, a non-binding
action that they may make enforceable through an
ordinance, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Times noted that “the move is in direct defiance of
President-elect Donald Trump, who was critical of illegal
immigration and sanctuary cities during his campaign.”
“The day after Donald Trump got elected,
our kids were falling apart emotionally,” the
Times quoted Councilmember Sal Tinajero,
who is a high school teacher, as saying.
“They thought their parents would be
deported.”
“The reason you’re seeing this push now is
that us leaders ... want to tell them they are
going to be protected. If they are going to
come for them, they have to come through
us first.”
Trump has denounced such efforts as divisive and the
people who have protested his election as “crybabies.” His
supporters, as well as some who voted for Democrat
Hillary Clinton or third party candidates, say it behooves
everyone to accept the results of the election and work to
be united.
“This sounds like a large group therapy
session,” said Fred Siegel, a historian who
is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
and professor at Saint Francis College.
“There’s a way in which this is all good and
right in democratic terms.”
Siegel said the trend to organize in advance of Trump
assuming the presidency is intriguing, and more in line
with the kind of actions taken against policies and
governments that are seen in Europe, particularly France.
“We can say, in one sense, it is intensifying
divisions in American society,” Siegel said
to FoxNews.com, “What that represents is
President Obama’s success in
Europeanizing American politics.”
“In France, the argument has always been
when something occurs in Parliament that
.
67
is unacceptable to you, you take to the
streets. These [actions] are occurring in
advance of – not in response to – policy
being initiated.”
Louis DeSipio, a political science professor at the
University of California-Irvine, said that the patchwork
efforts to organize against Trump and his expected policies
reflect an already-divided nation.
“President-elect Trump set out broad
principles, and wasn’t specific about some
policies,” DeSipio said. “There will always
be people who are unhappy about an
election. In any election, you can see a
complete reversal of fortunes. The
challenge for any president in this situation
is to build bridges to some of his former
opponents.”
President George W. Bush did so in response to concerns –
among those who did not support his election – over how
he would handle education and Medicare prescription
costs, DeSipio said.
“He worked with Democrats, with Sen. Ted
Kennedy, on both of those issues,” he said.
DeSipio expressed misgivings about efforts underpinned
by a refusal to accept Trump as president, a movement that
has a hashtag -- #notmypresident.
“Philosophically, I don’t accept it,” DeSipio
said. “He was accepted by rules in place
before the election.”
The approach of some groups to try to influence policy and
laws at the local level can be both healthier and more
practical in many cases, he added.
“We may get some criticism from Trump
supporters,” said Kester. “But we’re all
getting involved in a democracy.”
 Colorado Electors Sue For Right
To Vote Against The Will Of Their State
© REUTERS/ Mike Segar/File Photo US 02:10 08.12.2016(updated 08:23 08.12.2016)
Two presidential Electors in Colorado are suing their
governor and secretary of state in an effort to overturn
rules stating that they must vote for the ticket that received
the most votes.
Polly Baca, a former state Senator, and Robert Nemanich
are fighting for the right to vote against the will of the
people and instead choose their own candidate when they
vote as Electors on December 19. They are arguing that all
presidential Electors have a constitutional right to cast
their vote for any qualified candidate, regardless of the
November 8 election outcome.
The case is assigned to Judge Wiley Daniel, a President
Bill Clinton appointee. Speaking to Eugene Puryear of By
Any Means Necessary on Sputnik Radio, Baca explained
that she believes the Electoral College is not currently
being used the way that the founding fathers intended. She
stated that the Electoral College was established in the
Constitution to “really consider who should be the best
candidate for President of the United States.”
“It’s supposed to be a very deliberative
process that was envisioned by [Alexander]
Hamilton — and what it’s turned into is just
a rubber stamp.”
Baca stated that this is the first time she has felt concerned
enough to question the validity of the Electoral College.
She believes that the Electoral College should either be
used as envisioned or be done away with, a point made
previously by President-elect Donald Trump. After
inquiring about going against the rules for electors in
Colorado, the electors received an email warning that they
would be at risk of being replaced if they cast their vote for
any other candidate besides Trump. “1-4-304(5) of
68
Colorado Revised Statutes state that presidential electors
shall (must) vote for the presidential/vice-presidential
ticket that receives the most votes in the state.
Thus, if an elector failed to follow this requirement, our
office would likely remove the elector and seat a
replacement elector until all nine electoral votes were cast
for the winning candidates,” an email to the electors from
Joel Albin, Ballot Access Manager, Elections Division,
read. Both Baca and Nemanich are Democrats attempting
to rally other electors from both parties to vote for a
candidate other than Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump,
thereby striking a compromise. Baca has accused Trump of
using his upcoming presidency to further his business,
though it is unclear if the elector would have questioned
accusations of financial impropriety surrounding the
Clinton Foundation.
“If Hamilton was here today, he would urge
us all to vote against him [Trump],”
Baca continued. The duo repeatedly cited Alexander
Hamilton in their eight-page complaint.
“The electors were created so that they, as
a deliberative body, would be ‘detached’
and less prone to be influenced by the
‘heats and ferments’ of a raucous election,”
the complaint reads. “The electors would
help ensure ‘the office of President [would]
never fall to the lot of any man who is not in
an eminent degree endowed with the
requisite qualifications.’ The electors create
an ‘obstacle’ to ‘cabal, intrigue, and
corruption’ and prevent ‘foreign powers
[from] gain[ing] an improper ascendant in
our councils.’”
“The Electoral College, then, including
Plaintiffs, must be free to vote for any
candidate so as to avoid electing someone,
such as Messrs. Trump and Pence, who
only have ‘[t]alents for low intrigue, and the
little arts of popularity,’” according to the
complaint.
The complainants argue that by facing an imminent threat
of being replaced as electors, their Twelfth and First
Amendment rights would be violated, as well as Article
Two of the Constitution. The two electors have asserted
that even if they do not win, provided they are not
removed from the job, they will defy the law and vote for a
Republican alternative instead of Clinton, who won the
state. The two Colorado electors are not alone. A third
elector in the state, Michael Baca (no relation to Polly
Baca), is leading the charge for “Hamilton Electors” to
overturn the election results, along with Washington State
elector Bret Chiafalo.
Both are also Democrats. As Sputnik reported Tuesday, the
group posted a video calling on Republican electors to join
them. Texas elector Chris Suprun answered the call,
announcing in the New York Times that he will not honor
the will of his neighboring voters.
69
“The United States was set up as a
republic. Alexander Hamilton provided a
blueprint for states’ votes. Federalist 68
argued that an Electoral College should
determine if candidates are qualified, not
engaged in demagogy, and independent
from foreign influence,” Suprun wrote in an
opinion piece for the New York Times.
“Mr. Trump shows us again and again that
he does not meet these standards. Given
his own public statements, it isn’t clear how
the Electoral College can ignore these
issues, and so it should reject him.” In
November, a Republican elector from
Texas stepped down, as he felt he could
not morally justify a vote for Trump, who,
he believes, is not “biblically qualified” and
would bring “dishonor on God.”
 Trump's Absent Facts
In The Theatre Of The Absurd
By Jim Kirwan
12-8-2016
Mark Crispin on RT's CrossTalk yesterday: 12-7-16:
Mark: @ 7min 20 sec “...this is a very complicated issue as David
says. One of the points I'd like to make is that the press for all its
animus against Trump, and there's no question that it has that
animus, it has also been consistently ignoring legitimate stories
about Trump dirt on Trump that they ought to have been digging
into and never did. And it's also because that would be too close
to home.
For example, Donald trump has a long history of mob
connections. Donald Trump was closely involved with all the
corrupt politicians around Ed Koch a lot of them went to prison.
Donald Trump was a predatory landlord. Donald Trump's real
estate practices have been very revealing.
He built Trump Tower with a tax abatement program for low-
income housing. None of this has been reported by the Media.
None of it.
You know those rectangular objects that are filled with paper, you
find them in libraries? - Books - that's right, there are a lot of
books about him
and Hillary - you know books, books that reporters, if they could
put down their cell phones for a minute and maybe pick up one of
these weird rectangular objects, they might actually learn
something.
There's a book called “The making of Donald Trump”, by David
K. Johnston: You'd think that the press would've committed this
book to memory by now, but they don't know anything about it.
Let me make one last point: Maybe the most important story
about Donald Trump at the moment is the question as to whether
or not he and Pense were actually legitimately elected. 'H.A.'
rightly mentioned a moment ago that Hillary was exalted by the
70
press to the disfavor of Bernie Sanders and that includes stealing
a number of primary elections from him demonstrably stealing
from him the press never talked about it.
The press never talked about it and now they're refusing to talk
about the possibility of election fraud and vote suppression
having been responsible for his victory.” (9min 30sec)
Trump Vs The Media
https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/369446-media-
coverage-trump-election/
The problem with Trump is that after he made all those promises
before he got elected he turned around within the first 48 hours
and denied that he would do any of what he promised us he
would do: And now we find out that he's for every pipeline project
in the nation, and opposed to what's going on in North Dakota
that will eventually pollute our national water supply from North
Dakota all the way to New Orleans.
Trump needs to clear his head and start
making sense because being
the 'theoretical-president' is a hell of a lot
different from being the mogul
of just another criminal construction project
this is about rebuilding a nation from the
ground up and jailing the outlaws, like
Hillary and Chelsea, that have been
robbing us blind for over three decades.
Trump heard us when we demanded:
“Lock Her Up!”
And as far as everything else goes, Trump needs to get back to
the real reasons that he won the election in the first place.
Put a plug in the childish-chatter and get on with:
DRAIN THE SWAMP NOW
OR THE PUBLIC WILL START
WORKING ON ALL THE GARBAGE WE
SET ASIDE TO ELECT YOU.
 THIS WAS 2011 BUT IT'S STILL THE 15min 19sec. VIDEO
CURENT BATTLE
BACKGROUND
It's Time for The Sheeple to Wake The
Hell Up!! WaPost Admits Its 'Fake News' Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=523FFLUBOVc kirwanstudios@outlook.com

71
 Orange Coast College Student Threatened With Expulsion
After Recording Professor’s Anti-Trump Tirade
December 8, 2016 11:47 PM
COSTA MESA (CBSLA.com) — A political discussion
in a college class touched off a firestorm.
A college professor went off on president-elect Donald
Trump in her Orange Coast College class.
There are now threats of expulsion and threats of legal
action.
CBS2’s Stacey Butler listened to the controversial rant.
The human sexuality teacher — Olga Perez Stable Cox —
called Trump’s election “an act of terrorism.”
“Our nation is divided. We have been
assaulted. It is an act of terrorism,” she told
the students.
She added,
“One of the most frightening things for me,
and most people in my life, is that the
people who are committing the assault are
among us.”
That was part of the teacher’s rant about Trump.
One student was so offended by the speech, he recorded it
with his cellphone.
She also criticized Trump’s cabinet picks, advisers and the
vice president-elect.
“A white supremacist and a vice president
that is one of the most anti-gay humans in
this country,” she said.
72
“At this point it’s not even education
anymore, its indoctrination,” said Josh
Recalde-Martinez, a member of the
school’s Young Republicans Club.
The group filed a formal complaint about the professor’s
rant. Another student complained about the teacher on
RateMyTeacher.com.
“I felt censored and bullied if I did not agree
with her opinions,” the student wrote.
Political opinions she shared in-depth with the class.
“We are way beyond Republicans and
Democrats, and we’re really back to being
in a civil war,” she said, “and I don’t mean it
in a fighting way, but our nation is divided
as clearly as it was in civil war times.”
Recalde-Martinez posted the teacher’s rant on his
Facebook page. It has 18,000 views and hundreds of
comments.
Thursday night, the professor’s union posted a warning on
its page. It condemned the student who recorded the video
saying,
“This is an illegal recording without the
permission of the instructor. The student
will be identified and may be facing legal
action.”
“They wanted it to be known so that maybe
we would get scared and take down the
video. But to the union I want to say we are
not gonna be doing that,” said Recalde-
Martinez.
“The unions are acting like thugs, like
bullies themselves,” said attorney Shawn
Steel.
The attorney is also the Republican National
Committeeman from California. He volunteered to
represent the Young Republicans.
He said the student who shot the video is afraid he may be
suspended or expelled with only a week left in the
semester.
 “Every student knows it. If you stand up to
your professor, 90 percent of the time the
professor’s going to punish you,” said
Steel.
Butler also spoke to the president of the college who chose
not to go on camera because the incident is still under
.
investigation. He did tell her the college encourages a
discourse on current events between students and faculty
when it’s in context.
Butler also reached out to the teacher and her union for a
comment and did not hear back from either one.

73
 'Silence Not An Option':
Calls Grow To Disrupt Trump Inauguration
By Nadia Prupis, Staff Writer
Published On Thursday, December 08, 2016
'The Majority have spoken—by nearly 2.7 million votes &
counting!' Michael Moore tweeted, linking to grassroots
group's website planning direct actions on January 20
’
"Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and misogyny," the group said.
(Image: disruptj20.org/with overlay)
The call to disrupt President-elect Donald Trump's
inauguration is growing with the help of documentary
filmmaker and activist Michael Moore, who on
Wednesday tweeted a grassroots group's plans for direct
actions on January 20, 2017.
Although Trump won the Electoral College, his
Democratic rival Hillary Clinton took the popular vote by
more than 2 million—which means Trump will enter
office with low ratings and no mandate. Grassroots
activists organizing a mobilization known as #DisruptJ20
are hoping to call attention to this dynamic through a series
of protests, direct actions, and other events on inauguration
day.
"The Majority have spoken—by nearly 2.7
million votes & counting! Silence is not an
option," Moore tweeted, adding a link to the
group's website.
Disrupt the Inauguration. The Majority have
spoken - by nearly 2.7 million votes
&counting! Silence is not an option
https://t.co/HSmP3pREvy
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) December
7, 2016
.
74
The organizers, known as the D.C. Counter-Inaugural
Welcoming Committee, "call on all people of good
conscience to join in disrupting the ceremonies. If Trump
is to be inaugurated at all, let it happen behind closed
doors, showing the true face of the security state Trump
will preside over. It must be made clear to the whole world
that the vast majority of people in the United States do not
support his presidency or consent to his rule."
"Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and
misogyny," they write. "He is the champion
of neo-nazis and white nationalists, of the
police who kill the black, brown, and poor
on a daily basis, of racist border agents
and sadistic prison guards, of the FBI and
[National Security Agency] who tap your
phone and read your email."
Moore, who in July predicted Trump would win, said on
Late Night With Seth Meyers on Wednesday,
"The majority of our fellow Americans do
not want him in the White House. The irony
is unbearable."
In addition to the #DisruptJ20 movement, the inauguration
will be met with a women's march on Washington, with
thousands of people expected to join from all over the
country to protest Trump's history of misogyny, including
bragging about sexually assaulting women.
The Guardian reported on Thursday that the National Park
Service filed documents on behalf of the Presidential
Inauguration Committee sealing off portions of the
national mall and Pennsylvania Avenue—meaning the
women's march will not be able to hold a rally at the
Lincoln Memorial to echo historic civil rights and anti-war
actions. The "massive omnibus blocking permit" extends
for days and weeks before and after the inauguration itself.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the
Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said the blocking of
access for days after the event was "extremely unique."
 Constitutional Crisis, Movement to Undermine President-elect
Donald Trump’s Accession to the White House?
America Is Gearing Towards A Constitutional Crisis
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, December 09, 2016
Author’s note: This article does not constitute an
endorsement of Donald Trump. Quite the opposite. The
focus is on an unfolding constitutional crisis.
While Trump has put together a right wing
cabinet of arch reactionaries (including
generals, bankers, big oil) which largely
conforms to the neoconservative mainstay
of the Republican Party, the bi-partisan
“entente cordiale” between Democrats and
Republicans has been broken. The
powerful corporate interests which
supported the Clinton candidacy remain
intent upon undermining
Trump’s accession to the White House.
Global capitalism is by no means
monolithic. What is at stake are
fundamental rivalries within the US
establishment marked by the
clash between competing corporate
factions, each of which is intent upon
exerting control over the incoming US
presidency. In this regard, Trump is not
entirely in the pocket of the lobby groups.
As a member of the establishment, he has
his own corporate sponsors and fund
raisers. His stated foreign policy
agenda including his commitment to
revise Washington’s relationship with
Moscow does not fully conform with the
interests of the defence contractors.
In contrast, Hillary takes her instructions
from a panoply of corporate lobby groups
including the defence establishment, the oil
conglomerates, Wall Street hedge funds,
etc. not to mention Monsanto-Bayer, which
has generously funded her election
campaign.
Divisions within the Corporate Media
Moreover, despite the persistent media campaign against
Trump led by major US news chains (WP, NYT, LA
Times, etc) as well as network TV, the president-elect has
75
the support of a competing media conglomerate controlled
by Rupert Murdoch which includes the Wall Street
Journal, Fox News and the New York Post.
The American People are the Unspoken Victims
Needless to say, the American people are the unspoken
victims of this clash between competing capitalist factions.
Neither candidate is genuinely committed to “real
democracy”. Both Trump and Clinton are largely serving
the interests of the elites to the detriment of the US
electorate. In turn, meaningful grassroots opposition to
Trump’s right-wing racist social policy agenda has been
“kidnapped” by an engineered protest movement financed
and controlled by powerful economic interests.
Propaganda
A carefully coordinated operation is ongoing.
The propaganda ploy emanating from the
outgoing Obama government and the pro-
Clinton faction of the corporate media
consists in relentlessly accusing Moscow
of having interfered in the election
campaign on behalf of Donald Trump.
This initiative is supported by major corporate lobby
groups (including defence contractors and oil
conglomerates) which are behind Hillary’s hawkish
foreign policy agenda.
At the height of the election campaign Trump was
portrayed by the US media as “an agent” of the Kremlin, a
modern Manchurian candidate.
The Obama administration on Friday
officially accused Russia of attempting
to interfere in the 2016 elections,
including by hacking the computers of the
Democratic National Committee and other
political organizations.
The denunciation, made by the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland
Security, came as pressure was growing from within the
administration and some lawmakers to publicly name
Moscow and hold it accountable for actions apparently
aimed at sowing discord around the election.
“The U.S. Intelligence Community is
confident that the Russian Government
directed the recent compromises of e-mails
from U.S. persons and institutions,
including from U.S. political organizations,”
said a joint statement from the two
agencies. “. . . These thefts and disclosures
are intended to interfere with the U.S.
election process.” (WP, October 7, 2016)
Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leo
Panetta intimated that Trump is a threat to National
Security.
Vanity Fair November 1 2016
The Atlantic October 8 2016
Is Trump “in bed with the enemy”? These
are serious accusations allegedly backed
up by US intelligence which cannot be
brushed away.
Will they just be forgotten once Trump accedes to the
White House?
In the wake of the November 8 election, the media has
toned down its Russian agent Manchurian candidate
discourse. It has nonetheless continued
accusing Moscow of having interfered in the US elections
in favor of Trump, not to mention the campaign against
76
“Fake News” directed against the alleged pro-Russian
independent media.
The underlying project to disrupt the Trump presidency
consists of several coordinated and interrelated processes
including:
 the media smear campaign against Trump,
 the engineered anti-Trump protest movement across
the US, coordinated with media coverage, petitions,
with the objective to disrupt;
 the vote recount in three swing states,
 the passing of H.R 6393: Intelligence Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2017, which includes a section directed
against so-called “pro-Moscow independent media”, in
response to Moscow’s alleged interference in the US
elections in support of Donald Trump;
 The Electoral College Vote on December 19, which
includes a process of co-optation of Republican
Electors with a view to triggering Hillary Clinton’s
accession to the White House.
 If the Electoral College Vote fails to prevent Trump’s
election, continued protests and media smears against
Trump would take place in the months following his
accession to the White House.
 The Disruption of the January 20, 2017 Presidential
Inauguration Ceremony is also envisaged
 The possibility of an impeachment procedure could be
contemplated during the first year of his mandate.
This initiative consists in highlighting Moscow’s alleged
intervention in the US elections through the hacking of the
Democratic party’s CDC. While Moscow was not involved
in the hacking, the release of CDC emails by Wikileaks
revealed extensive fraud in the conduct of the Democratic
primaries by the CDC against Bernie Sanders and in favor
of Clinton’s candidacy.
This media operation describing Trump as a Russian
stooge in all likelihood emanates from sectors of US
intelligence which are supportive of the Clinton clique
acting on behalf of powerful corporate interests. What is at
stake is the conflict between two competing factions of the
corporate establishment.
The MSM plays a pivotal propaganda role. It provides a
pro-Hillary coverage of the election recount, it intimates
that the republican Grand Electors should, in the interests
of democracy, not cast their vote for a candidate who has
links to the Kremlin. What this campaign intimates is that
Trump’s alleged relationship to Moscow consists in an act
of treason.
And Lady Gaga applauds.

Dirty Politics

Meanwhile, ” Treason” has become a talking point on

social media, a petition has been launched by California
Sen Barbara Boxers on Change.org, one of the
organizations involved in engineering the protest
movement:

Heavy.com portraying him as an instrument of Russia continue

after his accession to the presidency?

These are serious allegations, which involve one of several

possible outcomes:

1. The propaganda campaign together with the other

components of this operation (vote recount, Electors
College, protest movement, anti-Trump petitions) are Either the campaign is repealed and
used as a means to discredit Trump and attempt to forgotten or the president is impeached
derail his access to the White House. on charges of treason.

While the ongoing vote recount is unlikely to change the
outcome (see below), the Hillary faction is intent upon
shifting the Grand Electors Vote.
2. If the latter strategy fails and the electoral college
vote confirms Trump’s election, will the campaign
In other words, the dominant elite faction which supports
Hillary is intent on either derailing the inauguration of
Donald Trump prior to January 20th or initiating an
impeachment procedure at a later stage.

77
 3. Concurrently, an engineered and coordinated
protest movement against Trump has been ongoing
since November 8. In fact it started on the evening of
November 8 prior to the announcement of the election
results. The organizers of this movement are acting on
behalf of powerful elite interests. People are misled: the
protests are not been led on behalf of the genuine
concerns of Americans who oppose Trump’s right wing
racist agenda.
The protests have all the appearances of a “color
revolution” style op in support of Hillary’s candidacy. The
media also provides a biased coverage of the engineered
protest movement. The organizers and recruiters are
serving the interests of powerful corporate lobby groups
including the defence contractors which have placed their
bets on Hillary’s foreign policy agenda.
The Catch Phrase is “Disrupt”. The
Objective is “Disrupt”
In turn, the Disruptj20.org website is calling for the
disruption of the inauguration of Donald Trump on
January 20, 2017:
#DisruptJ20 is supported by the work of the
DC Welcoming Committee, a collective of
experienced local activists and out-of-work
gravediggers acting with national support.
We’re building the framework needed for
mass protests to shut down the
inauguration of Donald Trump and planning
widespread direct actions to make that
happen. We’re also providing services like
housing, food, and even legal assistance to
anyone who wants to join us.
78
The Vote Recount
With regard to the vote recount in Pennsylvania, the
procedure is in a legal deadlock with Green Party leader
Jill Stein. Moreover, with a lead of of 71,000 votes, it is
highly unlikely that the recount will change the outcome.
Latest figures following a partial recount give Trump a
44,000 lead in Pennsylvania.
In Wisconsin and Michigan, the margins are much
smaller, but in the event of a recount in favor of Hillary,
the number of Grand Electors would be insufficient to
shift the vote tally in favor of Hillary. The latest reports
confirm that the Vote Recount Strategy will not in any way
modify the outcome of the election.
The Electoral College Vote on December
19th is therefore Crucial
Hillary would need 38 Republican Grand electors to win
the White House. The Democratic Party and its attorneys
are already envisaging an engineered procedure involving
the co-optation of the Grand Electors.
An upstart group of Electoral College voters have formed a
political non-profit organization to fund a campaign to
deny Donald Trump the presidency.
The paperwork filed Tuesday with the Colorado Secretary
of State’s Office creates a “527” group, which can raise
unlimited donations from individuals, corporations and
labor unions for political activities. (Denver
Post, November 30, 2016)
Petitions have been launched, protests are envisaged with pushing for other electors to ignore their oaths by voting
extensive media coverage: against Mr. Trump. (Independent, November 22, 2016)

The Change.org petition, requests the

“”Electors of the Electoral” College to cast
their votes on Dec. 19 for Clinton because
“Mr. Trump is unfit to serve … Secretary
Clinton WON THE POPULAR VOTE [sic]
and should be President.”

Yet an aura of secrecy prevails as to what is being planned

behind closed doors. The Trump faction and its powerful
corporate sponsors are also strategizing with a view to
securing the Electoral College vote. The media has been
silent on the matter.
We are nonetheless dealing with a corrupt political system.
The stakes are high.
Are the Electors being co-opted? Are they being bribed?
A number of Democrats have reportedly agreed to break
with tradition and vote against Donald Trump when the
Electoral College meets on December 19 in an unlikely
attempt to block his presidency.
At least half a dozen Democratic electors are preparing to
lobby voters in other states in an attempt to keep the
Republican out of the White House but, more significantly,
also to undermine the legitimacy of the institution.
In turn, the media is calling for the Electoral College to
prevent Trump from acceding to the White House:
“We as Americans can use the very
procedures built into our constitutional
system to avoid the inauguration of a man
who has proven since election day that is
he unfit to be president of the United
States.” (Huffington Post, November 26,
2016)
Towards a Deepseated Constitutional Crisis?
It is difficult to predict the outcome: Both the Trump and
the Clinton factions are overseeing the Electoral
College vote. Are they talking to one another?

The voters, who are mostly former Bernie Sanders The Clinton faction is intent upon disrupting Trump’s
supporters from Washington state and Colorado, are accession to the White House. Will They Succeed?
79
Whatever the outcome “before” or “after” the Swearing in
Ceremony on the 20th of January 2017,
America is gearing towards a
deepseated constitutional crisis.
Neither candidate serves the interests of
the American people.
Both candidates are dysfunctional.
.
80
Both Trump and Clinton could be the object of
impeachment procedures.
Were Hillary to accede to the White House, she would be
haunted by her criminal record; she would ALSO most
probably be the target of an impeachment procedure.
Is the tendency (at some future date) towards the adoption
of martial law and the suspension of constitutional
government?
Outrage As California Professor Is Filmed Telling Students
That Trump Is A 'White Supremacist' Whose
Election Was An 'Act Of Terrorism'
 Olga Perez Stable Cox, An Instructor In Orange Coast College In California, Psychology Department, Made
Her Comments During A Human Sexuality Class
 She Called President-Elect Trump A 'White Supremacist' And Vice President-Elect Mike Pence 'One Of The
Most Anti-Gay Humans In This Country'
 Cox, Who's Taught At OCC For 30 Years, Said Trump's Election Was An 'Act Of Terrorism'
 The School's College Republicans, Headed By Club President Joshua Recalde-Martinez, Have Filed A Formal
Complaint With College Administrators
 In The Complaint, The Group Asks For The Professor To Apologize And Take An Anger-Management Class
By Dailymail.Com Reporter
Published: 11:50 EST, 9 December 2016
|
A California professor has set off a firestorm of criticism the people creating the assault are among
after telling her students Donald Trump's election was an us.'
'act of terrorism.'

Olga Perez Stable Cox, an instructor in Orange Coast College's

psychology department, set off a firestorm of criticism for a series of
comments on President-elect Donald Trump

Olga Perez Stable Cox, an instructor in Orange Coast

College's psychology department, made her comments
during a recent human sexuality class, as seen in video
posted by a student on Tuesday.

She calls President-elect Trump a 'white supremacist' and

Vice President-elect Mike Pence 'one of the most anti-gay
humans in this country.'

'And so we are in for a difficult time but

again I do believe that we can get past
that,' the professor said, as heard in
footage of the lecture.
'Our nation is divided, we have been
assaulted, it’s an act of terrorism,' she
added. 'One of the most frightening things
for me and most people in my life is that
Cox told her students (pictured) Trump is a 'white
supremacist' and Vice President-elect Mike Pence 'one of
the most anti-gay humans in this country'
The school's College Republicans have filed a formal
complaint with the office of college president Dennis
Harkins.

81
 'The video, shot during a class on human
sexuality, was submitted anonymously to
us and we wanted to share it to raise
awareness on this issue,' said club
president Joshua Recalde-Martinez, a
sophomore majoring in political science, to
the Huffington Post.
'We want other students to know that we
will help protect them against the constant
leftist indoctrination we are experiencing in
class by exposing behavior like this.'
In a letter, an attorney representing the
club, Shawn Steel, called the professor's
statements 'inflammatory' and 'extreme.'
'Several of her students were shocked by
her behavior,' the lawyer wrote to the
school administration.
The school's College Republicans, headed by club president Joshua
Recalde-Martinez (pictured), have filed a formal complaint with
college administrators
FULL TRANSCRIPT FROM OLGA PEREZ STABLE
COX
'…white supremacist and a vice president
that is one of the most anti-gay humans in
this country. And so we are in for a difficult
time but again I do believe that we can get
past that. Our nation is divided, we have
been assaulted, it’s an act of terrorism.
82
'One of the most frightening things for me
and most people in my life is that the
people creating the assault are among us.
It is not some stranger from some other
country coming and attacking our sense of
what it means to be an American and the
things that we stand for and that makes it
more painful because I’m sure that all of us
have people in our families and our circle of
friends that are part of that movement and
it is very difficult ... we are way beyond
Republicans and Democrats and we’re
really being back to being at civil war — I
don’t mean that in a fighting way but our
nation is divided as clearly as it was in Civil
War times.
'And my hope is we will get leadership to
help overcome that. I will go over some
coping skills but before i do that I want you
to know that the optimist in me, first of all,
we are the majority, more of us voted to not
have that kind of leadership, and we didn’t
win because of the way our electoral
college is set up but we are the majority
and that’s helping me to feel better.
'I’m relieved that we live in California it is
one of the best states and I love that and I
love living here but I’m especially proud of
our Legislature who did put out a message
... one of the things I’m doing to cope is to
look for positive messages and look for
some hope that’s the optimist in me — and
California legislative leaders did put
something... and these are things you can
find....'
'She’s using her power as a teacher who
gives grades, with a captive audience, to
basically scare and shame students,' said
Steel, a former chairman of the California
Republican Party, as reported by the OC
Register.
'It’s alarming. It’s scare-mongering. It’s
irrational. It’s a rant — and it doesn't belong
in the classroom,' Steel added.
The attorney wants the professor to apologize and take an
anger-management class, the OC Register reported.
As of Friday morning, the video had been seen by more
than 19,000 people and shared some 363 times.
Cox, who has taught at OCC for 30 years, has not made a
statement regarding the incident.
But her union, the Coast Federation of Educators, said on 'This is an illegal recording without the
Facebook: permission of the instructor. The student
who is sitting in assigned seating will be
identified and maybe be facing legal action.

In a letter to OCC officials (pictured), attorney Shawn Steel called the professor's statements 'inflammatory' and 'extreme'

'One of the real purposes of the college

experience is to share and interact with
people who have different opinions on
complex issues.'

The Coast Federation of Educators, who represents Cox,

said the recording of the comments is illegal and could
land the student in trouble

California's education code says electronic classroom

recordings are prohibited — and students in willful
violation face disciplinary action.

School officials are still investigating the complaint against

the professor and the context in which the comments were
said, Harkins told the OC Register.

'Orange Coast College supports the

Orange Coast College officials are still investigating the
respectful discussion or discourse of ideas
complaint against the professor and the context in which
and opinions that exist between students,
the comments were said, the school's president said.
faculty and staff or the community,' Harkins
told the newspaper.
83
 Internet Users Lash At Hillary Clinton For Comments
About 'Fake News Epidemic'
© REUTERS/ Carlos Barria US 12:16 09.12.2016
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton unexpectedly called for
action against the "epidemic of fake news that spread
across the world".
She made a rare public appearance on Thursday to address
the Pizzagate tragedy that unfolded over the weekend
because of fake news.
A man opened fire in a DC pizzeria after reading a
terrifying yet false story online.
It claimed that the restaurant's holding children as part of a
sex slavery ring… run by Clinton. Fortunately, nobody
was hurt in the shooting.
Hillary Clinton, whose 2016 presidential campaign was
often accused of generating fake news, called to immediate
action in her speech. Hillary Clinton:
"Let me just mention one threat in particular
that should concern all Americans… the
epidemic of malicious fake news"
pic.twitter.com/f4ESmm4QZf — CBS News
(@CBSNews) December 8, 2016
Mainstream media reports on Hillary's speech against fake
news did not sit well with internet users.
@CBSNews fake sniper fire, fake Benghazi
YouTube video, I wasn't sick, bill wasn't
having an affair. She's the queen of fake
news.
84
— Shane Flannagan (@shaneflannagan)
December 8, 2016
Tweeters unleashed the sarcasm at CBS, saying that —
quote — "yes, fake news should be a greater concern than
cyber security, the economy or one of the half-dozen wars
we're involved in."
In a stunning display of integrity, Hillary
Clinton takes full responsibility for her
election defeat! Just kidding — she blames
#FakeNews!
— Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux)
December 9, 2016
Here's @CNN literally slandering every
single one of us. Calling us liars. No, CNN.
We're going to take you down.
https://t.co/ihvNEBC7j7
— Democrats for Trump
(@YoungDems4Trump) December 9, 2016
WikiLeaks' official support team rushed to make their
point too.
Reminder: "dangerous" #FakeNews "epidemic" started
with Clinton campaign pretending @wikileaks emails were
fake. https://t.co/jekTq72Tcu — WikiLeaks Task Force
(@WLTaskForce) December 9, 2016 Clinton herself has
not reacted to the backlash she's currently facing.
 Wikileaks: Colbert Show Took Orders
From Clinton Global Initiative
Mario Anzuoni US 02:51 09.12.2016(Updated 06:38 09.12.2016)
In an email release on Tuesday, WikiLeaks revealed that
The Colbert Report was colluding with the Clinton Global
Initiative, years before Hillary Clinton’s campaign was
officially launched.
In an email from Craig Minassian of the Clinton Global
Initiative to John Podesta, the former asserts that the show
aired two episodes that he “had them do.” The episodes
focused on presenting the Clinton Foundation in a positive
light.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 7,
2016
“I hope you got a chance to see the The
Colbert Report’s two special episodes I had
them do about CGI U that we taped in St.
Louis this weekend,” Minassian wrote.
85
“This is the link to last nights with a sketch
about commitments and the monologue
and WJC (Bill Clinton) interview aired
Monday. Hope you enjoy and looking
forward to your feedback. Next will be your
Colbert appearance!”
The show has long supported Democratic candidates and
policies, but it was not previously clear that they had been
taking direct orders from the operatives of party
figureheads.
On Wednesday’s episode of Stephen Colbert’s new gig at
CBS’s The Late Show, the host addressed the email, by
jokingly saying that
“she can’t afford me.”
“A conspiracy is what villains do. An
agreement is what adults do,” Colbert said.
He then asserted,
“WikiLeaks, Alex Jones, and the subreddit
sub-geniuses––and I mean this in the
nicest way possible––grow the f*ck up.”
With the use of curses, a rarity for the popular performer, it
appears as though the disclosure may have gotten under his
skin.
 The Spiritually Dead Gatekeepers
Of Mainstream News
By Jon Rappoport
December 9, 2016
A new series of realities is on the way.
Centralized information-reality is on the way out.
It’s going to be thrills and chills.
Major newspapers are dying. The internet is crushing
them. And yet, if the NY Times and the Washington Post
and the LA Times wanted to resuscitate themselves, they
could.
I’m not talking about one-day headlines. I’m talking about
investigations that pound and pound on issues of
corruption day after day, month after month.
For example, these issues:
 The Federal Reserve/a clandestine private corporation.
 Medically caused death.
 Toxic vaccines.
 Trillions of dollars of missing US government money.
 The power of the Trilateral Commission over US
government policy.
 The covert implementation of the UN agenda of
destruction in US communities.
And a hundred more issues.
Expose these down to the core, and people would buy
newspapers off the rack like they buy coffee and beer and
video games and cell phones and gasoline and underwear
and toilet paper and lipstick and fast food. The Times
would have to schedule extra press runs just to keep up
with the demand. Its financial bottom line would soon look
like Christmas.
But the great esteemed centers of American journalism are
part of the Matrix. They are in the business of falsehood,
omission, diversion, and obfuscation. They live by those
hallmarks.
You could talk to the publisher of the New York Times and
present him with an ironclad business plan for pulling his
paper out of its deep financial trouble, based on covering
true stories like those above, and you would find no joy,
86
because he would rather go down with the ship than go
against the Matrix.
The Times and other hoary media outlets live by the rule of
limited hangout. In intelligence parlance, that means
admitting a small piece of the truth in order to hide the
rest.
“We’ll show you a tree in the forest, but not
the whole forest.”
I know how it works, because as a reporter I’ve been there.
I’ve approached editors of various media outlets with
stories that crack the Matrix trance, and I’ve had those
stories tossed back at me.
“We’re just not interested,” they say. “This
isn’t our kind of piece.” Or: “Well, we
already covered that.” But they didn’t cover
it.
They did a limited hangout on it. They ran a story that
exposed one tiny corner of a whole bloody mess.
I fully understand that media outlets black out stories that
would endanger their own advertising dollars. But that’s
just the beginning of the true reason the major newspapers
and television networks decline to run pieces that would
once again make them gigantically successful.
To understand the true reason, you need to grasp
something about the Matrix itself. It is a reality that
maintains its power because it can engineer SILENCE. It
can create EMPTY SPACE. Not only can it invent
pictures that are false, not only can it pander to certain
emotional links in people’s shrunken universes, it can
make Swiss Cheese appear as if it has no holes in it. This
is an art.
To see what the Matrix is and how it operates, you need
imagination. You need to use that imagination to
understand what COULD BE but ISN’T. You need to be
able to project how the truth could actually storm the
bastions of planned ignorance and impel people to
perceive startling new realities beyond the dross of what
they have now.
I say this—partially as a boast and partially as simple
fact—if I were the managing editor of the New York Times
and I was given the corner office and free rein, I would
have that paper back in the black in a year. I would have it
roaring on all cylinders. I would have people fighting each
other in the streets to grab the last copy off the newsstands.
Every day. Journalism schools all over the country would
close down in shame. Because we would be running
stories that would crack the whole rotting edifice of cartel-
control along many fronts, and we would be filling up a
PLANNED VACUUM with something super-real.
But I gave up on that fantasy 20 years ago. Instead, I saw a
day when these giants would wither like old men on their
back porches staring out at the rain. And that day is here. It
has come.
Like many other people, I know what cynicism, despair,
and passivity are. I’ve visited that land. I’ve checked into
those motels. But in the end, they’re a joke. You know
why? Because: what do they get you? They get you
nothing. Zero.
At best, they get you the temporary hope that someone else
will rescue you and drag you from the depths.
One thing that’s going to happen as independent news
takes over from the old goofs: there will be information,
more information about workable solutions to vital
problems. People need to be ready for that.
They need to be ready for answers that are shocking
because they ARE answers.

They gave up their right to cover the news. And now
they’re paying.
—It may have occurred to you by now that
one of my main targets is: people
dedicated to cynicism, despair, passivity,
and self-imposed victimhood. They clog
forward progress. They hold up the train.
They drag down the future. They sit in their
own puddles. They opt for abstract
spectatorship, hoping for the occasional
stimulation of adrenaline to relieve a
permanent state of paralyzing boredom.
I don’t write for those people. I never will.
It’ll seem surreal. Workable answers? What??
Yes.
People will need to adjust their minds.
The business of news outlets without solutions will be
eclipsed.
If you think this is impossible, then become a citizen
journalist, and make it possible.
No one of good will and intelligence needs to be on the
outside looking in.

I write for the people who can envision WHAT COULD

BE and will at least consider making their stand there.

87
 Mainstream Media Panicking With ‘Fake News’
Accusations Because They’ve LOST In The Realm Of Ideas
By: JD Heyes
Date: December 09, 2016
The so-called ‘mainstream media’ is in full panic mode
after it was unable to push Hillary Clinton across the finish
line against what these Left-wing purveyors of slanted
“news” considered a joke of a candidacy in the eventual
presidential winner Nov. 8, Donald J. Trump.
Now, fearing a complete loss of power and influence, the
managing editors and reporters of the nation’s legacy
media outlets—led by The New York Times, the
Washington Post, USA Today, NBC, CBS, ABC, and
CNN—have decided to launch a new campaign: They are
out to regain control over the political and social narratives
in America after losing it to the alternative media that told
the truth about Trump and boldly reported on all of
Clinton’s flaws.
To accomplish this, the establishment media and its allies
in academia, politics and technology have partnered to
create a new boogeyman—“fake news”—that they have
collectively vowed to identify and keep out of the public
conversation.
How serious is this effort? Over the weekend the
Washington Post actually published a story in which it
cited an anonymous group of “experts” that did not exist
before the Nov. 8 election who published a McCarthyite
“list” of some 200 content sites (including Natural News)
responsible for collaborating with Moscow in putting out
Russian propaganda. The goal? To ‘hijack our democracy’
by dooming Clinton’s candidacy and helping Trump win.
It’s that kind of goofy conspiracy theory that the WaPo and
others in the formerly persuasive establishment used to
88
ridicule. Now, they’re spewing their own in a sadistic
attempt to retain control and power.
The fact is, the charges made by the shadow group,
PropOrNot (“Propaganda or Not”), are not based on any
hard evidence, because as Mike Adams, the Health
Ranger, pointed out recently, such evidence simply does
not exist.
There are no documents. No “witnesses.” No scientific
research. In fact, in extremely shoddy fashion, the Post’s
reporters never even bothered to contact any of the
websites listed, to get their comments and observations.
Talk about “fake” news.
So bad was the reporting that another reliably Left-wing
news site that at least does do investigative reporting (just
from one particular political point of view) lambasted the
Post for its “shoddy” reporting, among other things.
“[T]he article is rife with obviously reckless
and unproven allegations, and
fundamentally shaped by shoddy, slothful
journalistic tactics,” wrote the authors. “In
his article, the Post’s Timberg did not
include a link to PropOrNot’s website. If
readers had the opportunity to visit the site,
it would have become instantly apparent
that this group of ostensible experts far
more resembles amateur peddlers of
primitive, shallow propagandistic clichés
than serious, substantive analysis and
expertise; that it has a blatant,
demonstrable bias in promoting the
interests of western governments; and that
it is engaging in extremely dubious
McCarthyite tactics.”
The hatemongers on the Left are also using the “fake
news” straw man they created as “proof” that social media
giants like Facebook and Google must become censors –
to filter out anything that essentially does not come from
their allies in the discredited establishment press.
It’s all part of a plan to keep the American youth ignorant
about the issues. The Left can’t stand or deal with
competition, so it tries to destroy it through intimidation,
false narratives, bogus ‘issues’ and outright censorship.
And as the Post story indicates, when those techniques
don’t work, then wild conspiracy theories become the new
‘normal’ for ‘news’ stories.
In fact, it’s a strategy that’s working. A just-released study
by a group of researchers at Stanford University found that
a staggering 82 percent of today’s middle school, high
school and some college youngsters can’t tell the
.
89
difference between fake news and real news. That’s
probably being done intentionally through the Left’s
control over academia, but it’s dangerous because they will
believe what they are told to believe by their teachers.
In the meantime, the real “real news” – the alternative
media – will continue to shine a critical light on the
charlatans and phonies in the media.
 Trump’s Second Gilded Age:
Overcoming The Rule Of Billionaires And Militarists
By Henry Giroux
December 9, 2016

through hard work alone and has argued that government

regulations resemble forms of totalitarian rule comparable
to what existed in communist countries.[4]

Andrew F. Puzder, Trump’s choice for Secretary of Labor,

has less experience in government “than any secretary
since the early 1980s.”[5] He is a critic of worker
protections, opposes raising the minimum wage, and
appears to share Trump’s disparaging views of women. As
the New York Times pointed out, the advertisements that
Mr. Pusder’s companies run “promote its restaurants
frequently feature women wearing next to nothing while
gesturing suggestively.”[6] When asked about the ads, Mr.
Puzder replied “I like our ads. I like beautiful women
eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s is very American.”[7]
I am sure Trump, the unchecked misogynist, agrees.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump made it
It is hard to believe that this gaggle of religious
clear that he liked the uneducated and that once he
fundamentalists, conspiracy theory advocates, billionaires,
assumed the presidency, he would appoint a range of
and retrograde anti-communists, who uniformly lack the
incompetent people to high ranking positions that would
experience to take on the jobs for which they were
insure that many people remain poorly educated, illiterate,
nominated, could possibly be viewed as reasonable
and impoverished. A few examples make the point. Betsy
candidates for top government positions. As Rep. Jared
DeVos, the nominee for Secretary of Education is a multi-
Huffman (D-Calif.) cited in The Hill observed “most of
millionaire, has no experience in higher education,
Trump’s appointees are
supports for-profit charter schools, and is a strong advocate
for private school vouchers.
“The greatest collection of stooges and
cronies and misfits we have ever seen in a
Without irony, she has described her role in
presidential administration….Some of
education as one way to “advance God’s
these people’s only qualifications for the
kingdom.”[1] She is anti-union, and her
jobs they are being appointed for is that
motto for education affirms Trump’s own
they have attempted to dismantle and
educational philosophy to “defund, devalue,
undermine and destroy the very agencies
and privatize.”[2]
they are now hoping to run.”[8]
Ben Carson, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Housing
What these appointments suggest is that one element of the
and Urban Development, has never run a federal agency
new authoritarianism is a deep embrace of ignorance, anti-
and has no experience in government, policy making, or in
intellectualism, crony capitalism, and a disdain for the
public housing and has described housing policy
institutions that give legitimacy to the social contract and
pejoratively as a form of social engineering and a socialist
the welfare state. Most of Trump’s appointees to top
experiment. New York City council member and chair of
cabinet positions are a mix of incompetent and mean
the city’s Housing and Buildings Committee described
spirited billionaires and generals. This alliance of powerful
Carson’s appointment as “ill-advised, irresponsible and
representatives of predatory financial capitalists and right-
hovers on absurdity.”[3] Carson will run a $48 billion
wing supporters of the immense military-industrial-
agency that oversees public housing and ensures that low-
surveillance complex makes clear Trump’s support of the
income families have access to housing that is safe and
worst elements of neoliberalism—a war on education,
affordable. He believes people can escape from poverty
90
support for austerity policies, and an attack on social
provisions, the poor, workers, unions, and the most
vulnerable. As Eric Sommer wrote in CounterPunch,
“These ministerial level cabinet selections are a warning
that far greater attacks on the social and economic rights of
American workers, and greater militarism and military
aggression abroad are being prepared.”[9] Trump’s
affirmation of an updated version of the Gilded Age and
his attempts to accelerate America’s slide into
authoritarianism is an assault on reason, compassion,
morality, and human dignity. Its underside is a political
mix of militarism and rule by the financial elite, both of
which are central features of a savage neoliberal assault on
democracy. Trump’s government of billionaires and
militarists makes clear that the next few years will be
governed by ruthless financial elite who will give new
meaning to a war culture that will impose forms of
domestic terrorism across a wide swath of American
society.
Thus far, Trump has appointed three generals to join his
cabinet—James Mattis and Michael Flynn for Secretary of
Defense and National Security Advisor, along with Retired
General John Kelly to head the Department of Homeland
Security. Kelly is infamous for defending the force-feeding
of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and wants to expand
the prison population there. Retired General Mattis, whose
nickname is “Mad Dog,” stated in 2003, the year that Iraq
was invaded, that
“It’s fun to shoot some people, you know,
it’s a hell of a hoot.”[10]
He once told marines under his command
“Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan
to kill everybody you meet.”[11]
As difficult as it is to imagine it gets worse. Lt. Gen.
Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security
advisor considers Islam, with its population of 1.3 billion,
a terrorist threat.
He has also used the social media to
spread fake news stories “linking Mrs.
Clinton to underage sex rings and other
serious crimes [while pushing]
unsubstantiated claims about Islamic laws
spreading in the United States.”[12]
At work here is an emerging political-social formation in
which fake news becomes an accepted mode of shaping
public discourse, inexperience and incompetence become
revered criteria for holding public office, and social
responsibility is removed from any vestige of politics. All
of these appointments point to the emergence of a new
political order in which the dystopian fears of George
Orwell and Aldus Huxley are merged with the comic
91
grotesquery of the tyrannical systems lampooned by the
Marx brothers.
Under the reign of right-wing governments and social
movements spreading throughout the world, thinking has
become dangerous. Increasingly, neoliberal regimes across
Europe and North America have waged a major assault on
critical education and the public spheres in which they take
place. For instance, public and higher education are being
defunded, turned into accountability factories, and now
largely serve as adjuncts of an instrumental logic that
mimics the values of a business culture. But, of course, this
is not only true for spaces in which formal schooling takes
place, it is also the case for those public spheres and
cultural apparatuses producing knowledge, values,
subjectivities, and identities through a range of media and
sites. This applies to a range of creative spaces including
art galleries, museums, diverse sites that make up screen
culture, and various elements of mainstream media.[13]
Such sites have come under increasing fire since the 1970s
and the war against dissident journalism, in particular, will
intensify under a Trump presidency. Attacking the media
was a central feature of Trump’s presidential campaign
speaks to a coming age of repression, posing a dire threat
to freedom of speech. As, Christopher Hass, observes “But
more importantly, he threatened to ‘open up’ libel laws so
that he and others can more easily sue publications that are
critical of them. Those kinds of attacks are designed to
burn money and hours that independent publications don’t
have-and sometimes they can be fatal.”[14]What the
apostles of neoliberalism have learned is that alternative
media outlets along with diverse forms of cultural
production can change how people view the world, and
that such forms of public pedagogy can be dangerous
because they hold the potential for not only creating
critically engaged students, intellectuals, and artists but can
strengthen and expand the general publics’ imagination,
give them critical tools to enable them to think otherwise
in order to act otherwise, and hold power accountable.
Such thinking is also a prerequisite for developing social
movements willing to rethink the vision and tactics
necessary to fight against an authoritarian state.
In the face of Trump’s draconian assault on democracy, it
is crucial to rethink mechanisms of a repressive politics not
only by highlighting its multiple registers of economic
power, but also through the ideological pedagogical
mechanisms at work in creating modes of agency,
identities, and values that both mimic and surrender to
authoritarian ideologies and social practices. In this
instance, education as it works through diverse institutions,
cultural apparatuses, and sites is crucial to both understand
and appropriate as part of the development of a radical
politics. Reclaiming radical pedagogy as a form of
educated and militant hope begins with the crucial
recognition that education is not solely about job training
and the production of ethically challenged entrepreneurial
subjects but is primarily about matters of civic literacy,
critical thinking, and the capacity for liberatory change. It
is also inextricably connected to the related issues of
power, inclusion, and social responsibility.[15] If young
people, workers, educators, and others are to develop a
keen sense of the common good, as well as an informed
notion of community engagement, pedagogy must be
viewed as a cultural, political, and moral force, if not
formative culture, that provides the knowledge, values, and
social relations to make such democratic practices
possible.
In this instance, pedagogy as a central element of politics
needs to be rigorous, self-reflective, and committed not to
the dead zone of instrumental rationality but to the practice
of freedom and liberation for the most vulnerable and
oppressed. It must also cultivate a critical sensibility
capable of advancing the parameters of knowledge,
stretching the imagination, addressing crucial social issues,
and connecting private troubles into public issues. Any
viable notion of critical pedagogy must overcome the
image of education as purely instrumental, a dead zone of
the imagination, and a normalized space of oppressive
discipline and imposed conformity.
A neoliberal and anti-democratic pedagogy of
management and conformity not only undermines the
critical knowledge and analytical skills necessary for
students to learn the practice of freedom and assume the
role of critical agents, it also reinforces deeply
authoritarian practices while reproducing deep inequities
in the educational opportunities that different students
acquire. Pedagogies of repression and conformity impose
punishing forms of discipline not just on students, but on
the general public, deadening their ability to think
critically; how else to explain the refusal of large segments
of the public to think through and challenge the lies,
misrepresentations, and contradictions that Trump used
during his campaign. Repressive forms of public
pedagogy empty out politics of any substance and further a
modern day pandemic of loneliness and alienation. Such
pedagogies emphasize aggressive competition, unchecked
individualism, and cancel out empathy for an exaggerated
notion of self-interest. Solidarity and sharing are the
enemy of these pedagogical practices, which are driven by
a withdrawal from sustaining public values, trust, and
goods and serve largely to cancel out a democratic future
for young people. This type of pedagogical tyranny poses a
particular challenge for progressives who are willing to
acknowledge that the crisis of politics and economics has
not been matched by a crisis of ideas, resulting in new age
of authoritarianism.
A new age of monstrosities is emerging that necessitates
that we rethink the connection between politics and
democracy, on the one hand, and education and social
change on the other. More specifically, we might begin
with the following questions: What institutions, agents,
and social movements can be developed capable of
challenging the dark times ahead? Moreover, what
92
pedagogical conditions need to be exposed and overcome
in order to create the formative culture that would make
such a challenge successful? Even thinking such questions
becomes difficult in a time of growing pessimism and
despair.
Domination is at its most powerful when its mechanisms
of control and subjugation hide in the discourse of
common sense, and its elements of power are made to
appear invisible. Yet, progressives in a wide variety of
sites can take up the challenge of not only relating their
specialties and modes of cultural production to the
intricacies of everyday life but also to rethink how politics
works, and how power is central to such a task. Bruce
Robbins articulates the challenge well in both his defense
of making the pedagogical more political and his defense
of struggles waged on the educational front and his
reference to how theorists such as Foucault provide a
model for such work. He writes:
But I also thought that intellectuals should
be trying, like Foucault, to relate our
specialized knowledge to things in general.
We could not just become activists focused
on particular struggles or editors striving to
help little magazines make ends meet. We
also had a different kind of role to play:
thinking hard, as Foucault did, about how
best to understand the ways power worked
in our time. Foucault, like Sartre and
Sontag and Said, was an intellectual, even
at some points despite himself. He helped
us understand the world in newly critical
and imaginative ways. He offered us new
lines of reasoning while also engaging in
activism and political position-taking.[16]
Power is fundamental to any discourse about education
and raises critical questions about what role education
should play in a democracy and what role academics,
artists, and other cultural workers might assume in order to
address important social issues, in part, through the
liberatory functions of education. This would suggest not
only a relentless critique of dominant discourses, social
practices, and policies, but also the need to engage in
collective attempts to invent a new way of doing politics.
Those concerned about the future of democracy have to
rethink how power informs, shapes, and can be resourceful
in both understanding and challenging power under the
reign of global neoliberalism. This is especially true at a
time in which a full scale attack is being waged by the
Trump administration and other neoliberal societies on the
public good, social provisions, and the welfare state.
Educators and other cultural workers should consider
being more forceful, if not committed, to linking their
overall politics to modes of critique and collective action
that address the presupposition that democratic societies
are never too just or just enough, and such a recognition
means that a society must constantly nurture the
possibilities for self-critique, collective agency, and forms
of citizenship in which people play a fundamental role in
critically discussing, administrating and shaping the
material relations of power and ideological forces that bear
down on their everyday lives. This is particularly
important at a time when ignorance provides a sense of
community; the brain has migrated to the dark pit of the
spectacle and the only discourse that matters is about
business. Trump has legitimated a spirit of ignorance, anti-
intellectualism, and corruption. Thought now chases after
emotions that obliterate it and actions are no longer framed
against any viable notion of social responsibility.
At stake here is the task, as Jacques Derrida insists, of
viewing the project of democracy as a promise, a
possibility rooted in an ongoing struggle for economic,
cultural, and social justice.[17] Democracy in this instance
is not a sutured or formalistic regime, it is the site of
struggle itself. The struggle over creating an inclusive and
just democracy can take many forms, offers no political
guarantees, and provides an important normative
dimension to politics as an ongoing process of
democratization that never ends. Such a project is based
on the realization that a democracy that is open to
exchange, question, and self-criticism never reaches the
limits of justice.
Theorists such as Raymond Williams and Cornelius
Castoriadis recognized that the crisis of democracy was
not only about the crisis of culture but also the crisis
agency, values, and education. Progressives and others
who refuse to equate capitalism and democracy would do
well to take account of the profound transformations
taking place in the public sphere and reclaim pedagogy as
a central category of politics itself. Pierre Bourdieu was
right when he stated that cultural workers have too often
“underestimated the symbolic and
pedagogical dimensions of struggle and
have not always forged appropriate
weapons to fight on this front.”[18] He goes
on to say in a later conversation with
Gunter Grass that “left intellectuals must
recognize that the most important forms of
domination are not only economic but also
intellectual and pedagogical, and lie on the
side of belief and persuasion. Important to
recognize that intellectuals bear an
enormous responsibility for challenging this
form of domination.”[19]
These are important pedagogical interventions and imply
rightly that pedagogy in the broadest sense is not just about
understanding, however critical, but also provides the
conditions, ideals, and practices necessary for assuming
the responsibilities we have as citizens to expose human
misery and to eliminate the conditions that produce it.
Matters of responsibility, social action, and political
93
intervention do not simply develop out of the practice of
social criticism but also arise through forms of self-
critique. The relationship between knowledge and power,
on the one hand, and education and politics, on the other,
should always be self-reflexive about its effects, how it
relates to the larger world, whether or not it is open to new
understandings, and what it might mean pedagogically to
take seriously matters of individual and social
responsibility. Any viable understanding of the artist and
educator as a public intellectual must begin with the
recognition that democracy begins to fail and civic life
becomes impoverished when power is relegated to the
realm of common sense and critical thinking is no longer
viewed as central to politics itself. The election of Donald
Trump to the presidency is a case study in how politics has
been emptied of any substance and civic illiteracy has been
normalized. Trump’s claim that he loves the uneducated
appears to have paid off for him just as his victory makes
clear that ignorance rather than reason, emotion rather than
informed judgment, and the threat of violence rather than
critical exchange appear to have more currency in the
current historical moment.
This political tragedy ushered in with Trump’s election
signifies the failure of the American public to recognize
the educative nature of how agency is constructed, to
address the necessity for moral witnessing, and the need to
create a formative culture that produces critically engaged
and socially responsible citizens. Realty-TV bombast and
celebrity culture confers enormous authority in America
and in doing so empties civil society and democracy of any
meaning. Neoliberalism’s culture of consumerism,
immediate satisfaction, and unchecked individualism both
infantilizes and depoliticizes. The election of Donald
Trump cannot simply be dismissed as an eccentric and
dark moment in the history of American politics. His
election proves that collective self-delusion can be
dangerous when the spaces for critical learning, dissent,
and informed judgment begin to whither or disappear
altogether.
As Trump’s presidency gets underway, the neoliberalism’s
hired intellectuals and celebrity pundits have already
ushered in a discourse that will increasing normalize the
regime of a dangerous demagogue, glossing over the
ideological, economic, and religious fundamentalists he
has chosen to fill top government positions. Such actions
represent more than a flight from political and social
responsibility, they also represent a surrender to the dark
forces of authoritarianism. Dierdre Fulton, a writer for The
Nation, is right in arguing that the process of normalization
has already begun since Trump election. She writes:
Oprah Winfrey, in an interview with
Entertainment Tonight, said Trump’s recent
visit to the White House gave her ‘hope’
and suggested he has been ‘humbled’ by
the experience,’ Johnson wrote. ‘The
Guardian’s Simon Jenkins told his readers
 to ‘calm down’ and that Trump wasn’t the
‘worst thing.’ His colleague, Nouriel
Roubini, insisted the Oval Office will
‘tame’ Trump. People magazine ran a
glowing profile of Trump and his wife
Melania (though a former People writer
accused Trump of sexual assault). The
New York Times’ Nick Kristof dubiously
added that we should ‘Grit our teeth and
give Trump a chance.’ The mainstays —
Washington Post, New York Times, and
CNN—while frequently critical, are covering
Trump’s transition as they would any
other.[20]
Democracy should be a way of thinking about education in
a variety of spheres and practices, one that thrives on
connecting equity to excellence, learning to ethics, and
agency to the imperatives of the public good.[21] The
question regarding what role education should play in
democracy becomes all the more urgent at a time when the
dark forces of authoritarianism are being normalized in the
mainstream media. Central to such a discourse are hidden
structures of critique and power attempting to normalize a
full-frontal attack on public values, trust, solidarities, and
modes of liberatory education. As such, the discourses of
hate, humiliation, rabid self-interest, and greed are
exercising a poisonous influence in many Western
societies. This is most evident at the present moment in the
discourse of the right-wing extremists vying to consolidate
their authority within a Trump presidency, all of whom
sanction a war on immigrants, women, young people, poor
Black youth, and so it goes. One consequence is that
democracy is on life support. This is all the more reason to
take the late Edward Said’s call for modes of social
criticism designed “to uncover and elucidate the contest, to
challenge and defeat both an imposed silence and the
normalized quiet of unseen power, wherever and
whenever possible.” Yet, in spite of the dark forces now
threatening many societies around the globe, it is crucial
for intellectuals, artists and others to renounce any form of
normalization of power, the toxic public pedagogies of
neoliberalism, and to take on radical democracy as both a
pedagogical project and unfinished ideal. Such a challenge
will be all the easier if progressives and others can create
the pedagogical conditions that can produce an individual
and collective sense of moral and political outrage, a new
understanding of politics, and the pedagogical and projects
needed to allow democracy to breathe once again.
Trump’s presence in American politics has made visible a
plague of deep seated civic illiteracy, a corrupt political
system, and a contempt for reason; it also points to the
withering of civic attachments, the collapse of politics into
the spectacle of celebrity culture, the decline of public life,
the use of violence and fear to numb people into shock,
and a willingness to transform politics into a pathology.
Trump’s administration will produce a great deal of
violence in American society, particularly among the ranks
94
of the most vulnerable: poor children, minorities of color,
immigrants, women, climate change advocates, Muslims,
and those protesting a Trump presidency. What must be
made clear is that Trump’s election and the damage he will
do to American society will stay and fester in American
society for quite some time because he is only
symptomatic of the darker forces that have been
smoldering in American politics for the last 40 years. What
cannot be exaggerated or easily dismissed is that Trump is
the end result of a long standing series of attacks on
democracy and that his presence in the American political
landscape has put democracy on trial. While mass civil
demonstrations have and continue to erupt over Trump’s
election, what is more crucial to understand is that
something more serious needs to be addressed. We have to
acknowledge that at this particular moment in American
history the real issue is not simply about resisting Donald
Trump’s insidious values and anti-democratic policies but
whether a political system can be reclaimed in which a
notion of radical democracy can be deepened, strengthened
and sustained. Yet, under a Trump presidency, it will be
more difficult to sustain, construct, and nurture those
public spheres that sustain critique, informed dialogue, and
a work to expand the radical imagination. If democracy is
to prevail in and through the threat of “dark times,” it is
crucial that the avenues of critique and possibility become
central to any new understanding of politics. If the
authoritarianism of the Trump era is to be challenged, it
must begin with a politics that is comprehensive in its
attempts to understand the intersectionality of diverse
forces of oppression and resistance. That is, on the one
hand, it must move towards developing analyses that
address the existing state of authoritarianism through a
totalizing lens that brings together the diverse registers of
oppression and how they are both connected and mutually
reinforce each other. On the other hand, such a politics
must, as Robin D.G. Kelley has noted, “move beyond
stopgap alliances”[22] and work to unite single issue
movements into a more comprehensive and broad-based
social movement that can make a viable claim to a
resistance that is as integrated as it is powerful. For too
long progressive cultural workers and activists have
adhered to a narrative about domination that relies mostly
on remaking economic structures and presenting to the
public what might be called a barrage of demystifying
facts and an aesthetics of transgression. What they have
ignored is that people also internalize oppression and that
domination is about not only the crisis of economics,
images that deaden the imagination, and the
misrepresentation of reality, but also about the crisis of
agency, identification, meaning, and desire.
The crisis of economics and politics in the Trump era has
not been matched by a crisis of consciousness and agency.
The failure to develop a crisis of consciousness is deeply
rooted in a society that suffers from a plague of
atomization, loneliness, and despair. Neoliberalism has
undermined any democratic understanding of freedom
limiting its meaning to the dictates of consumerism, hatred
of government, and a politics where the personal is the
only emotional referent that matters. Freedom has
collapsed into the dark abyss of a vapid and unchecked
individualism and in doing so has cancelled out that
capacious notion of freedom rooted in the bonds of
solidarity, compassion, social responsibility, and the bonds
of social obligations. The toxic neoliberal combination of
unchecked economic growth is a discourse that legitimates
the plundering the earths’ resources and exhibits a
pathological disdain for community and public values that
has weakened democratic pressures, values, and social
relations and opened the door for the dark side of politics
under Donald Trump’s Presidency. The rule of the
billionaires and militarists threaten not just democracy but
the existence of the planet. The stakes for both justice, if
not survival, are more important than ever. There is no
room for resignation, internecine squabbles, and despair.
Resistance must take on the challenge of creating an
informed public, the need to develop new forms of non-
violent resistance, and mobilize a collective sense of
outrage mixed with a need for disciplined and focus action.
Pressing the claim for social justice and economic equality
means working hard to develop alternative modes of
consciousness, promote the proliferation of democratic
public spheres, create the conditions for modes of mass
resistance, and make the development of sustainable social
movements central to any viable struggle for economic,
political, and social justice. No viable democracy can exist
without citizens who value and are willing to work towards
the common good. That is as much a pedagogical question
as it is a political challenge.

[1] Yesmin Villarreal, “Betsy DeVos: Education Reform Can ‘Advance God’s Kingdom’”, Advocate (December 3, 2016). Online:
http://www.advocate.com/politics/2016/12/03/antigay-betsy-devos-education-reform-can-advance-gods-kingdom
[2] Catherine Brown, “Point: Trump’s Education Plan —Defund, Devalue and Privatize Our School System.” Inside Sources
(December 5, 2016). Online: http://www.insidesources.com/point-trumps-education-plan-defund-devalue-privatize-school-system/
[3] Amy Goodman, “Housing Advocate: It’s Scary that Trump HUD Secretary Pick Ben Carson Thinks Poverty is a Choice,”
Democracy Now (November 16, 2016). Online: https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/7/housing_advocate_its_scary_that_trump
[4] Brendan Gauthier, “HUD secretary front-runner Ben Carson recently called fair housing ‘communist,’” Salon (November 28,
2016). http://www.salon.com/2016/11/28/hud-secretary-front-runner-ben-carson-recently-called-fair-housing-communist/
[5] Noam Scheiber and Maggie Haberman, “Trump’s Likely Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is Critic of Minimum Wage Increases,” New
York Times (December 8, 2017). Online: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/us/politics/andrew-puzder-labor-secretary-trump.html
[6] Ibid., Scheiber and Haberman, “Trump’s Likely Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is Critic of Minimum Wage Increases.”
[7] Ibid., Scheiber and Haberman, “Trump’s Likely Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is Critic of Minimum Wage Increases.”
[8] Mike Lillis, “Liberal Dems: Trump filling Cabinet with ‘stooges’,” The Hill (December 8, 2016). Online:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/309455-liberal-dems-trump-filling-cabinet-with-stooges
[9] Eric Sommer, “Team Trump: a Government of Generals and Billionaires,” CounterPunch (December 7, 2016). Online:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/07/team-trump-a-government-of-generals-and-billionaires
[10] Cited in Dahr Jamail, “Trump Nominee for Homeland Security John Kelly Favors Draconian Immigration Policy.” The Real News
(December 8, 2016). Online:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=17874
[11] Ibid., Dahr Jamail.
[12] Mathew Rosenberg, “Trump Adviser Has Pushed Clinton Conspiracy Theories,” New York Times (December 5, 2016). Online:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/politics/-michael-flynn-trump-fake-news-clinton.html?_r=0
[13] Henry A. Giroux, On Critical Pedagogy (New York: Bloomsbury, 2011).
[14] Christopher Hass, “This is Serious,” In These Times (December 7, 2016). Online:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=eaf3b5986f&view=pt&search=inbox&th=158daebc10733820&siml=158daebc10733820
[15] On this issue, see Henry A. Giroux, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education (Chicago: Haymarket Press, 2014); Susan Searls
Giroux, “On the Civic Function of Intellectuals Today,” in Gary Olson and Lynn Worsham, eds. Education as Civic Engagement:
Toward a More Democratic Society (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2012), pp. ix-xvii.
[16] Bruce Robbins, “A Starting Point for Politics,” The Nation, (October 22, 2016). Online: https://www.thenation.com/article/the-
radical-life-of-stuart-hall
[17]. Jacques Derrida, “Intellectual Courage: An Interview,” trans. Peter Krapp, Culture Machine, Volume 2 (2000), pp. 1-15.
[18] Pierre Bourdieu, Acts of Resistance (New York: Free Press, 1998), p. 11.
[19] Pierre Bourdieu and Gunter Grass, “The ‘Progressive’ Restoration: A Franco-German Dialogue,” New Left Review 14 (March-
April, 2002), P. 2

95
[20] Deirdre Fulton, “There’s No Normalizing President-Elect Trump,” The Nation (November 14, 2016). Online:
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/14/theres-no-normalizing-president-elect-trump-or-least-there-shouldnt-be
[21] Henry A. Giroux, Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism (New York: Routledge, 2015).
[22] Robin D. G. Kelley, “After Trump,” Boston Review (November 15, 2016). Online: http://bostonreview.net/forum/after-trump/robin-
d-g-kelley-trump-says-go-back-we-say-fight-back
.

96
 Huffpost Editor Jokes About Destroying
Trump Ballots; FBI Investigates
By: Mary Wilder
Date: December 09, 2016
It is a classic leftist move to go back on your word and
then pretend that you were joking the entire time in order
to avoid negative repercussions. This is what they have
been doing for decades now. They are lying weasels that
will do whatever they can in order to avoid paying the
consequences of their actions, which is why the
Democratic Party is in shambles.
Nick Baumann, senior enterprise editor for the Huffington
Post, recently tweeted that he had destroyed Trump ballots
at a polling place in New York City, then immediately
retracted the statement after the FBI contacted him. He
claims that it was all a joke, but can we really believe that
at this point?
Baumann reports that an FBI agent called him to ask about
the tweet and stated,
.
97
“The reason I’m calling is — I can’t give
you too many details over the phone — we
recently received some complaints
regarding some online postings that were
made. I don’t know if you know what that’s
in reference to, but would you be willing to
sit down with us for a couple minutes
tomorrow morning by chance?”
Considering the fact that the Huffington Post was one of
the most anti-Trump, pro-Hillary publications present
during the 2016 presidential election – which is saying a
whole lot, since virtually every mainstream media outlet
voiced hatred for Trump – there is reason not to pass
Baumann’s statement off as a joke. This has been a year
filled with unpredictable travesties at every available turn,
so would we really be surprised to learn that the editor of a
leftist news outlet tried to commit voter fraud? I doubt it.
So if Baumann is telling the truth and he didn’t actually
tamper with ballots at his respective polling place, we still
shouldn’t blame the FBI for investigating. There was so
much riding on this election, and after all the reports of
potential voter fraud, it would be gross negligence to not at
least investigate such a serious accusation. But to pass off
the entire situation as something that is completely silly is,
in reality, completely silly.
This is what the Regressive Left deserves, though. They
have been making a huge deal out of everything for years
now, so it is only fitting that the FBI has made a huge deal
out of something that a leftist journalist wrote online.
Good riddance, folks. Good riddance indeed. …
 Trump’s Chumps:
Victims Of The Old Bait And Switch
By Andrew Levine
December 9, 2016
In the days leading up to his Inauguration, and then for
several months after that, Obamaphilia was in the air. By
the summer of 2009, the fumes and vapors had mostly
cleared out, but a residue lingered on.
A diluted version still lingers; witness the zeal of liberal
NGOs and Democratic Party “outreach” operations
sending birthday cards and thank you notes to the Obamas
– to both of them because Michelle is, by now, the more
popular of the two.
But, of course, what the terminally addled Sarah Palin
called “that hope and change thingee” didn’t quite work
out.
Running against Mitt Romney, a cartoon version of a
Republican grandee who had unconditionally surrendered
to the Tea Party, Obama won again in 2012. By then,
however, nobody expected much good to come of it.
Thus the last time there was a President-elect who had
gotten large numbers of voters’ juices flowing,
disillusionment set in slowly. With Donald Trump, it will
be swift.
It will be bitter and nasty too. Many, maybe most, Trump
voters voted for the billionaire buffoon to send a message
to the various “establishments” or just because they
couldn’t abide Hillary Clinton.
But there were also distressingly many Trump voters who
really are “deplorable,” just as Clinton said. She
exaggerated their numbers, and there is little doubt that she
98
would have been better off keeping her mouth shut. But
she wasn’t wrong.
Unless, as President, Trump is even more pernicious than
he has so far seemed to be, or unless he cedes power to his
most vile appointees, or unless his egotism spins out of
control, those deplorables could turn out to be even more
dangerous than he.
It may take them a while to realize it, but Trump has been
treating them, along with all the other people who voted
for him, as chumps.
If media reports are on point, some of them are already
starting to figure out that they have been suckered. But
with the Inauguration still more than six weeks off, the
vast majority are still cutting the Donald slack. Having
defeated the devil they knew too well, they are adopting a
wait and see attitude towards the devil they latched onto.
When liberals cut Obama slack, it was because they
believed in his essential goodness; no need for a peace
movement while he was calling the shots – evidence
notwithstanding.
Trump supporters are similarly deluded — except that
what they believe in is not their man’s goodness; they
know as well as anyone that he is a badass. What they
believe in is his (magical) ability to restore outsourced jobs
and to “make America great again,” whatever that means.
Sooner or later, most likely sooner, most of them will
figure out that what they voted for is not what they got;
that, in key respects, it is just the opposite. When they do,
expect them to lash out. There will be hell to pay.
Their disillusionment will harm Trump and the Trump
brand, but probably not right away. At first, the usual
victims, the vulnerable communities whose wellbeing and
security Trump’s campaign put in jeopardy, will bear the
brunt.
Now they are suffering because Trump’s most nativist,
racist and Islamophobic supporters are feeling empowered;
it will be worse when disillusionment sets in.
Obviously, it makes no sense to blame everyone who is not
white, straight, male (or female, but like-minded),
Christian (or rabidly Zionist), and long in the tooth for
Trump’s bait and switch.
But, then very little has made sense ever since, to
everyone’s astonishment, the Donald’s efforts to turn the
American political scene into a real world facsimile of a
reality TV show transformed the 2016 election into a farce
– and a cash cow for network and cable TV executives.
***
That there would be a bait and switch was inevitable, once
Trump won. It seems unexpected only because, thinking
Trump would lose, nobody gave it much thought.
Even Trump seemed surprised that he won. Perhaps
someday, he or his children will write a book, or have one
written for them, that will tell what prompted him to run
for President in the first place.
Did he really believe that, as President, he would do his
country some good? In other words, did he dupe himself?
Or was it that he is so taken with himself that he thought
the highest office in the land his due? No doubt, there
were many motives jumbled together, but I suspect that, he
being Trump, the main factor was commercial; the
huckster just wanted to boost his brand.
Whatever got him in, he ought to have gotten out while
there was still time, before he would find himself so far in
above his head that he would be unable to bluster his way
out.
But, for that, he would have had to know what is good for
him, and to have been strong willed enough to act on that
knowledge. There was no way that would happen. The
man is monumentally blind to his shortcomings and
disabilities, and unable to resist his egotistical urges.
Moreover, the bully couldn’t stand to lose – especially to
a girl and, as if that weren’t bad enough, to one he knew to
be inept.
And so, he got swept away by the adoration of the crowds
that decades of mounting anger at the Clintonite
(neoliberal) status quo, fueled by billions of dollars worth
of free media publicity, brought to his rallies.
Were he a tad less taken with himself, it might have
occurred to him that he knew nothing and cared less about
governance. He might also have realized that, coming out
of the campaign, no one respectable would work with him,
and that he would therefore have no choice but to throw
himself on the mercy of the GOP, the party he nearly
destroyed.
99
And so, the rats are running back onto the ship they
thought was sinking. The Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
fans, and the always-biddable Mitt Romney, have all come
begging for jobs.
What a pathetic spectacle! And how humiliating too for
the Donald!
After defying all odds by beating back the Clinton
juggernaut, he will find himself turning the government
over to two old school Republican mediocrities, Reince
Preibus, his Chief of Staff, and Paul Ryan, the Speaker of
the House – and to the reactionaries they will recruit to
colonize the deep state.
Perhaps this is what he always wanted in his heart of
hearts; ruling class solidarity is thicker than water and
maybe thicker even than blood. But, for a savior wannabe,
the fact that the real winners November 8 were Priebus and
Ryan and others of their ilk has got to smart.
***
Even to this date, Trump seems remarkably uninterested in
governance or in learning about the world. He has even
stayed away from intelligence briefings.
Instead, he has remained, as best he can, in campaign
mode – reveling in the crowds he still draws, and saying
and doing whatever he feels like saying or doing at the
time.
His telephone chat last Friday with Taiwan President Tsai
Ing-wen was true to form too. Did he even know that he
was putting four decades of China policy in jeopardy?
Or was he revising America’s one China policy without
bothering to tell anybody or to explain what he was
doing? Either way, so much for what an earlier President
called “a decent respect for the opinion of mankind…”
Based on briefings from Trump apologists, sycophantic
media, led by the more awful than ever Washington Post,
are now claiming that the Donald’s affront to the Chinese
was calculated and had been in the works for weeks. So
much for a “decent respect” for the intelligence of their
readers!
If they had any of that, they would be pointing out that, by
going rogue on China, Trump proved beyond a reasonable
doubt that he is about as much of a diplomat as the average
third grader.
Before long, even the chumps who are now giving the
Donald the benefit of the doubt will realize that turning the
ship of state over to him is like giving the keys to the
family car to a third grader – but with the difference that
the damage a third grader could do is trivial in comparison
to what the Commander-in-Chief of a bloated, armed to
the teeth military, equipped with nuclear weapons out the
wazoo, could unload upon the world.
How is faith in Trump possible? There is no entirely
satisfactory answer; the phenomenon defies explanation.
But the fact that, even now, with the Protestant Ethic a
dead letter, many Americans still take success in business
as an outward sign of inner grace is surely part of the story.
Trump has been successful in business, but not exactly for
reasons of the kind that the Pilgrim Fathers would
approve. He has never been one to postpone gratification;
worldly asceticism is most assuredly not his thing.
From his father, Trump got a lot of money and a lot of
political juice. He put both to use enriching himself
further, flaunting his wealth every chance he got. And but
for the lawyers and accountants who guided him in the fine
arts of tax avoidance and in the use of bankruptcy laws to
make others pay for his mistakes, he would be a poor man
today.
Nevertheless, there actually are people, quite a few of
them, who think that Trump is a great businessman and
will therefore be a great President. Trying to talk them out
of their beliefs is pointless. They are wedded to their
benightedness.
The Donald is hardly suited to the office to which he has
been elected, but there is no denying that he was an
outstanding candidate. He put on a good show, and he
knew how to work his marks. He is still hard at it.
The Carrier deal is a case in point. The much-ballyhooed
narrative has it that Trump made a phone call and voilà, a
thousand jobs were saved. Well, perhaps not a thousand,
since some of them were upper-level management jobs
that were never moving. But who’s counting?
Of course, no one outside Trump’s inner circle, maybe no
one outside his head, knows what he did to pull of this
public relations stunt. All that is known so far is that
Carrier will be getting some seven million dollars worth of
tax concessions from Indiana taxpayers for keeping some
jobs in Indiana.
For how long, nobody knows. This would be the
umpteenth time states and cities have bribed capitalists to
stay put. The record is disappointing; they seldom stay put
for long.
The Trump apologists’ line is that by lowering corporate
tax rates, capitalists will be happy to do their part in
making America great again by keeping manufacturing
jobs here. What kinds of idiots do Trump apologists take
the American people for!
100
What capitalists these days care about is the free flow of
capital; this has almost nothing to do with corporate tax
rates. If they can take their money anywhere, they will
buy the cheapest labor they can find, consistent only with
their need to maintain control over the production process
and with the exigencies of marketing their goods and
services wherever the markets for them are.
No doubt, Trump’s “deal” involved carrots and sticks
about which he and his apologists are keeping mum – most
likely, many carrots and very few sticks. Carrier’s parent
company, United Technologies, is a major defense
contractor – in plain speak, a death merchant. It lives or
dies at the pleasure of the Pentagon and other government
agencies. Trump had plenty of carrots and sticks to
brandish.
But Trump is Trump; he doesn’t know when to stop. With
one vengeful, fact-free tweet about the costs involved in
building the next version of Air Force One, he sent Boeing
stock plummeting, putting many jobs in jeopardy. There is
no reason to think that he will stop there, or that he cares
that “free market” economists are telling him, with
increasing vehemence, that this is not how a healthy
capitalism works.
He will care, though, if what we euphemistically call “the
business community” comes to regard him as a menace.
Then he will have a lot more to deal with than the chumps
he has deceived.
The situation is complicated, however, because capitalists
are nothing if not greedy, and Trump seems to be getting
ready to buy many of them off.
To that end, expect him to make a big show soon of
making good on one of his better campaign promises –
rebuilding America’s transportation infrastructure.
However, Trump’s will not be the kind of infrastructure
program that we desperately need, and that we had in the
FDR through Eisenhower era, continuing, in diminished
form, even as the Vietnam War depleted public funds.
It will not be financed out of public monies. Republicans
have been standing in the way of anything like that for as
long as anyone can remember, and now that they and
Trump need each other badly, this is not about to change.
Trump wants to finance his fiscal stimulus by offering
developers tax breaks. This will enrich them egregiously,
while running up major deficits.
In principle, fiscal stimuli encourage inflation. Combine
that with increasingly massive debt, then add on reckless
deregulation, and you can be sure that financial crises will
come even more frequently than in the past, and that they
will be a lot more devastating in their consequences.
Ironically, Trump’s infrastructure program is very much
like Obamacare, the Obama era government program that
Republicans hate the most. They hate it mainly because
this was Obama’s signature issue and they hate Obama –
for all the wrong reasons.
No matter that its core ideas were hatched at the rightwing
Heritage Foundation, and that something like it was put in
place in Massachusetts before Obama was elected — by
then Governor Mitt Romney.
Obamacare extended insurance coverage to many, though
far from all, uninsured Americans, and it mandated
insurance reforms that even its fiercest critics now no
longer oppose. But the good it did came with a price.
As would have happened under Hillarycare a generation
earlier, it reinforced the power of health care profiteers –
the private insurance companies, the for-profit health care
industry and, worst of all, Big Pharma. In the short run,
everybody won – though not all the profiteers thought they
had won enough. But it also postponed, probably for
another generation, the day when, at last, the United States
will rise to the level of other developed, and many not-so-
developed, countries by according its citizens health care
as a right.
Similarly, if Trump does follow through on his
infrastructure promises, many workers will be helped, and
many others will be helped indirectly because of the
money that will be introduced into the economy.
But this will only ameliorate, temporarily and modestly,
the increasingly dire condition of everyone who is not at
the very top of the prevailing income and wealth
distribution, while financiers and developers will prosper
like never before.
***
If personnel is policy, as the saying goes, then either the
Donald has some very bizarre policy views in mind, or,
more likely, he has nothing in mind at all.
How pathetic is it that one if the few appointments Trump
has made that is not preposterous on its face, his pick of
Four Star General James “Mad Dog” Mattis to head the
Defense Department, puts the principle of civilian control
of the military in jeopardy! Pundits across the spectrum,
from A to B, seem to like him; so do John McCain and
Hillary’s Defense-Secretary-In-Waiting, Michèle
Flournoy.
It seems that, unlike the Donald, he reads books and owns
quite a few on military history. Yippee. No matter that
his views are a tad incoherent – much like Obama’s and
Clinton’s, and McCain’s and Flournoy’s. For instance, if
reports in the media are on track, he wants to ratchet up the
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war against the Islamic State and other jihadi groups, while
simultaneously ratcheting up opposition to Russia and
Iran. Perhaps he hasn’t noticed that Russia has already
largely done the Islamic State in. Or perhaps the principle
that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” has been repealed
and they haven’t bothered to tell anybody about it except
the dunces at the Pentagon, the White House and Foggy
Bottom.
But at least he is not another Curtis LeMay or a Brigadier
General Jack D. Ripper, and, given the standards in place
in Trumpland, that is something to cheer. Also, since it
seems that the Secretary of Defense could impede, and
maybe even block, a President who, in a fit of pique, goes
off the deep end with the nuclear codes, it is reassuring to
have a professional military man on the job.
It is much the same with Trump’s pick of retired Marine
General John Kelley to head the Department of Homeland
Security — except that in his passion to “secure” the
border, he does conform more to the Jack D. Ripper
template. Trump seems to have a thing for Generals, even
more than for real estate tycoons and Wall Street
predators. Military school must have made more of an
impression on the young Donald’s mind than Wharton.
In any case, with those possible exceptions, all of Trump’s
choices are laughable; or would be if the condition of the
ninety-nine percent was less troubled, and if the United
States wasn’t doing a lot more than its fair share to bring
on a global ecological catastrophe, and if it didn’t have a
huge military presence in all the four corners of the world
and a nuclear arsenal capable many times over of ending
life on earth “as we know it,” as they say in Clintonese.
There are, of course, the unspeakably vile ones: Steve
Bannon for Senior Counselor to the President heading the
list. Among other things, Bannon will be Trump’s liaison
with the white supremacist community and with the
Islamophobes and fascisant miscreants in the Trump base.
Bringing up the rear, there is his National Security
Advisor, Lt. General Michael Flynn, one of the most
blatantly Islamophobic nimrods in the military today.
Flynn was forced out of the Defense Intelligence Agency
in 2014 after clashing with his superiors over his
“management style”; among other things, he is said to
have been abusive to his staff, and inclined to make “facts”
up.
As everybody now knows, Flynn’s son and “chief of
staff,” Michael Junior, retweeted fake news stories about
how Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, Robby
Mook, ran a child sex ring out of popular family pizza
restaurant in northwest Washington DC. Father and son
were both on the Trump transition team, and Flynn Senior
retweeted his share too, though without specifically
naming the restaurant.
The two of them were part of a social media blitz that led a
bona fide North Carolina “deplorable” to drive to
Washington to “investigate” the situation, and to brandish
and fire an assault rifle in the pizza parlor.
Coordinating intelligence reports and evaluating their
veracity will be high on the list of Flynn Senior’s tasks as
National Security Advisor.
Congressman Mike Pompeo, Trump’s choice to head the
CIA, is not only among the most vicious Islamophobes in
Congress – no mean feat – but is also a fervent opponent
of abortion and everything else opposed by the Christian
Right.
Billionaire Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick for Secretary of
Education, isn’t much better in that regard. She is an
ardent privatizer too, and an enemy of public education.
But DeVos actually looks good, on the social reactionary
scale, compared to Georgia Congressman Tom Price,
M.D., Trump’s choice to head the Department of Health
and Human Services. If it were up to that crank, even
Medicare would be in trouble.
And then there is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt,
Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection
Agency. Pruitt’s passion is suing the EPA. In Oklahoma,
he led the state’s fight against EPA efforts to rein in carbon
pollution and to protect drinking water. The energy
industry owns his heart and mind.
The competition is stiff, but this may be the worst Trump
appointment of all.
Like Pruitt, Trump’s choice of Alabama Senator Jeff
Session for Attorney General, is both ludicrous and vile.
In saner times, efforts to make Sessions a federal judge
were rejected by the Senate mainly for blatantly racist
remarks he had made. There are countless other reasons
too why the very idea of Sessions in that post would set all
Heaven in a rage, if only Heaven existed. In that vein, it
bears mention that he too is an ardent opponent of
anything and everything frowned upon by the Christian
Right, abortion and same sex marriage above all.
Then there are the choices that are just simply ludicrous:
among others, Nikki Haley for Ambassador to the United
Nations, and, most bizarre of all, the hapless Ben Carson
for the job of Secretary of the Department of Housing and
Urban Development.
102
Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, a benighted state
even by Southern standards, prepared for the role of top
diplomat by earning a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
Her parents came to the United States from India,
however, so she is probably more aware of the outside
world than the average white South Carolinian.
Moreover, compared to Carson, she is an ace. The good
doctor has all but admitted that he knows nothing about
housing, and has no experience dealing with, much less
managing, large and complex bureaucracies. A celebrated
brain surgeon years ago, he has morphed into a dull-witted
laughing stock who believes, among other things, that
poverty is a choice.
This did not prevent him from briefly leading the field of
Republican candidates seeking the nomination for
President in 2016, but it has significantly diminished the
level of prestige accorded brain surgeons. When the point
is to say that something is not difficult or doesn’t require
exceptional intelligence to figure out, we say, for reasons
that are not entirely clear, “it’s not rocket science” or,
nearly as often, we compare it to brain surgery. Thanks to
Carson, rocket science now has the honor all to itself.
Of late too, Carson, who fancies himself a personal friend
of Jesus, has been letting loose with anti-Muslim drivel
that would embarrass even Pruitt and Flynn. Among other
things, he has claimed that Islam is not a real religion.
Obviously, he will be a stellar addition to the menagerie
the Donald is assembling.
Any and all of these appointments could make trouble for
Trump, but none so much as the ones that fall transparently
into the bait and switch category. When Trump voters
realize what chumps they were, the Donald will rue the
day he let his autocratic fantasies supersede what little
common sense he had.
Trump chose Steven Mnuchin, a notorious bankster with
impeccable Goldman Sachs connections for the key role of
Secretary of the Treasury. Like many Wall Streeters,
Mnuchin has, over the years, “donated” huge sums to
Democrats, including Hillary Clinton. This has already
been noticed in rightwing news sources.
But his appointment will reassure one-percenters that,
campaign promises notwithstanding, they have nothing to
fear from their class brother. On the other hand, the people
that media pundits call “populists” will likely have a
different take on the situation, once they stop being
bedazzled by Trump’s badass bluster.
Vulture capitalist Wilbur Ross, Trump’s choice for
Secretary of Commerce is, if anything, even less
“populist” hero material than Mnuchin. When Woody
Guthrie talked about bankers robbing people not with six-
shooters but with fountain pens, it was people like Ross –
and Mnuchin too – that he had in mind.
And, as if all that were not enough, Trump has announced
that he will be convening a panel of high-flyers to consult
with him on a monthly basis. According to CNN, the
group has been assembled by Steven Schwartzman, CEO
of the notorious Blackstone Group, and is made up of a
“who’s who” of CEOs – including GM’s Mary Barra,
Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, GE’s former CEO Jack
Welch, Bob Iger from Disney and Walmart’s Doug
McMillon. This should set Trump voters’ hearts aflutter.
It’s the old story in what we have come to call
“democracies”: vote for X and get not-X. At least this
time the disillusionment will come to those who need and
deserve it most.
UPDATE:
As of this writing, news is breaking that Trump has named
fast food (Hardee’s and Carl Jr.’s ) CEO, Andrew Puzder,
to be his Secretary of Labor. This is bad news for workers
fighting for a $15/hour minimum wage and for unions. It
also ought to further explode the myth that Trump is on the
workers’ side. It probably won’t, though – at least not at
first. There are still to many scales on the eyes of too
many working people.
Meanwhile, the Donald has yet to tweet his choice for
Secretary of State. I would be very surprised were he to
103
come up with somebody who, like Mad Dog Mattis, is not
stupendously awful. It will more likely be somebody like
Mike Flynn — vile and ludicrous but not totally
inappropriate, the way that Ben Carson is.
John Bolton has been to Trump Tower several times,
presumably to talk himself up. He is certainly odious
enough to win the Donald over. But he is an
unreconstructed neocon, and Trump claims to be non-
ideological. He probably isn’t, but then he isn’t consistent
either.
Here’s a thought: in much the way that Dick Cheney chose
himself to be George Bush’s Vice President, Jared
Kushner, the Trump son-in-law and key transition advisor,
could pick himself. He’d be perfect for the job: totally
unprepared, loyal to the Great Man, and, just in case
rightwing Zionists get antsy over Steve Bannon’s
flirtations with classical anti-Semites, he would be there to
reassure them that when Trump goes after everybody else,
he will leave the Jews alone – except, of course, the ones
who are secular or liberal or insufficiently enamored of a
certain ethnocratic settler state.
What I hope most, though, is that Trump goes for Mitt
Romney. Then the bait and switch will be so glaringly
obvious that even the most obtuse Trump supporters would
have to realize how snookered they have been.
Their fury, once unleashed, will do Trump in faster and
more decisively than anything else could.
 Trump Is Condemned For Talking To Liberty-Loving
Taiwan President… But Obama Cozied Up With Dictators
By: Don Wrightman
Date: December 09, 2016
On Sunday, ABC program “This Week” was commenting
on the controversy regarding a phone call between Donald
Trump and Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen. Mike Pence
said it was mystifying that Obama could have talks with
Cuban dictator Raul Castro and be hailed a hero. So
essentially there is nothing wrong with Obama talking to
brutal dictators, but when Trump does the same outrage
ensues.
Pence said that they will deal with policy issues after
January 20th, when the duo are officially in the White
House. The phone call from Taiwan’s leader was a
courtesy call. American’s should appreciate the fact that
Trump is taking calls and reaching out to the rest of the
world in preparation to lead America.
Cuba isn’t the only example of Obama talking to brutal
dictators. In late July Obama went to Cairo, Egypt to meet
with brutally repressive President, General Abdel Fattah
.
104
el-Sisi. The spectacle was a triumph that symbolized the
General’s militaristic powers in Egypt, and a victory over
the American president who had tried to punish him prior
to surrendering to the harsh realities of geopolitics. Obama
was appalled after a massacre where some one thousand
pro-Morsi protesters were gunned down.
“We can’t return to business as usual”
Obama continued, “We have to be very
careful about being seen as aiding and
abetting actions that we think run contrary
to our values and ideals.”
Donald Trump’s talk with Taiwan’s leader was more
brilliant then it was a blunder. The deliberate move was
carefully planned and Trump received a full briefing prior
to the call. Trump was notifying China that they are
dealing with a different kind of president. Trump is an
outsider who won’t be encumbered by diplomatic threads
that have restrained prior administrations. The message
sent was that Trump will talk to whomever he wants if he
feels it is in the best interest of the United States. Nobody
in China gets to dictate who the new US leader can and
can’t talk to.
If China somehow missed Trump’s message, he reinforced
it via tweet on Sunday. “Did China ask us if it was OK to
devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies
to compete), heavily tax our products going into their
country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive
military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I
don’t think so!” Trump promised throughout his campaign
that he would take a tougher stance with China.
 Hostile Takeover
By Lewis Lapham
December 9, 2016
“The populace may hiss me, but when I
go home and think of my money, I
applaud myself.”
—Horace, Epistles
It’s been a month since the election, and in the mirrored
halls of the news and social media the contributors of
uplifting opinion have been telling themselves that no
matter what else might be said about the campaigns and
the vote, it was a great day for Democracy. Rough and
tumble democracy in the raw, free-range, artisanal and
organic, the will of the people trampling out the vintage of
political correctness, emerging from the ash heap of
vicious cant, texting “yes” to the Declaration of
Independence, “no” to an uncivil transfer of power. Cue
the music, roll the camera and the flag. The people have
spoken. Our democracy lives. Government of the people,
by the people and for the people is not perished from the
earth.
Which might have been the case had Bernie Sanders been
on the ballot. He wasn’t, and neither was democracy.
What was on the ballot was plutocracy, complacently
stupefied and transparently corrupt at the top of the
Republican and the Democratic ticket. Two gold-plated
names on the same boardroom door, both candidates
representative of and privileged by a government of the
rich, by the rich and for the rich that for the last thirty
years has been arranging the country’s political and
socioeconomic affairs. The election campaign was the
struggle for control of corporate management, Hillary
Clinton seeking to fend off a hostile takeover by Donald
Trump, the lady and the lout both standing four square and
true blue for the freedom of money, steadfast and vigilant
against the freedoms of movement and thought.
105
Clinton lost the election because she tried to pretend what
she was not—a caring friend of all the people, ardent
believer in the rule of law. She could talk the prerecorded
talk, but she couldn’t walk the walk, her prior record, like
her every move and gesture, showing her to be in it for
herself, deserving of the deference owed to the Queen of
England, the jack of diamonds and the ace of spades.
Trump won the election because he didn’t try to sell the
Gettysburg Address. Upfront and fascist in his scorn for
the democratic idea, he declared his candidacy on June 16,
2015, a deus ex machina descending by escalator into the
atrium of Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue,
there to say, and say it plainly, democracy is for losers.
Money, ladies and gentlemen, is power, and power, my
friends, is not self-sacrificing or Democratic. Never was
and never will be; law unto itself, and the only one that
counts. Name of the game, nature of the beast.
The mogul could afford the luxury of truth because he was
really, really rich, un-bought and un-bossed, so selfishly
and fearlessly rich he was free to do and say whatever it
came into his head to do and say, whatever it took to root
out the cowardly incompetence in Washington, clean up
the mess in the Middle East, plant well-paying jobs in the
American heartland. His was the greatest brand on earth
come to make America once again the greatest show on
earth, revive it with the sweet smell of his signature men’s
colognes, Empire and Success.
Trump didn’t need briefing papers or policy positions to
refine the message. He embodied it live and in person, an
unscripted and overweight canary flown from its gilded
cage, telling it like it is from the inside looking out. Had he
time or patience for messing around with books, he could
have sourced his wisdom to Supreme Court Justice Lewis
Brandeis, who in 1933 presented the case to Franklin D.
Roosevelt at the outset of the New Deal:
“We must make our choice. We may have
democracy, or we may have wealth
concentrated in the hands of a few, but we
can’t have both.”
In the world according to Trump, as it was in the worlds
according to Alexander Hamilton and Ronald Reagan,
democracy is a tip on a dead horse. An idea as far past its
sell-by date as FDR’s straw hat, not up to the task of
keeping America safe or running the trains on time. Too
long-winded and slow, soft in the head and weak in the
knees, no match for the barbarians (Mexican and African,
radical Islamic and leftist academic) at the gates of
Westchester County and Palm Beach.
Not the exact words in Trump’s self-glorifying mouth, but
the gist of the commandment he brought down from his
Mount Sinai penthouse suite in June 2015, the one that for
the next eighteen months he tweeted to phone and shouted
to camera in red states and blue, pandering to the popular
resentment and loathing of the Washington politicians and
Wall Street masters of the universe who for two
generations have been playing ordinary Americans for
suckers.
Trump never tired of trash-talking the system of which he
was a proud and ornamental figurehead, and the fans on
fairgrounds in Kentucky and Ohio screamed and stamped
in agreement because what he was saying they knew to be
true—not as precept from a high-minded think tank but
from their own downwardly mobile experience. Up close
and personal they had suffered the consequences of the
plutocracy’s ongoing and bi-partisan slum clearance
project—class warfare waged by the increasingly
frightened rich against the increasingly debt-burdened,
disenfranchised and angry poor, the bulk of the nation’s
wealth (actual and virtual, animal, mineral, vegetable and
intellectual) amassed by 10% of its population, more laws
restraining the freedom of persons, fewer laws limiting the
license of property, the systematic juggling of the public
light and land and air into the private purse, a national
security apparatus herding sheep into the shelters of heavy
law enforcement and harmless speech, every occupant of
the White House from Reagan to Obama pleased to hold
himself above the law, both houses of Congress reduced to
impotent paralysis, a political discourse made by a news
media presenting presidential candidates as game show
contestants mounted on selfie sticks and played for jokes
until brought to judgment on election night before the
throne of cameras by whom and for whom they are
produced.
.
106
The camera doesn’t do democracy; democracy is the
holding of one’s fellow citizens in respectful regard, not
because they are beautiful or rich or famous but because
they are one’s fellow citizens and therefore worth the
knowing what they say and do. The work is tedious and
slow; too many words with too little action doesn’t sell
tickets. What sells tickets is celebrity, and because the
camera sees but doesn’t think, it makes no meaningful or
moral distinction between a bubble bath in Las Vegas
staffed by pretty girls and a bloodbath in Palmyra staffed
by headless corpses. The return on investment in both
scene settings is the bankable flow of emotion drawn from
the bottomless wells of human wish, dream, ignorance and
fear.
It didn’t matter what Trump said or didn’t say, whether he
was cute and pink or headless. The journalists on the road
with the mogul’s traveling circus weren’t covering a play
of ideas; like flies to death and honey, they were drawn to
the sweet decaying smell of overripe celebrity, enchanted,
as is their custom, by the romance of crime.
Blind to homespun shoes on common ground, the camera
gazes adoringly at leather boots on horseback. So does the
America movie-going public. Always a sight for sore eyes,
the boots on horseback. They ride into town with the
lonesome pine hero in the trail-weary saddle, knight errant,
deadly and just, up against the odds and the system, come
to remove the corrupt sheriff and redeem the God-fearing
settlers, clean up the mess in the Middle West saloon, set
the crooked straight, distribute moral fabric, civic virtue
and a fair share of the loot to the storekeep, the shepherd
and the school teacher.
Trump pitched his campaign on the storyline the movie-
going electorate likes a lot better than the one about
Honest Abe Lincoln. The networks, the cable channels and
the self-adoring social media, hoisted him up there in
lights with robber-barons Vanderbilt and Rockefeller,
gunslingers Eastwood and Stallone, mafia dons Corleone
and Soprano. November 8, 2016 may become a night to
remember, but it wasn’t a great day for democracy.
 Someone Tell the Fake News Media=> Trump Appoints
Most Female Members to Cabinet in History
Jim Hoft
Dec 9th, 2016 3:15 pm

history https://t.co/BC4eOvsnz3 via

@MailOnline
— David Martosko (@dmartosko)
December 9, 2016

Image via Reagan Battalion

Here is a recent headline from The New York Times—

“Is Donald Trump’s Cabinet Anti-Woman?”

This was posted on Wednesday:

Then two days later we find out that

Donald J Trump has appointed the most
female members to a cabinet in Now who is pushing the fake news again?
American history.
Picking "CMR" to run Interior would give
Trump's initial cabinet the most women in
.

107
 Rogue Republican Elector Warns Trump:
"I Am Not The Only One Who Will Not Vote For You"
By Tyler Durden
Dec 9, 2016 1:17 PM
Last week a Republican member of the Electoral College,
Christopher Suprun, published an op-ed in the NYT
explaining why he would not be casting his vote for
Donald Trump. Suprun is the same elector who the NY
Post reported one month ago that he’s on track to vote as
assigned for Donald Trump next month, despite reports
saying he’d consider going rogue and voting for Hillary
Clinton. Previously, Politico had quoted Suprun in August
saying he found Trump so unpalatable, he’d consider
going “rogue” and voting for Clinton. He then told the Post
that he “always planned to vote for his party’s nominee”
when Electoral College electors gather in their respective
state capitals to finalize Trump’s presidency on Dec. 19.
He lied, as his NYT op-ed made very clear:
"The election of the next president is not
yet a done deal,” Suprun wrote. “Electors of
conscience can still do the right thing for
the good of the country. Presidential
electors have the legal right and a
constitutional duty to vote their
conscience.”
"Trump lacks the foreign policy experience
and demeanor needed to be commander in
chief", Suprun also wrote, adding that
Trump’s business dealings might pose
unacceptable conflicts of interest, Suprun
adds - a problem that could seem him
“impeached in his first year given his
dismissive responses."
Yesterday, Suprun spoke to Jonathan Karl and Rick Klein
on the Powerhouse Politics Podcast, and suggested that
there are other Republican electors who will follow Suprun
in not voting for Trump.
"At this point there are people who have
reached out to me. Again it wouldn’t be
my place to name who they are," he
said, though he indicated he was talking
about Republican electors.
"I am confident in saying, at this point," he
continued,"I don’t think I will be the only
one voting for someone other than
Donald Trump who is carrying a
Republican elector seat."
108
It was not clear which former candidate would earn
Suprun's vote since his choice, Ohio Governor John
Kasich, has said he is not interested.
Still, Suprun is confident he will find someone:
"As electors come forward, and I have had
conversations with other Republican
electors in particular, I think we will start
discussing names specifically and see who
meets the test that we could all get behind,"
he said.
"The point of this isn’t just to go down and
raise a little ruckus it is to vote for the
person we think would best be able to hold
the position."
Of course, tens of millions of Americans are fairly
confident that person has already been found, and are
confused why Suprun believes he has the right to override
the responsibility bestowed upon him by Trump's voters.
Meanwhile, Suprun says he has received both positive and
negative reactions. On the positive side are people who say
his actions restore their faith in the country. On the other
side he has
"received several twitter threats directly."
"I have been told that this type of action
leads to insurrection, which I think is
unfortunate," Suprun said. "There has
been some backlash. Unfortunately
there are some Trump backers who
think violence is the answer."
Suprun had been a Trump supporter but said he
"started having very serious doubts two
weeks ago when on the Sunday talk shows
Mr. Trump started talking about a phantom
three million illegal votes, where he was
attacking members of the press for
exercising their first amendment rights."
"I think he is the only candidate I am aware
of who ever asked a foreign country to
hack his political opponent’s e mail account
 to find out what is in them, which I consider
almost an invitation to espionage. We know Meanwhile, many angry voters took to Twitter calling for
he has been a demagogue. He has not Supron to be replaced as an elector.
attempted to unite the country. Even when
Time Magazine made him their Person Of
The Year they called him 'President of the
Divided States of America.' And, finally,
most objectively, he seems to have
financial conflicts of interest which he won’t
resolve."

Quoted by ABC, Suprun said he is in favor of an electoral

college, but doesn’t think it should be "a rubber stamp." As
he wrote in his recent New York Times article, he believes
his actions fall squarely in the Hamiltonian tradition. He
wrote that "the United States was set up as a republic.
Alexander Hamilton provided a blueprint for states' votes.
Federalist 68 argued that an Electoral College should
determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in
demagogy, and independent from foreign influence."

Finally, here is a smug Supron appearing

on the Tucker Carlson show defending his
views and declaring that we won't find out
who will be President until the
"election" actually happens on
December 19th.
"December 19th is when the election
actually happens. I'm actually surprised
you didn't know that. But that's when
electors actually cast their ballots. And
that's when we'll find out who is It remains to be seen if his effort fizzles away and is
President." forgotten like Jill Stein's attempt to "recount" the election
away from Donald Trump.

109
 Obama Orders Intelligence Community To Conduct "Full
Review" Of 2016 Election Results, Keep Results Secret
By Tyler Durden
Dec 9, 2016 5:15 PM
Still unable to accept the fact that running a failed
candidate and/or failed democratic policies may have had
anything to do with Hillary's loss last month, Obama has
directed the "intelligence community" to conduct a "full
review" of alleged Russian interference in the 2016
election.
Per The Hill, the review is slated to begin immediately
with the goal of being presented to Congress before
Obama leaves office on January 20, 2017.
President Obama has directed the
intelligence community to conduct “a
full review” of the 2016 election in light
of reports of Russian interference,
Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco
said Friday.
The report is expected to be completed
and transmitted to Congress before he
leaves office Jan. 20.
“We’ll see what comes out publicly,”
Monaco told reporters at a Christian
Science Monitor breakfast.
Monaco gave few other details about the report, other than
to say that it will
"capture lessons learned and ... report from
a range of stakeholders to include their
comments."
"This is consistent with the work we did
over the summer to engage both the
Congress and global stakeholders, in terms
of providing them the information and tools
to defend themselves," Monaco said.
While Hillary consistently said during the campaigning
cycle that "17 U.S. intelligence agencies" had confirmed
Russia's involvement in the hacking of John Podesta's
emails, as WikiLeaks pointed out, those "17 intelligence
agencies" actually came down to one very ambiguous
comment, by Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper, which actually offered no evidence and didn't
actually confirm Russian involvement at all.
110
No, Hillary, 17 U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Did Not Say Russia Hacked Dem E-mails
https://t.co/89A61juRJm h/t @fredfleitz
pic.twitter.com/0nWozoy2a8
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 22,
2016
But we probably shouldn't let facts get in the way here.
Meanwhile, numerous politicians on The Hill, from Elijah
Cummings to Republican Lindsey Graham, have also
called for investigations into alleged Russian hacking.
A myriad of lawmakers have pushed for
various investigations into the attacks.
A group of Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats,
including Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),
has urged Obama to declassify and release
“additional information concerning the
Russian Government and the U.S.
election.”
Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer
(Md.) and six other ranking members on
Tuesday urged the administration to
brief Congress on the matter.
Oversight Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)
and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) have announced
legislation to create an independent commission to study
Russian interference in the election.
Meanwhile, Graham said this week that
he will spearhead investigations into the
matter.
Again, we don't want to let facts disrupt the narrative too
much, but as we pointed out yesterday, the only confirmed
case of an actual hacking attempt related to the 2016
election to date originated at the Department of Homeland
Security against the Georgia voter database.
We wonder whether Obama's
intelligence review will offer any
insights on that incident?
 Michael Moore Calls for ‘Disruption’
Of Trump’s Inauguration
© AP Photo/ Joel Ryan US 22:19 09.12.2016
Liberal activist and prominent filmmaker Michael Moore
has called for a "bold mobilization" against the upcoming
January 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump as America’s
45th president. The campaign seeks to force Trump’s
inauguration
"behind closed doors, showing the true
face of the security state Trump will preside
over."
Republican Donald Trump won the presidential election by
a comfortable margin in the electoral college, but lost the
popular vote by some 2.7 million votes. This, along with
Trump’s divisive rhetoric, has galvanized various groups
to negate or, at least, seek to diminish his approaching
presidency.
One prominent figure among these groups is the
iconoclastic political activist Michael Moore. The film
documentarian appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers
December 8 to insist that he would "lead the charge"
against keeping Trump out of the White House.
"Fifty four percent of the voters didn’t want
Donald Trump… the majority of Americans
do not want him in the White House,"
Moore told Meyers, after adding the votes from third-party
candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. Moore has
launched what he calls the #DisruptJ20 campaign to
organize and execute mass protest in Washington DC
during Trump’s inauguration. The organization’s website
states that
“Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and
misogyny. He is the champion of neo-nazis
and white Nationalists, of the police who kill
111
the Black, Brown and poor on a daily basis,
of racist border agents and sadistic prison
guards, of the FBI and NSA who tap your
phone and read your email.”
The website takes a clearly demarcated
"with-us-or-against-us" stance on Trump’s
presidency, calling for corporations to
"openly declare whether they side with
[Trump] or with the people who will suffer at
his hands." #DisruptJ20 groups Trump with
"the KKK, Vladimir Putin, Golden Dawn,
and the Islamic State," all of whom
"cheered his victory."
The organization has banned law enforcement and
journalists from participating. Lacy MacAuley, a
#DisruptJ20 spokeswoman, explained the ban to WND:
"Our meetings are safe zones in which
people want to speak freely without
knowing that a police officer is listening, or
thinking that they could be quoted in the
press. This is especially important when
Trump and Trump-affiliated people threaten
intermittently to violate our freedom of
speech, freedom of assembly and freedom
of expression."
#DisruptJ20 will coincide with the Women’s March on
Washington, whose website states that their mission is to
"send a bold message to our new
administration on their first day in office,
and to the world that women's rights are
human rights."
At the time of this writing, over 138,000 people have, on
Facebook, declared their intent to join the march.
Moore caused a stir in July when he presciently predicted
that Trump would win the presidency by carrying the
states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio,
sometimes called the Rust Belt. Most predictions had
Democrat Hillary Clinton carrying all four.
 Trump Team Says 'Move On,'
After Obama Calls For Cyber-Hacking Probe
Published December 10, 2016

Donald Trump’s presidential transition team late Friday
criticized President Obama's order for a full-scale review
of campaign-season cyber-attacks allegedly linked to
Russia, saying it’s “time to move on.”
Trump has been repeatedly dismissive of the intelligence
community's determination that Russia sought through
hacking to disrupt the U.S. election, which he won in a
stunning upset over Democratic presidential nominee
Hillary Clinton.
“The election ended a long time ago in one
of the biggest Electoral College victories in
history. It's now time to move on and `Make
America Great Again,’ ” the transition team
said. "These are the same people that said
Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction.”
The investigation ordered by Obama will be a "deep dive"
into a possible pattern of increased "malicious cyber
activity" timed to the campaign season, White House
spokesman Eric Schultz said Friday.
On Saturday, New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer,
the next Senate minority leader, called for the Republican-
led Congress to address the issue.
“Reports of the CIA’s conclusion that
Russia actively sought to help elect Donald
Trump are simultaneously stunning and not
surprising, given Russia’s disdain for
democracy and admiration for autocracy,”
Schumer said. “Senate Democrats will join
with our Republican colleagues next year
to demand a congressional investigation
and hearings to get to the bottom of this.”
The administration probe will include looking into the
email hacks that rattled the presidential campaign. It also
will look at the tactics, targets, key actors and the U.S.
government's response to the hacks, as well as incidents
reported in past elections,.
The president ordered the report earlier in the week and
asked that it be completed before he leaves office next
month, Schultz said.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the CIA has
concluded that Russia aimed specifically to help Trump, a
Republican, win the presidency.
The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations.
In the months leading up to the election, email accounts of
Democratic Party officials and a top Clinton campaign
aide were breached, emails leaked and embarrassing and
private emails posted online. Many Democrats believe the
hackings benefited Trump's bid.
Schultz said the president sought the probe as a way of
improving U.S. defense against cyberattacks and was not
intending to question the legitimacy of Trump's victory.
Obama's move comes as Democratic lawmakers have been
pushing Obama to declassify more information about
Russia's role, fearing that Trump, who has promised a
warmer relationship with Moscow, may not prioritize the
issue.
The White House said it would make parts of the report
public and would brief lawmakers and relevant state
officials on the findings.
It emphasized the report would not focus solely on Russian
operations or email hacks involving Clinton campaign
Chairman John Podesta and Democratic National
Committee accounts. The emails were made public by
WikiLeaks.
Schultz said intelligence officials would be reviewing
incidents going back to the 2008 presidential campaign,
when the campaigns of Sen. John McCain and Obama
were breached by hackers.
The intelligence community has already concluded that
Russia-backed actors likely were involved in breaching
and releasing the Democratic Party emails.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied the Russian
government or any other “state parties” were the source for
the 50,000 emails, which fueled weeks of embarrassing
coverage for the Clinton campaign detailing behind-the-
scenes discussions and arguments among advisers and
family members.

112
Many Democrats believe the disclosures in emails stolen alt-right’s fault," she said. "It’s … fake
from Democratic Party officials and Podesta’s account news’ fault. It’s Russian interference. It’s
benefited Trump. James Comey. ... How about you had no
message?"
Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told “Fox &
Friends” on Friday that Democrats “won’t learn the Fox News’ Chad Pergram, Jake Gibson and Catherine
lessons” from the 2016 race. Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
"A little self-awareness would do for a team
that is blaming everybody but themselves
for this. It’s Bernie Sanders’ fault … It’s the
.

113
 CIA Big Lie Claims Russia
Intervened To Get Trump Elected
By Stephen Lendman
12-10-2016
Utter rubbish! A same day article and earlier ones
explained Russia didn’t hack DNC emails or interfere in
any way with America’s election process.
Not a shred of evidence suggests otherwise. Yet anti-
Russia, anti-Trump bashing continues endlessly, likely
with no letup once in office unless he pursues dirty
business as usual like his predecessors, abandoning his
positive geopolitical pledges.
According to the neocon Washington Post,
“a secret (obviously cooked CIA)
assessment (claims) Russia intervened in
the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win
the presidency, rather than just to
undermine confidence in the US electoral
system, according to (unnamed) officials
briefed on the matter.”
A senior unnamed one was quoted, saying
“(i)t 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. That’s the consensus
view.”
Hillary supporters won’t quit, including DHS, DNI, the
CIA, most media scoundrels, various other groups, and
who knows what others will emerge from the woodwork to
make baseless claims.
According to WaPo,
“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) voiced doubts about the veracity of
the intelligence, according to officials
present.”
.
114
With no credible evidence supporting accusations,
everyone should. In a private meeting with key senators,
the CIA
“cited a growing body of (manufactured)
intelligence from multiple (disreputable)
sources.”
Saying it’s “quite clear” electing Trump was Russia’s aim
is a bald-faced lie. According to WaPo, its
“presentation…fell short of a formal
assessment.”
It provided no evidence.
A second unnamed senior US official said intelligence
agencies have nothing connecting Russia to whoever
passed on hacked DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange emphatically denied Russian involvement.
“The White House and CIA officials
declined to comment,” said WaPo.
CIA, DHS and DNI claims of Russian interference in
America’s election process were fabricated.
“(K)ey Republican lawmakers have
continued to question the quality of (claims)
supporting Russian involvement,” WaPo
explained.
There’s no connection, “no clear evidence,”
said Rep. Devin Nunes (R. CA), House
Intelligence Committee chairman and
Trump transition team member. “There’s a
lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial
evidence, that’s it.”
None of it passes the smell test!
 Obama Regime Positions To Retain Power,
Stay In Office, As Shitstorm Develops
Obama Admins Scurries To Flip Script
By Shepard Ambellas -
12.10.2016 @10:19 AM EST
(INTELLIHUB) — Major coordinated attacks on the
President-elect’s character and judgement have been
launched as of late Friday night, after the New York Times
and Washington Post both released major
disinformation pieces, citing how the C.I.A. has ruled with
“high confidence” that the Russians helped sway the
elections, creating Trump’s win.
Astonishingly, I predicted this exact scenario just an hour
or more before the bombshell propaganda pieces were
released, which can be seen in the following Tweet. (Click
on the Tweet to see full context)
Now the C.I.A. is claiming that the Republican National
Committee was hacked by the Russians in addition to the
already purported Democratic National Committee hack,
leading the Intelligence operatives to “believe” that the
information was intentionally withheld by Wikileaks and
or the Russians, which they claim thrusted Trump into the
presidency.
Although it has also been reported that one senior
government official had been briefed by the F.B.I. who
found that attempts to penetrate the R.N.C. were
unsuccessful, the C.I.A. is now claiming the opposite, in
an attempt by the Obama Admin to flip the script.
Additionally the New York Times reported:
“In briefings to the White House and
Congress, intelligence officials, including
.
115
those from the C.I.A. and the National
Security Agency, have identified individual
Russian officials they believe were
responsible. But none have been publicly
penalized.”
The New York Times went on to purport the following
‘fake news’ Friday, using haphazard terminology, which
offers the publication an out, carefully writing how
“cybersecurity companies believe”, meaning they actually
have no proof they just “believe.” Just a play on words to
push the new and patently false narrative.
Intelligence officials and private cybersecurity companies
believe that the Democratic National Committee was
hacked by two different Russian cyberunits. One, called
“Cozy Bear” or “A.P.T. 29” by some Western security
experts, is believed to have spent months inside the D.N.C.
computer network, as well as other government and
political institutions, but never made public any of the
documents it took. (A.P.T. stands for “Advanced Persistent
Threat,” which usually describes a sophisticated state-
sponsored cyberintruder.)
The other, the G.R.U.-controlled unit known as “Fancy
Bear,” or “A.P.T. 28,” is believed to have created two
outlets on the internet, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, to
make Democratic documents public. Many of the
documents were also provided to WikiLeaks, which
released them over many weeks before the Nov. 8 election.
In light of the recent propaganda push, President Obama
has ordered Intelligence agencies to submit a report before
he leaves office on Jan. 20, which Obama may potentially
use to stay in power by declaring the elections were rigged.
The President-elect is rejecting claims of Russian
espionage, saying, “These are the same people that said
Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” which
led to war and the deaths of over 600,000 people,
according to a Lancet Survey.
 Leftist News Site's
'Best-Case Scenario': Assassinate Trump
'Our Double Agent Is Ready To Carry Out The Order'
December 11, 2016

Fusion, the liberal news site aimed at millenials and
multiculturals and created by the Spanish-language
Univision network in 2013, has joined those who think
toying with the idea of assassinating Donald Trump is
acceptable political speech.
The site posted a four-panel cartoon Thursday by Matt
Bors titled, “The best case scenarios under Trump,” one
of which shows a plot employing Melania Trump as a
Slovenian double agent being ID’d as her husband’s
assassin.
The comic’s other panels hold out hope for anti-Trumpers
in a miraculous reversal from the Jill Stein recount,
impeachment and total nuclear annihilation.
“Scarlet Letters: The Ever-increasing
Intolerance of the Cult of Liberalism
Exposed” illustrates how the
progressive movement came to mimic a
religion in its structure but not at all in
116
its spirit, while profiling those brave
individuals who dared to take a stand
against this inquisition.
“If President-elect Obama had been the
subject of a cartoon like this by
conservatives eight years ago, the howls
against such a sick display of hate and
incitement to violence would have reached
high heaven,” noted Ken Oliver-Méndez,
director, Media Research Center-Latino.
“If Fusion’s management has any sense
left, they should immediately order that the
cartoon be taken down.”
The Fusion posting comes the same week leftist activist
and filmmaker Michael Moore said “something crazy”
could happen before Inauguration Day that prevents
Trump from ever taking office.

Appearing Wednesday evening on “Late Night with Seth
Meyers,” Moore shared what he called his “prediction”:
“[Trump] is not president of the United
States yet. He’s not president, right? He’s
not president ’til noon on Jan. 20 of 2017.
That is – what are we, Wednesday the 9th?
– so that’s more than six weeks away. …
So is it possible, that within the next six
weeks, something else might happen?
Something crazy. Something that we’re not
expecting.”
Moore did not elaborate on what that “something crazy”
might be, but he is actively promoting efforts by groups
planning to disrupt Trump’s inauguration.
Only last month when Trump was rushed off stage by the
Secret Service at a Reno rally, Fusion treated the scare and
early reports of an attempted assassination as “fake news.”
Fusion is not the only publication treating assassination of
the president-elect lightly … or worse.
WND reported a feature writer for the Guardian
newspaper of London tweeting,
“It’s about time for an assassination.”
Another Twitter user posted that the “only” remaining
question after Tuesday’s election is who will “assassinate”
Trump, the New York Post reported.
Other users even cited the Jan. 20 inauguration as a
deadline for assassination.
“Trump chose the literal worst case
scenario as VP so nobody would try to
impeach or assassinate him,” one user,
referring to his conservative running mate
Mike Pence, posted on Twitter.
.
117
Even America’s schools have been generated threats
against Trump.
WND reported an incident last month at Ordean-East
Middle School in Duluth, Minnesota, in which a photo of
President-elect Donald Trump was placed in a trophy case
with the caption
“You’re a dead man.”
Get the hottest, most important news
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The day following last month’s election, a Fusion editorial
declared the site “the voice of the resistance” and
committed itself to a hard-left political agenda for the
Trump years ahead.
“This is our time to prove that we, too, are
America – the America of tomorrow. We
will not be left behind. We’re survivors,
we’re protesters, we’re vocal, and we don’t
give up” the editorial concluded.
What do YOU think? Sound off in
today’s WND Poll on left’s casual talk
about assassinating Trump.
A week later, however, Univision announced a six percent
layoff after the company slipped into the red, with many of
the job cuts targeted at Fusion. The inconvenient business
decision came not only a week after the editorial staff’s
post-election manifesto, but also a week after the majority
of that same editorial staff voted to unionize – a decision
opposed by Univision.
One disappointed Fusion staffer told Politico:
“The newsroom was empty after the
announcement. The remaining staff is
uncertain of its future and the toxic morale
is palpable. No one can believe that the
most talented and hardest working staffers
were cut and yet a company that prides
itself on diversity and progressive values
chose to keep those who’ve contributed the
least and make the most.”
Univision chairman, Haim Saban, donated between $10
and $25 million to The Clinton Foundation, reported
Newsbusters. His wife, Cheryl, serves on the foundation’s
board. Emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta,
released by Wikileaks, showed Saban repeatedly colluding
between his network and the campaign.
 British Diplomat: Clinton & DNC Emails Weren’t Hacked
– They Were LEAKED By Insider
By Dcwhispers
Posted On December 11, 2016
“The Russians did it!” pile-on continued
over the weekend as both the
Mainstream Media and #neverTrump
Republican neocons, Lindsey Graham
and John McCain, gave further fuel to
the conspiracy fires behind the DNC and
John Podesta/Clinton campaign emails
that were made public over the past
several months.
According to a former British diplomat,
those emails weren’t hacked, but were
in fact leaked by inside sources, thus
exposing the fake news conspiracy
being perpetrated by the New York
Times, Washington Post, Barack
Obama, Hillary Clinton, etc.
Furthermore, this same diplomat, a man by the name
of Craig Murray, has indicated top U.S. officials know the
emails were the result of leaks and not hacks, but are now
pretending to think otherwise in the hopes of
manufacturing some political gain following widespread
Democrat losses during the 2016 Election.
Via GATEWAY PUNDIT :
“The Kremlin has rejected the hacking
accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange has previously said the
DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A
second senior official cited by the
Washington Post conceded that
intelligence agencies did not have specific
proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the
hackers, who were said to be one step
removed from the Russian government.
118
Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador
to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of
Assange, called the CIA claims
“bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely
making it up.”
“I know who leaked them,” Murray said.
“I’ve met the person who leaked them,
and they are certainly not Russian and
it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the
two are different things.
“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the
CIA’s statement refers to people who are
known to be linked to the Russian state,
they would have arrested someone if it was
someone inside the United States.
“America has not been shy about arresting
whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about
extraditing hackers. They plainly have no
knowledge whatsoever.”
—————
The primary motivation of the false, ‘the Russians did it!’
narrative is to try and delegitimize Donald Trump’s
stunning presidential victory. To date, there has been no
verifiable proof of Russian-government directed hacking,
and now a former British diplomat with ties to Wikileaks
founder Julian Assange has gone on record stating the
Russians were NOT responsible, and that the emails were
not obtained via hacking, but rather via leaks by one or
more insiders from within the U.S. government.
And once again it must be noted how no-one from the
Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, the DNC, or
John McCain or Lindsey Graham, are disputing the facts
outlined by those leaked emails – facts pertaining to DNC
collusion with the Clinton campaign that included outright
CHEATING by Hillary Clinton during the Clinton-
Sanders debates, collusion between top media figures and
Team Clinton, and blatant, multi-million-dollar pay-to-
play machinations between then-Secretary of State Clinton
and the Clinton Foundation, none of those leaks would
have mattered.
Those leaks pointed directly to the widespread corruption Donald Trump victory, so now that same machine moves
within the political-media machine of America. It is a to cripple the soon-to-be Donald Trump presidency.
machine rocked by the Donald Trump campaign, and the
.

119
 Bolton: Russian Hacks Could Actually Have
Been By Obama Administration
By Rebecca Morin
12/11/16 09:31 PM EST
Former ambassador John Bolton claimed Sunday that
hacks during the election season could have been “a false
flag” operation — possibly committed by the Obama
administration itself.
In an interview with Fox News’ Eric Shawn, the former
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations questioned why
FBI Director James Comey said during the investigation of
Hillary Clinton’s private server that there was no direct
evidence of foreign intelligence service penetration, but
Russian cyber fingerprints were found in the alleged
presidential election hacks.
“It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this
from the outside, that this hacking into the
[Democratic National Committee] and the
Republican National Committee] computers
was not a false flag,” Bolton said. “So the
question has to be asked, why did the
Russians run their smart intelligence
service against Hillary’s server, but their
dumb intelligence service against the
election?” Bolton did not mention that
Comey’s statement might have meant
there was no foreign intrusion into Clinton’s
server.
Shawn then asked Bolton — who has been mentioned as a
possible appointee in Donald Trump’s State Department
— whether he was accusing someone in “the
administration or in the intelligence community” of the
alleged false flag.
“We just don’t know,” Bolton said. “But I
believe that the intelligence community has
120
been politicized in the Obama
administration to a very significant degree.”
A “false flag” is a term for a cover-up or distraction
orchestrated by the government or other powerful figures.
Shawn continued to push Bolton, asking why intelligence
officials would politicize the hack and would
“go so far to something that could damage
the very issue of our republic and what we
for 200-plus years have stood for.”
“The whole thing has been called into
question, which is why the notion of some
kind of independent investigation becomes
extremely important,” Bolton said. “I do
think it’s critical to answer the question that
I posed: If you think the Russians did this,
then why did they leave fingerprints?”
Last week, The Washington Post published a report saying
the intelligence community believes that Russia was
favoring Trump in the presidential race.
President Barack Obama has requested a review of the
situation. A bipartisan group of senators — John McCain,
Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed — has
also called for an independent investigation of alleged
Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
During the interview, Bolton said he had concerns about
Obama trying to get the review wrapped up by Jan. 20. He
said he thinks the burden of the review will fall on Mike
Pompeo, Trump’s nominee for director of the CIA.
“He doesn’t bring any baggage to this; I
would look to him to head up an
investigation across the entire intelligence
community,” Bolton said.
Bolton said that if the claims about Russia were true, the
U.S. “should retaliate.”
“It is unacceptable for the American
Constitution to be assaulted by foreigners
in that way. So it is absolutely critical as
 well that we get the facts right on this, and I
don’t think we have anywhere enough in
the public domain to know what the facts
are,” he said.
Asked by Shawn about people who might be bothered by
the false flag claim, Bolton said there needs to be more
information about how the intelligence community came to
its conclusion.
.
121
“We would want to know who else might
want to influence the election and why they
would leave fingerprints that point to the
Russians,” Bolton said. “That’s why I say
until we know more about how the
intelligence community came to this
conclusion, we don’t whether it’s Russian-
inspired or a false flag.”
“There Is A Plan To Steal The Election From The American
People And Trump” — C.I.A. Pushing For New Election?
Stealing The Election From Trump And The American People
Has Become A Real Possibility
By Alex Thomas -
12.11.2016 @9:16 PM EST
(INTELLIHUB) — With the recent Friday night
disinformation surprise, the corporate media and elements
of both the C.I.A. and the White House are openly
positioning to directly stop Donald Trump from becoming
president.
The late Friday news published by both the Washington
Post and New York Times claims that a secret C.I.A.
assessment has confirmed that Russia not only meddled in
the U.S. election but directly did so in order to help
Trump win the presidency.
The reports, completely based on the claims of unnamed
U.S. officials and therefore almost impossible to confirm
or debunk, have set off a firestorm in the corporate media
and have led to a direct call by a left leaning C.I.A. agent
for a second election.
Appearing on the openly anti-Trump cable news network
CNN, “former” C.I.A. agent Bob Baer called for a second
Presidential election. His reasoning? The unproven claims
by unnamed U.S. officials that the C.I.A. has concluded
that the election was tampered with by Russia. (It’s
important to note here that the FBI does not believe this to
be the case.)
“Having worked in the C.I.A., if we had
been caught interfering in European
elections, or Asian elections or anywhere in
the world, those countries would call for
new elections, and any democracy would,”
Baer claimed. And I do not see it any other
122
way, the Electoral College, before the 19th,
has got to know whether the Russians had
affected American opinion.”
After being pressed by the show host, Baer continued,
“When a foreign country interferes in your
election and the outcome is in doubt, and
the legitimacy of the government is in
doubt, if the evidence is there, I don’t see
any other way than to vote again as an
American citizen.”
Unbelievably, this call for a new election which has
already been enthusiastically agreed on by many on the
left, is all based off what The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald
has called, “classic American journalism of the worst sort:
The key claims are based exclusively on
the unverified assertions of anonymous
officials, who in turn are disseminating their
own claims about what the C.I.A.
purportedly believes, all based on evidence
that remains completely secret.”
Responding to this C.I.A. call for a new election and
detailing all the threats against Trump becoming president
(which I highlighted in my reporting late last week)
Infowars Alex Jones released an emergency update Sunday
that made clear that there is indeed a direct plan to stop
Donald Trump from becoming the next president.
Over the last week we have seen plans for mass protests to Now, we see it all coming together under the umbrella of a
shut down Trump’s inauguration, threats by Electoral C.I.A. assessment of “Russia hacking”.
College voters, calls by leftist talking heads to do
something in the next six weeks, and 24/7 anti-Trump
corporate media coverage.
.

123
 McConnell, Ryan Back CIA
After Trump Attacks Hacking Probe
By Steven T. Dennis
December 12, 2016, 9:49 AM CST December 12, 2016, 5:44 PM CST
The two top Republicans in Congress offered strong
support for the intelligence community Monday, in sharp
contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s attack on the
CIA after reports the agency found that the Russian
government tried to help him win the presidency.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he had the
“highest confidence” in the intelligence agencies, while
House Speaker Paul Ryan praised them for “working
diligently” to take on cyber threats from foreign
governments. But both leaders also warned against using
the issue for partisan gain or casting doubt on the outcome
of the election.
McConnell singled out the Central Intelligence Agency for
praise and said the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services
panels will investigate findings by intelligence agencies
that Russia hacked into e-mails and computers used in the
presidential campaign.
“Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity
measures is disturbing and I strongly
condemn any such efforts,” McConnell told
reporters. He added later, “The Russians
are not our friends.”
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the CIA has
told senators that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
government was actively seeking to help Trump win the
election -- a step beyond an earlier finding that the goal
was to undermine the credibility of the U.S. political
process.
“Any intervention by Russia is especially
problematic because, under President
Putin, Russia has been an aggressor that
consistently undermines American
interests,” Ryan said in a statement
Monday. “As we work to protect our
democracy from foreign influence, we
should not cast doubt on the clear and
decisive outcome of this election.”
President Barack Obama explained his reasons for
ordering a full review of the evidence of Russian hacking
in an appearance to be aired Monday night on Comedy
Central’s "The Daily Show With Trevor Noah."
124
“The reason that I called for a review is
really to just gather all the threads of the
investigations, the intelligence work that
has been done over many months, and put
it in a single document that can be shared
with members of Congress, relevant
intelligent agencies, that can be shared
with the transition team so that they
understand what exactly happened and so
that the public and our elected
representatives going forward can find
ways to prevent this kind of interference
from having an impact on elections in the
future,” he said, according to excerpts
release by Comedy Central.
‘Conspiracy Theory’
Trump’s team attacked the CIA for its findings and scoffed
at its credibility, blaming the agency for faulty intelligence
analysis that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before
the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Trump piled on with a tweet on
Monday.
“Can you imagine if the election results
were the opposite and WE tried to play the
Russia/CIA card. It would be called
conspiracy theory!” he wrote on Twitter.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller didn’t comment directly
on McConnell’s remarks when asked by reporters on a
conference call Monday, but blasted the reports about the
CIA’s findings.
“What this is is an attempt to try to de-
legitimize President-elect Trump’s win.”
he said. “That really seems to be what’s
going on here.”
The White House defended the intelligence community
Monday, with press secretary Josh Earnest saying spy
agencies are staffed by “patriots.”
“President Obama has benefited
enormously from their work, their expertise,
their advice, and their service to the
country," Earnest told reporters. “I’m
confident the president-elect would benefit
from that advice if he remains open to it.”
Joint Statement
Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain and the
incoming Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of
New York, said on Sunday in an unusual joint statement
that the Senate would investigate Russia’s interference in
the presidential election.
McCain and Schumer, joined by Republican Lindsay
Graham of South Carolina and Democrat Jack Reed of
Rhode Island, said
“Democrats and Republicans must work
together, and across the jurisdictional lines
of the Congress, to examine these recent
incidents thoroughly and devise
comprehensive solutions to deter and
defend against further cyber-attacks.”
A small group of Electoral College members, including
Christine Pelosi, the daughter of House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi, on Monday requested a briefing from the
intelligence community on the possible scope of Russian
interference in the U.S. election. On Dec. 19, the electors
meet across the country to formally select the president
and vice president.
The allegations concerning Russia have taken on new
significance now that Trump is considering Exxon Mobil
Corp. chief Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. Tillerson is
known for having ties to Putin, and the oil chief was
awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship, a high civilian
.
125
honor given to distinguished foreign nationals. As recently
as 2015 he visited with officials in Putin’s inner circle.
‘Bit Unnerving’
If Trump does nominate Tillerson, the Russian allegations
could pose problems for his Senate confirmation, even for
some Republicans.
“I don’t know the man much at all, but let’s
put it this way: If you received an Order of
Friendship award from Putin -- then we’ll
have some questions,” Graham said in a
statement over the weekend. “I don’t want
to prejudge the guy but that’s a bit
unnerving.”
On Monday, Schumer made clear Democrats also would
question Tillerson’s Russian ties.
"Every one of these nominees, and
particularly a guy like Tillerson, needs a
thorough, thorough hearing," he said on
CBS. "He’ll be questioned thoroughly
should he be the nominee, and all of these
allegations and talks about his closeness
with Putin will come forward."
McConnell declined to comment on the potential
nomination of Tillerson, saying he wouldn’t discuss a
"phantom nominee."
 Rogue Elements Of The CIA Are Operating Against
President-Elect Trump
Paul Craig Roberts
December 12, 2016
Alex Jones catches a lot of grief. Some of it he brings on
himself by being over the top, but most of the criticism he
receives comes from his practice of dragging into the news
issues that otherwise would remained cloaked in silence.
Alex is certainly correct to stress that elements in the CIA,
or someone claiming to be CIA, are planting stories in the
media that Russia hacked Hillary’s emails and used the
damning information to elect Trump.
The truth of the emails is not what is in question. It is their
alleged Russian origin. There is no evidence for this claim.
Wikileaks said the emails came to them as a leak from
inside, not from an outside hack, and former top NSA
official William Binney has said that if Russia was the
source the NSA would have conclusive proof.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46012.htm
What is striking about this controversy is
that it is the CIA, not Russia, that is
interfering in American elections.
The CIA is supposed to be concerned with foreign
intelligence. It is not supposed to interfere in US affairs.
Yet it is the CIA that is using fake news
to delegitimize a president-elect.
One member of this operation, Bob Baer, has called for a
new election on the basis of the claim that Trump was
elected by Russian interference.
.
126
https://www.intellihub.com/there-is-a-plan-to-steal-the-
election-from-the-american-people-and-trump-cia-pushes-
for-new-election/
The FBI does not support the claim of
Russian interference.
http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/12/11/fbi-
disagrees-with-cia-on-russian-influence-in-the-
presidential-election/
The importance of this issue is that it is rogue elements
inside the CIA who are trying to prevent Trump from
becoming president.
The important question is: Why?
If neoconservative or military-security oligarchs are
willing to so publicly in violation of law operate against an
incoming president who could have them indicted and put
on trial for high treason, wouldn’t these rogue operators
also be willing to assassinate the president-elect?
The ruling oligarchy does not want any changes in policy
toward Russia or the offshoring of US jobs. Clearly, they
are willing to operate against a president-elect. Are they
willing to go further?
The presstitute media by hyping these groundless charges
are setting up Trump for assassination.
 CNN's Stelter: Trump Win Is A "National Emergency"
Submitted by Edmund Kozak via Lifezette.com,
Dec 12, 2016 7:40 PM
Those who expected the mainstream media to pause and
reflect on its own biases following President-Elect Donald
Trump’s victory are surely disappointed.
It has become inescapably clear that rather than attempt to
break free from the ideological echo chamber in which
they exist, liberal journalists in the mainstream media are
only doubling down on progressive propaganda —
descending ever further into self-parody.
Enter Exhibit A above: an astonishing
exchange between CNN's media analyst
Brian Stelter and journalists Liz Wahl
and Julia Ioffe that occurred on Sunday.
In that one conversation, Wahl insisted Trump's win
undermined "our democracy," Ioffe expressed
bewilderment at the fact that the people no longer take the
mainstream media's word as sacrosanct, and Stelter
implied that Trump's impending presidency is a national
emergency.
"That is the ultimate goal [of Russian
'disinformation'], to undermine
democracy, to undermine faith in our
institutions, like the media," Wahl told
Stelter. "We have a president-elect now
who has basically matched some of these
key talking points in Russian propaganda
to undermine our system."
.
127
Of course, the primary cause Americans
lost faith in the mainstream media is the
outrageous behavior of the mainstream
media itself — for example asserting
that Donald Trump has "[undermined]
our system" by parroting Russian
propaganda.
"Let's go there. Let's go there directly,"
Stelter said.
"I mean, here's something I've been asking
myself. Julia, we're talking about a
candidate who's lost in a historic way in
terms of the popular vote but clearly
won in the Electoral College. Is this
something of a national emergency?
And are journalists afraid to say so
because they're going to sound partisan?"
Stelter asked.
Stelter's comment is so absurd for a figure masquerading
as an impartial journalist that a casual observer could be
forgiven for thinking he was attempting to troll the
audience.
Either Stelter believes that the Electoral
College's working in the precise manner
in which it was designed is a national
emergency, or he believes that the fact
Trump was able to win despite the
nonstop barrage of mainstream media
propaganda is a national emergency.
The latter certainly appeared to be Ioffe's position.
"I feel like we've been reporting on this all
along but … people don't read us," Ioffe
noted before attacking "fake news" —
progressives' hot new term for anything
that challenges their approved ideological
narrative. "We're writing about it but, A)
people aren't listening and, B) they don't
believe us."
 FBI Disputes CIA's "Fuzzy And Ambiguous" Claims That
Russia Sought To Influence Presidential Election
By Tyler Durden
Dec 12, 2016 9:44 AM

Since election day, Democrats have engaged in a panicked The FBI official was much less
attempt to leverage their last couple of weeks in control of convinced of the claims, providing
the executive branch to delegitimize the Trump “fuzzy” and “ambiguous” remarks.
presidency. Obama has even gone so far as to order a "full
report" on Russian tampering in the 2016 election cycle to The Washington Post compiled the following comments
be completed before he leaves office (see "A "Soft Coup" from the weekend talk show circuit highlighting where
Attempt: Furious Trump Slams "Secret" CIA Report various DC players stand on the Russia allegations.
Russia Helped Him Win"). Of course, we should simply
ignore the fact that a true investigation of such allegations
would take much longer than the one month that Obama
has left in office because any delay could run the risk of a
bipartisan/independent review and that's just not how the
Obama administration plays the game.

But at least one investigative agency, the

FBI, isn't buying the "fuzzy and
ambiguous" assertions from the CIA that
Russia "quite" clearly meddled in the U.S.
elections on behalf of the Trump
campaign.
Meanwhile, the FBI's unwillingness to play along is
infuriating Democrats. Per the BizPac Review:
The FBI did not corroborate the CIA’s claim
that Russia had a hand in the election of
President-elect Donald Trump in a meeting
with lawmakers last week.
A senior FBI counterintelligence official met
with Republican and Democrat members of
the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence in order to give the bureau’s
view of a recent CIA report. The official
did not concur with the CIA, frustrating
Democrats.
The CIA believes Russia “quite” clearly intended to send
Trump to the White House. The claim is a bold one and
concerned Democrats and some Republicans who are
worried about Trump’s desire to mend relations with an
increasingly aggressive Russia.
The CIA report was “direct, bold and
unqualified,”
one of the officials at the meeting told The Washington
Post Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post also
points out that the whole disagreement
likely comes down to "cultural"
differences between the FBI and CIA.
Apparently the FBI "wants facts and
tangible evidence to prove something"
while the CIA is "more comfortable
drawing inferences."
The competing messages, according to
officials in attendance, also reflect cultural
differences between the FBI and the CIA.
The bureau, true to its law enforcement
roots, wants facts and tangible evidence
to prove something beyond all
reasonable doubt. The CIA is more
comfortable drawing inferences from
behavior.
“The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal
standards — can we prove this in court,”
one of the officials said. “The CIA briefers
weigh the preponderance of intelligence
and then make judgment calls to help
policymakers make informed decisions.
High confidence for them means ‘we’re
pretty damn sure.’ It doesn’t mean they
can prove it in court.”

128
The FBI is not sold on the idea that Russia had a particular
aim in its meddling.
“There’s no question that [the
Russians’] efforts went one way, but it’s
not clear that they have a specific goal
or mix of related goals,” said one U.S.
official.
129
Well, that certainly seems reasonable...
who needs "facts and tangible
evidence" when the CIA can just "draw
inferences"
...they're supposedly really smart so we should probably
just believe them.
 Clinton Campaign, Top Democrats Call For Intel Briefing,
Commission Ahead Of Electoral College Vote
By Tyler Durden
Dec 12, 2016 1:59 PM
Update: The push to delegitimize the election results
continued after a trio of top Senate Democrats called for a
nonpartisan commission to investigate allegations that
Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Sens.
Ben Cardin (Md.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Patrick
Leahy (Vt.), the top Democrats on the Foreign Relations,
Intelligence and Judiciary committees, back the creation an
independent commission with 18 months to report its
findings The Hill reports.
"The American people deserve a
nonpartisan, transparent, public
investigation into this insidious attack on
our democratic institutions,” Cardin said.
“As a nation it’s time to get to the bottom of
it and learn what we can do to prevent it
from ever happening again.”
The commission would be tasked with investigating
allegations of Russian cyber attacks, trying to identify
those responsible and recommending responses and future
measures to prevent interference in U.S. elections.
Feinstein added that the commission would determine if
Russian hacks tried to undercut Hillary Clinton, the
Democrat presidential nominee, or "undermine our
democratic system."
"This bipartisan commission will help
identify the specific ‘actors’ responsible and
recommend a possible course of action to
prevent this from ever happening again,"
she said.
The panel, according to the Democratic senators, would
have access to both classified and unclassified information,
as well as the ability to subpoena officials about Russian
activities tied to the presidential race.
Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee,
added on Monday lawmakers must
"rise above the fray and engage in a
serious, independent, and bipartisan
investigation."
"This is larger than any one candidate or
any one election," he said. "This is about
130
protecting our democracy now, and going
forward.”
Of course, none of these calls would have been made had
Trump lost the election, and in fact he would have been
crucified by the press for daring to question the outcome of
the vote.
***
Earlier:
And there it is.
Just as we first laid out on Saturday
following Friday night's shock "report" that
the CIA had concluded Russia had
intervened in the presidential election on
behalf of Trump, which we quickly
assessed had all the marks of a "soft coup"
attempt, and which culminated most
recently with a report that up to 10 electors
had requested a briefing on "Russian
Interference" before the presidential vote,
moments ago none other than the Clinton
campaign, by way of its top political adviser
John Podesta, said the campaign is
supporting an effort by members of the
Electoral College to request an intelligence
briefing on foreign intervention in the
presidential election, Politico reported.
In his statement released on Monday, Podesta said
“The bipartisan electors' letter raises very
grave issues involving our national
security,” and added that “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.
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.”
Podesta's statement is the first public statement from the
Clinton campaign raising questions about the legitimacy of
Donald Trump's victory.
It follows the previously reported open letter from 10
presidential electors, including Democratic Leader Nancy
Pelosi’s daughter Christine, requesting an intelligence
briefing ahead of the Dec. 19 vote of the Electoral College.
Why this push is curious, is because during today's
briefing Press Secretary Josh Earnest explicitly stated that
"US intel agencies didn't detect any
malicious cyberactivity "that interfered
w the casting and counting of ballots"
on Nov. 8", a narrative at odds with that
concocted by the WaPo, in its interpretation
of what the CIA allegedly concluded in its
"secret" assessment, which thenbegs the
question:
who is lying?
Shortly after Podesta's statement, the Democratic National
Committee disseminated a Politico story that revealed the
.
131
electors' call for a briefing. Two Democratic members of
Congress have also suggested the Electoral College should
take an active role in reassessing, or stopping, a Trump
presidency.
It was unclear which particular agency would provide the
briefing, if it was permitted, especially in light of reports
that there has been a shcism between the CIA and FBI in
their interpretation of whether Russia had indeed
intervened directly to push for a Trump election.
While so far no proof has been provided by the CIA
substantiating its claim, we doubt one will be forthcoming.
After all as the WaPo itself reported some time ago, citing
an official,
"the intelligence community is not saying it
has ‘definitive proof’ of such tampering, or
any Russian plans to do so."
In other words, there is merely "extrapolation" based on a
personal biases to reach a desired, goalseeked outcome,
without any factual validation whatsoever.
However, it is likely that should the Clinton Campaign's
request for a "breifing" be granted, that it would lead to a
dramatic split among the already polarized US nation. As
to whether the Electoral College would ultimately vote
against Trump, we leave it up to readers to consider the
possible, and very damaging for the US, consequences.
 Wow! Clinton Camp Wants Intelligence Briefing
On Russia Before Electoral College Vote
Jim Hoft
Dec 12th, 2016 2:38 pm
WOW! THEY WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO
STEAL THE ELECTION!
Earlier today a federal judge threw out
Jill Stein’s request to recount the votes
in Pennsylvania. Stein’s request would
have prevented Pennsylvania’s electoral
votes from going to Donald Trump. The
recount NEVER would have been
completed on time.
Donald Trump won the state by over 40,000 votes.
Jill Stein placed fourth with less than 1% of the vote.
A federal judge shut down Stein’s push for a Michigan
recount last week.
But the Clintons are not done yet.
Hillary’s top advisor John Podesta wants an intelligence
briefing on Russia before the Electoral College vote on
December 19th.
132
The Politico reported:
Hillary Clinton’s top political adviser John
Podesta said the campaign is supporting
an effort by members of the Electoral
College to request an intelligence briefing
on foreign intervention in the presidential
election.
“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very
grave issues involving our national
security,” Podesta said in a statement
Monday. “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,” he
said. “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.”
Podesta’s statement is the first public statement from the
Clinton campaign raising questions about the legitimacy of
Donald Trump’s victory.
It follows an open letter from 10 presidential electors —
including Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s daughter
Christine — requesting an intelligence briefing ahead of
the Dec. 19 vote of the Electoral College.
 The Rumor Mill News Reading Room
Jim Stone: "Blockbuster: Washington Post Is In Violation
Of The Hatch Act, The CIA Never Told Them Russia
Hacked The Election"
Posted By: Mrfusion
Date: Monday, 12-Dec-2016 17:23:28
BLOCKBUSTER: WASHINGTON POST IS IN
VIOLATION OF THE HATCH ACT, THE CIA NEVER
TOLD THEM RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION
The Hatch act forbids the media from interfering with the
inauguration of an elected president. And that is exactly
what they did, because THE CIA JUST CAME OUT
AND SAID OUTRIGHT THAT THE WASHINGTON
POST LIED AND THAT THEY NEVER TOLD
ANYONE ABOUT AN INVESTIGATION INTO
TRUMP AND RUSSIA.
If you read the subsequent posts on this page I was
guessing the whole thing would backfire, AND IT DID
BIG TIME. HERE IS THE STATEMENT JUST
RELEASED BY THE CIA:
"It's an outright lie," a CIA analyst divulged
to True Pundit. "There's nothing definitive
like that. There are leads from activity
originating in Finland, Italy, Norway,
Sweden, Britain, France, China and
Russia."
Multiple CIA sources are now denouncing
the Washington Post for knowingly
reporting misleading national security
.
133
intelligence. Intelligence insiders said no
one in the Agency or in the FBI, who is
running at least one parallel inquiry, has
ruled out a possible internal leak within the
Democratic National Committee from
actor(s) inside the United States who
funneled private DNC emails to WikiLeaks."
This is not my dig, see it at the True Pundit
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-cia-says-they-did-not-
tell-the-washington-post-that-russia-hacked-election-in-
favor-of-trump/
Hillary wants the electoral college briefed on how Trump
stole the election
Hillary is pushing for a ruling for the electoral college to
be briefed on how Russia helped Trump hack the election
before they vote! I see a little problem with this - and that
is that most likely the electoral college hates her guts, and
is probably predominantly pro trump even on the
Democrat side. All but ONE of the people saying they are
going to be "faithless electors" is a democrat, that is
supposed to vote for Hillary. That speaks volumes.
 Wapo, NY Times Report That The CIA Believes Russia
Interfered With U.S. Elections To Help Trump:
Here’s Why That Makes No Sense
By: Usafeaturesmedia
Date: December 12, 2016
(NationalSecurity.news) Over the weekend the Washington
Post and The New York Times both reported that
“anonymous sources” within the CIA believe that Russia
interfered in the U.S. presidential election, largely by
hacking into Democratic National Committee and Clinton
campaign computers, and by feeding propaganda to about
200 American-based news and information web sites.
First the Post. It reported:
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.
134
official briefed on an intelligence
presentation made to U.S. senators.
“That’s the consensus view.”
But there is still no hard evidence that anyone can produce,
a full reading of the Post story reveals.
Next, the Times. It reported:
American intelligence agencies have
concluded with “high confidence” that
Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of
the presidential campaign to harm Hillary
Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J.
Trump, according to senior administration
officials.
They based that conclusion, in part, on
another finding — which they say was also
reached with high confidence — that the
Russians hacked the Republican National
Committee’s computer systems in addition
to their attacks on Democratic
organizations, but did not release whatever
information they gleaned from the
Republican networks.
In the months before the election, it was
largely documents from Democratic Party
systems that were leaked to the public.
Intelligence agencies have concluded that
the Russians gave the Democrats’
documents to WikiLeaks.
But there is still no hard evidence that anyone can produce,
a full reading of the Times story reveals.
The Trump transition team has, of course, lambasted both
of these reports, saying essentially that they are from the
same intelligence apparatus that claimed, incorrectly, that
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq held weapons of mass destruction.
But aside from the political perspective, here is why these
reports are very suspect and, indeed, could be propaganda
themselves aimed solely at undermining the incoming
Trump administration.
Consider:
 The reporters and editorial boards of both papers were
in the tank for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary
Clinton, despite the fact that both papers did indeed
report on much of the hacked information gleaned from
the DNC and her campaign. Both editorial boards
endorsed her (the Post here; the Times here).
 The Post ran with a story recently based on obviously
shoddy information from an anonymous group no one
had ever heard of, which claimed that Moscow used
hundreds of U.S.-based web sites to spread false
propaganda about Clinton, to the benefit of Trump. No
one else would touch this story and for good reason: It
was garbage. The Post was even forced to print a sort-
of retraction. Reliably Left-leaning online investigative
news site The Intercept, whose co-founder Glenn
Greenwald broke the Edward Snowden series with the
Post, was even highly critical.
 The mainstream media, which was also largely in
Clinton’s corner, has attempted to craft the “fake news”
narrative out of whole cloth since her loss, without a
shred of evidence or proof that the negative reports
circulating about Clinton, her foundation’s shady
foreign dealings and her husband’s past sexual
dalliances prior to the election were fabricated.
And here is the most important point of all to make: No
one seems to be asking or providing an answer to this
question, “Why would Putin help Trump and not
Clinton?”
This is a crucially important question for a number of
reasons. First, there is the matter of Clinton’s unauthorized
use of a personal email server during her tenure as
secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey said his
agents believe with 99 percent certainty that her server was
hacked by several foreign governments; Russia certainly
has the capability to do so, and as such any good
intelligence analyst worth his/her salt would have to
assume that Moscow is one of the countries the FBI
believes hacked the Clinton servers. After all, we are
attempting to hack Russian (and Iranian, and Chinese, and
a host of other countries) intelligence data bases all the
time.
Why is that important? Because, as Breitbart News
reported:
House Homeland Security Chairman
Michael McCaul declared on Thursday’s
Fox & Friends that Clinton exposed vital
American information to our enemies —
some of the “most classified, sensitive
secrets in the federal government, many of
them covert operations.”
“Our adversaries have this very sensitive
information, that not only jeopardizes her,
135
and national security at home, but the men
and women serving overseas,” said
McCaul. “In my opinion, quite frankly, it’s
treason.”
“…[E]xposed vital American information to
our enemies…”
Secondly, as The Daily Caller noted, the Times’
declaration that the Republican National Committee’s
servers were similarly hacked by Russian intermediaries—
but that the hackers chose not to release any RNC
information, thus “proving” Moscow was helping
Trump—is itself a fabrication. According to RNC
spokesman Sean Spicer, the organization is working with
U.S. intelligence agencies who have concluded that no, the
RNC’s servers were not hacked.
“The intelligence is wrong,” Spicer told
CNN. “It didn’t happened. We offered the
New York Times conclusive proof that it
didn’t happen. They ignored it. They
refused to look at it because it didn’t fit the
narrative.”
“The bottom line is the intelligence is
wrong,” he continued. “They are writing that
the conclusion they came to was based in
part on the fact the RNC was hacked. It
wasn’t hacked. We have intelligence
agencies that we worked with that are
willing to sort this out.”
And there is this: Julian Assange of WikiLeaks has stated,
publicly, that Russia was not behind the DNC/Clinton
campaign hacks. Granted, Assange made his statement on
RT (Russia Today), a media organ controlled by Moscow.
But hang on; there’s more.
It’s very fair to say that Russia was likely among the five
or six countries the FBI believes hacked into Clinton’s
personal email server while at State; so why shouldn’t we
also believe that Moscow hacked into the DNC and the
Clinton campaign, but not the RNC?
It’s quite possible that Russian President Vladimir Putin,
like much of the rest of the world, believed that Clinton
would defeat Trump Nov. 8, so he launched an intelligence
operation to gather as much dirt on Clinton as he could—
stolen intelligence and other sensitive information he could
use to his advantage when she took over the White House.
The Times reported it this way:
The Russians were as surprised as
everyone else at Mr. Trump’s victory,
intelligence officials said. Had Mrs. Clinton
won, they believe, emails stolen from the
Democratic committee and from senior
 members of her campaign could have been
used to undercut her legitimacy.
That helps explain his hack of her State-related email
servers and, perhaps, even the hacks the DNC and the
Clinton campaign. But it doesn’t help explain the
resulting release of the hacked data because it was
all clearly damaging to her and her political party. And
the releases of hacked information seemed to be an
effort to keep her out of the White House.
That doesn’t make sense. After all, if you’ve got the goods
on a U.S. president—and let’s not forget that the Clintons
were also instrumental in helping Russia secure 20 percent
of all U.S. strategic uranium reserves—you would keep
those cards close to your vest because that would be a huge
diplomatic and foreign policy advantage for Russia. If
Putin has all this stuff on Clinton, he could essentially
dictate U.S. foreign policy as it pertained to Russian
interests.
.
136
By comparison, a Donald Trump presidency featuring
billionaire businessman with zero political influence or
experience, and no skeletons remaining in the closet after a
bruising campaign cycle, does not offer strategic
advantages to Putin. A Trump administration, especially
one whose Cabinet is permeated with hawks, offers a
much greater challenge to Putin on the world stage than
would a compromised Hillary Clinton.
While we can only assume what the motivations are for the
Post and the Times (and, possibly, some in the U.S.
intelligence community) in pushing their narrative that
Russia was somehow overly influential in the U.S.
presidential election, what is far easier to deduce, with
some thought, is that it just doesn’t add up. This narrative
also assumes two additional things: 1) Trump, by himself,
is incapable of convincing enough voters in enough key
states to support him; and 2) the CIA is completely devoid
of careerist officials who don’t themselves have a political
agenda.
Neither of these assumptions can be accurately made.
 The Russians Did It!
Idiot Rinos Still Blaming Moscow For Trump Win
By: Usafeaturesmedia
Date: December 12, 2016
(Freedom.news) President-elect Trump is (hopefully)
serious about “draining the swamp” in Washington, D.C.
of corrupt institutions, bureaucrats and lobbyists, but sadly
there isn’t anything he can do about the scallywag RINOs
in Congress. They will have to be dealt with by the people.
Echoing claims from the now-vanquished campaign of
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Sens. John McCain
(R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) swear that Russia
must have been behind the hacks of Democratic National
Committee and Clinton campaign emails, and they aim to
get to the bottom of it, no matter what
“relationship” President Trump has or will try to forge
with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In addition to that nonsense, both men told the discredited
Washington Post that they will also launch investigations
into “suspected Russian hacking” of election results
because, see, that really is the only way Trump could have
possibly won Nov. 8. The Post didn’t ask (of course) and
neither men clarified just how Russia could “hack” the
paper ballots used by a number of battleground states
Trump won commandingly, but who cares about that little
detail, right?
And never mind that had Russia actually hacked the DNC
and the election the Obama administration would have
already been all over this, what with President Obama
going all in for the criminal foundation c0-founder and
serial national security risk who would preserve his legacy.
But here we are once again, following resounding
Republican congressional victories, stuck with two crusty,
137
old RINOs who have been in the Senate far too long, ready
to tweak a major nuclear power’s nose just as an incoming
administration has pledged to seriously improve relations
with Moscow. Because nuclear war is obviously better
than, you know, peace.
Per the Post:
Leading Senate Republicans are preparing
to launch a coordinated and wide-ranging
probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the
U.S. elections and its potential cyberthreats
to the military, digging deep into what they
view as corrosive interference in the
nation’s institutions.
Such an aggressive approach puts them on
a direct collision course with President-
elect Donald Trump, who downplays the
possibility Russia had any role in the
November elections — arguing that a hack
of the Democratic National Committee
emails may have been perpetrated by
“some guy in his home in New Jersey.” The
fracture could become more
prominent after Trump is inaugurated and
begins setting foreign policy. He has
already indicated that the country should
“get along” with Russia since the two
nations have many common strategic
goals.
Of course Trump downplays any Russian role in hacking
our election or the DNC; it’s absurd on its face. It’s tinfoil
hat stuff. And yet senior RINO idiots McCain and Graham,
both of whom are, like Clinton, presidential losers, feel
like wasting a couple million more taxpayer dollars while
doing all they can to sabotage a Trump administration’s
efforts to patch things up with Moscow (without using a
ridiculous “reset button” as a prop).
If we had any useful advice for the incoming Trump
administration it would be this: Get ready to face this kind
of stupidity for the next four-to-eight years. Hopefully
before Trump leaves office, McCain will have stumbled
back to Arizona and Graham retired by the people.
 The Sequence By Which Major Media
Went Stark Raving Mad
By Jon Rappoport
December 12, 2016
I’ve been working as a reporter since 1982. Since then I’ve
watched big-media news lie in every possible way they
could. But I’ve never seen them race to the edge of a cliff
and jump off—until now.
Here is the rough sequence, acted out in the past year.
During the presidential campaign, big media massively
sided with Hillary Clinton and attacked Donald Trump.
They predicted a Hillary victory all the way up to Election
Night. Meanwhile, Trump was campaigning against the
media. Mercilessly. Naturally, this raised the ire of
entrenched news operations, who basically believe they
own the news.
As further exacerbation, a schizoid split occurred during
the campaign. WikiLeaks and Project Veritas were
releasing vital independent material (to say the least)
exposing the Clinton camp and the DNC. Major news
outlets were trying their best to downplay and ignore all
this material, while the public was eating it up by the ton.
Then came the results on Election Night.
O the horror.
Major media. Naked. Their candidate,
defeated.
This was impossible, and yet, there it was.
The shock and disappointment were profound. (Perhaps
you saw Wolf Blitzer try to swallow his tongue and teeth,
rather than utter the words that must never be mentioned:
“Trump, winner.”)
Not only was the major media prediction of many months
completely wrong, their obvious campaigning for Hillary
Clinton had yielded nothing. Less than nothing. It had put
her into a hole.
Understand that these media giants not only believe they
own the news, they also believe they create reality itself
for the masses. They carve into the rock and unveil the
sculpture. They script and direct the movie and screen it.
They paint the ceiling fresco and display it. They write the
novel and sell it. They produce the stage play and review
it.
138
And suddenly…they lose.
The kings and queens of information lose.
In their venomous hatred, they have only
one option. They must discredit the election
itself.
First, they attack Trump as unworthy of the
office of the Presidency; but, predictably,
that goes nowhere.
They support the Soros-funded protests and riots in cities
across America. As in 1968, with the full-blown riots at
the Chicago Democratic Convention, the American people
recoil and “support the other side.” Another loss.
Next: the talking point about fake news sites emerges. Big
media are becoming unhinged. They claim: thousands and
thousands and thousands of sites and blogs have been
spreading malicious falsehoods about Hillary Clinton, thus
duping the public—and THIS is why she lost.
Part Two: the malicious falsehoods came from Russia.
The slightly more complex narrative that Russia hacked
hundreds of thousands of Hillary-DNC-Podesta emails,
passed them to Wikileaks, who then leaked them to the
public, is submerged under the general accusation: Russia
helped Trump win. Russia made Trump win.
Russia hacked the election. The distinction
between “Russia hacked emails” and
“Russia hacked the actual vote” is lost, if it
was ever there to begin with.
Big media, like demented nursing home residents in
wheelchairs, zoomed across the lawn to the edge of a high
cliff and kept on going.
And while in mid-air, before crashing on the rocks below,
they rapidly concocted a “special narrative,” with the help
of the CIA-connected Washington Post, the CIA itself, and
several members of Congress: Russia gave the election to
Trump, therefore the election is null and void, and
therefore members of the Electoral College can
legitimately and morally turn their votes inside out and
select Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United
States.
 And then they crash.
Psychotic. Suicides.
And even as they take their last shallow
breaths, they expect us to believe them.
But here is the problem: even after they die, these media
psychos transmit an afterglow. And this is it:
A group of roughly 10 Electoral College
electors, who are due to rubber-stamp
Trump’s victory on December 19, are not
.
139
going to go quietly. Supported by John
Podesta, Hillary’ campaign manager, they
are requesting the same “intelligence
briefing” members of Congress just
received—in order to “learn” that Russia
“subverted the US election” and “handed it”
to Trump.
And then, the group of rebellious electors could grow and
switch their votes.
And then we would have a coup.
'Total B.S.': Russian Election Hack Blasted As 'Fake News'
'It's The Democrat Party Trying To Change The
Outcome Of The Election'
Joe Kovacs
December 12, 2016

On Friday, Dec. 9, the Washington Post reported:

“The CIA has concluded in a secret

Allegations that Russia somehow hacked
the U.S. presidential race are being blasted
as “total B.S.” and “fake news” engineered
to take away the stunning victory of
President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump himself tweeted about the controversy Monday,
saying:
“Can you imagine if the election results
were the opposite and WE tried to play the
Russia/CIA card. It would be called
conspiracy theory!”
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.”
But in the same article, it noted:
“Intelligence agencies do not have specific
intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin
‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass
the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a
second senior U.S. official said. Those
actors, according to the official, were ‘one
step’ removed from the Russian
government, rather than government
employees.”
On Sunday, CNN media analyst Brian Stelter wondered
concerning Trump’s election:

“Is this something of a national

emergency? And are journalists afraid to
say so because they’re going to sound
partisan?”

Reince Priebus, head of the Republican National

Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh spent most of his Monday Committee during the campaign and incoming chief of
program scorching major media agencies for perpetuating staff for Donald Trump, told NBC’s Chuck Todd on
the Russian-hack claim. Sunday there were serious problems with the Post’s claim
of Russian hacking.
“The Washington Post and the New York
Times on Russia’s interference in the
election is total B.S., and it is the definition
of ‘fake news,'” Limbaugh said, labeling
both newspapers “the biggest perpetrators
of fake news in this country today.”
“They are doing everything they can do to
take Trump out,” he explained. “It’s the
Democrat Party trying to change the
outcome of the election.”
Reince Priebus
140
 “The article is based on a lie that the RNC
was hacked. So the entire premise of the
article is false. The sources are unnamed.
And the report was inconclusive,” Priebus
said on “Meet the Press.”
The FBI did not corroborate the CIA’s claim of Russian
influence.
BizPacReview reported:
“A senior FBI counterintelligence official
met with Republican and Democrat
members of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence in order to give
the bureau’s view of a recent CIA report.
The official did not concur with the CIA,
frustrating Democrats. … The FBI official
was much less convinced of the claims,
providing ‘fuzzy’ and ‘ambiguous’ remarks.”
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said Monday the
presidential election was “illegitimate” and “tainted.”
As WND is reporting, 10 members of the Electoral College
including Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s daughter,
Christine, are demanding a briefing from U.S. intelligence
officials on any investigations into Trump’s ties to
Moscow.
“The Electors require to know from the
intelligence community whether there are
ongoing investigations into ties between
Donald Trump, his campaign or associates,
and Russian government interference in
the election, the scope of those
investigations, how far those investigations
may have reached, and who was involved
in those investigations,” they wrote in an
open letter.
“We further require a briefing on all
investigative findings, as these matters
directly impact the core factors in our
deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to
serve as President of the United States.”
The campaign of Democratic Party nominee Hillary
Clinton jumped on the bandwagon Monday, as Clinton
spokesman John Podesta said:
“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very
grave issues involving our national
security.”
“Electors have a solemn responsibility
under the Constitution and we support their
efforts to have their questions addressed.”
141
“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 said.
“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.”
Limbaugh claimed the fear among those on political left,
including the media, is palpable.
“I think I’m looking at abject panic,” he said.
“I know I am at the Democrat Party. Abject
panic. Childlike fright. First time in the
House of Mirrors at the horror show at the
state fair. All they see is themselves, and
they’re scared to death. And then there’s
Trump looking at ’em everywhere they turn
in there.”
Rush Limbaugh
“I think that people who live and work in
Washington are just numbed. I think they
are flabbergasted. I think they are
gobsmacked. I don’t think they’ve come to
grips with what’s happened here. It is such
a big deal that an outsider has come in and
is gonna run that show. I cannot emphasize
enough what an absolute shock this is to
these people. They are terrified … they’re
thinking that he’ gonna dismantle
everything that defines who they are. He’s
gonna dismantle everything that produces
their standard of living. They are shell-
shocked, they are paranoid and they are
scared to death. Members of both parties.
This is a closed club, this establishment,
this collection of elites.”
Limbaugh tied the media’s claims of Russian interference
in the U.S. election with the push for recounts by Green
Party candidate Jill Stein and many in the Democratic
Party.
“This is not a bunch of extremists who are
not really part of the Democrat Party
mainstream trying to run this recount and
trying to intimidate the electors. This is the
Democrat Party. There is no fringe in the
Democrat Party. They are all extreme,
radical leftists, socialists …
.
142
“And what you’re seeing, no matter where
you look – if it’s Jill Stein, if it’s some of
these wackos they find to carry the water
on hassling and harassing the electors –
it’s mainstream. It is the mainstream of the
left, the Democrat Party. It isn’t their fringe.
And they are expressly attempting to
change the outcome of this election.”
 Clinton Campaign Backs Electors Seeking Intel About
Alleged Russian Involvement In Election
"... letter raises very grave issues ..."
By Randy DeSoto
December 12, 2016 at 11:44am

The Clinton campaign is backing efforts by members of On Fox News Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump was
the Electoral College to have in intelligence briefing about asked about the Washington Post story, which ran on
possible foreign involvement in the election before they Friday titled, “Secret CIA Assessment Says Russia Was
gather to vote on Dec. 19. Trying To Help Trump Win White House.”

“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very
grave issues involving our national
security,” top Hillary Clinton adviser John
Podesta said in a statement Monday
Politico reported. “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,” he
added. “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.”
As reported by Western Journalism, a group of 10 electors
from the Electoral College requested more information
Monday on the ongoing investigation surrounding U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump and Russia.
In an open letter addressed to Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper, the electors stated they would
need additional details before meeting on Dec. 19 to
formally vote for the country’s next president.
“I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another
excuse. I don’t believe it. I don’t know why,
and I think it’s just — you know, they talked
about all sorts of things. Every week, it’s
another excuse,” he replied.
“So, why would the CIA put out this story
that the Russians wanted you to win?” host
Chris Wallace followed up.
“I’m not sure they put it out. I think the
Democrats are putting it out because they
suffered one of the greatest defeats in the
history of politics in this country. And,
frankly, I think they’re putting it out. It’s
ridiculous,” the president-elect responded.
During the campaign the Clinton campaign and fellow
Democrats blamed the Russians for being behind the hack
of the Democrat National Committee, which resulted in
embarrassing emails being released by WikiLeaks.
The Clinton campaign supported Green Party Candidate
Jill Stein’s recount efforts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and
Michigan, though Clinton described any efforts not to
accept the election results “horrifying” in a debate prior to
election day.
Clinton has pointed to “fake news” and FBI Director
James Comey as reasons Trump won the election.

The letter was posted on Medium by Christine Pelosi, a

California elector and daughter of House Democratic
Leader Nancy Pelosi.
.

143
 Ten Electoral College Electors Want Briefing On "Russian
Interference" Before Presidential Vote
by Tyler Durden
Dec 12, 2016 1:10 PM
In our initial take on the Washington Post's story about the
"secret" CIA assessment that Russia helped Trump win the
election (since contested by the FBI), we said that this may
amount to nothing short of a "soft coup" attempt by leaders
in the US Intel community and the Obama administration,
and warned to expect of a push by prominent democrats to
pressure the electoral college to "take into consideration"
these findings next Monday, on December 19, when the
formal vote for president is set to take place.
This is how we summarized the newly-formed narrative:
1. Announce "consensus" (not unanimous) "conclusion"
based in circumstantial evidence now, before the
Electoral College vote, then write a report with actual
details due by Jan 20.
2. Put a proven liar - James Clapper - in charge of writing
the report on Russian hacking.
3. Fail to mention that not one of the leaked DNC or
Podesta emails has been shown to be inauthentic. So
the supposed Russian hacking simply revealed truth
about Hillary, DNC, and MSM collusion and corruption.
4. Fail to mention that if hacking was done by or for US
government to stop Hillary, blaming the Russians
would be the most likely disinformation used by US
agencies.
5. Expect every pro-Hillary lapdog journalist - which is
virtually all of them - in America will hyperventilate
(Twitter is currently on fire) about this latest fact-free,
anti-Trump political stunt for the next nine days.
To be sure, shortly after our post, first Paul Krugman, then
other prominent liberals including Nate Silver and various
House representative, validated out point: if Russia has
indeed intervened, then the electoral college must be made
aware, and briefed ahead of the Dec. 19 vote. It culminated
with a Politico report on Saturday, according to which a
Democratic congressman suggested that members of the
Electoral College should be able to consider Russian
interference in the presidential election — and whether it
influenced the outcome — when deciding how to cast their
vote.
Cicilline appears to be the first member of Congress and
the highest-ranking elected official in the country to
endorse the notion that electors aren’t simply rubber
stamps for their states’ popular vote. Earlier Saturday, he
144
retweeted a Rhode Island-based national security expert
who argued that the intelligence community
“must brief electoral college about Russia
before vote.”
"To the extent that foreign interference in
the United States presidential elections
may have influenced the final result, I
believe the electors have the right to
consider that,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.)
said in a statement to POLITICO on
Saturday.
“EC exists to protect republic from
candidate under foreign influence,” the
expert, Salve Regina University researcher
Jim Ludes, wrote.
Cicilline stopped short of endorsing that sentiment in his
statement to POLITICO. But in a second tweet on
Saturday,
he urged the White House to publicize
information surrounding the CIA’s
assessment that Russia intervened in
the election to help Trump. “Before the
Electoral College votes,” he added.
Fast forward to Monday, when Democratic lawmaker Jim
Himes was lobbying the Electoral College to shun Donald
Trump, and vote for Hillary Clinton — even though he
conceded Monday that the Republican won the election
“fair and square.” As the Post reported, Rep. Jim Himes’
(D-Conn.) plea comes a week before the Dec. 19 vote,
which is expected to affirm the results of the Nov. 8
election, in which Trump beat Clinton with 306 Electoral
College votes.
“We’re 5 wks from Inauguration & the
President Elect is completely unhinged.
The electoral college must do what it was
designed for,” Himes wrote Sunday night
on Twitter in response to Trump’s gripe that
NBC’s “Nightly News” is “biased,
inaccurate and bad, point after point.”
In an interview Monday on CNN’s “New Day,” Himes
said that Trump’s refusal to say that the Russian hacked
Democrats during the election was what prompted his plea
to the electoral college.
“What finally pushed me over the edge was
when the president-elect of the United
States criticized the CIA and the
intelligence community. Can you imagine
what the leaders in Beijing and Moscow
and Tehran are thinking as they watch the
next president of the United States de-
legitimize and criticize his own intelligence
community and stand up for the defense of
Russia, one of our prime adversaries,” said
Himes.
The Democratic rep said the move would result in “an
awful lot of litigation,” but said it was the right thing to do
under the system that currently exists.
“The Electoral College, if you read the
Federalist papers and understand why it is
there, it is a group of people. It is not an
algorithm. It is not a set of ballots. It is a
group of people that our Founding Fathers,
you know, to whom supposedly we all sort
of defer to, pledged the idea that if
someone gets elected that is manifestly ill
equipped to be president … that the
Electoral College can step in.” he said.
Still Himes, who said Trump isn’t qualified to be a
“mayor of a small town in Connecticut,”
admitted that “under the rules, President-
elect Donald Trump won “fair and square.”
In any case, it will likely come as no
surprise that moments ago ten Electoral
College electors have asked U.S.
145
intelligence officials for more
information on ongoing investigations
surrounding President-elect Donald
Trump’s relationship with Russia,
complying with the narrative as laid out on
Saturday.
The group of electors, which includes the daughter of
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, wrote an open
letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
asking for the information ahead of their Dec. 19 meeting
to formally vote for the next president, the Hill reports.
“The Electors require to know from the
intelligence community whether there are
ongoing investigations into ties between
Donald Trump, his campaign or associates,
and Russian government interference in
the election, the scope of those
investigations, how far those investigations
may have reached, and who was involved
in those investigations,” the letter read.
“We further require a briefing on all
investigative findings, as these matters
directly impact the core factors in our
deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit
to serve as President of the United
States.”
***
To be sure, the Electoral College's appeal faces a steep
uphill climb if it is to succeed: nine Democrats and only
one Republican signed the letter. The Republican,
Christopher Suprun, has said that he won't vote for Trump
when the Electoral College meets. So far no other
republicans have expressed an interest in challenging the
vote outcome. Also on Monday, Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell rejected Sen. John McCain's call for a
special panel to investigate Russian election interference.
 Recount Efforts End:
Trump Wins In Wisconsin, Pennsylvania
By Marc Levy And Scott Bauer, Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Dec 12, 2016, 11:50 PM E
Presidential election recount efforts came to an end
Monday in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with both states
certifying Republican Donald Trump as the winner in
contests that helped put him over the top in the Electoral
College stakes.
Trump's victory in Wisconsin was reaffirmed following a
statewide vote recount that showed him defeating
Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 23,000 votes.
Meanwhile, a federal judge issued a stinging rejection of a
Green Party-backed request for a presidential recount in
Pennsylvania that complained the state's reliance on aging
electronic voting machines made it highly vulnerable to
hacking.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein successfully requested and
paid for the Wisconsin recount while her attempts for
similar statewide recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan
were blocked by the courts.
Stein got only about 1 percent of the vote in each of the
three states, which Trump narrowly won over Clinton.
Stein argued, without evidence, that voting machines in all
three states were susceptible to hacking. All three states
were crucial to Trump's victory, having last voted for a
Republican for president in the 1980s.
The numbers barely budged in Wisconsin after nearly 3
million votes were recounted. Trump, a billionaire New
York real estate mogul, picked up 131 votes and won by
22,748 votes. The final results changed just 0.06 percent.
Trump took to Twitter to celebrate the recount result.
"The final Wisconsin vote is in and guess
what - we just picked up an additional 131
votes," he tweeted. "The Dems and Green
Party can now rest. Scam!"
146
Stein said she was disappointed not all Wisconsin counties
did hand recounts, although most did. She said the goal of
the recount was never to change the outcome but to
validate the vote and restore confidence in the system.
"The recount in Wisconsin raised a number
of important election integrity issues that
bear further assessment and serious action
to ensure we have integrity and confidence
in our electoral system," she said, without
naming what they were.
Wisconsin Elections Commission Chairman Mark
Thomsen said before certifying the recount results there
was no evidence of a hack.
In Pennsylvania, state officials certified the results of the
election in the hours following the decision by U.S.
District Judge Paul S. Diamond.
Trump beat Clinton in the state by about 44,000 votes out
of 6 million cast, or less than 1 percent, according to the
final tally after weeks of counting provisional and overseas
ballots. Green Party voters had petitioned some counties to
do partial recounts, affecting few votes, county officials
said.
Diamond said there were at least six grounds that required
him to reject the Green Party's lawsuit, which had been
opposed by Trump, the Pennsylvania Republican Party and
the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.
Suspicion of a hacked Pennsylvania election "borders on
the irrational" while granting the Green Party's recount bid
could "ensure that no Pennsylvania vote counts" given
Tuesday's federal deadline to certify the vote for the
Electoral College, wrote Diamond, an appointee of
Republican former President George W. Bush.
"Most importantly, there is no credible
evidence that any 'hack' occurred, and
compelling evidence that Pennsylvania's
voting system was not in any way
compromised," Diamond wrote.
He said the lawsuit suffered from a lack of standing,
potentially the lack of federal jurisdiction and an
"unexplained, highly prejudicial" wait before filing last
week's lawsuit, four weeks after the Nov. 8 election.
The decision was the Green Party's latest roadblock in
Pennsylvania after hitting numerous walls in county and
state courts. Green Party-backed lawyers argue it was
possible that computer hackers changed the election
outcome and that Pennsylvania's heavy use of paperless
machines makes it a prime target. Stein also contended
Pennsylvania has erected unconstitutional barriers to
voters seeking a recount.
147
A lawyer for the Green Party members said Monday they
were disappointed and unable to immediately say whether
they would appeal.
"But one thing is clear," said the lawyer,
Ilann Maazel. "The Pennsylvania election
system is not fair to voters and voters don't
know if their votes counted, and that's a
very large problem."
A federal judge halted Michigan's recount last week after
three days. Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000
votes out of nearly 4.8 million votes cast.
 DNC Hack Blamed On Russia May Have Been Obama’s
False Flag Operation – Former US Ambassador Bolton
Published Time: 12 Dec, 2016 07:43
John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. © Las
Vegas Sun / Steve Marcus / Reuters
Hacking operations against America’s two major political
parties during the election may have been the result of a
false flag operation carried out by the Obama
administration, despite accusations against Russia, former
US ambassador John Bolton says.
Speaking to Fox News’ Eric Shawn on Sunday, former US
ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said
“we have to know the facts here, and it’s
not at all clear to me, just viewing this and
from the outside, that this hacking into the
DNC (Democratic National Committee) and
the RNC (Republican National Committee)
computers was not a false flag operation.”
Recalling what FBI director James Comey said regarding
Hillary Clinton’s “home-brewed server,” Bolton noted
that while the bureau found no direct evidence of that
foreign intelligence services had breached the system, he
hadn’t expected them to.
Bolton said this means that a “really
sophisticated foreign intelligence service
would not leave any cyber fingerprints, and
yet people say they did leave fingerprints in
the hacks regarding our election.”
“So the question has to be asked: Why did
the Russians run their smart intelligence
service against Hillary’s server, but their
dumb intelligence service against the
election?”
When asked if by using the phrase “false
flag,” he was implying that the US
148
government had played a role in the
hacking, Bolton said “we just don’t know.”
However, the former UN ambassador said he believes
“intelligence has been politicized in the
Obama administration to a very significant
degree.”
He stressed the need for conducting an investigation that
would potentially determine
“who else might want to influence the
election and why they would leave
fingerprints that point to the Russians.”
“If you think the Russians did this, then why
did they leave fingerprints?” Bolton
reiterated.
The US government officially accused Russia of cyber-
attacking the DNC in October, saying it was “confident”
that Moscow had “authorized” the hacks. Russia has
dismissed the claims as “nonsense.”
Russia has repeatedly denied that it was involved in the US
election or the DNC hacks in any way.
“Does anyone seriously think that Russia
can somehow influence the choice of the
American people?” Putin asked in October.
“Is America some sort of a banana
republic?”
In November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavorv
told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the
“whole story is from the field of myth-
making.”
Although the DNC hacks were widely publicized during
the election – along with the leaking of documents
belonging to the committee and Hillary Clinton’s
campaign manager – reports about a breach at the RNC,
referred to by Bolton on Sunday, have only recently
emerged. However, the RNC has denied that any such
hack took place.
 NeoCon John Bolton Calls Russian
US Election Hacking Claim a False Flag
By Stephen Lendman
12-12-2016
It’s intensely bashing Russia to pressure Trump from
normalizing ties and cooperating with Putin in combating
US-supported terrorism.
But Bolton’s false flag characterization will do, maybe the
only time he’ll back off from bashing Russia himself -
unless appointed deputy secretary of state as reports
suggest and ordered not to.
Interviewed Sunday afternoon on Fox News, he suggested
pinning responsibility on the Obama administration
without claiming it in so many words. Below is a transcript
of the interview:
“Bolton: It's not at all clear to me just
viewing this from the outside that this
hacking into the DNC and the RNC
computers was not a false flag operation.
Let's remember what FBI director James
Comey said dealing with Hillary's home
brew server. He said we found no direct
evidence of foreign intelligence service
penetration, but given the nature of this, we
didn't expect to.
Meaning, a really sophisticated foreign
intelligence service would not leave any
cyber fingerprints. And yet people say they
did leave cyber fingerprints in the hacks
regarding our election.
So the question that has to be asked is why
did the Russians run their smart
intelligence service against Hillary's server
but their dumb intelligence services against
the election.
Fox News Host Eric Shawn: When you say
false flag, that's a very serious charge.
False flag by whom?
Here is "The Washington Post." The Post
reported the CIA has concluded individuals
with close ties to the Russian government
hacked the e-mails.
Intelligence officials have determined that
Russia's goal was to help trump win rather
149
than simply undermine confidence in the
election.
Are you actually accusing someone here in
this administration of trying - in the
intelligence community of trying to throw
something?
Bolton: We just don't know, but I believe
that intelligence has been politicized in the
Obama administration to a very significant
degree.
Shawn: Would the intelligence officials
politicize this to go so far that could
damage our republic and what we have for
200-plus years stood for?
Bolton: I think the whole thing is called into
question and an independent investigation
becomes extremely important.
I think it's critical to answer the question I
posed. If you think the Russians did this,
then why did they leave fingerprints?
Shawn: Maybe because we have such
sophisticated and…
Bolton: James Comey and the FBI couldn’t
find any fingerprints.
Shawn: They use a different standard. It's
been shown they have a criminal start by
the CIA has more of an intellectual…
Bolton: Let’s hear the debate.
Shawn: What do you want to hear?
Something from the CIA director?
Bolton: I'd like to know. I think we have
something now. We don't want to
compromise intelligence sources and
methods but when you make that kind of
allegation, if it were true, and the Russians
have the capability and the intention of
doing it, I'm not by any means trying to
exonerate them, but if you say they've
done that, let me be clear, either in the
 cyber world or elsewhere, we should
retaliate.
It is unacceptable for the American
constitution to be assaulted by foreigners in
that way. So it is absolutely critical as well
that we get the facts right on this, and I
don't think we have anywhere enough in
the public domain to know what the facts
are.
Shawn: The president has ordered a
review. Senator McCain and others of the
Armed Services Committee are having
hearings on this with the new congress.
Let me read you a statement from both
Senators McCain, Senators Graham,
Schumer, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island,
both bipartisan.
For years foreign adversaries have directed
cyber attacks at America's physical,
economic, and military infrastructure while
stealing our intellectual property.
Now our institutions have been targeted.
Recent reports of Russian interference in
our election should alarm every American.
This cannot become a partisan issue. The
stakes are too high for our country.
McCain this morning called Putin a thug, a
killer, and a murderer. The president has
ordered a public review. What are you
calling on the president to do before
January 20th? To reveal the classified
information? To bring it all out so
Americans can know if Russia had a hand
in this election?
Bolton: One thing that makes me very
nervous is Barack Obama saying let's have
this report before the 20th of January so I
can wrap it up.
I think the burden for well or ill is going to
fall on Mike Pompeo who has been named
as president-elect trump's CIA director. I
.
150
think he's trusted by republicans and
democrats.
He doesn't bring any baggage. He's a new
official at the CIA. I'd look to him to head up
an investigation across the entire
intelligence committee.
I just think these are such serious charges,
again, if the Russians or any other foreign
government think that they can undermine
the integrity of our elections or defeat our
constitutional process, this is just as
serious an attack as a military attack.
Shawn: For those who are bothered by
your claim of a potential false flag, that's
very disturbing as an American.
Bolton: We would want to know who else
might want to influence the election and
why they would leave fingerprints that point
to the Russians.
That's why I say until we know more about
how the…intelligence community came to
this conclusion.”
My Comments
False flags are a longstanding US tradition, dating from the
19th century, 9/11 the mother of them all.
Not a shred of credible evidence links
Russia to US election hacking.
In a same day article, I quoted former UK ambassador
Craig Murray, calling Russian US election hacking
charges “bullshit. They are absolutely making it up,” he
said.
“I know who leaked them. I’ve met the
person who leaked them, and they are
certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s
a leak, not a hack; the two are different
things.”
Murray is a reliable source, unlike anti-Russia/pro-war
bipartisan neocons infesting Washington.
 EX Amb - CIA Russian US
Election Charges Are 'Bullshit'
By Stephen Lendman
12-12-2016

“Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster Claims Of ‘We Know Who It

and human rights activist. He was British
Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August
2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the
University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010,”
his web site explains.
He did what few others dared. While serving as UK
ambassador to Uzbekistan, Britain’s Foreign Office
removed him for criticizing the Karimov regime’s major
human rights abuses.
Was, It Was The Russians’
Are Beneath Contempt.”
Can Any Sensible Person Believe Hillary Lost
To Trump Because Of Russia? It’s An
Absurdity On Its Face. Yet Us, Uk And Other
European Media Keep Hyping It To Their
Disgrace.

Facing disciplinary action in London, based on trumped up Murray Called Cia Charges
charges, he was given a week to resign and told discussing Against Russia “Bullshit. They
accusations against him would violate the 1989 Official
Secrets Act. Are Absolutely Making It Up.
I Know Who Leaked Them.
After months of investigation revealing nothing, all I’ve Met The Person Who
charges were dropped. Murray got a slap on the wrist for Leaked Them, And They Are
truth-telling. The Financial Times reported leaked Certainly Not Russian And
information, indicating he said MI6 used intelligence by
Uzbek authorities obtained through torture. It’s An Insider. It’s A Leak,
Not A Hack; The Two Are
Staunchly anti-war, he supports whistleblowers worldwide. Different Things.”
In 2006, he was given the Sam Adams Award for Integrity
in Intelligence. Before Foreign Office action against him, There You Have It From A Credible Source
he declined honors offered by Queen Elizabeth, saying
titles are “not his thing.” With Inside Knowledge. Claiming Russian
Responsibility Is Blatant Agency Fake News,
On December 11, his article titled “The CIA’s Absence of Disgraceful Lying For Political Reasons -
Conviction” blasted the agency’s “blatant lie,” claiming Clearly To Bash Russia, While Denigrating
Russian US election hacking despite no evidence proving Trump’s Triumph In Service To Hillary And
it. Below are some key points he made, along with my own
Dark Forces Backing Her.
Comments:
Murray Concluded Saying
The Cia Claims It
“(T)He Worst Thing About
“Know(S) The Individuals”
All This Is That It Is Aimed At
Involved In Hacking. Yet No
Promoting Further Conflict
Arrests Or Extradition
With Russia,” Endangering
Requests Were Made. “Plainly
Everyone.
It Stinks,” Said Murray. The
Alleged “Anonymous Source
.

151
 Were The DNC Emails Hacked Or Leaked?
Former Fbi Agent And Whistleblower Coleen Rowley Says We've Heard
From The Fbi And The Cia, But It Is The Nsa That Would Be The Critical
Agency Because Of How It Monitors Communications
December 12, 2016
SHARMINI PERIES: Welcome to The Real News
Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from
Baltimore. President-elect Donald Trump is rejecting
CIA's claims that Russia intervened in the 2016 elections
to ensure his victory. This comes after ABC News reported
on Sunday that the Russian hackers also gained access to
RNC e-mails. Obama ordered a full intelligence
assessment by January 20th, the day of the inauguration.
Reports in Washington Post suggest that the FBI agrees
with the CIA that Russia was behind the hacked DNC e-
mails but does not agree with the CIA's conclusion that
they did this to help Trump win. Meanwhile, in our own
report with Coleen Rowley, on Friday, she urged us not to
come to any conclusions until we have more evidence
from the intelligence agencies.
Trump's potential Deputy Secretary of State, John Bolton,
is also circulating rumors that the hacks could have been a
false flag operation. Joining us to analyze all of this is
Coleen Rowley. Coleen is a former FBI Special Agent and
Division Counsel. In 2002, she was named one of Time
Magazine's Persons of the Year for having exposed some
of the FBI's pre-9/11 failures. Thanks, again for joining us,
Coleen.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Yes. Thanks for having me.
SHARMINI PERIES: So, Coleen, now let's discuss what
has happened since Friday when we last talked, what are
the new developments?
COLEEN ROWLEY: Well, basically, the new
developments are that Congress is getting into the act,
calling for hearings. Today, a group of Senators,
unfortunately, a lot of the war hawk Senators who have not
been immune to group-think before, called for bipartisan
hearings in the Armed Services Committee and the
Intelligence Committees. The House Democrats also want
to participate and they're calling for a bicameral
investigation. Two Senators, I think it was Dianne
Feinstein and Leahy, are actually calling for an
Independent Commission, something similar to the 9/11
Commission. So, we have a lot of calls for hearings.
Unfortunately, these allegations that the CIA put out last
152
week -- which the FBI apparently doesn't fully agree with -
- they are, in the media, being taken as fact. And so, you
see indication at all that someone would actually look into
the possibility that these were not even hacks but were
leaks. Even though some former NSA whistleblower
people that were involved in being whistleblowers about
the mass surveillance -- Willam Binney, an official, and
expert on encryption and decryption -- he thinks that
actually this is more of a leak by an insider instead of an
actual hack. And the reason for that is because the NSA
would be the critical agency. Now, we're hearing
everything about CIA and FBI, we're hearing nothing from
the NSA. But what happens is the NSA is the agency in
charge of collecting the information and they monitor all
these communications, and according to Binney, they
would know if these e-mails were passing through
networks and leaving and they would actually know the
recipient.
SHARMINI PERIES: Coleen, that corroborates with what
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange had said, and also a former UK
Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who also
indicated that this was a leak, not a hack, and that he has
evidence because he was present when they met with the
person who provided the leak.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Yes. And, you know, that actually is
a really valid reason for even having further investigation.
If they're going to have an open mind when they do this
investigation, they should look in a very broad way instead
of already accepting the CIA's conclusions. And, again, the
Intelligence community, it looks like it's quite a number of
them that believe that Russia was behind these hacks. And
their only difference is on what the motivation for the
hacks was, whether it was to elect Trump, because Putin
wanted Trump, which is the CIA goes that far.
One thing to remember in all of this is that these
allegations are coming from high-level officials who
apparently have been greenlighted or authorized to leak.
When these briefings occurred, they were held in super-
secret lead-enclosed SCIFs. The FBI, the CIA apparently
briefed some high-level -- I don't know if it was the entire
Intelligence Committee or just the gang of four or the gang
of eight -- but they did it in a SCIF. Which means that this
supposed to be top secret, and yet, we have our
newspapers learning of this through "anonymous CIA
sources".
You know, when people say, "Well, aren't you for
whistleblowing?" I say, "Yes. But there's a big difference
between somebody at a bottom level, someone like an
Edward Snowden and someone like a Leon Panetta or a
Michael Hayden, who actually thinks they're allowed -- or
Petraeus for that matter -- who thinks that they have a
greenlight to leak or that no one will ever go after them
because they're high level." And I think that we have to
really remain very skeptical of this evidence until we are
told what the evidence actually consists. How do they
know that these hacks occurred?
What I've seen so far in the news about a footprint that was
a very obvious clue and people think, "Well, if that was so
obvious would that really be a nation state intelligence
agency that would be planting such an obvious clue like
that?" Or even the phishing itself because Podesta
apparently lapsed. It was his own lack of cyber security, in
many ways. He lost a cell phone and he didn't even change
its password. And then also someone pretended to be
Google and he clicked onto it and gave them his password.
And so, that's something that's very common. It would be
common by the average hacker, not necessarily common
by someone working for Russia or for another more
sophisticated nation state effort.
So there's a lot of information that really contradicts the
CIA allegations. And going back to the secrecy, they claim
that they want secrecy for their methods and for their
sources, and in today's announcement that there would be
these hearings, Mitch McConnell said that he hopes to
keep it secret. He actually said, "I hope we can protect the
agency's methods and sources." So that makes it seem like
this is going to be a hearing that's going to be, maybe -- the
Intelligence Committee does this quite often -- have secret
meetings and it's not open to the public.
Maybe a commission would be less secret would be more
transparent. Maybe that's why Dianne Feinstein and Leahy
want a commission, an independent commission. But, in
any event, it's a real mess. It's an absolute mess because I
think our mainstream media, along with a lot of these
politicians are really falling, again -- this has happened
more than once -- into a group-think led by the so-called
intelligence community, but oftentimes that intelligence
community, as happened before, the war in Iraq, becomes
very politicized. And you'd think they would have learned
153
a lesson by now, but obviously, it seems like we're falling
right into that trap again.
SHARMINI PERIES: And given all of this that's unfolding
and the different in-camera and off-camera and committees
and investigations that various people are calling for, I
gather that none of this is going to be concluded by the
20th of January when they inauguration takes place -- or,
for that matter, any time before the electoral college votes
on the final results of this election.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Yes, and that's why you're seeing
from the partisan angle, from the Hillary Clinton camp, I
think both Podesta and one of her former top aides or
staffers are calling for a couple of things -- one, perhaps
postponing the electoral vote. There's been some talk of
that online. And the other one is to brief the electors.
And so, the electors are supposed to meet, I think, in just a
few days and vote and so that there would be this briefing
by the CIA. Now that, to me, seems like the worst of both
worlds because we haven't actually investigated. What
they would be allowing, then, is for the CIA to repeat these
allegations, which they conclude or they think that the
Russian hacks were designed to elect Donald Trump.
And Bolton, his point about this being a false flag almost
becomes more believable at that point because Bolton has
been around the block. He isn't just someone from the
sidelines who's never been in government, who's saying
this could be a false flag. He's someone who's served in the
Reagan and in the both Bush Administrations. And for
him, I think it's telling that he would even suggest that this
could be a false flag, because it suggests that it possible. It
suggests that maybe he's had an inkling that this hasn't
even happened before. And that should be of even more
concern to Americans than the, what do they call this, a
national nervous breakdown that we're having over
possible interference from Russia.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Coleen. I thank you so
much for that update and I'm sure this is going to be an
ongoing issue that we'll be following here at The Real
News and look forward to you joining us. Thank you,
Coleen.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Yes, thank you.
SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us on The
Real News Network.
END
 The Trump Card Is Played!
Never Underestimate THE FOOL
How The Hatred For Catholic Rome In The 14th Century Would
Establish A Life And Death Struggle Within The European Deep-State;
And How This Conflict Would Lead To The Rise Of A Crypto-Cathar
Counter Church, Whose Apocalyptic World-Ending Goals Would
Complete Its Cycle On November 22, 1963 In The Anglo/Norman
America Of The Present Era.
By Paul Fitzgerald And Elizabeth Gould
December 12, 2016

Northern France’s Catholic nobility against the lesser

nobility of the south who were tolerant and supportive of
it.

As a pre-Christian faith deeply rooted in the ancient world

and spread by Rome’s legions through Mithraism to the
four corners of the pagan Roman Empire, Catharism
represented an old and powerful belief system which
refused to be suppressed by the sterile and often
contradictory doctrines of Rome’s Christian Empire.

As described by Reverend V.A. Demant, Canon of

London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral in a preface to a 1947 book
on the subject titled The Arrow and the Sword:

The Fool is a powerful Tarot card because its possibilities all start in
nothingness and reach into infinity
On Friday October 13, 1307 the French
King Philip IV, who was deeply indebted
to the Knights Templar, ordered them
arrested and charged with heretical
practices and on November 22 of that
year under pressure from Philip, Pope
Clement V issued the papal bull
Pastoralis Praeeminentiae instructing all
the monarchs of Europe to seize their
assets. Persian god, Mithra

“To mention only its roots in Mithraism, its

Whether or not the Knights Templar practiced heretical
links with the Gnostics, its theological
beliefs as charged, the immolation of Templar Grand
dualism, its asceticism, the ritual of life and
Master Jacques de Molay at the hands of the Pope’s
death as cosmic mysteries, the appeal of
Inquisitors in 1314 would serve as an inspiration to
the troubadours, Arthurian legends and the
generations of people who did.
cult of the Holy Grail, the passions aroused
for and against witchcraft, the intimate
Pope Innocent III’s brutal Albigensian Crusade of 1209-29 connection between sex and religion — all
against the powerful dualist Cathar movement pitted these things are sufficient testimony to the

154
 deep rooted vitality of a stream of religious
consciousness which cannot be
superciliously dismissed by rationalists and
moralists.”
Writing on the heels of World War II, and with Europe
still in ruins from the rise of an irrational and immoral
pagan faith called Nazism, Demant feared that such a vital
apocalyptic belief system with its “robust religiousness”
and commitment to a struggle against an evil material
world was bound to rise again, as it had so many times in
the past.
Yet, he might not have been surprised to know that his
own “Protestant” faith, of which he was a senior officer as
the Canon of St. Paul’s, had its own roots in the same
heresy.
Now lost in the cross weaves of history, Britain’s version
of the heresy represented a new and far more dangerous
version of life-denying Catharism than was ever imagined
by the Templars, Bernard of Clairvaux or Jacques
DeMolay.
_________
A Grudge that lasted through the Centuries
Much has been speculated about the survival of the
Templars following their dissolution in 1312. Today’s
popular fiction about their life as a secret society rests not
on any particular historical accounting but mainly on 18 th
century Masonic myth-making and Sir Walter Scott’s early
19th century stories that romanticized the Templar
Knighthood.
The 18th century men of the Enlightenment found great
interest in mystical illumination through Masonic rituals.
To these men, the newly industrializing West needed a
new prophetic tradition to anchor it in history. Rediscovery
of the ancient world, as a result of imperial interventions in
the Near East and Egypt, spawned a renewed interest in
Renaissance Neo-Platonism and Cabbalism and their roots
in a life-denying Gnostic creed. In fact, the very act of
returning in victory to the origin of these Gnostic beliefs
was in itself proof that they had been chosen to fulfill a
cosmic cycle, as prophesied by the ancients.
Bestowing the Templars with occult
mystical powers fit neatly into the early
Romantic Movement and helped to
promote Enlightenment thinking as part
of God’s plan for mankind.
But the ravages of the Inquisition and the growing anger
over a corrupt Roman Catholic Church were anything but
myth to those living in the thirteenth and fourteenth
century.
155
As a military order of religious warriors responsible only
to the Pope, the Templars and their Cathar backers in
France and England represented a powerful autonomous
deep-state within medieval society. In many ways
orthodox Christianity was no match for the life-denying,
dualist doctrine of the Cathars. Catharism’s simple focus
on the cosmic battle between a spiritual good and a
material evil, and its promise of a time-ending apocalypse
in which the material world would be consumed in fire,
was an extreme seduction.
Driven to ground by a corrupted Roman Catholic Church
and greedy French King, “the heresy” appeared to have
been trampled out by the middle of the 14 th century. But
with the onset of the Reformation in the early 16 th century,
Rome’s authority faced a new challenge and as it spread to
Ireland, the old Anglo/Norman warlords like the
Fitzgeralds, would face their own apocalypse.
Was it Elizabeth’s divine destiny to lead?
The Protestant Reformation represented a heresy that was
at once secular and religious. Martin Luther and John
Calvin confronted a Papacy that claimed a material
domain, as well as a spiritual one. In 1534, the English
Parliament’s Act of Supremacy solved that problem by
declaring Henry VIII
“Supreme Head on earth of the Church of
England”, and in 1559, his daughter Queen
Elizabeth I became the Church’s “Supreme
Governor.”
Cathar territory remained fertile ground for insurrection
against the church and that insurrection came with the
Protestant Reformation. The French Calvinist Huguenot
movement of the late 16th century grew from exactly the
same ground in France, where 200 years earlier, the
Cathars had been brutally suppressed by the Papal
Crusade.
In England, Queen Elizabeth I’s deep-state, comprised of
the Earl of Leicester Sir Francis Walsingham and Sir
Philip Sydney, found common cause with the Huguenots
and supported them with soldiers, guns and money. Their
armies waged holy war against the Papacy across Europe
and in Catholic Ireland where they targeted the last visible
threat to Elizabeth’s supremacy at home, the Fitzgeralds.

_________
16th Century deep-state competition
The Fitzgerald family had drawn their original power
from France and Italy in the 11th century as the muscle for
the Cathar-friendly Anglo/Norman royals. They had
clearly performed their duties well enough to be rewarded
by their feudal lords with lands and titles, but when they
came to Ireland, their paths diverged. Gerald of Wales
makes clear in his book that, by 1170, this family of
Anglo/Norman Samurai was fed up with royal excess and
wanted to strike out on their own under their own banner.
But three centuries of the Fitzgerald family’s immersion in
Irish culture transformed them. Forsaking the English
language, English customs and English law, the
Anglo/Normans married the land and became “more Irish
than the Irish themselves”. Known as the “Old English”
(Seanghaill), their ongoing intermarriage with Irish clans
produced furious resentment from London, while the
coming of the Protestant Reformation produced outright
hatred.
Known for their love of Ireland and their willingness to
renounce their loyalty to England, the Fitzgerald family
were feared and hated as representatives of a Roman
Catholic deep-state bent on reversing the Reformation. On
the other hand, the Sidney Circle represented a very old
deep-state of its own; that “stream of religious
consciousness,” that had been suppressed for centuries,
had risen in rebellion and was committed to ridding the
world of evil.
The Sidney Circle and its primary operatives, Francis
Walsingham, Edmund Spencer, Sir Walter Raleigh and
John Dee, represented the militarized edge of Renaissance
Neoplatonism, bent on establishing England not just as a
global empire to rival Catholic Spain, but as a spiritual
empire headed by Queen Elizabeth I that would cleanse the
material world and restore its spiritual destiny.
The first step to that destiny was the conquest of Ireland.
Inspired by the Hermetic-Cabbalist Neoplatonism of John
156
Dee, the Sydney Circle would take on the Fitzgerald Earl
of Desmond in a genocidal war of extermination. Viewed
from the 21st century, the idea of an all-or-nothing
Manichean holy war between white Europeans seems
bizarre.
But the feud between the European
deep-state factions of the Counter-
Reformation was a no-holds-barred fight
to the death that embodied no less than
the core principles of a cosmic war
between light and dark.
In 1580, the prospect of this apocalyptic war of genocide
coming to Ireland prompted the Holy See in Rome to send
an army of Italians and Spaniards to help the Fitzgeralds
under the authority drafted by the “Just War Doctrine.”
Dubbed by Richard Berleth, author of The Twilight Lords:
Elizabeth I and the First Irish Holocaust as the “Twilight
Lords”, the Fitzgeralds’ struggle against the Elizabethans
and their Renaissance Neoplatonism offers a window into
a thousand year old factional struggle of a European
“deep-state” rooted in a Gnostic belief system. As
allegorized in Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queene, the
Fitzgeralds satisfied the Manichean requirement for evil in
the English propaganda of the day, while Elizabeth and her
Red Cross Templar knights represented Christian purity in
the tradition of King Arthur and the Round Table.
It is of no small importance that the death of Gerald
Fitzgerald, the last Earl of Desmond in 1583, marks the
beginning of the British Empire. The eternal struggle of
good against evil, the ancient Iranian war of light against
dark by design required a victory over the darkness, and
the Earl of Desmond filled that sacred role. As was the
custom at the time, his decapitated head was sent to
London where, legend has it, Queen Elizabeth sat with it
for the morning before having it impaled on London
Bridge.
Sir Walter Raleigh
With the incorporation of the British East India
Company in 1600, Elizabeth’s victory would be spread
around the world through imperial expansion. Elizabeth’s
favorite courtier Walter Raleigh would sail to America and
establish the colony that came to be named Virginia for the
“Virgin Queen.”
The East India Company would establish trading posts
from India to America and play a key role in the economic
causes leading to the American Revolution.
It would make its founding families rich beyond dreams of
avarice and make the English language universal and
English culture the standard by which all other cultures
would be judged. But the competition with Rome and the
suspicion over its motives would never stop.
In the 400 plus years since Elizabeth I’s time, much of
what was once deemed heretical by Church authorities has
become commonplace. The Irish feudal society the
Fitzgeralds died to preserve was already obsolete by
Elizabethan times, and would have vanished with or
without them.
The sexual practices of the “heretics”, forbidden by law as
recently as a generation ago, have become accepted and
even openly embraced. The perfection of the human race
through magic and alchemy sought by John Dee and the
Sidney Circle has been replaced by computer science,
physics and biotechnology, but the final product of such
perfection is far from clear or even desirable.
Unknown and often unseen, the bitter struggle for power
within the Anglo/Norman deep-state has raged beneath the
surface down through the centuries.
JFK
On November 22, 1963, Americans were shocked by the
public execution of their President, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy. In the years since every manner of conspiracy
theory has been advanced to explain what happened.
.
157
But killing the only Roman Catholic President of the
United States on the site of the first Masonic Temple in
Dallas on the Masonic day of revenge for the destruction
of the Knights Templar (November 22) bespeaks a ritual;
and the ritual to which it bespeaks belongs to the Cathars
and the De Clare family.
The discovery that George Bush was descended from Earl
Richard de Clare, “Strongbow,” the same man who drew
the Fitzgerald family en masse into Ireland in 1169 was
one of those moments few may understand without access
to the deep-state script.
If the assassination of President John
Fitzgerald Kennedy could have been an
act of retribution for an eight hundred
year old vendetta, then we all must
begin to view history from a much more
complex perspective. In order to
understand a “deep-state”, we must all
begin to ask “deep-questions” and be
willing to accept “deep-answers”, no
matter where they lead.
But with some clues to our own past, with an
understanding of the ancient cycles of revenge and
retribution and a rudimentary knowledge of the ancient
rituals of death and rebirth, we can move forward to
enthusiastically greet whatever is about to come next in
much better shape than we might have thought possible.
Copyright © 2016 Fitzgerald & Gould All rights
reserved
_________
America, an Empire in Twilight
Series
PART I: When America Became the Dark
Force
PART II: How Guilt, Innocence & Facts
Have Been Rendered Irrelevant
PART III: Neoconizing the Just War
Doctrine in the service of American Empire
PART IV: The End of Illusion
FINALE: The Trump Card is played! Never
Underestimate THE FOOL
 Could The Electoral College
Really Stop Donald Trump? And Should It?
It Would Be A Highly Unusual Move,
But That Doesn’t Mean It’s Necessarily A Bad Idea.
By Seth Masket
December 12, 2016
Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin,
center, carries a ballot box containing the 12 Massachusetts electoral
votes for Vice President Al Gore during the Electoral College voting
on December 18th, 2000. (Photo: Pool Photo/Getty Images)
We’re now less than a week from when the Electoral
College will cast its votes in the presidential election.
Before this year, the idea that large numbers of electors
would vote for someone other than their states’ winners
would have been pretty absurd. This year, it’s a possibility.
But is it even a good idea?
On its face, the prospects of enough electors defecting
from Donald Trump to deny him the presidency seem
pretty remote. Electors are selected for their commitment
to party. They are the hard core. For the most part, these
electors have worked for years in party politics and they
hope to continue doing so for many years to come. Beyond
some state rules that create penalties for unfaithful electors
(which usually only assess small fines and may actually be
unconstitutional), there are solid political reasons why
unfaithful electors are very rare.
Yet, at least outside of political fiction, there has probably
never been a better election for electors to go against what
their states’ voters wanted. Recent revelations by the
Central Intelligence Agency that Russia actively engaged
in this very close election to advantage Trump, and that
Russia maintains leverage over him with unreleased
information, call into question the legitimacy of a Trump
presidency. Add to that Trump’s erratic and destructive
158
behavior over the past month, the fact that nearly three
million more voters preferred his opponent to him, his
work to undermine relations with China, the fact that he
considers his own uninformed opinions about international
security superior to the evaluations of the nation’s
intelligence agencies, and the near certainty that he’d be in
violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause on the
day he is sworn in, and you really don’t get a more
appropriate opportunity for Republican electors to rethink
their states’ choice.
Plus, arguably, this was entirely the purpose of the
Electoral College. It’s important to remember that,
according to the Constitution, the presidential election has
not yet taken place. Electors for this task have been
chosen, but they have yet to cast a vote. At least according
to Federalist 68, electors are not supposed to be a rubber
stamp for their states. They’re supposed to investigate,
deliberate, and render a decision:
[T]he immediate election should be made by men most
capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station,
and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation,
and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and
inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A
small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens
from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the
information and discernment requisite to such complicated
investigations.
Of course, this hasn’t been the way the Electoral College
has been employed. Yes, there have been a few cases of
unfaithful electors, but there’s almost no history (OK,
maybe 1876) of actual deliberation occurring or of enough
electors defecting to change the outcome.
Indeed, this is the main argument being used at this point
against the idea of unfaithful electors: Electors casting
their votes commensurate with their states is a
longstanding norm in our country that shouldn’t be
tampered with, especially after the campaigns have been
run and the voters have already weighed in. This is
certainly a defensible position. Megan McArdle argued as
much on Saturday morning.
 But here’s the thing. It’s 2016, and norms are dropping
like flies. The United States Senate Republican majority
has refused to consider a replacement for a Supreme Court
justice who died 10 months ago, simply because they want
someone other than Barack Obama to name his successor.
The Republican Party nominated someone with no
political or military experience for the first time in its
venerable history. That nominee ran on a campaign of
racial- and gender-oriented insults, promised to jail his
opponent, invited a foreign power to hack that opponent’s
campaign, has proferred unsubstantiated claims of voter
fraud, and has vowed to maintain business ties while
serving in the White House. None of these things were
considered remotely acceptable prior to 2016. If you’re
OK with these considerable norm violations, then you
probably need a better reason to oppose unfaithful electors
than “That’s just not the way we do things.”
And, indeed, there is work afoot to change some electoral
votes. Some Democratic electors have made entreaties to
Republican ones, offering to cast their vote for a
Republican other than Trump if their counterparts will do
the same. And at least one Texas Republican elector will
not vote for Trump. Yet let us suppose that enough electors
actually abandoned Trump to deny him an Electoral
College victory. What would that mean? It could go in
quite a few different directions.
.
159
If no candidate had a majority of the Electoral College
vote (e.g.: roughly 40 Republican electors join with some
Democratic ones to vote for John Kasich, Mike Pence, or
someone else), the election would go to the House of
Representatives. Trump could well prevail there, but it’s
not certain he would; they could decide to vote a
compromise candidate. Or you could have an admittedly
unlikely situation in which 40 or so Republican electors
defect to Hillary Clinton and make her president.
In these or many other situations, you have a new president
being chosen whom voters did not choose on Election
Day. This would create a legitimacy crisis for the new
president. It would validate every fear Trump raised during
the campaign that our election systems are rigged and
voters are not getting what they want. At best, this would
lead to mass disillusionment and a crisis of faith in
American democracy. Other possible outcomes are far
worse.
It is obvious that would be a terrible situation. It is not
obvious that this is a worse situation than the one we
already face.
 John Podesta Calls For CIA
“Disinfo” Briefing For All Electoral College Voters
Podesta Calls For Electors To Be Briefed On Report Many In
Intelligence Community Don’t Even Believe
By Alex Thomas
12.12.2016 @11:35 PM EST
(INTELLIHUB) — In yet another direct attack in the
ongoing war against Donald Trump’s impending
presidency, Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta
has backed “efforts” by some Electoral College voters to
be briefed by the CIA before they cast their vote for
president.
“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very
grave issues involving our national
security,” Podesta said in a statement
Monday. “Electors have a solemn
responsibility under the Constitution and
we support their efforts to have their
questions addressed.”
Podesta went on 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.”
“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.”
The statement, which was the first from the Clinton
Campaign that actually questioned the election directly, is
chalked full of half-truths and outright lies, especially
when you consider that the FBI and the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have both stated
that they do not back the “CIA assessment” revealed late
Friday by establishment darlings the Washington Post and
the New York Times.
A day after reports indicated that the FBI didn’t back the
CIA in their claim that Russia specifically helped Donald
Trump win the election, a Reuters exclusive revealed that:
160
The overseers of the U.S. intelligence
community have not embraced a CIA
assessment that Russian cyber attacks
were aimed at helping Republican
President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016
election, three American officials said on
Monday.
While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI) does not dispute the CIA’s analysis of Russian
hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment
because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow
intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent
Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be
named.
Considering this confirmation that many in the intelligence
community don’t even believe the assessment, the call by
Podesta to have Electoral College voters briefed on it can
be seen as nothing more than a move to have them go
through a sort of mini CIA disinformation briefing (see
brainwashing) with the goal of altering their vote for
someone other than Trump.
Shockingly, the same Politico article that
detailed Podesta’s statement also included
the fact that some Democrats are openly
lobbying the Electoral College to vote
against Trump.
One of them, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the
House Intelligence Committee, told POLITICO on
Monday that Trump is a “potentially dangerous president.”
“It became clear to me last night that this
man is not only unqualified to be president,
he’s a danger to the republic,” Himes said.
“I do think the Electoral College should
choose someone other than Donald Trump
to be president. That will lead to a
fascinating legal issue … but I would rather
have a legal problem — a constitutional
legal problem — then to find out the White
House was now the Kremlin’s chief ally.”
As we reported last night, stealing the election from Trump In other words they are backing a direct plan that would
and the American people has become a real possibility and possibly see Hillary Clinton take office after losing the
now the Clinton Campaign itself has joined the war to stop election.
the winner of the 2016 election from ever taking office.

161
 Washington Post-CIA Connections Destroy Post’s
“Election-Hack” Claim
By Jon Rappoport
December 12, 2016
“The CIA says” is never a great way to start a sentence.
But that’s the basis of the latest charge that Russia hacked
the US presidential election.
Members of Congress have now been secretly briefed by
the CIA on “the Russian affair,” and media, led by the
Washington Post, are running with the story that Russia
influenced the US election on the side of Trump.
Until and unless the denizens of Langley decide to show
specific and convincing evidence for their claim,
this is disinformation.
It’s easy to assemble a circumstantial case. But each case
has to be judged on its own merits, and the devil is in the
details. If we aren’t privy to those details in the “Russian
affair,” no judgement is possible. Of course, major media
outlets don’t seem bothered by that. They’re happy to cite
the CIA as an authority—conveniently ignoring the fact
that people in the intelligence field are taught to lie. It’s
their stock in trade.
You might remember the Washington Post’s role in
defaming and destroying Gary Webb, who, in 1996,
published a series of articles in the Mercury News about
the CIA seeding black Los Angeles neighborhoods with
crack cocaine. The Post basically asked the CIA whether
the charge was true, and when the Agency denied it, the
Post attacked Webb as a “fake news” reporter. The same
Washington Post is now leading the campaign to tie the
Russian government to Hillary Clinton’s defeat. And the
Post, once again, is using unproven statements from the
CIA to back up their claim.
I could go on and on about the Post and its historic CIA
ties. But now, right now, the owner of the Post is Jeff
Bezos, who also owns Amazon. And Amazon has a $600
million contract to provide the CIA cloud computing
services (more here and here).
Boom.
Ordinarily, that would be called a fatal conflict of interest,
whenever the Post opens up its yap about the CIA in any
context.
162
However, mainstream news outlets, the very big ones,
don’t go around criticizing each other’s ownerships; so the
Bezos-CIA relationship is conveniently ignored and left
“in the past.”
An honest lead paragraph on the current Russia-CIA-
Trump allegations in the Post, however, would start this
way:
“Our paper is owned by Jeff Bezos, and
Jeff is making $600 million to provide the
CIA with computing services, so take
everything below with a grain of salt the
size of Langley.”
Going one step further, Amazon and the CIA are both in
the data-collecting business. What are the chances that
Amazon, in the interest of “national security,” has been
sharing its massive customer data with the CIA and other
US intelligence agencies?
This should lead to another conflict-of-interest statement
from the Washington Post:
“As you read any article in our paper, keep
in mind that our owner may be data-mining
you and passing the information to the CIA.
Have a nice day.”
Am I being too hard on Amazon? Do they have the basic
guts to stand up to the intelligence community and resist
its demands? Here is what author Norman Solomon had to
say about that in 2014 (Huffington Post):
“Amazon’s trajectory into the CIA’s spooky
arms may be a bit more than just corporate
eagerness to land a lucrative contract. In
late 2010 — amid intense public interest in
documents that WikiLeaks was posting to
illuminate U.S. actions overseas —
Amazon took a notable step. As the
Guardian reported at the time, Amazon
‘pulled the plug on hosting the
whistleblowing website in reaction to heavy
political pressure.’
 “It didn’t take much for Amazon to cave.
‘The company announced it was cutting
WikiLeaks off … only 24 hours after being
contacted by the staff of Joe Lieberman,
chairman of the Senate’s committee on
homeland security,’ the Guardian noted.”
Let’s see. In 2010, Amazon cuts off WikiLeaks, proving its
willingness to cave to the intelligence community.
In 2013, Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, buys the
Washington Post.
In 2016, during the presidential campaign, WikiLeaks
releases tons of email data exposing Hillary Clinton, the
Democratic National Committee, and associated players.
.
163
In 2016, after Clinton loses, the CIA—now Amazon’s
business partner, and by extension, the Washington Post’s
business partner—tells the Post that Russia influenced the
election on behalf of Trump, and also implies/asserts that
Russian hackers supplied Wikileaks with those tons of
email data…
And the Washington Post accepts what its business
partner, the CIA, is saying at face value and then leads the
charge to blame Russia for handing the election to Trump.
The Post doubles down and absurdly accuses numerous
sites and blogs of being a) “fake” and b) conscious or
unconscious dupes of the Russian government.
A nice neat package.
Who exactly is the fake news outlet?
 Trying To Overturn A Free And Fair Election
By Wesley Pruden - The Washington Times –
Monday, December 12, 2016
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The world has turned itself upside down. Only yesterday
the liberals and the left (the “progressives,” as they want to
be called) regarded the CIA as the locus of evil, the gang
that couldn’t shoot straight, forever poisoning gentle minds
with a diet of conspiracy and tall tale.
In those gloomy days of the Cold War, where every day
was seasoned with a sharp wind and a cold rain, it was the
Democratic intellectuals who were forever chiding the rest
of us that the Soviet Union was not so bad, the Russians
just wanted to be understood and maybe deserved an
occasional cuddle. It was the Republicans and other
conservatives who were mindless rubes who imagined
there was a mad Russian under everybody’s bed.
Now the CIA, in the liberal/left’s fevered dreams, is the
last bulwark of the republic, the last remaining hope to turn
the 2016 election result on its head and deprive Donald
.
164
Trump of the victory he won. The Russians, it now turns
out, are just as bad as the conservatives said they were.
President Obama, who mocked Mitt Romney four years
ago for suggesting that Russia and Vladimir Putin was
America’s No. 1 enemy, now says it was Mr. Romney who
was smart and got it right four years ago. The president
himself, in his telling, is the man dumber than a cypress
stump.
The president, at last awake and paying attention to
Russian cyber warfare, wants answers, and by noon on
Jan. 20.
He can then only dine out on the answers, because he
won’t have any more authority to do anything about them
than the cat.
Desperation pursues despair, and the Democrats are
stumbling from inanity to insanity in search of a way to
block Donald Trump’s path to the White House. Hilary
Clinton’s remnant of a campaign has endorsed an attempt
by a handful of members of the Electoral College — 9
Democrats and a rogue Republican — to get the
“intelligence briefing” they think might derail next
Monday’s scheduled day for the members of the Electoral
College to vote for president, 306 of whom are honor
bound to vote for the Donald. That’s 36 votes more than he
needs.
 Top US Spy Agency Abstains On CIA Assessment Of
Russian Hack Of 2016 Election
By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor , From Russia Today, Moscow
December 13, 2016

– First published … December 13, 2016 –

The office overseeing all 17 agencies of

the US intelligence community
apparently doubts the CIA’s assessment
that Russia intervened to help Donald
Trump win the presidential election, as
Reuters reports anonymous officials
[ Editor’s Note: The Russian hacking issue has taken on a life of
saying the allegation won’t be endorsed.
its own. But one big thing is missing in all the stories, the fact that
the US and other Western Intel agencies do this whenever they
want to. Three unnamed officials from the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence (ODNI) told Reuters on Monday that
their agency does not dispute the CIA’s findings, yet it
Why?…because it is their job, to be “aware” of what is going on,
would not accept them either.
and the “real” intentions of political campaigns versus their
publicly stated versions are usually two different animals.
“ODNI is not arguing that the agency
(CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t
The only different twist have going on now it that in the old days
prove intent,” one of the officials told
one story would be leaked to a selected reporter for publication,
the news agency. “Of course they can’t,
and now the whole enchilada is, or most of it anyway. It is just a
absent agents in on the decision-
change in tactics, not intent.
making in Moscow.”
If there has ever been anybody in the
The CIA has not made its findings public, but the
election rigging business big time, it
Washington Post reported on a secret assessment by the
has been US Intelligence. The feigned
agency. It concluded that Russian intelligence hacked the
moral repugnance that anyone would do
servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and
such a thing it a bad joke.
Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff John Podesta to help Trump
win the presidency.
It has always been a regime change tool, among many used by
those wanting to ensure election outcomes that they favored. As
The ODNI was formed to ease the bureaucratic obstacles
Gordon so often says, “Welcome to how the world really works”...
between US intelligence agencies after the 9/11 terrorist
Jim W. Dean ]
attacks.
_____________
“[It was] a thin reed upon which to base
an analytical judgment,” another official
said in response to the speculation. He
stressed that the “judgment based on
the fact that Russian entities hacked
both Democrats and Republicans and
only the Democratic information was
leaked.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (D-

James Clapper California) wrote a letter Monday to James Clapper, the

165
Director of National Intelligence. In it, Nunes said he was
“dismayed” with Clapper’s inaction on informing the
house committee about the division between the
assessments of the CIA and the FBI, Reuters reported.
Nunes also requested that Clapper speak to his panel by
the end of this week and noted that Clapper testified in
November that there was not enough evidence to show a
connection between Russia and the “Podesta emails”
releases from WikiLeaks.
.
166
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has urged a
Congressional probe, saying there is “no information” to
prove any Russian intention.
“It’s obvious that the Russians hacked
into our campaigns,” McCain told
Reuters. “But there is no information
that they were intending to affect the
outcome of the election, and that’s why
we need a congressional investigation.”
 Benjamin Netanyahu: Donald Trump Is An Israeli Asset
The Question Again And Again Is This: Why Do We Need This
Unconditional Support For Israel? What About Iceland Or Belgium Or
The Netherlands Or Even France For That Matter? Would It Be A
Rational Position To Support Whatever Those Countries Are Doing
Without The Rule Of Law?
By Jonas E. Alexis
December 13, 2016
Will Trump submit his will to the moral and political order or to
Benjamin Netanyahu?
Netanyahu has pulled the political
trigger by telling 60 Minutes that he and
Donald Trump are concentric circles. “I
know Donald Trump,” he said. “I know
him very well.”[1]
He moved on to say that Trump’s
“support for Israel is very clear. He feels
very warmly about the Jewish state [and]
the Jewish people.”[2]
I am certainly not a prophet of doom or a pessimist. We
certainly have to withhold fundamental judgment until
Trump gets to the White House. But the fact that he has
been conniving with a first-rank mass murderer and a mad
man indicates that his foreign policy will be a laughing
stock.
David Friedman, Trump’s advisers on Israel and the
Middle East, told the Jerusalem Post that
“We are going to see a very different
relationship between America and Israel in
a positive way.”[3]
167
The question again and again is this: why do we need this
unconditional support for Israel? What about Iceland or
Belgium or the Netherlands or even France for that matter?
Would it be a rational position to support whatever those
countries are doing without the rule of law?
More importantly, would the Founding Fathers have given
their stamp of approval on this unconditional allegiance to
Israel? Does Trump know that people like George
Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson argued
that America should never look for monsters in foreign
lands to destroy?
Washington made it perfectly when he stated that
“The great rule of conduct for us…is in
extending our commercial relations, to
have with them as little political
connection as possible.”
Jefferson added:
“Peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none.”
Washington again declared the government of the United
States
“well knows that by once enlisting
under other banners than her own, were
they even the banners of foreign
independence…
“The fundamental maxims of her policy
would insensibly change from liberty to
force…she might become the dictatress
of the world…no longer the ruler of her
own spirit…”
The Founding Fathers were quite clear on foreign policy,
and obviously not a single U.S. president today will pass
their test. As we all know, U.S. presidents have an
unconditional attachment to Israel, and virtually no one has
been able to get out of that matrix without an “anti-
Semitic” bomb attached to his/her spine.
When Ron Paul was trying to articulate the view that
America needs get back to what the Founding Fathers
actually believed with respect to foreign policy, flaming
Jewish Neocon David Horowitz called him a “vicious anti-
Semite.” Here are some definitions of the word vicious:”
“Brutal, ferocious, savage, violent,
dangerous, ruthless, remorseless,
merciless, heartless, callous, cruel, harsh,
cold-blooded, inhuman, fierce, barbarous,
barbaric, brutish, bloodthirsty, fiendish,
sadistic, monstrous, murderous, homicidal,
smash-mouth, malicious, malevolent,
malignant, malign, spiteful, hateful,
vindictive, venomous, poisonous,
rancorous, mean, cruel, bitter, cutting,
acrimonious, hostile, nasty, defamatory,
slanderous, catty.”
“Listen, I will do my best to mold the
upcoming administration again for the
benefit of Israel. Remember what I said
about 9/11?”
In other words, the Founding Fathers, were they alive
today, would all have been “vicious anti-Semites” because
they would not have supported the incoherent and
unconditional alliance with Israel. When Trump got
elected, Netanyahu quickly declared,
“The strong connection between the
United States and Israel is based on
[1] Quoted in Louis Nelson, “Netanyahu on Trump: ‘His support for Israel is clear,’” Politico, December 12, 2016.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Peter Beaumont, “Trump has ‘every intention’ of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” Guardian, November 9, 2016.
[4] Peter Beaumont, “Trump has ‘every intention’ of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” Guardian, November 9, 2016.
[5] For a recent article on this, see Robert Sungenis, “Are the Jews Entitled to the Land of Palestine?,” Culture Wars, December
2016.
[6] “Netanyahu says he will pitch Trump at least 5 ways to undo the Iran deal,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 12, 2016.
168
shared values, shared interests and a
shared destiny.”[4]
The United States and Israel have a shared destiny? Where
is that in any of the legal documents of the United States?
Why did the Founding Fathers fail to warn us all about
this?
And if America have a shared destiny with Israel, does that
mean that they are destined to maim, slaughter, and
massacre innocent men, women and children in the Middle
East under the name of “democracy” and “freedom”?
Could it be why the United States have been destroying
one nation after another in the Middle for Israel?
I once mentioned some of these issues to a Zionist friend
who kept saying over and over that Obama was destroying
America and that the U.S. needs to go back to the
Constitution and to what the Founders actually said. As
soon as I pointed out what the Founders said about foreign
policy, there was a complete silence. Then he answered,
“We need to move beyond this.”
I certainly could not hold my laughter because this was too
good to be true. He had been lecturing me for about an
hour about what the Founding Fathers believed, but now
he backing off from what he had already committed
himself to because the Founding Fathers destroy hise
Zionist weltanschauung.
My friend was lost in the sea of confusion because he was
blinded by the Christian Zionist movement, which was
propounded by people like John Nelson Darby, C.I.
Scofield, Hal Lindsey, and more recently Walter Kaiser
and Joel Richardson.[5] John Hagee has been proposing
this crazy idea for years now.
In short, whenever a politician or leader abides by the
Zionist position, he or she will end up in blatant
contradiction. Trump is a classic example. Sure, we can
relax a bit because there won’t be a war with Russia any
time soon and the evidence indicates that there will be an
intermission in Syria.
But Trump plans to bring in an avalanche of Zionist
puppets who want to create a major conflict with Iran!
Trump knows that Russia and Iran are allies, and the only
way he will push for a conflict is because Netanyahu is
whispering to his ears.[6]
 Curious Alliances: Truth As Casualty In The US
Presidential Election
By Jeffrey Sommers
December 13, 2016
The curious foursome of Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed,
along with the Dr. Strangelove twins (John McCain and
Lindsay Graham) have called for cooperation in protecting
the United States against foreign cyber-attacks. This
‘double date’ under the guise of bipartisanship in the
national interest, is complemented by very real political
and institutional interests in play. The issue of Russian
involvement in the US elections certainly is legitimate
enough to investigate, but the domestic political stakes are
high and the institutional turf defended, valuable. For
McCain, it’s even more personal. The victim of torture in
the Vietnam War McCain has always held Russia culpable
for what befell him–never mind that his presence in
Vietnam was due to the US launching a war on a country
half a world away on the false pretexts of the Gulf of
Tonkin incident. For McCain, it was all Russia’s fault.
McCain, Graham and much of the GOP military industrial
complex establishment, want to ensure no détente is
achieved by Trump and Putin. The CIA, whose raison
d’etre (and budgets) was/were linked to the existence of an
all-powerful USSR, argued to the very end that Glasnosts
and Perestroika were merely devious plots by the Soviets
to lull the US into a state of complacency. Fortunately,
Ronald Reagan ignored them and proceed to cautiously
make peace with Mikhail Gorbachev. To state the obvious,
an institutional bias against Russia remains to this day in
the CIA. This does not mean we should reject any reports
or conclusions the CIA tenders, but they definitely should
be thoroughly interrogated for their veracity. Moreover,
there are legions of intellectuals and policy consultants
whose sense of self-worth and market value is linked to the
idea of an expansionist Russia.
169
Meanwhile, Donald Trump just won the presidency while
losing the popular vote by some 2.7 million ballots.
Predictably, he wants no investigation of Russian
interference in the US election, which might further erode
the already gossamer thin legitimacy by which his election
barely hangs. Thus, he, and crony GOP political
operatives, such as Senate majority leader Mitch
McConnell, ipso facto dismisses any need for
investigations. For them, them the legitimacy of the GOP
presidential win, ‘trumps’ any potential national security
concerns.
Thus, some curious alliances are in formation. Russia
haters and inveterate cold warriors, many of whom make
their livings in part or in whole from US tensions with
Russia, will join Trump haters, for whom their hate for
Trump, ‘trumps’ any concerns about truth, in the project to
ramp up tensions between the US and Russia. They are
joined in this project by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, who
mirror the tactics used by Russia at home in smearing
those perceived to be politically at odds with them.
Moreover, they will be joined by Clinton operatives and
Democratic National Committee establishment figures
seeking to shift blame away from themselves for their
horribly mismanaged presidential campaign. Meanwhile,
Trump and the worst cynics in the GOP, will thwart any
attempts to investigate what, if any, interventions Russia
made in the US election regardless of evidence presented.
Managing public opinion is an old game and the US and
Russia both, of course play it with their respective
information services. Surveillance of communications of
foreign leaders is equally common. Leaks of data are also
as old as they are frequent in attempts to influence opinion
and policy. Moreover, political staffers in the US and
Russia alike appear to waste no small amount of time on
newspaper comment boards and sending out tedious tweets
rather than conducting the people’s business. None of this
by Russia should be ginned up to justify neo-McCarthyist
attacks against those critical of those taking us deeper into
new Cold War terrain. There are, however, actions, which
if Russia took, would be very serious. Chief among them
would be if Russia discovered a way to hack US voting
machines. While difficult to do, given that many of these
voting machines are not internet connected, the laxity of
oversight of US elections and lack of uniformity of US
election laws (in party by the design of the GOP as a
strategy of voter suppression) might make it nonetheless
possible in some states. Yet, while that is merely
speculation at present, the “known, knowns” are that US
elections the past decade have been ‘hacked’ in their own
way, by a domestic group, known as the Republican Party
of the United States itself.
In the end, expect the question of Russia’s possible
involvement in the US presidential election to be almost
entirely agenda driven. Most will have drawn their
170
conclusions before any evidence is produced. The first
casualty has already been truth. Smear attacks on people of
goodwill seeking real answers to precisely what, if
anything, happened, will again be the new normal, as if we
learned nothing from 1950’s McCarthyism. It seems each
generation, unfortunately, in the words of George
Santayana, is indeed doomed to repeat the mistakes of the
past….
 Trump Trumpets His Real Plans
By Ralph Nader
December 13, 2016

business sector already defrauding just

that program by about $60 billion a year.

Trump selected Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) to be

the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Pompeo is a cold war warrior who believes in a
militaristic, interventionist CIA, especially toward Iran,
taking that agency even further away from its original
mission of gathering intelligence.

Then come the Generals. Notwithstanding the

Constitutional imperative that there should be civilian
Photo by Jamelle Bouie | CC BY 2.0 control over the military, Trump has placed two generals
in charge of foreign and domestic military theatres. For
Secretary of Defense, Trump chose recently retired Marine
Even for a failed gambling czar, Donald Trump has been
General James Mattis. This “Mad Dog” believes Barack
surprisingly quick to show his hand as he sets the course of
Obama to be too weak, indecisive and without a
his forthcoming presidency. With a reactionary fervor, he
strategic plan for the Middle East. He looks very much like
is bursting backwards into the future. He has accomplished
he is a believer in the American Empire and the U.S. being
this feat through the first wave of nominations to his
the policeman for the world.
Cabinet and White House staff.
The next general is retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, chosen
Only if there is a superlative to the word “nightmare” can
to run the Department of Homeland Security. He is seen as
the dictionary provide a description of his bizarre selection
a modern believer in the Monroe Doctrine over the
of men and women marinated either in corporatism or
Hispanic world south of Florida and the Rio Grande. He
militarism, with strains of racism, class cruelty and
shares dangerous views on Iran and Islam with Gen.
ideological rigidity. Many of Mr. Trump’s nominees lack
Mattis.
an appreciation of the awesome responsibilities of public
office.
Inside the White House, retired General Mike Flynn is
slated to take the post as national security adviser. His
Let’s run through Trump’s “picks”:
public statements against Islam being an ideological,
existential threat to the U.S., and his proliferation of
First there are the selections that will make inaccurate conspiracy theories have alienated his former
it easier to co-opt the Republicans in colleagues in the military, including reportedly the
Congress. He has appointed Elaine Chao, incoming Secretary of Defense.
the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, for Secretary of Transportation.
Then there are the Trump nominees selected to run the
Ms. Chao does not like regulation of big
departments whose numerous missions under existing law
business, such as those for auto, aviation,
they want to dismantle. The proposed Secretary of Labor,
railroad and pipeline safety. Next is
Andrew Puzder, is a chain restaurateur adamantly against
Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) to lead
raising the federal minim wage of $7.25 an hour and
the Department of Health and Human
his labor views are so extreme that a progressive group of
Services. Price wants to dump Obamacare,
restaurant owners organized to oppose his exploitative
turn over control of Medicaid to the states –
positions and argue for a fair minimum wage. In another
including Governors who dislike Medicaid –
flagrant display of bureaucratic obstruction, Trump wants
and even privatize (eg. corporatize)
to appoint climate change denier Scott Pruitt to head
Medicare itself into the hands of the
the EPA, the same agency he, as Oklahoma Attorney
General, fought tirelessly to undermine.
171
Another magnet for Trump’s nominations are those who
made big donations to his campaign. For Linda
McMahon’s $7 million to pro-Trump Super PACs, she
gets to head the Small Business Administration. As a
highly controversial professional wrestling CEO, she
worked to monopolize the professional wrestling market
and stifle competition.
For the Department of Education, school children and their
teachers will face Betsy DeVos. From a billionaire family,
she is a ferocious advocate of using taxpayer money in the
form of vouchers for private schools. She makes no bones
about her hatred of public schools and her desire to have
commercial managers of school systems.
To lead the Justice Department, Trump has selected
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who is big on police
surveillance, weak on civil rights enforcement, a hard-liner
on immigration and very mixed on corporate crime.
Add these strong-willed ideologues, coupled with Trump’s
easily bruised ego, Twitter-tantrums on trivial matters and
.
172
his penchant to always be the decision-making strongman,
and you’ve got the making of an explosive regime with
daily eruptions.
Whatever the media makes of the inevitable intrigue, in-
fighting and likely resistance by the civil service to adhere
to their lawful missions, it is the people who will be paying
the price. President Trump will use the media to sugarcoat,
falsify, distract, intimidate, glorify and massify the
millions of people who believed, once upon a recent time,
that he would “Make America Great Again.”
As the profiteers of Wall Street and the war hawks blend
with the corporate statists, the super-confident Trump is
telling us what their products will be like and that he’ll be
their salesman.
If you think all this sounds predictable, there are going to
be more than a few “black swans” (to use Nassim Taleb’s
best-selling book title) coming over the horizon. It is time
to mobilize as citizens in the Paul Revere mode.
 C.I.A. Planning To Overturn Trump’s Win As Talking
Heads Claim ‘National Emergency’
By Shepard Ambellas -
12.13.2016 @10:40 AM EST
They are trying to make a National Emergency out of
this’
AUSTIN, Tex. (INTELLIHUB) Alex Jones, radio talk
show host and head of the popular alt-news agency
Infowars, released a video transmission late Monday night
which details how the C.I.A., along with the democrats,
are moving forward to steal the election from President-
elect Donald J. Trump.
In the transmission Jones said that the situation is likely
the “gravest” threat presented “in the history of our
country,” in which I tend to agree.
“The C.I.A.’s job is to overthrow countries
and install dictators. It is a criminal
organization established in 1947. There
official job is to lie. It’s undoubtedly the
most corrupt agency in our government.”
“[…] now we see Nancy Pelosi’s
daughter, herself, organizing ten
electors. A democrat electing the
electors. […] A democrat going out and
recruiting supposed Republican electors
.
173
that have pledged themselves for the
people that voted for Trump — and they’re
saying that they quote ‘want a C.I.A.
briefing’ about the supposed hacking so
that they can give their votes to Hillary
Clinton or forfeit them.”
“[…] it’s so painful for me to see this
happen to our country,” said Jones. “[…]
this is what happens in third-world nations.”
This is all happening “domestically” and is based on
falsified “debunked reports.”
“The C.I.A. now represents the foreign
multinationals that hijacked this country.”
“This is all happening,” Jones said, calling
out what he calls a “global corporate
tyranny.”
Jones went on to point out how “half” of Hillary Clinton’s
campaign money “came from foreign questionable
sources,” but it’s being overlooked by the legacy media
who are involved in the diabolical scandal.
“[…] now it’s Trump versus the C.I.A..”
Nancy Pelosi’s daughter doesn’t have to get very many
more electors on board with her scheme for their plan to
work, “she’s already got ten,” said Jones. A few more and
the election will be “forfeit.”
‘They are trying to make a National
Emergency out of this.’
 The Media’s Emphasis On Russian
Hacking Is A Diversion
By Bill Blunden
December 13, 2016
According to unnamed officials a classified assessment by
the Central Intelligence Agency blames the Russian
government for, among other things, providing WikiLeaks
with all those hacked emails during the run-up to 2016
presidential election. One source referred to this
conclusion as the “consensus view” of the intelligence
community. Though if that’s the case then someone forgot
to tell all those agents at the FBI who, in their desire to
obtain proof beyond a reasonable doubt (imagine that),
have up to now declined to make a definitive statement.
In an interview with John Pilger WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange dismissed the claim of Russian Hackers as “neo-
McCarthy hysteria” and stated that “the Russian
government is not the source.” Likewise, President-elect
Donald Trump also challenged the impression of absolute
certainty commenting that
“It could be Russia. And it could be China.
And it could be some guy in his home in
New Jersey.” In response to Trump the
New York Times quoted former spy master
Michael Hayden.
Hayden remarked:
“To have the president-elect of the United
States simply reject the fact-based
narrative that the intelligence community
puts together because it conflicts with his a
priori assumptions — wow.”
174
Note the unspoken assumption throughout the media’s
coverage. The press does little to contest the notion that the
CIA deals exclusively in the realm of facts and is the sole
arbiter of what’s true and what isn’t. It’s reminiscent of the
posture taken by the CIA’s original regime change
mastermind, Allen Dulles, who claimed that “it [the CIA]
alone has the world picture.”
Far be it from your humble narrator to question the
truckloads secret evidence that the intelligence community
has ostensibly piled up to makes its airtight case but I do
recall that the argument they made for the invasion of Iraq
turned out to be a pretty flimsy. The intelligence
community provided briefings that enabled catastrophic
decisions, burning through several trillion dollars. What
James Risen called “one of the largest transfers of wealth
from public to private hands in American history.” Over a
decade later there are millions of innocent civilians in the
Middle East who are still paying for the mistakes of
America’s political leadership.
It’s highly likely that the flurry of reports on alleged
Russian hacking has more to do with a rejection of the
status quo than with the act of clandestine meddling. After
all, the United States has a long and storied history of
conducting aggressive interventions abroad. In the months
running up to the November election the bulk of the
American Deep State, with very few exceptions, aligned
itself with Hillary Clinton. That the election resulted in
something other than the Deep State’s first choice is
viewed by the donor class as unacceptable, and therefore it
must be depicted as the product of foreign subversion.
As far as the power elite are concerned the real issue, the
development that gives them pause, is that leaks granted
the public an unfettered view of systemic corruption on
behalf of an establishment politician who, with her
husband, made over $150 million by doing nothing more
than giving speeches to corporate leaders. And behind
closed doors, where she thought she was off the record,
Clinton promised that her private stance would benefit
executives despite her public stance. What the election of
2016 really gave us was a clear view of the oligarchy
exercising their influence. Even after the winner has
completed their victory lap, witness conspicuous
fingerprints of power being exercised.
Finally, keep in mind that when it comes to cyberattacks
attribution can be extremely difficult if not impossible. The
Pentagon and its patronage networks in the defense sector
have invested heavily in developing tools that are
specifically designed to thwart forensic tracing. It would
be naïve to assume that other countries aren’t doing
175
likewise. Counterfeiting digital artifacts, forging logistical
signatures, and adopting tools used by other groups are all
de rigueur for state-sponsored hackers. Hence, in the cyber
realm take everything you hear from spy masters with a
grain of salt because executing false-flag attacks is
relatively easy.
 Liberal TIME Magazine Now Urges All Americans Who
Voted For Hillary To Stop Paying Federal Income Taxes
By: Mary Wilder
Date: December 13, 2016

won’t pay taxes to the federal government.

No taxation without representation!”

It’s humorous that after all this time — all of the years of
rejecting the libertarian belief that taxation is theft —
leftists are now threatening to not pay taxes in order to
fight back against the government. When the libertarians
and conservatives of the world spoke out against increased
taxes, they were called racists and bigots by the very
people who are now demanding that nobody who voted for
Hillary Clinton have to pay taxes. It doesn’t get any more
absurd than that, yet that is what is happening.

At one point, Time Magazine was a reputable publication

This is simply par for the course when it comes to the
that published news articles that were actually based in
Regressive Left, though. Their beliefs bounce around as
truth. Those days are long gone. Now, the magazine has
they become convenient for them. They are not based on
become a leftist haven for lies and frankly ridiculous
any actual integrity. That’s why they continue to
rhetoric about how Hillary Clinton should be the next
push ideas that directly conflict with other values that they
president of the United States. It’s funny to think that just a
claim to have. These people have lost what little minds
month ago, they were complaining about conservatives
they have left. No other explanation can accurately explain
potentially not being willing to accept the results of the
what is happening here.
election, and now they are the ones not being willing
accept those very results.
Regardless, we should all try to convince these people that
their boycott is the correct thing to do. In time, perhaps
Furthermore, they are now trying to reject anything and
everyone will come around to the belief that taxation really
everything that even considers criticizing their warped
is theft and then we will all be able to live our lives freely
worldview. They’ve lost their minds completely — and
without worrying about intervention from the federal
now they’re even adopting conservative ideals in order to
government.
push a leftist agenda, but only because they clearly don’t
know what they’re talking about.
Is it likely?
Mark Weston of Time Magazine reports,
No.
“The approximately 65 million Democrats
who voted for Hillary Clinton should pledge Should it still happen?
that in the future if a Republican wins the
presidency with fewer votes than a Definitely.
Democrat for the third time in our era, we
.

176
 Trumphoria: Americans More Optimistic
About Economy Since Obama’s Win In 2008
Posted By Michael Snyder
Date: December 13, 2016
Optimism about the future of the U.S. economy has not
been this strong since Barack Obama’s first presidential
election victory in 2008. Donald Trump promised us an
economic resurgence, and what is not to like so far? As I
discussed earlier this week, stocks are soaring, businesses
are already announcing that they are bringing jobs back to
the United States, and the U.S. dollar has been lifted to
levels that we haven’t seen in many years. Many are
referring to this post-election surge as “Trumphoria”, and
I think that is quite appropriate. Personally, I couldn’t
imagine financial markets behaving this way if Hillary
Clinton had won the election. Right now tens of millions
of Americans are feeling deeply optimistic about the future
for the first time in a very long time, and this is clearly
reflected in the results of the most recent CNBC All-
America Economic Survey…
The CNBC All-America Economic Survey for the fourth
quarter found that the percentage of Americans who
believe the economy will get better in the next year
jumped an unprecedented 17 points to 42 percent,
compared with before the election. It’s the highest level
since President Barack Obama was first elected in
2008.
The surge was powered by Republicans and independents
reversing their outlooks. Republicans swung from deeply
pessimistic, with just 15 percent saying the economy
would improve in the next year, to strongly optimistic,
with 74 percent believing in an economic upswing.
Optimism among independents doubled but it fell by more
than half for Democrats. Just 16 percent think the
economy will improve.
177
It is funny how our political perspectives so greatly shape
our view of the future. Because Trump won, Democrats
now have an extremely dismal opinion of where the
economy is heading, while Republicans suddenly believe
that happy days are here again.
Of course the truth is that the president has far less power
to influence the economy than the Federal Reserve does,
and so most Americans greatly overestimate what a
president can do to alter our economic trajectory.
But for now most Americans (excluding Democrats) are
feeling really good about where things are headed. In fact,
we just learned that the University of Michigan consumer
confidence survey has soared to the highest level that we
have seen since 2005.
And of course the financial markets continued to roll
onward and upward on Friday. The Dow was up another
142 points, and it is now less than 250 points away from
the magic number of 20,000.
I never thought that we would actually get to 20,000, but
thanks to “Trumphoria” we may actually get there before
the wheels start coming off.
This post-election run has really been unprecedented. The
following comes from CNBC…
All major indexes have been hitting record highs since the
election. In fact, the Dow has notched 14 record closes
since then and gains in 20 of the past 24 sessions.
The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq also did something they
haven’t done in more than five years: all three rose each
day of this trading week. The last time all three rose every
day during the same trading week was September 2011.
Wouldn’t it be great if every month during Trump’s
presidency was like the last 30 days?
Trump promised that we would start winning so much that
we would actually start getting tired of winning, and so far
we are off to a tremendous start.
As I discussed yesterday, some of the biggest winners
from “Trumphoria” have been the big banks…
The shares of Wells Fargo, the most hated bank in
America these days, soared 28% over the past 30 days,
Citigroup 25%, JP Morgan 26%, Goldman Sachs, which is
successfully placing its people inside the Trump
administration, 37%.
But is this momentum in the financial markets sustainable?
Of course not.
There are signs of emerging economic trouble all around
us. For instance, Sears just announced that it lost 748
million dollars last quarter and that it plans to liquidate
even more stores.
How in the world do you lose three-quarters of a billion
dollars in a single quarter? If you had employees in every
store literally flushing dollar bills down the toilet all day I
don’t think you could lose money that quickly.
And the moment that Trump takes office, he may
immediately be faced with a major financial crisis in
Europe which has been sparked by the meltdown of large
Italian banks. The following comes from a Forbes article
entitled “Italy’s Banking Crisis Is Nearly Upon Us”…
There is a high degree of probability (approaching 90%,
I’d say) that Italy will experience a severe banking crisis in
the next few quarters. Perhaps they can stave off the
problem for a year, but something will have to be done
about the banks.
178
Unfortunately, it looks like things are about to get very real
for Italian banking giant Monte dei Paschi di Siena.
According to Reuters, the European Central Bank has
turned down their request for more time to raise needed
capital…
The European Central Bank has rejected a request by
Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI) for more
time to raise capital, a source said on Friday, a decision
that piles pressure on the Rome government to bail out the
lender.
Italy’s third-largest bank, and the world’s oldest, had asked
for a three-week extension until January 20 to try to wrap
up a privately funded, 5 billion euro ($5.3 billion) rescue
plan in the face of fresh political uncertainty.
The ECB’s supervisory board turned down the request at a
meeting on Friday on the grounds that a delay would be of
little use and that it was time for Rome to step in, the
source said.
But most Americans have no idea what is unfolding in
Europe right now.
As Americans, we tend to be largely oblivious to what is
going on in the rest of the world, and at this moment
“Trumphoria” has gripped our nation.
It is certainly not wrong to celebrate the fact that we are
getting Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton, but let us
also not lose sight of the fact that we are likely to be facing
some tremendous challenges very early in 2017.
 Former British Ambassador Says Russia Election Hack
Conspiracy Theory Is Kafkaesque
Source: Kurt Nimmo, Blacklisted News Exclusive
Published: December 13, 2016

For the political class and the establishment media, fantasy made subject to yet more banking and
has become hard, cold fact: Russia hacked the US election. other restrictions against Russian
individuals? Plainly it stinks. The
There is absolutely no anonymous source claims of ‘We know
who it was, it was the Russians’ are
evidence of this. beneath contempt.”
“I know who leaked them,” Murray told
The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News,
The Guardian. “I’ve met the person who
NBC News, Politico, on and on, the entire establishment
leaked them, and they are certainly not
media is feeding on a lie given credence by an
Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak,
organization that has lied, cheated, and killed people for
not a hack; the two are different things.”
almost 70 years—the CIA.

Murray writes that the fantasy embraced by Democrats and

On Monday, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid,
passed off as truth by the establishment media is
a Nevada Democrat, said Donald Trump colluded with
Kafkaesque.
WikiLeaks and the Russians.

“The worst thing about all this is that it is

“Someone in the Trump campaign
aimed at promoting further conflict with
organization was in on the deal. I have no
Russia. This puts everyone in danger for
doubt. Now, whether they told [Trump] or
the sake of more profits for the arms and
not, I don’t know. I assume they did. But
security industries—including of course
there is no question about that,” Reid told
bigger budgets for the CIA.”
The Huffington Post. “So there is collusion
there, clearly.”
He told Russia’s Sputnik the claim is "absolute nonsense”
“Don’t put blindfolds on,” Reid said, urging and added that it
us to believe the agitprop put out by the
Mighty Wurlitzer, the CIA, and the illogical
“is extremely amusing for the CIA to be
conclusions of the Democrats, echoed by
accusing another country of interfering in
millions who no longer believe in
domestic elections, when interfering in
democratic elections, or what passes for
other country’s domestic elections on
democratic elections.
scores of occasions is what the CIA has
done to effect regime change for the last 70
Craig Murray, Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan, years so really; this is almost beyond
on Monday dispelled the myth in a post on his blog. satire.”

“A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s
claims,” he writes. “The CIA claim they
‘know the individuals’ involved. Yet under
Obama the USA has been absolutely
ruthless in its persecution of
whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign
hackers through extradition. We are
supposed to believe that in the most vital
instance imaginable, an attempt by a
foreign power to destabilize a US election,
even though the CIA knows who the
individuals are, nobody is going to be
arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia)
179
Back in August, NSA whistleblower William Binney said
the DNC leak was not the work of Russia, but rather a
disgruntled intelligence worker. He said the hacker was
motivated by Hillary Clinton’s disregard for national
security.
Despite this, the fantasy lives on.
“Donald Trump is increasingly alone in
questioning conclusion that Moscow stole
emails from Democrats and Hillary
 Clinton’s campaign,” insists The Wall Street
Journal.
Establishment Republicans have joined Democrats in
calling for an investigation. Ten members of the Electoral
College sent an open letter to James Clapper, director of
national intelligence. They argue it will be impossible to
fulfill their constitutional obligations unless they know
“whether there are ongoing investigations
into ties between Donald Trump, his
.
180
campaign or associates, and Russian
government interference in the election.”
This is the last ditch effort to overturn the election and
install Hillary Clinton in the White House. It is unlikely
the electors will change the election result. However, after
Trump is inaugurated, there may be an attempt to impeach
him using bogus “evidence” cooked up by the CIA and
passed off as gospel truth to a gullible public, especially
Democrats.
 Radical Left Launches Website To Raise Money For
Assassinating Donald Trump
By: Mary Wilder
Date: December 13, 2016
Every high-profile political figure always has to fear that
an assassination attempt may be on the horizon. Human
nature and technological advancements have made it so
easy to kill people, that the unfortunate reality of life is
that if you are a controversial figure, you constantly have
to be looking over your shoulder. Of course, there are few
people in the world who are more controversial than
President-elect Donald J. Trump.
As expected, a lot of claims were made that if Trump were
elected, leftists from all over would try to assassinate him.
While many of these could easily be passed off as sick
jokes, others are not so easily brushed aside. It was
recently reported that a site on the dark web has been
raising money to fund an assassination attempt on
President-elect Trump, which is most definitely something
to be concerned about.
181
Anthony Cuthbertson of Newsweek reports, “Within the
source code of the website, there is a message left by
someone claiming to be a hacker who has uncovered the
identity of the person who set up the crowdfunding
campaign. The message states that the site is hosted by a
Canadian citizen who is ‘a little scammer.’ Newsweek
tried to contact the creator of the site via the administrator
email address published on the website but there was no
reply at the time of publication.”
For a group of people that were recently chanting “Love
trumps hate,” and going on and on about how tolerant they
are of different belief systems, they sure do seem to want
to murder everyone who threatens to disrupt their liberal
ideologies. The radical side of the Regressive Left is
something that should be looked into more than it is. The
mainstream media only considers the alt-right to be a
threat, but they are not nearly as dangerous as those who
are threatening to murder the next leader of the free world.
It’s time for the American people to come together and
accept the fact that Donald J. Trump is going to be the next
president of the United States. Instead of finding reasons
not to support him or his presidency, or even going so far
as to threaten his life, people should try to find the
positives here. If nothing else, they should celebrate the
fact that the establishment has been overthrown in a way
that nobody expected it to be – and that alone is a cause for
celebration.
 The Perfect Weapon: How Russian
Cyberpower Invaded The U.S.
By Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger And Scott Shane
DEC. 13, 2016
A filing cabinet broken into in 1972 as part of the Watergate
burglary sits beside a computer server that Russian hackers
breached during the 2016 presidential campaign at the Democratic
National Committee’s headquarters in Washington. Credit Justin T.
Gellerson for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the
Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to
pass along some troubling news about its computer
network, he was transferred, naturally, to the help desk.
His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer
system belonging to the D.N.C. had been compromised by
hackers federal investigators had named “the Dukes,” a
cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government.
The F.B.I. knew it well: The bureau had spent the last few
years trying to kick the Dukes out of the unclassified email
systems of the White House, the State Department and
even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the government’s
best-protected networks.
Yared Tamene, the tech-support contractor at the D.N.C.
who fielded the call, was no expert in cyberattacks. His
first moves were to check Google for “the Dukes” and
conduct a cursory search of the D.N.C. computer system
logs to look for hints of such a cyberintrusion. By his own
account, he did not look too hard even after Special Agent
Hawkins called back repeatedly over the next several
weeks — in part because he wasn’t certain the caller was a
real F.B.I. agent and not an impostor.
“I had no way of differentiating the call I
just received from a prank call,” Mr.
Tamene wrote in an internal memo,
obtained by The New York Times, that
detailed his contact with the F.B.I.
182
It was the cryptic first sign of a cyberespionage and
information-warfare campaign devised to disrupt the 2016
presidential election, the first such attempt by a foreign
power in American history. What started as an
information-gathering operation, intelligence officials
believe, ultimately morphed into an effort to harm one
candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her
opponent, Donald J. Trump.
Like another famous American election scandal, it started
with a break-in at the D.N.C. The first time, 44 years ago
at the committee’s old offices in the Watergate complex,
the burglars planted listening devices and jimmied a filing
cabinet. This time, the burglary was conducted from afar,
directed by the Kremlin, with spear-phishing emails and
zeros and ones.
An examination by The Times of the Russian operation —
based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the
attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and
Obama administration officials who deliberated over the
best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow
responses and a continuing underestimation of the
seriousness of the cyberattack.
The D.N.C.’s fumbling encounter with the F.B.I. meant the
best chance to halt the Russian intrusion was lost. The
failure to grasp the scope of the attacks undercut efforts to
minimize their impact. And the White House’s reluctance
to respond forcefully meant the Russians have not paid a
heavy price for their actions, a decision that could prove
critical in deterring future cyberattacks.
The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian
hackers could roam freely through the committee’s
network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C.
officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts
to protect their systems. In the meantime, the hackers
moved on to targets outside the D.N.C., including Mrs.
Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose
private email account was hacked months later.
Even Mr. Podesta, a savvy Washington insider who had
written a 2014 report on cyberprivacy for President
Obama, did not truly understand the gravity of the hacking.
 Charles Delavan, a Clinton campaign aide, incorrectly legitimized a phishing email sent to the
personal account of John D. Podesta, the campaign chairman.
By last summer, Democrats watched in helpless fury as
their private emails and confidential documents appeared
online day after day — procured by Russian intelligence
agents, posted on WikiLeaks and other websites, then
eagerly reported on by the American media, including The
Times. Mr. Trump gleefully cited many of the purloined
emails on the campaign trail.
The fallout included the resignations of Representative
Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of
the D.N.C., and most of her top party aides. Leading
Democrats were sidelined at the height of the campaign,
silenced by revelations of embarrassing emails or
consumed by the scramble to deal with the hacking.
Though little-noticed by the public, confidential
documents taken by the Russian hackers from the D.N.C.’s
sister organization, the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee, turned up in congressional races in
a dozen states, tainting some of them with accusations of
scandal.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during a reception last week at
the Kremlin in Moscow. Credit Pool photo by Alexei Nikolsky
In recent days, a skeptical president-elect, the nation’s
intelligence agencies and the two major parties have
become embroiled in an extraordinary public dispute over
what evidence exists that President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia moved beyond mere espionage to deliberately try to
subvert American democracy and pick the winner of the
presidential election.
183
Many of Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides believe that the
Russian assault had a profound impact on the election,
while conceding that other factors — Mrs. Clinton’s
weaknesses as a candidate; her private email server; the
public statements of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey,
about her handling of classified information — were also
important.
While there’s no way to be certain of the ultimate impact
of the hack, this much is clear: A low-cost, high-impact
weapon that Russia had test-fired in elections from
Ukraine to Europe was trained on the United States, with
devastating effectiveness. For Russia, with an enfeebled
economy and a nuclear arsenal it cannot use short of all-
out war, cyberpower proved the perfect weapon: cheap,
hard to see coming, hard to trace.
“There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s
mind,” Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the
director of the National Security Agency
and commander of United States Cyber
Command, said at a postelection
conference. “This was not something that
was done casually, this was not something
that was done by chance, this was not a
target that was selected purely arbitrarily,”
he said. “This was a conscious effort by a
nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific
effect.”
For the people whose emails were stolen, this new form of
political sabotage has left a trail of shock and professional
damage. Neera Tanden, president of the Center for
American Progress and a key Clinton supporter, recalls
walking into the busy Clinton transition offices, humiliated
to see her face on television screens as pundits discussed a
leaked email in which she had called Mrs. Clinton’s
instincts “suboptimal.”
“It was just a sucker punch to the gut every
day,” Ms. Tanden said. “It was the worst
professional experience of my life.”
The United States, too, has carried out cyberattacks, and in
decades past the C.I.A. tried to subvert foreign elections.
But the Russian attack is increasingly understood across
the political spectrum as an ominous historic landmark —
with one notable exception: Mr. Trump has rejected the
findings of the intelligence agencies he will soon oversee
as “ridiculous,” insisting that the hacker may be American,
or Chinese, but that “they have no idea.”
Mr. Trump cited the reported disagreements between the
agencies about whether Mr. Putin intended to help elect
him. On Tuesday, a Russian government spokesman
echoed Mr. Trump’s scorn.
“This tale of ‘hacks’ resembles a banal
brawl between American security officials
over spheres of influence,” Maria
Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the
Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote on
Facebook.
Over the weekend, four prominent senators — two
Republicans and two Democrats — joined forces to pledge
an investigation while pointedly ignoring Mr. Trump’s
skeptical claims.
“Democrats and Republicans must work together, and
across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine
these recent incidents thoroughly and devise
comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against
further cyberattacks,” said Senators John McCain, Lindsey
Graham, Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed.
“This cannot become a partisan issue,”
they said. “The stakes are too high for our
country.”
A Target for Break-Ins
Sitting in the basement of the Democratic National
Committee headquarters, below a wall-size 2012 portrait
of a smiling Barack Obama, is a 1960s-era filing cabinet
missing the handle on the bottom drawer. Only a framed
newspaper story hanging on the wall hints at the
importance of this aged piece of office furniture.
“GOP Security Aide Among 5 Arrested in
Bugging Affair,” reads the headline from
the front page of The Washington Post on
184
June 19, 1972, with the bylines of Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
Andrew Brown, 37, the technology director at the D.N.C.,
was born after that famous break-in. But as he began to
plan for this year’s election cycle, he was well aware that
the D.N.C. could become a break-in target again.
There were aspirations to ensure that the D.N.C. was well
protected against cyberintruders — and then there was the
reality, Mr. Brown and his bosses at the organization
acknowledged: The D.N.C. was a nonprofit group,
dependent on donations, with a fraction of the security
budget that a corporation its size would have.
“There was never enough money to do
everything we needed to do,” Mr. Brown
said.
The D.N.C. had a standard email spam-filtering service,
intended to block phishing attacks and malware created to
resemble legitimate email. But when Russian hackers
started in on the D.N.C., the committee did not have the
most advanced systems in place to track suspicious traffic,
internal D.N.C. memos show.
Mr. Tamene, who reports to Mr. Brown and fielded the
call from the F.B.I. agent, was not a full-time D.N.C.
employee; he works for a Chicago-based contracting firm
called The MIS Department. He was left to figure out,
largely on his own, how to respond — and even whether
the man who had called in to the D.N.C. switchboard was
really an F.B.I. agent.
“The F.B.I. thinks the D.N.C. has at least
one compromised computer on its network
and the F.B.I. wanted to know if the D.N.C.
is aware, and if so, what the D.N.C. is
doing about it,” Mr. Tamene wrote in an
internal memo about his contacts with the
F.B.I. He added that “the Special Agent told
me to look for a specific type of malware
dubbed ‘Dukes’ by the U.S. intelligence
community and in cybersecurity circles.”
Part of the problem was that Special Agent Hawkins did
not show up in person at the D.N.C. Nor could he email
anyone there, as that risked alerting the hackers that the
F.B.I. knew they were in the system.
 An internal memo by Yared Tamene, a tech-support contractor at the D.N.C., expressed
uncertainty about the identity of Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the F.B.I., who called to inform
him of the breach.
Mr. Tamene’s initial scan of the D.N.C. system — using
his less-than-optimal tools and incomplete targeting
information from the F.B.I. — found nothing. So when
Special Agent Hawkins called repeatedly in October,
leaving voice mail messages for Mr. Tamene, urging him
to call back,
“I did not return his calls, as I had nothing
to report,” Mr. Tamene explained in his
memo.
In November, Special Agent Hawkins called with more
ominous news. A D.N.C. computer was “calling home,
where home meant Russia,” Mr. Tamene’s memo says,
referring to software sending information to Moscow.
“SA Hawkins added that the F.B.I. thinks
that this calling home behavior could be the
result of a state-sponsored attack.”
Mr. Brown knew that Mr. Tamene, who declined to
comment, was fielding calls from the F.B.I. But he was
tied up on a different problem: evidence suggesting that
the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mrs.
Clinton’s main Democratic opponent, had improperly
gained access to her campaign data.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, then the D.N.C.’s chairwoman,
and Amy Dacey, then its chief executive, said in
interviews that neither of them was notified about the early
reports that the committee’s system had likely been
compromised.
Shawn Henry, who once led the F.B.I.’s cyber division and
is now president of CrowdStrike Services, the
cybersecurity firm retained by the D.N.C. in April, said he
was baffled that the F.B.I. did not call a more senior
official at the D.N.C. or send an agent in person to the
party headquarters to try to force a more vigorous
response.
185
“We are not talking about an office that is in
the middle of the woods of Montana,” Mr.
Henry said. “We are talking about an office
that is half a mile from the F.B.I. office that
is getting the notification.”
“This is not a mom-and-pop delicatessen or
a local library. This is a critical piece of the
U.S. infrastructure because it relates to our
electoral process, our elected officials, our
legislative process, our executive process,”
he added. “To me it is a high-level, serious
issue, and if after a couple of months you
don’t see any results, somebody ought to
raise that to a higher level.”
The F.B.I. declined to comment on the agency’s handling
of the hack.
“The F.B.I. takes very seriously any
compromise of public and private sector
systems,” it said in a statement, adding that
agents “will continue to share information”
to help targets “safeguard their systems
against the actions of persistent
cybercriminals.”
By March, Mr. Tamene and his team had met at least twice
in person with the F.B.I. and concluded that Agent
Hawkins was really a federal employee. But then the
situation took a dire turn.
A second team of Russian-affiliated hackers began to
target the D.N.C. and other players in the political world,
particularly Democrats. Billy Rinehart, a former D.N.C.
regional field director who was then working for Mrs.
Clinton’s campaign, got an odd email warning from
Google.
“Someone just used your password to try to
sign into your Google account,” the March
22 email said, adding that the sign-in
 attempt had occurred in Ukraine. “Google
stopped this sign-in attempt. You should
change your password immediately.”
Mr. Rinehart was in Hawaii at the time. He remembers
checking his email at 4 a.m. for messages from East Coast
associates. Without thinking much about the notification,
he clicked on the “change password” button and half
asleep, as best he can remember, he typed in a new
password.

A screenshot of the phishing email that Billy Rinehart clicked on, unknowingly
giving Russian hackers access to his account. The New York Times has redacted Mr.
Rinehart’s email address.

What he did not know until months later is that he had just
given the Russian hackers access to his email account.

Hundreds of similar phishing emails were being sent to

American political targets, including an identical email
sent on March 19 to Mr. Podesta, chairman of the Clinton
campaign. Given how many emails Mr. Podesta received
through this personal email account, several aides also had
access to it, and one of them noticed the warning email,
sending it to a computer technician to make sure it was
legitimate before anyone clicked on the “change
password” button.

“This is a legitimate email,” Charles
Delavan, a Clinton campaign aide, replied
to another of Mr. Podesta’s aides, who had
noticed the alert. “John needs to change
his password immediately.”
With another click, a decade of emails that Mr. Podesta
maintained in his Gmail account — a total of about 60,000
— were unlocked for the Russian hackers. Mr. Delavan, in
an interview, said that his bad advice was a result of a
typo: He knew this was a phishing attack, as the campaign
was getting dozens of them. He said he had meant to type
that it was an “illegitimate” email, an error that he said has
plagued him ever since.
Mr. Podesta, center, with Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s closest aide,
in Brooklyn the day after the election. Hackers gained access to tens of
thousands of Mr. Podesta’s emails. Credit Dave Sanders for The New
York Times
During this second wave, the hackers also gained access to
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and
then, through a virtual private network connection, to the
main computer network of the D.N.C.
The F.B.I. observed this surge of activity as well, again
reaching out to Mr. Tamene to warn him. Yet Mr. Tamene
still saw no reason to be alarmed: He found copies of the
phishing emails in the D.N.C.’s spam filter. But he had no

186
reason, he said, to believe that the computer systems had
been infiltrated.
One bit of progress had finally been made by the middle of
April: The D.N.C., seven months after it had first been
warned, finally installed a “robust set of monitoring tools,”
Mr. Tamene’s internal memo says.
Honing Stealthy Tactics
The headquarters of the Russian F.S.B., the main successor to the
Soviet-era K.G.B., in Moscow. Credit Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press
The United States had two decades of warning that
Russia’s intelligence agencies were trying to break into
America’s most sensitive computer networks. But the
Russians have always managed to stay a step ahead.
Their first major attack was detected on Oct. 7, 1996, when
a computer operator at the Colorado School of Mines
discovered some nighttime computer activity he could not
explain. The school had a major contract with the Navy,
and the operator warned his contacts there. But as
happened two decades later at the D.N.C., at first
“everyone was unable to connect the dots,” said Thomas
Rid, a scholar at King’s College in London who has
studied the attack.
Investigators gave it a name — Moonlight Maze — and
spent two years, often working day and night, tracing how
it hopped from the Navy to the Department of Energy to
the Air Force and NASA. In the end, they concluded that
the total number of files stolen, if printed and stacked,
would be taller than the Washington Monument.
Whole weapons designs were flowing out the door, and it
was a first taste of what was to come: an escalating
campaign of cyberattacks around the world.
But for years, the Russians stayed largely out of the
headlines, thanks to the Chinese — who took bigger risks,
.
187
and often got caught. They stole the designs for the F-35
fighter jet, corporate secrets for rolling steel, even the
blueprints for gas pipelines that supply much of the United
States. And during the 2008 presidential election cycle,
Chinese intelligence hacked into the campaigns of Mr.
Obama and Mr. McCain, making off with internal position
papers and communications. But they didn’t publish any of
it.
The Russians had not gone away, of course.
“They were just a lot more stealthy,” said
Kevin Mandia, a former Air Force
intelligence officer who spent most of his
days fighting off Russian cyberattacks
before founding Mandiant, a cybersecurity
firm that is now a division of FireEye — and
the company the Clinton campaign brought
in to secure its own systems.
The Russians were also quicker to turn their attacks to
political purposes. A 2007 cyberattack on Estonia, a
former Soviet republic that had joined NATO, sent a
message that Russia could paralyze the country without
invading it. The next year cyberattacks were used during
Russia’s war with Georgia.
But American officials did not imagine that the Russians
would dare try those techniques inside the United States.
They were largely focused on preventing what former
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned was an
approaching “cyber Pearl Harbor” — a shutdown of the
power grid or cellphone networks.
But in 2014 and 2015, a Russian hacking group began
systematically targeting the State Department, the White
House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Each time, they
eventually met with some form of success,” Michael
Sulmeyer, a former cyberexpert for the secretary of
defense, and Ben Buchanan, now both of the Harvard
Cyber Security Project, wrote recently in a soon-to-be
published paper for the Carnegie Endowment.
The Russians grew stealthier and stealthier, tricking
government computers into sending out data while
disguising the electronic “command and control” messages
that set off alarms for anyone looking for malicious
actions. The State Department was so crippled that it
repeatedly closed its systems to throw out the intruders. At
one point, officials traveling to Vienna with Secretary of
State John Kerry for the Iran nuclear negotiations had to
set up commercial Gmail accounts just to communicate
with one another and with reporters traveling with them.
 Washington Post Threatened With Defamation Suit
As News Site Demands Retraction
By: JD Heyes
Date: December 13, 2016
Editors and reporters at The Washington Post really
stepped in it when they ran with a bogus story accusing
more than 200 web sites of acting on behalf of Russia to
push propaganda via “fake” news reports, in a bid to help
Donald J. Trump win the presidency.
As Natural News founder, Mike Adams the Health
Ranger, reported after the piece appeared last month, the
Post may have just committed the journalistic equivalent
of suicide after publishing a
“shoddy hit piece, sourced from a secretive
and shady group of shadowy people who
refuse to identify themselves, with the
intention of blacklisting news sites that
disagree with the kind of state-run
propaganda printed by WashPost.”
How bad was the tinfoil hat conspiratorial piece? So bad
that The Intercept, co-founded by The Guardian’s veteran
reporter Glenn Greenwald—who co-broke the Edward
Snowden story with the Post—lambasted WaPo for
running with it after several other news agencies passed it
up. In fact, Greenwald co-wrote a piece for The
Intercept heavily criticizing the Post for its blatantly
conspiratorial (and incorrect) report.
Heap of legal trouble
The Post cited a never-before-heard-of “organization” of
“professionals” and “experts” in national security, defense,
the media, academia and other places who claimed that
some 200 news and information sites online (Natural News
was included on that list) were hand-fed election
propaganda about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary
188
Clinton by the Kremlin, for the purpose of ensuring her
defeat and ensuring a Trump victory.
To report that we, along with hundreds of other legitimate
news organizations, are just media organs for Russian spy
agencies is beyond the pale absurd. But the Post went with
it anyway, and now it’s in a heap of trouble.
One of the sites that made the “list” of the shadowy group
calling itself “PropOrNot” (Propaganda or not, we
assume) was Naked Capitalism, a site which bills itself as
one that offers “fearless commentary on finance,
economics, politics and power.”
Now, because her site has been libeled, founder Yves
Smith is threatening to sue the Post if it does not print a
serious retraction (and for the record, we are
demanding/threatening the same thing). In a post on her
site, Smith demanded the apology and retraction or she
plans to file a defamation lawsuit and seek monetary
damages.
In her site post, Smith writes that her attorney, Jim Moody,
is a seasoned litigator who has won cases he has argued
before the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, he is
considerably experienced in First Amendment and
defamation actions, including past cases Westmoreland v
CBS and serving as counsel to Linda Tripp.
When did the Post stop verifying strong accusations
before publishing them?
She noted that the Post was “taken for a ride by inept
propagandists” when it decided to report that the Russians
were using hundreds of U.S. news sites to spread anti-
Clinton propaganda (the list contained right-
leaning and left-leaning sites). Many other news
organizations and reporters were approached but all
decided that the “anonymous” nature of the request to turn
PropOrNot’s “findings” into a major political news story
was bogus.
All except the Post, that is. Call it institutional bias against
any and all things and politicians Republican and
conservative that led the Post to conclude the unnamed
“experts” who supposedly formed PropOrNot actually
existed, but the Post’s managing editors fell for this hook,
line and sinker.
And now the paper is in a tenuous legal position.
But it didn’t have to be. As Smith pointed out, there were
some pretty obvious, flagrant fabrications if anyone at the
paper had actually bothered to check out and attempt to
verify. Which led her to ask, rhetorically,
“If the site is flagrantly false with respect to
things that can be checked, why pray tell
.
189
did The Washington Post and fellow useful
idiots in the mainstream media validate and
amplify its message?”
Strong claims normally demand equally strong proof, and
yet the paper did nothing but give a megaphone to people
who fabricated things with abandon. It’s no wonder
members of the shady group
“hide as much as they can about what they
are up to; more transparency would expose
their work to be a tissue of lies.”
 Martin Armstrong Slams CIA "False Flag"
To Cover Its Own Hack For Obama
By Martin Armstrong Via Armstrongeconomics.Com
Dec 13, 2016 7:20 PM
Obama’s parting shot across the bow is
his order of a full review into hacking
aimed at influencing US elections going
back to 2008.
Instead of targeting the CIA or the NSA, WikiLeaks went
after an organization Democrats actually care about - the
Democratic National Committee - and exposed its internal
corruption.
If Obama could, he would declare
Wikileaks a Terrorist Organization and
anyone who published its stuff should
be thrown in prison.
Nevertheless, this latest act by Obama
is clearly a politicized action that seems
more about widening the divide in the
country and to continue to smear doubt
over the election.
The CIA claim that Russia hacked the DNC and gave the
data to Wikileaks to help Trump against Hillary, is really
questionable since there is no evidence of a hack. The FBI
said that Hillary’s emails had been hacked by five foreign
governments. They could not be 100% sure who, or what
they got since the really classified stuff was omitted, but
the CIA is now claiming it was Russia who hacked the
DNC and got this collection of 19,252 emails and 8,034
attachments from the DNC.
There is absolutely NO WAY that a
professional hacker who leaves no
concrete trace with Hillary’s emails,
would be sloppy enough to leave such a
trace at the DNC.
Furthermore, Julian Assange came out
and stated publicly it was a leak and not
a hack but declined to say who was the
leak.
Backing up Assange, the former British ambassador to
Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, confirmed he has met the
person who gave the DNC emails to Wikileaks and said
publicly it was not the Russians. That was reported by
BizPac Review, which is a contributor to Google
News. Additionally, there is just no hard evidence
whatsoever.
190
This is clearly a false flag report by the
Obama Administration supported by the
highly partisan Washington Post, which
has lost all credibility during this
election.
Yes, Trump was correct, 77% of all press reporting during
the election was negative against him according to a
Harvard study.
There is absolutely no evidence that the
votes were hacked in any state by
Russia, China, Bangladesh or Canada
just so Justin Pierre James Trudeau who
have someone to talk to if Hillary won.
So exactly how is this sinister hack
supposed to have influenced the
election? Oh, that’s right, it revealed that
the Democrats conspired with the press to
make sure Trump would be the pick
because they thought they could demonize
him and beat him easily. Then they
conspired to stop Bernie take California
and cheated to give that to Hillary to the
point the head of the DNC had to resign.
But hey! What Obama is really saying is if
they DNC hack had not taken place, then
the Democrats would have gotten away
with it fair and square?
There is something else behind the
curtain.
That is, there were plenty within the FBI and the
Intelligence Community who wanted Hillary indicted.
There was talk that the hack of the DNC was home grown
from within the CIA and handed to Wikileaks.
So is the CIA now trying to cover its
own trail? Or is Obama trying to set the
stage for the next election saying Trump
was really not the president?
There cannot be any hard-core proof Russia was behind
that hack. This seems to be a false-flag to clean the deck
before leaving office and to try to shift the proof that the
DNC was rotten to the core.
 Briton Jailed Over Trump Death Plot
December 13, 2016
Mr. Sandford was dramatically arrested during a Las Vegas rally for
Mr. Trump
A British man has been sentenced to 12 months and one
day in prison over his attempt to grab a gun in a bid to kill
Donald Trump.
Michael Sandford, 20, pleaded guilty in September to
being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and
disrupting an official function.
He was accused of grabbing a policeman's gun at a rally in
Las Vegas in order to shoot at the candidate.
His mother says "he is remorseful over
what he did".
Sandford, of Dorking, Surrey, had faced up to 10 years in
prison over the alleged assassination plot.
The court heard that he could be eligible for release in four
months' time, at which point he will be deported to the UK.
The defence team said their client is autistic and suffers
seizures and obsession-compulsion anxiety.
In the courtroom - James Cook, BBC News, Las Vegas
Michael Sandford appeared in court in orange prison garb,
looking pale and slight, his ankles shackled.
He smiled as members of his family waved to him and
mouthed:
"I love you."
191
Sandford then broke down in tears as he apologised for
what he had done and for taking up time and costing the
taxpayer money.
"I just feel terrible about it," he said.
The judge James Mahan appeared sympathetic, telling
Sandford:
"I don't think you harboured malice in your
heart."
His mother, Lynne Sandford, also addressed the judge,
saying her son was "cherished and adored".
"It breaks my heart to see him in this
environment," she said, as she appealed
for a lenient sentence on the basis that her
son needed treatment and the support of
his family.
Image copyright PA Image caption Michael Sandford, with his
mother Lynne
After Sandford was arrested, he told officers he had
planned to shoot the billionaire Republican candidate.
He failed to pull the weapon from an officer's holster, the
court heard.
His mother said that she had lost contact with her son after
he left home to travel around the US in 2015.
He had previously shown no interest in politics, and she
was unable to explain why he would want to shoot Mr
Trump.
According to court documents, Sandford, who was
homeless and living in the US illegally having overstayed
his visa, told the Secret Service that he had driven from
California to Nevada with the goal of shooting Mr. Trump.
The papers detail how he had been plotting the attack for
around a year and had gone to a gun range in Las Vegas
the day before the attack to learn how to shoot, firing 20
rounds from a 9mm Glock pistol.
Image copyright Family Handout Image caption Sandford
pleaded guilty to lesser charges in order to avoid a lengthy
prison sentence
.
192
He reportedly told an officer that he had expected to die in
the attack but that he also had tickets for a later Trump
rally in Arizona in case he needed a second chance.
Judge James C Mahan described the
incident as "a crazy stunt".
"You have a medical problem," the judge
told Sandford, adding that it is "nothing to
be ashamed or embarrassed about."
"I don't see you as evil or a sociopath," the
judge said, wishing Sandford luck as he
rose to leave the courtroom.
 ‘Unprecedented White House Attempt
To Smear Incoming President’
Published Time: 13 Dec, 2016 15:14Edited Time: 13 Dec, 2016 16:43
It is unprecedented for American democracy to blame a
foreign power for influencing an election and use that as a
tool to overturn the democratic process, experts told RT.
The White House has made some new allegations against
President-elect Donald Trump over his supposed ties with
Russia.
“It was the president-elect who refused to
disclose his financial connections to
Russia. It was the president-elect who
hired a campaign chairman with extensive,
lucrative, personal financial ties to Russia.
It was the president-elect who had national
security adviser on the campaign that had
been a paid contributor to RT, the Russian
propaganda outlet,” White House Press
Secretary Josh Earnest told the daily
briefing on Monday.
These claims come after the CIA accused Moscow of
hacking the Democratic party in an attempt to influence
the US presidential election.
American President-elect Donald Trump has again
slammed the CIA's claims that Russia meddled in the US
election to help him take office. He said the accusations
are politically-driven and created by his opponents to
explain Hillary Clinton's defeat in November.
Trump's statement refers to a confidential CIA report on
Russia's alleged role in the election on which the
Washington Post reported.
According to the editor of Defense & Foreign Affairs
publications Gregory R Copley,
193
“the White House is doing something
almost unprecedented in US presidential
history and the history of transitions. It is
trying to go to great length to discredit an
incoming administration. What is
remarkable is how softly President-elect
Trump is responding to this – not reacting
to the incredible and vituperative nature of
the attacks on him and on the attempts to
smear him with the allegations of foreign
aid for his election victory.”
“The other thing is that President Obama is
determined to achieve a number of things
before he leaves office. One is to
absolutely punish Russia, which he sees as
the chief obstacle to his success
particularly in the Middle East and Europe
and elsewhere. And also the outgoing
Obama administration, the Democratic
party supporting Hillary Clinton campaign
are going to great length to blame the loss
of the Clinton campaign on someone other
than themselves – Russia and Trump’s
alleged unholy alliance with Russia,"
Copley added.
‘This is personality-bashing to discredit the results of
US election’
RT America host Ed Schultz shared his
opinion: “What we are seeing the White
House do right now, because there is no
hard solid evidence of any Russian hacking
here, there is a bunch of generic fluffy
statements that are coming from just some
intelligence agencies. What we are seeing
is personality-bashing. They are going after
Paul Manafort; they are going after
anybody who has been associated with
Donald Trump on an international level in
an effort to discredit the results of this
election and take it to the Electoral College
to possibly have thrown a rope or some
kind of savior to Hillary Clinton that she
might be president. I am disappointed that
the White House is going down such a
flimsy road.”

‘No proof because these are not hacks but leaks’
“It’s quite a trick, isn’t it, to make such
allegations without providing any evidence
whatsoever. The reason they don’t provide
the evidence is because there is none,”
former CIA officer Ray McGovern told RT.
He said, “If I were President-elect Trump, I
would get NSA – which is responsible for
all this kind of electronic surveillance, I
would convene an NSA meeting and have
some CIA people there” and ask them
where the proof is to the allegations that
Russians hacked into the DNC and
Clinton’s emails. “The problem is, there is
no proof because these are not hacks,
these are leaks,” McGovern added.
‘Blaming Russia for influencing US
election is a tool to overturn the
democratic process’
Peter Van Buren, a former State Department Foreign
Service Officer, said he is “deeply frightened.”
“We are looking at serious mainstream
people in the US who are seeking to
overturn an election. People voted, 62
million people voted for Donald Trump, the
majority of electoral votes went to Donald
Trump under the system that the US has
had for more than 200 years. People are
unsatisfied with that result. And they are
now seeking to overturn it. There were
efforts for a recount; those didn’t succeed.
There are political scientists claiming that
.
194
we should postpone the Electoral College
vote or tempt to manipulate it so that
electors do something they’ve never done
in the history of the US. And failing all that,
we are going to blame a foreign power for
influencing our election and use that as a
tool to overturn the democratic process and
change an election in a democratic nation.
That leaves me frightened”, Van Buren told
RT.
‘Russia seems to be the go-to state’
Matteo Bergamini, founder and director of
Shout Out UK, told RT: “It is important to
mention that Trump was an anti-
establishment candidate. He came into
power with an anti-establishment agenda
and the idea of making America great
again. This anti-establishment idea has
shocked a lot of people in America,
especially in the American political
hierarchy and obviously the Democrats. A
lot of people believed that it would be an
easy win for Hillary. Clearly, it wasn’t. She
lost and a lot of people have to blame
someone for that…Russia seems to be the
go-to state. The one they’ve always
blamed, ever since the Cold War it’s
always been Russia against the West - the
one country that if you blame its people
would not ask too many questions, they
wouldn’t be angry about it.”
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this
column are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent those of RT.
 The Conspiracy To Shut Down Truth,
Donald Trump, And The American People
Paul Craig Roberts
December 13, 2016
There is circumstantial evidence that the Washington Post,
the New York Times, and the rest of the presstitute media
are part of a conspiracy with the oligarchs, the
military/security complex, the Hillary Democrats, and
neoconized Republicans to shut down the dissident
Internet alternative media and to deny Donald Trump the
presidency.
Consider the brand new website PropOrNot and its fake
news list of 200 Internet Russian agents. PropOrNot is a
website hidden behind multiple screens as would be an
offshore tax avoidance scheme. In other words, no known,
responsible entity is behind the site, which has libeled 200
other websites, or if it is, it is too ashamed of what it is
doing to be associated with it publicly.
Consider the expertise and money required to shield the
identity of an organization, whether tax avoidance or
website. This is not something that just anyone can do.
This type of Klingon cloaking requires real money or the
CIA.
As long as it pretends to be a newspaper, the Washington
Post is subject to journalistic ethics. But the PropOrNot
story by Craig Timberg violated journalistic ethics.
Unsupported accusations were leveled against 200
websites, a McCarthyism record.
How did a story, which would have been instantly quashed
by editors in my day as a Wall Street Journal editor get
past Timberg’s editor?
That is the question.
Here we have the Post committing libel against 200
websites, all of whom can sue for damages. There go
Bezos’ billions.
Would a Washington Post editor of any intelligence have
published such a libel-inviting story unless the owner,
Bezos, gave the OK or the order?
195
How can the Washington Post feel secure in an act of
libel?
Is it because Bezos is protected by his reported
membership on a US government committee, along with
the Google CEO, that is believed to conspire against the
privacy of the American people?
PropOrNot would have amounted to nothing except for the
Washington Post. Craig Timberg’s story was written as if
PropOrNot was the real goods. Yet, Timberg does not
reveal who is behind PropOrNot.
Add to this picture the hyping by the Washington Post,
New York Times, and TV presstitutes of the unattributed
CIA charge that Russia hacked the Hillary emails and used
them to elect Trump with the help of Russian agent
websites. This fake news charge is challenged by
Wikileaks and by a number of experts who asked why
unattributed allegations are accepted in the place of
evidence, and the charge is not supported by the FBI. How
do we know that the alleged unattributed CIA charges are
actually made by the CIA or whether there is consensus
within the agency?
How can the presstitutes, such as the NYT and Washington
Post give us all these claims without a shred of evidence or
any attribution to the CIA officials allegedly reporting the
story? What kind of journalism is this?
The conspiracy against truth and against president-elect
Trump is real. The oligarchs and their presstitutes, rogue
elements of the CIA and the neocon establishment hope to
drag alternative media before McCarthyite congressional
hearings run by the American hegemonists who want
power over the world.
Whatever you think of Trump, clearly the oligarchs who
rule us fear him. The oligarchs are trying to keep Trump
out of the presidency, and they are trying to associate
truthful reporting with foreign influence.
Who wins this war determines the fate of America.
 Top US Spy Agency Refuses To Endorse CIA's Russian
Hacking Assessment Due To "Lack Of Evidence"
By Tyler Durden
Dec 13, 2016 5:11 AM
When the WaPo posted last Friday's story about a "secret"
CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at
helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the
2016 election, the readers of the Bezos-owned publication
took it as gospel, despite, as we promptly noted, there
being no evidence provided by the CIA, and as we learned
today, the FBI openly resisting the CIA's assessment. It
now appears that once again the WaPo may have been
engaging in "partial fake news", as it did with its Nov. 24
story about "Russian propaganda fake media."
According to Reuters, the so-called overseers of the U.S.
intelligence community as it supervises the 17 agency-
strong U.S. intelligence community, the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), while not
disputing the CIA's analysis of Russian hacking operations
- something which would be unprecedented for the US spy
industry and would telegraph just how partisan and broken
the country's intelligence apparatus has become
- has refused to endorse the CIA's
assessment "because of a lack of
conclusive evidence" that Moscow
intended to boost Trump over
Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
As Reuters conveniently notes, the ODNI position could
give Trump fresh ammunition to dispute the CIA
assessment, which he rejected as "ridiculous" in weekend
remarks, and press his assertion that no evidence
implicates Russia in the cyber attacks. The ODNI's
position confirms that Trump was once again, you guessed
it, right.
"ODNI is not arguing that the agency
(CIA) is wrong, only that they can't
prove intent," said one of the three U.S.
officials.
As reported earlier, the FBI, whose evidentiary standards
require it to make cases that can stand up in court, likewise
declined to accept the CIA's analysis - a deductive
assessment of the available intelligence - for the same
reason, the three officials said.
The ODNI, headed by James Clapper, was established
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the recommendation of
the commission that investigated the attacks. The
196
commission, which identified major intelligence failures,
recommended the office's creation to improve coordination
among U.S. intelligence agencies.
As a reminder, the first hint that the US would scapegoat
Russia for an "unexpected election outcome" took place on
October 7, when the U.S. government formally accused
Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against American
political organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential
election. Back then, president Barack Obama has said he
warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about
consequences for the attacks. Reports of the assessment by
the CIA, which has not publicly disclosed its findings,
have prompted congressional leaders to call for an
investigation.
The narrative escalated rapidly last week, when outgoing
president Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review
the cyber attacks and foreign intervention in the
presidential election and to deliver a report before he turns
power over to Trump on Jan. 20.
So how did the CIA come to its conclusion?
According to Reuters, the agency assessed after the
election that the attacks on political organizations were
aimed at swaying the vote for Trump because the targeting
of Republican organizations diminished toward the end of
the summer and focused on Democratic groups, a senior
U.S. official told Reuters on Friday. Moreover, only
materials filched from Democratic groups - such as emails
stolen from John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman -
were made public via WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy
organization, and other outlets, U.S. officials said.
The CIA conclusion - one of induction and no supporting
evidence - was a
"judgment based on the fact that
Russian entities hacked both Democrats
and Republicans and only the
Democratic information was leaked,"
one of the three officials said on Monday.
"(It was) a thin reed upon which to base
an analytical judgment," the official
added.
Earlier Monday, Senator John McCain said on Monday
also confronted the CIA's assessment, saying there was "no
information" that Russian hacking of American political
organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the
election.
"It's obvious that the Russians hacked into
our campaigns," McCain said. "But there
is no information that they were
intending to affect the outcome of our
election and that's why we need a
congressional investigation," he told
Reuters.
McCain also questioned an assertion made on Sunday by
RNC Chair Reince Priebus, who said that there were no
hacks of computers belonging to Republican organizations.
"Actually, because Mr. Priebus said that
doesn't mean it's true," said McCain. "We
need a thorough investigation of it, whether
both (Democratic and Republican
organizations) were hacked into, what the
Russian intentions were. We cannot draw a
conclusion yet. That's why we need a
thorough investigation."
.
197
Well, just because Hillary said that, it did make it true, so
perhaps Reince is right as well?
Meanwhile, in an angry letter sent to ODNI chief Clapper
on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top U.S.
intelligence official had not informed the panel of the
CIA’s analysis and the difference between its judgment
and the FBI’s assessment.
Noting that Clapper in November testified that
intelligence agencies lacked strong evidence linking
Russian cyber attacks to the WikiLeaks disclosures,
Nunes asked that Clapper, together with CIA and FBI
counterparts, brief the panel by Friday on the latest
intelligence assessment of Russian hacking during the
election campaign.
We, for one, can't wait to hear his testimony - under oath -
why in the span of one month so much has changed, and
who precisely prompted the CIA to "infer" that Russia is
responsible for Hillary Clinton's loss. Or maybe we will
just have to wait for Wikileaks, pardon Russia, to hack
Podesta's email account for that first?
 White House Claims Trump
Aides Bankrolled By Kremlin
© REUTERS/ Stevo Vasiljevic World 14:40 13.12.2016(updated 16:56 13.12.2016)
White House spokesman Josh Earnest accused Donald
Trump and his top aides of enjoying lucrative connections
with Russia, effectively implying a conflict of interests.
The White House appears to be dedicated to its stalwart
campaign to ferret out any traces of Donald Trump and his
team secretly conspiring with Russia, no matter how
imaginary they are.
During his daily briefing on Monday, December 12, White
House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted that Donald Trump
and some of his top aides allegedly enjoy lucrative ties
with Russia or even directly receive money from a
"Russian propaganda outlet."
"It was the president-elect who refused to
disclose his financial connections to
Russia. It was the president-elect who
hired a campaign chairman with extensive,
lucrative, personal financial ties to Russia.
It was the president-elect who had a
national security adviser on the campaign
that had been a paid contributor to RT, the
Russian propaganda outlet," Earnest
declared.
While the spokesman opted not to name any names in his
accusatory speech, it is not hard to deduce that the
"campaign chairman" in question is Paul Manafort, a one-
198
time advisor to the former Ukrainian president Victor
Yanukovich, while the "national security adviser" is Ret.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency.
It should be noted that Manafort was earlier accused by
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau of pocketing
some $12.7 million worth of 'black cash' supplied by
corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs. However, the agency was
subsequently unable to provide any evidence of these
alleged wrongdoings, and Nazar Kholodnytskiy, head of
the Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s
Office, had to admit that so far no reason has been found to
hand Manafort a notice of suspicion, RIA Novosti points
out.
Meanwhile, Michael Flynn did indeed appear as a guest on
RT and even attended the RT anniversary event in
Moscow, where he was seated next to Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin. Nevertheless, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov made it clear that Putin and Flynn did not engage
in lengthy conversations of any kind.
RT was less than amused by the accusations brought
forward by Earnest against both Flynn and the news
agency, and decided to clarify the issue in no uncertain
terms.
"We are rather amazed at the
misinformation peddled by White House
press secretary Josh Earnest. At no time
has General Michael Flynn ever been a
paid contributor to RT. General Flynn has
appeared as a guest on our award-winning
news network, alongside many
international experts who respond to our
invitation to share their views," the news
channel's press office stated.
It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration
will continue to push forward these claims.
 Pro-Hillary Dark Forces
Plot Anti-Trump Coup
Stephen Lendman
12-13-2016
It shouldn’t surprise. Since the deplorable Clinton co-
presidency, America has been on a slippery slope toward
full-blown tyranny - notably post-the-9/11 mother of all
false flags.
It was followed by an array of police state laws, new ones
recently enacted, flagrant constitutional violations, media
scoundrels silent on an unprecedented abuse of power.
McCarthyism is back on steroids. Truth-telling is now
considered fake news and/or pro-Russian. We’re perilously
close to criminalizing content or advocacy for anything
opposing America’s deplorable agenda, its imperial wars,
its high crimes against humanity at home and abroad.
Perhaps I and others like me are considered Kremlin
agents for supporting Putin’s anti-war, anti-imperial, anti-
uni-polarity agenda, a leader supporting rule of law
principles and mutual cooperation among all nations.
It’s polar opposite how America operates, a rogue state
like no others earlier, threatening humanity’s survival like
never before, a terrifying reality too few people realize.
Now there’s a plot afoot to deny Trump his electoral
triumph - the Clintons, their supporters and other dark
forces behind it, their goal to turn America into an
illegitimate putschist state like Nazi-run Ukraine, installed
by Obama.
According to Politico, Hillary’s top political advisor, John
Podesta, wants an intelligence briefing on phony charges
of Russian election hacking given Electoral College
members before they vote on December 19. In a Monday
statement, he said:
“Electors have a solemn responsibility
under the Constitution…(O)ur campaign
decried the interference of Russia in our
.
199
campaign and its evident goal of hurting
our campaign to aid Donald Trump.”
“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.”
Reliable independent sources debunked the fabricated
allegation.
Not a shred of evidence supports it.
None exists. Even the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
refuses to endorse it “because of a lack
of conclusive evidence.” So does the
FBI for the same reason.
In November congressional testimony, DNI head James
Clapper said US intelligence agencies lack evidence
pointing to Russian US election hacking.
Can any thinking person believe Russia cost Hillary the
election? It defies logic. It’s an absurdity on its face, a
disgraceful Big Lie and an affront to the sensibility of
everyone.
Parties trying to reverse November’s electoral result
should face sedition or treason charges. Their attempt
confirms America’s deplorable state more than ever.
The nation was never a democracy from inception. Now
it’s a fascist police state, waging permanent war on
humanity, exceeding anything before in world history -
rule of law principles out-the-window entirely.
 Clinton Campaign Backs Electors
Calls For Intelligence Briefing
© AP Photo/ Charlie Neibergall US 00:07 13.12.2016(Updated 09:35 13.12.2016)
Despite fear mongering about how “dangerous” it would
have been for President-elect Donald Trump to not accept
election results, supporters of Hillary Clinton have
participated in recount efforts, and are now backing a
small group of electors who are calling for an intelligence
briefing on “Russian hacking” before casting their votes.
On Monday, ten electors, primarily Democrats, released an
open letter to Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper about their “concerns” that Russia was involved in
helping Trump win the election.
“The United States intelligence community
has now concluded with “high confidence”
that a foreign power, namely Russia, acted
covertly to interfere in the presidential
campaign with the intent of promoting
Donald Trump’s candidacy,” the letter from
the electors stated. “During the campaign
Russia actively attempted to influence the
election outcome through cyber attacks on
our political institutions and a should distress every American.”
comprehensive propaganda campaign
coordinated through WikiLeaks and other
outlets.”
The group also used an ironic inference made by Trump to
further push their anti-Russian agenda.
“Donald Trump even made a direct plea to
the Russian government to interfere further
in the election in a press conference on
July 27, saying, ‘Russia, if you’re listening, I
hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails
that are missing,’” the letter said.
Barely three hours later, the Clinton campaign was all over
it.
“The bipartisan electors' letter raises very
grave issues involving our national
200
security,” John Podesta said in a
statement. “Electors have a solemn
responsibility under the Constitution and
we support their efforts to have their
questions addressed."
The scandal-plagued campaign chair then again question
the legitimacy of Trump’s election, which Clinton’s
campaign had branded as a practically treasonous act, if
the now President-elect had done it.
“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,” he
said. “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
During the election season, outlets such as the Huffington
Post warned that if Trump questioned the results of the
vote it would lead to violence and act to undermine
democracy. In October, at a rally in Cleveland, Clinton
asserted that anything other than a “peaceful transition of
power,” is a “threat to democracy.”
“We know the difference between
leadership and dictatorship, and the
peaceful transition of power is one of the
things that sets us apart,” Clinton told the
crowd. “Donald Trump refused to say that
he’d respect the results of this election. By
doing that, he’s threatening our
democracy.” “Whether or not you support
me or you support my opponent, together
we must support American democracy,”
Clinton said.
 White House Attacks Trump
Over Connections To Russia And RT
Published Time: 12 Dec, 2016 22:04Edited Time: 13 Dec, 2016 13:26
U.S. President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald
Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington
November 10, 2016. © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
President Barack Obama’s spokesman has accused
President-elect Donald Trump and top members of his
team of “lucrative” ties with Russia, pointing out that his
national security adviser was a “paid contributor” on RT.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest made the case
against Trump at the daily briefing on Monday, connecting
the dots from “malicious Russian cyber activity” to top
campaign officials and their past.
“It was the president-elect who refused to
disclose his financial connections to
Russia,” said Earnest. “It was the
president-elect who hired a campaign
chairman with extensive, lucrative,
personal financial ties to Russia. It was the
president-elect who had national security
adviser on the campaign that had been a
paid contributor to RT, the Russian
propaganda outlet.”
Earnest implied that as the Republican presidential
nominee Trump “benefited” from cyberattacks on his
main rival while “his campaign did not make any effort to
obscure this.”
Earnest has directly accused Trump not only of turning a
blind eye to Russia’s “attempt to destabilize our political
system,” but even ordering Moscow to attack Hillary
Clinton.
“The president-elect did not call it into
question. He called on Russia to hack his
opponent. He called on Russia to hack
Secretary Clinton,”
201
Earnest said, offering no evidence that would prove his
claims.
“He certainly had a pretty good sense of
whose side this activity was coming down
on.”
Trump has been under the Democrats’ suspicion since
DNC emails were leaked in July, exposing a bias against
Bernie Sanders during the primary. Clinton supporters
suggested that cyber attacks were masterminded by Russia
to help Trump win, and they have requested FBI Director
James Comey investigate links between Trump and Russia
concerning the leak.
In September, Clinton personally accused Trump of
inviting “Putin to hack into the Americans,” when the two
squared off in the presidential debates.
While the White House spokesman did not name any
names, it was clear which officials close to the president-
elect he was referring to. The “campaign chairman” with
ties to Russia meant Paul Manafort, once linked to
Ukraine’s former government.
Manafort made headlines that past August, when
Ukraine’s current government accused him of having
pocketed more than $12 million as a lobbyist and
consultant for the “pro-Russian regime.” He worked for a
company founded by Tony Podesta – brother of John
Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff and campaign
chairman for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary
Clinton.
The second person Earnest brought up is retired
Lieutenant-General Michael Flynn, former head of the
Defense Intelligence Agency and currently Trump's pick
for the post of national security adviser.
“General Flynn, to my knowledge, was
never paid to be on my show. I can tell you
that,” host Ed Schultz has said. “I think this
is again the very sad road the White House
is going down.”
Schultz has pointed to the former chairwoman of the DNC,
Donna Brazile, and her relationship with CNN. Another
example is Obama’s former adviser Van Jones, who is also intelligence hacked the servers of the Democratic camp
a CNN political contributor. and its leaders to specifically help Trump snatch the post.

The president-elect called such the

implication “ridiculous.”
“I think it's ridiculous. I think it's just another
excuse. I don't believe it,” he told Fox
News.

“The White House is forgetting the

connection that Donna Brazile has to CNN
or what Van Jones was to the Obama
administration getting paid by CNN. You
can easily discredit someone if you wanna
follow the money,” Schultz said.

RT’s Press Office has issued an official comment on the

matter, saying that it is “amazed at the misinformation”
given by White House press secretary.

“At no time has General Michael Flynn ever

been a paid contributor to RT. General At the same time, former US
Flynn has appeared as a guest on our Ambassador John Bolton Hacking has
award-winning news network, alongside also suggested that “this hacking into
many international experts who respond to the DNC [Democratic National
our invitation to share their views,” the Committee] and the RNC [Republican
statement added. National Committee]” may have been
the result of a false flag operation
Since October, the White House has been accusing Russia carried out by the Obama
of cyberattacks on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic administration.
National Committee in an attempt to interfere with US
presidential elections. The RNC has denied that there have been any cyberattacks
on its servers.
Last week, an intelligence source told the Washington Post
that a secret assessment by the CIA concluded that Russian
.

202
 Ex-CIA Officer: No Evidence Of Russian Government
Involvement In US Election
© AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster US 01:51 13.12.2016(Updated 09:52 13.12.2016)
Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer and current executive
director of the Council for the National Interest, has
dissected public statements regarding the claims that
Russia hacked the Democratic Party on behalf of Trump,
and has concluded that evidence is lacking.
In a report for American Conservative, Giraldi detailed
that the CIA report claims to represent intelligence
community consensus on the issue, and that the use of the
word “consensus” implies that there was dissent over the
conclusions. He also noted that there is a suggestion that
not all representatives of the community signed off on the
final draft.
“It is also important to note how critics of
Russia in Congress, including Republican
Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham,
are already exploiting the allegations to
block any possible initiatives by Trump to
improve ties with Moscow, which might
have serious consequences down the
road,” Giraldi noted.
Giraldi explained that, to understand what is being alleged,
one must rely on media reports from shadowy “unnamed
sources,” as neither the CIA nor the White House has
made public the classified report.
“Some anonymous government officials are
reportedly conceding that the direct link
from the Russian government to the actual
hackers and then on to the disseminators
of the information is lacking,” Giraldi wrote.
“If the intelligence community is
nevertheless claiming that they know
203
enough to conclude that it was directed
from the top levels of the Russian
government, then they should be able to
produce documentary or other evidence of
officials’ ordering the operation to take
place.” In other words, Giraldi observed, if
the CIA wants to maintain credibility, it
must produce the report containing the
evidence, and that evidence must be clear,
even if the document contains redactions.
“Do they have that kind of information? It is
clear that they do not, in spite of their
assertion of ‘high confidence,’” Giraldi said.
“And there is a suggestion by Republican
Rep. Devin Nunes, a persistent critic of
Russian spying who is on the House
Intelligence Committee, that the information
they do have consists of innuendo and is
largely circumstantial.”
Instead, Giraldi believes that the intelligence community
simply has bits and pieces of information it has gleaned
over the previous election cycle. The former CIA officer
stated that his ex-employer and its allied security groups in
the US are likely presuming that it was the Russian
government.
Giraldi believes that because of former-candidate Hillary
Clinton’s open hostility toward Russia, and Trump’s
eagerness to mend fences, it would be unsurprising if the
Kremlin sought to bolster the Trump campaign in support
of their own self-interest.
“The CIA certainly uses its media assets
worldwide to place stories supportive of
politicians and parties favored by the
administration in power in Washington,” he
said. “I would have to assume that
President Barack Obama has, for example,
approved CIA-generated favorable press
coverage of endangered politicians like
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany,
whose policies he strongly supports.”
The spy-turned-pundit suggested that the lesson to be
learned here is not that Russians allegedly promoted a
candidate they favored, or that information shared digitally
is no longer private, it is that there are consequences for
aspirants to high office if they are careless with their
words.
“The lesson is not that the Russians spied
on the United States and covertly assisted
a candidate they favored. That should be a
given, well understood by people in the
204
White House and elsewhere in the
administration,” Giraldi said, also noting,
“That information is no longer private in an
age where electronic intrusion or hacking
can be run out of someone’s garage should
also be a given. But when aspirants to high
office are careless in what they say, when
they say it, and how they communicate to
associates, there will be consequences.”
 Top Intel Office Not On Same Page As CIA Regarding
Russia Hack Assessment
Foxnews.Com
Published December 13, 2016
The nation’s top intelligence office is not on the same page
as the CIA regarding its assessment that Russia interfered
in the U.S. elections in a bid to help Donald Trump, a U.S.
government source confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which
oversees the U.S. intelligence community, has not fully
embraced the CIA finding.
Fox News is told that several U.S. election-related hacking
incidents are being wrongly lumped together, when they
should be treated as separate events -- these cover breaches
at the Democratic National Committee and another
campaign arm; in a top Hillary Clinton campaign official’s
email account; and at state election boards.
Reuters reports that while the ODNI does not dispute the
CIA’s general analysis on Russia hacking, the office is not
convinced of the evidence that Moscow sought specifically
to help Trump defeat Democratic opponent Clinton.
The government source told Fox News the discrepancy
comes down to Russia’s intent.
205
One official also told Reuters that the CIA’s judgment was
based on the fact that only Democratic information was
leaked. The official called this a “thin reed upon which to
base an analytical judgment.”
The developments further underscore how U.S.
intelligence and law enforcement agencies may be at odds
over an assessment that has fueled Democratic complaints
and questions about the race -- and spurred bipartisan calls
for deeper congressional investigation.
The Clinton campaign chairman who was hacked, John
Podesta, even backed calls for electors -- who are set to
formally choose the president next week, based on the
results of the Nov. 8 election -- to get an intelligence
briefing on Russian interference in the race.
Trump, though, has pushed back hard at the reported
assessment, calling it “ridiculous” in an interview with
“Fox News Sunday.”
Potential space between the CIA and the ODNI on the
matter was first revealed in a letter Monday from House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif.,
to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The
letter, obtained by Fox News, noted that the CIA finding
conflicts with Clapper’s mid-November public testimony.
"On November 17, 2016, you told the
Committee during an open hearing that the
IC (Intelligence Community) lacked strong
evidence connecting Russian government
cyberattacks and WikiLeaks disclosures,”
Nunes wrote.
In response to a question at the time from ranking
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, Clapper had said,
“As far as the WikiLeaks connection, the
evidence there is not as strong and we
don't have good insight into the sequencing
of the releases or when the data may have
been provided. We don't have as good
insight into that.”
The Nunes letter continued,
 “According to new press reports, this is no
longer the CIA’s position … I was dismayed
that we did not learn earlier, from you
directly about the reported conflicting
assessments and the CIA’s reported
revision of information previously conveyed
to this Committee.”
Nunes is requesting a briefing from the CIA and FBI on
the current assessment of alleged Russian involvement
related to the U.S. election no later than Dec. 16.
The Washington Post first reported Friday that the CIA
concluded in a secret assessment that Russia interfered in
.
206
the race to boost Trump, not just undermine confidence in
the system. Intelligence agencies reportedly found
individuals connected to the Russian government gave
WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National
Committee, as well as from Podesta – though the agencies
did not have “specific intelligence” showing Kremlin
officials directed the activity.
The Post reported, however, that the FBI also gave a
differing account on potential Russian interference.
The Post reported Tuesday that the CIA assessment was
based in part on intelligence indicating Moscow’s hacking
disproportionately affected Democratic targets.
 ‘Putin Did It’: CIA Mercilessly
Trolled With #Russianhack Blame Game
Published time: 13 Dec, 2016 12:22

The meme came after allegations from the CIA of Russian

involvement in hacking the DNC. © Larry Downing / Reuters

In the wake of CIA claims about Russian involvement in

the US presidential campaign, netizens are using
#RussianHack to shift blame for everyday shortcomings,
with Vladimir Putin now the fall guy for everything from
speeding tickets to ruining Christmas.

Taking jibes at the CIA’s allegations that Russia was

behind the hacking of emails from the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton's chief of
staff, John Podesta, the internet took no prisoners over the
unproven claims.

“It’s not my fault officer. The Russians hacked my

speedometer,” one meme reads, along with an image of a
woman being ticketed by a police officer. It seems all but
Harambe’s death has been blamed on Russia… but surely
that’s only a matter of time.

207
 The MSM’s coverage has also been lampooned with a
note, seemingly penned by a child, claiming to be from
Putin, taking responsibility for the hack retweeted
thousands of times.

Doubt has been thrown on the authenticity of the

assessment, with the the office overseeing all 17 agencies
of the US intelligence community, the ODNI, reportedly
saying the CIA can’t prove its claims.
208
 Donna Brazile, the interim chairperson of the DNC, was
shown no mercy after it was exposed in WikiLeaks’
Podesta emails that she gave debate questions to Hillary
Clinton’s campaign when she was a CNN contributor.

209
Of course, no news story would be complete without a
Seinfeld-inspired meme and #RussianHack is no different.

210
 Conway Says Trump Forming 'Tremendously
Conservative' Cabinet, Looks To Work With Manchin
Foxnews.Com
Published December 13, 2016
Senior Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said
Tuesday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" the president-elect
is forming a "tremendously conservative and sharp
cabinet" while continuing to hold meetings at Trump
Tower in New York with members of Congress and even
rapper Kanye West.
Conway described the choice to nominate Exxon Mobil
CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state, as "a very
Trumpian pick."
"The president-elect told me just today that
when he met Rex Tillerson, they clicked
immediately," she told Carlson. "I'm not
surprised, they're both very successful
accomplished people who employ tens of
thousands of individuals, and that he just
.
211
felt that he was in a very special league,
someone who can negotiate deals,
someone who already has relationships
across the globe."
"Somebody, who frankly, has told Vladimir
Putin, no," she added.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who
was in the running for secretary of energy, is someone
Conway described as "very helpful and welcoming" to the
president-elect and "not in the Democratic orthodoxy."
"We think we can rely upon him as a critical
vote for some of these common-sense
reforms that the president-elect has said he
will put forward in the first 100 days," she
said.
 There's A Psy-Op, All Right;
But It Isn't "The Russians"
By Tyler Durden, Via Daisyluther.Com,
Dec 13, 2016 12:05 AM
Enough with “the Russians” already. This “Russian
Disinformation” and “Russian Hacking” stuff is getting
more ridiculous by the day.
First, don’t let the irony escape you that
most, if not all, of the pundits breathlessly
blaming the Russians for “fake news” and
“election interference” are the very ones
who were saying that Hillary Clinton was a
shoe-in for president. They’re the ones who
were providing her campaign with
questions in advance, and allowing her
people to approve/disapprove of articles.
Secondly, many of the entities blamed for
spreading “Russian propaganda” were the
ones with the audacity to tell the truth about
the Clinton crime family and spread
knowledge of the information released by
Wikileaks. Obviously, I’m not including
those Macedonian college kids in this, but
keep in mind that they weren’t doing it for
the Russians – they were doing it to make
money.
This isn’t about the Russians at all,
which anyone with half a brain realizes
is absolutely ridiculous.
Here’s what this really is.
This is a war on the Trump
presidency. It’s an attempted
coup.
Maybe it’s even another effort to outright steal the
presidency from Trump. Maybe there’s someone with a lot
of money to throw into this “OMG THE RUSSIANS”
212
rhetoric who really hates Russia and who really wanted
Hillary Clinton to be the President. Maybe his name
rhymes with “Doros.” I don’t know this for sure, but it’s at
least a more likely story than “The Russians” hacking our
election and deliberately spreading propaganda.
And it’s working. Ten of the Electoral
College delegates have asked to be briefed
on the Russian “interference” before they
cast their votes on the 19th.
But that isn’t all. This is a two-for-one deal.
It’s important to note that the MSM lost every single bit of
their remaining credibility during the last election and
they’re desperate to get it back. It reminds me of a high
school kid who gets caught doing something she shouldn’t,
who then makes up stories about another group of kids to
get people talking about them instead of her. The MSM
can’t accept the fact that Hillary Clinton lost, despite their
dishonest but enthusiastic efforts to steal the election for
her. They’ll collude with whoever they have to in order
to become relevant again.
Do you really have any doubt that they’ll
collude with whoever they have to in
order to become relevant again?
About “The Russians”
The whole plotline about “the Russians” really took off
when the Washington Post published an article listing a
couple hundred websites as Russian “fake news” sites. (I
know the owners of quite a few of these sites personally -
as in, we’ve shared meals and wine together – and I can
tell you, they’re as American as apple pie.” The
Washington Post later backtracked on the accusations but
did not retract the article.
And today, the New York Times was at it with an article
entitled, “C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of
Evidence.”
Except that when you consider that evidence by definition
is definitive and the NYT admits everything they have is
circumstantial, then, doesn’t that completely negates the
headline? The article is sheer speculation, just like the
WaPo article that named the “fake news” sites.
What’s more, the FBI completely disagrees with the CIA,
and they’ve been very public about it. They don’t believe
that there is…well, evidence. I’ll quote from WaPo here.
The competing messages, according to officials in
attendance, also reflect cultural differences between the
FBI and the CIA. The bureau, true to its law enforcement
roots, wants facts and tangible evidence to prove
something beyond all reasonable doubt. The CIA is more
comfortable drawing inferences from behavior.
“The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal
standards — can we prove this in court,”
one of the officials said. “The CIA briefers
weigh the preponderance of intelligence
and then make judgment calls to help
policymakers make informed decisions.
High confidence for them means ‘we’re
pretty damn sure.’ It doesn’t mean they can
prove it in court.”
Give me a break. That, ladies and
gentlemen, is why you should never,
ever believe anything the Washington
Post refers to as investigative
journalism. They have no idea what
proof or evidence even means.
There’s a psy-op, all right, but it isn’t
“the Russians” perpetrating it.
It’s the CIA (keep in mind that psyops is part of their job)
working hand in hand with the MSM.
You just have to laugh at some of these
headlines and quotes.
For your entertainment, enjoy the following round-up of
headlines promoting the “Blame Russia” sentiment.
 Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help
Trump win White House (source)
 House passes intelligence bill enhancing efforts against
Russia (source)
 Where’s the outrage over Russia’s hack of the US
election?” (CNN)
 Fake News, Russians, and Election Reversal (Town
Hall)
 A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False
Stories (NY Times)
 DID RUSSIAN AGENTS INFLUENCE THE U.S.
ELECTION WITH FAKE NEWS? (Vanity Fair)
 Experts Say Russian Propaganda Helped Spread Fake
News During Election (NPR)
213
 Media Wakes Up To Russia’s ‘Fake News’ Only After It
Is Applied Against Hillary (Forbes)
And then, have an eyeroll at some very silly quotes…
From an interview on NPR:
“But let’s remember, this was a very close
vote where just, you know, a few tens of
thousands of votes in a few states ended
up making the difference. So I don’t know,
if you believe that the kind of information
that crashes through all of our social media
accounts affects how we think and
potentially how we vote, I think you would
conclude that this kind of stuff does
matter.” (source)
From the NY Times:
“RT [Russia Today] often seems obsessed
with the United States, portraying life there
as hellish. On the day President Obama
spoke at the Democratic National
Convention, for example, it emphasized
scattered demonstrations rather than the
speeches. It defends the Republican
presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, as
an underdog maligned by the established
news media.” (source)
From a secret mystery source on CNN:
“There was no way that any one could
have walked out of there with that the
evidence and conclude that the Russian
government was not behind this.” (source)
From CBS:
Responding to intelligence officials’ report
that Russia tried to influence the U.S.
presidential election in favor of President-
elect Donald Trump, Senate Armed
Services Committee Chairman John
McCain (R-Arizona) on Sunday said he
doesn’t know what to make of Mr. Trump’s
dismissal of the issue.
“I don’t know what to make of it because
it’s clear the Russians interfered,” he told
CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Whether they
intended to interfere to the degree that they
were trying to elect a certain candidate, I
think that’s a subject of investigation. But
facts are stubborn things. They did hack
into this campaign.” (source)
Politico reported:
“Donald Trump’s insult-laced dismissal of
reports that the CIA believes Russia
hacked the 2016 election to help him is
rattling a spy community already puzzled
over how to gain the ear and trust of the
incoming president.” (source)
While some of the efforts are laughable,
the end result could be incredibly
serious.
And by serious, I mean devastating. It could result in civil
war. It could result in World War III.
Despite the inadvertent hilarity, this is a
blatant effort to keep President-Elect
Trump out of the White House and to
silence the opposition.
When all dissenting voices are silenced, you’re only
getting one part of the story. You’re only getting the part
that those in power want you to hear. If we learned nothing
else from Wikileaks, we learned that there are dark secrets
about the evils of money, power, and manipulation. We
learned how many conspiracy theories about the Clintons
.
214
were actually facts, and we learned some things we can’t
unlearn about the proclivities of some of the most powerful
people in Washington.
We learned that some people will do anything to remain in
power.
We’re watching them do anything right now.
Never has an election been so vehemently contested.
Never has our country been so divided. If the election
results are cast aside, what do you really think will
happen? Do you think Trump supporters will just sigh and
accept it?
And what about Russia?
Just a few months ago, we were on the verge of war with
them. By scapegoating “The Russians,” if this psy-op is
successful, and Trump is kept out of office, what do you
think is going to happen with tensions between the two
countries?
Enough with “the Russians” already.
The real conspiracy is happening right
here in America.
 The 3 Stage Plot To Assassinate Trump:
Thirty Three Days To Armageddon
By Dave Hodges
December 13, 2016
I have delayed writing this article for the past four days. It
is not that I don’t believe in the analysis that I am going to
offer in this article, I wholeheartedly do. My hesitation
stems from the fact that if the globalists are successful in
pulling off the following plot, America is headed for the
darkest days in her history. This will mark the end of
America and for most us, our lives will be turned upside
down.
What am I talking about? I am referring to a progressive
three-part plan that will culminate in the failure for Trump
to take office and it will mark the end of the populist
movement designed to “Make America Great Again”.
The next 33 days will determine the fate of America and
the personal fate of all who read this article. This article is
the results of over a year’s worth of analysis with regard to
the Clinton/Trump campaign and the Primaries before that.
This article is also, in part, based upon what I have learned
about how the globalists operate. There is very little that
they do that surprises me. That is because there is nothing
they won’t do to extinguish freedom in this country. The
next 33 days are the most dangerous 33 days in American
history.
Here is the three-pronged approach being employed by the
globalists to end the Trump threat and subjugate the people
of this country in every way possible.
Phase One: Keep Counting Until the
Democrats Get the Result That They
Want
215
The recount was never warranted. It is the Democrats that
engaged in voter fraud on an unprecedented scale. Trump
has publicly stated that he believes that as many as 5
million votes were stolen by Clinton. My sources tell me
that the voter fraud was as many as 10-12 million. And yet,
Trump still won.
At the center of the failed recount effort was Communist
shill Jill Stein. What a lot of people do not know is that
Jill Stein’s parents and grandparents are avowed
communists. Stein, herself, has a past that is much like
Obama. In other words, she has no past. The closest we
can come to Stein’s past is a passport that places her in
Paris when she was 17. Stein’s parents and grandparents
were associates of Bill Ayers and the Weathermen. You
remember Bill Ayers don’t you? He was the communist
revolutionary who launched Obama’s political career from
the living room of his Chicago home. It even gets better. I
have learned that Stein actually visited Putin during the
campaign, iin Moscow. My source for most of this
information is Sherry Hodges (no relation) who used to
write for Breitbart and World Net Daily.
When one looks at Stein’s background, what little we can
find out, it is not surprising she led the effort to overturn
the election in favor of Clinton because Stein certainly had
no chance of winning at all, only Clinton did. As we know,
the recount effort failed.
Phase Two: Steal the Election at the Electoral College
Level
The electors must decide the winner of the Electoral
College by December 19, 2016. We have already seen 15
electors have declared that they will not vote for Trump.
This means that George Soros only has to bribe 22 more
electors in order to throw the election into a full-blown
Constitutional crisis.
Should Trump be denied the 270 electoral votes, the House
could decide the winner on January 3, 2017. With the
bribes and campaign donations that go to both sides of the
aisle, I would not predict a Trump victory. Our Congress is
bought and paid for.
Of course, Trump would file suit and just like in 2000, the
Supreme Court would make the decision. Right now the
court is split 4-4 between supposed liberal and
conservative. Yet, as I have stated over and over, and
based upon the his vote in establishing mandatory
Obamacare, Justice Roberts is compromised. The liberals
have something on him and I would predict that Clinton
would prevail by a 5-3 vote.
This would set off the biggest civil unrest in American
History. Therefore, the civil war period could commence
as early as next week, with a second opportunity on
January 3, 2017. A final opportunity to steal the election
would come from the Supreme Court who would
presumably steal the election in February or March of
2017.
Civil War would result. More on that outcome a little later.
Phase Three: The Assassination of Donald Trump and
the Takedown of the Independent Media
If Trump survives the Soros’ inspired Electoral College
coup and prepares to take office, he becomes a marked
man.
In 1963 when President Kennedy was murdered, there was
no Independent Media. There was no internet and still, the
facts have come out. However, it took 20-30 years for the
real facts behind the JFK assassination to be pieced
together.
The globalists know this and they are not going to allow
the Independent Media to fan the flames of dissent and
rebellion in the aftermath of a Trump assassination. I
would fully expect that within 24-48 hours of Trump’s
assassination, the Independent Media would cease to exist
in its present form. Of course there will be extreme civil
unrest, but it will be nothing that a little martial law
coupled with a false flag, blaming Trump supporters as
well as a two-term president that will not leave office that
would not solve the consequences of a Trump
assassination.
I expect a serious threat to be made on the life of Donald
Trump at the inauguration. Perhaps this is why Trump is
appointing several hard line military types such as Kelly
and Mattis. He knows he’s a marked man and will rely on
the military to protect him as best as they can.
The Russian Factor
In hindsight, I now understand why the globalists cast
yours truly and many of my colleagues into the ridiculous
role of being Russian subversives. And now, we are seeing
216
John McCain and others push the mantra that the Russians
stole our election. When and if Trump is killed, I suspect
that there will be a Russian angle in all of this. This is why
the Independent Media is being cast in the role of Russian
operatives. This is a well-lanned coup. When Trump is
assassinated, the globalists, I believe, are trying to kill
three birds with one stone.
1. End Trump’s populist uprising against the globalist
takeover of this country.
2. End the Independent Media’s role in leading the way
with regard to the re-establishment of an America-first
attitude.
3. Lay the pretext for war with Russia which has been the
depopulation agenda goal for the beginning of World
War III, all along.
With Michael Moore promoting the assassination of
Donald Trump and then his subsequent call for a violent
disruption of Trump’s swearing in ceremony, the globalists
are transmitting their intentions. They will do anything to
keep Trump from assuming power. IF they have to
detonate a nuclear bomb in Chicago, so be it. If they drop a
dirty bomb at the inauguration, that is OK too. All options
are on the table because this is what the Communists
historically do. They kill, burn, loot, blow-up and murder
to get their way and the Democratic Party is the new
Communist Party of America.
By the way, if the globalists are successful in killing
Trump, don’t look for the perpetrator, who will not
survive, to tell any tales. The assassin will be a lone-nut
assassin with a diary stating what he was going to do.
Conclusion
As Mark Twain once stated, history may not repeat, but it
sure does rhyme.
My hope in putting out this analysis is to shine enough
light upon the globalist plans to force them back into the
darkness. If the assassination plot is thwarted because
enough people begin to call attention to the immediate
threat to Donald Trump that these plans must be
abandoned because of the intense scrutiny that any action
against Trump will now bring. This article is totally
dedicated to the preservation of the new-found populist
movement and to protect Donald Trump’s life.
As an aside, Paul Martin has just informed me that
alphabet soup agencies have conducted a computer “war
games” scenario on America’s immediate future. They
expect civil unrest to explode over a two week period
culminating in full-blown civil war. I am releasing the
details of Paul’s discovery from his best source in the very
near future.
 The Great Fear That Putin And Trump
Will Have THIS Conversation
By Jon Rappoport
December 13, 2016
The press, the federal bureaucracy, Congress, and other
assorted power players and leeches are deathly afraid that
Trump will go off-script in his communications with key
foreign leaders.
Worse yet, he will do it without the usual gaggle of
reporters on the scene. He will therefore ignore and insult
the “owners of the news” yet again.
He will pay zero attention to the State Department
bureaucracy, which of course is dedicated to Globalism.
He will get on the phone with Putin, and this will happen:
Trump: I was thinking we should get together and sit down
and talk. Just you and I.
Putin: Why not?
Trump: No staffs. I’d bring two or three people.
Putin: No big ceremony. No months of planning. No
protocol. No build-up.
Trump: Exactly. And no reporters.
Putin: That goes without saying. Where would we do it?
Trump: Maybe an island. Anywhere.
Putin: A nice quiet resort. Better yet, a friend’s private
house.
Trump: Sounds good. Let’s see. I can get on a plane in
three days.
Putin: I can clear my schedule. What shall we discuss?
Trump: Whatever is on our minds. No fixed agenda.
Putin: NATO, nuclear weapons, terrorism, trade, Syria, oil.
Trump: Sure. Let’s get to know each other a little better.
We can even talk about how you handed me the election.
217
Putin (laughs): My guess is there were at least ten
countries that hacked the Clinton, DNC, and Podesta
emails. To say nothing of the NSA. A child could have
gotten past their security systems, which were basically
non-existent. But we didn’t leak anything. Some
Democratic insider did.
Trump: I know. It’s pathetic. I’d be interested in your take
on the CIA. I don’t know what the hell those people are
doing over there.
Putin: I’ll talk to my department heads and have something
ready for you.
Trump: Let’s put our heads together on George Soros. The
man’s a menace.
Putin: I can share some useful information.
Trump: Call me back and give me a location and I’ll be
there on Friday for supper. And look, no war, right?
Putin: The last thing I want is a war with the United States.
It would be insane.
Trump: I have some ideas about the Russian economy.
Putin: I’d be happy to hear them.
Trump: I know in the past it hasn’t all been rainbows and
marshmallows between our two countries, but I don’t know
of any law against making a new start.
—If, by chance, both men were sincere,
that would ruin everything, wouldn’t it?
Sitting down and solving a few problems
together? The horror of it would make
politicians tremble in their shorts:
“What good are we? Those two sons of
bitches are working things out without us.
It’s immoral. Failing is our business…and
our business is taking a hit.”
 Where's The Proof? Calls Grow To
Declassify Evidence Of Alleged Russian Hack
"There Is A Disturbing Trend Emerging That Dictates That If You Simply
Demand Evidence For This Tremendously Significant Allegation, You
Must Be A Trump Apologist Or A Soviet Agent"
By Deirdre Fulton, Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 13, 2016

to aid the public debate over interference in

our election by a powerful nation state."

"Taking Donald Trump's position—that we

should just ignore the question of Russian
hacking and 'move on'— would be a
disaster," they write. "Relying on a hazy
war of leaks from the CIA, FBI, various
politicians, and their staff is an equally
terrible idea."
"The only path forward that makes sense," write journalists at The
Intercept, "is for Obama to order the release of as much evidence as
In turn, they argue:
possible underlying the reported 'high confidence' of U.S. intelligence
agencies that Russia both intervened in the election and did so with "The only path forward that makes sense is
the intention of aiding Trump's candidacy." (Photo: Rachel for Obama to order the release of as much
Johnson/flickr/cc)
evidence as possible underlying the
reported 'high confidence' of U.S.
"Let's have some proof."
intelligence agencies that Russia both
intervened in the election and did so with
That's what some observers are demanding of President
the intention of aiding Trump's candidacy."
Barack Obama, urging him to declassify as much evidence
as possible to support CIA claims that Russia interfered in
Indeed, some are pointing to a lack of such "hard
the U.S. elections to bolster President-elect Donald
evidence," while others claim the matter at hand is not, in
Trump's candidacy.
fact, a "hack," but a "leak."
Ten members of the Electoral College have signed an open
Meanwhile, Reuters reported exclusively on Tuesday that
letter asking Director of National Intelligence James
even "[t]he overseers of the U.S. intelligence community
Clapper to provide them with classified briefings on
have not embraced" the CIA's assessment of cyber attacks.
Russia's alleged hacking during the campaign.
Despite these questions,
"The Electors require to know from the
intelligence community whether there are
ongoing investigations into ties between "there is a disturbing trend emerging that
Donald Trump, his campaign or associates, dictates that if you don't believe Russia
and Russian government interference in hacked the election or if you simply
the election, the scope of those demand evidence for this tremendously
investigations, how far those investigations significant allegation, you must be a Trump
may have reached, and who was involved apologist or a Soviet agent," Scahill and
in those investigations," the letter reads. Schwarz say at The Intercept, calling for
"anyone [with] solid proof that Russia
interfered with U.S. elections, [to] send it to
But in a piece published Tuesday, The Intercept's Jeremy
us via secure drop and we will verify its
Scahill and Jon Schwarz call for a more general release of
legitimacy and publish it."
such information, "

.
218
 From "Fake News" To "Fake Intelligence"
Submitted By Wayne Madsen Via Strategic-Culture.Org,
Dec 13, 2016 8:35 PM
Never in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency
has it and its surrogates so blatantly and boldly
interfered in a U.S. election. The U.S. media, in a matter
of hours, altered course from concentrating on «fake
news» about innocent pizzerias being linked to child
sexual exploitation to spotlighting «fake intelligence»
about Russia’s alleged cyber-espionage operation designed
to elect Donald Trump president. The CIA leaked to The
Washington Post, the owner of which has a $600 million
contract with the CIA to provide cloud computing,
findings of a secret report on Russia’s alleged «fixing» of
the 2016 U.S. presidential election to favor Trump over
Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The scandal-plagued Mrs. Clinton was defeated by
Trump not because of nefarious cyber-sleuths from
Moscow but because she and her campaign forgot how
Barack Obama’s and her husband’s free trade deals
destroyed the economic lifeblood of America,
particularly in the «rust belt» Midwestern states.
Rather than talk jobs and the economy, Mrs. Clinton’s
campaign concentrated on such trivial matters as trans-
gender restrooms and a former Miss Venezuela harping in
poor housemaid English about how she was insulted over
her weight by Trump.
Mrs. Clinton has been reduced to appearing in public
dressed in purple outfits looking like the children’s
character «Barney» the dinosaur. Clinton’s «purple haze»
is a continuation of George Soros’s election-
overturning «Purple Revolution». While Soros-paid
protesters commit acts of vandalism across the country, the
failed presidential candidate is pathetically complaining
about «fake news». But when it comes to the CIA’s «fake
intelligence» about Russia and the U.S. election, some of
Mrs. Clinton’s ardent supporters are demanding that the
results of the November 8th election be rejected and that
President Obama remain in office indefinitely until a
new election can be sorted out. Of course, none of this is
constitutional. And the Clintonistas even have a novel
solution for dealing with the certain resulting protests by
states that voted for Trump and his supporters: Obama
must declare martial law and suspend the U.S.
Constitution.
The CIA intelligence on Russian involvement in the
U.S. presidential election is so sketchy that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in response to questions
from members of Congress who were briefed on the
CIA report, testified before the House Intelligence
219
Committee that the CIA’s contentions about Russia
were «fuzzy and ambiguous». The FBI did not support
the CIA’s findings, claiming that the CIA’s conclusions
lacked «facts and tangible evidence». Even the Republican
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
Representative Devin Nunes of California, told The
Washington Post that, as far as he was concerned, the CIA
conclusions about Russia lacked «clear evidence», adding,
«There’s a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence,
that’s it».
But the comments of Nunes and the FBI have not
prevented the CIA and their puppet-stringed
Democrats and media pundits from complaining about
a «rigged» election and even the need for an election
«do over». There are no constitutional provisions for
election remakes in the United States. Obama, who claims
to be a constitutional scholar, did not help matters by
ordering the intelligence community to undertake a full-
scale investigation of Russia’s alleged involvement in the
U.S. election. Chomping at the bit to derail Trump’s
selection of Exxon’s CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of
State are the «all-but-married» neocon duo of Senators
John McCain and Lindsey Graham. This political version
of «Ken and Barbie» want to turn Tillerson’s Senate
confirmation hearing into a Russia-bashing event. McCain,
continuing to show classic signs of dementia, declared that
Russia waged a form of «warfare» against the United
States during the election campaign. This is the same man
who thought selecting Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin as
his 2008 vice presidential running mate was wise political
move.
It is instructive that Obama, by ordering an investigation
into foreign interference in the election, helped provide
ammunition to the CIA in trying to nullify the election
results. Obama’s actions came the same week that
Gambia’s dictator president, Yahya Jammeh -- after
conceding his re-election loss to his opponent -- reversed
course and nullified the election and Ghana’s President
John Mahama, dragged his feet on conceding his election
loss to his opponent. Obama, who is a friend of both
Jammeh and Mahama, was acting more like a tin-pot
African dictator than President of the United States in
lending official credence to the election conspiracy story
involving Russia.
Trump’s transition team dismissed the CIA’s charges and
their flimsy report, stating, these are «the same people
that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction». It was CIA director George Tenet that told
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the aftermath of 9/11
that it was a «a slam dunk case» that Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction. The claim was used as prima
facie evidence for the U.S. to justify its invasion and
occupation of Iraq. Now, the very same CIA and some of
the same discredited CIA officials are trying to convince
the American people that Russia somehow «selected»
Trump as president of the United States.
During the election campaign, it was not Russia, but the
CIA that was trying to influence the American people.
In August, after Trump’s nomination for president, former
acting CIA director Michael Morrel said, «Donald J.
Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well
pose a threat to our national security». Morrel then began
the CIA’s campaign to link Trump to Russia by telling
CBS News that, «we would say that Mr. Putin had
recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian
Federation». By «we», Morrel was saying the CIA. Those
comments, alone, showed a CIA that was not hesitant to
play favorites in the U.S. election. The entire meme that
Russia interfered with the presidential election is a false
one. The real headlines should read: «CIA interfered in
presidential election by supporting Clinton over
Trump».
Former CIA and National Security Agency director
Michael Hayden, the architect of NSA’s unconstitutional
warrantless wiretapping program, said that Trump was
«factually incorrect" in dismissing the CIA’s report about
Russia’s alleged hacking of the Democratic National
Committee’s emails prior to the election. Five days before
the election, Hayden penned an op-ed column for the
CIA-linked Washington Post, in which he claimed that
Trump was a «polezni durak», or «useful fool», for
President Vladimir Putin. Such political commentary by
intelligence chiefs, active or retired, is unprecedented in
modern times.
Former CIA clandestine operative Robert Baer told
CNN that he favors an election re-vote, even though
there is no constitutional provision for one. Baer said,
«It looks like to me, the Russians did interfere in our
elections... Having worked in the CIA, if we had been
caught interfering in European elections, or Asian
elections or anywhere in the world, those countries would
call for new elections, and any democracy would». This is
where Baer is altering history to suit himself and his
Democratic friends. The CIA repeatedly has interfered
in elections in Europe and Asia, as well as Latin
America, Africa, and Oceania and there were no «do-
.
220
overs» but plenty of coups engineered by the boys from
Langley. Baer continued, «I don't know how it would
work constitutionally, I'm not a lawyer, but I’m deeply
disturbed by the fact that the Russians interfered, and I
would like to see the evidence... If the evidence is there, I
don’t see any other way than to vote again as an American
citizen».
It is doubtful that Baer would have made his comments
had he not been given some sort of green light from the
CIA director, the Saudi-loving John Brennan. Brennan
spent so much time as the CIA station chief in Riyadh
kissing the robes of the Saudi royals that he lost any
conception of what a constitutional federal republic is all
about. It was Brennan who prevailed on Obama to fire
Trump’s national security adviser-designate, Lt. Gen.
Michael Flynn, as chief of the Defense Intelligence
Agency. Flynn concluded that it was Brennan and
Obama who authorized the creation of the Islamic
State to help topple the Syrian government.
The CIA has learned nothing from its blatant involvement
in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy,
the 1972 set-up of President Richard Nixon in the
Watergate break-in and cover-up, the 1980 «October
Surprise» that resulted in President Jimmy Carter’s re-
election loss, and the 1980s «Iran-contra» scandal that
almost forced President Ronald Reagan from office
through impeachment and his replacement by the former
CIA director, Vice President George H. W. Bush.
The CIA is the actual villain in the 2016 presidential
election, just as it has been the villain in every major
domestic and foreign scandal involving the United
States since 1947. The problem with the CIA is that for
the past 70 years it has held sway over almost every facet
of America’s political, social, religious, entertainment, and
educational life. As described in this author’s newly-
released book, «The Almost Classified Guide to CIA
Proprietaries, Front Companies & Contractors», the CIA
has stamped its insidious imprimatur on every sector of
American society, including the media. It is the CIA’s
remote-controlled media, with its «fake news» and its
pushing of the CIA’s «fake intelligence», that is
victimizing the American people. President Trump’s first
action as commander-in-chief should be a complete
shake-up of the CIA with the goal of doing what
President Kennedy vowed to do with the «bastards»
who ran the agency: splinter it in a thousand pieces and
scatter it to the winds. The CIA were bastards in the early
1960s and they continue to be bastards today. Trump
should fire every one of the bastards on January 20, 2017.
 Donald Trump’s Cabinet
One Of Wealthiest In Modern History
The U.S. President-Elect Has Surrounded Himself With Billionaires
And Millionaires, Prompting Much Worry From
Working-Class America.
By Ian Greenhalgh
December 13, 2016
[Editor’s note: America under Trump’s regime will resemble an
oligarchy rather than a democracy; the choice of former
Goldman-Sachs bankers like Bannon and Mnuchin and major
business leaders like DeVos and Tillerson makes this all too
obvious. Anyone who thinks this bunch of oligarchs will put the
US people ahead of the interests of big business is, in Gordon’s
words ‘too stupid to live’. Ian]
Telesur
Donald Trump’s Cabinet One of Wealthiest in Modern
History
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s
cabinet is filled with millionaires, whose
accumulated wealth reaches more than
$35 billion, and that’s not counting
Trump’s own riches, according to Portal
Politico.
That’s more than the Gross Domestic Product of both
Paraguay and of El Salvador, which reached just over 27
.
221
and 25 billion dollars in 2015, respectively, according to
World Bank figures. This would make his administration
the wealthiest in modern history, The Guardian reported.
Among the wealthy cabinet members is Todd Ricketts,
who has been appointed Deputy Secretary of Commerce
and who owns a fortune of more than $5 billion. Secretary
of Education Betsy DeVos also enjoys a wealth of more
than $5 billion. The Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin’s
wealth reaches more than $46 million. He is also known to
have links with Goldman Sachs and many other
connections on Wall Street.
All other appointees are members of the one per cent –
“billionaires and millionaires, investment bankers and
venture capitalists, Wall Street insiders and family fortune
heirs, many educated at elite schools,” according to The
Guardian.
“It is a throwback to the ‘greed is good’
mentality,” Marge Baker, executive vice-
president of the liberal pressure group
People For the American Way told The
Guardian. “It’s also alarming that the
president-elect said he believes what’s
good for his business is good for America.
That’s not how you want the leader of your
country to be making decisions.”
Apart from an inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric,
Trump has also run on promises of tax-cuts, deregulation
and trickle-down economics.
 Obama Calls For Electoral College
Intelligence Briefing, Prior To Final Presidential Vote
Administration Is Now Actively Questioning The
Legitimacy Of Trump's Election Victory
December 14, 2016
Cross your fingers, Mr. President
Hillary Clinton's top political adviser John Podesta said the
campaign is supporting an effort by members of the
Electoral College to request an intelligence briefing on
foreign intervention in the presidential election. Podesta
said that President Barack Obama backs this effort.
"The bipartisan electors' letter raises very
grave issues involving our national
security," Podesta said in a written
statement Monday. "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," he
said. "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."
On December 9, President Barack Obama ordered a report
on foreign interventions in elections going back to 2008.
Republican U.S. Senators John McCain, Richard Burr,
Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul and James Lankford
demanded a congressional investigation.
222
Republican House Intelligence Committee chair Devin
Nunes there was circumstantial evidence as to Russia's
motivations behind the attacks, but said that the attacks
themselves were unsurprising:
"Russia's cyberattacks are no surprise to
the House Intelligence Committee, which
has been closely monitoring Russia's
belligerence for years."
Podesta's statement is the first public statement from the
Clinton campaign raising questions about the legitimacy of
Donald Trump's victory. Obama's backing is a 180 degree
turnabout--he had supported Donald Trump's inauguration
up till now, and encouraged Hillary Clinton to accept the
results.
It follows an open letter from 10 presidential electors,
requesting an intelligence briefing ahead of the Dec. 19
vote of the Electoral College. One of them was Democratic
Leader Nancy Pelosi's daughter Christine.
Just after Podesta released his statement, the Democratic
National Committee disseminated a Politico.com story that
revealed the electors' call for a briefing. Two Democratic
members of Congress have also suggested the Electoral
College should take an active role in reassessing - or
stopping - a Trump presidency.
One of them, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the
House Intelligence Committee, told Politico on Monday
that Trump is a "potentially dangerous president."
"It became clear to me last night that this
man is not only unqualified to be president,
he's a danger to the republic," Hines said.
"I do think the Electoral College should
choose someone other than Donald Trump
to be president. That will lead to a
fascinating legal issue ... but I would rather
have a legal problem - a constitutional legal
problem -- then to find out the White House
was now the Kremlin's chief ally."
The President is expected to address the matter publicly an unnamed U.S. official stated that efforts to hack RNC
soon. servers had failed.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI),

representing the United States Intelligence Community, in
October 2016 said they were confident that Russia
interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

On October 7, the DNI and DHS stated

that the intelligence community was
confident Russia had directed the
breaches of the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) and the release of its
private documents. The report stated
that these acts were conducted in an
attempt to influence the results of the
U.S. election. The Russian government Christine Pelosi whispering to her mother, Nancy Pelosi.
has said it had no involvement in the
cyber attacks against the DNC.U.S.
According to a senior U.S. official briefed on the CIA
officials said the CIA had concluded with
presentation, the conclusions were the consensus of
"high confidence" that the Russian
multiple intelligence agencies. Senior U.S. officials and
government clearly intervened in the U.S.
U.S. intelligence agencies have also stated that they have
Presidential election in 2016, "with the
high confidence that Russia was involved in providing
primary aim of helping make Donald Trump
WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the
president."
Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign
chair John Podesta with the intent of influencing the
This conclusion was not based on new intelligence since election.
the election but on
In contrast to the CIA, the FBI was uncertain whether
"an analysis of what many believe is Russia's interference in the election was a purposeful effort
overwhelming circumstantial evidence." to help Trump, with one senior FBI counterintelligence
official reporting that Russia's motives were not fully clear.
U.S. officials stated the conclusion was based on the belief U.S. Senator Harry Reid has asserted that the FBI
that Russia also hacked the Republican National organized a "coverup" the Russian hack to tip the election
Committee (RNC), but chose not to release the content of in Trump's favor.
the hack. RNC officials stated they were not hacked, and
.

223
 40 Electors Demand Russian
Interference Briefing Before They Vote
By Tyler Durden
Dec 14, 2016 5:30 AM

Update: Forty members (up from 29 earlier) of the  Melissa Sklarz (NY)
Electoral College on Tuesday signed a letter demanding an  Andrea Stewart-Cousins (NY)
intelligence briefing on Russian interference in the election  Sam H.W. Sappington (OR)
ahead of their Dec. 19 vote.  Beth Caldwell (WA)
 Bret Chiafalo (WA)
As The Hill reports, ten electors originally signed the letter  Deb Fitzgerald (VA)
when it was published Monday, and 30 more have since  Terry C. Frye (VA)
added their names.  Jeanette Sarver (VA)

Original 10: The open letter — led by Christine Pelosi, the daughter of
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) — urged
 Christine Pelosi (CA) Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to give a
 Micheal Baca (CO) detailed briefing on President-elect Donald Trump's ties to
 Anita Bonds (DC) Russia.
 Courtney Watson (MD)
 Dudley Dudley (NH) “We further require a briefing on all
 Bev Hollingworth (NH) investigative findings, as these matters
 Terie Norelli (NH) directly impact the core factors in our
 Carol Shea-Porter (NH) deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to
 Clay Pell (RI) serve as President of the United States,”
 Chris Suprun (TX) the letter read.

Newly Added Electors: The Clinton campaign applauded the effort Monday,
saying it had repeatedly warned about Russian interference
aimed at swaying the election in Trump’s favor.
 Edward Buck (CA)
 Donna Ireland (CA)
However, while 40 electors would be enough to turn the
 Vinz Koller (CA)
election in Hillary Clinton's favor, the so-called "Hamilton
 Katherine Lyon (CA) Electors" are almost uniformly Democratic voters anyway
 John P. MacMurray (CA) and so with Ashley-Madison fan Chris Suprun the only
 Andres Ramos (CA) Trump turncoat, for now the 'soft coup' remains a long
 Gail Teton-Landis (CA) shot.
 Olivia Reyes-Becerra (CA)
 David Scott Warmuth (CA) “I am not looking to be satisfied with just
 Gregory H. Willenborg (CA) the vote on Dec. 19 or 20, but on January
 Jerad Sutton (CO) of 2030, when Mr. Trump has either served
 Robert Nemenich (CO) no time, one term or two terms,” Suprun
 Nancy Shepherdson (IL) told The Hill. “History is going to judge
 Dori Dean (MA) my actions on whether he turned out to
 Jason Palitsch (MA) be Ronald Reagan, Herbert Hoover or
 Parwez Wahid (MA) Richard Nixon.”
 Paul G. Yorkis (MA)
 Robert Leonard (MD) But, as The Hill adds, Republican electors are coming
 Salome T. Peters (MD) under intense pressure to change their votes:
 Melissa Mark-Viverito (NY)
 Stuart Appelbaum (NY) Bob Muller, a GOP county chairman in North Carolina
 Stephanie Miner (NY) and a Trump elector, said he’s gotten correspondence from
224
“everywhere from Maine to California” asking him to vote
differently.
“I just ignore them,” Muller said.
So far, only a few Electoral College voters have publicly
declared that they will not back the candidates that their
states supported — including just one of the 37 Trump
voters that the self-styled Hamilton Electors, a group of
mostly Democrats, need to make any noise on Monday.
And even if the rogue electors achieve their aims,
they would only succeed in sending the
election to a Republican-majority
House, which would almost certainly
certify Trump’s victory.
Virtually all Republican electors reached
by The Hill said they will vote
enthusiastically for Trump.
“I’m voting how the people of Florida
have told me to vote,” said Brian Ballard,
a Florida elector who raised money for Jeb
Bush and Marco Rubio during the GOP
primary. “I don’t know anyone who isn’t. I
appreciate people using First Amendment
rights to reach out and try to convince me
otherwise, but I’m obligated to support
Trump because he won Florida.
“Also, I love the guy and want him to be
president.”
Faithless electors are rare but not
unheard of in American history.
At this point, the effort appears to be
more about undermining Trump,
complicating his ability to govern and
following personal convictions — and less
about actually winning the Electoral
College for another candidate.
* * *
As we detailed earlier, Donald Trump could have the
election legally stolen from him on either December 19th
when the Electoral College casts their votes or on January
6th when a joint session of Congress gathers to count those
votes. As The Economic Collapse blog's Michael Snyder
notes, the establishment is in full-blown panic mode at this
point, and they seem to have settled on "Russian
interference in the election" as the angle that they will use
to unleash this 'soft coup' as today,
the Hill reports more Democratic electors
are joining the call for an intelligence
briefing before they cast their votes for
president on Monday.
225
Twenty-nine electors now are
pressuring Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper to disclose
more information about the CIA’s
conclusion that Russian interference
helped sway the election in President-
elect Donald Trump’s favor.
On Monday, 10 electors — spearheaded by Christine
Pelosi, the daughter of House Democratic Leader Nancy
Pelosi (Calif.) — wrote an open letter to Clapper,
demanding more information ahead of next week's vote.
“The Electors require to know from the
intelligence community whether there
are ongoing investigations into ties
between Donald Trump, his campaign or
associates, and Russian government
interference in the election, the scope of
those investigations, how far those
investigations may have reached, and
who was involved in those
investigations,” the letter reads.
“We further require a briefing on all
investigative findings, as these matters
directly impact the core factors in our
deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to
serve as President of the United States.”
Twenty-eight Democrats and one
Republican have now signed the letter.
On Monday, the Clinton campaign voiced support for the
effort.
“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,” said
John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign
chairman, in a statement.
“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.”
But ultimately, as The Economic Collapse blog's Michael
Snyder warns,
this is not about Russian interference in
our election.
Rather, this is all about the
elite doing whatever is
 necessary to stop Donald Congress may object to individual electoral votes or to
Trump. The elite are going state returns as a whole. An objection must be declared in
writing and signed by at least one Representative and one
to fight against him every Senator. In the case of an objection, the Joint Session
step of the way, and they recesses and each chamber considers the objection
are never, ever going to give separately in a session which cannot last more than two
up. This is a point that I hours with each Member speaking for no more than five
minutes. After each house votes on whether or not to
made during an interview
accept the objection, the Joint Session reconvenes and both
with Alex Jones on chambers disclose their decisions.
Monday…
If they agree to the objection, the votes
in question are not counted. If either
chamber does not agree with the objection,
the votes are counted.

In both the Senate and the House, there are anti-Trump

Republicans that would absolutely cherish the opportunity
to deny him the presidency.

I don’t know if it will happen, but this

Russian interference issue is the kind of
thing that could be used to justify taking
The next key date that we need to be
this kind of action.
watching for is December 19th.
Of course if the election was stolen from
On Monday, members of the Electoral College will gather Donald Trump that would likely throw
in Washington D.C. and in all 50 state capitols to cast their the entire nation into a state of chaos,
votes. We know that at least one Republican elector that is but I think that at this point the elite
supposed to be pledged to Trump will not be voting for would be willing to risk just about
him, and that elector claims that there are others that also anything to keep Donald Trump out of
will not be voting for Trump. the White House.

If 37 Republican electors can be ***

persuaded to cast their votes for
someone other than Trump, that would If you think this is all too far-fetched for modern-day
throw the election into the House of Western democracies,
Representatives, and it is unclear what
the House would do in that scenario. here is Keith Olbermann literally losing it
over "the Russian coup under way in
If Trump is not stopped at the Electoral College, there is America"...
also the possibility that he could be derailed when a joint
session of Congress gathers to count the Electoral votes on
January 6th.

As I discussed yesterday, all it takes to force a vote on the

validity of Electoral College votes is an objection in
writing that is signed by at least one member of the House
and one member of the Senate. As the official House.gov
website explains, if both the House and the Senate vote to
approve the objection, the votes covered by the objection
are not counted…

Since 1887, 3 U.S.C. 15 sets the method for objections to

electoral votes. During the Joint Session, Members of
.

226
 Obama Shrugs Off Russian Hacking
— Until Donald Trump Elected President
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times –
Updated: 10:06 A.M. On Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Pentagon systems. In 2014 it penetrated computer

networks at the White House and the State Department.
Neither the White House nor the mainstream media
reacted with any great alarm.

In one of the most extensive hacks on America, Chinese

hackers invaded the massive files of the Office of
Personnel Management and stole personnel data and
security background checks of millions of federal workers.

In other examples, the Federal Reserve, which sets

monetary policy and oversees the banking industry,
Foreign governments have launched numerous detected more than 50 cyberbreaches between 2011 and
cyberattacks on the U.S. government and sensitive 2015, and some were called espionage, Reuters reported in
industrial sites, but Republicans say President Obama has June, citing federal records. The IRS also has
not responded in a forceful way to years of Russian acknowledged that taxpayer files have been stolen by
hacking. hackers.

A more assertive response might have headed off the type Mr. Obama’s record on defeating hackers has come into
of hacking Russia is accused of launching during the focus during the transition as he orders a sweeping probe
presidential election, they say. of Russia’s alleged hack on the president’s own
Democratic Party.
Russia, whose supposed cyberoffensive now is generating
a Democratic Party movement that would delegitimize the
incoming presidency of Donald Trump, has hacked
.

227
 Michelle Malkin:
NeverTrumpers ‘Completely Lost Perspective’ During
Election; Now Asking Trump For Jobs
Article By John Hayward
Date: December 14, 2016
During her appearance on Tuesday’s Breitbart News
Daily with SiriusXM host Matt Boyle, Michelle Malkin
observed that many members of the “NeverTrump”
movement – conservatives and Republicans who swore
never to support Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency –
seem to have changed their tune since Election Day.
“I think a lot of these unrepentant
NeverTrumpers have, just like most of the
establishment media, completely lost their
.
228
perspective,” she said. “And so my general
comment about this past year, and the
cleavages between and among the
different factions of the Right is, I never,
never, never joined the NeverTrump
movement. In fact, I distinctly recall when
Rich Lowry of the National Review called
me up to ask me if I would sign up for their
big missive and declaration.”
“And now, look what all of those people
are doing!” Malkin exclaimed. “Never? I
have a very clear definition of what ‘never’
means. It means never. And now, many of
these NeverTrumpers are asking for jobs in
the administration. Ugh.”
Michelle Malkin is a best-selling author, senior editor of
Conservative Review, and host of the new Michelle Malkin
Investigates video series at CRTV.com.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125
weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
 The Next American Civil War Begins On January 20…
Second Amendment Patriots May Be Called On To Defend
The Republic Against Left-Wing Terrorists
By: Mike Adams
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
The anti-American, communist-leaning website
DisruptJ20.org is openly organizing a popular uprising
against the legitimate new administration of the United
States of America. January 20, 2017 — Inauguration Day
— is being targeted as a day for people to “block, obstruct,
disrupt, and do whatever they can to prevent the onslaught
that is going to happen with Donald Trump,” said “alt-left”
organizer Michael Moore.
The DisruptJ20 website calls on
“all people of good conscience to join in
disrupting the ceremonies.”
A DisruptJ20 tweet, relishing in the kind of delusional
paranoia that now typifies the mentally ill left in America,
says the effort is being waged to “confront white
supremacy” and other “forms of oppression.”
DisruptJ20 is a thinly veiled call for a communist
uprising and overthrow of the Trump administration
The DisruptJ20 effort is, in reality, a
communist uprising and coup attempt
being disguised as a “peaceful” protest. Yet
even the website describes the effort in
military terms, characterizing it as a “bold
mobilization against the inauguration of
Donald Trump on January 20, 2017.”
If you can’t make it to Washington D.C. on January 20, the
organization encourages you to join to communist uprising
wherever you might live:
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“If you can’t make it to Washington, DC on
January 20, take to the streets wherever
you are,” says the site, which is clearly
inciting mob violence everywhere
across America.
What’s really being planned, Natural News has learned, is
a “Tet Offensive” against the American Republic. This is
what we’ve learned from a source who infiltrated one of
the organizing meetings for the DisruptJ20 event.
Unhinged liberals revealed to the source that they are
planning both an assassination attempt against Donald
Trump as well as an attempted communist coup to take
over the U.S. capitol.
In an article entitled A Tet Offensive To Be Unleashed
Against American Cities, analyst Dave Hodges reveals
that radical leftists are working side by side with ISIS
terrorists to unleash a wave of bombings and other terrorist
attacks inside the USA on January 20.
As the UK Express reports, ISIS is also planning a series
of “Jihad” attacks on Inauguration Day, which they have
dubbed “Bloody Friday.” As the paper says,
“US special forces will be on high alert
when Mr. Trump takes over as 45th
President of the United States on Friday,
January 20, 2017, in Washington, DC.”
Between the radical, mentally ill leftists, the communists
and ISIS, the obvious aim is to bring America to her
knees on January 20, 2017 as a way to either sabotage the
Trump administration or overthrow the entire government.
American patriots may be called on to defend the
Republic on January 20
Today, I am reminding all American patriots that they may
be called to help defend the Republic against the insane
leftist uprising and coordinated ISIS terrorist attacks
announced for January 20.
 While it is important to avoid initiating any
sort of violence, all American patriots must
be ready to respond to violence with
tools of self-defense. The primary role of
patriots must be to support law
enforcement in maintaining law and
order. If things get really out of hand and
the U.S. Marines step in, the moral duty of
civilian patriots is to support the U.S.
Marines who are defending the
Republic.
Under no circumstances should civilian patriots initiate
kinetic actions against anyone unless they are first attacked
and threatened with deadly force. That said, any Trump
supporter who is directly threatened with deadly force (or
attacked with deadly weapons) has every right to respond
with the application of deadly force in the interests of self
preservation. Just be aware that the attacks on you are
likely being staged for CNN to capture on camera, and the
video will be selectively edited to portray you as the
aggressor while portraying all Trump supporters as violent
murderers. (Yep, you can’t even defend yourself without
the media calling you a murderer… that’s how they lie.)
How to help stifle the coup attempt by the insane,
criminal left
All Americans, no matter where they live, should be
prepared to defend their lives, support law enforcement,
and protect the Republic from the attempted coup now
being organized.
Typical roles for supporting law enforcement may include:
 Promptly reporting acts of arson, looting or assault to
local law enforcement.
 Recording videos of the uprising, especially capturing
radical leftists planting bombs, looting or attacking
innocent bystanders. Forward such videos to the
independent media, including Natural News, InfoWars
and Breitbart.
 Capturing the faces of radical leftists on video so that
they may be identified and arrested for their acts of
treason against the United States of America.
 Sharing ammunition with local cops who may quickly
run out if the civil war begins. Don’t assume cops and
sheriff’s deputies have unlimited ammo! Many
departments are woefully underfunded, and many
LEOs are strictly prohibited from carrying too many
loaded magazines. To help support local cops and their
attempts to halt the violence of the lunatic left, bring
them loaded magazines for popular firearms such as
Glock in 9mm and 40 caliber. Loaded AR-15 mags (I
recommend MagPul) may also be useful to law
enforcement if things get really out of hand. Don’t load
crappy TulAmmo brand, either. Use brass cased, high
quality ammo, because you don’t want law
230
enforcement to experience jams or double feeds. (If
you thought the executions of police officers in Dallas
was bad, just wait to see what the radical lunatic left
has planned against police on January 20…)
 Night vision gear may also be especially useful for local
law enforcement. If you have a spare PVS-14, lend it to
your Sheriff for the duration of the uprising. Stock up on
Energizer lithium batteries to power all your gear,
because those batteries don’t fail.
Recommended gear for your own protection
My first recommendation is that you avoid being
anywhere near these uprisings for your own safety. But
if you choose to be near them as a journalist, or a LEO, or
just a curious citizen, I strongly recommend you wear a
ballistic vest on January 20th, if legal in your area. You
may wear the vest under other clothing, obviously. Do not
try this if ballistic vests are not legal in your area. You
don’t want to be flagged and arrested as a would-be
terrorist.
Secondly, I strongly recommend you carry the CAT
tourniquet and practice using it beforehand, using one
good arm. If you are involved in the chaos on Jan. 20, you
will very likely be injured. A tourniquet can help prevent
blood loss for you or another person.
Thirdly, you should also consider wearing a ballistic
helmet. Insane, militant leftists are very likely going to be
throwing objects in the air, and protecting your head is
obviously very important. As always, check local laws and
make sure it’s legal for you to wear a ballistic helmet. If
you can’t wear a ballistic helmet, wear a hard hat! There
are also hard hats available in camo and other designs that
aren’t bright yellow or orange.
Recommendations for carrying a highly
effective (legal) firearm for your
protection
Finally, where legal, you should obviously carry a legal,
concealed firearm with a minimum of two magazines
loaded with hollow point rounds. This is obviously for
your own self-protection, and you should abide by the
rules I set out above, which are to assist local law
enforcement while avoiding any instigation of violence.
Do NOT be a “cowboy” just because you have a pistol.
Carry responsibly and act with the intention of protecting
life and halting violence.
Do not engage the radical leftist communists unless you
are clearly and urgently threatened with serious bodily
injury or harm. Whatever actions you take will likely be
caught on camera, and that video can be used to prosecute
you, file civil lawsuits against you, or make you “famous”
in precisely the wrong way on the evening news. Think
twice before drawing any firearm. You may be mistaken
by police as a left-wing nut case, and they might open fire
on you. You must also very carefully consider the
unintended flight path of your bullets, meaning that
even after you blow a massive hole in the chest of some
nut job trying to kill you, that bullet may continue into the
crowd and harm someone who is completely innocent.
Remember: YOU are responsible for everything each
bullet does after it leaves the barrel of your gun.
If you are threatened by radical left-wing rioters, consider
fleeing instead of engaging. Do not make the mistake of
thinking just because you are right to stand your ground
that you must stand your ground. Then again, if some
radical left-wing nut job starts bashing in your car window
with a hammer so they can rip you out of your vehicle and
beat you to a bloody pump, give ’em two rounds in the
chest and see if they reconsider their actions. (And be
prepared to be deaf for about a week if you discharge your
firearm inside your vehicle. You might want to consider
wearing earplugs…) This is precisely why my initial
advice is to avoid being anywhere near these riots in the
first place. You’re far safer being somewhere else entirely.
If you want my recommendation on the best overall
firearm to carry in these circumstances, there’s no
competition: A Glock 19 with “Big Dot” sights from
MidwayUSA.com.
These sights are perfect for situations where you think you
might be stressed or in a hurry. Obviously, well before
January 20, make sure you break in your Glock 19 by
firing at least 250 rounds through it at a local target range.
Make sure the firearm is well cleaned and lubed before
carrying it on January 20. Be sure you abide by local laws
when you carry your firearm, and recognize there will be
places where you can’t take it (bars, government offices,
schools, etc., depending on local laws).
231
If you want a chemical-free gun cleaning product that uses
no harsh, toxic solvents, use Frog Lube. That’s what I use!
Get some at this link.
Finally, in terms of ammo to carry on that day, you want
the best engineered ammunition available. The 9mm
Critical Defense ammo from Hornady is an outstanding
choice.
As explained on the sales page, this ammo has many
features which may be especially useful to halt some left-
wing terrorist commie who’s trying to bash in your face
with a spiked baseball bat:
 Unaffected by thick and heavy clothing, including
denim and leather
 FTX bullet delivers superior controlled expansion and
large, deep wound cavities over a wide range of
velocities
 Clean burning and efficient propellants reduce recoil in
lightweight handguns, and perform consistently at all
temperatures
 Minimal muzzle flash protect night vision
 Feeds reliably in pistols
 Silver nickel plating prevents corrosion and is easily
visible in low light situations
In summary, “s##t is about to get real,” and the radical left
is seriously trying to overthrow the U.S. government,
assassinate Donald Trump and plunge the nation into
chaos on January 20.
NOW is the time to prepare yourself, your household and
your community for tactical defense against the plans of
the unhinged left, which has essentially now become a
domestic terrorism organization. (Maybe we can start
calling them “Shining Path.”)
My hope in all this is as follows:
#1) Trump gets inaugurated on January 20.
#2) Trump immediately calls for the mass arrest of the left-
wing instigators of violence and has them all charged with
conspiracy to commit treason against the United States of
America.
#3) Cops and police officers take an aggressive posture and
stop allowing themselves to be abused by lawless left-wing
violent mobs. It’s time America said “ENOUGH!” to the
lawlessness, violence and hatred of the radical left.
 Russophobia & Anti-Trumpism
Running Wild In America
From Stephen Lendman
12-14-2016
Wall Street, war-profiteers, neocons infesting the Obama
administration, the CIA under John Brennan, NSA head
admiral Michael Rogers, and other pro-Hillary dark forces
are going all-out to assure no change in US geopolitics -
along with wanting Trump denied the presidency he
legitimately won.
They notably want adversarial relations with Russia
maintained, heading for war between the world’s leading
nuclear powers if not stopped.
For them, the notion of Trump wanting normalized ties,
including cooperating with Vladimir Putin in combating
terrorism, is anathema - to be quashed by whatever means
necessary, a no-holds-barred assault for the status quo.
Throughout months of campaigning, media scoundrels
played the lead role in denigrating Trump relentlessly,
serving as press agents for Hillary, turning journalism into
shameless advocacy.
They play the same role in longstanding vilification of
Russia - not because of its policies, solely because of its
sovereign independence and Putin’s outspoken anti-
imperial, anti-war advocacy.
The fever pitch of things today is unprecedented in my
memory, McCarthyism on steroids, along with a plot afoot
to deny Trump his electoral triumph, things on a fast track
toward full-blown tyranny.
The neocon, CIA-connected Washington Post long ago fell
from grace, today making the National Enquirer look
respectable by comparison.
Here are some fake news headlined reports on its current
opinion page:
“Trump infrastructure will not include
outfrastructure” - a cartoonist ridiculing
Trump his way.
“The Putin-Trump bromance”
“Trump is the star of his own movie. Here is
a review” - vilifying him, as expected.
“Trump is playing a risky spy game”
232
“What will be Trump’s legacy? Who cares”
- writer Garrison Keillor has sunk from Lake
Wobegon to WaPo fake news proliferator.
“Trump is already antagonizing the
intelligence community, and that’s a
problem” - former CIA director Michael
Hayden the contributor.
“New York should seize Trump Tower”
“Trump is assembling an anti-government.
Did Russia help get him here?”
“Trump’s dangerous diss of the CIA”
The prospect of Trump getting along with Putin intensified
Russophobia and bashing him to a fever pitch.
The hyped notion about Russian interference in America’s
election process for Trump is an absurdity on its face. It’s
virtually impossible for any foreign nation or outside
source to swing the any Western election for a preferred
candidate.
Instead of setting the record straight, The New York Times
headlined “The Perfect Weapon: How Russian
Cyberpower Invaded the US.”
The fake news story claimed a modern-day version of
Watergate, this time by Russian cyberattacking –
“the burglary…from afar, directed by the
Kremlin…hacking DNC emails and
interfering in America’s election, The Times
spuriously claimed.
Its account has a familiar foul odor. It never happened. It’s
all made up - to vilify Russia and deny the legitimacy of
Trump’s election to swing things for Hillary even though
she decisively lost.
If pulled off, it would be a coup d’etat, either in the
Electoral College or House if it gets to decide by denying
Trump 37 or more votes he legitimately won.
The Times:
 “Many of Mrs. Clinton’s closet aides believe
that the Russian assault had a profound
impact on the election…”
NSA head admiral Michael Rogers was quoted, saying
“(t)here shouldn’t be any doubt in
anybody’s mind. This was not something
that was done casually.”
“This was not something that was done by
chance. This was not a target that was
selected purely arbitrarily. This was a
conscious effort by a nation-state to
attempt to achieve a specific effect.”
Fact:
.
233
The Times, Rogers and others claiming
Russian interference in America’s election
lied. Not a shred of evidence supports their
allegations - entirely baseless without
credible proof. None exists.
Things are likely in the early stage of the latest round of
Russia bashing, along with tyrannical methods to prevent
Trump from becoming America’s 45th president.
I’ll have lots more to say on this as events unfold -
showing the deplorable state of things in America today,
full-blown tyranny approaching, too few people
understanding what’s going on in plain sight.
 Why Liberals Can’t Handle The Truth
About Russia Hacking The Election
Liberals Can’t Handle The Truth Because They Are Butthurt
By Caleb Stephen -
12.14.2016 @8:45 AM EST
(INTELLIHUB) — Donald J. Trump won the U.S.
election by a landslide but butthurt, sore liberal losers are
not having any of it.
Instead, as we’ve seen, they’ve turned to malevolent
tactics in an effort to express their disapproval of the
democratically elected billionaire real estate tycoon.
First they tried rioting and that didn’t work. Then they
tried sending death threats to electoral college members
and that failed. The ‘fake news’ narrative also failed. Jill
Stein’s recount was an epic fail, but not after she had
carted away $6.3 million dollars from the gullible voters
she scammed as part of her election recount campaign
Now since all of the above failed, they’ve turned to
another tactic – which, I might add, is probably not the last
one in their arsenal.
Spoiler alert: It failed overnight.
This time it’s The Washington Post attempting to insult our
intelligence by pushing the notion that Russia helped
Trump win the White House by leaking hacked
information to Wikileaks.
Here’s an excerpt from the Post’s ridiculous fake news
story:
“Intelligence agencies have identified
individuals with connections to the Russian
government who provided WikiLeaks with
234
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.“
This information came from a factually incomplete and
shonky CIA report that cannot be trusted. This is
evidenced by the fact that later on in the article, they
essentially debunked themselves:
The CIA presentation to senators about
Russia’s intentions fell short of a formal
U.S. assessment produced by all 17
intelligence agencies. A senior U.S.
official said there were minor
disagreements among intelligence officials
about the agency’s assessment, in part
because some questions remain
unanswered.
For example, intelligence agencies do
not have specific intelligence showing
officials in the Kremlin “directing” the
identified individuals to pass the
Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a
second senior U.S. official said. Those
actors, according to the official, were “one
step” removed from the Russian
government, rather than government
employees. Moscow has in the past used
middlemen to participate in sensitive
intelligence operations so it has plausible
deniability.
The lead agency of the intelligence community – the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence has not
embraced the CIA’s assessment for the same reason
according to Reuters.
This is not the first time a mainstream media outlet such as
the Washington Post has run a fake news story based upon
a factually incomplete investigation and it certainly won’t
be the last.
But, what is more concerning is that the left is willing to
divide the nation, risk civil war in America and risk
nuclear war with Russia simply because they couldn’t get
over the reality that they lost! I hope that sinks in.
The laughable thing is that not a single shred of evidence
has been presented that actually proves Russia interfered
with the U.S. election.
The former UK ambassador Craig Murray said he met the
DNC leaker in person and he wasn’t even Russian nor did
he have connections with Moscow – he was simply a
disgruntled insider.
Julian Assange has maintained all along
that the source was not Russian. Trump
himself has dismissed the CIA’s findings
about Russian hacking.
But when it comes to the crunch, who do we trust? On the
one hand we have Wikileaks whose credibility and track
record is essentially impeccable and then on the other hand
we’ve got obscure and CIA sources whose entire job
description is based on deception through disinformation
(Google ‘Operation Mockingbird’ for more information).
And who actually are these ‘anonymous CIA sources’? Of
course, they can’t tell us because they have a lot to hide
but we know for a fact that they’re undoubtedly the very
same agenda-driven, prostrating Democratic sympathizers
who are already under inspector-General investigation.
I think I know whom I’d trust. Wikileaks, hands down.
Let’s not forget that these same anonymous CIA sources
were the same ones who claimed Russia hacked the RNC
as well but only released negative findings about the DNC.
The FBI investigated and found the RNC was not actually
hacked despite CIA claims to the contrary. The FBI even
.
235
offered ‘conclusive proof’ to the NY Times that the hacking
did not happen but these mentally enslaved media shills
weren’t interested because it did not fit their fabricated
narrative.
The FBI also investigated any Russian links to Donald
Trump and found zero evidence. This has also been
admitted by the Washington Post as being inconclusive.
There’s also zero evidence the Russians hacked Hillary
campaign chair John Podesta’s emails.
It seems to me that when all else fails, blame it on the
Russians.
That’s what the sore loser leftists are doing by conspiring
with rogue elements of the CIA to instigate an internal
coup… civil unrest within the United States and overthrow
a democratically elected President. This has been
evidenced by the fact that electoral college members have
been manipulated to not cast their votes for Trump on
December 19th. Top Democrats have also put pressure on
electors to ‘reconsider their votes’. They could also
potentially pressure members of the house and Senate to
object to the electoral vote on January the 6th. Obama has
also commissioned a report into the findings and guess
what? That’s set for January 20th – the day of Trump’s
inauguration. What’s more, this investigation will be
headed up by none other than U.S. Director of National
Intelligence, Gen. James Clapper – an individual with a
very shady past including lying under oath to Congress and
the American people.
I can say with confidence that this is shaping up to be a
very interesting showdown.
It all comes down to the fact that these insanely demented
liberals will just not accept defeat! Talk about acting like
three-year-old’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried all
the tricks in the book before January 20th. I’m signing off
now to bring out the popcorn and prop up my feet to
continue watching as the incredible mayhem unfolds.
 Fox News Poll: Majority Says Russian Hacking Made No
Difference In 2016 Election
By Dana Blanton
Published December 14, 2016
A majority of American voters think there was no real
effect on the presidential race from Russian cyber-attacks,
according to a new Fox News Poll.
CIA officials reportedly believe Russian hackers meddled
in the election to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.
Yet 59 percent of voters believe the hacking didn’t make a
difference.
The poll finds 32 percent think Russia did help Trump in
the election, while just one percent says the cyber-attacks
aided Clinton.
President-elect Trump called the CIA’s
assessment that Russia attempted to
influence the election “ridiculous.”
Voters largely do not share Trump’s mistrust of the CIA.
Two-thirds, 67 percent, have confidence in the agency:
18 percent have “a great deal” of
confidence and another 49 percent have
“some” confidence. Views on the CIA have
held remarkably steady, as 64 percent had
confidence in 2014, and 66 percent in
2002. Those are the only other times the
question has been asked by Fox.
236
Meanwhile, many see Trump as too cozy with Russia. By
a wide 50-15 percent margin, voters say he’s
“too accommodating” vs. “too
confrontational.”
It’s the opposite on his dealings with China, as 43 percent
feel he’s being
“too confrontational” vs. 17 percent “too
accommodating.”
More than 7 voters in 10 are familiar with reports Russia
tried to interfere with the election (73 percent). By a 41-1
percent margin, that group thinks the hacking helped
Trump rather than Clinton, while 54 percent say it didn’t
matter.
Eighty-five percent of Republicans, 64 percent of
independents, and 36 percent of Democrats think the
Russians didn’t affect the outcome.
Sixty-two percent of Clinton voters believe Russian
hacking helped Trump.
Majorities of Democrats (75 percent), Republicans (63
percent), and independents (63 percent) have a great deal
or some confidence in the CIA.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone
interviews with 1,034 randomly chosen registered voters
nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of
Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company
Research (R) from December 11-13, 2016. The poll has a
margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage
points for all registered voters.
 Here’s The Public Evidence Russia
Hacked The DNC – It’s Not Enough
Sam Biddle
December 14 2016, 10:30 A.M
There are some good reasons to believe Russians had
something to do with the breaches into email accounts
belonging to members of the Democratic party, which
proved varyingly embarrassing or disruptive for Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign. But “good” doesn’t
necessarily mean good enough to indict Russia’s head of
state for sabotaging our democracy.
There’s a lot of evidence from the attack on the table,
mostly detailing how the hack was perpetrated, and
possibly the language of the perpetrators. It certainly
remains plausible that Russians hacked the DNC, and
remains possible that Russia itself ordered it. But the
refrain of Russian attribution has been repeated so
regularly and so emphatically that it’s become easy to
forget that no one has ever truly proven the claim. There is
strong evidence indicating that Democratic email accounts
were breached via phishing messages, and that specific
malware was spread across DNC computers. There’s even
evidence that the attackers are the same group that’s been
spotted attacking other targets in the past. But again: No
one has actually proven that group is the Russian
government (or works for it). This remains the enormous
inductive leap that’s not been reckoned with, and
Americans deserve better.
We should also bear in mind that private security firm
CrowdStrike’s frequently cited findings of Russian
responsibility were essentially paid for by the DNC, who
contracted their services in June. It’s highly unusual for
evidence of a crime to be assembled on the victim’s dime.
If we’re going to blame the Russian government for
disrupting our presidential election — easily construed as
an act of war — we need to be damn sure of every single
237
shred of evidence. Guesswork and assumption could be
disastrous.
The gist of the Case Against Russia goes like this:
The person or people who infiltrated the DNC’s email
system and the account of John Podesta left behind clues
of varying technical specificity indicating they have some
connection to Russia, or at least speak Russian. Guccifer
2.0, the entity that originally distributed hacked materials
from the Democratic party, is a deeply suspicious figure
who has made statements and decisions that indicate some
Russian connection. The website DCLeaks, which began
publishing a great number of DNC emails, has some
apparent ties to Guccifer and possibly Russia. And then
there’s Wikileaks, which after a long, sad slide into
paranoia, conspiracy theorizing, and general internet
toxicity, has made no attempt to mask its affection for
Vladimir Putin and its crazed contempt for Hillary Clinton.
(Julian Assange has been stuck indoors for a very, very
long time.) If you look at all of this and sort of squint, it
looks quite strong indeed, an insurmountable heap of
circumstantial evidence too great in volume to dismiss
as just circumstantial or mere coincidence.
But look more closely at the above and you can’t help but
notice all of the qualifying words: Possibly, appears,
connects, indicates. It’s impossible (or at least dishonest)
to present the evidence for Russian responsibility for
hacking the Democrats without using language like this.
The question, then, is this: Do we want to make major
foreign policy decisions with a belligerent nuclear power
based on suggestions alone, no matter how strong?
What We Know
So far, all of the evidence pointing to Russia’s
involvement in the Democratic hacks (DNC, DCCC,
Podesta, et al.) comes from either private security firms
(like CrowdStrike or FireEye) who sell cyber-defense
services to other companies, or independent researchers,
some with university affiliations and serious credentials,
and some who are basically just Guys on Twitter.
Although some of these private firms groups had
proprietary access to DNC computers or files from them,
much of the evidence has been drawn from publicly
available data like the hacked emails and documents.
Some of the malware found on DNC computers is believed
to be the same as that used by two hacking groups believed
to be Russian intelligence units, codenamed APT
(Advanced Persistent Threat) 28/Fancy Bear and APT
29/Cozy Bear by industry researchers who track them.
 The attacker or attackers registered a deliberately
misspelled domain name used for email phishing
attacks against DNC employees, connected to an IP
address associated with APT 28/Fancy Bear.
 Malware found on the DNC computers was
programmed to communicate with an IP address
associated with APT 28/Fancy Bear.
 Metadata in a file leaked by “Guccifer 2.0″ shows it was
modified by a user called, in cyrillic, “Felix
Edmundovich,” a reference to the founder of a Soviet-
era secret police force. Another document contained
cyrillic metadata indicating it had been edited on a
document with Russian language settings.
 Peculiarities in a conversation with “Guccifer 2.0″
that Motherboard published in June suggests he is not
Romanian, as he originally claimed.
 The DCLeaks.com domain was registered by a person
using the same email service as the person
who registered a misspelled domain used to send
phishing emails to DNC employees.
 Some of the phishing emails were sent using Yandex,
a Moscow-based webmail provider.
 A bit.ly link believed to have been used by APT
28/Fancy Bear in the past was also used against
Podesta.
Why That Isn’t Enough
Viewed as a whole, the above evidence looks strong, and
maybe even damning. But view each piece on its own, and
it’s hard to feel impressed.
For one, a lot of the so-called evidence above is no such
thing. CrowdStrike, whose claims of Russian
responsibility are perhaps most influential throughout the
media, says APT 28/Fancy Bear “is known for its
technique of registering domains that closely resemble
domains of legitimate organizations they plan to target.”
But this isn’t a Russian technique any more than using a
computer is a Russian technique — misspelled domains
are a cornerstone of phishing attacks all over the world. Is
Yandex — the Russian equivalent of Google — some sort
of giveaway? Anyone who claimed a hacker must be a
CIA agent because they used a Gmail account would be
laughed off the internet. We must also acknowledge that
just because Guccifer 2.0 pretended to be Romanian, we
can’t conclude he works for the Russian government — it
just makes him a liar.
Next, consider the fact that CrowdStrike describes APT 28
and 29 like this:
238
Their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to
none and the extensive usage of ‘living-off-the-land’
techniques enables them to easily bypass many security
solutions they encounter. In particular, we identified
advanced methods consistent with nation-state level
capabilities including deliberate targeting and ‘access
management’ tradecraft – both groups were constantly
going back into the environment to change out their
implants, modify persistent methods, move to new
Command & Control channels and perform other tasks to
try to stay ahead of being detected.
Compare that description to CrowdStrike’s claim it was
able to finger APT 28 and 29, described above as digital
spies par excellence, because they were so incredibly
sloppy. Would a group whose “tradecraft is superb” with
“operational security second to none” really leave behind
the name of a Soviet spy chief imprinted on a document it
sent to American journalists? Would these groups really be
dumb enough to leave cyrillic comments on these
documents? Would these groups that “constantly [go] back
into the environment to change out their implants, modify
persistent methods, move to new Command & Control
channels” get caught because they precisely didn’t make
sure not to use IP addresses they’d been associated before?
It’s very hard to buy the argument that the Democrats were
hacked by one of the most sophisticated, diabolical foreign
intelligence services in history, and that we know this
because they screwed up over and over again.
But how do we even know these oddly named groups are
Russian? CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch
himself describes APT 28 as a “Russian-based threat
actor” whose modus operandi “closely mirrors the strategic
interests of the Russian government” and “may indicate
affiliation [Russia’s] Main Intelligence Department or
GRU, Russia’s premier military intelligence service.”
Security firm SecureWorks issued a report blaming Russia
with “moderate confidence.” What constitutes moderate
confidence?
SecureWorks said it adopted the “grading
system published by the U.S. Office of the
Director of National Intelligence to indicate
confidence in their assessments. …
Moderate confidence generally means that
the information is credibly sourced and
plausible but not of sufficient quality or
corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher
level of confidence.”
All of this amounts to a very educated guess, at best.
Even the claim that APT 28/Fancy Bear itself is a group
working for the Kremlin is speculative, a fact that’s been
completely erased from this year’s discourse. In its 2014
reveal of the group, the high-profile security firm FireEye
couldn’t even blame Russia without a question mark in the
headline: “APT28: A Window Into Russia’s Cyber
Espionage Operations?” The blog post itself is
remarkably similar to arguments about the DNC hack:
Technical but still largely speculative,
presenting evidence the company
“[believes] indicate a government sponsor
based in Moscow.” Believe! Indicate! We
should know already this is no smoking
gun. FireEye’s argument that the malware
used by APT 28 is connected to the
Russian government is based on the belief
that its “developers are Russian language
speakers operating during business hours
that are consistent with the time zone of
Russia’s major cities.”
As security researcher Jeffrey Carr pointed out in June,
FireEye’s 2014 report on APT 28 is questionable from the
start:
To my surprise, the report’s authors
declared that they deliberately excluded
evidence that didn’t support their judgment
that the Russian government was
responsible for APT28’s activities:
“APT28 has targeted a variety of
organizations that fall outside of the three
themes we highlighted above. However,
we are not profiling all of APT28’s
targets with the same detail because
they are not particularly indicative of a
specific sponsor’s interests.” (emphasis
added)
That is the very definition of confirmation bias. Had
FireEye published a detailed picture of APT28’s activities
including all of their known targets, other theories
regarding this group could have emerged; for example, that
the malware developers and the operators of that malware
were not the same or even necessarily affiliated.
The notion that APT 28 has a narrow focus on American
political targets is undermined in another SecureWorks
paper, which shows that the hackers have a wide variety of
interests: 10 percent of their targets are NGOs, 22 percent
are journalists, 4 percent are aerospace researchers, and 8
percent are “government supply chain.” SecureWorks says
that only 8 percent of APT 28/Fancy Bear’s targets are
“government personnel” of any nationality — hardly the
focused agenda described by CrowdStrike.
Truly, the argument that “Guccifer 2.0″ is a Kremlin agent
or that GRU breached John Podesta’s email only works if
you presume that APT 28/Fancy Bear is a unit of the
Russian government, a fact that has never been proven
beyond any reasonable doubt. According to Carr, “it’s an
old assumption going back years to when any attack
239
against a non-financial target was attributed to a state
actor.” Without that premise, all we can truly conclude is
that some email accounts at the DNC et al. appear to have
been broken into by someone, and perhaps they speak
Russian. Left ignored is the mammoth difference between
Russians and Russia.
Security researcher Claudio Guarnieri put it this way:
[Private security firms] can’t produce
anything conclusive. What they produce is
speculative attribution that is pretty
common to make in the threat research
field. I do that same speculative attribution
myself, but it is just circumstantial. At the
very best it can only prove that the actor
that perpetrated the attack is very likely
located in Russia. As for government
involvement, it can only speculate that it is
plausible because of context and political
motivations, as well as technical
connections with previous (or following
attacks) that appear to be perpetrated by
the same group and that corroborate the
analysis that it is a Russian state-
sponsored actor (for example, hacking of
institutions of other countries Russia has
some geopolitical interests in).
Finally, one can’t be reminded enough that all of this
evidence comes from private companies with a direct
financial interest in making the internet seem as scary as
possible, just as Lysol depends on making you believe
your kitchen is crawling with E. Coli.
What Does the Government Know?
In October, the Department of Homeland Security and the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a
joint statement blaming the Russian government for
hacking the DNC. In it, they state their attribution plainly:
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that
the Russian Government directed the recent compromises
of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including
from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of
alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and
WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are
consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-
directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended
to interfere with the US election process.
What’s missing is any evidence at all. If this federal
confidence is based on evidence that’s being withheld
from the public for any reason, that’s one thing — secrecy
is their game. But if the U.S. Intelligence Community is
asking the American electorate to believe them, to accept
as true their claim that our most important civic institution
was compromised by a longtime geopolitical nemesis, we
need them to show us why.
The same goes for the CIA, which is now squaring off
directly against Trump, claiming (through leaks to the
Washington Post and New York Times) that the Russian
government conducted the hacks for the express purpose
of helping defeat Clinton. Days later, Senator John
McCain agreed with the assessment, deeming it “another
form of warfare.” Again, it’s completely possible (and
probable, really) that the CIA possesses hard evidence that
could establish Russian attribution — it’s their job to have
such evidence, and often to keep it secret.
But what we’re presented with isn’t just the idea that these
hacks happened, and that someone is responsible, and,
well, I guess it’s just a shame. Our lawmakers and
intelligence agencies are asking us to react to an attack that
is almost military in nature — this is, we’re being told,
“warfare.” When a foreign government conducts (or
supports) an act of warfare against another country, it’s
entirely possible that there will be an equal response. What
we’re looking at now is the distinct possibility that the
United States will consider military retaliation (digital or
otherwise) against Russia, based on nothing but private
sector consultants and secret intelligence agency notes. If
you care about the country enough to be angry at the
prospect of election-meddling, you should be terrified of
the prospect of military tensions with Russia based on
hidden evidence. You need not look too far back in recent
history to find an example of when wrongly blaming a
foreign government for sponsoring an attack on the U.S.
has tremendously backfired.
We Need the Real Evidence, Right Now
It must be stated plainly: The U.S. intelligence community
must make its evidence against Russia public if they want
us to believe their claims. The integrity of our presidential
elections is vital to the country’s survival; blind trust in the
CIA is not. A governmental disclosure like this is also not
entirely without precedent: In 2014, the Department of
.
240
Justice produced a 56-page indictment detailing their exact
evidence against a team of Chinese hackers working for
the People’s Liberation Army, accused of stealing
American trade secrets; each member was accused by
name. The 2014 trade secret theft was a crime of much
lower magnitude than election meddling, but what the DOJ
furnished is what we should demand today from our
country’s spies.
If the CIA does show its hand, we should demand to see
the evidence that matters (which, according to Edward
Snowden, the government probably has, if it exists). I
asked Jeffrey Carr what he would consider undeniable
evidence of Russian governmental involvement:
“Captured communications between a
Russian government employee and the
hackers,” adding that attribution “should
solely be handled by government agencies
because they have the legal authorization
to do what it takes to get hard evidence.”
Claudio Guarnieri concurred:
All in all, technical circumstantial attribution is acceptable
only so far as it is to explain an attack. It most definitely
isn’t for the political repercussions that we’re observing
now. For that, only documental evidence that is verifiable
or intercepts of Russian officials would be convincing
enough, I suspect.
Given that the U.S. routinely attempts to intercept the
communications of heads of state around the world, it’s
not impossible that the CIA or the NSA has exactly this
kind of proof. Granted, these intelligence agencies will be
loath to reveal any evidence that could compromise the
method they used to gather it. But in times of
extraordinary risk, with two enormous military powers
placed in direct conflict over national sovereignty, we need
an extraordinary disclosure. The stakes are simply too high
to take anyone’s word for it.
 Trump Recruits Army Of Chief Executives To Battle With
The System In Washington
Karen Tumulty
December 14, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump is stocking the upper
echelons of his administration with more than the usual
share of business titans like himself, betting the success of
his presidency on the idea that a clash of cultures is needed
to fix the mess in Washington and bring order to
international affairs.
The question is whether those who promise to bring a
corporate mind-set to governance will change the system
or be run over by it.
“They have to adapt to a different set of
constraints, an actual set of constraints on
behavior that exist in government that don’t
exist anywhere else,” said Elaine Kamarck,
director of the Brookings Institution’s
Center for Effective Public Management.
“Do they learn it, and roll with the punches,
or are they constantly fighting it?”
Trump’s pick for secretary of state, ExxonMobil chief
executive Rex Tillerson, is the latest and most high-profile
among the chief executives he is bringing on board.
He would be the first State Department head in modern
history to take the job without having had any experience
in the public sector — something Tillerson has in common
with the next occupant of the Oval Office.
who will blur the lines between corporate
interests and America’s national interests,
and put profits ahead of people,” Sen. Jack
Reed (R.I.), the ranking Democrat of the
Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday.
Others insist that these unconventional personnel decisions
are the best evidence of how serious Trump is about
making Washington run more efficiently, like a business.
“The working assumption is that every
cabinet officer gets captured by his
bureaucracy within a year, a year and a
half. Not these people,” said Ken
Duberstein, who was Ronald Reagan’s
White House chief of staff.
Some skills required for being successful in business do
have application in government. Tillerson’s supporters —
who include former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice
and former defense secretary Robert Gates — point out
that his role at Exxon required a deep understanding of
international affairs, negotiating skills and strong
relationships around the globe.

Among others Trump has recruited from the private sector

so far: former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin
as treasury secretary; venture capitalist Wilbur Ross as
commerce secretary; fast-food chief executive Andrew
Puzder to run the Labor Department; former World
Wrestling Entertainment chief executive Linda McMahon
to head the Small Business Administration, and Goldman
Sachs president Gary Cohn to lead the National Economic
Council.
© Michael Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images A picture taken on June
Trump’s critics have taken aim at many of his selections 21, 2013 shows President Vladimir Putin (L) and ExxonMobil
from the private sector. They say that populating an Chairman and CEO Rex W Tillerson at a ceremony to present
administration with people of enormous wealth and myriad awards to the heads and employees of major…
financial interests is not “draining the swamp” as Trump
had promised, but simply bringing in another species of However, that part of his résumé is also inviting scrutiny,
reptile. particularly as it pertains to Tillerson’s extensive dealings
with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It is troubling that the president-elect
continues to fill his Cabinet with people
241
Modern corporate suites are not entirely insulated from
their own brand of politics.
What is key is “the style with which they led
their prior organizations,” said Whit Ayres,
a Republican pollster. “A lot of CEOs are
far from dictatorial leaders. A lot of them, in
this day and age, are more consensus
builders than they are dictatorial leaders.”
Those who lead publicly traded companies also tend to be,
of necessity, more pragmatic than ideological. It was on
Tillerson’s watch, for instance, that ExxonMobil
acknowledged the link between climate change and human
activity, and came out in favor of the sweeping agreement
reached in Paris at the end of last year aimed at reducing
carbon dioxide emissions internationally.
That puts his company to the left of Trump — and much of
the Republican Party — on the issue.
Even those who applaud the choices say that the former
corporate chieftains may be in for something of a shock.
Things move at their own pace in government, and often
not at all.
Not only do top officials have to manage a bureaucracy
that was in place long before they arrived and will be there
when they leave; they have to grapple with well-funded
interests that do not necessarily share their goals. And they
must answer to Capitol Hill.
“They have to realize they don’t have a
board of directors of 12, but of 535,”
meaning every member of Congress,
Duberstein said.
Added Brookings’ Kamarck: “These guys come in
thinking they have one boss, but in fact they have two
bosses. They have Congress — the authorizers and the
appropriators — and they have the president.”
All of which can be a learning experience for a corporate
executive.
Before his successful run for Florida governor in 2010,
Rick Scott (R) made a fortune as the founder of
Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, which became the
nation’s largest hospital chain. He left his company in
1997 amid a federal Medicare fraud investigation,
although Scott was not personally implicated.
Scott’s first few years in office were rocky ones, in which
he battled with a legislature controlled by his own party
and saw his approval ratings sink to below 30 percent.
242
“When I came in, the difference was how
much media attention you get. In business,
you have media, but it’s not like this,” Scott
said Tuesday in an interview. “And in
business, if you don’t want to do business
with somebody, for a variety of reasons —
whether they weren’t as honest as they
could have been, or you didn’t trust them
— you didn’t do it. In politics, you can’t do
that. You’ve got to work with them.”
Nor do the bottom-line measures of success in the
corporate world necessarily apply in the public sector.
Mark R. Warner, now a Democratic senator from Virginia,
was a co-founder of a number of technology companies
before being elected governor in 2001.
“I had never been elected to anything,” he
told Roanoke radio station WFIF last week.
“There are ways you can bring business
principles [into government]. But there’s a
lot of things that don’t necessarily translate.
When you invest in early-childhood
education, your later return on that — it
may be 30 years before you find out
whether that was a good investment or
not.”
Though Warner ultimately was deemed a popular and
successful governor, he acknowledged:
“When I was governor, it took me about six
months just to figure out exactly what all
the agencies did, and that’s tiny compared
to the federal government.”
Trump is far from the first president-elect to look to
corporate America for talent.
John F. Kennedy picked as his defense secretary 44-year-
old Robert S. McNamara, who only 10 weeks before had
been named the president of Ford Motor Co.
Kennedy would later call McNamara the smartest man he
had ever met. Organizationally brilliant, he is widely
regarded as the most influential defense secretary of the
20th century.
But McNamara would spend the rest of his life haunted by
his role in leading the country into the futile Vietnam War.
McNamara later recalled that when he was offered the job,
he told Kennedy:
“Mr. President, it’s absurd; I’m not
qualified.”
To which the president-elect replied: “Look, Bob, I don’t think there’s any school
for presidents, either.”

243
 Someone Has Officially Called The CIA's
Bluff Over Russia
Submited By Alice Salles Via Theantimedia.Org
Dec 14, 2016 12:53 PM
The scapegoating of Russia is now so widespread, Dirty
Wars author and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill
took to The Intercept to call the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) on its bluff.
In the article, “Obama Must Declassify Evidence Of
Russian Hacking,” Scahill and Jon Schwartz called out
U.S. intelligence agencies for their record of deceit,
asserting that the American people are not going to
simply “take their word for it.”
“U.S. intelligence agencies have
repeatedly demonstrated that they
regularly both lie and get things horribly
wrong,” the article argues.
But when it comes to the CIA’s case against Russia’s
alleged interference with the latest U.S. presidential
elections, it’s impossible to claim the hearsay is based on
facts if evidence is not made available to support the
agency’s claims.
Nevertheless, Scahill and Schwartz argue, it’s possible that
Russia may have pulled some strings. But even if the
Kremlin had its reasons and acted on them, America is the
country with the long history of election meddling — not
Russia.
Take Hillary Clinton’s comments on the Palestinian
elections, for instance. A leaked audio recording from
2006 revealed then-senator Clinton advocated doing
“something to determine who was going to win” in
Palestine’s elections. And yet here she is, hoping to use
the “Russia did it” talking point to give censorship a boost.
The CIA has its own history of meddling in foreign
elections.
In order to give Barack Obama’s
administration that extra push to release
any “proof” the CIA has that the 2016
U.S. elections were “rigged,” the
Intercept’s duo encouraged feds or
whistleblowers to use the publication’s
secure drop link, where a “patriotic
whistleblower” within the U.S.
intelligence community may drop the
leak that proves Russia is behind
244
President-elect Donald Trump’s win.
“[W]e will verify its legitimacy and
publish it,” they added.
This response seems fitting. After all, assertions are not
evidence, and major publications like the Washington Post
have been basing their Russia-related reports using nothing
but assumptions.
Using an anonymous source, for instance, the WaPo
reported that
“[U.S. 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.” But Reuters has since
reported that “[the] overseers of the U.S.
intelligence community have not embraced
a CIA assessment that Russian cyber
attacks were aimed at helping Republican
President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016
election.” This means the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
“has not endorsed [the CIA’s] assessment
because of a lack of conclusive evidence.”
Caitlin Johnstone put it best in an article for Newslogue:
“Believing something the CIA says is
like trusting a meth addict with your car,
and trusting the CIA when they’re
working with the Washington Post is
like trusting a meth addict with your car
and leaving your kid in the back seat
with the house keys and money for Taco
Bell.”
Unless proof is produced either by the CIA or a
whistleblower, partisan voices crying wolf in
Washington and in the media will continue to run on
empty, feeding their base with nothing but “fake
news.” But wasn’t that what we were told to unite over so
we could “fight” it effectively?
Here’s your chance, Mr. President.
 CIA Refuses House Intel Committee Request For Briefing
On Russia Hacking Probe
By Michael Doyle - Mdoyle@Mcclatchydc.Com
December 14, 2016 9:11 PM
WASHINGTON - Capitol Hill tensions over handling of
the alleged Russian cyber-hacking scandal boiled over late
Wednesday, as the chairman of the House intelligence
panel blasted U.S. spy agency officials for declining to
brief the committee this week.
In a blunt statement that exposed raw feelings and hinted
at deeper conflicts, Rep. Devin Nunes, a California
Republican, declared it was “unacceptable” that
representatives of what is collectively called the
Intelligence Community would not be appearing Thursday
before the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence.
He said the CIA had not told the committee in its most
recent briefing that it believed Russia had hacked
Democratic party computers with the intent of helping
Donald Trump win the presidency.
“The committee is deeply concerned that
intransigence in sharing intelligence with
Congress can enable the manipulation of
intelligence for political purposes,” Nunes
said in his statement. “The committee is
vigorously looking into reports of cyber-
attacks during the election campaign, and
in particular we want to clarify press reports
that the CIA has a new assessment that it
has not shared with us.”
Nunes chairs the committee and has dismissed suggestions
by some lawmakers that a new or enhanced panel be
established to investigate the alleged Russian involvement
in hacking into Democratic National Committee and other
computers. Citing anonymous sources, the Washington
.
245
Post and other media outlets have reported over the past
week that the CIA has concluded Russian hacking was
intended to aid President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.
Late Wednesday, NBC quoted intelligence community
officials as saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin
personally directed how hacked material from Democrats
was leaked and otherwise used. NBC said the intelligence
officials said the intelligence came from diplomatic
sources and spies working for U.S. allies.
Nunes, a member of the Trump transition team’s executive
committee, previously had complained to Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper about the failure of
the intelligence community to keep his committee
informed.
“I was dismayed that we did not learn
earlier, directly from you, about reported
conflicting assessments and the CIA’s
reported revision of information previously
conveyed to this committee,” Nunes wrote
Clapper several days ago.
Nunes asked Clapper that the CIA and FBI brief the House
panel on their assessments regarding Russia and the
election; explain the plans for an investigation that
President Barack Obama has ordered into alleged Russian
meddling, and deliver a written assessment from the CIA,
FBI, and broader intelligence community regarding Russia
and the election.
Obama has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to complete
an investigation into the allegations before he leaves office
Jan. 20.
 Jill Stein Spends $1mm Of Recount Donations
On "Staff, Admin And Consultants"
By Tyler Durden
Dec 14, 2016 11:30 PM
After promising to spend "every dollar" of the donations
she raised from disaffected Hillary supporters on recount
efforts, Jill Stein has just released the following budget
which reveals that over $1mm (or nearly 15% of the total
$7.3mm raised) was used to fund her "staff payroll,"
"consultants," "administrative expenses," and "compliance
costs." This looks eerily similar to some Clinton
Foundation budgets we recently reviewed which claimed
to have spent "every dollar" of their donations on "charity
work."
Of course, to add insult to injury, Stein's efforts in
Wisconsin actually widened Trump's margin of victory
while recount efforts in Michigan and Pennsylvania were
shut down by courts based on merit. Therefore, given that
Wisconsin's net votes changed by a grand total of 131,
Stein effectively paid $56,759 for each changed vote.
And while that may sound like a complete failure to most
of us, Stein, in a press release posted to her website, was a
246
bit more upbeat describing the recounts as a "resounding
success."
“Thanks to over 161,000 donors and
support from more than 10,000 volunteers,
this historic recount pushed forward in
three states, defying every political blocking
tactic and clearing every bureaucratic and
financial hurdle,” said Dr. Jill Stein, 2016
Green Party candidate for president. “It
was an amazing affirmation of the power
of the American people to have a voice
in their voting system and demand
elections with integrity. By revealing
serious problems about our voting systems,
out of date laws and recount procedures in
three states, these recounts were a
resounding success. Our efforts have
shined a light on the urgent need for
reforms to our electoral system, to election
laws and to recount procedures. We look
forward to continuing our work to make
those reforms a reality. The fight for civil
and constitutional rights of all
Americans goes on today – stronger
than ever before.”
So congrats on the "resounding success" young Hillary
voters! You spent $7.3mm to widen Trump's margin of
victory and didn't even "get a lousy hat."
247
 CIA Shows ‘No Single Piece of Evidence' of 'Russian
Involvement' in US Election
© AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster US 17:05 14.12.2016(updated 21:01 14.12.2016)
Discussions about Russia's alleged involvement in the US
presidential race are completely senseless as the CIA has
not yet produced any evidence of any intervention from the
outside, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung
reported.
Earlier, the Central Intelligence Agency claimed that
Russia interfered in the US election to help President-elect
Donald Trump win, including by means of conducting
cyberattacks.
"The debate over the CIA theory is similar
to the one around Ukraine: a certain
position often depends on whether one
feels closer to Russia or the US. It is right
to distrust the CIA because it has not
produced any single piece of evidence. The
explosive climate, in which Trump has
become US President, has not been
created by the Russians, but rather by
cynical American politicians and
businessmen," the article said.
.
248
In particular, the US officials stated that Russian-
sponsored hackers had interfered in the US presidential
election in favor of Trump over his Democrat rival Hillary
Clinton. The alleged modus operandi to sway the election
was the leaking of private emails to whistleblower site
Wikileaks which implicated Clinton in big business
corruption and fomenting foreign wars, among other
scandals.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied any interference
in the US election and called such accusations absurd and
unfounded. Wikileaks also denied the allegations, with
Former UK diplomat Craig Murray, a close associate of
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, telling Radio Sputnik
that the claim is a spurious attempt to undermine the
legitimacy of the President-elect.
For its turn, the newspaper views statements about the
"vulnerability" of the American authorities to cyberattacks
as ridiculous and doubts that the US government is unable
to give an adequate response to hacking attempts.
Moreover, the author recalled lessons of the past, and
namely the second Gulf War, when US intelligence
agencies willingly shared their unfounded assumptions
about the existence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction, which fueled the war in the Middle East and
destroyed the whole country.
"Lessons from the US war against Saddam
Hussein in Iraq show: even western
intelligence services are now and then
dishonest, inefficient or politically controlled
— sometimes all this at the same time," the
author concluded.
 Russian Hack Narrative Revealed To Be Elaborate Media
Hoax… Email Leaks Actually Came From
Bernie Sanders Insider
By: Mike Adams
Thursday, December 15, 2016
And now the total hoax of the left-wing delusional
conspiracy theory begins to unravel. After days of
witnessing the left-wing media hyperventilate over
completely fabricated claims that “the Russians” hacked
the DNC emails and turned them over to Wikileaks, it
turns out the emails were actually leaked by a DNC
insider who was angry about the orchestrated
elimination of Bernie Sanders by Clinton operatives.
The UK Daily Mail is now reporting that Craig Murray, the
former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, personally met
the email leaker who handed him the emails files later
released by Wikileaks. The email leaker, a Bernie Sanders
insider, was reportedly motivated by “disgust at the
corruption of the Clinton Foundation and the tilting of the
primary election playing field against Bernie Sanders,”
reports the Daily Mail.
The hand-off took place in Washington D.C. in a wooded
area near American University, Murray explained. Via the
Daily Mail:
Murray insisted that the DNC and Podesta
emails published by Wikileaks did not come
from the Russians, and were given to the
whistleblowing group by Americans who
had authorized access to the information.
“Neither of [the leaks] came from the
Russians,” Murray said. “The source had
legal access to the information. The
documents came from inside leaks, not
hacks.”
“As Julian Assange has made crystal clear,
the leaks did not come from the Russians,”
writes Murray on his website. “As I have
explained countless times, they are not
hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a
major difference between the two. And it
should be said again and again, that if
Hillary Clinton had not connived with the
DNC to fix the primary schedule to
disadvantage Bernie, if she had not
received advance notice of live debate
questions to use against Bernie, if she had
not accepted massive donations to the
249
Clinton foundation and family members in
return for foreign policy influence, if she
had not failed to distance herself from
some very weird and troubling people, then
none of this would have happened. The
continued ability of the mainstream media
to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election
because of ‘Russia’, while still never
acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal,
is Kafkaesque.”
Wikileaks’ Julian Assange also previously confirmed that
the leaked DNC emails did not come from the Russians.
The Washington Post, New York Times and other
discredited propaganda mouthpieces of the regime
continue to insinuate that the Russians somehow altered
the election outcome to favor Donald Trump, but they
haven’t produced a single shred of real evidence to back
up their claims.
The goal is to create doubt in the minds
of the electoral voters
Despite the complete lack of evidence, the entire left-wing
media (propaganda pushers) in the United States has
further abandoned any last semblance of journalistic
integrity to keep broadcasting the knowingly false
narrative that that the Russians hacked the DNC and
released the emails to Wikileaks.
That delusional conspiracy theory is being pushed by a
coordinated media campaign with the aim of spreading
sufficient disinfo to cause electoral voters to change
their votes on December 19th. The goal is to deny
Donald Trump 270 electoral votes, and to accomplish that,
the same left-wing media that incessantly lied about
everything during the campaign is continuing to lie after
Trump’s election victory.
If Donald Trump can be denied 270 electoral votes, the
left-wing narrative will claim his presidency is
“illegitimate” because he failed to reach the required 270.
It’s all ridiculous, of course, since it is the disinformation
of the media itself that is the cause behind electoral voters
possibly altering their votes. Thus, the propaganda is
self-reinforcing… and electoral voters are being subjected
to the most intense political psyop ever observed in U.S.
elections.
The leaked emails revealed astonishing
depths of corruption and collusion
across the DNC and Hillary campaign
By focusing the narrative on the Russians, the mainstream
media has managed to completely distract nearly everyone
from the substance of the emails that were leaked. Those
emails contained damning details about extreme corruption
and collusion inside the DNC, which actively plotted to
use Bernie Sanders as a political puppet, then “stab him in
the back” at the appropriate time to make way for Hillary
Clinton.
Breitbart.com has published a list of 18 of the most
astonishing revelations to come out of the leaked emails.
There are hundreds more.
When Wikileaks began releasing the emails, one of the
initial narratives of the coordinated left-wing media was to
claim that the emails were “fake.” Thus, they are now in
essence claiming that the Russians altered the outcome of
the election by somehow hacking the DNC to acquire fake
emails which were released by Wikileaks. It makes no
sense, of course, but left-wing narratives don’t need to
make any sense. They only need to sound emotionally
charged and outrageous. (Liberals don’t think with logic.
.
250
They make decisions based on emotions and social
conformity. That’s why they can’t be reasoned with.)
WashPost, NYT and CNN all fabricated
an elaborate hoax to try to steal the
election after losing the vote
The Craig Murray revelations reveal the left-wing
“Russian hack” conspiracy delusion to be a total hoax
waged by the Washington Post, New York Times and CNN.
Nothing they’ve claimed is true. Everything they’re
writing about this is a fabrication or an echo chamber of
some other source that’s also fabricating similar nonsense.
From the Daily Mail:
Murray said he was speaking out due to
claims from intelligence officials that
Wikileaks was given the documents by
Russian hackers as part of an effort to help
Donald Trump win the U.S. presidential
election.
‘I don’t understand why the CIA would say
the information came from Russian hackers
when they must know that isn’t true,’ he
said. ‘Regardless of whether the Russians
hacked into the DNC, the documents
Wikileaks published did not come from
that.’
 PropOrNot All-Star Organizers: Koch, Soros, CIA, MI6
Ukraine, All Together Now
By The Daily Bell
By - December 15, 2016
PropOrNot: Evidence of a CIA
Psychological Operation … On
November 24, The Washington Post
published a story citing the anonymous
group PropOrNot. The story accused the
Russians of building a large propaganda
operation that worked to defeat Hillary
Clinton and elect “insurgent candidate”
Donald Trump. It claimed a large number of
alternative news websites are acting as
Russian agents, dupes, and useful idiots.
– BoilingFrogs/Rockwell
This article excerpted above explains the forces behind
PropOrNot and identifies them from a leftist/Ukraine
standpoint. But another article published not so long ago
by Washington’s blog, here, makes the connection
between Ukraine and the Koch Brothers.
This article will explain briefly what would seem to be full
(or almost full) panoply of influences behind PropOrNot.
The Koch Brothers along with the Scaife Foundation and
some hugely powerful intel agencies have been identified
as supporting the PropOrNot initiative. We’ve already
written about this issue here and here.
But we were puzzled by some other articles that seemed to
attribute PropOrNot to different influences, including
those of the Clintons and some groups oddly affiliated with
Ukraine. The Kochs and Clintons didn’t seem to fit
together but as it turns out, there’s apparently a link thanks
to Washington’s blog, which seems to have solved this
particular puzzle for us.
Here are some excerpts from an article published in early
November 2016.
251
Koch Brothers Secretly Allied w. George
Soros for Hillary Clinton … The leading
financiers of the Republican Party, the
Koch brothers, were exposed … by the
great investigative journalist Lee Fang, as
being solid supporters and heavy financiers
of congressional candidates who have
been leaders in expanding the U.S. military
budget and moving America toward a
police state (including militarization of the
police).
The leading financier of the Democratic
Party, George Soros, has long been known
to provide major financial backing for the
most-neoconservative Democratic
candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, who
favor every possible military invasion and
coup (and see this, for more on that).
In fact, Soros was one of the top three financial backers
(the other two were the U.S. government and the
Netherlands government) for the television station in
Ukraine that championed extermination of the people in
Ukraine’s Donbass region, where the coup-imposed
government, which he helped to install, is loathed.
And also on the Ukrainian matter, the Kochs have
championed the view that when considering whether
Crimea should be part of Russia, or else part of Ukraine, or
else entirely independent, the people who live there
shouldn’t have any opportunity to vote on the matter, and
they should instead be forced to be ‘Ukrainians’, even if
they loathe this post-coup Ukrainian government.
There we seem to have the connection in full, depending
on the credibility of those reporting these linkages. In any
event, we are fairly comfortable: Washington’s blog has
been around a long time and the article is well-footnoted.
And so we are likely learning the Kochs via Soros are now
integrated with larger, leftist/Ukraine technocratic/fascist
elements … It makes sense that PropOrNot draws
resources (or inspiration) from an array of monied
influences. The website itself is incredibly bold, a real
statement of mighty intent.
The CIA is involved, as is obvious. And the CIA has
relationships with such groups as the Institute of Modern
Russia. The Boiling Frogs article excerpted at the
beginning of this analysis explains that PropOrNot “has all
the hallmarks of an intelligence operation.”
In fact, the strategy out of which PropOrNot was
developed reportedly may stem from an article written in
early 2008 by Cass Sunstein and colleague Adrian
Vermeule titled simply “Conspiracy Theories.”
Sunstein and Vermeule argue the existence of conspiracy
theories “may create serious risks, including risks of
violence, and the existence of such theories raises
significant challenges for policy and law.”
Importantly, the paper proposed “attacking targeted groups
in cyberspace.” Also:
“Whatever the tactical details, there would
seem to be ample reason for government
efforts to introduce some cognitive diversity
into the groups that generate conspiracy
theories.”
These ideas since then seem to have been put into practice
in one way or another by both the Pentagon and MI6
which reportedly collaborates with the 361st Civil Affairs
Brigade of the US Army.
The Pentagon and MI6 have focused on energy on Ukraine
and on undermining Russia’s presence and claims to
Crimea. The Center for European Policy Analysis, a
Washington think tank dedicated to the study of Central
and Eastern Europe also seems to be part of this group. (Its
advisory council includes Zbigniew Brzezinski along with
Madeleine Albright.)
More:
Although PropOrNot strives to remain anonymous, it does
reveal connections to Modern Russia and its Interpreter
Mag and thus, through Voice of America, its association
with the CIA. Interpreter Mag is listed under “Related
Projects” on its website.
.
252
PropOrNot also collaborates with Polygraph Fact-Check, a
purported fact-checking website produced by Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, in other
words, the CIA.
Another so-called fact-checking operation is listed,
Politifact. It is a project of the Tampa Bay Times and the
Poynter Institute and shares a donor with the Clinton
Foundation, the Omidyar Network, created by eBay
founder Pierre Omidyar. He is a major donor of Kiev-
based Hromadske TV, “the symbol of the info wars
between Moscow and the Western world,” according to
Forbes.
And there you have it. Via George Soros … the Kochs and
Scaife Foundation (and others) are linked to an entirely
opposite (seemingly so) series of power centers including
Ukraine “think tanks” and NGOs along with the most
powerful Democratic groups including the Clintons. (And
remember, we probably haven’t reached the top of this
sprawling network.)
Conclusion: This is truly a broad array of resources as
might be expected for a group that wants to wipe out an
entire media industry. The question must then be asked
with a mixture of hope and anxiety: How does President
Trump fit in?
Editor’s Note: Some of this might seem
like politics-as-usual, though of a very dirty
variety, but the ramifications could
certainly affect the alternative media that
has already been accused of co-conspiring
with Russia to affect the elections. The
Daily Bell is a libertarian publication and its
articles have often stated that people ought
to look out for their own interests first as
best they can because politics are
unpredictable and usually don’t change
much – or just make things worse.
Additionally, as a libertarian publication, DB
has published articles in the past explaining
that RT and Putin himself are part of
the larger questionable dialectic being
presented by East and West. In no way can
DB be considered a proponent of Russian
propaganda.
 Clinton Investigation Back On:
FBI Agents In NY Ordered To Continue
Foundation Probe
By Tyler Durden
Dec 15, 2016 2:40 PM

After the election, many speculated that the probe of the pursue the investigation, saying “I don’t wanna hurt
Clinton Foundation would be laid to rest. But now, them. They’re good people" (see "Trump Won't Pursue
according to an exclusive report from the Daily Caller, Charges Against Hillary: 'She's Been Through
Enough'").
senior officials at FBI headquarters in
Washington DC have apparently After the election, President-elect Donald Trump indicated
instructed agents in the New York field that prosecuting rival Hillary Clinton or her foundation
office to continue their investigation of would not be a priority.
the Clinton Foundation.
In an interview with the New York Times
According to the source, the instructions were passed on to on November 21, he said, “I don’t want
the NYC field office last week and involves operations in to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t.”
at least five cities, including: New York, Little Rock,
But he didn’t rule out a continuing probe of the
Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Miami.
foundation, saying, “we’ll have people that do things,”
Officials at FBI headquarters instructed on the foundation, which the Times wrote was, “perhaps a
its New York field office to continue its reference to the FBI or Republicans who might continue to
corruption investigation into the Clinton press for prosecutions in the email or foundation cases.”
Foundation following the election of
Republican candidate Donald Trump,
according to a former senior law
enforcement official.
The instructions ordered agents to “go forward” with their
ongoing inquiry into the Clinton Foundation which is
focusing on issues of corruption and money laundering,
according to the source.
“There were no instructions to shut it
down, to discontinue or to stand down
on the investigation, but to continue its
work,” the former official told the Daily
Caller News Foundation in an interview. Perhaps Putin has already officially taken control of the
FBI. Please, no one tell Keith Olbermann, he won't be
He said he received this information about a week ago and able to handle this development right now.
that the order originated from the bureau’s headquarters in
Washington, D.C. well after the Nov. 8 election. He did
not know who at FBI Headquarters issued the order.
The same source broke the news to TheDCNF that the FBI
was conducting a multi-city probe of the foundation in
as many as five cities: New York, Little Rock,
Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Miami. The source
did not know the status of the bureau’s work in the four
other cities.
Of course, many had assumed the investigations into
Hillary's email scandal and the Clinton Foundation were
officially off after Trump announced that he wouldn't

253
 The "Elite" Coup Of 2016
Posted By B
December 15, 2016
 There is an "elite" coup attempt underway against the
U.S. President-elect Trump.
 The coup is orchestrated by the camp of Hillary Clinton
in association with the CIA and neoconservative
powers in Congress.
 The plan is to use the CIA's "Russia made Trump the
winner" nonsense to swing the electoral college against
him. The case would then be bumped up to Congress.
Major neocon and warmonger parts of the Republicans
could then move the presidency to Clinton or, if that
fails, put Trump's vice president-elect Mike Pence onto
the throne. The regular bipartisan war business, which
a Trump presidency threatens to interrupt, could
continue.
 Should the coup succeed violent insurrections in the
United States are likely to ensue with unpredictable
consequences.
The above theses are thus far only a general outlay. No
general plan has been published. The scheme though is
pretty obvious by now.
The priority aim is to deny Trump the presidency. He is
too independent and a danger for several power centers
within the ruling U.S. power circles. These are:
 The CIA which has become the Central Assassination
Agency under the Bush and Obama administrations.
Huge parts of its budgets depend on a continuation of
the war on Syria and the drone assassination
campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.
Trump's more isolationist policies would likely end
these campaigns and the related budget troughs.
 The weapons industry which could lose its enormous
sales to its major customers in the Persian Gulf should
a President Trump reduce U.S. interference in the
Middle East and elsewhere.
 The neoconservatives and Likudniks who want the U.S.
as Israel's weapon to strong arm the Middle East to the
Zionists benefit.
 The general war hawks, military and "humanitarian
interventionists" to whom any reduction of the U.S. role
as primary power in the world is anathema to their
believes.
The current CIA director Brennan, a leading figure of the
CIA torture program and Obama consigliere, is in the
Clinton/anti-Trump camp. The former CIA heads Hayden
254
and Panetta are public Clinton supporters as is torturer
king and former CIA deputy director Michael Morell.
It is thereby no wonder that the CIA is leading the anti-
Russian campaign. Its task now is to implant the idea in
the U.S. public that Russian intervention skewed the U.S.
election towards Trump. The purpose is the
delegitimization of the Trump victory in the eyes of the
media and public but even more so in the eyes of the
electors within the electoral college.
The CIA is heavily supported by the same mainstream
media that pushed for Clinton during the election. (These
are, not by chance, also the same media that pushed the
CIA's earlier "Saddam's Weapon of Mass Destruction"
campaign.)
The Democratic partisan and Harvard law Professor
Lawrence Lessig is pushing the electors and offers them
free personal legal support. He says the electoral college
vote is now close.
Could 37 Republican electors, put there by voters in their
states to vote for Trump, be convinced to move from
electing Trump to abstain or vote for someone else, Trump
would miss the needed 270 votes. The whole election of
the president would then by kicked over to the House of
Representatives.
Should the electors vote for Trump there is still a
possibility that members of the House and the Senate could
officially question that vote and cause delays or
Congressional probes and legal challenges.
Here are the detailed general proceedings and specifics for
the electoral college as explained by the National Archives
and Records Administration.
Though neoconservatives have no genuine support within
the U.S. electorate they have a strong hold on significant
parts of Congress and the relevant MSM commentariat.
Many leading neoconservatives and war hawks like Robert
Kagan, Max Boot and the Washington Post editorial board
came out for Clinton during the campaign. Clinton even
ran campaign advertisements with Republican Congress
luminaries like Lindsay Graham, Sasse and Flake.
The House and the Senate majority may well be on the
anti-Trump side if push comes to shove. But whatever the
outcome there surely would be intense legal challenges
and I expect the case to go up to the Supreme Court.
As an alternative to legal shenanigans Trump's
inauguration could be delayed by Obama's order to the
intelligence community to create a formal review of
Russian intervention in the election by January 20. That is
not by chance the official inauguration date! The selling
point:
By ordering a “full review” of allegations of Russian into
the 2016 election process, President Barack Obama is
essentially asking the IC to make an analytical
judgment about the validity of the election that will
place Trump in the Oval Office.
A "compromise" in Congress could be to wait for the
Intelligence Community's analysis and then discuss it
before certifying Trump as president. That would end up
with no result as National Intelligence Estimates are
notoriously vague. Meanwhile the Vice President-elect
would sit in as acting President:
If the President-elect fails to qualify before inauguration,
Section 3 of the 20th Amendment states that the Vice
President-elect will act as President until such a time as a
President has qualified.
If the congressional or legal process around the Trump
election gets delayed, that may be a state for a long time.
The ruling Washington blob or borg could well live with
an acting President Pence while Trump would have no
official say in any government business. (Could Clinton
then become acting VP or qualify as the new president?)
The media intervention on the anti-Trump side is heavy.
But first keep in mind that there is no public evidence,
ZERO, that Russia indeed had anything to do with the
DNC or Podesta or other leaks and the publication of
emails by various outlets like Wikileaks.
Craig Murray assures us that he knows that these were not
hacks but insider leaks and that he knows the leaker(s).
Indeed he now tells us that the emails were handed over
to him during a visits in Washington. Former
intelligence officials including the technically very
knowledgeable former NSA official William Binney
concur that the hacking story is false.
All we have heard or seen so far are hearsay rumors and
allegations of evidence. To me as experienced IT
professional the case is technically laughable just as
Murray explains here. If the claimed hacks occurred at all
the alleged methods were so common that anybody could
255
have done these. There is not even one claimed fact yet
that is technically halfway acceptable as evidence that
"Russia did it".
But still the NYT runs a big package of pieces telling us
that "Russia did it" based on the non-factual CIA rumors
and unprofessional IT assertions by Crowdstrike, the self-
promoting IT security company the DNC hired and paid.
Before that the Washington Post published major claims of
Russian interference by anonymous officials. NBC News
now tops that with "intelligence officials" saying Putin
himself ran the hacking campaign. Authors of the story are
the long time insider hacks Bill Arkin and Ken Dilanian
known for clearing his stories with the CIA before
publishing. The next story will tells us that Vladimir
Valdimirovich himself was punching the keyboard.
Many news outlets and editorials follow these "leads".
Part of the scheme the Clinton campaign has worked out
was explained by a former opposition research consultant
to the Democratic National Council, the Ukrainian-
American Alexandra (aka Andrea) Chalupa, in this thread:
Andrea Chalupa @AndreaChalupa Dec 11
1.) Electoral College meets Dec. 19. If Electors ignore
#StateOfEmergency we're in, & Trump gets elected,
we can stop him Jan. 6 in Congress
2.) If any objections to Electoral College vote are made,
they must be submitted in writing, signed by at least 1
House member & 1 Senator
3.) If objections are presented, House & Senate withdraw
to their chambers to consider their merits under
procedures set out in federal law.
...
Editorials and op-eds in the major papers are pushing the
scheme along. Just for example from a long list A.J.
Dionne in the Washington Post:
The CIA’s finding that Russia actively intervened in our
election to make Trump president is an excellent reason for
the electors to consider whether they should exercise their
independent power. At the very least, they should be
briefed on what the CIA knows, and in particular on
whether there is any evidence that Trump or his lieutenants
were engaged with Russia during the campaign.
The New York Times editorial laments about Trump
ridiculing the CIA fairy tales it promotes.
Many people who have voted for Trump would be
disgusted and outraged if or when Trump will be denied
his office. Many of them are armed and would protest.
Violence is ensured should the coup succeed.
Trump selected four former generals to joins his cabinet Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 (pdf) by
and staff. Should the troubles escalate we might be roughly Charles J. Dunlap.
in for a scenario as laid out in the 1992 military paper: The
.

256
 ABC Posts Fake News Story On Putin
Source: Kurt Nimmo, Blacklisted News Exclusive
Published: December 15, 2016
Fake news is news that cannot be verified by fact and is
deliberately misleading.
Using this criteria, it is fair to say ABC News posted a fake
news story on Thursday.
It said Vladimir Putin is “directly linked
to US hacking.”
Ever the master spy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a
former KGB colonel, was personally involved in the
hacking of the Democratic National Committee and efforts
to interfere in the American elections, U.S. and foreign
intelligence officials tell ABC News.
No evidence provided, simply hyperbolic sensationalism
based on the word of organizations that routinely lie,
conduct psychological operations, overthrow governments,
arm and encouraged terrorists, and have specialized in
propaganda since the early 1950s.
Master spy? Putin was a colonel in the KGB. And George
H. W. Bush? He was the director of the CIA.
Few probably remember Bush and the CIA spreading fake
news.
Back in 2000, Robert Parry, a former Associated Press
investigative journalist, wrote:
In early fall of 1976, after a Chilean government assassin
had killed a Chilean dissident and an American woman
with a car bomb in Washington, D.C., George H.W.
Bush’s CIA leaked a false report clearing Chile’s military
dictatorship and pointing the FBI in the wrong direction.
The bogus CIA assessment, spread through Newsweek
magazine and other U.S. media outlets, was planted
despite CIA’s now admitted awareness at the time that
Chile was participating in Operation Condor, a cross-
border campaign targeting political dissidents, and the
CIA’s own suspicions that the Chilean junta was behind
the terrorist bombing in Washington… the CIA – then
under CIA Director George H.W. Bush – leaked for public
consumption an assessment clearing the Chilean
government’s feared intelligence service, DINA.
257
The CIA released fake news to cover up a political murder
conducted by one of its paid assets, Chilean intelligence
boss Manuel Contreras.
The CIA also produced fake news to make the Chilean
military regime look good, according to a declassified
report. The report mentions CIA activities “including
support for news media committed to creating a positive
image for the military junta.”
Parry also reported that Ronald Reagan ran a fake news
operation in the 1980s to make the murderous Contras look
good.
It was called “perception management,” a
technique that “began in earnest with the
Reagan administration in the 1980s but it
would come to be the accepted practice of
all subsequent administrations, including
the present one of President Barack
Obama,” Parry writes.
In that sense, propaganda in pursuit of foreign policy goals
would trump the democratic ideal of an informed
electorate. The point would be not to honestly inform the
American people about events around the world but to
manage their perceptions by ramping up fear in some cases
and defusing outrage in others depending on the U.S.
government’s needs.
In 2008, author Nick Davies exposed how
“shadowy intelligence agencies are
pumping out black propaganda to
manipulate public opinion,” the
Independent reported.
For the first time in human history, there is a concerted
strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass
media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both
to resist it and to expose it.
The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to
do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which
now afflicts the production of our news. I've spent the last
two years researching a book about falsehood, distortion
and propaganda in the global media.
In 2013, the CIA’s fake news machine—its Mighty
Wurlitzer of lies and distortion—was legalized. On July 2,
a little noticed “reform” went into effect. The Smith- Because the CIA has a long history of fabricating fake
Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, passed as part of the news, we should call it out on this latest accusation and
2013 National Defense Authorization Act, allows the CIA demand evidence to back up its unsubstantiated claim.
to flood America with government propaganda.

258
 ‘Hamilton Electors’ Plan To
Strip Presidency From Trump
By: Kurt Nimmo
Date: December 15, 2016
A group calling itself the “Hamilton Electors” has called
for members of the Electoral College to pick a “consensus
candidate” to replace president-elect Donald Trump.
The Electoral College meets on December 19 to decide on
the president.
Hillary Clinton registered 64,654,483 total votes,
compared to 62,418,820 for Trump, according to a Cook
Political Report analysis, the International Business Times
reports. If the report is accurate, the numbers represent a
margin of 2,235,663 in the popular vote for the former
secretary of state.
Washington State Democratic elector Levi Guerra told The
Olympian Trump is a “demagogue.” She believes “that
there are Republican leaders out there that the whole
country can unify behind.”
Bret Chiafalo is the leader of the Hamilton Electors. He
claims that blocking Trump is a “moral imperative.”
Chiafalo cites Trump’s campaign rhetoric on immigrants
.
259
and Muslims and his appointment of Steven Bannon as a
senior advisor. The establishment press and Democrats
describe Bannon, who formerly ran Breitbart News, as a
white nationalist.
Chiafalo suggested Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former
Secretary of State Colin Powell and former New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg as possible alternative
candidates.
The Hamilton Electors and others opposed to the election
result are attempting to persuade enough Democratic and
Republican electors to unite behind a third candidate. They
hope to strip Trump of the 270 votes required for the
presidency. In that case, the decision would be left up to
the House of Representatives.
The Hamilton Electors are part of a larger effort to
disqualify Trump and ultimately dump the Electoral
College. The Electoral College was first proposed by
Alexander Hamilton, and was approved by the
Constitutional Convention on September 6, 1787.
Democrats say that they have formed a coalition of
lawyers prepared to defend, pro bono, any electors who
vote to oppose Trump.
“I have always believed we should have a
national popular vote. That’s been my
position now for decades,” Colorado’s Polly
Baca told Politico.
 Settling Scores? Trump Team Resumes Battle With Press,
Hints At WH Briefing Changes
Published December 15, 2016
Trump questions uproar over alleged Russian hack in
tweet
President-elect Donald Trump and his allies are back to
trading barbs with the press on several fronts, hinting at a
potential overhaul of the White House briefings while
sparring anew with reporters and publications that crossed
them.
The president-elect started his day Thursday with a Twitter
swipe at Vanity Fair, saying the magazine is in “big
trouble.”
The tweet followed a string of critical pieces from the
publication, including the article that topped their home
page Thursday morning, under the headline:
“Trump Grill could be the worst restaurant
in America.”
This comes amid a clash with Julia Ioffe, a now-ex Politico
writer set to join The Atlantic – after Ioffe tweeted
regarding Ivanka Trump:
“Either Trump is f---ing his daughter or he’s
shirking nepotism laws. Which is worse?”
260
Politico swiftly cut ties with Ioffe, who subsequently
deleted the tweet and apologized for the “crass joke.”
But her new employer could face repercussions.
GotNews.com reported that a Trump source said the team
now wants to cut off access to The Atlantic, amid other
complaints about the magazine’s coverage of the
administration-in-waiting.
Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus,
meanwhile, touched off a Washington tizzy Wednesday
after suggesting changes ahead for the traditional White
House press briefings.
“I think that it’s important that we look at all
of those traditions that are great, but quite
frankly, as you know, don’t really make
news and they're just sort of mundane,
boring episodes,” he told radio host Hugh
Hewitt, specifically citing the daily briefings.
“It just so happens that we’re actually
talking about those things right now,”
Priebus said when asked about the plans
for the press corps.
Priebus also said the “formalized reserved seating” in the
briefing room is being discussed, claiming some of that
started under the Obama administration.
Priebus, however, was called to task for that claim by both
the White House and White House Correspondents'
Association.
WHCA President Jeff Mason noted that news
organizations have had assigned seats in that room “since
those seats were installed in 1981.”
“That was not an Obama-era innovation as
Mr. Priebus suggested. The WHCA
 assumed responsibility for assigning the
seats in the briefing room over the last two
decades at the request of both Republican
and Democratic administrations, who were
mindful of the potential appearance of
playing favorites if they assigned the seats
themselves. The WHCA looks forward to
meeting with the incoming administration to
.
261
address questions and concerns on both
sides about exactly this sort of issue,” he
said in a statement.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest also said the
Obama White House has not had control over the seating
assignments.
 Trump Voters Show Increasingly Favorable View of
Russia, Fresh Poll Reveals
© AFP 2016/ JEFF KOWALSKY US 02:07 15.12.2016
Supporters of US President-elect Trump have a more positive
attitude toward Russia than they did four months ago, a new
Economist/YouGov poll showed.
Poll: Majority of Americans Think US Presidential Race
Unaffected by Russia
© AP Photo/ Seth Perlman US 05:56 15.12.2016
A majority of American voters think that Russia had no effect on the
US presidential election, a new survey revealed.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Fox News Poll released
on Wednesday shows that US voters think there
.
262
NEW YORK (Sputnik) – The new poll also found that
although Americans generally dislike Russian President
Vladimir Putin, on-third of Trump voters consider him a
strong leader.
"Trump voters today are somewhat more
positive towards Russia than his supporters
were just after the party conventions last
summer," a summary accompanying the
poll issued Wednesday stated. "Today, the
percentage of Trump supporters viewing
Russia as either unfriendly or as an enemy
has dropped 11 points, from 67% then to
56% now."
"was no real effect on the presidential
race from Russian cyber-attacks.”
Eighty-five percent of Republicans believe Russia did not
impact the election, the poll showed.
On Wednesday, NBC News claimed citing unnamed US
intelligence officials that Russian leadership was directly
involved in cyberattacks in the 2016 presidential election.
US House Committee on Intelligence Chairman David
Nunes said in a statement earlier in the day that the
country’s intelligence directors refused to brief lawmakers
on leaked assessments related to election cyber attacks.
Moscow has repeatedly denied any interference in the
presidential election, calling the allegations absurd and an
attempt to distract US voters from pressing domestic
issues.
 Trump: "If Russia Was Hacking, Why Did White House
Only Complain After Hillary Lost?"
By Tyler Durden
Dec 15, 2016 10:14 AM
With the nation gripped by the thoroughly unsubstantiated
"Russian hacking" scandal, which last night escalated to
include Putin himself according to an NBC report which
provided nothing new, Trump threw himself in the fray on
Thursday morning when he raised more questions on
Twitter about Russia's reported role in cyber attacks on
U.S. political parties and individuals as well as the timing
of the White House's response under President Barack
Obama.
"If Russia, or some other entity, was
hacking, why did the White House wait
so long to act? Why did they only
complain after Hillary lost?" Trump wrote
in a post on Twitter.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed reports over the Russian
hacking as "ridiculous," and accused Democrats are upset
that Trump won the Nov. 8 presidential election over their
.
263
candidate, Hillary Clinton. In October, the U.S.
government formally accused Russia of a campaign of
cyber attacks against U.S. political organizations ahead of
the election. Obama said he warned Russian President
Vladimir Putin about consequences and last week ordered
a review by the U.S. intelligence agencies.
Meanwhile NBC News reported late Thursday that U.S.
intelligence officials have "a high level of confidence" that
Putin was personally involved in the Russian cyber
campaign against the United States.
The CIA has assessed that the attacks were aimed at
helping Trump win the 2016 election, a position not
endorsed by the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI) or the FBI, according to a senior U.S.
official, due to lack of creible evidence, which suggests
that Trump is correct in questioning the narrative being
spun by the White House.
Meanwhile, the push to overturn the will of the people
continues, with a full court press on the country's 538
electors, in a desperate attempt by the administration,
democrats and now, celebrities, to get at least 37
republican Electors to change their vote from Trump to
"someone else."
We anticipate this story won't end until Monday's vote.
 End of ‘Hamilton Electors?’ Judge Rules Colorado
Electors Must Vote for Hillary
© AFP 2016/ US 00:00 15.12.2016(updated 03:43 15.12.2016)
A federal judge has ordered presidential electors in
Colorado to vote for Hillary Clinton, after they filed a
lawsuit seeking the right to vote for someone else, in an
attempt to block the election of Donald Trump.
Colorado electors Polly Baca, a former state Senator, and
Robert Nemanich, have campaigned for the right to vote
against the will of the people, seeking to choose a
candidate they think would be a better president. The duo
filed a lawsuit arguing that presidential electors have a
constitutional right to cast their vote for any qualified
candidate, regardless of the November 8 election outcome.
Laws regarding electors vary from state to state, but in
Colorado they dictate that an elector must vote for the
presidential ticket that receives the most votes during the
election. The penalty for breaking this law can include a
$1,000 fine or up to one year in prison.
Though Baca and Nemanich are both Democrats, they
were willing to vote for a Republican candidate other than
the President-elect, if electors bound to him also switch, in
an attempt to deny Trump the 270 electoral votes required
to win. Only one Republican, Texas elector Chris Suprun,
has agreed to go along with their plan.
“The United States was set up as a
republic. Alexander Hamilton provided a
blueprint for states’ votes. Federalist 68
argued that an Electoral College should
determine if candidates are qualified, not
engaged in demagogy, and independent
from foreign influence,” Suprun wrote in an
opinion piece for the New York Times. “Mr.
Trump shows us again and again that he
264
does not meet these standards. Given his
own public statements, it isn’t clear how the
Electoral College can ignore these issues,
and so it should reject him.”
During the court hearing, the Colorado attorney general's
office argued that the efforts of the electors to cast their
vote based on their interpretation of statutes undermines
democracy.
"What we're asking the court to do is
protect against the chaos that would ensue
from faithless electors failing to perform
their state law duties," Chris Jackson
argued.
An attorney representing Baca and Nemanich argued that
the ruling is an “abridgement of free speech and free
expression,” and stated that they are considering an appeal.
“The electors were created so that they, as
a deliberative body, would be ‘detached’
and less prone to be influenced by the
‘heats and ferments’ of a raucous election,”
the eight-page complaint filed with the court
had stated. “The electors would help
ensure ‘the office of President [would]
never fall to the lot of any man who is not in
an eminent degree endowed with the
requisite qualifications.’ The electors create
an ‘obstacle’ to ‘cabal, intrigue, and
corruption’ and prevent ‘foreign powers
[from] gain[ing] an improper ascendant in
our councils.’”
“The Electoral College, then, including
Plaintiffs, must be free to vote for any
candidate so as to avoid electing someone,
such as Messrs. Trump and Pence, who
only have ‘[t]alents for low intrigue, and the
little arts of popularity.’”
On Monday, District Judge Wiley Daniel, who was
appointed by President Bill Clinton, called the elector’s
lawsuit a “political stunt.”
 The Ballot Access Manager previously wrote to the duo right to replace an elector that does not comply was upheld
stating that they would be replaced if they did not vote for by Denver Judge Elizabeth Starrs.
the candidate selected by the state’s popular vote. Their

265
 "Bullet In The Mouth" –
Trump Electors Flooded With Death Threats
By Tyler Durden
Dec 15, 2016 4:21 PM

Electors around the country are being harassed with a

barrage of emails, phone calls, letters and even death
threats, in an effort to block Donald Trump from being
voted in as president by the Electoral College on Monday.
Of course, with the mainstream media and democrats
pushing the dangerous narrative that Putin basically
usurped our democracy, it's no wonder that disaffected
Hillary snowflakes are growing more "triggered" with each
passing day.
Despite the avalanche, she said, her decision to back
Trump is stronger than ever.
“Obviously their minds are made up
and they’re not going to change. I’m not
either,” the soft-spoken Geise said.

According to a report from the New York Post, one

Republican elector in Michigan has even received death
threats after he refused to change his vote.

For Michael Banerian, a senior at Oakland

University in Michigan and a Republican
elector, the harassment comes with a dark
side.
He said he’s been getting death threats
via email, snail mail, Twitter and
Facebook.
“Somebody threatened to put a bullet in
the back of my mouth,” Banerian, 22, told
The Post on Wednesday.
Republican electors from all over the
country are being inundated with emails,
phone calls and letters on a daily basis,
from angry democrats, urging them to
switch their votes. One Republican
elector in Arizona estimated that she
had received 50,000 emails since Meanwhile, a Republican elector in Tennessee confirmed
election day. that she received an unsolicited call from Harvard
Professor Larry Lessig's group offering "free legal advice"
The bullying is overwhelming Sharon Geise’s tech to electors willing to change their vote (we noted this
devices, but not her resolve to support Trump. effort yesterday, see:

The Mesa, Arizona, grandmother woke up Wednesday
morning to more than 1,500 emails demanding she not
carry out her legal duty to vote for the president-elect.
“They just keep coming and coming,”
Geise told The Post, estimating she’s
received more than 50,000 emails since
the election. “They’re overpowering my
iPad.”
Her answer: mass delete.
"Harvard Professor Says He's Rallied
Nearly Enough GOP Electors To Block
Trump")...an offer which she said
"borders on bribery."
Like Geise, Republican Patricia Allen of Tennessee told
The Post she’s been bombarded with
2,000 emails, 120 letters and five phone
calls all urging her to switch and vote

266
 against Trump. But Allen, 74, said that "Hillary Clinton lost Hillary Clinton the
despite the “siege,” she’s not budging. election."
“This has never happened before … Do
you know how long it takes to delete all
those emails every day?” she asked.
She’s also been solicited by a Harvard
University group backed by
constitutional law Prof. Lawrence
Lessig, who has offered free legal aid to
electors who change their vote.
“That borders on bribery,” said Allen.
“Carried to this extreme, the day might
come when an elector could be sold to
the highest bidder.”

It's simply amazing that more than a month has passed

since election day and disaffected Hillary supporters still
can't come to terms with the fact that, to quote Joe
Scarborough,
.

267
 Trump Knew About
Russia Hacks Says White House
Thu Dec 15, 2016 3:43PM
White House spokesman Josh Earnest speaks at the daily press
briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, October 31, 2016.
(Photo by AFP)
US President-elect Donald Trump knew
well before the November 8 presidential
election that Russia was behind hacking
attacks against some Democratic
organizations, according to the White
House.
Speaking on Wednesday, White House spokesman Josh
Earnest also claimed that Trump knew Moscow was trying
to damage the campaign of his Democratic rival Hillary
Clinton.
“There’s ample evidence that was known
long before the election and in most cases
long before October about the Trump
campaign and Russia — everything from
the Republican nominee himself calling on
Russia to hack his opponent,” Earnest said.
The New York businessman has repeatedly accused
Clinton of not telling the truth about using a personal email
server to exchange potentially sensitive emails during her
tenure as the secretary of state.
During the campaign, Trump “sarcastically” invited
Russian hackers to infiltrate Clinton’s email and reveal her
secrets.
“It might be an indication that he was
obviously aware and concluded, based on
whatever facts or sources he had available
to him, that Russia was involved and their
involvement was having a negative impact
268
on his opponent’s campaign,” Earnest
added.
US President-elect nominee Donald Trump (L) and Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
In the final weeks before the Election Day, thousands of
hacked emails belonging to Clinton’s top aide John
Podesta were released to the media, revealing dark secrets
about her.
Before that, hacked emails from the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) had exposed an insider attempt within
the party to undermine Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’
presidential campaign in favor of Clinton.
US intelligence officials claimed back then that hackers
sponsored by Moscow were trying to affect the outcome of
the election.
“It was obvious to those who were covering
the race that the hack-and-leak strategy
that had been operationalized was not
being equally applied to the two parties and
to the two campaigns,” Earnest said
Wednesday. “There’s one side that was
bearing the brunt of that strategy and
another side that was clearly benefiting
from it.”
Although President Barack Obama and his administration
firmly believe that Russia was indeed trying to intervene,
Trump himself rejects the notion, accusing the outgoing
president of politicizing the issue.
The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin has US intelligence officials believe with "a high level of
denied the charges on several occasions, saying the confidence" that Putin became involved in hacking during
allegations were indicated an infighting among US the American election campaign as part of a “vendetta”
intelligence bodies. against Clinton, NBC News reported on Wednesday.

269
 Alleged Trump Supporters’ Hate Attack On Muslim
Student Turns Out To Be Fake
© Photo: Youtube/ Conspiracy Boulder News US 10:22 15.12.2016(Updated 10:34 15.12.2016)

problems. Seweid’s father said he did not know that his

daughter had lied about the attack.

A Muslim student of a New York college who had claimed she was
attacked by supporters of US President-elect Donald Trump
confessed that the incident never happened and the story was
fabricated, local media reported.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Yasmin Seweid, 18, told police on

December 1 that she became a victim of a hate crime in the
New York City subway when three drunk men, who called
her a terrorist and tried to snatch her hijab off her head.
According to Seweid, the men also shouted the name of
Trump several times. US media paid much attention to this
story.

"Nothing happened, and there was no

victim … We dedicated a lot of resources to
this — and don’t get me wrong, this is what
we do — but we had guys going back and
forth, looking for video and witnesses. And
we couldn’t find anything," a police source
told the New York Daily News on
Wednesday.
Police said there were a lot of inconsistencies in Seweid’s
story but it did not raise suspicions as it was typical for
victims with psychological traumas. The situation,
however, became more suspicious when she went missing
last week. Finally Seweid admitted her guilt on
Wednesday.
The student is now under arrest and charged with filing a
false report.
Many US media issued reports about the alleged hate
crime without qualifiers such as "reportedly" and
"alleged." During the election campaign Trump accused
US media of being corrupt and fabricating stories.
According to a recent survey conducted by Ipsos for the
BuzzFeed News media outlet, a total of 75 percent of US
nationals believe fake news headlines when they read
them.

She is said to have made up the story because of family

270
 Putin 'Personally Involved' In US
Election Hack, NBC News Claims
Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:26AM

President Barack Obama ordered the intelligence

community to fully review Russia’s cyber attacks during
the presidential campaign and wants a report before he
leaves office in January.

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday Trump said

Democrats were behind news reports on intelligence
assessments that Russian hackers had intervened to help
Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the
President Vladimir Putin was “personally involved” in a covert
election.
Russian effort to intervene in the 2016 US presidential election, NBC
News has claimed, citing two unnamed American intelligence
officials.

US intelligence officials believe with "a high level of

confidence" that Putin became involved in hacking during
the American election campaign as part of a “vendetta”
against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, NBC News
reported on Wednesday.

The anonymous officials, purportedly having direct access

to the information, told the news network that Putin
personally instructed how material hacked from US Defeated US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
Democratic lawmakers was leaked and otherwise used. speaks during a portrait unveiling ceremony for outgoing Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), on Capitol Hill December 8,
2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)
The officials argued that the Russian president was not
only seeking a "vendetta" against Clinton but also wanted
to expose massive corruption in American politics and to Trump challenged whether the CIA was behind the reports
that indicated Moscow had sought to boost his prospects in
the election.
"split off key American allies by creating the
image that [other countries] couldn't
depend on the US to be a credible global
leader anymore.”

In 2011, Clinton – then US secretary of state – publicly

challenged the integrity of the Russian parliamentary
elections, and reportedly attempted to incite street protests
against the government of Putin. The American officials
claimed that the Russian leader has never forgiven Clinton
over these anti-Russian moves.

Last week, The Washington Post reported a “secret CIA
assessment” that Russia intervened in the November 8
election to help Republican presidential nominee Donald
Trump win the White House.
271
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies during a
hearing before the House Intelligence Committee on November 17,
2016. (Photo by AFP)
Meanwhile, the office overseeing all 17 US spy agencies
has not embraced the CIA assessment that Russia
intervened in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump not endorsed the CIA’s findings because of a lack of
win the race. conclusive evidence that Russia carried out cyber attacks
to boost Trump’s chances against Clinton.
According to a Reuters report published on Tuesday, the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has
.

272
 14 Signs Of Plot To Use Russia As Excuse To Steal The
Presidency From Trump December 19th Or January 6th
Posted by Michael Snyder
Date: December 15, 2016
Donald Trump could have the election legally stolen from
him on either December 19th when the Electoral College
casts their votes or on January 6th when a joint session of
Congress gathers to count those votes. The establishment
is in full-blown panic mode at this point, and they seem to
have settled on “Russian interference in the election” as
the angle that they plan to use to try to deny Trump the
presidency. As you will see below, there is an all-out
effort to try to persuade members of the Electoral College
that are supposed to be committed to Donald Trump to cast
their votes for someone else instead. And if that doesn’t
work, the groundwork is being laid for the Electoral
College votes to potentially be invalidated when a joint
session of Congress meets to count those votes on January
6th. I will explain how that would work later on in this
article, but first let’s take a look at 14 signs that indicate
that there is a plot to use Russia as an excuse to steal the
presidency from Donald Trump…
#1 A group of 10 presidential electors has sent a
letter to National Intelligence Director James Clapper
asking to be briefed on Russian efforts to interfere in
the election in November. This group is being led by
Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Christine.
#2 The Clinton campaign is publicly supporting the
effort to arrange for the members of the Electoral
College to be given an “intelligence briefing” on
Russian interference in the election before they cast
their votes.
#3 White House spokesman Josh Earnest claims
that Donald Trump “called on Russia to hack his
opponent” and that Trump “benefited from malicious
Russian cyberactivity”.
273
#4 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has
announced that he supports an investigation into
“Russian election interference”.
#5 On Sunday, U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer, Jack
Reed, John McCain and Lindsey Graham announced
that they very much desire to see an investigation
into Russian interference in the election.
#6 U.S. Representative David Cicilline is urging
electors to consider the “extent that foreign
interference in the United States presidential
elections may have influenced the final result” before
they cast their votes.
#7 U.S. Representative Jim Himes is calling Donald
Trump “a danger to the republic” and is publicly
encouraging members of the Electoral College to
vote for someone other than Donald Trump on
December 19th. I don’t recall any member of
Congress ever suggesting members of the Electoral
College do such a thing in any other election.
#8 Time Magazine is openly lobbying for members of
the Electoral College to vote for someone other than
Donald Trump on December 19th.
#9 The former acting director of the CIA has boldly
proclaimed that Russian attempts to alter the
outcome of the election in November were “the
political equivalent of 9/11″.
#10 Former CIA agent Bob Baer recently went on
CNN and publicly called for a new election if it can be
shown that the first election was not legitimate due to
Russian interference.
#11 Former CIA operative and erstwhile presidential
candidate Evan McMullin says that Donald Trump is
“not a loyal American” because his views are not
anti-Russian enough.
#12 The Huffington Post is touting a 1995 federal
court ruling as a precedent that could be used to take
the presidency from Donald Trump and hand it to
Hillary Clinton if a court finds that Russian
interference altered the outcome of the election.
 #13 Hillary Clinton’s Communications Director
Jennifer Palmieri is now claiming that a “foreign
state” tried to hack her Gmail account just days
before the election.
#14 Barack Obama has ordered the intelligence
community to gather all of the evidence that it can
find of Russian interference in the election and to
deliver that evidence to him before he leaves office.
Most Trump supporters do not realize how very serious
this is. The establishment absolutely hates Trump and
wants to find a way to keep him from taking office. Now
that they have gained traction with this “Russian hacking”
angle, they plan to push this as hard as they can. An article
that was just posted by Time Magazine explained why this
issue could potentially cause some members of the
Electoral College to change their votes…
And still further, we now learn that the Russians played a
significant role in manipulating information available to
the American people in a concerted effort to bring about
the election of Trump. Even if this was not Trump’s doing,
is it not the duty of the members of the Electoral College
to consider whether the 2016 presidential election was
undermined by a foreign power? And mustn’t it matter that
the foreign power did so in order to bring about the
election of a particular candidate? As Alexander Hamilton
made clear, this was, one of the chief concerns of the
Framers. As Hamilton explained in The Federalist Papers,
a primary reason for the Electoral College was the need to
protect our nation against
“the desire of foreign powers to gain an
improper ascendant in our councils . . . by
raising a creature of their own to the chief
magistracy of the Union.”
Of course this is completely and utterly ridiculous, but this
is the kind of mental gymnastics that they are going
through right now. They want to feel justified in denying
Donald Trump the presidency, and so they are going to
make this “Russian interference in the election” into the
biggest issue that they possibly can.
Which is ironic, because as Paul Joseph Watson has
pointed out, foreigners have been influencing our elections
and we have been influencing foreign elections for many,
many years…
Isn’t it funny how all you democrats who cry over foreign
influence had no objection whatsoever to Saudi Arabia
bankrolling Hillary’s campaign. You had no problem
taking all that George Soros money, did you? You had no
problem with the Obama State Department overthrowing
the government of Ukraine. You had no problem with
Obama interfering in the U.K.’s referendum on leaving the
EU.
274
But ultimately this is not about Russian interference in our
election.
Rather, this is all about the elite doing whatever is
necessary to stop Donald Trump. The elite are going to
fight against him every step of the way, and they are never,
ever going to give up. This is a point that I made during an
interview with Alex Jones on Monday…
The next key date that we need to be watching for is
December 19th.
On Monday, members of the Electoral College will gather
in Washington D.C. and in all 50 state capitols to cast their
votes. We know that at least one Republican elector that is
supposed to be pledged to Trump will not be voting for
him, and that elector claims that there are others that also
will not be voting for Trump.
If 37 Republican electors can be persuaded to cast their
votes for someone other than Trump, that would throw the
election into the House of Representatives, and it is
unclear what the House would do in that scenario.
If Trump is not stopped at the Electoral College, there is
also the possibility that he could be derailed when a joint
session of Congress gathers to count the Electoral votes on
January 6th.
As I discussed yesterday, all it takes to force a vote on the
validity of Electoral College votes is an objection in
writing that is signed by at least one member of the House
and one member of the Senate. As the official House.gov
website explains, if both the House and the Senate vote to
approve the objection, the votes covered by the objection
are not counted…
Since 1887, 3 U.S.C. 15 sets the method for objections to
electoral votes. During the Joint Session, Members of
Congress may object to individual electoral votes or to
state returns as a whole. An objection must be declared in
writing and signed by at least one Representative and one
Senator. In the case of an objection, the Joint Session
recesses and each chamber considers the objection
separately in a session which cannot last more than two
hours with each Member speaking for no more than five
minutes. After each house votes on whether or not to
accept the objection, the Joint Session reconvenes and both
chambers disclose their decisions. If they agree to the
objection, the votes in question are not counted. If either
chamber does not agree with the objection, the votes are
counted.
In both the Senate and the House, there are anti-Trump
Republicans that would absolutely cherish the opportunity
to deny him the presidency.
.
275
I don’t know if it will happen, but this Russian interference
issue is the kind of thing that could be used to justify
taking this kind of action.
Of course if the election was stolen from Donald Trump
that would likely throw the entire nation into a state of
chaos, but I think that at this point the elite would be
willing to risk just about anything to keep Donald Trump
out of the White House.
 Media Reporting On Hacked DNC Emails Acted As ‘Arms
Of Russian Intelligence’ – White House
Published Time: 15 Dec, 2016 09:25
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest © Jonathan Ernst /
Reuters
White House press secretary Josh Earnest has accused
media outlets which reported on the contents of the hacked
DNC emails as being “arms of Russian intelligence,” once
again accusing Moscow of being behind the cyberattack.
The statement was made during the White House press
briefing on Wednesday, in response to New York Times
reporter Gardiner Harris, who, siding with the official
White House rhetoric, stated that
“from the first days, investigators knew it
had Russian ties.”
Harris then asked why it took until October for
Washington to announce it believed the hack was carried
out by Russia, when the cyberattack was confirmed in
April.
“That delay covered most of the
presidential election, causing months of
coverage of the leaks that were not
properly informed by a formal government
statement that this was an act of foreign
espionage,” he said.
“Wasn't that a mistake to take so long?”
Harris asked.
Earnest had a lengthy response to that question, stating that
the US intelligence community wanted to have “high
confidence” that the Russians were behind the hack before
announcing it, and said it wanted to be “as specific as
possible in putting forward that assessment.”
276
The press secretary went on to agree with a Wednesday
New York Times article which stated that
“every major publication, including the
Times, published multiple stories citing the
DNC and Podesta emails posted by
WikiLeaks, becoming a de facto instrument
of Russian intelligence.”
Continuing his response to Harris, Earnest said
“...There's no denying that those materials
[emails] were stolen property... there was
no denial on the part of the US government
that somehow the DNC had not been
hacked, so even as news organizations
were reporting on this information, they
were reporting on information that they
knew had been stolen and leaked...”
“...Those are editorial decisions that are
made by independent news organizations.
But even the excellent report that was
included in your newspaper today about
this incident makes clear that news
organizations in the united states
essentially became the arms of Russian
intelligence,” Earnest said.
However, author and journalist Chris Hedges, who worked
for the New York Times for 15 years, told RT that the
White House's approach is
“clearly a form of red-baiting.”
“It is a form of intimidation. It is a way to
essentially paint elements of the press,
including the mainstream press, as
essentially complicit in treasonous activity.
It's quite disturbing,” he said.
Hedges went on to state that publishing such information is
simply
“part of the game.”
“The question is not whether the
information was leaked, the question is
whether for instance the Podesta emails
are authentic or not. And if they're
 authentic, you publish them. That's how it
works...” he said.
Hedges stressed that there is
“no conclusive evidence that Russia was
behind the leaks, but even if they were, the
US government does this all the time...
“...I was given all sorts of information by the
US government to tarnish and in some
cases totally discredit figures or regimes
that they wanted discredited.”
Despite consistent claims by the US government that
Russia was behind the hack, not everyone is convinced
that is the case.
Earlier this week, former US Ambassador
to the UN John Bolton suggested the hack
.
277
could have been a false flag operation by
the Obama administration.
Russia itself has dismissed the hacking allegations, as well
as claims that it aimed to influence the US election, as
“nonsense.”
“Does anyone seriously think that Russia
can somehow influence the choice of the
American people?” Putin asked in October.
“Is America some sort of a banana
republic?”
In November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the
“whole story is from the field of myth-
making.”
 Keith Olbermann Loses It:
US Military Will Soon Be Controlled By 'Scum'
Beholden To 'Russian Scum'
By Tyler Durden
Dec 15, 2016 5:00 AM

Presented below with little comment is an epic rant, Obama: "The 1980s are now calling to
culminating in what might have been an actual on-air ask for their foreign policy back
nervous breakdown, by Keith Olbermann about the because the cold war has been over for
20 years."
"Russian coup" that is currently in
process and threatens "the end of the
United States as an independent
country."
"The nation and all of our freedoms hang
by a thread. And the military apparatus
of this country is about to be handed
over to scum who are beholden to
scum, Russian scum. As things are
today, January 20th will not be an
inauguration but rather the end of the
United States as an independent
country. It will not be a peaceful change
of power. It will be a usurpation. And the
usurper has no validity, no credibility
and no authority under the constitution.
This is a reality that will become the only
reality until this country rids itself of Donald
John Trump. He is not a President."
Given that the left is suddenly so terrified of
a "Russian Coup," we thought the following
video compilation from 2012, in which
everyone from Obama to Biden to Hillary
mocked Governor Romney for referring
to Russia as our "number one
geopolitical foe," was appropriate.
.

278
 CIA Officials REFUSE To Brief Congress On The Truth
About Russian Hacking Claims - And Are Rebuked By
GOP Congressman For 'Disgraceful' Move
 The House Intelligence Committee Had Planned A Thursday Briefing With CIA Officials About
Russian-Backed Hacking In The U.S. Election
 The CIA Declined To Provide A Briefer, Citing Its Ongoing Work On The Review President Obama
Has Requested On The Topic
 Panel Chairman Is 'Deeply Concerned' About Potential Manipulation Of Intelligence For 'Political
Purposes'
 Representative Peter King Of Long Island Called It 'Absolutely Disgraceful' That The CIA Won't
Come In, And Asked Whether There Was A 'Disinformation Campaign' Going On
 The Agency Says It Stands 'Ready To Brief' Once The Obama Review 'Is Complete'
By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor For Dailymail.Com
Published: 10:15 EST, 15 December 2016 | Updated: 12:25 EST, 15 December 2016

Members of the House Intelligence Committee are fuming information and there should be a full
that the CIA is refusing to provide an immediate briefing investigation of this.'
on Russian interference in the U.S. elections, after media
reports that the intent of hacking was to boost President- King said information the intelligence had put out publicly
elect Donald Trump's chances. and privately before the elections indicated it wasn't
entirely clear why Russia was meddling in the elections,
The panel had hoped to hold a briefing with the CIA although The Washington Post reported late last week that
Thursday, although the agency is declining to participate, the CIA has concluded the purpose was to help Trump.
prompting panel member Rep. Peter King of Long Island
to suggest U.S. intelligence could be perpetuating a
'disinformation campaign' designed to undermine Trump
as he prepares to take office.

The infighting is coming out into the open amid reports of

hardening conclusions about Russian government motives
and chain of command – with NBC reporting Wednesday
that Russian President Vladimir Putin was 'personally
involved' in the covert campaign to interfere with the
elections through hacks of the Democratic National
Committee and other political figures.

'This violates all protocols and it's almost

'Somebody has the time to leak it to the
as if people in the intelligence community
Washington Post and the New York Times,
are carrying out a disinformation campaign
but they don't have the time to come to
against the president-elect of the United
Congress,' King vented. 'It's their job to
States,' fumed King in an appearance on
come. They don't have any choice. They
'The Kelly File' on Fox News Wednesday
have to come in, especially when they have
night.
created this.'
Rep. Peter King called it 'absolutely disgraceful' that the
On the subject of a Russian campaign to help Trump, King
CIA wouldn't brief a House panel on its latest findings
said:
about Russian interference in the elections
'There was nothing at all, ever told to us, in
'It's absolutely disgraceful and if they're not
fact they said they couldn’t prove it, that
doing it, then it must be someone in the
there was an attempt to favor one
House or the Senate who's leaking false
279
 candidate over the other. [James] Clapper,
the director of national intelligence, said
that publicly on Nov. 17.'
House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes
complained about the CIA's failure to send a briefer, after
seeking a briefing by the end of the week.
'It is unacceptable that the Intelligence
Community directors would not fulfill the
House Intelligence Committee's request to
be briefed tomorrow on the cyber-attacks
that occurred during the presidential
campaign,' he said in a statement
Wednesday.
'Senior Administration Officials have
regularly provided extensive, detailed
classified and unclassified briefings to
members and staff from both parties on
Capitol Hill since this past summer and
have continued to do so after Election Day,'
according to the statement.
'Last week, the President ordered a full
Intelligence Community review of foreign
efforts to influence recent Presidential
elections – from 2008 to present,' the
statement continued. 'Once the review is
complete in the coming weeks, the
Intelligence Community stands ready to
brief Congress—and will make those
findings available to the public consistent
with protecting intelligence sources and
methods. We will not offer any comment
until the review is complete.'

Nunes has written Director of National Intelligence James

Clapper seeking clarification.

'On November 17, 2016 you told the

King vented about the intelligence community during an
appearance on 'The Kelly File' on Fox
Committee during an open hearing that the
intelligence community lacked strong
evidence connecting Russian government
Cyber-attacks and Wikileaks disclosures,'
he wrote, referencing hacked materials
posted on the leak site before the
elections.

Fox News reported there is pressure on the intelligence

community to declassify as much of its findings as
possible before Trump's January 20 inauguration.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has called for a special

investigation of Russian interference in the elections.
Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has
called for the Senate Intelligence Committee to conduct an
inquiry.

An NBC report said Russian President Vladimir Putin was

personally involved in the Russian effort to interfere with
the elections

'The Committee is deeply concerned that

intransigence in sharing intelligence with
Congress can enable the manipulation of
intelligence for political purposes.'

Asked for comment about the charges, the CIA responded

with an 'Intelligence Community Statement on Review of
Foreign Influence on U.S. Elections.'

280
 Democratic Donors Call For
Clinton Campaign Post-Mortem
The Wealthy Democrats Who Helped Pump Over $1 Billion
Into Hillary Clinton’s Losing Effort Want Answers.
By Gabriel Debenedetti
12/15/16 06:15 PM EST

analysis about what really happened, what

worked and what didn’t,” said Ken Martin,
chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-
Farmer-Labor Party and a top campaign
bundler himself. "It may take some time to
do that, but people are still just scratching
their heads."

Or, in the words of a Midwestern fundraiser who’s kept in

“There’s a lot of people expressing the feeling that the campaign had
not been run as well as it could be, but I have a different approach,”
longtime Clinton friend and donor Alan Patricof said. “There’s
always a Monday morning quarterback: She should have gone to
Wisconsin, she should have done this, she should have done that." |
AP Photo
NEW YORK — When Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine
greet the very top fundraisers and donors to their failed
campaign at New York’s Plaza Hotel on Thursday
evening, many of them will have one question in mind:
Where’s the autopsy?
touch with fellow donors,
“A lot of people are saying, ‘I’m not putting
another fucking dime in until someone tells
me what just happened.’”
Donors recognize that part of the problem is the current
fragile state of the party: With the race for its chairmanship
raging, the Democratic National Committee has yet to
announce any plans for a full post-mortem of its own in the
style of Republicans’ 2012 Growth and Opportunity
Project, causing some party officials to worry that they
may not see one at all — at least until a new chair takes
over in the spring.

The call for a deep and detailed accounting of how Clinton And while individual Democratic operatives have privately
lost a race that she and her donors were absolutely certain dug into what they think went wrong, there have been no
she’d win didn’t begin immediately after the election — obvious moves from central members of the Clinton team
there was too much shock over her defeat by Donald to publish a full accounting.
Trump, and overwhelming grief. Her initial conference call
with top backers, which came just days after the outcome,
The frustration over the lack of an autopsy report isn’t
focused primarily on FBI Director Jim Comey’s late
universal, noted longtime Clinton friend and donor Alan
campaign-season intervention.
Patricof.
But in the weeks since, the wealthy Democrats who helped
“There’s a lot of people expressing the
pump over $1 billion into Clinton’s losing effort have been
feeling that the campaign had not been run
urging their local finance staffers, state party officials, and
as well as it could be, but I have a different
campaign aides to provide a more thorough explanation of
approach,” he said. “There’s always a
what went wrong. With no dispassionate, centralized
Monday morning quarterback: She should
analysis of how Clinton failed so spectacularly, they insist,
have gone to Wisconsin, she should have
how can they be expected to keep contributing to the
done this, she should have done that."
party?
But without a framework for holding anyone accountable,
“A lot of the bundlers and donors still are in
increasingly annoyed party money men and women have
shock and disbelief by what happened.
been left to chatter among themselves about the underlying
They’re looking for some introspection and
281
causes of the party’s defeat and about how to move
forward. Some have gone as far as to ignore calls from
former Clinton finance officials seeking to thank them,
while others muse about leaving politics altogether. A
handful of the party’s top donors have even turned to
considering direct involvement: Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker and
Florida’s John Morgan are considering gubernatorial runs
of their own, as is California’s Tom Steyer, who’s been
keeping his name in the news by cranking out a steady
stream of furious news releases about Trump’s Cabinet
nominations.
“Everybody’s still frankly stunned, and in
the back of their minds they think they’re
going to wake up tomorrow morning and all
of this never happened, including me,” said
Patricof. “People are all asking the question
of what’s next, who’s next in the
Democratic Party leadership, who are the
up-and-coming people ahead of 2020. But
at this point, it’s [just] a lot of questions."
“Half the group is in a mourning stage,”
added another of the party’s highest-level
bundlers over the past three cycles. “The
other half is like, ‘OK, it sucks. It’s bad.
Now let’s gear up."
Absent a single campaign infrastructure those donors can
use to do that, a handful of Democrats have looked to step
in and provide a centralized outlet for donor planning. One
is Clinton ally David Brock, who is planning a retreat for
top party finance players in Aventura, Florida, over the
Thursday-to-Saturday of Trump’s inauguration week.
The weekend is being billed as
“THE meeting for getting together plans to
resist Trump,” according to an email
invitation sent by veteran Clinton strategist
.
282
James Carville to high-level donors and
obtained by POLITICO.
Among the gathering’s planned sessions:
“Learning from 2016: Strategy, Policy, and
Building a lasting winning Coalition,”
“Campaign Tactics of the future: Polling,
Social Media, and Targeting,”
“The New Face of the Right,”
“Holding Trump Accountable,” and
“Ethics Watchdog on Steroids."
Meanwhile, as a handful of Clinton’s regional finance
staffers have started signing onto other candidates’
political efforts, her Southwest finance director Stephanie
Daily recently circulated an email seeking to keep that
local group of donors together to meet periodically — just
days after Kaine stopped through California for a series of
at least five small fundraiser meetings billed as “thank
you” events.
Still, five weeks after Democrats’ shock, donors are still
slow to agree to fund any one organization or blaze any
one path ahead.
“Most people are keeping their powder dry.
It’s a bad strategy. It is classic Democrat to
go into a fight, but pull back or say they’re
never going to do politics again,” added
another frustrated top-tier fundraiser, noting
the lack of attention paid to this month’s
Louisiana Senate runoff.
"All the Republican donors I know are
organizing campaigns and groups and
setting stuff up."
 John Podesta: Something Is
Deeply Broken At The FBI
By John Podesta
December 15 At 7:55 PM

This trip was part of what FBI Director James B. Comey

described as a “painstaking” investigation of Clinton’s
emails, “requiring thousands of hours of effort” from
dozens of agents who conducted at least 80 interviews and
reviewed thousands of pages of documents. Of course, as
Comey himself concluded, in the end, there was no case; it
was not even a close call.

Comparing the FBI’s massive response to the overblown

email scandal with the seemingly lackadaisical response to
the very real Russian plot to subvert a national election
shows that something is deeply broken at the FBI.

John Podesta was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The more we learn about the Russian plot to sabotage

Hillary Clinton’s campaign and elect Donald Trump, and
the failure of the FBI to adequately respond, the more
shocking it gets. The former acting director of the CIA has
called the Russian cyberattack “the political equivalent of
9/11.” Just as after the real 9/11, we need a robust,
independent investigation into what went wrong inside the
government and how to better protect our country in the
future.

As the former chair of the Clinton campaign and a direct

target of Russian hacking, I understand just how serious
this is. So I was surprised to read in the New York Times
that when the FBI discovered the Russian attack in
September 2015, it failed to send even a single agent to
warn senior Democratic National Committee officials.
Instead, messages were left with the DNC IT “help desk.”
As a former head of the FBI cyber division told the Times,
this is a baffling decision:
“We are not talking about an office that is in
the middle of the woods of Montana.”
[Vladimir Putin wants a new world order. Why would
Donald Trump help him?]
What takes this from baffling to downright infuriating is
that at nearly the exact same time that no one at the FBI
could be bothered to drive 10 minutes to raise the alarm at
DNC headquarters, two agents accompanied by attorneys
from the Justice Department were in Denver visiting a tech
firm that had helped maintain Clinton’s email server.
Comey justified his handling of the email case by citing
“intense public interest.” He felt so strongly that he broke
long-established precedent and disregarded strong
guidance from the Justice Department with his infamous
letter just 11 days before the election. Yet he refused to
join the rest of the intelligence community in a statement
about the Russian cyberattack because he reportedly didn’t
want to appear “political.” And both before and after the
election, the FBI has refused to say whether it is
investigating Trump’s ties to Russia.
There are now reports that Vladimir Putin personally
directed the covert campaign to elect Trump. So are teams
of FBI agents busy looking into the reported meeting in
Moscow this summer between Carter Page, a Trump
foreign policy adviser, and the Putin aide in charge of
Russian intelligence on the U.S. election? What about
evidence that Roger Stone was in contact with WikiLeaks
and knew in advance that my hacked emails were about to
be leaked? Are thousands of FBI person-hours being
devoted to uncovering Trump’s tangled web of debts and

283
business deals with foreign entities in Russia and
elsewhere?
Meanwhile, House Republicans who had an insatiable
appetite for investigating Clinton have been resistant to
probing deeply into Russia’s efforts to swing the election
to Trump. The media, by gleefully publishing the gossipy
fruits of Russian hacks, became what the Times itself calls
“a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence.”
But the FBI’s role is particularly troubling because of its
power and responsibility — and because this is part of a
trend. The Justice Department’s Inspector General issued a
damning report this summer about the FBI’s failure to
prioritize cyberthreats more broadly.
The election is over and the damage is done, but the threat from Russia
and other potential aggressors remains urgent and demands a serious
and sustained response.
.
284
First, the Obama administration should quickly declassify
as much as possible concerning what is known about the
Russian hack, as requested by seven Democratic members
of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
[We need an independent, public investigation of the
Trump-Russia scandal. Now.]
Second, the administration should brief members of the
electoral college on the extent and manner of Russia’s
interference in our election before they vote on Dec. 19, as
requested by a bipartisan group of electors.
Third, Congress should authorize a far-reaching, bipartisan
independent investigation modeled on the 9/11
Commission. The public deserves to know exactly what
happened, why and what can be done to prevent future
attacks. Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Elijah E.
Cummings (D-Md.) have introduced legislation to
authorize such an investigation.
Finally, Congress should more vigorously exercise its
oversight to determine why the FBI responded
overzealously in the Clinton case and insufficiently in the
Russian case. The FBI should also clarify whether there is
an ongoing investigation into Trump, his associates and
their ties to Russia. If ever there were a case of “intense
public interest,” this is it. What’s broken in the FBI must
be fixed and quickly.
 Donald Trump Will Ruthlessly
Decimate The CIA For Turning On Him
NBC And CIA Have Exceeded All Bounds In Their Attacks On Donald
Trump And The Americans Who Freely Elected Him Their President.
They Clearly Have No Idea Who They Are Dealing With
Ricky Twisdale
Thu, Dec 15, 2016
On Wednesday night, NBC released a report, in collusion
with a myriad of anonymous sources reputed to be inside
the CIA and other intelligence agencies, claiming that
Vladimir Putin personally directed the destruction of
Hillary Clinton via hacking hers and the DNC's servers
before the US presidential election.
Via NBC:
U.S. intelligence officials now believe with "a high
level of confidence" that Russian President
Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the
covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S.
presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence
officials told NBC News.
Two senior officials with direct access to the information
say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed
how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and
otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic
sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.
The report does not cite any source by name for its
information, other than incorrigible moron Micheal
McFaul, one time US ambassador to Russia, as a
cheerleader for the report.
I must stress, this is an incredible direct accusation against
the President of Russia, which has the potential to provoke
both international and domestic crises which could quickly
spiral out of control. This is far, far beyond reckless.
Rather than keeping their heads down for the next four
years, even trying to exercise some subtle influence on the
president's decisions, these infantile flunkies within the
CIA and mass media have thrown themselves into the open
in this last ditch desperate attack which definitively
condemns them to the president-elect's coming wrath.
They apparently have no idea that they have just kicked
open a hornets' nest.
285
Donald J. Trump does not take prisoners. He will not
forgive, or forget. And the massacre coming to halls of
Langley and to anybody and anywhere else in the
executive branch involved in this is going to beggar belief.
Trump, who was a protege of the infamously ruthless
attorney Roy Cohn, has made it very clear over the years
how he deals with his enemies. In "Think Big" he detailed
how to handle traitors:
"I always get even...I go out of my way to make
[their] life miserable."
"When somebody screws you, screw them back
in spades" and "Go for the jugular so that people
watching will not want to mess with you."
In "The Art of the Comeback" Trump wrote:
"I believe in an eye for an eye — like the Old
Testament says."
"Some of the people who forgot to lift a finger
when I needed them, when I was down, they
need my help now, and I'm screwing them
against the wall. I'm doing a number.... And I'm
having so much fun."
John F. Kennedy famously threatened to "smash the CIA
into a thousand pieces." But ultimately, the 35th president
lost his solitary battle to completely break the power of the
deep state.
Though I respect Kennedy, I believe Donald Trump is a
much more serious proposition.
Donald Trump is Michael Corleone. He will keep his
friends close, and his enemies closer (including the likes of
John Bolton). But those he doesn't keep closer, he will
ruthlessly "screw against the wall" for targeting him.
The no-nonsense Mike Pompeo, Trump's nominee for CIA Come January 20th, the reckoning begins.
director, will be the hatchet man for this merciless house
cleaning operation. Let's get ready to rumble.

286
 Facebook Is Going To Use Snopes And Other Fact-
Checkers To Combat And Bury 'Fake News'
Alex Heath
Dec. 15, 2016, 1:00 PM

one story that falsely said the Pope had endorsed Donald
Trump.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook is going to start fact-checking, labeling, and

burying fake news and hoaxes in its News Feed, the
company said Thursday.

Facebook will show this warning before someone shares a story that
has been labeled as fake.Facebook

To combat fake news, Facebook has teamed up with a

shortlist of media organizations, including Snopes and
ABC News, that are part of an international fact-checking
network led by Poynter, a nonprofit school for journalism
in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Starting as a test with a small percentage of its users in the

US, Facebook will make it easier to report news stories
that are fake or misleading. Once third-party fact-checkers
have confirmed that the story is fake, it will be labeled as
such and demoted in the News Feed.

A company representative told Business Insider that the

social network will also use other signals, like algorithms
Facebook's new label for fake news.Facebook
that detect whether a story that appears fake is going viral,
to determine if it should label the story as fake and bury it
The decision comes after Facebook received heated
in people's feeds.
criticism for its role in spreading a deluge of political
misinformation during the US presidential election, like
287
 "We've focused our efforts on the worst of the
worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers
for their own gain, and on engaging both our
community and third party organizations,"
Facebook News Feed chief Adam Mosseri said
in a company blog post on Thursday.
A team of Facebook researchers will also review website
domains and send sites that appear to be fake or spoofed
(like "washingtonpost.co") to third-party fact-checkers, a
Facebook representative said. Of the 42 news
organizations that have committed to Poynter's fact-
checking code of ethics, Facebook is starting out with the
following four: Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News, and
PolitiFact.
Cracking down on ads for fake news
Facebook users will be able to report stories they think are fake news.Facebook
The websites that Facebook determines to be fake news
organizations or spoofed domains will also not be able to
sell ads on the social network. Owners of fake-news sites
can make thousands of dollars per month through internet
ads.
Facebook has repeatedly said that it's not a media
company, but rather an open technology platform that
relies on media publishers and its users to share accurate
information.
“We do not think of ourselves as editors," Patrick
Walker, Facebook's head of media partnerships,
said during a recent journalism conference in
Dublin. "We believe it’s essential that Facebook
stay out of the business of deciding what issues
288
The Associated Press will also be a fact-checking partner.
"We are only involved to the extent that
Facebook relies on the list of signatories to our
code of principles as a starting point for the
organizations it chooses to verify," a Poynter
representative told Business Insider. "Facebook
is the only organization certifying third party fact-
checkers on its platform."
Facebook has given its four initial fact-checking partners
access to a tool that will let them label stories in the News
Feed as fake, a Facebook spokesperson said. The person
said Facebook is not paying the organizations to fact-
check.
the world should read about. That’s what editors
do.”
Politicians such as President Barack Obama and former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have recently expressed
concern about the prevalence of misinformation on social
media, with Obama calling it a "dust cloud of nonsense"
and Clinton calling it "an epidemic."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has meanwhile gone so
far as to say that it's "pretty crazy" for some to suggest that
fake news on Facebook could have swayed the election in
favor of either candidate.
But after facing significant backlash for its denial to fact-
check stories on its network, Zuckerberg now calls
Facebook a "new kind of platform" with a responsibility to
"build a space where people can be informed."
"Facebook is a new kind of platform different
from anything before it. I think of Facebook as a
technology company, but I recognize we have a
greater responsibility than just building
technology that information flows through," the
Facebook founder said in a Thursday post.
.
289
"While we don't write the news stories you read
and share, we also recognize we're more than
just a distributor of news. We're a new kind of
platform for public discourse — and that means
we have a new kind of responsibility to enable
people to have the most meaningful
conversations, and to build a space where
people can be informed."
 Shocking News: Obama’s DHS
Guilty Of Faking Russian Hacks (Video)
By Michael DePinto -Voice Of Reason
Thursday, December 15th, 2016
Everyone’s familiar with the old saying, “Where there’s
smoke, there’s normally fire,” right? Well, after all the lies,
scandals, and corruption the American people have
endured under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over the
last 8 years, I think it’s reasonably safe to say that when it
comes to Obama and Clinton, where there’s smoke, there’s
normally a raging inferno somewhere, and innocent people
are going to be very hurt.
Unless people have been paying close attention to the
internet, most Americans probably have no idea just how
much new information has been revealed in the last 24-36
hours regarding the Russian hacking story that just won’t
go away. It goes without saying that the mainstream media
(aka the “fake news”), most likely won’t report any of
what you’re about to learn, but instead they'll keep
spinning the same nonsensical narrative about the
Russian's for DAYS to come, even though there isn’t a
shred of truth to it.
Despite the fact that the "fake news" stories this past
summer about how the Russian's hacking the DNC's
email weren't true, don't think that stopped Hillary or
Obama from publicly blaming Russia non-stop. In fact,
Obama and Clinton went so overboard with the phony
rhetoric, that Putin became eventually became furious and
he deployed nuclear missiles into Kaliningrad along the
border with Poland, and aimed them directly at our allies
in Berlin.
Understand that. There were nuclear missiles pointed at
our allies over what Clinton and Obama KNEW was a
lie, but they kept antagonizing Putin anyway. “The ends
always justify the means" with liberals. It didn't matter how
many lives were at risk, so long as Hillary was on track to
win the White House… It's despicable.
290
In the following video, first I’ll review the recent
bombshell interview published in Katoikos last week
which revealed that while Julian Assange was still living in
Iceland, President Obama Sent an Entire Plane Full of FBI
Agents Over to Iceland Without Iceland’s Permission,
With the Intent of Framing Julian Assange, but somehow
the “real news” forgot to cover that. In the interview, the
former interior minister of Iceland reveals plenty of
shocking information, not the least of which is that he
kicked the FBI out of his country after catching them lying
about why they were there.
For all the talk and all the uproar coming from the
Democrats and the mainstream media about “fake news,”
people need to know what the mainstream media is
refusing to tell them. As one of the articles below details,
and as I’ll explain in the video, multiple sources have
already come forward and confirmed that it was NOT the
Russians who hacked the DNC’s emails this past summer,
but rather it was a source inside the DNC who leaked the
information.
The inside source who leaked the information to Wikileaks
is believed to have been Seth Rich, a self-described data
analyst for the Democratic National Committee, and
someone who would have had access to all the fraud going
on inside the DNC at the time, thereby making him a
liability. As it turns out, he was just one of SIX former
Clinton associates turned adversaries who wound up dead
under mysterious circumstances in only a FIVE week span
this summer.
Not only did Julian Assange hint at the fact that the DNC
emails were obtained from someone inside DNC during
several prior interviews, but Craig Murray, a former
British ambassador has also revealed as much in a recent
interview included below. Murray claims to
have personally flown to the United States, and says he
was handed both the DNC emails, and the Podesta emails
from the DNC insider.
Further demonstrating how out of control both this “fake
news” situation and the far-left have gone with it, is the
fact that thus far there is zero definitive proof that the
Russians hacked anything. At this point there is
only speculation, however as you’ll soon learn, there is
PLENTY of proof that Obama’s Department of Homeland
Security waged 10 separate cyber-attacks on Georgia’s
election system. You may recall that race was closer than
many predicted it would be, but what was DHS trying to
hack in for?
Despite numerous demands for an explanation, Georgia’s
Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, says the Obama
administration’s story keeps changing, so Kemp has
formally requested in writing that President-Elect Trump
investigate the matter upon taking office. Are you ready
for the best part now?
As if there isn’t already enough smoke to convince any
sane person that there’s a raging inferno of corruption
burning down Washington, a few days ago as part of the
2016 National Defense Authorization Act that was passed,
we’ve now learned that “fake news,” can be investigated
under the NDAA as potentially treasonous activity. This is
insane!
Your News Wire writes:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
have been caught posing as Russian agents
and hacking into U.S. government computers.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office say that
10 cyberattacks on its network were traced
back to computer belonging to the DHS.
WSBTV.com reports:
In an exclusive interview, a visibly frustrated
Secretary of State Brian Kemp confirmed the
attacks of different levels on his agency’s
network over the last 10 months. He says they
all traced back to DHS internet provider
addresses.
“We’re being told something that they think they
have it figured out, yet nobody’s really showed us
how this happened,” Kemp said. “We need to
know.”
Kemp told Channel 2’s Aaron Diamant his office’s
cybersecurity vendor discovered the additional so-called
vulnerability scans to his network’s firewall after a
291
massive mid-November cyberattack triggered an internal
investigation.
The Secretary of State’s Office manages Georgia’s
elections, and most concerning for Kemp about the newly
discovered scans is the timing.
The first one happened on Feb. 2, the day after Georgia’s
voter registration deadline. The next one took place just
days before the SEC primary. Another occurred in May,
the day before the general primary, and then two more
took place in November, the day before and the day of the
presidential election.
“It makes you wonder if somebody was trying
to prove a point,” Kemp said.
Last week, the DHS confirmed the large Nov. 15 attack
traced back to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection
internet gateway. But Kemp says the DHS’ story about its
source keeps changing.
“First it was an employee in Corpus Christi, and
now it’s a contractor in Georgia,” Kemp said.
Unsatisfied with the response he got from DHS Secretary
Jeh Johnson this week, Kemp fired off a letter
Wednesday to loop in President-elect Donald Trump.
“We just need to ask the new administration to
take a look at this and make sure that we get the
truth the people of Georgia are deserving to
know that and really demanding it,” Kemp said.
Kemp says several of those scans came around the same
time he testified before Congress about his opposition to
a federal plan to classify election systems as “critical
infrastructure,” like power plants and financial systems.
Kemp believes Georgia’s state-run election systems are
already secure and doesn’t think the feds should be
involved.
The DHS did not return Diamant’s emails seeking
comment Tuesday.
The Duran writes:
 Former British ambassador Craig Murray
confirms DNC and Podesta leaks were the
work of a Washington insider; and says he
knows identity and has met with this person.
FBI meanwhile casts doubt on CIA claim DNC
and Podesta leaks were the work of Russia.
Craig Murray, Britain’s former ambassador to Russia and a
close friend of Julian Assange,
has now confirmed that he knows the identity
of the person who leaked the DNC and
Podesta leaks to Wikileaks, and that this
person is not Russian and has no connection
to the Russian government.
On the contrary, he is a Washington insider.
Craig Murray has moreover told the Guardian that he has
actually met with this person.
Anyone wanting to know more of what Craig Murray is
saying should read his statement on his blog. Indeed it
should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the
truth of this affair.
On the subject of his personal knowledge and reputation
for truthfulness and credibility Craig Murray has this to
say
“Now both Julian Assange and I have stated
definitively the leak does not come from
Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very
obviously. Very, very few people can be said to
definitely have access to the source of the leak.
The people saying it is not Russia are those who
do have access. After access, you consider
truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a
reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not
one of the tens of thousands of documents
WikiLeaks has released has had its
authenticity successfully challenged. As for
me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth
telling.”
292
To which I would merely add what I said about Craig
Murray on 31st October 2016
“I have previously put on record my own strong
doubts that Russia is behind the DNC and
Podesta leaks. Now Craig Murray – a former
British ambassador who (unlike me) is a personal
friend of Julian Assange – has come forward to
say that he knows 100% as fact that Russia is
not behind the leaks.
Craig Murray is a man of proven integrity who as
a former senior diplomat has handled
classified intelligence material and who
therefore knows how to separate fact from
fiction. If he says he knows 100% for sure
that Russia is not responsible for the DNC
and Podesta leaks, then given the sources he
has that is good enough for me, as it should
be for all reasonable people.”
In other words those who are actually in a position to know
and whose record of truthfulness is beyond doubt confirm
that the DNC and Podesta leaks were not done by Russia.
Moreover it appears that the FBI, the organisation which
as I have repeatedly pointed out has sole competence in
this matter, is also casting doubt on the CIA’s claims of
Russian involvement in the leaks.
In light of all this the fact the CIA, the Hillary
Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Party,
certain hardline Republican Senators, and the
mainstream media, are all persisting with an
allegation that is obviously untrue, is deeply
worrying.
It shows that my concerns yesterday that the
situation in the US is beginning to acquire the
trappings of a pre-coup situation were not
exaggerated. Certainly the US has never been
in this sort of situation before.
 Putin Lashes Out At Obama:
"Show Some Proof Or Shut Up"
By Tyler Durden
Dec 16, 2016 9:09 AM
Putin has had enough of the relentless barrage of US
accusations that he, personally, "hacked the US
presidential election."
The Russian president's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said
on Friday that the US must either stop accusing Russia of
meddling in its elections or prove it. Peskov said it was
"indecent" of the United States to "groundlessly" accuse
Russia of intervention in its elections.
“You need to either stop talking about it,
or finally show some kind of proof.
Otherwise it just looks very indecent”,
Peskov told Reporters in Tokyo where Putin is meeting
with Japan PM Abe, responding to the latest accusations
that Russia was responsible for hacker attacks.
Peskov also warned that Obama's threat to "retaliate" to the
alleged Russian hack is "against both American and
international law", hinting at open-ended escalation should
Obama take the podium today at 2:15pm to officially
launch cyberwar against Russia.
Previously, on Thursday, Peskov told the
AP the report was "laughable nonsense",
while Russian foreign ministry spox Maria
Zakharova accused "Western media" of
being a "shill" and a "mouthpiece of various
power groups", and added that "it's not the
general public who's being manipulated,"
Zakharova said. "the general public
nowadays can distinguish the truth. It's the
293
mass media that is manipulating
themselves."
Meanwhile, on Friday Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign
minister told state television network, Russia 24, he was
"dumbstruck" by the NBC report which alleges that
Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved
in an election hack.
The report cited U.S. intelligence officials that now believe
with a "high level of confidence" that Putin became
personally involved in a secret campaign to influence the
outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
"I think this is just silly, and the futility
of the attempt to convince somebody of
this is absolutely obvious," Lavrov
added, according to the news outlet.
As a reminder, last night Obama vowed retaliatory action
against Russia for its meddling in the US presidential
election last month.
"I think there is no doubt that when any
foreign government tries to impact the
integrity of our elections that we need to
take action and we will at a time and place
of our own choosing," Obama told National
Public Radio.
US intelligence agencies in October pinned blame on
Russia for election-related hacking. At the time, the White
House vowed a "proportional response" to the
cyberactivity, though declined to preview what that
response might entail. Meanwhile, both President-elect
Donald Trump, the FBI, and the ODNI have dismissed the
CIA's intelligence community's assessment, for the same
reason Putin finally lashed out at Obama:
There is no proof.
That, however, has never stopped the US from escalating a
geopolitical conflict to the point of war, or beyond, so pay
close attention to what Obama says this afternoon.
According to an NBC report, a team of
analysts at Eurasia Group said in a note on
 Friday that they believe the outgoing "Obama should submit any Putin
administration is likely to take action documents to WikiLeaks to be
which could result in a significant authenticated to our standards if he wants
barrier for Trump's team once he takes them to be seen as credible."
office in January.
"It is unlikely that U.S. intelligence reports
will change Trump's intention to initiate a
rapprochement with Moscow, but the
congressional response following its
own investigations could obstruct the
new administration's effort," Eurasia
Group analysts added.

At the same time, Wikileaks offered its "validation"

services, tweeting that We doubt Obama would take the whistleblower
organization on its offer, even if he did have any Putin
documents to authenticate.
.

294
 The 5 Stages Of Losing An
Election To Donald Trump
Good Grief
David Harsanyi
December 16, 2016
Though many things have changed in American political
life over the past couple of years, one aspect remains a
comforting constant: Democrats never lose an election.
Not really. Not fairly.
Elections can be stolen. Americans can be misled. Big Oil
or big business can buy elections, because these
institutions possess the preternatural ability to control
human actions. Whatever the case, something fishy and
nefarious must also be going on, because there's absolutely
no way voters could reject Democrats.
From the night of November 8 onward, the political
coverage has been dominated by a series of conspiracies to
explain the election of Donald Trump. Never acceptance.
Always denial.
FBI Director James Comey: Weeks after the election,
conventional wisdom had coalesced around the idea that
his letter informing Congress that the bureau had found
new evidence relating to the criminal investigation of
Hillary Clinton had irreversibly changed the election. After
hammering Trump with one accusation after the next—
some of them legitimate and some of them completely
unproven—Democrats seemed to believe their candidate
should be immune from news of her own doing. But it was
Clinton who used a secret email server to circumvent
transparency. She was the one who sent unsecured
classified documents. She was the one who attempted to
destroy the evidence. She was the one who lied to the
American people. And she was nominated by Democrats
who never seriously entertained any another candidate.
Voting machines: Conspiracy theories over rigged
elections are nothing new. We saw them in 2000 and 2004.
Trump had also peddled the rigged-election conspiracy
before Election Day. I remember this because I was told
that the Republican nominee was irreparably undermining
public trust in our institutions. By devoting so much time
to stories that aren't newsworthy, our media does the same.
One instance is giving widespread attention to partisan
"experts" who claim that Clinton "may have been denied"
as many as 30,000 votes in Wisconsin.
The Constitution gets it wrong again: We are now in the
midst of widespread anguish over the imaginary popular
295
vote. Not only is the system we've used to elect presidents
since the founding of the republic "unfair" and
"undemocratic," critics say, but like anything else
progressives dislike these days, it's also tool of white
supremacy and sexism. One could argue that Democrats
oppose dispersing political power and states' rights and one
of the core ideas of the Founding Fathers, but that would
be giving them far too much credit. They only seem to
oppose those things when they're losing elections.
Fake news: After some ginned-up alarm over the
proliferation of "fake news," Clinton recently joined the
chorus by claiming it is "an epidemic" in America. 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, passing a Fairness
Doctrine or handing control of the internet to the
government. It's difficult to dispute that voters are often
susceptible to believing stories that reinforce their
preexisting views about the world. But no one is innocent.
Surveys say that at one point, more than half of Democrats
believed that President George W. Bush knew about 9/11
before it happened. But since most of the media treated
Trump as if he had absolutely no chance of winning the
election, the unfathomable turn of events has to be
explained by something.
The Russians are coming: Now, we're shifting into our
Russia Panic phase. The CIA claims that the Russians
attempted to interfere in the election to assist Trump. This
seems wholly plausible, considering Trump's favorable
view of Russia President Vladimir Putin, and it should be
fully investigated. There's still debate among U.S.
intelligence services about the Russian hacks, but that
hasn't stopped some Democrats from questioning the
patriotism of those who refuse to accept the hysterical
version of events. Well, unless the Russians transformed
Hillary Clinton into an unlikable, ideologically malleable,
corrupt, inveterate fabricator over the past 30 years, the
claims that the Russians stole an election should, like all
other panics this season, be received with a giant dose of
skepticism.
Of course, there will always be overarching theories about
why Republicans win elections—like assuming half the
country is racist. The left is so enveloped by its identity Democrats have been demanding that I panic over every
politics that it may not understand that the other half of the Cabinet pick, every statement and every event. It's not
country is sick of it. While I'm no fan of Trump, normal.

296
 The Conspiracy to Shut Down Truth,
Donald Trump, and The American People
Propornot Would Have Amounted To Nothing Except
For The Washington Post
By Paul Craig Roberts
December 16, 2016

responsible entity is behind the site, which has libeled 200

other websites, or if it is, it is too ashamed of what it is
doing to be associated with it publicly.

Consider the expertise and money required to shield the

identity of an organization, whether tax avoidance or
website. This is not something that just anyone can do.
This type of Klingon cloaking requires real money or the
CIA.

As long as it pretends to be a newspaper, the

Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post , serving the Neocon Warmongers Washington Post is subject to journalistic ethics. But
There is circumstantial evidence that the PropOrNot story by Craig Timberg violated
the Washington Post, the New York journalistic ethics. Unsupported accusations were leveled
Times, and the rest of the presstitute against 200 websites, a McCarthyism record.
media are part of a conspiracy with the
oligarchs, the military/security complex,
the Hillary Democrats, and neoconized
Republicans to shut down the dissident
Internet alternative media and to deny
Donald Trump the presidency.

Craig Timberg. National technology reporter, The Washington Post .

How did a story, which would have been instantly quashed

by editors in my day as a Wall Street Journal editor get
past Timberg’s editor?

US Democratic presidetial candidate Hillary Clinton leaves with

Campaign Manager John Podesta (L) after a meeting with Senate
That is the question.
Democrats on Capitol Hill July 14, 2016 in Washington, DC. / AFP /
Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN Here we have the Post committing libel against 200
SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
websites, all of whom can sue for damages. There go
Bezos’ billions.
Consider the brand new website PropOrNot and its fake
news list of 200 Internet Russian agents. PropOrNot is a
Would a Washington Post editor of any intelligence have
website hidden behind multiple screens as would be an
published such a libel-inviting story unless the owner,
offshore tax avoidance scheme. In other words, no known,
Bezos, gave the OK or the order?
297
How can the Washington Post feel secure in an act of of evidence or any attribution to the CIA officials allegedly
libel? reporting the story? What kind of journalism is this?

Is it because Bezos is protected by his reported

membership on a US government committee, along with
the Google CEO, that is believed to conspire against the
privacy of the American people?

PropOrNot would have amounted to

nothing except for the Washington Post.
Craig Timberg’s story was written as if
PropOrNot was the real goods. Yet,
Timberg does not reveal who is behind
PropOrNot.

Add to this picture the hyping by the Washington Post,
New York Times, and TV presstitutes of the unattributed
CIA charge that Russia hacked the Hillary emails and used
them to elect Trump with the help of Russian agent
websites. This fake news charge is challenged by
Wikileaks and by a number of experts who asked why
unattributed allegations are accepted in the place of
evidence, and the charge is not supported by the FBI.
How do we know that the alleged
unattributed CIA charges are actually
made by the CIA or whether there is
consensus within the agency?
The conspiracy against truth and against president-elect
Trump is real. The oligarchs and their presstitutes, rogue
elements of the CIA and the neocon establishment hope to
drag alternative media before McCarthyite congressional
hearings run by the American hegemonists who want
power over the world.
Whatever you think of Trump, clearly the oligarchs who
rule us fear him.
The oligarchs are trying to keep Trump out of the
presidency, and they are trying to associate truthful
reporting with foreign influence.

How can the presstitutes, such as the NYT and Who wins this war determines the fate of America.
Washington Post give us all these claims without a shred
.

298
 Kremlin Slams 'Extremely Scurrilous'
US Hacking Accusations
AFP
December 16, 2016
Russian President Vladimir Putin during an official visit to Tokyo on
December 16, 2016 (AFP Photo/Tomohiro Ohsumi)
Tokyo (AFP) - The Kremlin on Friday slammed
Washington for pointing the finger at President Vladimir
Putin over cyber attacks targeting the US election, after
Barack Obama pledged to retaliate against Russian
hacking.
"At this point they need to either stop
talking about this or finally present some
sort of proof. Otherwise this looks
extremely scurrilous," Putin's spokesman
Dmitry Peskov told journalists during a
visit to Japan.
Obama on Thursday warned that the United States would
take action against Moscow after the White House
accused Putin of direct involvement in cyber attacks
designed to influence the US election.
.
299
"I think there is no doubt that when any
foreign government tries to impact the
integrity of our elections that we need to
take action," Obama told NPR radio.
"And we will, at a time and place of our
own choosing."
The outgoing US president's remarks dramatically upped
the stakes in a dispute between the world's leading
nuclear powers over interference that may have swayed
last month's tight election in which Republican billionaire
Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Obama's threat came after the White House ratcheted up
allegations over the Russian hacking by personally tying
Kremlin strongman Putin to the attacks.
"I don't think things happen in the Russian
government of this consequence without
Vladimir Putin knowing about it," one of
his top advisers, Ben Rhodes, said earlier
Thursday.
Pointing the finger at the Russian president over
meddling in the election also puts the White House on a
collision course with Trump, who has become
increasingly isolated in questioning Russian involvement
in hacks of Democratic Party emails that appeared to
slow the momentum of Clinton's campaign.
Obama is expected to be peppered with questions about
the dispute and any subsequent action when he holds a
news conference Friday at 2:15 pm (1915 GMT) before
leaving for a vacation in Hawaii.
 Hillary Clinton’s Entire Campaign Was Run On ‘Fake
News:’ Staged Photo Ops, Rigged Debates, Puppet
Journalists And Scripted Lines
By: Mary Wilder
Date: December 16, 2016
Currently, “fake news” is the buzz word of the Regressive
Left, and it’s something that we cannot seem to avoid
hearing about. Ever since Hillary Clinton lost the
presidential election, those on the Left have done
everything in their power to explain why. Instead of
accepting the fact that Clinton was an unlikable candidate
that ran an uninspiring campaign, they have blamed
everyone from third-party voters to the Russians for the
loss.
Recently, though, “fake news” began to receive the brunt
of the blame, which is hilarious when you consider that
Hillary Clinton utilized actual fake news during her entire
campaign.
During a speech at Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s
portrait unveiling last week, Hillary Clinton stated,
“It’s now clear that so-called fake news can
have real world consequences. This isn’t
about politics or partisanship. Lives are at
risk. Lives of ordinary people just trying to
go about their days to do their jobs,
.
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contribute to their communities. It’s a
danger that must be addressed and
addressed quickly.” Because, of course,
she did.
It has become common for people on the Left to blame
everyone but themselves for their gross shortcomings, and
“fake news” is the flavor of the week in that regard.
Unfortunately for them, they will eventually have to
acknowledge that the ones spreading fake news are those
in the mainstream media.
History will prove that the alternative
media is spreading actual facts, while
the likes of CNN and MSNBC are giving
fluffy, watered-down versions of the
truth – if they even tell the truth at all.
The real danger comes from the people who are considered
reputable spreading complete and utter lies in order to
protect the reputations of the Leftists who are funding their
operations. Since the average American once believed
reporters on CNN, there is still a history of them being
honest and trustworthy. That’s incredibly unfortunate, but
there is a way to prevent this from happening in the future.
We have to embrace alternative media
outlets and fight alongside them during
their battle for truth. Instead of allowing the
Leftists to get away with calling such truth
seekers liars and thieves, we have to stand
up for them as they reveal the facts about
those holding positions of power. The
establishment has been in control for far
too long. We now have the opportunity to
change that – and we cannot let it go to
waste.
 Left-Wing Election Denialists Now Building Forceful
Narrative To Attempt To Deny Trump
The White House Before Jan. 20
Melissa Dykes
Date: December 16, 2016
It really does seem like the system is going to play up this
“Russian interference” line over the next week heading up
to when the electoral college casts its vote… one member
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of which has publicly come out to say he will not be voting
for Trump and there are others who are following his lead.
Already we’ve seen the House quickly but oh-so-quietly
pass a bill on Russian propaganda. Next the CIA released
what many including the FBI claim is a “fuzzy” report that
Russia meddled in our election.
Of all the people to bang this drum, Hillary and her camp
have been banging it the loudest. Hillary, if you will recall,
was blaming Russia for the Wikileaks emails during the
third debate, claiming something like 17 intelligence
agencies had proof Russia was behind it — an assertion
Wikileaks responded that she simply made up.
She made that claim during the last debate in front of a
record American audience of millions… And it wasn’t true
(never mind the fact that’s she’s still trying to deflect
attention away from what’s IN the Wikileaks emails, which
is enough damning stuff for most people to conclude she
should not be president).
Now, The New York Times is reporting today that Hillary’s
camp is not just asking but demanding all “intel” on
Russia’s election meddling be declassified and made
public.
John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, broke
the silence on her behalf, demanding the declassification of
all information about Russia’s meddling as well as an
explanation from the Obama administration of what it
knew and when it knew it.
“We now know that the C.I.A. has
determined Russia’s interference in our
elections was for the purpose of electing
Donald Trump,” Mr. Podesta wrote in a
statement. “This should distress every
American. Never before in the history of
our republic have we seen such an effort to
undermine the bedrock of our democracy.”
“This is not a partisan issue, and we are
glad to see bipartisan support in the
Congress for an investigation into Russia’s
role,” he continued. “We believe that the
administration owes it to the American
people to explain what it knows regarding
the extent and manner of Russia’s
interference and this be done as soon as
possible. To that end, we also support the
request from members of the Senate
Intelligence Committee to declassify
information around Russia’s roles in the
302
election and to make this data available to
the public.”
This is assuming there even is any real intel on that to
begin with… unless the Obama Administration is going to
go with the narrative that alternative media sites actually
reporting on the Wikileaks’ Podesta emails (unlike the
mainstream establishment media who largely ignored
them) are “Russian Propaganda,” a claim that WAPO made
and then had to retract after a shady, anonymous website
accused the majority of the alternative media including this
website of being Russian propagandists a few weeks ago.
Josh Earnest came back with:
Thrown on the defensive, Josh Earnest, the
White House press secretary, said on
Monday that the White House did not
announce a major probe of Russia’s
interference before the election partly
because many voters would have seen
such an announcement as political
meddling.
Gee… you think? So they didn’t announce it but they were
doing it anyway?
The 2016 American presidential election could go down as
being the most “politically meddled with” election in the
history of the nation.
All of this appears to be a last ditch effort to invalidate
Trump’s win, as Michael Snyder recently reported:
“…this issue could be used to try to sway
some Electoral College votes on December
19th. We already know that one of
Trump’s electoral voters has publicly
pledged not to vote for him, and he claims
 that he has other Republican electoral
voters that plan on joining him.
But even if Trump successfully gets through the Electoral
College vote, he still has one more hurdle to get over.
On January 6th, a joint session of Congress will meet to
count the electoral votes. Most of the time this is a
formality, but this time around that may not be the case.
.
If at least one member of the House and at least one
member of the Senate submits an objection in writing,
electoral votes can potentially be invalidated.
The narrative is certainly being built up for an election
upset… Guess the only question left is, how badly does the
system want a civil war?

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 Military Plans Counter-Coup For Trump (VIDEO)
Posted By Bart Sibrel
Date: December 16, 2016
The Washington D.C. political “Establishment” really
hates Donald Trump. The question is why? The answer is
simple. He is a powerful outsider who intends to “Clean
House” of establishment corruption on Day One of his
presidency. This is precisely why the disreputably
entrenched power-elite fear Trump so much. As such, we
need to keep in mind that these dug in government
criminals will uses every means necessary at their disposal
to not get uprooted and maintain their positions of
malfeasance.
When Hillary Clinton was arrogantly overconfident that
she would easily win the presidential election, she
challenged Donald Trump to promise to peacefully accept
the Electoral College results, as she boldly said she would.
CNN, whose own Chris Cuomo admitted on the air that the
network had done everything in its power to help Hillary
Clinton get elected, said in October that the accusation that
Trump made that the election could be “hacked” in
Clinton’s favor was “ludicrous”.
After Trump’s unforeseen victory, it is Hillary Clinton
who now recants on her pledge to peaceably accept the
election results and it is CNN who flip-flops on the notion
of election hacking.
304
This would be comical if it weren’t so
sincere.
Who is the “Boogieman” who helped Trump win? You
guessed it. The “Russians”. The source? The reputable
CIA.
Here is a quote from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and
“Watergate” reporter Carl Bernstein . . .
“More than 400 ‘journalists’ (that we
know of) have secretly carried out
assignments for the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), according to documents
on file at CIA headquarters. In many
instances, CIA documents show that
‘journalists’ were contracted to perform
covert missions for the CIA with the
consent of the managers of America’s
leading ‘news’ organizations. Among
the executives (that we know of) who
lent their cooperation to the CIA, were
the heads of Time Magazine, Newsweek,
the New York Times, ABC, NBS, CBS,
United Press International (UPI), and
Reuters.”
As the CIA’s own records indicate, they are the ones who
have, for decades, been responsible for not only lying to
the public through the television “news”, they themselves
are the ones who have overthrown at least 57 country’s
democratically (or otherwise) elected presidents.
Remember, our Founding Fathers warned us of two
enemies of freedom: Foreign and Domestic. We seem to
always forget the latter with such CIA media misdirection
of endless foreign boogieman paraded before us on
television as scapegoats. Is it just a coincidence that
president Kennedy was assassinated so neatly just days
after ordering a major “House Cleaning” of the CIA
themselves, of whom lies, such as now, are their native
language?
Wasn’t it the “reputable” CIA who said that American
sailors were attacked by the Vietnamese to instigate the
unpopular Vietnam War, only to later acknowledge that
the attack was entirely staged by the CIA to garner public
support? Wasn’t it the “trustworthy” CIA who instigated
the Iraq War as well, with “concrete proof” of weapons of
mass destruction that ended up being entirely fabricated?
Is who we are supposed to trust now, the same CIA who is
so violently opposed to the man Trump just appointed over
them to overhaul the integrity of the agency?
How did the alleged Russians supposedly
“unfairly” influence the election in Trump’s
favor? By giving “Wikileaks” TRUTHFUL
information about Hillary Clinton’s
corruption. Thusly, what Trump’s critics are
actually saying, is that how dare THE
TRUTH sway the election!
If there is an active secret pedophile in a neighborhood full
of children, should you really care from where the
information of such crimes came??? Of course not! In the
same way, if a corrupt politician, who is about to lay hold
of the USA presidency, is secretly an habitual liar who
underhandedly cheated her competitor out of their party’s
nomination, shouldn’t the public have a right to know in
advance of voting for them?
Below you can see just how rigged the Democratic Party
system was for Hillary Clinton. In state after state where
Bernie Sanders won the vote by a wide margin, Sanders
nevertheless received fewer delegates. Is that honest? Why
is this not criminal? In Wyoming, for example, Sanders
received 10% more votes than Clinton, yet Clinton
received 80% more delegates!
305
Former United Kingdom ambassador Craig Murray just
acknowledged publically that the hacking of the
Democratic Party’s secretive emails which exposed their
rampant corruption and lying was NOT done by the
“Russians”, rather by a disgruntled Democratic Party
employee. The Wikileaks founder even insinuated who it
was, Seth Rich, who “coincidentally” ended up murdered
shortly thereafter.
Not a SINGLE mainstream media outlet
(because they are controlled by the CIA
propagating the opposite lie) reported
this important information!
All of this CIA propaganda through their co-opted media is
centered around their “Hail-Mary” desperate eleventh hour
attempt to sway at least 37 Republican “electors” to vote
for Hillary Clinton on December 19 th. After this, January
6th is when the “House of Representatives” “verifies” the
electoral vote, which is their second to the last ditch effort.
Finally, January 19th, is the last day the outgoing president
can do anything about Trump’s inaugural, scheduled for
the following day.
The CIA’s nemesis, the FBI, who is more responsible for
tanking Hillary Clinton’s campaign than the Russians,
rejects the idea of Russian involvement in the election,
calling the notion “Fuzzy” and “Ambiguous”. The belated
cry being made by the losing Elitists is that Trump is
“unfit” to be president, even though running multibillion
dollar enterprises may make him the most qualified
president of all time, forgetting themselves that just
because you were once married to a president doesn’t
qualify you to be one.
The idea that Trump is a racist simply because he asked for
proof that a political opponent (who happened to be black)
was eligible to run based on his origin of birth, is not
supported by the fact that Trump asked the very same
thing of political opponent Ted Cruz who was white and
proved to be born in Canada. This would mean that if you
search for facts, from a person who happens to be black,
then you are a racist.
When well-known black Democrats, such as TV host
Larry Wilmore, publically acknowledged that the only
reason they voted for Barak Obama was because he was
black, and yet they are not called racists or lose their jobs
because of such public racial bias, you can see that a
double standard is in existence. Did the KKK protest
outside the White House when Obama was elected twice?
No. Did the KKK beat up Obama supporters? No. Those
who biasly call Trump or his supporters “racist” act more
violently than the KKK, proving that it is they who are
racists and fanatics.
The simple fact remains that the Democrats lost because
Hillary Clinton was corrupt. They are mad because
someone, likely a disgruntled Sanders supporter, released
proof of this fact. To blame the Russians or to say that
Trump is a racist because he challenged a black political
opponent with the same vigor as a white political opponent
is simply juvenile.
Sources have told me that this desperate attempt by the
corrupt Washington D.C. Political “Establishment” to
cheat in the election after the fact, would be met by ardent
military support on the side of Trump.
Hillary Clinton repeatedly won more electoral delegates
that Bernie Sanders, even though she repeatedly lost the
vote to him by a wide margin, specifically because the
Democratic leaders rigged the system that way . . . in
advance. Now they want to rig the national election after
the fact like sore losers. Get some dignity please, and be
warned by this author that the military core of the armed
forces have personally advised me that such shenanigans
will be cut off at the pass by swift constitutionally devout
Generals.

The fact is 2,623 United States counties voted for Trump

and only 489 counties voted for Clinton. This is why the
Founding Fathers drafted the Electoral College, so that a
few geographic locations could not dictate their demands
to the vast majority of others. A mere 2% discrepancy in
the popular vote is not worthy of a coup compared to the
geographical difference of 84%. These are the rules of the
game. It is highly unscrupulous to attempt to change the
rules of the game after the game is finished and the winner
has been declared.

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 Here’s How They Still Might Steal
The Election From Trump
Posted by Daisy Luther
Date: December 16, 2016
© Mike Segar / Reuters
Note from the Editor: For everyone who breathed a sigh of
relief when Trump won the election, I have some bad news
for you.
It’s not over yet.
With the ridiculous new propaganda plotline that the
Russian hacked the election as ammunition, more efforts
are being made to take the election back from Donald
Trump. The Democrats have conveniently forgotten that
Hillary Clinton cheated her way into the nomination in the
first place, colluded with the media, and sold favors when
she was Secretary of State. The media has forgotten that
they tried to influence the election by bias, fake polls, and
outright lies.
They’re going after an imaginary enemy, and now,
members of the Electoral College are investigating before
they cast their votes. If we have a room full of faithless
electors, there’s no telling what might happen next.
In the article below, Claire Bernish provides a closer look
at this breaking development. If you aren’t prepped, you
really need to do so. Depending on how this plays out,
chaos could be just around the corner. ~ Daisy
BREAKING: Electoral College To Determine “If Trump
Is Fit To Serve As President” On News Of Russian
Hacks
by Claire Bernish – this article first appeared at Free
Thought Project
307
In a development with the shocking potential to upend the
U.S. presidential election, ten Electoral College electors
have requested further insight into President-Elect Donald
Trump’s alleged ties to Russia to determine “whether Mr.
Trump is fit to serve as President of the United States.”
Led by Christine Pelosi, daughter of Democratic House
leader Nancy Pelosi, the group of ten electors penned an
open letter to Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper, stating:
“Allegations that Donald Trump was
receiving assistance from a hostile foreign
power to win the election began months
before Election Day. When presented with
information that the Russian government
was interfering in the election through the
course of the campaign, both in private
briefings and public assessment, Donald
Trump rejected it, refused to condemn it,
and continued to accept their help. Donald
Trump even made a direct plea to the
Russian government to interfere further in
the election in a press conference on July
27, saying, ‘Russia, if you’re listening, I
hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails
that are missing.’”
Indeed, Democrats and a smattering of Republicans
touting utterly unverifiable reports from unnamed CIA
officials and unprovable corporate media articles published
by the Washington Post and New York Times have
seemingly gone out of their way to link Trump to the Putin
administration — thereby discrediting the democratic
outcome of the 2016 election.
But claims of Russian interference — running the gamut
from responsibility of hacks of the Democratic National
Committee to a coordinated, state-sponsored propaganda
campaign implemented by alternative media outlets —
have been thoroughly discredited, if nothing else but for a
complete lack of evidence.
Nevertheless, the electors say they “require to know from
the intelligence community whether there are ongoing
investigations into ties between Donald Trump, his
campaign or associates, and Russian government
interference in the election, the scope of those
investigations, how far those investigations may have
reached, and who was involved in those investigations.”
And that
“We further require a briefing on all
investigative findings, as these matters
directly impact the core factors in our
deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to
serve as President of the United States.”
It would seem truth has recently been put up for debate,
judging by such articles as the Washington Post’s “Secret
CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win
White House,” for which the outlet quoted an unnamed
and thus wholly unvettable agency official allegedly
briefed on an intelligence presentation, stating,
“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. That’s the consensus
view.”
While mainstream presstitutes repeatedly harp on the
vagaries of Russian meddling in the U.S. elections, a
number of level-headed analysts and journalists have
denounced the allegations as hysterical McCarthyite
fearmongering to deflect from damaging contents of
documents published by Wikileaks.
Alarmingly, the ten electors cite the unfounded so-called
news articles from corporate media in their letter to
Clapper:
“According to reports in the Washington
Post, New York Times, and other outlets,
the United States intelligence community
has now concluded definitively that the
Russian interference was performed to
help Donald Trump get elected, yet even
today Mr. Trump is refusing to accept that
finding. In response to the reports, the
Trump transition office instead released a
statement which called into question the
validity of United States intelligence
findings, and declared the election over
despite the Electoral College not yet
casting its votes. Trump’s willingness to
disregard conclusions made by the
intelligence community and his continuing
defense of Russia and Russian President
Vladimir Putin demand close scrutiny and
deliberation from the Electoral College.”
In fact, while countless corporate outlets spread the
evidenceless CIA claim like steel truth, the intelligence
308
community-at-large is not at all in full agreement on the
accusations.
According to an unnamed high-level FBI official, the
Bureau is not at all in agreement with the CIA on
allegations Russia actively interfered with the U.S.
electoral process, calling the agency’s report “fuzzy” and
“ambiguous” — and saying the FBI is refusing to
corroborate the apparently baseless and dangerous
accusation.
This modern Red Scare — if not called out for the anti-
Russian propaganda it constitutes — could not only be the
final unraveling of the shreds of an American free press,
but could see the overthrowing of a democratically-elected
leader of the United States.
It would be more than worth noting the CIA — the same
agency behind these alleged confirmations Russia has
interfered with the election — has been responsible for the
overthrow of myriad foreign governments. Whether or not
those leaders were elected democratically had no bearing
on the agency’s subversive and military tactics when U.S.
foreign policy dictated the putative necessity of such a
move.
To imagine such a departure from the democratic process
on American soil — regardless one’s feelings about a
Trump presidency — is to recognize the power of pure,
evidenceless propaganda in motion.
No proof of the CIA officials’ allegations have yet been
offered for public scrutiny and investigation. No evidence
of Russia coordinating to thwart a Hillary Clinton
presidency has yet been proffered. Nothing evincing an
active Russian state hand in U.S. politics has yet surfaced
— anywhere.
Astonishingly, that appears to matter little to the very
electors in whom American voters entrust with the highest
office in the land — and instead have placed the burden of
proving the baseless reports on President-Elect Trump,
himself, stating:
“Additionally, the Electors will separately
require from Donald Trump conclusive
evidence that he and his staff and advisors
did not accept Russian interference, or
otherwise collaborate during the campaign,
and conclusive disavowal and repudiation
of such collaboration and interference
going forward.”
How Trump is supposed to provide evidence of something
that didn’t take place has been lost on these ten electors,
who have opted for the running ‘guilty until proven
innocent’ narrative of the new McCarthyism.
What chilling effect their demands will have on the one has yet to be seen. But by every indicator, this could be the
vaguely democratic power held by the people of the United final canary call of a once free land.
States — the election of a president of their choosing —
.

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 CIA Secret Assessment “Confirms” Russian Hack Of US
Election – Do You Buy It?
Posted By Makia Freeman
Date: December 16, 2016
The alleged, purported, supposed Russian hack of the 2016
US presidential election is now a “fact”. Or so says the US
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The US Government
and its lapdog mainstream media (led by the now
disgraced and lying Washington Post) are continuing
to push the Russian hack theme, hoping to cement the
concept in the minds of the populace. The Post article is
making claims which are predicated on the unverified
assertions of anonymous officials, who are in turn
making their own claims about what the CIA has
supposedly confirmed and concluded – but all in secret.
You can’t see it because it’s “classified” and “national
security”.
Let’s Refresh Our Memory About the
CIA
Before we go any further, let’s remember who we’re
dealing with here. The CIA is a dark and nefarious
organization that has spent most of its existence illegally
running drugs and weapons, experimenting with drugs like
LSD on its citizens, conducting mind control on innocent
victims (e.g. MK Ultra), overthrowing foreign
governments (regime change), sending out hit squads to
murder political opponents and conducting assassinations
of whoever gets in its way (e.g. popular US presidents). It
is no stranger to deceit, psychological operations and
information warfare. The CIA started getting out of control
in the Eisenhower-Dulles days of the 1950s, where it
started doing whatever it wanted, with a practically
unlimited budget and practically no accountability. Not
much has changed since then.
Yet, the CIA is hoping that just because it is part of the
government and has a nice flashy logo that you will
believe what it says. CIA agents are trained as professional
310
propagandists; day and night, they coolly and calculatedly
lie. It’s all fair. It’s all legal. It’s all part of the job.
The alleged Russian hack: Russian interference or
American propaganda?
This Isn’t Russian Propaganda – This is
US Propaganda
It’s so important these days to do your research and think
about things carefully. Remember the tendency people
have to avoid blame and scrutiny by accusing others of the
very thing of which they are guilty? Isn’t this a classic case
of the pot calling the kettle black?
Consider what some of the leading Alternative Media
websites have already said on the issue. In October, Zero
Hedge featured the article NSA Whistleblower: US
Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia,
which pointed that Hillary Clinton was lying when she
falsely claimed that all 17 US Intelligence Agencies agreed
that there was a Russian hack and interference in the US
election:
“Instead of answering the question, Clinton
blamed the Russian government for the
leaks, alleging “[t]he Russian government
has engaged in espionage against
Americans,” hacking “American websites,
American accounts of private people, of
institutions … in an effort, as 17 of our
intelligence agencies have confirmed, to
influence our election.”
Following the claim, Clinton criticized Trump
for saying “[Clinton] has no idea whether it’s Russia,
China, or anybody else,” repeating her assertion that 17
U.S. intelligence agencies had determined the Russian
government had been behind the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) hack.
Despite her claim, reality couldn’t be more different.
Instead of 17 agencies, only the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)
and the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) have offered the public any input on
this matter, claiming the DNC attacks “are
consistent with the methods and
motivations of Russian-directed
efforts.” Without offering any evidence,
these two — not 17 — agencies hinted
that the Kremlin could be behind the
cyber attack. But saying they believe the
hacks come from the Russians is far short
of saying they know the Russians were
behind them.”
So far, there’s nothing, except beliefs and opinions. No
credible evidence. No tangible proof. No forensic
evidence. Nothing.
NSA Whistleblower William Binney
Weighs In on the Supposed Russian
Hack
Here’s what Alternative Media site Washington’s Blog
wrote in its article Did Russia Hack the DNC … Really?:
“Only two intelligence entities – the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence
(DNI) and the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) – have weighed in on this
issue, not 17 intelligence agencies [as
Hillary Clinton had claimed]. And what they
said was ambiguous about Russian
involvement. An unclassified October 7,
2016 joint DNI-DHS statement on this issue
said the hacks
“. . . are consistent with the methods and
motivations of Russian-directed efforts …”
Saying we think the hacks
“are consistent with the methods and
motivations of Russian-directed efforts” is
far short of saying we have evidence that
Russia has been responsible for the hacks.
Maybe high-level officials would have
authorized them if Russian hackers were
responsible, but the DNI and DHS
statement did NOT say there was evidence
Russia was responsible.”
311
They actually contacted former NSA whistleblower
William Binney directly. Binney is a 36-year veteran of
the NSA who was so good he was actually thought of as
the NSA’s best ever analyst and codebreaker. Binney
worked at the NSA at a time when the US was
decrypting the Soviet command system. He rejects the idea
that Russia would have used a known hacking method to
gather and then leak the information. Instead, he believes
that if the Russians really had wanted to do it, they would
have used a hidden hacking method. Meanwhile, proof is
still lacking:
“If the idiots in the intelligence community
expect us to believe them after all the crap
they have told us (like WMD’s in Iraq and
“no we don’t collect data on millions or
hundreds of millions of Americans”) then
they need to give clear proof of what they
say. So far, they have failed to prove
anything.
Which suggests they don’t have proof and just want to war
monger the US public into a second cold war with the
Russians.
We asked Binney:
What if the intelligence community
spokespeople say “we can’t reveal the
evidence we have that the Russians did it,
because that would reveal our sources and
methods?”
He responded:
If you recall, a few years ago they pointed
to a specific building in China that was
where hacks on the US were originating.
So, let’s see the same from the Russians.
They don’t have it. That’s why they don’t
show it. They want to swindle us again and
again and again. You can not trust these
intelligence agencies period…”
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Rejects Idea of Russian
Hack
Then, we also have the statement of WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange who explains he was not trying to sway the
US election, but rather published material as it came to
him. All he had at that point (and maybe still does) was
material on Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, Jill Stein
or Gary Johnson:
“Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic
reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the
red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party
candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and
Clinton’s main opponent were painted with
 a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign,
when they were not spreading obvious
untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to
speculative and vague statements from the
intelligence community to suggest a
nefarious allegiance with Russia. The
campaign was unable to invoke evidence
about our publications—because none
exists.”
Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray Calls CIA
Claims “Bullshit”
Additionally, Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to
Uzbekistan, demolished the CIA propaganda. He was
quoted in an article which was only live for 3 hours before
it was ripped off the web:
“Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador
to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of
Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”,
adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”
“I know who leaked them,” Murray said.
“I’ve met the person who leaked them, and
they are certainly not Russian and it’s an
insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are
different things. “If what the CIA are saying
is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to
people who are known to be linked to the
Russian state, they would have arrested
someone if it was someone inside the
United States. “America has not been shy
about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not
been shy about extraditing hackers. They
plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.””
Glenn Greenwald Destroys CIA Propaganda
You are supposed to believe that everything has all been
confirmed, but yet, as Greenwald writes in Anonymous
Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are
No Substitute for Evidence:
312
“Most importantly, the Post adds that
“intelligence agencies do not have specific
intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin
‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass
the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.” But
the purpose of both anonymous leaks is to
finger the Russian government for these
hacks, acting with the motive to defeat
Hillary Clinton.
Needless to say, Democrats — still eager
to make sense of their election loss and to
find causes for it other than themselves —
immediately declared these anonymous
claims about what the CIA believes to be
true, and, with a somewhat sweet,
religious-type faith, treated these
anonymous assertions as proof of what
they wanted to believe all along: that
Vladimir Putin was rooting for Donald
Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose
and used nefarious means to ensure that
outcome. That Democrats are now
venerating unverified, anonymous CIA
leaks as sacred is par for the course for
them this year …”
It all comes back to the lowest common denominator.
Where is the proof? Where is the evidence? All we have
are anonymous assertions:
“Beyond that, what makes claims from
anonymous sources so especially dubious
is that their motives cannot be assessed.
Who are the people summarizing these
claims to the Washington Post? What
motives do they have for skewing the
assertions one way or the other? Who are
the people inside the intelligence
community who fully ratify these assertions
and who are the ones who dissent? It’s
impossible to answer any of these
questions because everyone is masked by
the shield of anonymity, which is why
reports of this sort demand high levels of
skepticism, not blind belief.
Most important of all, the more serious the
claim is — and accusing a nuclear-armed
power of directly and deliberately
interfering in the U.S. election in order to
help the winning candidate is about as
serious as a claim can get — the more
important it is to demand evidence before
believing it. Wars have started over far less
serious claims than this one.”
Turf War: CIA-FBI Feud

Greenwald also points out that we are witnessing a turf

war between the US Intelligence Agencies, with the CIA
and NSA in one corner supporting Clinton, and the FBI in
the other corner supporting Trump. Hence the CIA
assertion that Trump is Putin’s agent and other ridiculous
stories (to help Clinton), and the FBI’s attempts (albeit
half-hearted thanks to back-and-forth Comey) to
investigate Clinton over her emails (which helped Trump).
How much of the CIA’s “secret assessment” is because of
this turf war?

Napolitano: US Intelligence Agencies Hated Hillary So
Much They Hacked the DNC
It may be a turf war, but Judge Andrew Napolitano has
another theory. In this video, he puts forth the idea that the
agencies disliked Clinton so much (due to her negligence
and recklessness in handling classified State information
and intelligence) that they were prepared to sabotage her
chances of winning by hacking the DNC and feeding it to
WikiLeaks. Is this possible? Yes. If true, it would be
another scenario in which the hack and leak had nothing to
do with Russia.
Conclusion:
Dangerous Neo-Carthyism is Circulating
What we are really facing here is McCarthyism, or better
put, Neo-McCarthyism. It’s the dangerous re-emergence of
painting everything and everyone with whom you disagree
as “red”, “Putin stooges” or “Russian agents”. It’s as
hysterical as it is ridiculous as it is dangerous. Wars have
been started over lesser things.
Former Senator Joseph McCarthy, who whipped up anti-Russian
frenzies during the Cold War in the 1950s. Today the Democrats are
doing their best to resurrect the Russian scare with Neo-
McCarthyism.
The “Russian hack” theme is all about perception control.
The concocted Russian hack story provides the US with an
instant enemy and at the same time exonerates the Clintons
and the DNC from all the obvious cheating they
performed. Yet, no matter how hard the Russian hack line
is pushed, evidence can’t be generated out of nowhere. To
date, there has not been one publicly produced piece of
credible evidence showing proof of a Russian hack, which
is why we’re being fed a secret assessment.
Odds are, Russia did not hack the DNC and there was no
Russian interference in the US elections.
It’s US propaganda not Russian propaganda about
which we have to be most vigilant right now.

Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-
campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/kennedy-assassination-who-how-why-part-3/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-22/nsa-whistleblower-us-intelligence-worker-likely-behind-dnc-leaks-not-russia
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/10/russia-hack-dnc-really.html
http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/nsa-whistleblowers-top-5-growing-list/
https://wikileaks.org/Assange-Statement-on-the-US-Election.html
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/
http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/44-reasons-to-not-elect-hillary/
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhYoxHuJ3cU
.

313
 Ah, So Putin Didn’t Hack
Those Emails After All
By Mike Whitney
December 16, 2016
The neocon-driven propaganda campaign to prevent
president-elect Donald Trump from taking office took an
unexpected turn on Thursday when CBS posted an article
claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally
authorized the alleged hacking of the DNC. According to
the report:
“American intelligence officials say they are
convinced that Russian hacking of our
presidential election was approved by
President Vladimir Putin. Sources confirm
to CBS News they believe Putin was aware
of attacks that began in July of last year.
An official investigation is still going on. But
this is the first time the hacking that
plagued the Democratic National
Committee until Election Day has been
linked to Putin, reports CBS News
correspondent Jeff Pegues.
The hacks were so widespread and
sustained over such a long period of time
that U.S. Intelligence sources say it could
not have been carried out without the
knowledge of senior levels of the Kremlin.
CBS News has learned that investigators
believe the initial cyberattack involved
thousands of malicious emails aimed at the
U.S. government, military and political
organizations.” (“Vladimir Putin likely gave
go-ahead for U.S. cyberattack, intelligence
officials say“, CBS News)
As is true with earlier reports on the same topic, CBS fails
to provide the names of any of its “U.S. intelligence
sources”, any corroborating evidence to support its
allegations, or any proof that its speculative stitching
together of isolated facts produce an accurate account of
what actually took place. No where in the entire hysterical
narrative, do the authors mention the fact that neither the
DNC nor the Podesta emails were “hacked” by a hostile
foreign power, but “leaked” from within the DNC itself
or by agents operating at the NSA.
The most probable explanation for the alleged cyber
intrusion is that the emails were given to WikiLeaks by a
314
disgruntled employee operating in the Hillary campaign
who was so sickened by the lies and corruption that he
decided to blow the whistle. Is that so hard to believe?
Needless to say, this logical storyline doesn’t jibe with the
CIA-MSM-Podesta version of events which requires a
charge of foreign espionage to overturn the election and
implement its treasonous plan for regime change in
Washington.
According to the Daily Mail, Craig Murray, who is the
former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and associate of
Julian Assange,
“flew to Washington, D.C. for emails….He
claims he had a clandestine hand-off …
near American University with one of the
email sources. Murray said the leakers’
motivation was ‘disgust at the corruption of
the Clinton Foundation and the ’tilting of
the primary election playing field against
Bernie Sanders’…
Murray says:
‘The source had legal access to the
information. The documents came from
inside leaks, not hacks’. ‘Regardless of
whether the Russians hacked into the
DNC, the documents Wikileaks published
did not come from that,’ Murray insists.” ….
Murray said he was speaking out due to claims from
intelligence officials that Wikileaks was given the
documents by Russian hackers as part of an effort to help
Donald Trump win the U.S. presidential election.
‘I don’t understand why the CIA would say
the information came from Russian hackers
when they must know that isn’t true,’ he
said. ‘Regardless of whether the Russians
hacked into the DNC, the documents
Wikileaks published did not come from
that.” (EXCLUSIVE: Ex-British
ambassador who is now a WikiLeaks
 operative claims Russia did NOT provide
Clinton emails“, Daily Mail)
As of Thursday, none of the major media have covered or
investigated Murray’s claims which should be expected
since it essentially proves that the MSM fairytale-version
of events is pure bunkum. By the way, there’s an excellent
article at Consortium News by 6 Intelligence
agency veterans titled “US Intel Vets Dispute Russia
Hacking Claims” that challenges the absurd ‘Russia
hacking claim’ and attributes the cyber incident to leaking.
Here’s a short blurb from the piece that helps to clarify a
few important points:
“All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If
hacking were involved, the National
Security Agency would know it – and know
both sender and recipient.
In short, since leaking requires physically
removing data – on a thumb drive, for
example …
NSA is able to identify both the sender and
recipient when hacking is involved….The
bottom line is that the NSA would know
where and how any “hacked” emails from
the DNC, HRC or any other servers were
routed through the network…
The various ways in which usually
anonymous spokespeople for U.S.
intelligence agencies are equivocating –
saying things like “our best guess” or “our
opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that
the emails alleged to have been “hacked”
cannot be traced across the network. Given
NSA’s extensive trace capability, we
conclude that DNC and HRC servers
alleged to have been hacked were, in fact,
not hacked.
The evidence that should be there is
absent; otherwise, it would surely be
brought forward, since this could be done
without any danger to sources and
methods. Thus, we conclude that the
emails were leaked by an insider – as was
the case with Edward Snowden and
Chelsea Manning. Such an insider could be
anyone in a government department or
agency with access to NSA databases, or
.
315
perhaps someone within the DNC.” (“US
Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims“,
Consortium News)
Bottom line:
Leaked not hacked.
Thus, the MSM “Putin did it” version = Bullshit.
Here’s more on Murray’s eyewitness account of his
contact with the whistleblower. This is from an exchange
that took place on Tuesday in an interview between
Murray and author David Swanson.
David Swanson– When you say you’ve
met the leaker; was that of the DNC emails
or the Podesta emails?
Craig Murray– I cannot give too much
detail on that…but I have met one of the
people involved. …The person is American
and not connected to Russia at all….(Julien
Assange has confirmed that the leaker was
not Russian)
David Swanson– Your claim is not that
the Russians would never hack into a
computer, right? Your claim is that you
know who did this and it isn’t Russia?
Craig Murray– Right, I was involved in
handling top secret material myself for over
20 years, and all the spy services spy on
each other all the time. So the Russians
could have done this, but they didn’t. I
happen to know that they didn’t. In both the
Podesta and the DNC emails came from
sources that are not Russian, but were
American inside sources. And that could be
inside the organization itself or it could be
American agencies that are monitoring
people’s communications….Inside the DNC
or inside the NSA. (“Talk Nation Radio:
Craig Murray: Russia Didn’t Do It“)
So, the ‘hacking story’ has nothing to do with hacking and
nothing to do with Russia. It’s just another attempt
by establishment elites to distort the facts in
order to subvert the democratic process and overturn the
election results. Isn’t that what this is really all
about, regime change in the USA?
 Michael Moore’s Call To ‘Disrupt The Inauguration’
Is A Dog Whistle For A Mass Communist
Uprising Attempt On January 20
By: Mary Wilder
Date: December 16, 2016
Michael Moore is a notorious Leftist. The filmmaker has
targeted everyone from George W. Bush to Obama’s
detractors in his decades-long career, and it doesn’t appear
as though he has any plans of slowing down. Leading up to
the 2016 presidential election, Moore was outspoken about
the need to stop Donald Trump. Even though Hillary
Clinton wasn’t far enough left for him, he expressed the
need to have a president from the Democratic Party.
After Trump was elected, Moore, like many leftists, lost
his mind, which was proven by the fact that he recently
sent out a tweet asking his followers to disrupt Donald
Trump’s inauguration.
Disrupt the Inauguration. The Majority have
spoken – by nearly 2.7 million votes
&counting! Silence is not an option
https://t.co/HSmP3pREvy
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) December
7, 2016
316
The post attached to his tweet urges citizens to disrupt
Trump’s inauguration, reading,
“We call on all people of good conscience
to join in disrupting the ceremonies. … If
Trump is to be inaugurated at all, let it
happen behind closed doors, showing the
true face of the security state Trump will
preside over. It must be made clear to the
whole world that the vast majority of people
in the United States do not support his
presidency or consent to his rule.”
It’s clear that Moore and his contemporaries see this as
merely the beginning. There has never been a candidate
who was as far left as they desire, and Donald Trump’s
victory serves as the nail in the coffin of having a
communist leader in the United States. This, of course, has
frustrated them beyond belief, and now they are going to
great lengths to kickstart a revolution across the country.
Prepare yourselves for at least four years of insufferability
from the Regressive Left. The increased popularity of
communism and socialism is going to give birth to all
kinds of ridiculous movements that threaten the future of a
free country. People like Moore are detriments to freedom
because, somehow, they have millions of followers that are
willing to listen to their lies and buy into their schemes.
The truth must prevail if we want the United States to
prosper in the future. We have to fight back against those
who threaten democracy and push their Leftist agendas. It
is up to us to protect our country from those who want to
destroy it. If we don’t treat them as a serious threat, the
likes of Moore and the other members of the Regressive
Left are sure to succeed – and then we will all fail.
 DHS Rigged Election 2016? Caught Hacking 3 States
(So Far)! NOT Russia! US Voter Fraud
By Barry Soetoro, Esq
Posted On December 16, 2016

vanish so dead and illegal voter names could be scrubbed

before the data got examined?

Voter fraud is out of control. DHS bussed in people from

Guatemala on DHS buses. Then, Obama went on TV,
telling illegal aliens to go vote!

But massive voter fraud wasn’t enough to elect crooked

Hillary Clinton.

Before the DNC + GOP (Uniparty) get busted for rigging

the 2016 election, they need a huge distraction. That
DHS caught hacking voter data in 3 states (so far) — but distraction is blaming “Russian hackers” and “Vladimir
why? Millions of illegal ballots were cast in election 2016 Putin” for CIA and DHS vote rigging.
— is it time to clean up evidence of rigging?
Russian hackers, baby:
Plus, 95 “poll books” went missing in Detroit — during
the fraudulent “Jill Stein recount.” Did those poll books

317
 'If Electoral College Votes Against Trump, US Will Get
Worst Constitutional Crisis In Its History'
Published Time: 16 Dec, 2016 13:55
The system of the Electoral College is corky, but it is not
going away anytime soon. Each party thinks they can work
the system to their advantage. The losers complain about
it. The winners are happy with it, says political cartoonist
Ted Rall.
Donald Trump may have won the US presidential election,
but he faces one last hurdle - the Electoral College which
convenes on Monday to vote for America's 45th leader.
Technically, it has the power to block him and electors are
facing immense pressure from those hoping to scupper a
Trump presidency.
RT: How can you explain all the pressure about the vote
of the Electoral College members to usher in Donald
Trump as President of the United States?
TR: Every time there is a situation as in 2000 when
George W. Bush technically won the Electoral College
vote over Al Gore, who won the popular vote - and there
have been other examples in the history - the losers always
look to the Electoral College as sort of a “maybe we can
get these guys to change their minds after the fact”. But
the fact is that historically, although technically it is legally
allowed for members of the Electoral College to change
their vote, there isn’t much precedent for it. The fact is that
they are expected to vote in accordance with the way that
their states ordered them to vote. They are appointed by
their respective political parties and 99 percent of the time,
they always have cast their votes exactly the way that they
are supposed to. It does seem a little bit churlish at this
point for Democrats to be complaining about the Electoral
College. If the election had gone the other way and Hillary
Clinton had won with the minority of the popular vote but
had won the Electoral College, you could probably guess
that the complaints would be coming from the Republican
side. As they say “Hypocrisy, thy name is politics.”
318
RT: What can you tell about the history of the Electoral
College? Is there any chance that pledged electors will
change their votes over to Hillary Clinton?
TR: The Electoral College does have a long and strange
history. The US is the only country that I know of that has
a system like this. And it is balanced in order to benefit
more rural states. The way it works is basically the number
of Electoral College votes per population tends to benefit
small states like Rhode Island and Vermont over large
states like California, Texas and Florida. So, it is a system
that is quirky. But I think it is not going away anytime
soon. And the reason is that each party thinks that they can
work the system to their advantage. The losers always
complain about it. The winners are always quite happy
with it. You would need a bipartisan effort on the part of
both Democrats and Republicans to get rid of it. And while
there are certainly grounds to complain about it. It is not
direct democracy; it is not purely one man, one vote or one
person, one vote. But nevertheless is also does serve to
give a more equal vote to people who live in parts of the
country that might not otherwise get that much attention.
The Democrats are kind of looking foolish by not only
trying to look anti-democratic by trying to defy the system
that they tried to work and lost fair and square. This is just
not going to work. And the last thing you want to do in
politics is to try to get involved in a battle that you don’t
have any chance of winning. There is just literally no way
that you are going to get forty or more of this pledged
electors to change their votes over to Hillary Clinton.
RT: What could be the consequences if members of the
Electoral College really decide to change their mind?
TR: If you remember during the campaign Democrats
really thought they are going to win and not by a little bit,
they thought that Hillary Clinton really thought she was
going to win by a landslide. And many of the polls said the
same thing. And at that time there was a lot of pressure on
Donald Trump to agree, pledge and promise that he was
going to honor the results of the election when he lost.
Well, he didn’t lose. Now, you have the Democrats doing
the same thing that they didn’t want Donald Trump to do,
which is an attempt to delegitimize the winner. Trump won
the election fair and square. No matter what any
Democrats say, there is just no allegation that there were
millions of votes were changed somehow by magical
means… I don’t think they are thinking this through very
carefully. If by some miracle they were able to get the
Electoral College to change its mind and install Hillary
Clinton, this would create a constitutional crisis which
would be unprecedented in American history. And nobody
knows where that would lead. You’d have the odd
situation, and you’d be doing it at a time when the
Supreme Court – which could be called upon to settle it –
isn’t in any position to do so due to the death of Antonin
Scalia. You now have a 4-4 balance between Democrats
.
319
and Republicans on the Court. So literally the system
couldn’t cure the problem they’re creating. They really
need to stop this… the country is already terribly divided
in the aftermath of this very difficult and divisive election.
If they want to take on Donald Trump there are better ways
to do so.
 'Faithless' Electors Will Not Receive
Intelligence Briefing, NPR Says
By Tyler Durden
Dec 16, 2016 5:34 PM
The list of Democrat electors that demanded an
intelligence briefing on Russian interference in the election
prior to casting their vote continued to grow. As of last
night we noted that 40 democrats had signed the petition
and, as of this morning, the list has grown to 55. Not
surprisingly, the list is loaded with disaffected Hillary
supporters from Democratic strongholds like California
and Virginia.
Original 10:
 Christine Pelosi (CA)
 Micheal Baca (CO)
 Anita Bonds (DC)
 Courtney Watson (MD)
 Dudley Dudley (NH)
 Bev Hollingworth (NH)
 Terie Norelli (NH)
 Carol Shea-Porter (NH)
 Clay Pell (RI)
 Chris Suprun (TX)
Newly Added Electors:
 Sandra Aduna (CA)
 Edward Buck (CA)
 Donna Ireland (CA)
 Vinz Koller (CA)
 Katherine Lyon (CA)
 John P. MacMurray (CA)
 Stephen J. Natoli (CA)
 Andres Ramos (CA)
 Shawn Terris (CA)
 Gail Teton-Landis (CA)
 Olivia Reyes-Becerra (CA)
 David Scott Warmuth (CA)
 Shirley Weber (CA)
 Denise Wells (CA)
 Gregory H. Willenborg (CA)
 Laurence Zakson (CA)
 Jerad Sutton (CO)
 Robert Nemenich (CO)
 William Marovitz (IL)
 Nancy Shepherdson (IL)
 Nazda Alam (MA)
 Dori Dean (MA)
 Jason Palitsch (MA)
320
 Parwez Wahid (MA)
 Paul G. Yorkis (MA)
 Lillian Holmes (MD)
 Lesley Israel (MD)
 Robert Leonard (MD)
 Salome T. Peters (MD)
 Noyola Archibeque (NM)
 Melissa Mark-Viverito (NY)
 Stuart Appelbaum (NY)
 Hazel Ingram (NY)
 Stephanie Miner (NY)
 Melissa Sklarz (NY)
 Andrea Stewart-Cousins (NY)
 Timothy Norman Powers Rowan
(OR)
 Brad Martin (OR)
 Sam H.W. Sappington (OR)
 Beth Caldwell (WA)
 Bret Chiafalo (WA)
 Deb Fitzgerald (VA)
 Terry C. Frye (VA)
 Jeanette Sarver (VA)
 Martha Allen (VT)
Of course, as we concluded yesterday, this effort to
block Trump will almost certainly be a complete
failure. That said, the point isn't really to block Trump,
but rather to do as much as possible to undermine the
legitimacy of his presidency as possible before he takes
office.
* * *
And now, with just 2 short days until their vote is due to be
cast - following the will of the American citizens they are
supposed to represent - the 55 so-called "Hamilton"
Electors will reportedly not be receiving an intelligence
briefing over reported Russian meddling in the US
Presidential Election.
As The Hill reports, sources to NPR said the electors will
not receive any national intelligence before they cast
ballots this Monday.
#Breaking: Sources tell NPR's @NPRKelly that
electors in the Electoral College will not receive
an intelligence briefing.
 — NPR (@NPR) December 16, 2016 Whether this means they will vote their conscience (with
no factual information) or vote the will of the people is still
unclear.
.

321
 US Senate To Probe Allegations Of Russia Hacking In
Presidential Election
© AP Photo/ Jacquelyn Martin US 22:51 16.12.2016

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has concluded

that the Russian government sought to help Trump win by
releasing hacked emails to the whistleblower outfit
WikiLeaks to embarrass the Democratic Party and its
presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

The White House took the allegations further this week, by

naming President Vladimir Putin as the Russian
campaign’s mastermind. WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange has said repeatedly that tens of thousands of
Clinton-related emails posted did not come from Russia.
The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will investigate
charges that the Russian government sought to help President-elect
Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to committee Russian officials have called the allegations groundless.
Chairman Senator Richard Burr. Moreover, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
disagrees with the CIA conclusion that the Russian
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Senate Select government wanted Trump to win, according to published
Committee on Intelligence will investigate charges that the reports.
Russian government sought to help President-elect Donald
Trump during the 2016 campaign, committee Chairman
Burr said that the committee planned to
Senator Richard Burr said in a press release on Friday.
"interview senior officials of both the outgoing
"The Committee will follow the intelligence
and incoming administrations including the
wherever it leads," Burr stated in the release on
issuance of subpoenas if needed to compel
Friday. "We will conduct this review
testimony."
expeditiously, but we will take the time to get it
right and will not be influenced by uninformed
In October, the United States intelligence community
discourse."
released a statement accusing the Russian government of
conducting cyberattacks to influence the presidential
Most of the review will remain classified, which aligns
campaign.
with the intelligence community's position on protecting
methods and sources for collecting information, Burr
The statement was signed by Director of National
added.
Intelligence James Clapper and Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson. FBI Director James Comey
However, he pledged that the committee would hold some
reportedly refused to sign the October statement.
open hearings to keep the public informed about the
process.

322
 Comey & Clapper Cave to
Pressure - Now Claim Russia Helped Trump
By Stephen Lendman
12-17-2016
Earlier, FBI director James Comey and DNI head James
Clapper suggested no evidence linked Russia to hacking
America’s election. Nothing indicates Moscow interfered
to help Trump.
America’s deep state puts enormous pressure on officials
with divergent views on important issues to come around
to its way of thinking.
On December 16, the neocon Washington Post said Comey
and Clapper now agree
“with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened
in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump
win the White House…”
CIA director director John Brennan said “(e)arlier this
week, I met separately with FBI (Director) James Comey
and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among
us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference
in our presidential election” - even though there was none.
323
No evidence was presented to prove it because none exists.
Accusations without credible proof are groundless. No
legitimate tribunal would accept them.
Russia DID NOT interfere in America’s election. No
hacking occurred. Claims otherwise are Big Lies - an
effort to continue US hostile relations toward Moscow and
discredit Trump’s triumph.
Comey and Clapper lied. So did the CIA, discarding hard
truths entirely - more evidence that virtually everything
from Washington lacks credibility.
Trump is right discounting the hacking claim as
“ridiculous,” saying “I don’t believe it at all.” Nor should
anyone accept fake news as legitimate. If otherwise, proof
would have been offered weeks ago. None forthcoming
means none exists.
 FBI Now Backs CIA Assessment On
Russia Election Hack: Report
Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:23AM

Donald Trump speaks during a stop on his "USA Thank You Tour
The FBI finally agrees with a CIA assessment that 2016" at the Orlando Amphitheater at the Central Florida
Russia deliberately intervened in the US presidential Fairgrounds on December 16, 2016. (Photo by AFP)
election through cyber operations to help Donald
Trump win the White House. President-elect Trump has dismissed the intelligence
community’s assessment as “ridiculous.”
Both FBI Director James Comey and Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper are in agreement with the CIA The growing distrust between Trump and the intelligence
analysis, The Washington Post reported on Friday. community he will soon command marks the latest in a
series of disputes over Russia’s international conduct and
“Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI its alleged ties with the president-elect.
(Director) James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper,
and there is strong consensus among us on the
scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference
in our presidential election,” CIA Director John
Brennan wrote in a message to employees,
according to the report.

“The three of us also agree that our

organizations, along with others, need to focus
on completing the thorough review of this issue
that has been directed by President Obama and
which is being led by the DNI,” Brennan added.

The message follows media reports last week that the FBI
Washington first publicly accused Moscow of a campaign
did not stand by the CIA on Russia’s motives for hacking
of cyber operations against American political
the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s
organizations in October but did not attribute motives at
campaign chairman John Podesta and other political
the time.
operatives.
As the November 8 election neared, Democrats pressed the
While the CIA insisted that Moscow was trying to use the
White House for a stronger response.
hacked emails to get Trump elected, the FBI told
lawmakers the evidence was “fuzzy” and “ambiguous.”
President Obama holds a year-end press conference in the Brady
Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC,
December 16, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

324
On Friday, President Barack Obama defended his At a year-end press conference the same day, Obama all
administration’s handling of the cyberattack and vowed but named Russian President Vladimir Putin as behind
retaliations for the moves. Moscow's alleged attempts to influence the election.

"I think there is no doubt that when any foreign "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir
government tries to impact the integrity of our Putin," he said. "This happened at the highest
elections that we need to take action," Obama levels of the Russian government."
told NPR. "And we will, at a time and place of our
own choosing."
.

325
 Obama & Hillary Blame Russia
For Nonexistent US Election Hacking
By Stephen Lendman
12-17-2016
In the wake of Trump’s electoral triumph, anti-Russia
hostility is at a fever pitch - matching or exceeding
sentiment at the height of the Cold War.
It’s reminiscent of US propaganda unleashed ahead of
planned imperial wars. It’s to assure normalizing relations
with Russia won’t happen after Obama leaves office.
It’s also part of a coup attempt to deny Trump the office he
won. It shows America is a banana republic like others so
designated - a deplorable state of affairs, media scoundrels
playing a lead role in proliferating incendiary fake news.
On Thursday, Obama held his final press conference, using
it to praise his disgraceful tenure, America thirdworldized
on his watch, ticking off a laundry list of Big Lies.
At the same time, he ignored his deplorable record, his
imperial war crimes, corporate favoritism at the expense of
social justice, police state harshness against nonbelievers,
and despicable Russia bashing.
Obama:
“The world…is united in horror at the savage
assaults by the Syrian regime and its Russian
and Iranian allies on the city of Aleppo.”
“We have seen a deliberate strategy of
surrounding, besieging and starving innocent
civilians. We've seen relentless targeting of
humanitarian workers and medical personnel,
entire and neighbors reduced to rubble and
dust.”
“There are continuing reports of civilians being
executed. These are all horrific violations of
international law.”
“Responsibility for this brutality lies in one place
alone, with the Assad regime and its allies,
Russia and Iran, and this blood and these
atrocities are on their hands.”
Fact: Syrian and allied forces liberated Aleppo from the
savagery of US-supported terrorists, a historic moment,
Bashar al-Assad called it, perhaps a turning point in a war
with miles to go.
326
Fact: Around 100,000 Syrian civilians were rescued from
brutal captivity, transported to safety, given food and
medical care as needed. None were starved to death or
shot. International law was observed, not violated.
Fact: Throughout months of fighting, Russia and Syria
alone provided humanitarian aid - America and its rogue
allies sending it only to terrorists, nothing for Aleppo
residents in need.
Obama:
“(W)e’ll continue to press for a transition to a
more representative government…”
Fact: His comment is code language for lawless regime
change. Syrians overwhelmingly want none of it.
Obama:
“(T)he Russians were responsible for hacking the
DNC…(I)n early September (at the G-20
meeting) in China, I…t(old) (Putin) to cut it out.
There were going to be some serious
consequences it he did not.”
Fact:
No evidence suggests Russian US election
hacking. None exists. Claims otherwise are
fake news. Obama barely stopped short of
blaming Putin for what never happened.
Obama:
Hillary was “disadvantage(d)” v. Trump because
of how media covered her. “I don’t think she was
treated fairly…I think the coverage of her and the
issues was troubling.”
Fact: Hillary got overwhelmingly positive coverage,
Trump mercilessly vilified. Obama’s comments were
laughable, an utter perversion of truth like virtually all his
remarks at all times.
Obama: On November 8, popular “votes that were cast
were counted, and counted appropriately.”
Fact: Major irregularities were discovered in Detroit
favoring Hillary, suggesting similar ones nationwide in her
favor. Yet she still lost.
Asked if he believes Putin was personally involved in
election hacking, Obama said
“I don’t want to step on top of (an) ongoing
investigation.”
On Thursday, Hillary addressed large donors to her
campaign in Manhattan - irresponsibly blaming Russia for
hacking her campaign and the DNC “to undermine our
.
327
democracy,” disgracefully claiming Putin ordered them
“because he has a personal beef against me.”
“This is not just an attack on me and my
campaign…This is an attack against our country.
We are well beyond normal political concerns
here. This is about the integrity of our democracy
and the security of our nation.”
Fact: What utter rubbish, one of many reasons why most
Americans detest her, believing she’s dishonest,
untrustworthy and unfit for public service - so far
unaccountable for high crimes.
 Members Of Congress To Be Briefed On Analysis Of
Alleged Russian Election Hacks
© Sputnik/ Ekaterina Chesnokova US 01:44 17.12.2016

Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a

press release.

"Once the review is complete in the coming

weeks, the Intelligence Community stands ready
to brief Congress and will make those findings
available to the public consistent with protecting
intelligence sources and methods," Friday’s
release stated.

The release added that US intelligence leaders have

Intelligence officials will brief congressional lawmakers on an
analysis of Russia’s alleged interference in the US presidential affirmed their contention that only senior Russian
election, according to the Office of the Director of National government officials could have authorized hacking of
Intelligence. political organizations during the election campaign.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Intelligence officials will
brief congressional lawmakers on an analysis of Russia’s
alleged interference in the US presidential election, the
.

Yes, were were hacked, But won’t say how

328
 You Better Believe Trump Is Afraid of the Electoral
College Vote on Monday
By Michael Moore, Michael Moore's Facebook Page
17 December 16
Filmmaker Michael Moore, near a closed factory in Flint, Michigan,
where his father worked. (photo: Fabrizio Costantini/NYT)
Yesterday was the day Donald Trump was going to hold
his first press conference in 5 months. He abruptly
cancelled it on Monday with no explanation. Well, I have
one...
He has heard that there is a rumbling taking place amongst
the Republican electors that some of them are growing
uncomfortable with the news that the election was hacked
by Russia to benefit him. This news was followed by the
revelation that Putin himself directed the hack. And then
last night, CBS News reported that the Russians had in the
past committed a successful cyber-attack on the email
system of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
If you are a Republican Elector, this news is very sobering.
And for some, very disturbing.
Electors of the Electoral College know that their job is to
usually rubber stamp the election - with one exception: If
they need to cast their vote to protect the country from
someone who is a danger to our nation.
And slowly it has dawned on some of the electors this
week that something doesn't smell right. And now that we
know that Putin himself was behind this historic assault on
our electoral process -- so that he could tilt the election to
Trump -- well, this is now for many Americans a bridge
too far.
Trump knows this, so he's gone into hiding from real
journalists. He has one mission right now: Get to Monday
without the shit hitting the fan. To show you how scared
he is, after my (and others) week-long shaming him for not
showing up to the daily national security briefing, his aides
have responded by announcing that he'll start attending the
briefings "three" times a week. As for the other four days, I
guess it's,
329
"Sorry America -- you're on your own!" But he
knew he had to do something. This is the
Trumpian way of "doing something."
Well, WE need to do something. All of us, very loudly,
need to let the Electoral College know that they MUST
vote their conscience on Monday. Or postpone the vote
until they have more information about Trump's
Manchurian Candidate-like behavior. Here is a site you
can go to to find out what's going on protest-wise where
you live over the weekend and on Monday:
http://www.hamiltonelectors.com/events
What would Trump and the Republicans be doing today if
they were ahead by 3 million votes - but the Electoral
College was set to give the Presidency to Clinton? Are you
kidding? THEY WOULD NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.
We are the wimps. We sink into our despair. We feel
defeated and that there's nothing we can do. Everybody
told us she was going to win! Nate Silver and 538
promised us it was in the bag! All the pundits agreed!!
Get over it and pull yourself together.
"The tanks are 20 miles outside of Paris!"
Throw everything you got at this and do not relent. You're
in the friggin' majority! Let's act like it. Make your voice
heard on social media and in front of your state capitol. An
authoritarian regime is about to take hold in DC, and they
are going to run roughshod over you, me and all that is
good. Get over your election depression and fight like
you've never fought before. Non-violently. With
conviction. There are more of us than there are of them.
Only 23% of all registered adult American voters showed
up and voted for Trump. Come on! It's not over til it's over.
Trump is worried about Monday. It only takes 38 of his
300+ electors to defect.
These rallies he's holding every night this week and
weekend?
They're not because he wants to sell more hats.
 Only A Counter-Coup Can
Save American Democracy
Paul Craig Roberts
December 17, 2016
The CIA has long engineered coups in other countries.
Now we are approaching at breakneck speed a CIA coup
in the USA.
When the presstitute media first published unverifired,
unsourced leaks attributed to unnamed CIA officials, both
the FBI and the Director of Homeland Security said that
they did not embrace the accusation that Trump’s election
was a result of Russian interference in the US presidential
election.
Now suddenly we have a report from the Washington Post,
a rag whose integrity is in doubt and a mainstay of anti-
Trump propaganda suspected of being a CIA asset, that the
FBI and Homeland Security are in agreement with the
anonymous leaks to the presstitutes:
“FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National
Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. are in agreement with a
CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election
in part to help Donald Trump win the White House,
officials disclosed Friday, as President Obama issued a
public warning to Moscow that it could face retaliation.
New revelations about Comey’s position could put to rest
suggestions by some lawmakers that the CIA and the FBI
weren’t on the same page on Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s intentions.”
“The positions of Comey and Clapper were revealed in a
message that CIA Director John Brennan sent to the
agency’s workforce Friday. ‘Earlier this week, I met
separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim
Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the
scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our
presidential election,’ Brennan said, according to U.S.
officials who have seen the message.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-blames-
putins-personal-grudge-against-her-for-election-
interference/2016/12/16/12f36250-c3be-11e6-8422-
eac61c0ef74d_story.html?utm_term=.ad62c36e39ca
Note, that this claim comes from the CIA. It has not been
verified at this time of writing by the FBI and Homeland
Security. Indeed, please note that the Washington Post,
330
which is hyping this story of intelligence agency
consensus, reports:
“The CIA and the FBI declined to comment on Brennan’s
message or on the classified intelligence assessment that
CIA officials shared with members of the Senate
Intelligence Committee earlier this month, setting off a
political firestorm.” In other words, the CIA might be
putting words in the mouths of the other intelligence
officials.
Note also that Hillary says that Putin interfered against her
because he has a grudge against her for her interference in
his reelection by fomenting protests against him with the
Western-financed Russian NGOs. If what Hillary claims is
correct, then any Russian interference, for which proof
remains absent, was directed against Hillary in order to
settle a score and has nothing to do with any Russian
influence over Trump or 200 Internet sites as falsely and
maliciously reported by the Washington Post.
All the CIA officials making claims of Russian
interference, according to the Washington Post, continue to
speak “on the condition of anonymity.”
So we have a coup against the president-elect based solely
on unverified, unsourced, anonymous assertions made by
the public knows not who.
Rep. Davin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee, which has oversight over the CIA, has said
that neither he nor the committee have seen any evidence
from the CIA in support of the claims he reads in the
media. He has asked the agency to brief the Intelligence
Committee on the alleged evidence but has had no
response.
According to the Washington Post, “Nunes said: ‘We have
not received any information from Intelligence
Community (IC) agencies indicating that they have
developed new assessments on this issue. I am alarmed
that supposedly new information continues to leak to the
media but has not been provided to Congress.’”
Rep. Nunes statement makes it completely clear that the
CIA is using the presstitute media to launch a coup against
president-elect Trump.
CIA director John Brennan’s audacity suggests that he
expects the coup to succeed. Otherwise, he is dead meat
along with Bezos, The Washington Post and the rest of the
presstitute media.
Trump’s critics on the left and right and among the liberals
and progressives have stupidly played into the CIA’s
hands. I tried to warn them not to judge Trump by the past
associations of his appointees as no change was possible
without strong knowledgeable appointees. Those who
romanticize Bernie Sanders are out to lunch. A person as
weak as Sanders proved to be, completely collapsing in the
face of his stolen presidential nomination by Hillary, could
not possibly have prevailed over the powerful oligarchic
.
331
groups that rule America. When we finally get a president-
elect strong enough to bring change from the top down, the
leftwing-liberal-progressive elements join the CIA in
denouncing him!
If the generals Trump has announced as his appointees
have been too marginalized within the military by the
neoconservatives to be able to provide US military
protection against the CIA’s coup against the president-
elect, do not expect Donald Trump to be inaugurated as
President of the United States on January 20.
We are at the point that only a countercoup against the
CIA and the Hillary forces can save American democracy.
High treason is alive and well in the United States, and it is
operating against American democracy and president-elect
Trump.
 Harvard Professor Admits His Efforts To Turn Electoral
College Against Trump Have Failed Miserably
By Tyler Durden
Dec 17, 2016 8:45 PM

A few days ago we wrote about the Harvard Professor,
Larry Lessig, who was offering free legal services to any
Republican elector willing to consider switching their vote
from Trump to any other candidate when the electoral
college meets on December 19th (see "Harvard Professor
Says He's Rallied Nearly Enough GOP Electors To
Block Trump"). At the time, Lessig said he was in
active discussions with 20 electors, all of whom he
claimed had vowed to switch their votes.
That said, in an interview to be aired tomorrow on "Aaron
Klein Investigative Radio,"
the disaffected, leftist, sore loser admits
that his efforts to disrupt the 2016
presidential election have been a
colossal failure and will likely result in
only a handful of electors switching
their votes. Per Breitbart:
“But I think that we are not going to see
more than a handful who actually vote
against Donald Trump unless that
number climbs above 40. Because I think
there are many people who think it is just
not worth it given especially the pretty
explicit threats that have been made
against the electors who exercise their
constitutional prerogative.”
Apparently anything that would keep hope
alive for just a little longer was worth the
effort to Lessig who said "in the House
there are a lot of things that could
happen."
“You know, in the House there are a lot
of things that could happen. You know,
people could judge the fact that he was the
first president to be denied the nomination
of the Electoral College for reasons like
this. There was a vice president in 1836
who was denied. But he would be the first
president as a kind of fatal blow. And in
that House, the Republicans might
consider, ‘Well, is there another
candidate?’ It would have to be among the
top three vote-getters of the Electoral
College. But is there another candidate
who we should nominate instead? And
that’s why people have been talking
about alternatives like [Republican Ohio
Gov. John] Kasich. Or it could be
anybody who gets the votes of the
Electoral College that are in the top three.
And such a move might actually for the
nation be incredibly important to get
beyond the horrendous political partisan
divide that we now find ourselves in. That
might be a good reason for them to act like
that.”

For once, Hillary actually said it best:

"some people are sore losers..."

Of course, with Trump earning 306 electoral college votes

on November 8th, Lessig needed to pool a group of at least
37 electors to push the election to Congress. But with
Congress controlled by Republicans, Klein asked the
"triggered" Lessig whether his efforts were an exercise in
futility as Trump would almost certainly be elected
anyway.
332
 Arizona Electoral College Voters With Trump, Amid
Onslaught Of Opposition, Threats
Foxnews.Com
Published December 17, 2016
The 11 Electoral College voters in Arizona appear
undaunted in their decision to cast their ballots Monday for
President-elected Donald Trump, despite the tens of
thousands of emails, hundreds of letters and even alleged
death threats.
“It’s out of hand when you have such … a small
group of people that is pushing so hard against
millions if not hundreds of millions of people who
still appreciate this whole system,” Arizona
electorate Donald Graham told Fox News on
Saturday. “The Electoral College is part of the
Constitution.”
Graham, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party,
suggested some of the 11 electors are also being followed
and have received death threats but that such tactics are
really “more annoying than anything.”
Elector Ed Robson, a Phoenix homebuilder, said those
who have sent the stack of letters are “idiots.”
The 11 electors are all Republicans because Trump won
the Arizona election with 49 percent of the vote compared
to Democrat Hillary Clinton's 45 percent. They were
picked by the state party and will gather Monday to
formally cast their votes.
All swore to party officials that they will back Trump,
even though they're not legally bound to do so, and plan to
hold to that pledge.
"I look at it this way -- when you're asked to be
an elector, it's an honor and you should be
humbled that you're being selected to represent
your party," said elector and retired nurse Carole
Joyce. "And when it's a presidential candidate
333
who won the election for your party I can't
imagine anything but voting for that individual."
Some opponents of Trump are planning protests across the
nation as the electors gather, including at the state capitol
in Phoenix.
Daniel Brezenoff -- a California activist who started a
petition on Change.org to “Make Hillary Clinton
President” -- told Fox News on Saturday that Trump is
unqualified to lead the country.
“That is why the founding fathers created the
Electoral College, to protect from a man like
Donald Trump becoming commander in chief,”
he said.
The petition now has more than 4 million signatures, but
it’s almost certain Trump will get 270 of the 538 Electoral
College votes he needs Monday to officially become
president.
Some of those in Arizona have contacted others to urge
them to stand firm, but others say that's not necessary.
"I don't think there's any need for me to, because
all the electors in Arizona, all 11, are voting for
Donald Trump,' said Jane Lynch, a longtime
GOP activist and former state party official.
"There's no doubt about it, so there's no need for
me to reach out to anybody."
The Associated Press interviewed eight of the 11 Arizona
electors, part of a national effort to reach all 538 people
who will vote on the presidency. The AP interviewed more
than 300 -- quizzing them on the unique pressure they've
received this year, their voting position and whether they
believe the Electoral College needs to be changed because
it does not reflect the national popular vote.
The universal answer on changes to the Electoral College
among Arizona electors was that it should be kept as is
because it helps reflect the nation as a whole.
"I believe that the Electoral College was one of
the most forward-thinking ideas of the founders
of this country," said Bruce Ash, a Tucson
businessman and Republican National
Committee member. "It allows for the will of the
 people across the whole width and breath of this
country to be properly represented in a
presidential election. It is part of the reason that
we have had the kind of leadership, both good
and bad, through our country's history."
Arizona Republican electors have a recent history in
holding their ground, even when it hurts their own party.
In 2012, several party officials serving as Electoral College
members for Arizona questioned President Barack
Obama's eligibility to be president, voicing concerns that
later drew disavowals from then-Gov. Jan Brewer and
another Republican elected officials.
All 11 Arizona electors cast their votes in 2012 for
defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who won the
state's popular vote. The slots are awarded to states
according to the size of their congressional delegations and
generally go to party loyalists and activists.
.
334
Then-state Republican Party Chairman Tom Morrissey and
two current or former GOP county chairmen spoke up
during the 2012 ceremony to voice doubts about Obama's
eligibility as a native-born U.S. citizen.
"I am signing this document with concern about
the legitimacy of the birth certificate that I have
seen presented by Barack Hussein Obama,"
Morrissey said at the time.
This year, the state's electors are solidly behind the man
who gathered the most electoral delegates on Nov. 8.
"I'm going to be voting for Donald Trump and the
reason is, and I will give you the cliche -- he will
make America great again, he is already," Mesa
resident and elector Sharon Giese said. "He's
doing a terrific job and he hasn't even been
inaugurated yet."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
 Paul Krugman Loses It:
Hints At Trump 9/11-Style Attack False Flag
By Tyler Durden
Dec 17, 2016 7:15 PM

Some establishment types took the election of Donald

Trump - and the implicit rejection of their omnipotence - a
lot harder than others. Perhaps the arch-Keynesian himself,
New York Times' Paul Krugman, is the best example,
lashing out this morning at the ignorance of Trump voters
once again (well they must be ignorant, right?) along with
his co-conspirators Noah Smith and Brad DeLong,
exclaiming:

"A fact-constrained candidate wouldn’t

have been able to promise such people
what they want; Trump, of course, had
no problem."

And falling back to playing the race card also...

"California is an affluent state, a heavy net

contributor to the federal budget; it went 2-
1 Clinton. West Virginia is poor and a huge
net recipient of federal aid; it went 2 1/2-1
Trump.
I don’t think any kind of economic
analysis can explain this. It has to be
about culture and, as always, race."

But, it was a tweet that the great "debt doesn't matter" guru
blurted out this morning that has many questioning his
sanity (or paranoia)...

We are shocked that Twitter followers have not demanded

Krugman be banned, blocked, and shamed for such
conspiracy theory hate-speak.

Reading between the lines of the so-called economist's

comment,

he appears to be suggesting that

president-elect Donald Trump has an
"incentive" to stage a 9/11-style terrorist
attack in order to legitimize his
presidency ("like Bush did"?)
Hell, we nearly had a seizure upon reading this, though
not of course as bad a Kurt Eichenwald's...
* * *
Now, does Krugman's tweet seem like real news worthy of
the great New York Times' columnist or "fake news"? Is
this the kind of suggestive propaganda that The CIA is
hoping maintains a groundswell of "well, if he is not
hitler... he must be worse" thoughts among those so easily
led? Still, coming from a man who has prognosticated
alien invasions as a global economic growth engine, we
are not sure if he is mental situation is improving or
deteriorating.

335
 Hey Obama…Hillary Lost, Get Over It
By Brother Nathanael Kapner
December 17, 2016
And like all old-hand homosexuals, when opposed, Obama
goes stark raving mad. For like the devil, (whose son he is)
the demonized Obama loses all contact with reality.

“The devil is come down unto you, having great

wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a
short time.” (Fits Obama to a T).

THE LATEST LYING NEWS IS IN: ‘Russia hacked the

DNC to tilt the election in Trump’s favor, and that’s why
Clinton lost.’

Obama is now pitching that Putin did it:

“As part of a personal beef against me, Putin

engaged in hacking the US to undermine our EAT YOUR HEART OUT, Obama, Putin will continue
democracy. At the G-20 Conference I told Putin, Christianizing Russia while you sodomize America.
‘Cut it out!’”
Obama, and the Jews who enable him, can only demonize
Last we heard, there’s no evidence that Putin (or Russia) Putin in the Jew-owned media, and do no more.
hacked anything.
They can lie about Vladimir Putin…while he expands his
Yet, Obama threatens retaliation: Christian agenda for Russia:
“The US will take action at a time and place of
our own choosing. The response may not be
Banned Homosexual Parades
obvious. Some of it may be explicit and
publicized, some of it may not be.”

I’m sure Russia is shivering in their boots. But one thing is Forbids Homosexual Propaganda.
sure, Russians aren’t afraid of a homosexual bastard
posing as Genghis Cohen in the White House.
Installed Orthodoxy 101 In Public Schools
And that’s exactly what the “Russian hacking” Jew-owned
media lies are all about, the Jewish hatred of Christian
Russia. Closed Gambling Casinos.

Obama, (not Putin, for he is too high-principled to launch

vendettas), is projecting on the President of Russia his own Declared Orthodoxy A National Holiday
“personal beef.”

The homosexual Obama cannot endure any nation that Rebuilt 23,000 Churches Destroyed By Communists.
opposes his perverse sexual agenda.

336
 Is it any wonder that Putin gets bad press in Jew-controlled
Banned Abortion Ads America?

Then why should we be surprised that the Jew-owned

Promotes Large Christian Families. media touts the BIG LIE that Putin and Russia hacked US
cyberspace?

Positions The Church To Influence Education, Family Life, It’s a spiritual war, and the Jews and their shills are losing
And The Military. to Holy Russia.

IS IT ANY SURPRISE that the Jews and their puppet

Obama fear Putin?

337
 In Last-Shot Bid, Thousands Urge
Electoral College To Block Trump At Monday Vote
By Robert Samuels
December 17 At 6:38 PM
With criticism flying about the electoral college, here's what you need
to know about our system for electing the president and why the
"Hamilton electors" don't like it. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington
Post)
Pressure on members of the electoral college to select
someone other than Donald Trump has grown dramatically
— and noisily — in recent weeks, causing some to waver
but yielding little evidence that Trump will fall short when
electors convene in most state capitals Monday to cast
their votes.
Carole Joyce of Arizona expected her role as a GOP
elector to be pretty simple: She would meet the others in
Phoenix and carry out a vote for Trump, who won the most
votes in her state and whom she personally supported.
But then came the mail and the emails and the phone calls
— first hundreds, then thousands of voters worrying that
Trump’s impulsive nature would lead the country into
another war.
“Honestly, it had an impact,” said Joyce, a 72-
year-old Republican state committee member.
“I’ve seen enough funerals. I’m tired of hearing
bagpipes. . . . But I signed a loyalty pledge. And
that matters.”
Such is the life these days for many of the 538 men and
women who are scheduled to meet Monday across the
country to carry out what has traditionally been a
perfunctory vote after most every presidential election.
The role of elector has intensified this year, in the wake of
a bitter election in which Trump lost the popular vote to
Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of nearly 3 million
votes and the revelation of a secret CIA assessment that
Russia interfered to help Trump get elected.
338
Lawmakers and other political experts, Dec. 18, called for more
information about Russia's suspected interference in the 2016 U.S.
election. Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to President-elect Trump,
condemned efforts by members of the electoral college to seek an
intelligence briefing on the matter prior to their Dec. 19 vote. (Sarah
Parnass/The Washington Post)
Amid the uncertainty caused by Russian influence, 10
electors — nine Democrats and one Republican — asked
for an intelligence briefing to get more information about
Moscow’s role. Their request was endorsed by John
Podesta, Clinton’s campaign manager.
“The administration should brief members of the
electoral college on the extent and manner of
Russia’s interference in our election before they
vote on Dec. 19,” Podesta wrote Thursday in a
Washington Post op-ed.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said
Friday evening that it would not brief the electors, because
it is engaged in a presidentially ordered review of the
Russian interference. “Once the review is complete in the
coming weeks, the intelligence community stands ready to
brief Congress” and may release findings, the ODNI said
in a statement posted to its website.
Meanwhile, Joyce and the other 305 Republican electors
who are supposed to cast their votes for Trump have been
subject to intense campaigns orchestrated by anti-Trump
forces to convince them that they alone can block the
reality-television star from the White House.
Others have targeted Democratic electors, who are
supposed to cast votes for Clinton, to persuade them to
switch to a more conventional Republican who could also
draw enough support from GOP electors to swoop into
office.
While there is little sign the efforts will prove successful,
the push has unleashed intense pressure on individual
electors, who have now been thrust into a sometimes
uncomfortable spotlight.
Washington state elector Levi Guerra, center, at a Nov. 30 news
conference calls for members of the electoral college to vote for a
Republican “consensus candidate” rather than Donald Trump.
(Steve Bloom/AP)
Joyce has received emails from “Benjamin Franklin” and
“John Jay” — and a Christmas card that read:
“Please, in the name of God, don’t vote for
Trump.”
The rancor about the role of electors started early in the
campaign. In August, Baoky Vu, a GOP activist in Atlanta,
said he planned to resign from the job because he was so
morally opposed to Trump. He planned to defer his voting
responsibility to someone more willing — an alternate
who would be put in place Monday.
After the election, Vu started getting phone calls and
emails asking him not to resign. He was asked instead to
consider joining a coalition of electors hoping to vote
against Trump. He declined.
“I don’t think we should drag this election out any
longer,” Vu said. “And can you imagine if the
electors overturned the results? If we attempt to
change them in any way, you’ve got these far-
right elements that are just going to go haywire.”
Mark Hersch, a 60-year-old Chicago-based marketing
strategist, joined a group known as the Hamilton Electors,
who have been organizing efforts to contact electors and
change their minds. Before the election, Hersch said, the
most political activism he had ever undertaken was
planting a yard sign.
He said he believes the goal to deny Trump seems
reachable if not probable. Rather than persuade an entire
country, he and his allies must find 37 Republicans willing
to vote for someone else, a tipping point at which the
responsibility of picking the president would shift to the
U.S. House of Representatives. No one knows for sure
339
how many are considering alternate votes; estimates vary
from one to 25.
The GOP-controlled House could vote for Trump anyway,
but those trying to flip voters say there is still value in
taking a stand. Hersch said he was inspired to continue to
flip electors by the movie “300,” which depicts an ancient
Spartan army’s stand against a Persian force that
outnumbered it 1,000 to 1.
“I would like to think we would be successful, but
if not, we need to do all we could to prevent this
man from being president,” he said. Then he
modified a line from the movie: “Prepare your
breakfast, and eat hearty, for tonight, we will go
to battle. This isn’t 300, but 538.”
That “battle” has intensified as electors draw closer to their
convening Monday. Joyce was getting 15 letters a day and
300 emails in the days after Nov. 8, but those numbers
quickly increased to 50 and 3,000. Some of them have
been form letters, others handwritten.
The letters came from Washington state and from China,
stuffed with copies of the U.S. Constitution or Alexander
Hamilton’s writing in Federalist Paper No. 68, which states
that the meeting of the electoral college
“affords a moral certainty, that the office of
President will never fall to the lot of any man who
is not in an eminent degree endowed with the
requisite qualifications.”
On Thursday, Joyce received so many letters that the letter
carrier just gave her a U.S. Postal Service bucket filled to
the brim.
“I’m sorry this is happening to you,” Joyce
recalled the letter carrier saying. While some
electors have complained of harassment, Joyce
shrugged off the mail and placed it all on a sofa
decorated with American flag pillows.
“This is America,” she said in a phone interview.
“People have a right to say what they want.” She
said most of the messages were thoughtful.
On Friday, she said, her emails became more positive. The
messages were from Republicans, thanking her for taking
Trump to the finish line of an arduous process.
“How refreshing!” she said.
Although some Democrats (who have in the past five
presidential elections lost twoin which they won the
popular vote) and even Trump himself have questioned the
necessity of the electoral college, many opposing Trump
have said this election proves just how important it is.
Norman Eisen, a former ambassador to the Czech Republic
who has served as legal counsel to the Obama
administration, began calling electors to explain that their
job is not necessarily to certify the results but to have a
reasonable discussion over whether the public made the
right decision.
For instance, Eisen, who focused on government ethics in
Obama’s White House, noted that Trump could be
violating a clause in the Constitution that prevents
presidents from receiving gifts and funds from foreign
governments; it is unclear whether his businesses do
because he has not publicly disclosed his tax returns.
In Massachusetts, Republican operative and attorney R.J.
Lyman said he didn’t want to harass anyone, so he used his
connections to find electors who were willing to chat about
the lessons he learned in American history class and at the
dinner table. He became one of the few people in the
country more willing to talk about Hamilton the man than
about “Hamilton: An American Musical.”
The electoral college, he said he tells them, was “not
intended to be a rubber stamp.” Otherwise, he said, the
Founding Fathers would have tasked the responsibility to a
clerk or simply used the popular vote as a way of choosing
a president.
“I’m reminding them of their duty to think about
their choice in a way that’s consistent with their
conscience and the Constitution,” Lyman said.
So far, Lyman said, he has identified 20 electors who
might be willing to vote “other than their party pledge.” He
couldn’t name more than one publicly but insisted that
more were out there.
Earlier this month, Chris Suprun of Texas became the first
Republican elector in a red state that voted for Trump to
declare, in a Dec. 5 New York Times column, that he would
not cast his electoral vote for Trump. Suprun voted for
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the primary and said he left
behind his wallet on Election Day and thus did not vote in
the general.
Nonetheless, Suprun said, he was willing to vote for
Trump in the electoral college until the candidate claimed
with no evidence that millions of Clinton supporters voted
illegally.
Suprun’s public stance has elicited death threats and hate
mail, he said.
.
340
“As of yesterday, people are calling to say, ‘Get
your ass together, or we’re coming for you,’ ”
said Suprun, who was the sole Republican
elector to ask for an intelligence briefing on
Russia. “They are doing it with their own phone
number, not even blocking the number. That’s
not been surprising — look at what Trump says
himself.”
Vinz Koller, a Democratic elector from Monterey County,
Calif., said he read Suprun’s column and started thinking
about his own role in the college. It inspired him to support
a new theory: If he could persuade other Democrats to
abandon their Clinton votes, perhaps he and Republicans
could agree on a more conventional choice — a la Ohio
governor and failed GOP candidate John Kasich — to vote
for instead of Trump.
The plan seemed unlikely, he said, but Trump’s candidacy
unsettled him so much that he felt he needed to try
anything. California is one of 29 states that mandate
electors vote for the candidate who won the state, so Koller
sued to continue his plan.
“Frankly, this is hard and not something I do
lightly,” he said. “I’ve been working in partisan
politics a long time, and I don’t like voting against
my candidate, but I never thought that the
country might be unstable until now.”
On Thursday evening, he found himself in the Library of
Congress. Strolling through its stacks, Koller sought a
librarian with one request: Can I see the original Federalist
Papers?
He looked to see Federalist No. 68, written by Hamilton to
describe the need for the electoral college.
“We have been getting a civic lesson we weren’t
prepared to get,” Koller said. “They gave us the
fail-safe emergency brake, in case the people got
it wrong. And here we are, 200 years later. It’s
the last shot we have.”
Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
Correct: An earlier version of this report incorrectly said
that Norman Eisen served as legal counsel to the Bush
administration. He has served in that capacity for the
Obama administration.
 Trump Slams Chinese Seizure Of US Drone,
Calls It "Unprecedented Act"
By Tyler Durden
Dec 17, 2016 8:38 AM
Update: moments after the original post, Trump has
corrected his spelling error in a follow up tweet which,
correctly, accuses China of engaging in an "unprecedented
act" by seizing the US naval drone.
China steals United States Navy research drone
in international waters - rips it out of water and
takes it to China in unprecedented act.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 17, 2016
Irrelevant spelling mistakes aside, China's drone seizure is
likely a signal to President-elect Donald Trump that it
won't take his phone call with Taiwan lightly, an expert
said on Friday. "Knowing Chinese military officials for
many years and how orders are communicated from the
highest power centers in Beijing down to commanders on
the ground or water, this was very likely a highly planned
and escalatory move to show China will not take matters
lightly when it comes to President-elect Trump’s phone
call and comments on Taiwan, or Chinese actions overall,"
said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the
Center for the National Interest.
The ball is now in Trump's court if he wishes to further
escalate.
***
Following yesterday's biggest, market-moving geopolitical
event, in which a US oceanographic vessel had its
underwater drone "stolen" by a Chinese warship "literally
right in front of the eyes of the American crew", we
predicted that everyone would be eagerly waiting for
Trump to chime in on the topic, and further escalating the
diplomatic spat between the two nations which now
involves China confiscating US marine drones, the first of
its kind seizure in recent history:
everyone F5ing the @realDonaldTrump page
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 16, 2016
21 hours later, it finally happened, when the President-
elect used his favorite social media outlet to Tweet that
"China steals United States Navy research drone in
341
international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to
China", an act which he called "unpresidented."
... and as a result, the social media response has been more
focused on Trump's spelling, than his outrage:
I know it's trivial & probably helps Trump when
people hype things like this, but it's genuinely
shocking he thinks it's spelled this way
pic.twitter.com/Mkw0J4Fqfd
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December
17, 2016
Still, as tensions runs high between the two superpowers,
and as some wonder if Trump will do anything else in
retaliation besides being confined by Twitter, China's act
confined merely there was some signs of de-escalation,
after China said on Saturday that Beijing and the US are
using military channels to "appropriately handle" the
seizure by the Chinese navy of a U.S. underwater drone in
the South China Sea, and a Chinese state-run newspaper
said it expected a smooth resolution. The drone was taken
on Thursday, the first seizure of its kind in recent memory,
about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay off the
Philippines, just as the USNS Bowditch was about to
retrieve the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), U.S.
officials said.
"It is understood that China and the United
States are using military channels to
appropriately handle this issue," China's Foreign
Ministry said in a brief statement sent to Reuters,
without elaborating.
The Global Times, published by the ruling Communist
Party's official People's Daily,
 said a Chinese naval vessel had discovered
"unidentified equipment" and checked it to
prevent any navigational safety issues.
It cited an unidentified Chinese source.
"This person said China has already received a
claim request for the equipment from the U.S.
side. Relevant parties from both sides have
maintained smooth communication channels and
believe this issue will be smoothly resolved," the
paper said. China's Defense Ministry has yet to
comment publicly on the issue.
Meanwhile, US officials were puzzled, and shared Trump's
misspelled indignation at the unprovoked Chinese action.
"The UUV was lawfully conducting a military
survey in the waters of the South China Sea," a
U.S. official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity. "It's a sovereign immune vessel,
clearly marked in English not to be removed from
the water - that it was U.S. property," the official
said. The Pentagon confirmed the incident at a
news briefing on Friday, and said the drone used
commercially available technology and sold for
about $150,000.
Still, the Pentagon viewed China's seizure seriously since it
had effectively taken U.S. military property.
"It is ours, and it is clearly marked as ours
and we would like it back. And we would like
.
342
this not to happen again," Pentagon
spokesman Jeff Davis said.
***
Coming at a time of rising tensions about China's military
presence and deployment of weapons to the Spratly islands
in the South China Seas, the seizure will add to concerns
about China's increased military presence and aggressive
posture in the disputed area, including its militarization of
maritime outposts. As reported previously, a U.S. research
group said this week that new satellite imagery indicated
China has installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and
anti-missile systems, on all seven artificial islands it has
built in the South China Sea.
The drone seizure coincided with sabre-rattling from
Chinese state media and some in its military establishment
after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump cast doubt on
whether Washington would stick to its nearly four-
decades-old policy of recognizing that Taiwan is part of
"one China."
On Friday, Obama said it was appropriate for Trump to
take a fresh look at U.S. policy toward Taiwan, but he
cautioned that a shift could lead to significant
consequences in the U.S. relationship with Beijing, as the
notion that Taiwan is part of "one China" is central to
China's view of itself as a nation. For now, Trump is
ignoring Obama's advice and instead if more focused on
venting about one-off "precedents" using Twitter without
an autocorrect function.
 A CIA-led Coup Against American Democracy
Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes
Paul Craig Roberts
December 17, 2016
This article by Moon of Alabama is not conspiracy theory:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46056.htm
Read it carefully. Check out the links.
The article is a documented and accurate description of a
coup that is underway. The extraordinary lies that are
being perpetrated by the media and by members of the US
government have as their obvious purpose the prevention
of a Donald Trump presidency. There is no other reason
for the extraordinary blatant lies for which there is not a
shred of evidence. Indeed, there is massive real evidence to
the contrary. Yet the coup proceeds and gathers steam.
President Eisenhower warned us more than a half century
ago of the danger that the military/security complex
presents to US democracy. In the decades since
Eisenhower’s warning, the military/security complex has
become more powerful than the American people and is
demonstrating its power by overturning a presidential
election.
Will the coup succeed?
In my opinion, former and present members of the US
government and the media would not dare to so obviously
and openly participate in a coup against democracy and an
elected president unless they expect the coup to succeed.
It is an easy matter for the ruling interests to bribe electors
to vote differently than their states. The cost of the bribes
is miniscule compared to the wealth and income streams
that a trillion dollar annual budget provides to the
.
343
military/security complex. The fake news of a
Putin/Trump election-stealing plot generated by
unsupported allegations of present and former members of
US intelligence, the lame-duck President Obama, and the
presstitute media provide the cover for electors to break
with precedent “in order to save America from a Russian
stooge.”
The CIA-controlled European media, the politicians in
Washington’s European vassal states, NATO officials, and
the brainwashed European peoples will support the coup
against Trump.
The only ones speaking against the coup are the voters
who elected Trump—all of whom are alleged to have been
deceived by Russian fake news— the Russian government,
and the 200 websites falsely described by the Washington
Post and the secret organization PropOrNot as Russian
agents.
In other words, those objecting to the coup are the ones
described by the coup leaders as those who made the coup
necessary.
I do not know that the coup will succeed, but looking at the
commitment so many high level people have made to the
coup, I conclude that those bringing the coup expect it to
succeed.
Therefore, we should take very seriously the expectation of
success that those who control levers of power are
demonstrating.

 Revealed! Putin Personally Hacked DNC From
Surveillance Aircraft With Bear On Board
Danielle Ryan
Published Time: 17 Dec, 2016 11:40 - © Alexey Nikolsky / Reuters
Shocking revelations earlier this week as US intelligence
officials confirmed with “high confidence” that Russian
President Vladimir Putin was “personally involved” in the
hacking of the Democratic National Committee.
According to the anonymous sources inside the
anonymous US intelligence agency, Putin’s objectives
were multifaceted, but the whole thing began as a
“vendetta” against Hillary Clinton because she said some
mean things about him a few times. Putin is also an
"immature 12 year-old child," a former US official with
links to the defense industry, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, confirmed (with high confidence).
The high level, anonymous and completely trustworthy
sources also told a major US news agency that Putin
himself had piloted a specially-designed Russian spy plane
across the Atlantic to personally direct the still-ongoing
hacking operations from the air.
Satellite images seen by a separate anonymous NASA
whistleblower are believed to show Putin in the cockpit of
the spy plane alongside his co-pilot Boris, a lifelike robotic
bear which has been under secret development in the
depths of Siberia and has been programmed to attack
Putin’s enemies on command using a variety of lethal
methods.
The NASA whistleblower did not provide journalists with
photographic evidence, but the editors had a chat about it
in their morning meeting and concluded that it’s probably
still true.
344
In fact, the American news agency could not verify any of
the claims from the officials who commented for the story,
but given that their sources used the term “high
confidence” they took this to mean the evidence must be
“nearly incontrovertible” and relayed the information to
the public with this implication. An understandable
decision, since, as we all know, only 100 percent factual
information is ever released by anonymous intelligence
officials.
Okay, let’s rewind. Obviously that bit about the bear and
the plane was fake news. And maybe a few other bits, too.
But it all demonstrates a point. I’ve provided you with
about the same amount of evidence as NBC has in its story
this week claiming Putin personally rigged the US
election: I made some allegations, I cited anonymous
sources and then I conveyed it to you readers as “nearly
incontrovertible” and suggested no further digging or
investigation, or even a bit of healthy skepticism, was
necessary.
Journalism is dying
There was a time when journalists needed more than
‘maybes’ and ‘probablys’ before deciding what their
sources told them was “incontrovertible” and delivering
half-baked conspiracy theories to the public. That time has
apparently long gone.
Imagine for a moment that RT published a story about, oh,
let’s say Barack Obama personally hacking into Putin’s
computer. Now imagine the only evidence RT provided
was “anonymous FSB officials” and told its readers the
story was therefore practically indisputable because these
anonymous sources were “confident” in the legitimacy of
their secret evidence. Imagine the laughs that would get
from sneering Western journalists. Well, that’s pretty
much exactly what NBC did. And they’re not alone. The
Washington Post has been at it too, reporting on a “secret”
CIA assessment that Russia worked to get Donald Trump
elected, quoting anonymous “top officials” and like NBC,
providing no evidence.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but for something to be
presented to the public as indisputable fact, there must be
evidence made available to back it up. Neither the CIA or
the FBI have provided any such evidence to the public.
Perhaps the saddest thing though is having to acknowledge
that all our debates over fake news and real news really
don’t matter because the very people we are told to trust
are the people who will most adeptly use the public’s
concerns over fake news to manipulate them. The CIA, for
example, is hardly known for its long history of telling the
truth. Its employees are literally trained in the art of
deception and disinformation. They are hardly averse to
creating a bit of fake news or making up ‘evidence’ where
needed. Anything they say or do can be forgiven once
someone utters the words “national security”.
NBC’s story claimed Putin not only wanted to embarrass
Clinton with the DNC leaks, but to highlight corruption in
the American political system; the emails showing, for
example, how the DNC colluded with the Clinton
campaign to ensure Clinton, not Bernie Sanders, would be
the Democratic nominee.
.
345
Now, what better way to encourage people to ignore the
corruption in the system than to focus their attention on the
idea that Putin is the one who told them about it? Are
people really reading these stories and convincing
themselves that the CIA is the most credible source of
public information on what the Russians are doing?
Clinton’s long-shot
We’ve been hearing about Russian hacking for months,
long before the election results in November, so why the
sudden confidence in all this new and secret evidence?
Why the new assertions that Putin himself directed the
hacking? Look at your calendar. The Electoral College
votes on Monday and it may be Clinton’s last hope. It’s a
long shot, but in true Clinton character, she won’t go down
without a fight to the last gasp. Her best hope is to
convince the Electoral College that Trump’s win was
influenced by a foreign power, is therefore illegitimate and
that national security will be at stake if he takes office.
Amazingly, in the midst of all this, while Clinton’s camp is
still trying to get her elected through back-door tactics,
Obama has pretty much called the election results
legitimate.
Members of the Electoral College are expected to vote the
way their states voted, but they are not required to. If
Clinton can get enough members to flip their votes, Trump
is deprived of the 270 votes he needs to become president.
That’s what this is really all about — and the media is
serving as Clinton’s willing accomplice.
 Hillary Clinton's Holiday Party 'Like A Wake'
Published December 17, 2016
Foxnews.Com

month called the rise of so-called fake news an epidemic in

American politics, saying it is “now clear” fake news has
“real-world consequences.”

Clinton is apparently not the only Democrat still getting

over last month’s elections.

President Obama put Russia's Vladimir Putin on notice

Friday that the U.S. could use offensive cyber muscle to
retaliate for interference in the U.S. presidential election,
his strongest suggestion to date that Putin had been well
aware of campaign email hacking.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s holiday party "Whatever they do to us, we can potentially do to them,"
at a posh New York City hotel Thursday was reportedly a Obama declared.
somber affair since it has only been just over a month since
her election loss. First Lady Michelle Obama also told Oprah that the
country is now “feeling what not having hope feels like,
“It was like a wake with a band,” quipped one guest who you know? Hope is necessary.”
was at the Plaza Hotel told The New York Post’ Page Six.
The holiday party included top-tier donors, VIP boosters
and campaign advisers.

The source said, “It was a little bit of group therapy and a
lot of love” among the losing Democratic rainmakers.

Spotted in the crowd were Clinton advisers Huma Abedin,

John Podesta and Robby Mook, donors Alan Patricof,
Bernard Schwartz, Marc Lasry, Jay Snyder and Robert
Zimmerman, designers Vera Wang and Tory Burch,
plus Anna Wintour, Harvey Weinstein and restaurateur
Danny Meyer.

There has been a confluence of news stories that may have

contributed to the feelings. Clinton, herself, earlier this
.

346
 Electors Under Siege
Members Of The Electoral College Have Been Inundated By Harassing
Phone Calls And Hate Mail. Many Report Receiving Death Threats.
By Kyle Cheney
12/17/16 01:07 PM EST
Updated 12/18/16 08:52 AM EST
Chris Suprun is the only Republican in a coalition of 10 electors who
have launched a desperate, long-shot effort to convince GOP electors
to reject Trump. | AP Photo
On Monday, members of the Electoral College will cast
their historic votes for the next president of the United
States. In the meantime, they are under siege.
The nation’s 538 presidential electors have been thrust into
the political foreground like never before in American
history. In the aftermath of a uniquely polarizing
presidential contest, the once-anonymous electors are
squarely in the spotlight, targeted by death threats,
harassing phone calls and reams of hate mail. One Texas
Republican elector said he’s been bombarded with more
than 200,000 emails.
“I never can imagine harassing people like this.
It’s just f----- up,” said Jim Rhoades, a
Republican elector from Michigan who runs a
home inspection service. “I’ve lost a bunch of
business.”
In recent decades, the Electoral College had become such a
reliable rubber stamp of Election Day results that it was
viewed as an afterthought.
But with many Democrats desperate to block the all-but-
certain ascension of Donald Trump to the White House,
this long-neglected body has been gripped by turmoil, and
its members have been subjected to pleas to upend
centuries of tradition by casting their votes for someone
other than the president-elect.
347
There have been ad campaigns targeting electors and op-
eds assailing their role. One Democratic member of
Congress has called to delay the vote for president while
an investigation of Russian involvement in the election is
underway. Two others have pleaded with electors to
consider Russia’s role when deciding how to vote.
Progressive groups are preparing protests across the
country at sites where electors will meet to cast their
ballots. Personal contact information for many electors has
been posted publicly — and it’s been used to bury them
with massive email campaigns.
Last week saw the release of a video of celebrities like
Martin Sheen pleading with Republican electors to vote for
someone other than Trump. On Saturday, Unite for
America — the group behind the video — began sending
personalized versions to electors in which Sheen and more
than a dozen others call them out by name.
The body’s 306 Republicans have faced the most acute
pressure of all. Several, like Rhoades, told POLITICO they
receive thousands of emails a day from anti-Trump
advocates, much of it auto-generated from forms available
online. Others say they’re receiving pressure from national
Republicans and the Trump campaign to make sure they
remain loyal.
In this Dec. 12 photo, Hector Maldonado poses in St. Louis. Although
pestered to abandon Donald Trump, Republican electors appear to be
in no mood for an insurrection in the presidential campaign'’s last
voting ritual. Maldonado backed Ted Cruz in the primaries but will cast
his vote for Trump with conviction. "“I took an oath once to become a
U.S. citizen,”" he said, “"and on Aug. 14, 1995, that was the first oath
that I've taken to support the U.S. Constitution. A year later I took the
oath again, to support the duties of being an officer in the U.S. Army.
This was the third oath that I've taken to execute what I promised to
do." | AP Photo
 “The Trump campaign is calling. The Republican
Party of Texas is calling. They’re trying to lock
down the votes,” said Texas GOP elector
Alexander Kim, who estimated he has received
at least 30 such calls. One RNC insider, he said,
called him three times in one hour to get a
response.
There’s a reason electors like Kim make Republicans
nervous. While he insists he’s voting for Trump when the
body meets on Monday and that nothing can shake him
from that position, there is a caveat:
“unless Trump does something to violate the
compact that he created with American citizens.”
Just that eyelash of doubt, Kim suspects, has led to his
barrage of calls from the party.
The tumultuous 2016 primary campaign is in part
responsible for the manic lobbying efforts. Dozens of
electors have some degree of hostility to Trump and
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, both of whom won
their party nominations after contentious primaries. Most
of the Republican electors have since vowed to support
Trump, but their presence has fueled the Democratic
resistance and given it hope.
In this image from video, Electoral College voter Jim Skaggs looks
through his mail from people writing him about being an elector in
Bowling Green, Ky., on Dec. 13. Although pestered to abandon Donald
Trump, Republican electors appear to be in no mood for an
insurrection in the presidential campaign’'s last voting ritual. "I hope
he is far better than I think he is,”" Skaggs said. "Even so, “I fully intend
to vote for Donald Trump," he said. “"I think it’'s a duty." | AP Photo
Chris Suprun of Texas, the only GOP elector to publicly
oppose Trump, has been especially battered by criticism —
mainly from fellow Republicans, including party leaders
who have questioned his integrity.
Suprun announced his intention to vote for someone other
than Trump in a New York Times op-ed, recalling his
service on Sept. 11, 2001, as a first responder to the attack
on the Pentagon. On Friday, a Texas television station ran
a story accusing Suprun of inventing his 9/11 role, the
story that Suprun built his career around. The charge,
based on a discrepancy with Suprun’s LinkedIn page,
.
348
featured an anonymous former colleague accusing Suprun
of “stolen valor.”
Suprun has vehemently denied the story.
Suprun is the only Republican in a coalition of 10 electors
who have launched a desperate, long-shot effort to
convince GOP electors to reject Trump. They need at least
36 more to join them in order to prevent Trump from
earning enough support to be officially elected president. If
they were to succeed, the election would be thrown to the
GOP-controlled House of Representatives for a final vote.
Rex Teter poses at his home in Pasadena, Texas, on Dec. 13. Teter, 59,
a music teacher and preacher, received about 35,000 emails and 200
letters urging him not to support Donald Trump. It took him several
hours to delete them the day after Thanksgiving. A Marco Rubio
supporter in the primaries, he is solidly for Trump. "Some have been
very personal letters. Some threatening. One was very funny. They
view President-elect Trump as a threat so it'’s personal for them and I
can empathize. But I'm not changing my vote as an elector." | AP
Photo
Suprun is also the only Republican who joined 79
Democratic electors in calling for an intelligence briefing
on Russia’s role in the election ahead of Monday’s vote.
The effort, spearheaded by California Democratic elector
Christine Pelosi — daughter of House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi — was rebuffed Friday by Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper.
"Recently, the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence has received requests from Members
of Congress, several electors of the Electoral
College and the general public for additional
information on Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election," Clapper’s office said in a
statement, noting that President Barack Obama
has called for a full review of Russian
interference amid reports that President Vladimir
Putin directed a hacking campaign aimed at
Democrats in order to aid Trump’s election.
"Once the review is complete in the coming
weeks, the intelligence community stands ready
to brief Congress and will make those findings
available to the public consistent with protecting
intelligence sources and methods.”
 Coup Or No Coup:
What To Watch For As The
Electoral College Votes Tomorrow
By Tyler Durden
Dec 18, 2016 2:18 PM
With even Harvard's Larry Lessig admitting that his efforts
to flip the Electoral College against Trump have failed
miserably (see "Harvard Professor Admits His Efforts To
Turn Electoral College Against Trump Have Failed
Miserably"), it's a near certainty that Trump will, in fact,
be elected President when the Electoral College casts their
votes tomorrow.
That said, there could always be surprises and, as such,
The Hill has published a list of five things you should keep
an eye on as electors get set to cast their ballots. First, here
is how the 538 electors should cast their ballots if they all
strictly follow the will of the voters in their respective
states.
That said, we know that at least one Texas elector, Chris
Suprun, has vowed to go rogue tomorrow and anxious
eyes will be waiting to see if anyone decides to join him.
As The Hill points out, there hasn't been an election since
1836 in which more than 1 elector changed his vote, so
even 2 defectors would make history.
There’s no evidence of a widespread number
of Republican defections
—just one Republican elector from Texas has gone public
with plans to break from Trump.
349
But there hasn’t been an election in which more than one
elector jumped ship for reasons other than the death of a
candidate since 1836, according to the nonprofit FairVote.
So a defection by even one more Republican
elector would make history.
The next thing to watch is whether any Democrat electors
will cast protest votes.
A small group of Democratic electors had
vowed to join Larry Lessig's coup attempt by
throwing their support behind an alternative
Republican candidate.
While this now seems like a remote possibility, it is
something to watch for.
Democratic electors are the ones beating the drums for the
revolt, yet they’re largely powerless to change the
outcome.
A handful of electors are already planning on
uniting around a Republican alternative as a
protest,
but it’s still unclear how many are willing to join the
protest.
In theory, a unified front of the 232 Democrats could join
with 38 Republicans to elect an alternative president.
But in practice, the anti-Trump electors will
be lucky if more than a dozen Democrats
break.
With 29 states and the District of Columbia binding their
electors by law, it will also be interesting to see if anyone
in those states choose to defect, and if so, what penalties
will be levied upon them.
The country’s presidential electors are chosen through
different methods across the country—some are elected
directly while others are picked by the candidates
themselves or by the state party.
 29 states and the District of Columbia bind
their electors by law, mostly with small fines
as retribution for going rogue.

No faithless electors have ever been punished, so political

junkies will be watching to see if that changes.

Finally, when all the voting is said and done, all eyes will
be watching how the candidates and their respective
parties react. Will Trump launch a massive tweet storm
blasting "faithless electors" and/or will Democrats finally
tone down the "Russian hacking" rhetoric and calls to
scrap the Electoral College system? Somehow we suspect
that finally admitting they ran a failed candidate that was
doomed to lose from the start is not a viable alternative for
the talking heads of the leftist media...so we're somewhat
less than hopeful.h
Bucking their jurisdiction’s votes could also have
consequences for faithless electors.
.

350
 A Spy Coup in America?
By Robert Parry
December 18, 2016
As Official Washington’s latest “group think” solidifies
into certainty – that Russia used hacked Democratic emails
to help elect Donald Trump – something entirely different
may be afoot: a months-long effort by elements of the U.S.
intelligence community to determine who becomes the
next president.
FBI Director James Comey
I was told by a well-placed intelligence source some
months ago that senior leaders of the Obama
administration’s intelligence agencies – from the CIA to
the FBI – were deeply concerned about either Hillary
Clinton or Donald Trump ascending to the presidency.
And, it’s true that intelligence officials often come to see
themselves as the stewards of America’s fundamental
interests, sometimes needing to protect the country from
dangerous passions of the public or from inept or corrupt
political leaders.
CIA Director John Brennan addresses officials at the Agency’s
headquarters in Langley, Virginia. (Photo credit: CIA)
It was, after all, a senior FBI official, Mark Felt, who – as
“Deep Throat” – guided The Washington Post’s Bob
351
Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their Watergate
investigation into the criminality of President Richard
Nixon. And, I was told by former U.S. intelligence officers
that they wanted to block President Jimmy Carter’s
reelection in 1980 because they viewed him as ineffectual
and thus not protecting American global interests.
It’s also true that intelligence community sources
frequently plant stories in major mainstream publications
that serve propaganda or political goals, including stories
that can be misleading or entirely false.
What’s Going On?
So, what to make of what we have seen over the past
several months when there have been a series of leaks and
investigations that have damaged both Clinton and Trump
— with some major disclosures coming, overtly and
covertly, from the U.S. intelligence community led by CIA
Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey?
Some sources of damaging disclosures remain
mysterious. Clinton’s campaign was hobbled by leaked
emails from the Democratic National Committee –
showing it undercutting Clinton’s chief rival, Sen. Bernie
Sanders – and from her campaign chairman John Podesta –
exposing the content of her speeches to Wall Street banks
that she had tried to hide from the voters and revealing the
Clinton Foundation’s questionable contacts with foreign
governments.
Clinton – already burdened with a reputation for secrecy
and dishonesty – suffered from the drip, drip, drip of
releases from WikiLeaks of the DNC and Podesta emails
although it remains unclear who gave the emails to
WikiLeaks. Still, the combination of the two email batches
added to public suspicions about Clinton and reminded
people why they didn’t trust her.
But the most crippling blow to Clinton came from FBI
Director Comey in the last week of the campaign when he
reopened and then re-closed the investigation into whether
she broke the law with her sloppy handling of classified
material in her State Department emails funneled through a
home server.
Following Comey’s last-minute revival of the Clinton
email controversy, her poll numbers fell far enough to
enable Trump to grab three normally Democratic states –
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – enough to give
him a victory in the Electoral College.
Taking Down Trump
However, over the past few weeks, the U.S. intelligence
community, led by CIA Director Brennan and seconded by
FBI Director Comey, has tried to delegitimize Trump by
using leaks to the mainstream U.S. news media to pin the
release of the DNC and Podesta emails on Russia and
claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin was
personally trying to put Trump into the White House.
This remarkable series of assessments from the CIA – now
endorsed by the leadership of the FBI – come on the eve of
the Electoral College members assembling to cast their
formal votes to determine who becomes the new U.S.
president. Although the Electoral College process is
usually simply a formality, the Russian-hacking claims
made by the U.S. intelligence community have raised the
possibility that enough electors might withhold their votes
from Trump to deny him the presidency.
If on Monday enough Trump electors decide to cast their
votes for someone else – possibly another Republican – the
presidential selection could go to the House of
Representatives where, conceivably, the Republican-
controlled chamber could choose someone other than
Trump.
In other words, there is an arguable scenario in which the
U.S. intelligence community first undercut Clinton and,
secondly, Trump, seeking — however unlikely — to get
someone installed in the White House considered more
suitable to the CIA’s and the FBI’s views of what’s good
for the country.
Who Did the Leaking?
At the center of this controversy is the question of who
leaked or hacked the DNC and Podesta emails. The CIA
has planted the story in The Washington Post, The New
York Times and other mainstream outlets that it was Russia
that hacked both the DNC and Podesta emails and slipped
the material to WikiLeaks with the goal of assisting the
Trump campaign. The suggestion is that Trump is Putin’s
“puppet,” just as Hillary Clinton alleged during the third
presidential debate.
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray
352
But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has publicly denied
that Russia was the source of the leaks and one of his
associates, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig
Murray, has suggested that the DNC leak came from a
“disgruntled” Democrat upset with the DNC’s
sandbagging of the Sanders campaign and that the Podesta
leak came from the U.S. intelligence community.
Although Assange recently has sought to muzzle Murray’s
public comments – out of apparent concern for protecting
the identity of sources – Murray offered possibly his most
expansive account of the sourcing during a podcast
interview with Scott Horton on Dec. 13.
Murray, who became a whistleblower himself when he
protested Britain’s tolerance of human rights abuses in
Uzbekistan, explained that he consults with Assange and
cooperates with WikiLeaks “without being a formal
member of the structure.”
But he appears to have undertaken a mission for WikiLeaks
to contact one of the sources (or a representative) during a
Sept. 25 visit to Washington where he says he met with a
person in a wooded area of American University. At the
time, Murray was at American University participating in
an awards ceremony for former CIA officer John Kiriakou
who was being honored by a group of former Western
intelligence officials, the Sam Adams Associates, named
for the late Vietnam War-era CIA analyst and
whistleblower Sam Adams.
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a founder of the Sam
Adams group, told me that Murray was “m-c-ing” the
event but then slipped away, skipping a reception that
followed the award ceremony.
Reading Between LInes
Though Murray has declined to say exactly what the
meeting in the woods was about, he may have been
passing along messages about ways to protect the source
from possible retaliation, maybe even an extraction plan if
the source was in some legal or physical danger.
President-elect Donald J. Trump (Photo credit: donaldjtrump.com)
Murray has disputed a report in London’s Daily Mail that
he was receiving a batch of the leaked Democratic emails.
 “The material, I think, was already safely with
WikiLeaks before I got there in September,”
Murray said in the interview with Scott Horton. “I
had a small role to play.”
Murray also suggested that the DNC leak and the Podesta
leak came from two different sources, neither of them the
Russian government.
“The Podesta emails and the DNC emails are, of
course, two separate things and we shouldn’t
conclude that they both have the same source,”
Murray said. “In both cases we’re talking of a
leak, not a hack, in that the person who was
responsible for getting that information out had
legal access to that information.”
Reading between the lines of the interview, one could
interpret Murray’s comments as suggesting that the DNC
leak came from a Democratic source and that the Podesta
leak came from someone inside the U.S. intelligence
community, which may have been monitoring John
Podesta’s emails because the Podesta Group, which he
founded with his brother Tony, served as a registered
“foreign agent” for Saudi Arabia.
“John Podesta was a paid lobbyist for the Saudi
government,” Murray noted. “If the American
security services were not watching the
communications of the Saudi government’s paid
lobbyist in Washington, then the American
security services would not be doing their job. …
His communications are going to be of interest to
a great number of other security services as
well.”
Leak by Americans
Scott Horton then asked,
“Is it fair to say that you’re saying that the
Podesta leak came from inside the intelligence
services, NSA [the electronic spying National
Security Agency] or another agency?”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
“I think what I said was certainly compatible with
that kind of interpretation, yeah,” Murray
353
responded. “In both cases they are leaks by
Americans.”
In reference to the leak of the DNC emails, Murray noted
that “Julian Assange took very close interest in the death
of Seth Rich, the Democratic staff member” who had
worked for the DNC on voter databases and was shot and
killed on July 10 near his Washington, D.C., home.
Murray continued,
“WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for
information leading to the capture of his killers.
So, obviously there are suspicions there about
what’s happening and things are somewhat
murky. I’m not saying – don’t get me wrong – I’m
not saying that he was the source of the [DNC]
leaks. What I’m saying is that it’s probably not an
unfair indication to draw that WikiLeaks believes
that he may have been killed by someone who
thought he was the source of the leaks …
whether correctly or incorrectly.”
Though acknowledging that such killings can become grist
for conspiracy buffs, Murray added: “But people do die
over this sort of stuff. There were billions of dollars –
literally billions of dollars – behind Hillary Clinton’s
election campaign and those people have lost their money.
“You have also to remember that there’s a big
financial interest – particularly in the armaments
industry – in a bad American relationship with
Russia and the worse the relationship with
Russia is the larger contracts the armaments
industry can expect especially in the most high-
tech high-profit side of fighter jets and missiles
and that kind of thing.
“And Trump has actually already indicated he’s
looking to make savings on the defense budget
particularly in things like fighter [jet] projects. So,
there are people standing to lose billions of
dollars and anybody who thinks in that situation
bad things don’t happen to people is very naïve.”
An Intelligence Coup?
There’s another possibility in play here: that the U.S.
intelligence community is felling a number of birds with
one stone. If indeed U.S. intelligence bigwigs deemed both
Clinton and Trump unfit to serve as President – albeit for
different reasons – they could have become involved in
leaking at least the Podesta emails to weaken Clinton’s
campaign, setting the candidate up for the more severe
blow from FBI Director Comey in the last week of the
campaign.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Then, by blaming the leaks on Russian President Putin, the
U.S. intelligence leadership could set the stage for
Trump’s defeat in the Electoral College, opening the door
to the elevation of a more traditional Republican.
However, even if that unlikely event – defeating Trump in
the Electoral College – proves impossible, Trump would at
least be weakened as he enters the White House and thus
might not be able to move very aggressively toward a
détente with Russia.
Further, the Russia-bashing that is all the rage in the
mainstream U.S. media will surely encourage the Congress
to escalate the New Cold War, regardless of Trump’s
desires, and thus ensure plenty more money for both the
intelligence agencies and the military contractors.
Official Washington’s “group think” holding Russia
responsible for the Clinton leaks does draw some logical
.
354
support from the near certainty that Russian intelligence
has sought to penetrate information sources around both
Clinton and Trump. But the gap between the likely
Russian hacking efforts and the question of who gave the
email information to WikiLeaks is where mainstream
assumptions may fall down.
As ex-Ambassador Murray has said, U.S. intelligence was
almost surely keeping tabs on Podesta’s communications
because of his ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign
governments. So, the U.S. intelligence community
represents another suspect in the case of who leaked those
emails to WikiLeaks. It would be a smart play, reminiscent
of the convoluted spy tales of John LeCarré, if U.S.
intelligence officials sought to cover their own tracks by
shifting suspicions onto the Russians.
But just the suspicion of the CIA joining the FBI and
possibly other U.S. intelligence agencies to intervene in
the American people’s choice of a president would cause
President Harry Truman, who launched the CIA with
prohibitions against it engaging in domestic activities, and
Sen. Frank Church, who investigated the CIA’s abuses, to
spin in their graves.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many
of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy
his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either
in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com).
 As Obama Plans Retaliation
Against "Russian Hacking", A Problem Emerges
By Tyler Durden
Dec 18, 2016 11:25 PM
In a fiery press conference on Friday, shortly before
departing for his last Hawaiian vacation, president Obama
accused the press of being responsible for Hillary Clinton's
loss, slammed "domestic propagandists" who he said were
responsible for the risk of "fake news" and assisting
foreign counter-US propaganda, but more importantly
Obama vowed to “send a clear message to Russia” in
retaliation for its election hacking - of which the CIA still
has to demonstrate evidence - as both a punishment and a
deterrent. However, a problem has emerged as the
outgoing president plans how to "punish or deter" Russia -
according to the NYT,
some of the options were rejected as
ineffective, others as too risky.
If the choices had been better, one of the aides involved in
the debate noted recently, the president would have acted
by now, although the fact that he hasn't demonstrates just
how ineffective US counter-cyberwar planning has been
despite spending billions of dollars in preparation for just
this eventuality.
In its latest expose on US-Russian cyberrelations, the NYT
writes that over the past four months, American
intelligence agencies and aides to Obama had assembled a
menu of options to respond to Russia’s hacking during the
election, ranging from the obvious — exposing President
Vladimir V. Putin’s financial ties to oligarchs, and
something which has already been done on various
occasions in the past — to the innovative, including
manipulating the computer code that Russia uses in
designing its cyberweapons.
Obama has refused to effect any of the options, however,
because, as the NYT adds,
"in his last weeks in office, that Situation
Room debate has confronted a naturally
cautious president with a complex
calculus that President-elect Donald J.
Trump will soon inherit: how to use the
world’s most powerful cyberarsenal at a
moment when the United States, as the
election showed, remains highly
vulnerable."
The underlying concern is that, in a time when
cyberwarfare is the modern equivalent of the "nuclear
355
arms race" (even as the old, familiar "nuclear" cold war
has been quietly reignited in Europe between Russia and
NATO), all the legacy "game theory" caveats have
emerged, including "tit-for-tat" escalation, and - in the
most extreme - mutual assured destruction. David H.
Petraeus, the former CIA director captured much of that
sentiment on Friday, at a conference here sponsored by
Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs: “Is there something we can do to them, that they
would see, they would realize 98 percent that we did it, but
that wouldn’t be so obvious that they would then have to
respond for their own honor?
The question is how subtle do you want
it, how damaging do you want it, how do
you try to end it here rather than just
ratchet it up?"
It is, according to the NYT, this fear of retaliation to
various escalating response that has paralyzed Obama from
moving forward. Furthermore, the options provided to the
US president appear to be insufficient for the task at stake.
On one hand, the idea of exposing Putin’s links to
oligarchs was set aside after some aides argued that it
"would not come as a shock to Russians." Still, there are
proposals to cut off leaders in Putin’s inner circle from
their hidden bank accounts in Europe and Asia. There is an
option to use sanctions under a year-old executive order to
ban international travel for senior officials in the G.R.U.,
the Russian military intelligence unit that American spy
agencies say stole emails from the Democratic National
Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, then
doled them out to WikiLeaks, betting that media outlets
eager for insider details would amplify them, doing the
Kremlin’s work for it.
There have been other options proposed by the NSA and
its military cousin, the United States Cyber Command,
which is responsible for computer-network warfare,
though many have been rejected by the Pentagon.
Those plans could deploy the world-class arsenal of
cyberweapons assembled at a cost of billions of dollars
during Mr. Obama’s tenure to expose or neutralize some of
the hacking tools favored by Russia’s spies — the digital
equivalent of a pre-emptive strike. But the selection of
targets by Americans and the accuracy of that retaliation
could also expose software “implants” that the United
States has patiently inserted and nurtured in Russian
networks, in case of future cyberconflicts.
However, using the extreme approach presents a new host
of challenges:
the revelation in August about some of the
N.S.A.’s own tools for breaking into foreign
computer networks has raised the
possibility that the Russians are already
inside American networks and are
sending a warning that they can
respond in kind.
Which leads to the troubling conclusion that, when it
comes to retaliating against the Kremlin, Obama is stuck.
"All of this has led Mr. Obama to ask how
the Russians might escalate the
confrontation, and whether the United
States in the end may have more to lose
than Russia. “He doesn’t have great
options,” said Michael D. McFaul, formerly
one of Mr. Obama’s top national security
aides and then his ambassador to
Moscow."
Which, according to the NYT, means that the president has
reached two conclusions:
The only thing worse than not using a
weapon is using it ineffectively. And if
he does choose to retaliate, he has
insisted on maintaining what is known
as “escalation dominance,” the ability to
ensure you can end a conflict on your
terms.
Mr. Obama hinted as much at his news conference on
Friday, as he was set to leave for his annual Hawaii
vacation, his last as president.
“Our goal continues to be to send a clear
message to Russia or others not to do this
to us because we can do stuff to you,” he
said. “But it is also important to us to do
that in a thoughtful, methodical way. Some
of it, we will do publicly. Some of it we will
do in a way that they know, but not
everybody will.”
Continuing to justify Obama's paralysis, the paper of
record adds that the president
"rejected calls for a big, symbolic show
of power, dismissing the idea that if the
United States “thumped our chests
about a bunch of stuff, that somehow
356
that would potentially spook the
Russians.”
The goal, Mr. Obama said, was to come up with a response
“that increases costs for them for behavior like this in the
future but does not create problems for us.”
In other words, the damage has already been done, so there
is little point in escalating it further, however - the thinking
in the administration goes - the US hopes to "teach the
Kremlin a lesson" and prevent it from interfering again in
the future. That is, assuming of course, that it was Russian
authorities that interfered in the first place, something they
vehemently deny, and an allegation the CIA has failed to
convince the general public by not presenting credible,
conclusive evidence so far that it was indeed Putin directly
orchestrating it (as the WaPo claimed). Indeed, many
allusions to the fake allegation of Iraq's Weapons of Mass
Destruction have emerged in response to the latest CIA
accusations, suggesting that the public refuses to be
swayed purely on the basis of emotion appeals to "listen to
experts and sources."
***
Meanwhile, and perhaps most ironically, it is the NYT itself
that admits that there is not much new in tampering with
elections, except for the technical sophistication of the
tools, and further writes that
"for all the outrage voiced by Democrats
and Republicans in the past week about
the Russian action... it is worth
remembering that trying to manipulate
elections is a well-honed American art
form,"
something we noted last week in "The CIA Is Accusing
Russia Of Doing Exactly What The CIA Does."
In short, America is furious that someone has allegedly
finally done something to it that it, itself, has been doing to
others for decades. Some examples:
The C.I.A. got its start trying to influence the outcome of
Italy’s elections in 1948, as the author Tim Weiner
documented in his book “Legacy of Ashes,” in an effort to
keep Communists from taking power. Five years later, the
C.I.A. engineered a coup against Mohammad Mossadegh,
Iran’s democratically elected leader, when the United
States and Britain installed the Shah.
“The military coup that overthrew
Mosaddeq and his National Front cabinet
was carried out under CIA direction as an
act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and
approved at the highest levels of
government,” the agency concluded in one
of its own reports, declassified around the
 60th anniversary of those events, which
were engineered in large part by Kermit
Roosevelt Jr., a grandson of President
Theodore Roosevelt.
There were similar interferences over the years in
Guatemala, Chile and even in Japan, hailed as a model of
post-World War II democracy, where the Liberal
Democratic Party owes its early grip on power in the
1950s and 1960s to millions of dollars in covert C.I.A.
support.
The only differences this year are that the effort was
directed at the United States, and that it was cyberenabled,
giving Moscow a tool to amplify its efforts through the
echo chamber of social media and news organizations that
quoted from the leaked emails.
The bottom line, embarrassing as it may
be, is that "over the past few months, an
administration that prided itself on its
work on cyberoffense and cyberdefense
has learned a hard lesson: When it
came to the 2016 election, an
economically failing Russia, dismissed
by Mr. Obama on Friday for its inability
to grow or to innovate, exploited giant
holes in the American system."
Even more embarrassing, is how the Democratic Party,
and John Podesta, confident in their security, allowed
themselves to be hacked, whether by the Russiansor some
hacker operating in New Jersey.
As a detailed account in The New York Times last
Wednesday revealed, the D.N.C. had virtually no
protections for its electronic systems, and Mrs. Clinton’s
campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, had failed to sign up
for the “two-factor authentication” on his Gmail account.
Doing so probably would have foiled what Mr. Obama
called a fairly primitive attack.
Then there the delays within the chain of command:
Mr. Obama conceded that he first heard
about the attack on the Democratic
National Committee “early last summer,” or
nine months after the F.B.I. first alerted
low-level D.N.C. officials about what had
happened. That now appears to be critical
lost time.
If Mr. Obama had confronted the Russians immediately, in
public or in the kind of private warning he said he
delivered to Mr. Putin only three months ago during a
meeting in China, the United States might have derailed
the hacking campaign before it harvested and revealed
thousands of emails.
357
Obama's failure and reticence has sparked anger within his
own rank and file, further putting pressure on the president
to act lest he appears weak.
Obama’s comments on Friday have led Democrats to
demand further action. Representative Adam B. Schiff of
California, the ranking Democrat on the House
Intelligence Committee, said the response should mix
“additional economic sanctions along with
our allies, and clandestine means of
exacting a cost on the Russians for their
flagrant meddling in our election.” “I have
little confidence,” he continued, “that the
incoming president will take the actions
necessary to make the Russians pay any
price for the most consequential ‘active
measures’ campaign against us in history.”
Others, like republican neocon John, accused Obama of
having "no strategy and no policy" of how to deal with the
Russian hacking.
Sen. McCain: President Obama "has no
strategy and no policy" to deal with Russian
hacking https://t.co/moLH7xlewk
https://t.co/GbqQvRLROO
— CNN (@CNN) December 18, 2016
So what happens now? The biggest question facing
Obama, the NYT concludes, is how public a retaliation to
execute (if any, of course).
In his press conference, Obama laid out a case on Friday
for acting with subtlety, so as not to start a tit-for-tat
conflict. But as Joseph Nye, a strategist on so-called soft
power, noted on Friday,
“The reason to make some of this public is
not just to deter the Russians, it is to deter
others as well,” in future elections. It is
possible, said Mr. McFaul, the former
ambassador to Russia, that Mr. Obama’s
most lasting contribution may be to get the
details of the Russian hack declassified
and to publish a report he has instructed
the intelligence community to assemble
before he leaves office.
“Given that Obama only has a few more
weeks in office, I think he needs to
focus his remaining time on attribution
— that is declassification of intelligence
so that there is no ambiguity about the
Russian actions,”
Mr. McFaul said. That “is completely within his powers,”
he added, and would spur more congressional
investigations regardless of the stance taken by Mr. Trump
on the hack.
In the end, however, the simplest solution may also be the
correct one:
the US has so far not retaliated (and will
not retaliate) against Russia, because
despite the constant populist pandering
and the jawboning, it was never the
Russian government that was
responsible for the attack (something a
Spiegel report from Saturday hinted at),
something which the US government would
be aware of - despite the media onslaught
to deflect attention to Russia as the cause
for Hillary's loss.
.
358
If this is indeed the case, the consequence of launching a
cyberwar with Russia, one which Moscow did not start,
would be constant escalation leading to adverse
consequences for both countries, much more "dirty
laundry" emerging a la the Podesta emails, complicated by
its timing. A cyberwar would come at a time of a historic
shift within the US administration, one in which a regime
that has doggedly tried to suppress Putin and waged a
long-running PR campaign against the Kremlin, will soon
be replaced with a Trump administration whose stated
foreign intentions are to restore friendly relations with the
Kremlin.
Ultimately, despite all the bluster and posturing, Obama
will most likely do nothing.
 “Thousands” Pushing To
Steal Election From Donald Trump
Anti-Trump Operatives Harassing Electoral College Voters
In Desperate Attempt At Stopping Trump
By Staff Writer -
12.18.2016 @9:25 PM EST
(INTELLIHUB) — In yet another sign that the anti-Trump
corporate media is willing to help steal the election from
the American people, the establishment Washington Post
is currently running a headline article that details some of
the attempts to sway Electoral College voters into voting
against Trump.
“Pressure on members of the electoral
college to select someone other than
Donald Trump has grown dramatically —
and noisily — in recent weeks, causing
some to waver but yielding little evidence
that Trump will fall short when electors
convene in most state capitals Monday to
cast their votes”, reported the Post.
While acknowledging that the ploy is a long shot, the
article then goes into great detail in explaining parts of the
ongoing war against Trump ever becoming President.
Meanwhile, Joyce and the other 305 Republican electors
who are supposed to cast their votes for Trump have been
subject to intense campaigns orchestrated by anti-Trump
forces to convince them that they alone can block the
reality-television star from the White House.
359
Others have targeted Democratic electors, who are
supposed to cast votes for Clinton, to persuade them to
switch to a more conventional Republican who could also
draw enough support from GOP electors to swoop into
office.
While there is little sign the efforts will prove successful,
the push has unleashed intense pressure on individual
electors, who have now been thrust into a sometimes
uncomfortable spotlight.
With the Electoral College set to cast their vote tomorrow
we will soon see if phase 1 of the anti-Trump presidency
efforts is successful.
With the outcome most likely to go in Trump’s favor, the
more sinister efforts to stop him will kick into an even
higher gear and will most assuredly be filled with
anonymous intelligence quotes and corporate media
disinformation.
The pushing of this sort of Electoral College coup attempt
by the corporate media also proves that they will indeed go
to ANY lengths in their hatred for the President elect.
 Why The Russian Hack Election Conspiracy Is Complete
Political Buffoonery (VIDEO)
By: Mike Adams
Sunday, December 18, 2016

mean, it turns out, is that they think the Russians hacked

the DNC emails, which democrats are now confirming
were all authentic emails. Those emails show astonishing
corruption, collusion and criminality inside the DNC and
the Clinton campaign. It turns out that if the Russians did
hack the DNC, they did America a favor by bringing real
transparency to the dark corners of the Clinton-run
political mafia.

(The real explanation for the DNC emails, by the way, is

that they were leaked by a Bernie Sanders supporter, an
insider who had access to Jon Podesta’s emails and was
sick and tired of the Clinton corruption machine…)
Despite being such incredible losers, democrats just don’t
know how to lose. After first telling everybody in America In my latest video rant, I explain why democrats are so
they couldn’t lose the election — Hillary had an pathetically delusional over the Russian hacking
“insurmountable lead” in the Electoral College, they conspiracy theory… and why we all hope they keep on
insisted — once they realized they got trounced by Trump, being losers for years to come.
they’ve done everything in their power to try to thwart
democracy and install Clinton in the White House.
Watch, enjoy and share:
One of those efforts focused on death threating the
electoral voters, hoping to scare them into dumping
Trump. At the same time, many electoral voters were also
offered lucrative bribes (up to $150,000) to change their
votes. (Can you imagine the outcry if Clinton had won and
Trump supporters invoked both of these tactics?)

As a final, desperate, delusional ploy to steal the election,

the left-wing media has been running a completely
fabricated news scheme which absurdly claims that
Russians somehow “hacked” the election. What they really

360
 NYT Columnist Paul Krugman’s
Anti-Trump Lunatic Fringe Tweet
By Stephen Lendman
12-18-2016
If a CIA-led coup attempt in progress succeeds in denying
Trump the presidency he won, The New York Times will
have played a key role, sharing guilt with deep state
plotters.
Krugman apparently is among their ranks by saying Trump
has “incentives” to allow a false flag terrorist attack to help
discredit claims of his “illegitimacy” while boosting his
popularity.
He disgracefully tweeted “Thought: There was (rightly)
a cloud of illegitimacy over Bush, dispelled (wrongly)
by 9/11. Creates some interesting incentives for
Trump.”
Without referring to Krugman by name, Trump hit back,
saying
“(t)hey said that I wanted to have another
catastrophe like that because it is good for
my base.”
“Anybody that says that - this guy is
demented. He is a demented person. That
is why the Times is failing.”
Krugman should be held accountable for his despicable
remark. A legitimate publication would fire him.
Correction: no truth-telling one would hire him.
Is he a stealth CIA agent or asset? Media scoundrels
employ lots of them, a longstanding practice going back
decades, notably at The Times and Washington Post.
.
361
Krugman’s mid-December anti-Trump column headlined
“The Tainted Election,” reading like something from the
CIA’s playbook, saying the agency
“determined that hackers working for the
Russian government worked to tilt the 2016
election to Donald Trump.”
“This has actually been obvious for
months,” Krugman added. “So this was a
tainted election…illegitimate in important
ways…foreign intervention” responsible for
Trump’s triumph.
Deplorable stuff, fake news, not the real thing. Krugman
disgraced himself, an anti-Trump propagandist
masquerading as a journalist.
If Russia hacked or in any way interfered in America’s
election, evidence would have been presented weeks or
months ago to substantiate a charge this serious.
So far, they’ve been only groundless accusations without
proof because there is none. Russia in no way meddled in
America’s political process. No hacking occurred, only
insider leaks from disgruntled Democrats opposed to
Hillary’s candidacy.
Nothing remotely suggests Trump hopes for a 9/11 type
event to boost his popularity and unite the nation behind
him the way it did for Bush after that fateful day.
Krugman is a fake news proliferator, a propagandist, a
lunatic and a disgrace. His students would be best served
by avoiding him altogether.
 How Donald J. Trump Saved Christmas
From Intergalactic Aliens (SATIRE)
By: Mike Adams
Sunday, December 18, 2016

Thus, shortly before Election Day, large metallic dildo-

(SATIRE – This weekend satire piece is for entertainment
purposes only and references mature themes. If you are
offended, go scream for your mommy…)
Natural News can now confirm that it wasn’t the Russians
who stole the election for Donald Trump… it was aliens
from planet Cockamamie in the Libtard Nebula, according
to CNN sources that have chosen to remain anonymous
because they also imagine they work for the CIA.
According to these sources, planet Cockamamie suffered a
devastating population collapse due to economic
restrictions thrust upon them by the galactic climate
change cultists known as “AlGorians.” Following a mass
starvation catastrophe caused by the Cockamamie Senate
banning fossil fuels without having any energy
replacement ready, Cockamamians found themselves
needing to repopulate their planet with fresh organic
specimens harvested from across the cosmos.
shaped craft shimmering with LGBTQ rainbow light
displays were observed hovering over San Francisco… or
at least that’s what the warehouse cult rave party survivors
tweeted. According to reports, the dildo-shaped UFOs
targeted high-density apartment complexes to ensure the
harvesting of a high percentage of liberals who might feel
more at home on planet Cockamamie, whose policies
almost exactly parallel those of San Francisco, where
homeless people are openly allowed to defecate on the
sidewalks but never allowed to accept homemade food
from gracious citizens due to the city-wide “food safety
crackdown.”
Suddenly the dildo craft sprang into action. In a
mesmerizing flash, millions of Californicators were
beamed up to the dildo UFOs, where they were efficiently
subjected to a battery of mental and physical tests. In one
relentless test, gender-fluid grey humanoids
(“CockaTransaMamians”) used oral, nasal and anal
voltage stimulators to determine the biological resiliency
of human subjects. To the shock of the greys, some San
Franciscan captives actually enjoyed the experience and
begged for more. Astonished, the CockaTransaMamians
ejected them from captivity and teleported them into
Starbucks coffee shops to serve as hyperstimulated faggoty
baristas who immediately began berating customers with
tales of “sexual escapades with 50 shades of Greys.”
Other humans were found to be too stupid to survive on
planet Cockamamie, so they were dropped off at the
county courthouse and encouraged to run for political
office or even lead the DNC.

Hence their trip to Earth, a planet that was once believed to

Deeper in the bowels of the alien mothership, left-wing
also suffer from mass starvation until televised signals of
commentator Keith Olbermann was observed being
Michael Moore were captured and analyzed by
apparently molested by CockaTransaMamians who tried to
Cockamamian scientists. Suddenly, Earth was heralded by
apply a brain scan helmet to his butt cheeks while milking
distant civilizations as a “grand cosmic buffet” of
his nose for DNA samples. It turns out they couldn’t tell
processed food calories and incredibly disconnected leftist
Keith’s head from his ass and had the guy completely
who seemed to already be living on another planet
upside down.
anyway.
After realizing their error, they tried to make amends by
California, in particular, was chosen as the first landing
installing a “Russian conspiracy” program into his feeble
site because the state’s massive “Safe Space” sign can be
brain and using a Men-In-Black flashy thingy to wipe his
observed from high orbit, and the aliens thought it was an
memory… which also happened to make him an even
invitation to freely engage in “open borders” cattle probing
better news teleprompter reader for Earth’s propaganda
or anal mutilations… or perhaps the other way around.
362
fake news networks. Now, as you can observe on his
broadcasts, Keith Olbermann fully realizes he was violated
but can’t remember why… but he’s certain the Russians
did something nefarious to his rectum and he thinks it
might have been a poo coup.
Meanwhile, all the captive space-faring Democrats tried to
wage a “soft coup” takeover of the Cockamamian
mothership, first by demanding a democratic vote on who
should be running the ship, then rigging the vote by
recirculating people who already voted to the back of the
voting line to make sure they could vote a second time.
But they got caught by the greys, whom the Democrats
quickly condemned as “illegal aliens,” much to the
amusement of those on board who were actual aliens. The
Democrats got overruled, at which point they all started to
scream for mommy and began leaping out of the docking
bays, mistaking the “WARNING: SPACE” signs for
“SAFE SPACE” indicators.
It turns out that in outer space, no one can hear you
scream “WAAAAAHHH!”
As the Democrats remaining inside the dildo alien UFO
screamed and sobbed and demanded hot cocoa to soothe
.
363
their trauma, the greys began to second guess the wisdom
in transplanting such pathetic creatures who were
obviously incapable of survival in a dynamic universe.
Even the Cockamamie education system on planet
Cockamamie might be too advanced for these failed
specimens, the greys quickly realized, so they decided to
jettison the crybabies in Venezuela, where they are now
eating out of garbage dumpsters and enjoying their
“equality” under a failed left-wing state where everybody
is equally miserable, thus solving the “inequality” problem
once and for all.
Thanks to the missing Democrats, Donald Trump was
elected President. As his first official intergalactic act, he
opened a negotiation with the Cockamamians to ask them
the most important question to help Make America Great
Again: “How many more Democrats can you please
remove from Earth on your next harvesting run?”
Their answer? “Hell no! We’ll go somewhere else.”
And that, my friends, is how Donald J. Trump saved
Christmas from intergalactic aliens.
 CIA Meddles In US Election
As It Has In Countless Foreign Polls
Wayne MADSEN
18.12.2016
Never has the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency so
blatantly involved itself in an American election. However,
the agency has a rich history of interfering in the elections
of other nations, including Russia. The conclusions of an
undisclosed CIA secret report on alleged Russian
interference in the U.S. election has been summarily
dismissed by the Director of National Intelligence, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and several retired U.S.
intelligence officers as deeply flawed and a propaganda
tool concocted by the highly-politicized CIA director John
Brennan and his cronies.
Brennan and his clique have upped the ante by claiming,
without a shred of evidence, that Russian President
Vladimir Putin personally directed the hacking of
computer systems linked to the U.S. election. NBC News,
which has a long history of cooperation with the CIA
going back to the days of RCA/NBC chairman David
Sarnoff and his close friend CIA director Allen Dulles,
dutifully reported Brennan’s outrageous claims as «news».
It is clear those former CIA officials who have lent
credence to Brennan’s report would not have done so
unless they received clearance from Brennan and his CIA
to go public with their unfounded charges against Russia.
Those who have echoed Brennan’s unfounded findings of
election interference by Russia include former acting CIA
director Michael Morell; former CIA and National
Security Agency director Michael Hayden; former CIA
director Leon Panetta; former CIA clandestine service
agents Robert Baer; Evan McMullin – a failed 2016
independent presidential candidate - and Glenn Carle.
However, for every ex-spook Brennan pulls out of his hat
364
to accuse President-elect Donald Trump of being a
«Russian agent», there are many more who have claimed
that the CIA’s «proof» of Russian interference in the 2016
election is pure malarkey.
Brennan and his cabal of dark players know fully well that
it is the CIA that has pioneered in the art and science of
election manipulation. In 1996, it was Russia that bore the
brunt of CIA election manipulation with its agents-of-
influence in Moscow and other large cities, namely the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and George
Soros’s Open Society Institute and Foundation, engaged in
political dirty tricks aimed at undermining the electoral
chances of the Russian Communist Party presidential
candidate Gennady Zyuganov.
The CIA, Soros’s operatives, and the NED printed and
distributed fake campaign flyers claiming to have
originated with the Zyuganov's campaign. The flyers
advocated returning Russia to Stalinism and re-launching
the Cold War against the West. The CIA and Soros dirty
tricks operatives also announced to the press phony
Zyuganov news conferences where no one showed up. The
dirty tricks team also canceled reservations made by the
Zyuganov campaign at hotels and public meeting halls.
The CIA and their allies also helped to manipulate election
returns and shaved votes from Zyuganov's total,
particularly in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. This helped
the favored U.S. candidate, Boris Yeltsin, achieve a
second-round victory of 54-to-40 percent over Zyuganov.
In 2012, then-President Dmitry Medvedev said, «There is
hardly any doubt who won [the '96 election]. It was not
Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin».
The CIA has been at the election manipulation game since
its inception in 1947. In February 1948, a formerly Top
Secret CIA document spelled out the efforts to be taken by
the United States and its ambassador in Rome, James
Dunn, in preparation for the April 1948 Italian election.
Wheat shipments were to be increased from the United
States to Italy to prevent a reduction in bread rations just
prior to the election. U.S. military equipment was to be
sent to Italy in the event martial law had to be declared if
the Italian Communist Party, which had been in a coalition
government with the Christian Democrats since 1944, was
successful at the polls. Assisting this military effort was
the political indoctrination of many Italian military officers
and non-commissioned officers at military schools in the
United States.
The CIA also directed a sharp stick at the Italian electorate,
warning that Italians could not «combine the advantages of
aid from the West with that of political safety and benefits
from the Soviet Union». The CIA was worried that if the
Soviet Union returned control of the city of Trieste to Italy
and renounced Italy’s war reparations to the Soviet Union
prior to the April election, the Italian Communist Party
would reap the electoral benefits and be victorious.
The CIA’s political dirty tricks in Italy began in earnest
when it covertly directed $1 million, contained mostly in
«bags of money», to Christian Democratic politicians led
by Prime Minister Alcide de Gaspari. The CIA used its
front newspapers in Italy to publish forged letters,
allegedly written by Italian Communist Party leaders, in an
attempt to embarrass them publicly. Similarly, the CIA
attempted to blackmail Italian Socialist Party leaders who
were part of a Popular Front coalition with the
Communists. The blackmail eventually led to a split within
the Socialist Party ranks between party leader Pietro Nenni
and anti-Communist leader Giuseppe Saragat. The CIA’s
manipulation paid off when the Christian Democrats won
48.5 percent of the vote and formed a new government
without Communist participation.
When, in 1978, it appeared that the Christian Democrats,
led by former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, were prepared to
enact a «historic compromise» to share political power
with the Italian Communist Party, the CIA instructed its
agents-of-influence within Italy and the Vatican, the so-
called «Gladio» network, to arrange for Moro’s
kidnapping and assassination and blame it on the leftist
Italian Red Brigades. The CIA’s psychological operation
designed to blame radical Communists for Moro’s death
was successful when the Italian electorate voted
overwhelmingly for a CIA-linked Christian Democratic
faction opposed to any accommodation with the
Communists. The CIA showed that it was not averse to
political assassinations to achieve its electoral aims in
other countries.
365
The CIA’s involvement by hook and by crook in the 1948
Italian election was repeated in numerous nations around
the world. In 1964, the CIA ensured that the Chilean
Popular Action Front (FRAP) Socialist presidential
candidate Salvador Allende was defeated by the Christian
Democratic leader Eduardo Frei. The CIA pumped $3
million into Frei’s campaign, mainly to generate anti-
Allende propaganda. Allende lost the race with 38.6
percent of the vote to Frei’s 55.6 percent. In 1970, Allende
won the presidential election with a slim 36.4 percent of
the vote against the CIA-backed former president Jorge
Alessandri. The CIA set about immediately to undermine
Allende and on September 11, 1973, a CIA-backed
military coup resulted in Allende’s assassination. The one
thing that separates the CIA from other intelligence
agencies that seek to influence elections, is that the CIA’s
hands are always dripping with blood.
The 1956 election in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka)
saw an unpopular United National Party led by pro-
Western Prime Minister John Kotelawala lose to the leftist
Sri Lanka Freedom Party led by Solomon Bandaranaike.
Although the Kotelawala government had received the
largesse of CIA aid funneled through the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development, it was not
enough to save it from defeat by Bandaranaike’s socialists.
The CIA merely set about the undermine Bandaranaike’s
government with the icing on the cake being the prime
minister’s assassination in 1959, allegedly by a Buddhist
monk who hid a revolver underneath his robes prior to a
meeting with the prime minister at his private residence.
The assassin’s two conspirators received life sentences,
while the trigger puller, Somarama Thero, was baptized as
a Christian two days before his hanging. The CIA’s MK-
Ultra psychological operations program had already
mastered in the science of creating programmed assassins.
Time and time again, the CIA has successfully engaged in
election manipulation in parliamentary elections,
presidential elections, popular referenda, and local and
regional elections. The CIA is now directing its wealth of
election chicanery toward the American electorate to
discredit and undermine the legitimacy of the Trump
presidency. For the sake of democracy everywhere, the
CIA must be abolished.
 GOP Electors Under Siege: Electoral College Members
Receive Death Threats, Creepy Christmas Cards And
Pressure From Hollywood To Dump Trump
At Tomorrow's Vote
 Members Of The Electoral College, Especially GOP Members Casting A Vote For
Donald Trump, Are Being Pressured To Pick Someone Else
 Those Interviewed In Recent Days Report Receiving Death Threats, Thousands Of
Emails And Christmas Cards - Pleading For A Vote Change - In The Mail
 Republican Electors Are Pushing Back, Saying That They're Protecting The Country
From Big States Dominated By Liberal Elites
By Nikki Schwab, U.s. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com and Associated Press
Published: 08:14 EST, 18 December 2016 | Updated: 21:12 EST, 18 December 2016

Members of the Electoral College, especially those GOP received emails signed ' Benjamin Franklin' and 'John Jay,'
electors poised to cast a vote tomorrow for Donald Trump, names of the Founding Fathers.
are being pressured and threatened to pick someone else.

Electors talking to various news outlets report receiving

death threats, thousands of emails, individualized
messages from a Hollywood actor and creepy Christmas
cards.

'I never can imagine harassing people like

this. It's just f***ed up,' Jim Rhoades, a
Republican elector from Michigan told
Politico. 'I've lost a bunch of business,'
Rhoades, who owns a home inspection
service, continued.
Former Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, a GOP elector, said Democrats'
strength on the coasts is enough to justify the Electoral College

She also received a Christmas card that read: 'Please, in the

name of God, don't vote for Trump.'

The New York Post talked to 22-year-old college student

Michael Banerian, a GOP elector attending Oakland
University in Michigan.

'Somebody threatened to put a bullet in the

Electoral College voter Jim Skaggs is interviewed by The Associated
Press. As the Electoral College prepares to choose Donald Trump,
some Republican electors say they are defending rural and small-
town America
One Texas Republican elector said he's been bombarded
with more than 200,000 emails, Politico reported as well.
back of my mouth,' Banerian told the
newspaper.
And in a much more lighthearted display, Saturday Night
Live's Kate McKinnon, depicting Hillary Clinton acting
out a scene from the 2003 Christmas hit Love Actually,
asks a GOP elector to switch her vote.

Carole Joyce of Arizona, a 72-year-old GOP state

committee member, told the Washington Post she's

366
Saturday Night Live's version of Hillary Clinton, played by
comedian Kate McKinnon, acted out a scene from Love
Actually, asking a GOP elector not to vote for Donald
Trump
Kate McKinnon's Hillary Clinton begged the elector to
vote for anyone including John Kasich, Tom Hanks,
Zendaya, The Rock and 'a rock'
'You don't even have to vote for me,'
McKinnon-as-Clinton says, using
handwritten cue cards. 'I'm coo,' the
actress says, sticking out her tongue.
'Just vote for literally anyone else,' she
continues. 'Like, John Kasich, Tom Hanks,
Zendaya, The Rock, A Rock.'
And, as a last ditch effort, the Saturday Night Live version
of Clinton tells the elector, played by Cecily Strong, to
enjoy her holidays.
'But keep in mind. If Donald Trump becomes president. He
will kill us all,' McKinnon says.
Actor Martin Sheen, who famously played President
Josiah Bartlet on the television show The West Wing,
filmed a video where he begged Republican electors not to
vote for Trump.
367
Actor Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Bartlet
on the television show The West Wing, filmed a PSA
asking electors to not vote for Donald Trump
He even recorded versions using individual electors'
names.
The group, Unite for America, also recruited Richard
Schiff, Debra Messing, James Cromwell, BD Wong, Moby
and Bob Odenkirk to the effort.
Some GOP electors are defending their Trump votes by
positing them as a broader shielding of rural and small-
town America against big-state liberals and its support for
the national popular vote leader, Clinton.
But the picture is more complicated.
'Our Founding Fathers established the
Electoral College cause those larger states,
those larger areas, don't necessarily need
to be the ones that rule,' said Mary Sue
McClurkin, a Republican elector from
Alabama.
In Trump's hometown of New York City, which Clinton
won easily, Democratic elector Stuart Appelbaum
countered that 'we're electing the president of the entire
country,' so 'the will of the entire country should be
reflected in the results.'
It's an expected argument given the unusual circumstances
of the 2016 election.
Clinton won some 2.6 million more votes than Trump in
the nationwide tally.
But Trump is line to get 306 of the 538 electoral votes
under the state-by-state distribution of electors used to
choose presidents since 1789.
Trump won rural areas, small towns and many small cities,
including in states Clinton carried.
Clinton won in the largest urban areas, including in Trump
states.
Former Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, a GOP elector, said
Democrats' strength on the coasts is enough to justify the
Electoral College.
'A presidential election decided each time by either
California or New York,' he said, would leave voters in
Alaska and many other places 'with no voice' in
presidential politics.
It's worth noting that Trump didn't just win small states
and Clinton didn't just take large ones.
Trump and Clinton split the six most populous states, each
winning three, but Trump won seven of the top 10.
Of the 10 smallest states plus the District of Columbia,
Trump edged Clinton 6-5. Trump actually ran up his
national advantage in midsize states.
But the dynamics highlight the delicate balance in a
political structure that defines itself simultaneously as a
democracy and a republic.
When the U.S. was founded, some wanted direct election
of the president. Others wanted state legislatures or
Congress to choose the executive.
Instead the country got a compromise.
The Electoral College was the end result: Each state got a
slate of electors numbering the same as its delegation in
Congress.
Electors vote, with rare exception, for whichever candidate
won the most votes in their state – effectively meaning the
presidential election is 51 separate popular votes.
'It's such an interesting compromise that
gave us the Electoral College, unique to
our American system,' said elections law
expert Will Sellers from Alabama, who will
serve as a Republican elector for the fourth
time.
The system gives smaller states an advantage: The number
of electors is based on each state's number of U.S.
representatives plus two, for each member of the U.S.
Senate – itself a compromise favoring small states.
So California's 55 electoral votes reflect 53 House
members and two senators. For seven states, including
Wyoming, Delaware and the Dakotas, those extra two
electoral votes bring their total to the minimum of three.
Put another way, Alaska's three electors will cast 0.56
percent of the 538 electoral votes despite casting just 0.23
percent of the national popular vote.
But the advantage doesn't just favor Republicans.
368
Democratic Nevada makes up 1.12 percent of the Electoral
College but cast less than 1 of a 100 national ballots.
The Electoral College-popular vote split, along with
Trump's larger-than-life personality and lack of elective
experience, has fueled a vocal, but almost certainly futile,
movement to deny him the presidency by pressuring
electors to vote against him when they convene Monday in
the 50 states and Washington, D.C.
In its own investigation, the Associated Press tried to reach
all 538 electors and was able to interview more than 330 of
them.
Like other news reports, many reported getting tens of
thousands of emails, calls and letters asking them to vote
against Trump.
But the canvass found overwhelming support for the
system, and the nominee, among Republican electors.
The AP found only one pledged to Trump who will refuse
to vote for him.
That elector is likely Chris Suprun of Texas, who came out
against Trump in a New York Times op-ed.
Suprun was the only Republican elector in a coalition of
10 asking for an intelligence briefing on the Russian
hacking efforts before tomorrow's vote.
'I feel like the Electoral College gives a very
fair perspective, so that those who are in
the rural areas are able to have an equal
voice with those who are in the urban
areas,' said Oklahoma elector Lauree
Elizabeth Marshall.
If anything, when Republican electors talk about large
states, they actually mean New York and California.
Clinton's lead in California, the most populous state, is
more than her national lead. She won New York by about
1.7 million votes.
McClurkin, the Alabama elector, says many of the letters
and emails she's received have come from those two states.
'I've not gotten any from a Southern state,'
she said.
But Democratic elector Eric Herde from Washington state
argued that the country should scrap electoral votes in
favor of the national ballot count.
All Electoral College defenses, whether
citing population or the genius of the
founders, amount to 'states mattering more
than people,' Herde said.
 'The argument that the person who got the argument.'
most votes should win is still the better
.

369
 Obama Vows To Prove The Unprovable
By Stephen Lendman
12-18-2016
A long ago disgraced US president appears part of an
ongoing coup attempt to deny Trump the office he won - a
terrifying scenario heading for full-blown tyranny if a way
isn’t found to stop it.
If successful, things will never be the same again. Be
scared. Be very scared. Get involved to save the remnants
of remaining freedoms before they’re gone and it’s too
late.
At his yearend press conference, the last one of his
presidency, he vowed to prove the unprovable, saying:
“We will provide evidence that we can
safely provide, that does not compromise
sources and methods. But I’ll be honest
with you, when you’re talking about
cybersecurity, a lot of it is classified and we
are not going to provide it, because the
way we catch folks is by knowing certain
things about them that they don’t want us
to know.”
“The intelligence I’ve seen gives me great
confidence in their assessment that the
Russians carried out this hack - the hack of
the DNC and the hack of John Podesta.”
Fact:
Obama lied like he always does. No US
election hacking occurred - not by
Russia or anyone else.
Fact:
Leaks from disenchanted Democrats
opposed to Hillary’s candidacy supplied
information to WikiLeaks - insiders, not
foreign sources.
Fact:
.
370
Obama knows this, yet lied anyway,
claiming nonexistent hacks.
Fact:
Whenever his so-called investigation is
completed, he’ll provide no credible
evidence of what didn’t occur, just
rubbish claiming otherwise, most likely
nothing, claiming “classified”
information won’t be released.
Obama barely stopped short of blaming Putin for what
happened, saying “not much happens in Russia without”
his involvement.
Neither he or anyone in his government or serving it in any
way interfered in America’s election. The charge is absurd
on its face.
It would be laughable if not for its serious implications - an
attempt to stoke confrontation with another nuclear super-
power, along with full-blown homeland tyranny if the coup
plot succeeds.
Obama:
“Our goal continues to be to send a clear
message to Russia or others not do this to
us because we can do stuff to you.”
Fact:
His goal is heading things closer to war
on Russia, along with denying Trump
the office he won, wanting losing
candidate Hillary installed as president,
the way fascist dictatorships work.
After his press conference, he left for a Hawaii vacation
while parts of the world he set ablaze burn, likely
advancing the anti-Trump coup plot, the likes of which
never happened in America before.
 WATCH: Honest News Anchor Destroys CIA Russia Hack
Claims In Under 5 Minutes
Claire Bernish
December 18, 2016
When unnamed officials with the CIA recently claimed
Russia hacked the U.S. presidential election, but failed to
provide any evidence, suspicions immediately circulated
that the allegation constituted a fabrication — particularly
as left-leaning corporate media unquestioningly parroted
the story.
This, after the Washington Post first tried — and miserably
failed — to convince the U.S. populace professional
Russian propagandists were running nearly every
alternative and independent media outlet, and had plotted
to smear Hillary Clinton to ensure Donald Trump’s
victory.
In tandem with the ratcheting up of anti-Russia
propaganda by the left political and media establishment
has been the equally laughable war on putative fake news,
because — according to Clintonite Democrats and a
smattering of Republicans — fake news also helped
Trump win.
Of course, the irony in all this is the mainstream media’s
articles on the CIA’s claims and allegations of Russian
meddling are the exact sort of fake news which threatens
to do actual, physical, palpable damage — whether by
crushing dissent or instigating war with the U.S.’ old Cold
War foe.
Fortunately, alternative media — sans any paychecks from
President Putin — and a few journalists with integrity have
brilliantly torn through the American propaganda machine
to shine the light of truth on claims of Russian hacking.
One mainstream journalist, Ben Swann — who frequently
breaks ranks with the corporate-approved narratives
proffered by his colleagues — offers a much-needed
Reality Check on the situation.
Swann notes there are five, specific problems with the CIA
claiming Russia hacked the Democratic National
Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s
emails — worsened,
he says, because “most media” isn’t
“actually asking for evidence of these
claims.”
371
The CIA, he explains, did not formally release a report
about Russia’s hacking — rather anonymous sources
inside the agency allegedly leaked the “conclusion” to the
Washington Post and New York Times. This is highly
problematic for obvious reasons, not the least of which is
the near impossibility of verification — both of the sources
and the information.
According to the Post, who first reported the story,
“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.”
Leaking this supposed information to the corporate press
might indeed represent the easiest way to launch
propaganda without the burden of proof — proof it most
likely lacks.
As Swann explains, this absence of evidence — and that
the sources remained anonymous — means there
“is no one accountable to provide that
proof.” No politicians or other media outlets
have any way to verify claims printed by
the Post and Times.
The third major problem with the Russian hacking story,
Swann reports, is — put simply —
“the CIA lies.”
Indeed, the CIA could be considered notoriously
mendacious, and has made public claims that have been
proven untrue.
For one, Swann notes, “the Senate
Intelligence Committee blasted the CIA in
2014, for an ‘ongoing culture of
misinformation,’ which they said has
undermined the public’s trust in America’s
Intelligence leadership.”
Senator Ron Wyden, quoted by Swann, said at the time,
“That trust has been seriously undermined
by senior officials’ reckless reliance on
secret interpretations of the law and
battered by years of misleading and
deceptive practices” within the CIA.
In fact, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig
Murray — a close friend of Assange — recently said
“he has met the person who gave the DNC
emails to Assange and to Wikileaks, and
he says it is not the Russians,” Swann
explains.
“I’ve met the person who leaked them, and
they are certainly not Russian and it’s an
insider,” Murray said. “It’s a leak, not a
hack; the two are different things.”
Just because a report sounds official coming from the CIA
does not give it instant viability — and the allegation
Russian agents hacked the system is too shaky to stand on
its own.
Swann concludes,

An easy second example concerns the CIA’s torture

program as exposed in a four-year study by the Senate
which found the agency repeatedly lied about the use of
brutal techniques and more.
Swann’s fourth problem of note surrounds a little-
discussed fact from the Post’s article — even CIA
investigators don’t unanimously agree on the assessment
Russians hacked those systems. Reported the Post:
“A senior U.S. official said there were
minor disagreements among
intelligence officials about the agency’s
assessment, in part because some
questions remain unanswered.”
“Well, what does that mean?” Swann asks.
“What are those disagreements? And
without providing that information, how can
we trust these disagreements are actually
minor, since that’s, of course, a relative
term?”
“So what you need to know is that on top of
all of these questions is one fundamental
issue that everyone is missing: The claim is
that Russia decided to hack the election —
not by altering voting results — but by
making public actual emails from the
Clinton campaign and the DNC.
“Look, I have said this before and I will say
it again: how bizarre is it that the
argument is not that the Russians were
trying to influence the election through
lies or electronic voting; but, rather, the
claim — if you really boil it down — is
that the Russians swayed the election
for Donald Trump by revealing the truth
about the Clinton campaign and the
truth about the DNC.”

Indeed, considering these CIA ‘officials’ felt the need to

remain anonymous lends credence to the idea the discord
is anything but minor — but we have no way of knowing
for certain.

And that brings us to the fifth problem: The one person

with the most intimate knowledge about the DNC and
Podesta files, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, has
repeatedly asserted the information was leaked from the
inside, not hacked at all — and certainly not by Russians.
.

372
 Report: FBI Director Told Trump
That Russians Didn’t Influence Election
By Jack Phillips, Epoch Times
Last Updated: December 18, 2016 2:21 Pm
FBI Director James Comey answers questions at a press conference
after speaking at the New York Police Department Shield Conference
in New York City on Dec. 16, 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Update as of 3:30 p.m. ET – The Washington Post is now
reporting that FBI Director James Comey has backed a
CIA assessment that Russia intervened to help Donald
Trump win the election over Hillary Clinton. The Director
of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., agreed with
the assessment, the Post reported.
“Earlier this week, I met separately with
(Director) FBI James Comey and DNI Jim
Clapper, and there is strong consensus
among us on the scope, nature, and intent
of Russian interference in our presidential
election,” CIA Director John Brennan said
in a message to CIA workers, according to
the report.
— As Reuters reported on Tuesday, three officials
FBI Director James Comey spoke to President-elect
Donald Trump via telephone, telling him there was no
credible evidence that Russia tried to influence the
outcome of the presidential election—countering claims
made by the CIA, according to an exclusive report from
Townhall.
Reports—most notably, one published by the Washington
Post earlier this week, citing unnamed sources within the
CIA, as well as the Obama administration itself—have said
Russia tried to influence the election to sway it in Trump’s
favor.
According to Townhall, Comey told the president-elect
that James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence,
373
agreed with the FBI’s assessment. Comey said the lone
member within the U.S. intelligence community who
embraced the assertion that Russians sanctioned the
hacking to influence the election was the CIA and its
director, John Brennan.
“And Brennan takes his marching orders
from President Obama,” sources quoted
the FBI director as saying.
Townhall, a conservative-leaning political
website and news magazine, cited
“sources who were briefed on Comey’s
conversations with Trump” for its Dec. 14
report.
The sources told Townhall that Comey sees the leaks to
The New York Times and the Washington Post about
Russia’s alleged influence as a Democratic Party attempt
to try and delegitimize Trump.
Comey also apparently said it’s not clear if the Russian
government backed the hacking or if it was just Russian
individuals acting on their own accord.
“It’s also unclear,” a source said, “why
Putin would have preferred dealing with
Donald Trump, who has promised a major
military buildup, over Hillary Clinton, who
would have continued Barack Obama’s
cautious policies toward the Kremlin.”
with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,
which oversees 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, said there’s
evidence Russia carried out cyberattacks but added there is
a lack of evidence that the Kremlin was trying to boost
Trump over Clinton.
“ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA)
is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,”
said one of the three U.S. officials familiar
with the ODNI. “Of course they can’t,
absent agents in on the decision-making in
Moscow.”
About ten days before Election Day, Comey, in an
unprecedented move, sent a letter to Congress saying that
the FBI is reviewing new emails that pertained to Hillary
Clinton’s use of a private email server. Then, the weekend
before the election, he announced no charges will be
recommended for Clinton, adding that the
.
374
“FBI investigative team has been working
around the clock to process and review a
large volume of emails from a device
obtained in connection with an unrelated
criminal investigation.”
 The Striking Audacity Of The Coup-In-Process
Paul Craig Roberts
December 18, 2016
Unsubstantiated stories have been planted throughout the
presstitute media by anonymous CIA officials that Donald
Trump’s electoral victory was the result of Russian
intervention. This absurd claim has now been elevated to
the even more absurd claim that Putin himself oversaw and
even conducted the manipulation of the US presidential
election.
No evidence has been provided for these amazing claims.
The presstitutes are reporting unsubstantiated wild
accusations that portend both a constitutional crisis in the
US and a crisis with Russia. We know that the presstitutes
lie. The presstitutes lied when they reported contrary to the
weapons inspectors in Iraq that Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction. They lied about fake
evidence of yellowcake and alumninum tubes. They lied
about Saddam Hussein’s al-Qaeda connections. They lied
about Iranian nukes despite the unanimous report of all US
intelligence agencies that Iran had abandoned interest in
nuclear weapons years ago. The presstitutes lied about
Assad using chemical weapons against the Syrian people.
They lied about Gadaffi. They lied about Russian invasion
of Ukraine. They lied about the cause of the
Russian/Georgian conflict. They lied about the Sochi
Olympics. Now the presstitutes are claiming that Russian
interference determined the outcome of the US presidential
election and the Brexit vote.
As a result of the prestitutes’ lies, millions of peoples have
been killed and dislocated. This blood is all on the heads of
the American media. So we know for a proven fact that the
US media has no integrity and no conscience.
Now the presstitutes have surpassed their previous level of
criminality. They are part and parcel of fomenting a coup
against the president-elect and throwing the country into a
crisis of unknown proportion.
Tomorrow the Electoral College meets to cast the ballots
for president. There is a well organized effort to disrupt
this normally routine procedure. Based on CIA lies spread
over the country by the presstitutes, 62 electors have
requested a CIA briefing prior to the vote on Russian
interference in the election. As there is no formal CIA
report and no evidence in support of the allegations, the
briefing would consist of the allegations.
375
A Harvard Law School professor, Lawrence Lessig,
involved in the Stop-Trump movement, has promised free
legal defense of electors who break with precedent and
cast their votes differently from the majority vote of their
states.
This effort, which presents a grave and continual threat to
the Constitution, to domestic tranquility, and to
international stability, is said in a nationwide media ad
campaign to be necessary in order to block Trump from
presenting
“a grave and continual threat to the
Constitution, to the domestic tranquility,
and to international stability.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-12-
15/long-shot-bid-to-block-trump-arrives-at-electoral-
college-monday
If the effort tomorrow fails, President Obama has put in
motion a second shot at blocking Trump’s inauguration
with his order to the CIA to produce a report on Russian
election meddling prior to January 20. This report could be
used to delay the inauguration or to convey to the Amerian
public and peoples abroad so many doubts that Trump’s
effectiveness as a leader would be undermined.
And of course, the constant assaults on Trump can result in
his assassination by a “lone nut” patriot incensed over
having in office a president declared by the New York
Times to be a Putin stooge and useful idiot for the
Russians. This is the newspaper of record’s
characterization of the president chosen by the American
people.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research adds
another dimension to the struggle—a fight between rival
oligarchic interests. Trump and his announced Secretary of
State want the business deals that result from normal
relations with Russia. The military/security oligarchs want
the immense budgets and power that comes from
positioning Russia as a dire threat. Even if Trump survives
the CIA’s challenge to his election, his cabinet appointees
will have to survive confirmation fights and, if they do,
ongoing challenges to their efforts to change policies from
policies that favor oligarchs enriched by war to policies
that favor oligarchs enriched by peace.
 http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-foreign-policy-and-the- In other words, whatever the outcome tomorrow and
electoral-college-vote-towards-a-december-19- January 20th, the fight is ongoing.
surprise/5561928

376
 Electors, Do Your Duty And Cast Your Ballot
For The Man Who WON The Election
By: Usafeaturesmedia
Date: December 18, 2016
(Freedom.news) Left-wing malcontents and their
Democratic enablers have been going all-out to steal the
presidency from its rightful recipient, Donald J. Trump, by
attacking a fundamental element of our republic: The
Electoral College.
Suddenly, liberals who normally have nothing but
contempt for the Constitution and our nation’s founding
principles and institutions have become
constitutional experts, shouting from the rooftops that
there is no provision in our bedrock governing document
that requires electors to the Electoral College to actually
cast a ballot for the candidate who won their state. That’s
true.
Liberals are also screaming that Alexander Hamilton and
many of the other founding fathers did not really trust the
will of the people to select a president, so that’s why they
devised the Electoral College in the first place. That is
only partially true; the EC was also a way to ensure that
small states had equal weight in choosing the president as
larger states.
.
377
But their protestations are nothing but partisan noise
designed to do one thing: De-legitimize Trump’s rightful
victory. Had their anointed candidate, two-time loser
Hillary Clinton, had won enough electoral votes to become
president, we’d all be spared this hysterical civics lesson.
Worse than that, however, it is a naked attempt to
undermine our system of government. Never mind Russia
hackers; we have more to lose from
unhinged liberalism than anything else.
Since the 1880s, every state except Maine and Nebraska
have awarded electors based on a “winner take all” system.
To that end, electors are duty bound to the people of their
state to cast their electoral ballot for the candidate who
wins their state. To the Left, the ends justify the means,
which is why the Democratic Party is bereft of honor,
integrity and any semblance of decency–hence the call
now that Clinton has been vanquished again for electors to
forego their oath and vote to install her instead of Trump.
Electors should do their duty and vote for Trump. That is
their obligation and that is the promise they have made.
As for the Electoral College, that is the system we were
bequeathed. Should Leftists ever succeed in vanquishing it,
let them be warned: Changing the system means no more
“battleground states”–which means a populist/
conservative like Trump can go into populous states like
California and New York and actually win enough votes
to win outright majorities rather than focus merely on
Electoral College votes.
If that happens, then what will unhinged liberals complain
about when they lose?
Obama 'Prisoner to Own Baseless Narrative about Russian
Meddling in US Election'
© AFP 2016/ JIM WATSON US 20:00 18.12.2016
President Barack Obama held his final end-of-year press
conference Friday, accusing Russia and Vladimir Putin of
hacking into Democratic Party servers in order to interfere
in the US election. Speaking to Radio Sputnik, political
analyst Aleksandar Pavic said that he felt kind of sorry for
Obama, who has been trapped by his own absurd narrative.
In Friday's address, Obama formally accused the Kremlin
of engaging in cyber-attacks, adding that the US
"reserve[s] the right to retaliate at a place
and time of our choosing."
Since late July, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and
the Obama administration have engaged in a massive
campaign to convince Americans that Russia was
responsible for the hack and leak of damaging DNC and
Clinton campaign documents to WikiLeaks. After Donald
Trump's unexpected victory, the Democrats only
intensified their campaign, citing supposedly classified
intelligence analyses to call the results of the election into
question. Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement,
while the President-elect and his staff have mocked the
claim as a 'conspiracy theory'.
Speaking to Radio Sputnik about President Obama's final
year-end presser, independent political commentator
Aleksandar Pavic explained that in many ways, Obama has
become "a prisoner" of the narrative presented by
America's powerful media and political establishment.
"Obama is a prisoner of the narrative that's been
spinning around in the mainstream media ever
since Donald Trump became the Republican
nominee and Hillary Clinton's opponent," Pavic
378
noted. "It's just media warfare against an
obviously anti-establishment candidate, who to
everyone's surprise became president of the
United States." This 'surprise' was particularly
unpleasant to the neoliberal and neoconservative
establishment which has ruled the US since the
end of the Cold War, the analyst stressed.
"Obama – even if he thinks differently, is a
prisoner [of this narrative], and there's no going
back now," Pavic added. After all, "he still has a
life to live" after retirement, including via the
lucrative speaking circuit. "He's not going to
relinquish that now, even in the waning days of
his presidency; so he's just continuing this
narrative, which is totally baseless."
In fact, according to the analyst, the 'Russian
hack' story is really "the king of fake news…We
haven't been presented with a shred of evidence
from any credible source, or from any source
that's not anonymous, that Russia did in any way
interfere with the election process in the United
States." Nevertheless, all through Friday's press
event, mainstream journalists pushed Obama
into continuing to talk about Russia and its
alleged role in the hack.
Noting that he was far from a defender of the
president, Pavic pointed out that Obama was not
the only actor in the panoply of baseless
accusations and outright lies by the US
establishment against Russia in recent months.
"It wasn't just a one man show; it was an
establishment show," he stressed.
"Why am I being a little bit kind to Obama? We
must be kind to the losers, and in fact he is a
loser, and his establishment is a loser, and
they're trying, for one to put a good face on their
loss, and for another, to dilute the win – to
discredit the winner," the commentator added.
"So Obama is in fact not even the most
aggressive among these people – even though
he could be," Pavic emphasized. "What was it
that actually went on? Obama hasn't said a word.
 He rules over 17 different intelligence agencies.
Not one of them has offered concrete proof. In
fact, only the CIA, and supposedly the FBI via a
memo, are saying that there are 'indications' of
Russian meddling. [Among] the rest of the
intelligence agencies, including the NSA, nobody
has presented any proof."
"In that sense," the analyst argued, "this is just a
huge psy-op that's going on, and will be going on
at least until January 20th, and beyond that in the
liberal media; it's anti-Russia bashing to the
maximum; it's raising the global temperature; it's
rekindling the Cold War."
.
379
Asked if the whole blame Russia was really just a 'slow-
moving coup' effort by the establishment to delegitimize
President-elect Trump and even the election results
themselves, Pavic confirmed they're certainly trying.
"For one thing we have this whole campaign of
convincing Republican electors to not vote for
Donald Trump on December 19. Then of course
we do have Congress – a joint session on
January 6 where they have to confirm – to count
the Electoral College votes. So at that time, if you
have just one congressman or senator raising an
objection to an elector's vote, that causes a
debate, and in fact they can throw out an
elector's vote if both houses vote for it."
 As Obama Plans Retaliation Against
"Russian Hacking", A Problem Emerges
By Tyler Durden
Dec 18, 2016 11:25 PM
In a fiery press conference on Friday, shortly before
departing for his last Hawaiian vacation, president Obama
accused the press of being responsible for Hillary Clinton's
loss, slammed "domestic propagandists" who he said were
responsible for the risk of "fake news" and assisting
foreign counter-US propaganda, but more importantly
Obama vowed to “send a clear message to Russia” in
retaliation for its election hacking - of which the CIA still
has to demonstrate evidence - as both a punishment and a
deterrent. However, a problem has emerged as the
outgoing president plans how to "punish or deter" Russia -
according to the NYT,
some of the options were rejected as
ineffective, others as too risky.
If the choices had been better, one of the aides involved in
the debate noted recently, the president would have acted
by now, although the fact that he hasn't demonstrates just
how ineffective US counter-cyberwar planning has been
despite spending billions of dollars in preparation for just
this eventuality.
In its latest expose on US-Russian cyberrelations, the NYT
writes that over the past four months, American
intelligence agencies and aides to Obama had assembled a
menu of options to respond to Russia’s hacking during the
election, ranging from the obvious — exposing President
Vladimir V. Putin’s financial ties to oligarchs, and
something which has already been done on various
occasions in the past — to the innovative, including
manipulating the computer code that Russia uses in
designing its cyberweapons.
Obama has refused to effect any of the options, however,
because, as the NYT adds,
"in his last weeks in office, that Situation
Room debate has confronted a naturally
cautious president with a complex
calculus that President-elect Donald J.
Trump will soon inherit: how to use the
world’s most powerful cyberarsenal at a
moment when the United States, as the
election showed, remains highly
vulnerable."
380
The underlying concern is that, in a time when
cyberwarfare is the modern equivalent of the "nuclear
arms race" (even as the old, familiar "nuclear" cold war
has been quietly reignited in Europe between Russia and
NATO), all the legacy "game theory" caveats have
emerged, including "tit-for-tat" escalation, and - in the
most extreme - mutual assured destruction. David H.
Petraeus, the former CIA director captured much of that
sentiment on Friday, at a conference here sponsored by
Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs:
“Is there something we can do to them, that
they would see, they would realize 98
percent that we did it, but that wouldn’t be
so obvious that they would then have to
respond for their own honor? The question
is how subtle do you want it, how
damaging do you want it, how do you
try to end it here rather than just ratchet
it up?"
It is, according to the NYT, this fear of retaliation to
various escalating response that has paralyzed Obama from
moving forward. Furthermore, the options provided to the
US president appear to be insufficient for the task at stake.
On one hand, the idea of exposing Putin’s links to
oligarchs was set aside after some aides argued that it
"would not come as a shock to Russians." Still, there are
proposals to cut off leaders in Putin’s inner circle from
their hidden bank accounts in Europe and Asia. There is an
option to use sanctions under a year-old executive order to
ban international travel for senior officials in the G.R.U.,
the Russian military intelligence unit that American spy
agencies say stole emails from the Democratic National
Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, then
doled them out to WikiLeaks, betting that media outlets
eager for insider details would amplify them, doing the
Kremlin’s work for it.
There have been other options proposed by the NSA and
its military cousin, the United States Cyber Command,
which is responsible for computer-network warfare,
though many have been rejected by the Pentagon.
Those plans could deploy the world-class arsenal of
cyberweapons assembled at a cost of billions of dollars
during Mr. Obama’s tenure to expose or neutralize some of
the hacking tools favored by Russia’s spies — the digital
equivalent of a pre-emptive strike. But the selection of
targets by Americans and the accuracy of that retaliation
could also expose software “implants” that the United
States has patiently inserted and nurtured in Russian
networks, in case of future cyberconflicts.
However, using the extreme approach presents a new host
of challenges:
the revelation in August about some of the
N.S.A.’s own tools for breaking into foreign
computer networks has raised the
possibility that the Russians are already
inside American networks and are
sending a warning that they can
respond in kind.
Which leads to the troubling conclusion that, when it
comes to retaliating against the Kremlin, Obama is stuck.
"All of this has led Mr. Obama to ask how
the Russians might escalate the
confrontation, and whether the United
States in the end may have more to lose
than Russia. “He doesn’t have great
options,” said Michael D. McFaul, formerly
one of Mr. Obama’s top national security
aides and then his ambassador to
Moscow."
Which, according to the NYT, means that the president has
reached two conclusions:
The only thing worse than not using a
weapon is using it ineffectively. And if
he does choose to retaliate, he has
insisted on maintaining what is known
as “escalation dominance,” the ability to
ensure you can end a conflict on your
terms.
Mr. Obama hinted as much at his news conference on
Friday, as he was set to leave for his annual Hawaii
vacation, his last as president.
“Our goal continues to be to send a clear
message to Russia or others not to do this
to us because we can do stuff to you,” he
said. “But it is also important to us to do
that in a thoughtful, methodical way. Some
of it, we will do publicly. Some of it we will
do in a way that they know, but not
everybody will.”
381
Continuing to justify Obama's paralysis, the paper of
record adds that the president
"rejected calls for a big, symbolic show
of power, dismissing the idea that if the
United States “thumped our chests
about a bunch of stuff, that somehow
that would potentially spook the
Russians.”
The goal, Mr. Obama said, was to come up with a response
“that increases costs for them for behavior like this in the
future but does not create problems for us.”
In other words, the damage has already been done, so there
is little point in escalating it further, however - the thinking
in the administration goes - the US hopes to "teach the
Kremlin a lesson" and prevent it from interfering again in
the future. That is, assuming of course, that it was Russian
authorities that interfered in the first place, something they
vehemently deny, and an allegation the CIA has failed to
convince the general public by not presenting credible,
conclusive evidence so far that it was indeed Putin directly
orchestrating it (as the WaPo claimed). Indeed, many
allusions to the fake allegation of Iraq's Weapons of Mass
Destruction have emerged in response to the latest CIA
accusations, suggesting that the public refuses to be
swayed purely on the basis of emotion appeals to "listen to
experts and sources."
***
Meanwhile, and perhaps most ironically, it is the NYT itself
that admits that there is not much new in tampering with
elections, except for the technical sophistication of the
tools, and further writes that
"for all the outrage voiced by Democrats
and Republicans in the past week about
the Russian action... it is worth
remembering that trying to manipulate
elections is a well-honed American art
form,"
something we noted last week in "The CIA Is Accusing
Russia Of Doing Exactly What The CIA Does."
In short, America is furious that someone has allegedly
finally done something to it that it, itself, has been doing to
others for decades. Some examples:
The C.I.A. got its start trying to influence
the outcome of Italy’s elections in 1948, as
the author Tim Weiner documented in his
book “Legacy of Ashes,” in an effort to
keep Communists from taking power. Five
years later, the C.I.A. engineered a coup
against Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s
 democratically elected leader, when the
United States and Britain installed the
Shah.
“The military coup that overthrew
Mosaddeq and his National Front cabinet
was carried out under CIA direction as an
act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and
approved at the highest levels of
government,”
the agency concluded in one of its own reports,
declassified around the 60th anniversary of those events,
which were engineered in large part by Kermit Roosevelt
Jr., a grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.
There were similar interferences over the years in
Guatemala, Chile and even in Japan, hailed as a model of
post-World War II democracy, where the Liberal
Democratic Party owes its early grip on power in the
1950s and 1960s to millions of dollars in covert C.I.A.
support.
National Committee “early last summer,” or
nine months after the F.B.I. first alerted
low-level D.N.C. officials about what had
happened. That now appears to be critical
lost time.
If Mr. Obama had confronted the Russians immediately, in
public or in the kind of private warning he said he
delivered to Mr. Putin only three months ago during a
meeting in China, the United States might have derailed
the hacking campaign before it harvested and revealed
thousands of emails.
Obama's failure and reticence has sparked anger within his
own rank and file, further putting pressure on the president
to act lest he appears weak.
Obama’s comments on Friday have led Democrats to
demand further action. Representative Adam B. Schiff of
California, the ranking Democrat on the House
Intelligence Committee, said the response should mix

The only differences this year are that the effort was “additional economic sanctions along with
directed at the United States, and that it was cyberenabled, our allies, and clandestine means of
giving Moscow a tool to amplify its efforts through the exacting a cost on the Russians for their
echo chamber of social media and news organizations that flagrant meddling in our election.” “I have
quoted from the leaked emails. little confidence,” he continued, “that the
incoming president will take the actions
The bottom line, embarrassing as it may be, is that necessary to make the Russians pay any
price for the most consequential ‘active
measures’ campaign against us in history.”
"over the past few months, an
administration that prided itself on its
Others, like republican neocon John, accused Obama of
work on cyberoffense and cyberdefense
having "no strategy and no policy" of how to deal with the
has learned a hard lesson: When it
Russian hacking.
came to the 2016 election, an
economically failing Russia, dismissed
by Mr. Obama on Friday for its inability
to grow or to innovate, exploited giant
holes in the American system."

Even more embarrassing, is how the Democratic Party,

and John Podesta, confident in their security, allowed
themselves to be hacked, whether by the Russiansor some
hacker operating in New Jersey.

As a detailed account in The New York Times last

Wednesday revealed, the D.N.C. had virtually no
protections for its electronic systems, and Mrs. Clinton’s
campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, had failed to sign up
for the “two-factor authentication” on his Gmail account.
Doing so probably would have foiled what Mr. Obama
called a fairly primitive attack.

Then there the delays within the chain of command:

Mr. Obama conceded that he first heard

about the attack on the Democratic

382
So what happens now? The biggest question facing
Obama, the NYT concludes, is how public a retaliation to
execute (if any, of course).
In his press conference, Obama laid out a case on Friday
for acting with subtlety, so as not to start a tit-for-tat
conflict. But as Joseph Nye, a strategist on so-called soft
power, noted on Friday, “The reason to make some of this
public is not just to deter the Russians, it is to deter others
as well,” in future elections. It is possible, said Mr.
McFaul, the former ambassador to Russia, that Mr.
Obama’s most lasting contribution may be to get the
details of the Russian hack declassified and to publish a
report he has instructed the intelligence community to
assemble before he leaves office.
“Given that Obama only has a few more
weeks in office, I think he needs to
focus his remaining time on attribution
— that is declassification of intelligence
so that there is no ambiguity about the
Russian actions,” Mr. McFaul said. That
“is completely within his powers,” he
added, and would spur more congressional
investigations regardless of the stance
taken by Mr. Trump on the hack.
In the end, however, the simplest solution may also be the
correct one:
.
383
the US has so far not retaliated (and will
not retaliate) against Russia, because
despite the constant populist pandering
and the jawboning, it was never the
Russian government that was
responsible for the attack (something a
Spiegel report from Saturday hinted at),
something which the US government would
be aware of - despite the media onslaught
to deflect attention to Russia as the cause
for Hillary's loss.
If this is indeed the case, the consequence of launching a
cyberwar with Russia, one which Moscow did not start,
would be constant escalation leading to adverse
consequences for both countries, much more "dirty
laundry" emerging a la the Podesta emails, complicated by
its timing. A cyberwar would come at a time of a historic
shift within the US administration, one in which a regime
that has doggedly tried to suppress Putin and waged a
long-running PR campaign against the Kremlin, will soon
be replaced with a Trump administration whose stated
foreign intentions are to restore friendly relations with the
Kremlin.
Ultimately, despite all the bluster and posturing, Obama
will most likely do nothing.
 Is There A Conspiracy To
Undermine The Electoral Process?
Posted by Daisy Luther
Date: December 19, 2016
Editor’s Note: Yesterday, I wrote an article about the possibility
that the electoral college could go rogue and fail to vote for
Donald Trump. But what I didn’t go into was all the reasons why
this might happen.
It isn’t just the overwrought snowflakes who are striving to
undo over 200 years of electorate tradition. There are far
more insidious powers working behind the scenes. Keep in
mind that while the word “conspiracy” has been taken over
to be a degrading term that insinuates the believer is coo-
coo for cocoa puffs, what the word actually means is:
a secret plan by a group to do
something unlawful or harmful.
The article below discusses the conspiracy to keep Trump
out of office and makes a chilling case for how things
could go horribly wrong today. ~ Daisy
The “Elite” Coup Of 2016
By Moon Of Alabama (This article first appeared
at “Information Clearing House”)
 There is an “elite” coup attempt underway against the
U.S. President-elect Trump.
 The coup is orchestrated by the camp of Hillary Clinton
in association with the CIA and neoconservative
powers in Congress.
384
 The plan is to use the CIA’s “Russia made Trump the
winner” nonsense to swing the electoral college against
him.
 The case would then be bumped up to Congress.
Major neocon and warmonger parts of the Republicans
could then move the presidency to Clinton or, if that
fails, put Trump’s vice president-elect Mike Pence onto
the throne.
 The regular bipartisan war business, which a Trump
presidency threatens to interrupt, could continue.
 Should the coup succeed violent insurrections in the
United States are likely to ensue with unpredictable
consequences.
The above theses are thus far only a general outlay. No
general plan has been published. The scheme though is
pretty obvious by now. However, the following contains
some speculation.
The priority aim is to deny Trump the presidency. He is
too independent and a danger for several power centers
within the ruling U.S. power circles. The selection of
Tillerson as new Secretary of State only reinforces this
(Prediction: Bolton will not get the Deputy position.)
Tillerson is for profitable stability, not for regime change
adventures. The institutional Trump enemies are:
 The CIA which has become the Central Assassination
Agency under the Bush and Obama administrations.
Huge parts of its budgets depend on a continuation of
the war on Syria and the drone assassination
campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan and
elsewhere.Trump’s more isolationist policies would
likely end these campaigns and the related budget
troughs.
 The weapons industry which could lose its enormous
sales to its major customers in the Persian Gulf should
a President Trump reduce U.S. interference in the
Middle East and elsewhere.
 The neoconservatives and Likudniks who want the U.S.
as Israel’s weapon to strong arm the Middle East to the
Zionists’ benefit.
 The general war hawks, military and “humanitarian
interventionists” to whom any reduction of the U.S. role
as primary power in the world is anathema to their
believes.
The current CIA director Brennan, a leading figure of the
CIA torture program and Obama consigliere, is in the
Clinton/anti-Trump camp. The former CIA heads Hayden
and Panetta are public Clinton supporters as is torturer
king and former CIA deputy director Michael Morell.
It is thereby no wonder that the CIA is leading the anti-
Russian campaign. Its task now is to implant the idea in
the U.S. public that Russian intervention skewed the U.S.
election towards Trump. The purpose is the
delegitimization of the Trump victory in the eyes of the
media and public but even more so in the eyes of the
electors within the electoral college.
The CIA is heavily supported by the same mainstream
media that pushed for Clinton during the election. (These
.
385
are, not by chance, also the same media that pushed the
CIA’s earlier “Saddam’s Weapon of Mass Destruction”
campaign.)
The Democratic partisan and Harvard law Professor
Lawrence Lessig is pushing the electors and offers them
free personal legal support. He says the electoral college
vote is now close.
Could 37 Republican electors, put there by voters in their
states to vote for Trump, be convinced to move from
electing Trump to abstain or vote for someone else, Trump
would miss the needed 270 votes. The whole election of
the president would then by kicked up to the House of
Representatives…
 The Electors Vote: December 19, 2016
270 Electoral Votes To Win
We'll fill out this map on December 19th as the vote in presidential electors; it is possible that the count for vice-
each state becomes available. Any votes for someone other president is different. Visit our news page, where we'll
than Clinton or Trump, as well as any abstentions, will be highlight any votes that go other than expected.
grouped as 'Other'. Note that this map is just for

386
 Electoral College Poised To Make Trump Win Official –
But Not Without Drama
Foxnews.Com
Published December 19, 2016
The Electoral College is poised Monday to select Donald
Trump as the next president of the United States, despite
efforts to disrupt the 227-year-old process that so far
appear to have resulted in just one openly rogue voter.
Still, Democrats and Republicans on Sunday spoke with
some uncertainty about the anticipated outcome.
“We expect everything to fall in line,”
Reince Priebus, White House chief of staff
in the incoming Trump administration, told
“Fox News Sunday.”
Electors will convene in state capitals across the country
Monday to make the results of the Nov. 8 election official.
In most presidential election years, the Electoral College
vote would essentially be a formality. But electors have
been facing pressure for weeks from anti-Trump forces to
upend the November results; protests also are expected at
state capitals on Monday.
While the efforts stand little chance of succeeding, those
factions have been fueled by Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton's win in the popular vote. She
won roughly 2.6 million more ballots than Trump but lost
the Electoral College vote.
Trump got more Electoral College votes by winning many
of the smaller, less-populated states in the Midwest and
South, along with the big coastal state of Florida and
traditionally Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin.
Trump and Clinton also split the six most populous states.
387
Trump needs 270 electoral votes Monday. And the state
victories put him in line to get 306 of the 538 -- with each
state getting one vote for each House and Senate member.
The three remaining votes go to the District of Columbia.
Priebus, who still runs the Republican National
Committee, which is trying to keep count of the
apportioned or “pledged” votes, cited the only known and
so-called “faithless” balloter, who lives in Texas and
whose vote goes to Trump but plans to vote for another,
yet-to-be-named Republican.
“But other than that, we're very confident
that everything is going to be very smooth,”
said Priebus, noting a massive petition
drive to get electoral voters to cast ballots
against Trump and the alleged harassment
of some of the voters, particularly in
Arizona, where Trump won 49 percent of
the vote, compared to 45 percent for
Clinton, which entitles him to all 11
electoral votes.
Arizona elector Donald Graham told Fox News on
Saturday that the 11 electors have received hundreds of
thousands of emails telling them not to vote for Trump and
that he’s received information that some of the other 10
have been followed or have received a death threat.
“It’s out of hand when you have such … a
small group of people that is pushing so
hard against millions if not hundreds of
millions of people who still appreciate this
whole system,” said Graham, chairman of
the Arizona Republican Party. “The
Electoral College is part of the
Constitution.”
All swore to party officials that they will back Trump,
even though they're not legally bound to do so, and plan to
hold to that pledge.
Trump responded to the reports of elector harassment and
intimidation Sunday.
 He also made a last-minute argument that members of the
Electoral College should have an intelligence briefing
about the hackings before voting Monday.

“I assume that our electors are going to

vote for Hillary Clinton,” Podesta said. “But
the question is whether there are 37
Republican electors who think that either
there are open questions [about the
“If my many supporters acted and
purported Russian hackings] or that Donald
threatened people like those who lost the
Trump … is really unfit to be president. …
election are doing, they would be scorned
And I guess we will know that …
& called terrible names!”
tomorrow.”
There is no federal law on electoral votes. Some states
The Associated Press tried to reach all 538 electors and
bind their voters -- often state party officials -- to the
was able to interview more than 330 of them. Many
popular vote. But the penalties for violations are minor,
reported getting tens of thousands of emails, calls and
such as being disqualified from future balloting.
letters asking them to vote against Trump.
On Sunday, John Podesta, Clinton campaign chairman,
But the canvass found overwhelming support for the
suggested that 37 electoral voters bound to Trump could
system, and the nominee, among Republican electors. The
defect, which would be enough to create at least a tie and
AP found only one pledged to Trump who will refuse to
send the vote to the GOP-controlled House, where Trump
vote for him but did not identify him as the voter in Texas.
would still likely win.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Podesta, as he has in recent days, pressed the argument on
NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Russians hacking the emails
of Democrats during the election led in part to Clinton’s
loss.

388
 "This Is Stupid" - Pennsylvania
Electors To Get Police Protection
By Tyler Durden
Dec 19, 2016 7:58 AM
While today's Electoral College vote is not expected, by
most, to lead to any surprises, and Donald Trump will
almost certainly be selected as the next president in a vote
that is usually routine but takes place this year amid
allegations of Russian hacking to try to influence the
election, some states are not taking any chances and
following last week's report that Trump electors have seen
a flurry of death threats, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
reports that electors in Pennsylvania will have police
protection as they cast their ballots on Monday.
One Pennsylvania elector, Ash Khare, told the Gazette that
he receives thousands of emails a day trying to sway his
vote.
"I'm a big boy," said Khare, an India-born
engineer and a longtime Republican from
Warren County, who estimates he receives
3,000 to 5,000 emails, letters, and phone
calls a day from as far away as France,
Germany, and Australia. "But this is
stupid. Nobody is standing up and
telling these people, 'Enough, knock it
off.' "
As a reminder, Pennsylvania allows its electors to vote for
someone other than the candidate who won the state.
The messages have escalated to death threats, and so the
20 electors will have state troopers escorting them to cast
their votes Monday.
As reported previously, GOP electors have been under
pressure over the past month from anti-Trump groups to
not vote for President-elect Donald Trump.
"I take my job as an elector very seriously,
and in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump won,"
said Mary Barket, a Northampton County
resident and president of the Pennsylvania
Federation of Republican Women. "So any
argument thereafter, especially about the
nature of him being a president, is not
going to have an effect on me." But she
said she generally doesn't open the
messages.
389
"I don't have the time, first of all," she said.
"Second of all, there's really not much to be
said that's going to do anything to change
my mind."
Barket said she has been inundated with phone calls and
emails and letters over the last month. Some tell her to
read the Federalist Papers or express fear over Trump
becoming the country's commander-in-chief.
In interviews with the Gazette last week, a number of
electors said there was no chance anyone will defect.
"There is zero chance of that," said elector
Lawrence Tabas, a Philadelphia lawyer
and general counsel for the state GOP. "If
you want to place a bet on that in Vegas,
you can make enough money to retire."
Tabas said state officials this year gave out contact
information for all 20 electors. In his case, that included
his work and cell phones, his work email, and his home
address. He can't read every email or letter - and many of
them have just been form letters with different signatories.
He said most of the conversations he's had have been
respectful. Others have veered off into what he would only
call "nasty" territory. He would not give details. Khare said
he received a letter from a 7-year-old describing his fear of
Trump. Others have sent him photos of their families,
saying they were worried about their future under a Trump
presidency.
One woman called to tell him her husband had left the
country. Another called him at 1 a.m., while he was in a
deep sleep. He was also sent a copy of John F. Kennedy's
Profiles in Courage, which focuses on the careers of eight
senators whom Kennedy felt had shown courage under
"enormous pressure" from their parties and constituents.
Khare said he understood that the country is deeply
divided and that emotions are running high, but said he
was clear on where he stands.
"I will not change my mind," he said.
One GOP elector in Michigan has received death threats as
well.
***
Trump won 306 electoral votes on Election Day, crossing
the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to clinch the
presidency and surpassing Hillary Clinton’s 232 electoral
votes. Monday’s results are expected to match those
.
390
figures almost exactly. But thousands are expected to
protest across the country as part of a long-shot effort to
convince 37 GOP electors to cast their ballots for someone
other than Trump.
While the frantic push to exert pressure on the Republican
electors isn’t expected to change the outcome of Monday's
vote, it has put the Electoral College under a rare spotlight.
 Trump Could Accomplish ‘Something Remarkable’ In
Foreign Policy: Kissinger
By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor, From Press TV, Tehran
December 19, 2016

Below Kissinger actually states that Obama “basically withdrew

America from international politics”.

Gosh, silly me, I thought that using proxy terrorism as the new
regime change tool qualified for “getting involved”, as did the
NATO military push to Russia’s border, breaking agreements not
to do that, and then his “Asia Pivot”.

[ Editor’s Note: This is a very strange interview by Kissinger, but

not for the usual fawning media platform. On the one hand he is
obviously boosting Trump’s “greatness” but doing so in the usual
weaselly word Kissinger fashion so he can deny that’s what he
meant later. We have all been here before with Henry and his
doublespeak with glassy eyed MSM interviewers.

Obama was a “shock” coming into office, but Henry had no

comment then, even when he beat Hillary. The Nobel people
Dear Henry, I look forward to the day when you say something
thought he was so phenomenal they gave him the Peace Prize,
really remarkable versus your aged diplomatic doublespeak.
literally gave it do him in affirmative action mode. He then went
on to “extraordinarily” become the New Cold War president,
absent his impressive work in putting the Iran nuclear weapons Yes, I know it works for you as even Putin loves it, but I fear he
hoax to bed. does so mainly for the style and not the content, as I can’t see
any. Gordon says I am a top drawer analyst, and he should know
as he has all these chiefs of staff and deputy directors calling him
But Obama seems to have done that to shift US military power
for back door input on what is really going on … Jim W. Dean ]
away from the Mideast to support the new containment move on
Russia and China, when the only threat they evidenced
was building strong trade economies. ____________

We saw the EU, who had a $110 billion

trade surplus with Russia, actually put
sanctions on Moscow for not going
along with a NATO coup on Ukraine
which would have taken over Russia’s
Black Sea strategic base and access to
the Mediterranean, on what was
historically Russian territory until Nikita
Khrushchev “gave it” to his native
Ukraine.

Was this a new twist on using the “bully pulpit”?

Obama’s Asia Pivot served whose interests?

391
 – First published … December 19, 2016 –
Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state and
national security advisor, has said President-elect Donald
Trump could accomplish “something remarkable” in
American foreign policy, calling the Republican president-
elect “a phenomenon.”
“Donald Trump is a phenomenon that
foreign countries haven’t seen. So, it is
a shocking experience to them that he
came into office. At the same time,
extraordinary opportunity,” Kissinger
said in an interview broadcast on
Sunday on CBS News.
“And I believe he has the possibility of
going down in history as a very
considerable president because every
country now has two things to
consider,” he said.
“One, their perception that the previous
president, or the outgoing president,
basically withdrew America from
international politics so they had to
make their own assessment of the
necessities,” he added.
The influential American foreign policy thinker said the
new Republican president is asking “unfamiliar questions”
that could fill a vacuum left by President Obama.
“And secondly, he is a new president
who is asking a lot of unfamiliar
questions and because of the
combination of the partial vacuum and
the new questions one can imagine that
something remarkable and new
emerges out of it,” said Kissinger, who
served under two Republican
.
392
presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald
Ford.
“I’m not saying it will, I’m saying it’s an
extraordinary opportunity,” explained
Kissinger, a proponent of Realpolitik,
who played a prominent role in United
States foreign policy between 1969 and
1977.
Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric during the 2016
presidential campaign made many US allies from Europe
to Asia concerned about their future relations with
Washington.
Trump called NATO an “obsolete” alliance and raised
doubts over whether the US under his command would
assist a NATO ally under attack.
He also suggested that Japan and South Korea should
obtain nuclear weapons to boost their ability in deterring
regional rivals like North Korea.
In an interview last week, Kissinger pointed out a number
of challenges that may lead to conflicts during Trump’s
presidency, specifically the growing tensions between the
US and China and the breakdown of relations between
Russia and the West.
The veteran diplomat said the US leadership has always
been influential in shaping the world order and expressed
hope that Washington will continue to maintain that
tradition.
Trump and Kissinger met at least twice this year; once
during the presidential campaign in May and the second
time after the Republican’s victory in the November 8
election.
 The Bad Losers (And What They Fear Losing)
By Diana Johnstone
December 19, 2016
Paris.
If the 2016 presidential campaign was a national disgrace,
the reaction of the losers is an even more disgraceful
spectacle. It seems that the political machine backing
Hillary Clinton can’t stand losing an election.
And why is that?
Because they are determined to impose “exceptional”
America’s hegemony on the entire world, using military-
backed regime changes, and Donald Trump seems poised
to spoil their plans. The entire Western establishment,
roughly composed of neoconservative ideologues, liberal
interventionists, financial powers, NATO, mainstream
media and politicians in both the United States and
Western Europe, committed to remaking the Middle East
to suit Israel and Saudi Arabia and to shattering
impertinent Russia, have been thrown into an hysterical
panic at the prospect of their joint globalization project
being sabotaged by in ignorant intruder.
Donald Trump’s expressed desire to improve relations
with Russia throws a monkey wrench into the plans
endorsed by Hillary Clinton to “make Russia pay” for its
bad attitude in the Middle East and elsewhere. If he should
do what he has promised, this could be a serious blow to
the aggressive NATO buildup on Russia’s European
borders, not to mention serious losses to the U.S. arms
industry planning to sell billions of dollars worth of
superfluous weapons to NATO allies on the pretext of the
“Russian threat”.
The war party’s fears may be exaggerated, inasmuch as
Trump’s appointments indicate that the United States’
393
claim to be the “exceptional”, indispensable nation will
probably survive the changes in top personnel. But the
emphasis may be different. And those accustomed to
absolute rule cannot tolerate the challenge.
Bad Losers On the Top
Members of the U.S. Congress, the mainstream media, the
CIA and even President Obama have made fools of
themselves and the nation by claiming that the Clintonite
cabal lost because of Vladimir Putin. Insofar as the rest of
the world takes this whining seriously, it should further
increase Putin’s already considerable prestige. If true, the
notion that Moscovite hacking could defeat the favorite
candidate of the entire U.S. power establishment can only
mean that the United States’ political structure is so fragile
that a few disclosed emails can cause its collapse. A
government notorious for snooping into everybody’s
private communication, as well as for overthrowing one
government after another by less subtle means, and whose
agents boasted of scaring the Russians into re-elected the
abysmally unpopular Boris Yeltsin in 1996, now seems to
be crying pathetically,
“Mommy, Vlady is playing with my hacking
toys!”
Of course, Russians would quite naturally prefer a U.S.
president who openly shies away from the possibility of
starting a nuclear war with Russia. That doesn’t make
Russia “an enemy”, it is just a sign of good sense. Nor
does it mean that Putin is so naïve as to imagine that
Moscow could throw the election by a few dirty tricks.
The current Russian leaders, unlike their Washington
counterparts, tend to take a longer view, rather than
imagining that the course of history can be changed by a
banana peel.
This whole miserable spectacle is nothing but a
continuation of the Russophobia exploited by Hillary
Clinton to distract from her own multiple scandals. As the
worst loser in American electoral history, she must blame
Russia, rather than recognize that there were multiple
reasons to vote against her.
The propaganda machine has found a response to
unwelcome news: it must be fake. The Washington
conspiracy theorists are outdoing themselves this time.
The Russian geeks supposedly knew that by revealing a
few Democratic National Committee internal messages,
they could ensure the election of Donald Trump. What
tremendous prescience!
Obama promises retaliation against Russia for treating the
United States the way the United States treats, well,
Honduras (and even Russia itself until blocked by Putin).
Putin retorted that so far as he knew, the United States was
not a banana republic, but a great power able to protect its
elections. Washington is loudly denying that. The same
mainstream media who brought you Saddam’s “weapons
of mass destruction” are now bringing you this
preposterous conspiracy theory with straight faces.
When intelligence agencies become aware of the activities
of rival intelligence agencies, they usually keep the
knowledge to themselves, as part of the mutual spook
game. Going public with this wild tale shows that the
whole point is to persuade the American public that
Trump’s election is illegitimate, in the hope of defeating
him in the electoral college or, if that fails, of crippling his
presidency by labeling him a “Putin stooge”.
Bad Losers On the Bottom
At least the bad losers on the top know what they are doing
and have a purpose. The bad losers on the bottom are
expressing emotions without clear objectives. It is false
self-dramatization to call for “Resistance” as if the country
had been invaded by extraterrestrials. The U.S. electoral
system is outmoded and bizarre, but Trump played the
game by the rules. He campaigned to win swing States,
not a popular majority, and that’s what he got.
The problem isn’t Trump but a political system which
reduces the people’s choice to two hated candidates,
backed by big bucks.
Whatever they think or feel, the largely youthful anti-
Trump protesters in the streets create an image of
hedonistic consumer society’s spoiled brats who throw
tantrums when they don’t get what they want. Of course,
some are genuinely concerned about friends who are
illegal immigrants and fear deportation. It is quite possible
394
to organize in their defense. The protesters may be mostly
disappointed Bernie Sanders supporters, but whether they
like it or not, their protests amount to a continuation of the
dominant themes in Hillary Clinton’s negative campaign.
She ran on fear. In the absence of any economic program
to respond to the needs of millions of voters who showed
their preference for Sanders, and of those who turned to
Trump simply because of his vague promise to create jobs,
her campaign exaggerated the portent of Trump’s most
politically incorrect statements, creating the illusion that
Trump was a violent racist whose only program was to
arouse hatred. Still worse, Hillary stigmatized millions of
voters as “a basket of deplorables, racist, sexist,
homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”
These remarks were made to an LGBT rally, as part of her
identity politics campaign to win over a clientele of
minorities by stigmatizing the dwindling white majority.
The identity politics premise is that ethnic and sexual
minorities are oppressed and thus morally superior to the
white majority, which is the implied oppressor. It is this
tendency to sort people into morally distinct categories that
divides Americans against each other, every bit as much –
or more – than Trump’s hyperbole about Mexican or
Islamic immigrants. It has served to convince many
devotees of political correctness to regard white working
class Americans in the “fly-over” regions as enemy
invaders who threaten to send them all to concentration
camps.
Terrified of what Trump may do, his opponents tend to
ignore what the lame ducks are actually doing. The last
gasp Clintonite campaign to blame Hillary’s defeat on
“fake news”, supposedly inspired by The Enemy, Russia,
is a facet of the growing drive to censor the Internet –
previously for child pornography, or for anti-Semitism,
and next on the pretext of combating “fake news”,
meaning whatever goes contrary to the official line. This
threat to freedom of expression is more sinister than
eleven-year-old locker-room macho boasts by Trump.
There will and should be strong political opposition to
whatever reactionary domestic policies are adopted by the
Trump administration. But such opposition should define
the issues and work for specific goals, instead of
expressing a global rejection that is non-functional.
The hysterical anti-Trump reaction is unable to grasp the
implications of the campaign to blame Hillary’s defeat on
Putin. Do the kids in the street really want war with
Russia? I doubt it. But they do not perceive that for all its
glaring faults, the Trump presidency provides an
opportunity to avoid war with Russia. This is a window of
opportunity than will be slammed shut if the Clintonite
establishment and the War Party get their way. Whether
they realize it or not, the street protesters are helping that
establishment delegitimatize Trump and sabotage the one
positive element in his program: peace with Russia.
Adjustments in the Enemy List
By its fatally flawed choices in the Middle East and in
Ukraine, the United States foreign policy establishment
has driven itself into a collision course with Russia.
Unable to admit that the United States backed the wrong
horse in Syria, the War Party sees no choice but to
demonize and “punish” Russia, with the risk of dipping
into the Pentagon’s vast arsenal of argument-winning
nuclear weapons. Anti-Russian propaganda has reached
extremes exceeding those of the Cold War. What can put
an end to this madness? What can serve to create normal
attitudes and relations concerning that proud nation which
aspires primarily simply to be respected and to promote
old-fashioned international law based on national
sovereignty? How can the United States make peace with
Russia?
It is clear that in capitalist, chauvinist America there is no
prospect of shifting to a peace policy by putting David
Swanson in charge of U.S. foreign relations, however
desirable that might be.
Realistically, the only way that capitalist America can
make peace with Russia is through capitalist business.
And that is what Trump proposes to do.
A bit of realism helps when dealing with reality. The
choice of Exxon CEO Rex W. Tillerson as Secretary of
State is the best step toward ending the current race toward
war with Russia. “Make money not war” is the pragmatic
American slogan for peace at this stage.
But the “resistance” to Trump is not likely to show support
for this pragmatic peace policy. It is already encountering
opposition in the war-loving Congress. Instead, by
shouting “Trump is not my President!” the disoriented
leftists are inadvertently strengthening that opposition,
which is worse than Trump.
Avoiding war with Russia will not transform Washington
into a haven of sweetness and light. Trump is an
aggressive personality, and the opportunistic aggressive
personalities of the establishment, notably his pro-Israel
friends, will help him turn U.S. aggression in other
directions. Trump’s attachment to Israel is nothing new,
but appears to be particularly uncompromising. In that
context, Trump’s extremely harsh words for Iran are
ominous, and one must hope that his stated rejection of
“regime change” war applies in that case as well as others.
Trump’s anti-China rhetoric also sounds bad, but in the
long run there is little he or the United States can do to
.
395
prevent China from becoming once again the
“indispensable nation” it used to be during most of its long
history. Tougher trade deals will not lead to the
Apocalypse.
The Failure of the Intellectual Establishment
The sad image today of Americans as bad losers, unable to
face reality, must be attributed in part to the ethical failure
of the so-called 1968 generation of intellectuals. In a
democratic society, the first duty of men and women with
the time, inclination and capacity to study reality seriously
is to share their knowledge and understanding with people
who lack those privileges. The generation of academics
whose political consciousness was temporarily raised by
the tragedy of the Vietnam war should have realized that
their duty was to use their position to educate the
American people, notably about the world that Washington
proposed to redesign and its history. However, the new
phase of hedonistic capitalism offered the greatest
opportunities for intellectuals in manipulating the masses
rather than educating them. The consumer society
marketing even invented a new phase of identity politics,
with the youth market, the gay market, and so on. In the
universities, a critical mass of “progressive” academics
retreated into the abstract world of post-modernism, and
have ended up focusing the attention of youth on how to
react to other people’s sex lives or “gender identification”.
Such esoteric stuff feeds the publish or perish syndrome
and prevents academics in the humanities from having to
teach anything that might be deemed critical of U.S.
military spending or its failing efforts to assert its eternal
domination of the globalized world. The worst
controversy coming out of academia concerns who should
use which toilet.
If the intellectual snobs on the coasts can sneer with such
self-satisfaction at the poor “deplorables” in flyover land,
it is because they themselves have ignored their primary
social duty of seeking truth and sharing it. Scolding
people for their “wrong” attitudes while setting the social
example of unrestrained personal promotion can only
produce the anti-elite reaction called “populism”. Trump
is the revenge of people who feel manipulated, forgotten
and despised. However flawed, he is the only choice they
had to express their revolt in a rotten election. The United
States is deeply divided ideologically, as well as
economically. The United States is threatened, not by
Russia, but by its own internal divisions and the inability
of Americans not only to understand the world, but even to
understand each other.
 Interim DNC Chair Brazile Appears To Contradict
Obama’s Hacking Comments
By: Newstarget
Date: December 19, 2016
The interim Democratic National Committee Chair Donna
Brazile said Sunday that cyberattacks against the party
occurred every day through the end of the election.
“They came after us absolutely every day
until the end of the election. They tried to
hack into our system repeatedly,” Brazile
added.
Brazile’s comments were made on ABC News’
“The Week” and were apparently
contradicting what President Barack
Obama said Friday when he revealed that
the hacking was halted in September after
he met with Russian President Vladimir
Putin at an international summit and told
him to “cut it out.”
Obama stopped short of saying Putin himself orchestrated
the Russian hacking of U.S. political sites during the
election – but he did say it was done at the highest levels
of the Kremlin.
396
Democrat Hillary Clinton has even more directly cited
Russian interference. She said Thursday night,
“Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert
cyberattacks against our electoral system,
against our democracy, apparently
because he has a personal beef against
me.”
Obama didn’t publicly back that theory.
Brazile also blasted President-elected Donald Trump,
claiming the he used the hacked emails that were released
to the public to divide the country during the campaign.
“The emails were weaponized. Donald
Trump used this information in ways to also
sow division. I was very disappointed in his
repeated usage some of the stolen
information. He used it as if he received
daily talking points,” she said.
Brazile didn’t put the full blame on Russia. She admitted
that the DNC itself was partly to blame for the loss
because the committee put itself into a vulnerable spot.
“There’s no question I took full
responsibility. I spent the entire month of
July, all of August, apologizing because of
the leaks,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 Trump Could Accomplish
‘Something Remarkable’ In Foreign Policy: Kissinger
Mon Dec 19, 2016 8:39AM

served under two Republican presidents,

Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
“I’m not saying it will, I’m saying it’s an
extraordinary opportunity,” explained
Kissinger, a proponent of Realpolitik, who
played a prominent role in United States
foreign policy between 1969 and 1977.
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger speaks on CBS' "Face
the Nation" program. (CBS News file photo)
Henry Kissinger, the former US
secretary of state and national security
advisor, has said Donald Trump could
accomplish "something remarkable" in
American foreign policy, calling the
Republican president-elect “a
phenomenon.”
"Donald Trump is a phenomenon that Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric during the 2016
foreign countries haven't seen. So, it is a presidential campaign made many US allies from Europe
shocking experience to them that he came to Asia concerned about their future relations with
into office. At the same time, extraordinary Washington.
opportunity," Kissinger said in an interview
broadcast on Sunday on CBS News. Trump called NATO an “obsolete” alliance and raised
doubts over whether the US under his command would
“And I believe he has the possibility of
assist a NATO ally under attack.
going down in history as a very
considerable president because every
country now has two things to consider,” he He also suggested that Japan and South Korea should
said. obtain nuclear weapons to boost their ability in deterring
regional rivals like North Korea.
“One, their perception that the previous
president, or the outgoing president,
In an interview last week, Kissinger pointed out a number
basically withdrew America from
of challenges that may lead to conflicts during Trump’s
international politics so they had to make
presidency, specifically the growing tensions between the
their own assessment of the necessities,”
US and China and the breakdown of relations between
he added.
Russia and the West.
The influential American foreign policy thinker said the
The veteran diplomat said the US leadership has always
new Republican president is asking "unfamiliar questions"
been influential in shaping the world order and expressed
that could fill a vacuum left by President Obama.
hope that Washington will continue to maintain that
tradition.
“And secondly, he is a new president who
is asking a lot of unfamiliar questions and
Trump and Kissinger met at least twice this year; once
because of the combination of the partial
during the presidential campaign in May and the second
vacuum and the new questions one can
time after the Republican’s victory in the November 8
imagine that something remarkable and
election.
new emerges out of it,” said Kissinger, who

397
 On Russia’s Stealing The White House
By John Whitbeck
December 19, 2016
Paris.
The current hysteria in the United States over allegations
that Russia stole the American election to put its man,
Donald Trump, in the White House would be hilarious if
powerful people in the U.S. government and the
mainstream media did not appear to take this scenario
seriously.
It has been leaked to the Washington Post by an
anonymous source that the CIA has concluded with high
confidence that the Kremlin preferred Donald Trump to
Hillary Clinton.
Well, duh! How much intelligence, in any sense, does it
take to reach that conclusion?
Clinton had publicly compared President Putin to Hitler
and promised to step up efforts to provoke, punish and
humiliate Russia.
Trump had promised to treat Russia and its president with
respect and to seek to cooperate with Russia on matters of
common interest.
Of course, Russia preferred Trump!
Americans are supposed to be shocked, shocked (à la
Casablanca) that, in these circumstances and with the
relationship between the two major nuclear powers being
the most important and dangerous inter-state relationship
on the planet, Russia might have dared to try to influence
the result of the American election.
398
Readers of A Legacy of Ashes, Tim Weiner’s definitive
history of the CIA, will be aware that two of the principal
activities of the CIA since its creation have been the
propagation of fake news stories (officially, only for
foreign consumption) and seeking to influence foreign
elections, with the former often placed with friendly media
so as to further the latter – admittedly, relatively benign
activities compared to the CIA’s more recent focus on
torture and drone-assassinations.
Where that didn’t work, the CIA organized coups to
overthrow democratically elected governments not to
America’s liking (Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Ukraine, etc.),
and, of course, there have been numerous American
regime-change operations involving bombings and
invasions.
And, meanwhile, the NSA is vacuuming up every
electronic communication on the planet …
It requires hypocrisy and historical amnesia on a
breathtaking scale to be outraged that Russia might have
made available to WikiLeaks some true internal emails
from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton
Campaign that did not reflect well on Clinton – let alone to
characterize such a disclosure, as one member of Congress
recently has, as an “act of war”.
Assuming, for the sake of argument (and notwithstanding
former British Ambassador Craig Murray’s admission that
he personally delivered the relevant leaked emails to
WikiLeaks on behalf of a “disgusted” Democratic Party
insider), that the Russian government really was
responsible for the release of these emails into the public
domain, how many American voters actually read these
emails, and how many of those would have been so
shocked to learn that the Democratic National Committee
was not ensuring a level playing field between Clinton and
Bernie Sanders (already rather obvious) or that the inner
workings and calculations of a political campaign are (like
sausage-making) better not viewed up close (also no
surprise) that they changed their voting intentions?
A better argument can be made that the late intervention
by FBI Director James Comey, suggesting as it did the
possible indictment and prosecution of a president-elect,
might, even though he backed off a few days before
election day, have changed the voting intentions of a
sufficient number of wavering voters to affect the result.
But the DNC and Podesta emails? Russia? Really?
In accordance with the rules of the bizarre and absurd 18th
century Electoral College system (and barring a massive
defection of “faithless electors” when they vote in state
capitols on Monday), Donald Trump has been duly elected
as the next president of the United States. America and the
world will have to live with it.
The efforts currently underway among some politicians
and in the mainstream press to try to convince the
American people that Trump is a “Siberian Candidate” in
the service of Russia and that his election was – and his
presidency will be – illegitimate because his victory was
achieved only by the “hacking” and “subversion” of the
election by a foreign power (both terms being hurled as
fact in Paul Krugman’s latest column in the New York
Times, in which he also argues that Trump’s election
399
should not be accorded “any legitimacy beyond the bare
legal requirements”) are wildly irresponsible and
dangerous.
Russia does not need to trash American democracy. From
the start of this extraordinarily ugly campaign season,
Americans have been doing an excellent job of that
themselves. Their politicians and “opinion leaders” should
resist the urge to dig the hole in which the country finds
itself even deeper, and Democratic members of Congress
should resist the urge to adopt the scorched-earth approach
of the Republican Party over the past eight years and
devote all their efforts in the coming four years toward
ensuring the failure of their country’s president in
everything he seeks to accomplish.
Sadly, at the moment, the country of my birth is looking
more and more like the world’s largest open-air insane
asylum.
 Electoral College, Unloved But Everpresent,
Set To Anoint Trump
Jerome Cartillier - AFP
December 19, 2016
An online petition calling on electors to reject Trump, has collected
some five million supporters (AFP Photo/Don Emmert)
Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump's fiercest critics may
be dreaming of a last-minute revolt, but the Electoral
College, a peculiarly American institution, appears near-
certain on Monday to select the 70-year-old real estate
mogul as the 45th US president.
Its detractors -- and they are many -- have denounced an
electoral system that flies in the face of the venerated
"one man, one vote" principle, and which perversely
encourages presidential candidates to campaign in only a
few key states while ignoring whole swaths of the
country.
But despite the torrent of criticism this method has faced
for decades, no reform attempt has ever succeeded.
When American voters cast their ballots on November 8,
they did not in fact directly elect the next occupant of the
White House. Instead, they picked 538 "electors" charged
with translating their wishes into reality.
Trump won a clear majority of those electors -- 306, with
270 needed for election -- despite dramatically losing the
popular vote to his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
A similar scenario took place in 2000, when George W.
Bush became president even though Democrat Al Gore
won more popular votes.
400
However, the gap is far more dramatic in 2016, with
Clinton scoring nearly three million extra votes over
Trump.
This Monday, electors will convene in each of the 50
states, plus the District of Columbia, to officially
designate the next president and vice president.
Following an extraordinarily vitriolic campaign, this step
in the electoral process -- normally little more than a
formality -- has been thrust into the spotlight.
- 'Faithless electors' -
Historically, electors only rarely defy the expressed
wishes of the majority of voters in their district. And
never have the votes of these "faithless electors" changed
the outcome of a presidential election.
Still, some Democrats -- who see a Trump presidency as
presenting an existential danger to American democracy -
- are clinging to the slender hope that a few dozen
Republican electors might decide not to vote for their
party's populist leader.
Yet, should that happen, it would be up to the House of
Representatives to designate the successor to Barack
Obama. And Republicans hold a strong majority there.
An online petition calling on electors to reject Trump, has
collected some five million supporters. Hollywood stars
including Martin Sheen ("President Bartlet" on the
popular television series "West Wing") recently released
a video to goad electors to take that step.
"You have the position, the authority and
the opportunity to go down in the books as
an American hero who changed the
course of history," the celebrities say,
addressing electors who have been thrust
overnight from the shadows into the
spotlight.
But these efforts appear to have almost no chance of
succeeding: There is no evidence that the requisite 37
Republican electors will decide to abandon Trump. To
date, only one of them, Christopher Suprum of Texas, has
publicly announced his intention to stage such a revolt.
The future White House chief of staff, Reince Preibus,
told Fox News Sunday that the pressure on the electoral
college not to elect Trump is
"about Democrats that can't accept the
outcome of the election. It's about
delegitimizing the american system."
He added:
"We're very confident that everything is
going to be very smooth tomorrow."
The final result may not be known on Monday, as states
are given several days to report their numbers. The
Congress will, in any case, announce the name of the
official winner on January 6, two weeks before the next
president is to be inaugurated in a solemn and pomp-
filled ceremony outside the Capitol.
- A 'disaster' or bit of 'genius'? -
Asked about it at his final news conference of the year
before leaving for a Hawaiian vacation, Barack Obama
acknowledged that the system was
"a vestige, it's a carry-over from an earlier
vision of how our federal government was
going to work," and that it could
disadvantage Democrats.
Still, the outgoing president urged his camp to draw
needed lessons from their electoral failure and develop a
strategy for the future rather than bemoaning the 2016
loss or trying to overturn it.
.
401
"The truth of the matter is that if we have
a strong message, if we're speaking to
what the American people care about,
typically, the popular vote and the
Electoral College vote will align," he said
in a clear allusion to his own presidential
victories in 2008 and 2012.
David Pozen, a professor at Columbia Law School, sees
at least one silver lining to the intense focus on the
Electoral College: it will draw attention to the urgent
need for change.
"Either way, the renewed public interest in
the Electoral College underscores the
need to do away with this antiquated and
fundamentally undemocratic institution,"
he said in an op-ed article in the New York
Times.
In November 2000, Hillary Clinton, then the newly
elected Democratic senator from New York, issued a
clear call for an electoral reform that would result in
direct, universal suffrage.
Trump, for his part, has radically changed his stance on
the matter in just four years.
"The Electoral College is a disaster for a
democracy," he tweeted in November
2012.
Last month, just days after a victory that seemed to stun
even him, he sounded a rather different note:
"The Electoral College is actually genius
in that it brings all states, including the
smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is
much different!"
 GOP Elector Says He Was Threatened, Followed On The
Freeway By People With Cameras (VIDEO)
Jim Hoft
Dec 19th, 2016 8:01 Am

Arizona GOP elector Robert Graham went on FOX — FOX & friends (@foxandfriends)
and Friends this morning to discuss the abuse he has December 19, 2016
suffered since Donald Trump won the November
election. Hillary supporters harassed Graham with thousands of
email messages.

Messages to GOP elector

@RobertSGraham urging him to not vote
for President-elect Trump today
pic.twitter.com/n85zV73s2k
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends)
December 19, 2016

Graham said he was threatened and followed by people

with cameras on the freeway.

Graham said the abuse and harassment is affecting the
health of Trump electors.
GOP elector @RobertSGraham: President
Obama should tell people trying to
intimidate Electoral College voters to stand
down pic.twitter.com/n5LTN9KkcY
GOP elector @RobertSGraham tells us he
has been followed home multiple times as
people try to intimidate him into not voting
for Mr. Trump pic.twitter.com/VHDgJeVreC
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends)
December 19, 2016

402
 Trump Within Reach Of Electoral College Win
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Dec. 19, 2016 3:04 PM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — There were many protesters but
few faithless electors as Donald Trump appeared to cruise
toward 270 votes in the Electoral College on Monday —
ensuring he will become America's 45th president.
Even one of Trump's fiercest Republican rivals, Ohio Gov.
John Kasich, said it was time to get behind the president-
elect.
"We want unity, we want love," Kasich said
as Ohio's electors voted to back Trump at a
statehouse ceremony.
Thousands of protesters converged on state capitols across
the country Monday, urging Republican electors to
abandon their party's winning candidate.
More than 200 demonstrators braved freezing temperatures
at Pennsylvania's capitol, chanting,
"No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!" and
"No treason, no Trump!"
In Madison, Wisconsin, protesters shouted, cried and sang
"Silent Night." In Augusta, Maine, they banged on drums
and held signs that said, "Don't let Putin Pick Our
President," referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But despite the noise outside state Capitols, inside, the
voting went pretty much as planned.
In Nashville, Tennessee, one audience member tried to
read out some Scripture before the ballots were cast, but
was told he could not speak.
403
"We certainly appreciate the Scripture,"
State Election Coordinator Mark Goins said
from the podium. "The answer is no."
With more than 30 states reporting, neither Trump nor
Hillary Clinton had lost a single elector.
At that point, Trump had 219 votes and Clinton had 120.
The Electoral College has 538 members, with the number
allocated to each state based on how many representatives
it has in the House plus one for each senator. The District
of Columbia gets three, despite the fact that the home to
Congress has no vote in Congress.
Republican electors have been deluged with emails, phone
calls and letters urging them not to support Trump. Many
of the emails are part of coordinated campaigns.
In Atlanta, Gov. Nathan Deal empathized with GOP
electors.
"I, too, regret that you have been the
subject of harassment by those who
perhaps are not as dedicated to the
proposition of what this body is supposed
to do as they are agitated by the fact that
the people didn't do what they wanted them
to do," Deal told the state's 16 electors,
who all voted for Trump.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, elector Charlie Buckels
reached out to Trump's opponents after the New York
businessman got all of the state's eight votes.
"For those of you who wished it had gone
another way, I thank you for being here,"
said Buckels, the state GOP finance
chairman. "I thank you for your passion for
our country."
There is no constitutional provision or federal law that
requires electors to vote for the candidate who won their
state — though some states require their electors to vote
for the winning candidate.
Those laws, however, are rarely tested. More than 99
percent of electors through U.S. history have voted for the
candidate who won their state. Of those who refused, none
has ever been prosecuted, according to the National
Archives.
Some Democrats have argued that the Electoral College is
undemocratic because it gives more weight to less
populated states. That is how Clinton, who got more than
2.6 million more votes nationwide, lost the election to
Trump.
Some have also tried to dissuade Trump voters by arguing
that he is unsuited to the job. Others cite the CIA's
assessment that Russia engaged in computer hacking to
sway the election in favor of the Republican.
404
"When the founders of our country created
(the Electoral College) 200-plus years ago,
they didn't have confidence in the average
white man who had property, because
that's who got to vote," said Shawn Terris,
a Democratic elector from Ventura,
California. "It just seems so undemocratic
to me that people other than the voters get
to choose who leads the country."
A joint session of Congress is scheduled for Jan. 6 to
certify the results of the Electoral College vote, with Vice
President Joe Biden presiding as president of the Senate.
Once the result is certified, the winner — almost certainly
Trump — will be sworn in on Jan. 20.
 Electoral College Vote
Seals Trump White House Victory
By Andrew Rafferty
Dec 19 2016, 5:50 Pm ET
The Electoral College formalized Donald Trump's election
victory on Monday despite protests around the country to
encourage GOP electors to abandon the Republican.
The president-elect easily racked up the 270 electoral votes
needed to send him to the White House. Interest in the
normally mundane voting process spiked this year as
opposition to Trump continues to fester, fueled by
Clinton's success in capturing over 2.6 million more votes
than her Republican opponent.
Anti-Trump protesters descended on state capitols
throughout the U.S. in a last-ditch effort to persuade so-
called "faithless electors" in states Trump won to change
their vote. Many of the Republicans casting ballots said
they were inundated with calls and emails urging them to
dump Trump.
And some electors did break with how their state voted,
albeit in unexpected ways. In Washington, a state Clinton
won by 16 points, the former secretary of state received
just eight of the state's 12 electoral votes. Colin Powell
received three votes and Native American tribal leader
Faith Spotted Eagle received one as part of an effort to
promote a candidate other than Trump.
405
An elector in both Maine and Minnesota attempted to cast
a ballot for Bernie Sanders, who unsuccessfully challenged
Clinton in the Democratic primary. However state laws
requiring electors to follow the statewide vote invalidated
both efforts.
Only one Republican elector, Christopher Suprun of
Texas, publically pledged not to vote for Trump despite his
state heavily favoring the president-elect last month. One
other Texas elector also abandoned Trump in the final
vote.
An Associated Press survey of the electoral college's 538
members found there was little interest from members in
breaking from voting how their states did. Thirty-seven
electors would have needed to defect from Trump to
endanger him from winning.
The Electoral College met in all fifty states and
Washington, D.C. on Monday. Congress will certify the
results on Jan. 6 and the president will be inaugurated Jan.
20.
BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump Wins Electoral College
- As Attempts To Cause Rebellion Turn To Farce With
DEMOCRATS Deserting Hillary
 Calls For Members Of The Electoral College To 'Vote Your Conscience' Have Paid Off - But Not For
Hillary Clinton Supporters
 A Handful Of 'Hamilton Electors,' Who Are Democrats, Chose To Vote For Moderate Republicans Like
John Kasich Or Colin Powell
 They Had Hoped That Republicans Would Follow Suit Peeling Away The Electors Needed To Elect
Donald Trump President
 By Mid-Afternoon Trump Was Close To Receiving The 270 Votes He Would Need To Officially Clinch
The White House
 Bill Clinton Was A Member Of New York's Electoral College And Was In Albany To Cast A Vote For His
Wife
 Four 'Faithless' Electors Cast Votes In Washington State Not For Clinton, While Attempts Were Made In
Maine, Colorado And Minnesota
By Nikki Schwab, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com And Associated Press
Published: 13:12 EST, 19 December 2016 | Updated: 18:58 EST, 19 December 2016

Donald Trump officially crossed the line to 270 electoral

votes with electors in Texas casting a ballot for the
Republican shortly before 5:30 p.m. EST.

Calls for Trump to be voted down by members of the

Electoral College were roundly ignored on Monday – with
only two 'faithless' Republican electors rejecting the
president-elect and four deserting Democrat Hillary
Clinton.

Several more electors tried to ditch the Democratic loser,

in an effort to pressure Republicans into doing the same Members of the Electoral College voted in statehouses around the
and selecting a more moderate GOP president. country today, like this group in Atlanta, Georgia

Trump applauded his victory when that scheme didn't

work and flaunted it in front of the media.

'Today marks a historic electoral landslide victory

in our nation's democracy,' he said in a
statement to reporters. 'I thank the American
people for their overwhelming vote to elect me as
their next President of the United States.'

'The official votes cast by the Electoral College

exceeded the 270 required to secure the
presidency by a very large margin, far greater
than ever anticipated by the media,' he added.

Congress will certify the Electoral College vote on January Futile: Protesters demonstrated ahead of Pennsylvania's 58th Electoral
6 and Trump will be sworn in on January 20. College at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., in freezing temperatures
- but electors ignored them and voted for Trump

406
 In Washington state, four electors broke away from
Clinton, with some of the votes going to former
Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Washington was where other Democratic 'Hamilton

electors' said they would vote across the aisle in hopes that
Republicans would follow suit.

Another vote that was supposed to go to Clinton reportedly

went to Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American
environmentalist protesting against the Dakota Access
Pipeline.

In contrast, as the votes were cast in a series of states in the

Token vote: Bill Clinton voted for his wife in New York - but it will not east, the mid-west and the south, just two Texas electors
change the result, with the Republican on course to take the Electoral deserted Trump, with one voting for Kasich and another
College
choosing former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian leader
David Bright of Maine was supposed to back the
who ran for the White House twice.
Democratic loser but announced he would defy the wishes
of the state's voters and back Bernie Sanders, her primary
His son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, ran against Trump in
opponent.
2016.
He was later told he'd be replaced by another elector if he
made that move, so decided to vote Clinton instead.

In Minnesota an elector who was supposed to choose

Clinton refused to vote and got replaced.

Another 'faithless' elector, this time in Colorado, got

replaced when he cast a vote for John Kasich instead of
Hillary Clinton.

Ignored: North Carolina's antebellum Capitol building in Raleigh, drew

protesters whose attempt to persuade electors to be faithless was
fruitless

President-elect Donald Trump, spending the holidays at Mar-a-Lago,

sent out a statement calling his win a 'historic electoral landslide'
The elector, Micheal Baca, was a prominent Democratic
'Hamilton elector,' who was encouraging his GOP peers to
unbind themselves from their state's popular vote winner
and choose a more conventional Republican than Trump.

Because Colorado makes its delegates pledge to support Even in Georgia, a more traditionally red state, protesters urged
the state's popular vote winner – Clinton, in this case – electors to go rogue and vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump
Baca was forced out of the Electoral College and replaced
by someone who cast one of the nine pro-Clinton votes for
the state.

407
 A protester was pulled by police out of the capitol building today in
Madison, Wisconsin as electors in that state cast votes for Donald
Trump
With so few electors rebelling, that left a Harvard
professor's claims that as many as 20 Republican electors
could go faithless look like nonsense – and put Trump in
cruise control to the White House.
It also left protests by die-hard anti-Trump activists taking
place outside some state houses and capitols looking futile.
By 1:10 p.m. EST Electors from Pennsylvania, North
Carolina Ohio and Louisiana had given Republican Donald
Trump 134 of the 270 electoral votes required to formally
win the presidency.
Four hours later, Trump was at 268 electoral votes, while
Clinton held 166.
By 5:30 p.m., Trump's journey to the White House was
complete.
Democrat Bret Chiafalo, one of the 'Hamilton electors' from
Washington state, said Monday that he planned to vote for John
Kasich. Early reports out of Olympia suggest he may have chosen
former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell instead
408
Protesters in Georgia, including a woman with a 'Rapist Elect' sign,
encouraged electors from their state to choose Hillary Clinton or a
more moderate Republican for president
In New York, Clinton got 29 votes in a state that she
formerly represented in the U.S. Senate.
One of them was cast by her husband.
Afterward a bleary-eyed ex-president told reporters: 'I
never cast a vote I was prouder of.'
'You know, I watched her work for two years. I
watched her battle through that bogus email
deal,' he said.
'At the end we had the Russians and the FBI
deal – she couldn't prevail against that,' Bill
Clinton said.
She had won the national popular vote in the Nov. 8
election, and pro-Clinton protesters rallied at state capitols
around the country against Trump's expected victory in the
Electoral College Monday.
Trump was poised to win 306 of the 538 electoral votes
under the state-by-state distribution of electors used to
choose presidents since 1789.
With Hawaii, a blue state, still yet to vote, Trump had 304
and Clinton had 224.
Early on, Trump took all 16 presidential electors in
Georgia and eight in Kentucky, as well as electors in South
Carolina, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Tennessee,
Mississippi and Arkansas.
The only upset of the early part of the day was in Maine.
Bright said on his Facebook page that he cast his vote for
Sanders, instead of Hillary Clinton because his vote would
not have helped her win.
'I cast my Electoral College vote for Bernie
Sanders today to let those new voters who were
inspired by him know that some of us did hear
them, did listen to them, do respect them and
understand their disappointment,' he wrote.
Later the Boston Globe reported that Bright was forced
to change his mind when his selection of Sanders was
ruled improper.
Clinton picked up three of the four votes in Maine, and
Trump one - it is one of only two states which does not
adopt a winner takes all system for the electoral college
vote.
Clinton also took Vermont's three electoral votes, while
Trump on Monday won votes in Arkansas, Mississippi,
Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia.
In Tennessee 11 presidential electors have cast their ballots
for Trump, in accordance with state law.
The vote Monday came with little fanfare. One audience
member tried to read out some Scripture before the ballots
were cast, but was told he could not speak.
Protesters held rallies at state Capitols around the country,
including in Nashville.
The group called the December 19 Coalition said it wanted
to try to persuade electors to change their minds given the
CIA and FBI's conclusions that Russia interfered in the
presidential election with the goal of supporting Trump.
409
Vermont's three members of the Electoral College were the
first to report their vote for president.
All three chose Clinton, reflecting the state's vote in the
Nov. 8 presidential election.
The Vermont electors are Gov. Peter Shumlin, state Rep.
Tim Jerman and Martha Allen, president of the Vermont
chapter of the National Education Association.
In Pennsylvania, the hundreds of demonstrators gathered
on the steps of the Capitol building in Harrisburg were
simply ignored in their attempt to persuade the electors not
to vote for Trump.
The sign-waving protesters in 25-degree weather Monday
were examples of demonstrations around the country
against the Electoral College's selection of Trump as the
nation's 45th president.
As Trump officially got to 270 electoral votes, the
Republican National Committee's co-chair Sharon Day
urged Democrats to stop fussing about the election results.
'For the good of the country, Democrats must
stop their cynical attempts to undermine the
legitimacy of this election, which Donald Trump
won decisively in the Electoral College with more
votes than any Republican since 1988,' Day
wrote.
Democrat Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 and
1996. In 2000 George W. Bush won the Electoral College,
but not the popular vote over Al Gore.
In 2004, Bush won both, but had a narrower win than
Trump, earning 286 electoral votes over now Secretary of
State John Kerry.
In 2008 and 2012, Democratic President Barack Obama
won the White House over Republicans Sen. John McCain
and Gov. Mitt Romney, respectively.
 Elector Replaced After
Refusing To Vote For Clinton
December 19, 2016 1:09 PM
DENVER (CBS4) – There was some drama at the state
Capitol on Monday afternoon when one elector had to be
replaced after refusing to vote for Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton.
That elector was replaced and all nine electors in Colorado
voted for Clinton.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during the
third and final US presidential debate with Republican nominee Donald
Trump at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of the University
.
410
of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada on Oct. 19, 2016. (credit: PAUL J.
RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)
There was a loud response by the crowd, including boos
and chants when this happened.
Earlier, a judge overruled the challenge to the electors’
oath and while they took the oath, two said they were
signing the oath under “duress.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens to Democratic
presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speak
during the third U.S. presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center
on October 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tonight is the final debate
ahead of Election Day on November 8. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty
Images)
There has been an effort to persuade Colorado’s nine
electors to join a long-shot bid to block Republican
President-elect Donald Trump.
Democrat Hillary Clinton won Colorado. But some of
Colorado’s nine electors have said they may join a protest
effort to try to stop Trump from collecting the 270
electoral votes he needs to win. Analysts call the effort
nearly impossible.
 Four Washington State Electors
Break Ranks And Don’t Vote For Clinton
By Jim Brunner
Originally Published December 19, 2016 At 12:50
Pm Updated December 19, 2016 At 4:23 Pm
OLYMPIA — Only eight of 12 Democratic electors in
Washington cast their votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton,
who won the state in November.
In an act of symbolic protest, three electors voted for
former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one cast a vote
for Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American elder from
South Dakota.
It’s the first time in four decades that any Washington
electors have broken from the state’s popular vote for
president. Washington’s 12 electors met Monday afternoon
in the state Capitol to complete the constitutional
formality.
The hubbub around the possibility that rogue electors
might deny Donald Trump the White House turned what
has normally been a little-attended ceremony into a closely
watched event.
Under state law, an elector can be fined $1,000 for not
voting for the candidate who won the state.
411
In the end, Trump cruised to an electoral victory nationally
by early afternoon Monday. Texas put Trump over the 270
votes needed to win, despite two Republican electors
casting protest votes.
After the vote in Olympia, several electors said they hoped
the attention to the event would carry forward into the
future — and possibly result in the current system being
replaced by a national popular vote.
As Democrats, Washington’s electors could not do
anything to deduct from Trump’s vote total. But some had
hoped to ally with Republicans in other states to deny
Trump the 270 electoral-vote majority he needed to
formally be made president.
For vice president, the vote was eight for Democratic vice-
presidential nominee Tim Kaine, one for environmentalist
Winona LaDuke, and one each for U.S. Sens. Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, Susan Collins of Maine and
Maria Cantwell of Washington.
Hundreds of protesters gathered inside the Capitol rotunda
and outside on the Capitol steps, watched by a swarm of
media.
“I am excited and I have exuberance about this
process and civic engagement moving forward,”
said Phillip Tyler, head of the NAACP of
Spokane, one of the electors.
The last time an elector broke from the popular vote in
Washington was in 1976, when Mike Padden, who is
currently a Republican state senator, voted for Ronald
Reagan instead of Gerald Ford, who had won the state.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 Opinion: Hillary Clinton Supporters
Need To Quit Whining About The Electoral College
By James E. Campbell
Published: Dec 19, 2016 12:25 p.m. ET
The Founding Fathers got it right, and California is
proof
Getty Images - Hillary Clinton supporters are shellshocked as election
results came in.
Shocked and appalled by the prospect of a Donald Trump
presidency, some supporters of Hillary Clinton have turned
to minimizing and even delegitimizing Trump’s election.
In an era of severe political polarization, in an election
with two candidates seen from the outset in highly
unfavorable terms, after the most brutal campaign in
modern history, and with an outcome that astonished just
about everyone, these reactions are understandable, but
wrong.
Many diehard Clinton supporters cannot bring themselves
to believe their candidate could lose to Donald Trump.
They think: How could such a crude and inept con man be
elected president? Even after it has happened, it is
unthinkable, a nightmare. So, the election must not have
been fair.
Those on the fringe raise the specter of diabolical Russians
hacking away at our democracy. More grounded
Clintonians have less malevolent bogeymen — our
Founding Fathers. As they see it, the election’s outcome
should be blamed on a dysfunctional and archaic electoral-
vote system. Hillary won the national popular vote. She
should be president. It is as simple as that. The Electoral
College should go the way of Trump University.
They are right about one thing: Clinton did win the popular
vote, by some 2.8 million votes, as the most recent data
show.
412
Yet Clinton has only 232 electoral votes (in 20 states plus
Washington, D.C.) to Trump’s 306 (in 30 states plus one
from Maine), making him the president-elect. So Trump’s
election without a popular-vote plurality is regarded as an
injustice. Some Democrats claim a moral victory as
victims of an electoral-vote system that once again
horribly “misfired.” Their claim, however, neglects two
facts.
First, had the election been conducted with rules awarding
the presidency to the popular-vote winner, the candidates
and many voters quite probably would have acted very
differently, and the popular vote might not have been the
same. Trump and Clinton would have campaigned in the
“safe” states. Potential voters in those states would have
felt more pressure to turn out and to vote for “the lesser of
two evils” and not to waste their votes on third-party
candidates. Some additional Clinton voters would probably
have shown up, but gains on the Trump side would
probably have been larger as more reluctant Republicans
would have been pushed to return to the fold, particularly
in big blue states like California, New York and Illinois.
In short, a comparison of the national popular vote as cast
and the electoral-vote division is no simple matter. This is
particularly true in our age of pervasive polling in which
people should have a good idea about whether they live in
a state where their presidential vote might make a
difference.
Second, Clinton’s popular-vote plurality over Trump
depends on the votes in a single state: California, which
single-handedly turns a Trump plurality into a Clinton
plurality.
The electoral-vote system in 2016 (as in 2000, when
George W. Bush became president despite losing the
national popular vote) functioned as its defenders have
long claimed. It prevented a single region (in this instance,
a single state) from overruling the verdict of the more
populous and diverse nation.
Donald Trump’s election is difficult for many Americans
to accept, but there is no good reason to question its
democratic legitimacy. For better or worse, Trump won the
presidency by constitutional and sensible democratic rules
that guided both campaigns and were known to any
politically conscious citizen. He also won the national
popular vote cast outside of the single state of California.
Moreover, Clinton won all of California’s 55 electoral
votes despite the fact that 4.3 million of the state’s voters
voted for Trump. That big winner-take-all advantage for
California’s Democrats and Clinton was certainly felt, but
it wasn't enough to override her losses in many other
states.
Under our electoral-vote system, American voters elected
a national president, not California’s choice. It is in the
.
413
nation’s interest for Democratic Party’s leaders and for
Clinton voters to fully recognize the legitimacy of the
election as they had urged Trump to do after the third
presidential debate.
The Electoral College system worked as it should. It did
not “misfire.” The election’s outcomes were ultimately
about what Americans wanted and what they did not want
— not about electoral mechanics.
 Donald Trump Clinches
Electoral College Majority
By Steve Chaggaris CBS News
Last Updated Dec 19, 2016 6:15 PM EST

UPDATE: Texas has put Donald Trump over the
top, giving him the 270 electoral votes he needs
to officially secure the presidency.
Electors have cast their votes in 49 states and Washington,
D.C. -- and Texas put President-elect Donald Trump over
the top with 36 of its 38 electors casting votes for him.
A total of 534 electoral votes have been cast so far: 304 for
Mr. Trump, 224 for Hillary Clinton and six “faithless”
electors. A total of 270 votes were needed to officially win
the presidency.
Hawaii votes at 7 p.m. ET and its four electoral votes are
slated to favor Clinton.
Of the six “faithless” electors that were officially recorded,
four of them were in Washington state, where three voted
for Colin Powell and one voted for Faith Spotted Eagle.
Two Republican electors in Texas voted for Ron Paul and
John Kasich. In recent history, it is not uncommon for a
stray elector to cast a rogue vote.
A somewhat “faithless” elector voted in Maine. A
Democratic elector there voted for Bernie Sanders; that
vote was considered “out of order” and was re-taken. The
second time around, the “faithless” elector voted for
Clinton.
Three dozen GOP electors would’ve had to switch their
votes.
 Obama press conference: The president calls Electoral
College a “vestige”
Former President Bill Clinton, an elector in New York,
cast his vote for his wife and for Tim Kaine, and he talked
briefly with reporters about Hillary Clinton’s loss, saying
that he “watched her battle through that bogus email deal”
and “prevailed agaist it all, but at the end we had the
Russians and the FBI deal and she couldn’t prevail against
them.”
The votes cast Monday will be sent on to the nation’s
capital by late December. Then, on the afternoon of Jan. 6,
Vice President Joe Biden will open the electoral votes
before a joint session of the new Congress, where they will
be counted.
Below is a state-by-state list of when each state’s Electoral
College meeting was taking place -- much of this
information has been gathered from the National
Association of Secretaries of State. A handful of states
even planned to livestream their proceedings, and that’s
also noted below.

One anti-Trump “faithless” elector was replaced in

Georgia prior to the vote, according to the Atlanta Journal
Constitution. And another “faithless” elector was
replaced in Minnesota prior to the vote there, according to
CBS Minnesota affiliate WCCO.

Across the U.S. Monday, every state’s winning slate of

electors were gathering in person in the state capitals to
cast their votes for president and vice president. Despite
the efforts of some Democrats to pressure Republican
electors to change their votes, there was no indication that
they had much of an impact.

The Associated Press tried to reach all 538 electors and

interviewed more than 330 of them.

It found “widespread Democratic aggravation

with the electoral process but little expectation
that the hustle of anti-Trump maneuvering can
derail him.”
414
.

415
 Trump Wins Electoral College Vote,
Officially Securing Presidency
Thomson/Reuters
Monday, 19 Dec 2016 05:35 PM
Donald Trump's election victory was made official on
Monday as electors gave him more than the 270 votes
needed to win the presidency, despite a campaign to deny
him a majority.
The meeting of the Electoral College -- taking place at
statehouses across the country -- is typically a formality.
But an extra bit of drama was added to the proceedings as
a concerted campaign took place among activists and even
celebrities to convince electors to vote their conscience.
Their efforts failed. Trump, who won 30 states with a total
of 306 electoral votes, amassed enough votes on Monday
afternoon when Texas electors cast their ballots, according
to an Associated Press tally. In fact, the electors who
switched their votes as of midday were at the expense of
Hillary Clinton. Four electors in Washington state, which
she won handily, cast their ballots for someone else. Three
went to Colin Powell and one for "Faith Spotted Eagle." In
.
416
Texas, which Trump won, one elector said that he would
instead cast his ballot for John Kasich.
The effort to convince electors to vote against Trump was
motivated in part by concerns over Russian influence in
the electoral process. U.S. intelligence agencies have
concluded that Russia was behind the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee and of John Podesta,
Clinton's campaign chairman, in an effort to tilt the
election toward Trump. Some activists pointed to the
words of Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers,
and his intent for the Electoral College to be a guard
against foreign influence of elections.
Although Trump won the electoral vote, after breaking
through in traditionally Democratic states like
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he fell far short in
the popular vote. Clinton won more than 2.8 million votes,
and was more than two percentage votes ahead of Trump.
Protesters gathered in some state capitals.
Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, was an
elector in New York, which cast all of its 29 votes for her.
He told reporters afterward, "I've never cast a vote I was
prouder of." He blamed his wife's loss on Russian hacking
and FBI Director James Comey's letter, which came 11
days before the election, that it was looking into a new
batch of emails in its investigation of her use of a private
server. Two days before the election, Comey informed
members of Congress that the investigation had turned up
nothing.
The results will be officially tabulated and announced in a
special joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
 Trump Secures Victory In Electoral College,
As Bid To Flip Electors Flops
Foxnews.Com
Published December 19, 2016

“This historic election is now officially over and I

look forward to President-elect Trump taking the
oath of office in January,” she said in a
statement. “For the good of the country,
Democrats must stop their cynical attempts to
undermine the legitimacy of this election, which
Donald Trump won decisively in the Electoral
College with more votes than any Republican
since 1988.”

Elector antics were few and far between throughout the

day, with most the disruptions occurring on the
Democratic side. A Democratic elector in Maine tried to
Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote on Monday
vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders, but switched to Clinton after
and secured his election as the 45th president of the United
it was ruled improper. Another who tried to vote for
States, as the latest – and perhaps last – stop-Trump
Sanders in Minnesota was replaced; a Colorado elector
movement failed to gain traction in state capitals.
who tried to back Ohio Gov. John Kasich likewise was
replaced. One of the biggest deviations was in Washington
A fervent push by anti-Trump forces to persuade electors
state, where three electors voted for Colin Powell and one
to defect had turned the normally mundane civic procedure
voted for “Faith Spotted Eagle;” the remaining eight went
into high drama.
to Clinton, the state’s winner.
But Trump easily surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed
It marked the first time in four decades the state's electors
to win, as representatives tabbed to cast ballots in
broke from the popular vote. Washington Secretary of
accordance with their states’ Nov. 8 decision mostly
State Kim Wyman vowed to work with the state attorney
adhered to the election results. With several states still
general and charge the four unfaithful electors with a
voting, Trump had 304 votes and Hillary Clinton had 169.
violation of Washington state civil law. Such violations
carry a fine up to $1,000.
Texas put Trump over the top, despite two Republican
electors casting protest votes.
With Trump’s win now secured, a joint session of
Congress is scheduled for Jan. 6 to certify the results.
We did it! Thank you to all of my great
supporters, we just officially won the election
Trump’s clear Electoral College victory could serve to
(despite all of the distorted and inaccurate
deter any further last-ditch efforts to effectively nullify his
media).
November win and prevent his inauguration, though the
battle may shift next to his Cabinet picks.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 19, 2016
Few expected the “faithless elector” push to imperil
Trump’s victory on Monday.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence afterward tweeted
"congratulations" to his running mate while saying he was
Only one Republican elector – Texas’ Chris Suprun –
"honored & humbled" to be officially elected the next vice
publicly stated he would vote for an alternative candidate.
president.
(He backed Kasich, while another Texas elector used his
ballot to vote for former congressman Ron Paul.) More
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Sharon than three dozen Republicans would have had to abandon
Day urged Trump’s detractors to stop fighting his election, Trump to complicate his path to the presidency.
now that his victory is affirmed.

417
But GOP electors still faced immense pressure -- with
some even receiving threats -- from Trump foes in the run-
up to Monday’s Electoral College vote. Those urging
disorder in state capitals often cited Clinton’s popular-vote
win, by roughly 2.6 million votes, over Trump in
November.
Celebrities made public appeals to electors to use the
arcane process to upend Trump’s victory, as some
Democratic electors tried to persuade their Republican
counterparts to defect. Reports that U.S. intelligence
officials determined Russia interfered in the election to
boost Trump – findings disputed by Trump himself – only
fueled efforts to wield the Electoral College vote as a
political circuit-breaker.
As electors met, thousands of protesters descended on state
capitals Monday in one last push to convince Trump voters
to change their minds.
In Arizona, dozens of protesters gathered outside the
meeting site, marching around the Capitol mall and
carrying signs that said,
"Stop Trump." More than 200 demonstrators
gathered at Pennsylvania's Capitol, chanting,
"No treason, no Trump!"
Both states, and dozens of others, cast their electoral votes
for Trump anyway.
In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant dismissed attempts to
sway Republican electors.
"This idea … that we want to change the
electors’ minds who have been dedicated to
Donald Trump very early in the process I think is
just misguided,” he said.
If nothing else, the furor over Monday’s proceedings has
served to re-acquaint Americans with a process that few
pay attention to every four years.
The Electoral College was devised at the Constitutional
Convention in 1787. It was a compromise between those
who wanted popular elections for president and those who
wanted no public input.
The Electoral College has 538 members, with the number
allocated to each state based on how many representatives
it has in the House plus one for each senator. The District
418
of Columbia gets three, despite the fact that the home to
Congress has no vote in Congress.
To be elected president, the winner must get at least half
plus one -- or 270 electoral votes. Most states give all their
electoral votes to whichever candidate wins that state's
popular vote. Maine and Nebraska award them by
congressional district.
After a joint session of Congress certifies the results on
Jan. 6, the next president will be sworn in on Jan. 20.
Trump already is nearly done naming his Cabinet
appointees, as he prepares for confirmation hearings and
the inauguration ceremonies, in addition to his first 100
days agenda.
Despite the transition process being well underway,
Republican electors said they were deluged with emails,
phone calls and letters urging them not to support the
billionaire businessman in the days and weeks leading up
to Monday’s proceedings. Many of the emails were part of
coordinated campaigns.
"The letters are actually quite sad," said Lee
Green, a Republican elector from North Carolina.
"They honestly believe the propaganda. They
believe our nation is being taken over by a dark
and malevolent force."
Wirt A. Yerger Jr., a Republican elector in Mississippi,
said,
"I have gotten several thousand emails asking
me not to vote for Trump. I threw them all away."
Arizona elector Robert Graham told Fox News on Saturday
that the state’s 11 electors received hundreds of thousands
of emails telling them not to vote for Trump and that he’s
received information that some of the other 10 have been
followed or have received a death threat.
“It’s out of hand when you have such … a small
group of people that is pushing so hard against
millions if not hundreds of millions of people who
still appreciate this whole system,” said Graham,
chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. “The
Electoral College is part of the Constitution.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 Electors Remain Faithful To
Trump And Select Him As Official Winner
By Tal Kopan And Eric Bradner, CNN
Updated 7:57 PM ET, Mon December 19, 2016
(CNN)Donald Trump surpassed the necessary 270 votes in
the Electoral College on Monday, taking the next step in
the official process to become President.
Trump received 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's
227. Seven "faithless" electors voted for other candidates,
costing Trump two votes and Clinton four. Hawaii's votes -
- three for Clinton and one breaking from the state's results
and supporting Bernie Sanders -- were the last to be
counted.
The results mean Trump -- who lost the popular vote by
more than 2 percentage points to Clinton -- easily staved
off a long-shot bid by opponents to turn Republican
electors against him.
The Electoral College results will be officially certified
January 6 during a joint session of Congress.
"This election represents a movement that
millions of hard working men and women all
across the country stood behind and made
possible. With this historic step we can look
forward to the bright future ahead. I will work
hard to unite our country and be the president of
all Americans. Together, we will make America
great again," Trump said in a statement.
He also claimed his win was "a historic electoral
landslide victory in our nation's democracy,"
though Clinton actually won the popular vote by
about 3 million ballots nationwide making Trump
the worst-performing winner in the popular vote
since 1876.
419
Trump was put over the top by electors in Texas. Thirty-
six of the state's 38 went for Trump, while two ignored the
state's Election Day results. One voted for Ohio Gov. John
Kasich and one backed former Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
The first response from Trump's camp came from Vice
President-elect Mike Pence, who tweeted:
"Congratulations to @RealDonaldTrump;
officially elected President of the United States
today by the Electoral College!"
Pence also wrote,
"I'm honored & humbled to be officially elected
today as the next Vice President of the United
States of America by the Electoral College."
Congratulations to @RealDonaldTrump; officially
elected President of the United States today by
the Electoral College!
— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) December 19,
2016
I'm honored & humbled to be officially elected
today as the next Vice President of the United
States of America by the Electoral College.
— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) December 19,
2016
In Washington state, four electors opted for other
candidates, instead of backing Hillary Clinton. Three cast
ballots for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one
backed Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American activist
who's been involved in the North Dakota pipeline fight.
Those Washington electors also picked a mixed bag for the
vice presidency. One voted for home-state Sen. Maria
Cantwell. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine each got votes, as
well. And one went to activist Winona LaDuke, Ralph
Nader's running mate as the 2000 Green Party nominee for
vice president.
This is the first US presidential election since 1872 with
more than one "faithless elector."
I'm honored & humbled to be officially elected
today as the next Vice President of the United
States of America by the Electoral College.
— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) December 19,
2016
Former President Bill Clinton cast his ballot for his wife as
an elector in the state of New York.
"As an elector from my home state of New York,
I've never been more proud to cast a vote than
my vote today for @HillaryClinton," he tweeted.
As an elector from my home state of New York,
I've never been more proud to cast a vote than
my vote today for @HillaryClinton.
— Bill Clinton (@billclinton) December 20, 2016
When all the votes were counted in November, the
President-elect won 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232.
Some have since called on electors to vote against their
state results, after Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by
nearly 3 million ballots nationwide.
The 538 men and women voted primarily in accordance
with the results from November in their state. The electors,
chosen by state parties of the candidate who carried each
state, convened in all 50 state capitals and the District of
Columbia.
While electors are technically chosen to independently cast
their ballots for president, both precedent and, in most
cases, state laws require them to abide by the people's vote
in each state.
After a fraught election, some have called on electors to
vote against their state results.
In Minnesota, one elector was disqualified after declaring
he would vote for someone other than his state's winner,
Clinton. Under state law, he was replaced, and the
alternate voted for Clinton.
Protests had popped up around the country Monday as
frustrated Americans sought one last opportunity to stop
the candidate they opposed.
But mass defections of electors was always extremely
unlikely.
Thirty-seven of Trump's pledged 306 electors would have
had to vote against him, becoming so-called "faithless
electors," to keep him under the 270 threshold to become
President. If Clinton were to reach 270 in that far-fetched
420
scenario, she could have become President. If no candidate
reached 270, the House of Representatives would have
held a vote when Congress reconvenes in January.
There have been a handful faithless electors in past cycles,
though never enough to change the outcome of the race.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, whose state was won
by Trump, tweeted a picture of the ballot for electors in his
state. It featured a ballot for Trump as President and Mike
Pence as vice president.
This is what an electoral college ballot looks like.
pic.twitter.com/ZWsa7y8cEJ
— Jon Husted (@JonHusted) December 19,
2016
Elsewhere in the country, Americans protested near
electoral voting sites in a last-ditch plea to stop Trump's
election, despite the high unlikelihood of success.
Anti-Trump protesters have gathered outside
House chambers prior to Electoral College
voting. More later @WTHRcom
pic.twitter.com/MSZM6JC99X
— Bruce Kopp (@BruceKopp13) December 19,
2016
Protestors in Raleigh are asking NC's 15 electors
not to vote for @realDonaldTrump today. They
cast ballots at noon pic.twitter.com/V0ywVtcCoJ
— Briana Conner (@BrianaReports) December
19, 2016
In Tallahassee, Florida, protestors began gathering before
10 a.m. outside of the Senate Chamber entrance on the
fourth floor of the Florida State Capitol. Asked if he
actually expected any outcome other than 29 votes for
Trump, Democracy Spring's Maxwell Frost sighed. "I'm
hoping for the best," he said. "We'll see what happens."
What happens in the extremely unlikely scenario the
Electoral College goes rogue?
While Trump has claimed he won in a landslide victory,
that description is inaccurate. He is expected to garner just
56.9% of the electoral vote, assuming all electors vote
according to their states' results. That will give Trump the
44th-largest share of the electoral vote out of 54
presidential elections since the modern system started in
1804.
The electoral votes will be officially counted on January 6,
when Congress returns. Vice President Joe Biden will
preside over the count.
Lawmakers can technically object -- in writing, with Trump will be officially set for his inauguration at noon on
objections signed by at least one House and one Senate January 20 once all the electoral votes are counted.
member -- to individual electoral votes or entire states'
results. If the House and Senate support that objection, the CNN's Kevin Conlon in Tallahassee contributed to this
vote or votes in question are thrown out. But that has never report.
happened.
.

421
 Donald Trump Secures
Electoral College Win, With Few Surprises
Scott Detrow
December 19, 20164:52 PM ET
Donald J. Trump will be the next president of the United
States.
That's been the case since Nov. 8, when Trump won 306
electoral votes, despite losing the national popular vote to
Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million.
And on Monday, the result was ratified by Electoral
College voters, who gathered in state capitols across the
United States to formally vote for president.
Trump secured 304 electoral votes — two fewer than he
earned in November, according to the Associated Press,
.
422
which tracked results from capitol to capitol. That was
despite a pitched effort by some on the left who wrote
letters to Trump electors trying to persuade them to switch
their votes or not vote at all and keep Trump short of the
270 needed.
Not only did it not happen, but more electors tried to
defect from Hillary Clinton Monday than from Trump, by
a count of seven to two, as of Monday afternoon. Three
Democratic electors in Maine, Minnesota, and Colorado
tried to vote for candidates other than Clinton. The
electors' votes, however, were disallowed because of state
rules binding them to the statewide popular vote winner.
 ‘Faithless’ Electors Mostly Came
From States Clinton Won

Four more electors in Washington state defected from Spotted Eagle, a Native American who gained some
Clinton. Three voted for Colin Powell and one for Faith notoriety for her protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

423
And in Hawaii, an elector successfully cast a ballot for
Bernie Sanders instead of Clinton.

Some of the Democratic electors tried to vote for Sanders,

though only the Hawaii vote will remain an official
Electoral College tally for the Vermont Senator. Others,
including the Powell voters in Washington, were
attempting to promote alternate Republican candidates that
the House of Representatives could theoretically elect as
president instead of Trump.

The Electoral College gathering is usually a formality — a

chance for political activists to gather amid pomp and
circumstance to formalize their party's victory in each
state.

But the fact Clinton won the national popular vote by such
a large margin, combined with the unconventional and
unpredictable — and to many, threatening — way that
Trump carried himself before and after winning the White
House, led to an unprecedented effort to lobby electors to
vote for someone else.

Electors found themselves inundated by letters, petitions,

tweets and Facebook posts, urging them to cast a ballot for
an alternative candidate. Many received threats, as well.

Many people behind the lobbying campaign cited a

Federalist Paper written by Alexander Hamilton, which
Hollywood celebrities even got in on the act, recording
frames the Electoral College as a safeguard against
video pleas to electors. But, unsurprisingly, that effort had
"foreign powers" that try to "gain an improper ascendant in
no effect on Trump electors.
our councils" — a potentially relevant line, in the midst of
revelations that Russia attempted to disrupt this year's
election by hacking and releasing Democratic emails.

"They don't understand us," said Pennsylvania elector Ash

Khare. "I received over 70,000 emails. I received over
5,000 letters. I received over 500 phone calls at all times of
day and night." But Khare, like most electors, is a longtime
Republican political activist who was proud to cast a ballot
for Trump.

"I've been an elector since 1996," Khare told Harrisburg Maine elector David Bright announced Monday morning
public radio station WITF. "But I've never been asked to that he would cast a ballot for Sanders. But Bright
do anything because we never won since 1988." ultimately changed his vote to Clinton, after his initial
ballot was ruled out of order.

424
A Minnesota elector, Muhammad Abdurrahman, tried to
vote Sanders, according to Minnesota Public Radio
reporter Brian Bakst. He was replaced by another elector
who cast a ballot for Clinton.
Anti-Donald Trump protesters rally outside the
Pennsylvania Capitol Building before electors arrive to
cast their votes on Monday in Harrisburg.
Mark Makela/Getty Images
Two Texas electors defected from Trump — one went for
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the other for former Texas Rep.
Ron Paul. The Kasich defector, Chris Suprun, told The
Hill beforehand his plans. Another Texas elector, Art
.
425
Cisneros, resigned instead of voting for Trump. He spoke
to NPR earlier this month.
Many Republican electors dismissed the pleas to "vote
their conscience," pointing out that their consciences were
perfectly fine with Trump.
With protesters heckling from the gallery of Pennsylvania's
House chamber, Pennsylvania elector Robert Gleason
seemed to pointedly respond to their efforts.
"My fellow electors," Gleason said, "let us always
remember this shared moment when we stood up for our
constitutional system, followed our conscience, answered
the call of Pennsylvania voters, and did our part by
electing the next president and vice president of the United
States, Donald Trump and Mike Pence."
On Monday night, Trump issued a statement saying,
"today marks a historic electoral landslide victory in our
nation's democracy." In fact, in nearly 80 percent of
previous presidential elections, the winning candidate
earned a larger share of the electoral vote than Trump.
There are two more steps in the process. States will submit
a "certificate of vote" to the Federal Register by Dec. 28.
Then, on Jan. 6, Congress will formally tally the Electoral
College's votes in a joint session and make it official.
 Claim: Obama Setting Up “Shadow Government”
To Directly Oppose Trump Presidency
Author Claims Obama Working Behind The Scenes
To Form Shadow Government
By Alex Thomas -
12.19.2016 @10:41 PM EST

(INTELLIHUB) — Author Ed Klein recently appeared on

Fox and Friends Weekend to discuss a startling theory that
involves Obama working behind the scenes to retain power
and oppose the Trump administration.

According to Klein, it looks as if Obama is setting up shop

for a sort of “shadow government” in Washington.

“For the past 100 years every president

who is outgoing has packed up his stuff,
gone home and not criticized his
successor. This is not what the Obamas
are planning to do,” Klein stated.
Interestingly, Klein’s claim correlates with already
“They rented an eight-bedroom mansion in documented attempts by President Obama to attack the
the Kalorama section of Washington from incoming administration as well as moves to stay in power.
Joe Lockhart, who is Bill Clinton’s last
press secretary. In that house there’s This also come at a time when numerous leftist
enough room for Valerie Jarrett as well as groups shift their strategy towards attacking alternative
Michelle and the kids. A place for ten cars media and laying the groundwork for direct opposition to
to park. They are setting up what they are President Trump for years to come.
calling a shadow government,” continued
Klein.
.

426
 Alleged CNN Report On Hillary On Election
Night - A Shocking Portrait Of A Woman Gone Berserk
This Report Was Allegedly Quashed By CNN And Not Permitted
To Run The Day After The Election & Hillary's Behavior
Was Reportedly Astonishing...
Courtesy Sharkhunters.com
12-19-2016
Hillary Clinton's post election celebration plans included
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fireworks, live
performances by various celebrities, such as Cher, who
came believing that Hillary was going to win the election,
a five-hundred-thousand-dollar special effect glass ceiling
that she would break through in a dramatic display once
she walked out on stage at her H.Q., among millions of
dollars worth of other celebratory preparations, all paid for
by the Clinton Foundation in full.
The most notable damage was located deep in the VIP
room of the Clinton camp. A custom 150 inch ultra HD
TV, a gift from the Saudi Arabian government, was found
with a broken screen. The damage was caused by a
$950,000 bottle of champagne that was believed to have
been thrown at the screen by the former presidential
candidate some time during the election.
Early in the morning, the custodial staff were greeted by
flipped-over tables as the floors were covered with
expensive food, drinks, and appetizers. Broken champagne
flutes and gilded silverware were also seen scattered
around the would-be party room.
The most telling sign of a massive meltdown was the cake.
The pastry that had once proudly displayed the
presidential seal, was violently flung against the walls in
chunks. A broken topper from the cake in the shape of the
white house was discovered lodged firmly into the drywall
near the dessert table.
Clinton's splurge on party supplies was merely an echo of
all the left-leaning polls and hype that "confirmed" Hillary
Clinton's indubitable win. Misled by just about every
prediction, Hillary Clinton personally planned one big
party for her assumed victory. Once it became clear that it
would not be Clinton 's night, however, the mood of the
party soured rapidly.
A former staffer, who was fired during the rampage, said
that the atmosphere around Clinton went from "queen of
the hour" to "the girl who was dumped on prom night" in
only a few moments.
427
Hillary Clinton reportedly became 'physically violent'
towards her own campaign staff after she realized she had
lost the presidential election, according to radio host Todd
Kincannon. 'CNN reporter tells me Hillary became
physically violent towards Robby Mook and John Podesta
around midnight; had to be briefly restrained,' tweeted
Kincannon.
It was Podesta who was sent out to talk to Hillary's
dejected supporters shortly before Hillary called Donald
Trump to concede, with Clinton nowhere to be seen until
the following day.
When asked about rumors that Hillary was drunk on
election night, Kincannon responded, 'She was. I posted
about that too. She was in a 'psychotic drunken rage'
according to my reporter friend. Doctor added sedatives to
the mix.'
Kincannon then claimed that CNN blocked the reporter
from publishing what would have been a bombshell story.
'The CNN reporter didn't fail to report it. His editors will
not let him. CNN has banned all 'Hillary in the bunker'
stories,' he tweeted.
Secret Service officials and other staff who worked
closely alongside Hillary have previously reported her
problems with angry tantrums on numerous occasions.
Last year it was also reported that Clinton's own campaign
staffers feared she could have a serious meltdown and that
Hillary had 'been having screaming, child-like tantrums
that have left staff members in tears and unable to work.'
In addition to claims that she became irate, author Ed
Klein said a source told him Hillary cried inconsolably to
a friend after the results came in, blaming FBI director
Comey and President Barack Obama for not doing enough
to stop the FBI investigation into her email scandal.
PS…And THIS woman wanted to be the leader of the Free
World? God help us all, if that had happened.
 Donald Trump Completes Final Lap,
Electoral College, To White House
By THE NEW YORK TIMESU
PDATED 6:15 PM , December 19, 2016

Right Now The Electoral College has affirmed Donald J.
Trump as the nation’s 45th president, pushing him past the
270-vote threshold for election, with scant evidence of the
anti-Trump revolt among electors that some of his critics
had hoped would occur.
Republican electors in Texas vaulted Mr. Trump past the
270 mark, granting him all but two of their 38 ballots in a
ceremony in the State Capitol in Austin.
In the House chamber, where the electors met, the vote
was greeted with a standing ovation by citizens and
Republican officials who had come to witness the event.
Outside, perhaps 100 protesters waved placards and
chanted “Save our democracy” in a vain effort to persuade
electors to reject the Republican nominee.
Normally a political footnote, the electoral vote acquired
an unexpected element of drama this winter after Mr.
Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton, who received 2.86
million more popular votes but won in states that totaled
only 232 electoral votes. The states Mr. Trump won held
306 electoral votes.
His electoral victory spawned a determined effort to block
his path to the presidency by grass-roots advocates who
saw him as unfit for the White House and by some who
saw him as a threat to the political system.
Presidential electors — and particularly Republican
electors, who are bound by tradition and often state law to
support Mr. Trump — were inundated with phone calls,
emails and even threats demanding that they vote for
someone else. Leaders of groups that were lobbying the
electors had privately believed they had a chance to
persuade enough Republican electors to defect, denying
him an Electoral College majority and throwing the
election to the House of Representatives. But by late
Monday, only a handful of electors had broken ranks. A
full vote tracker is here.
Spotted Eagle, a Native American tribal leader who has led
opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.
Elsewhere, Democratic electors who sought to vote for
someone besides Mrs. Clinton switched back to her under
pressure or were replaced with Clinton supporters.
In Texas, two Republican electors cast protest votes, one
each for Ron Paul and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. One
other Republican opposed to Mr. Trump resigned and was
replaced.
A strategy memo by the anti-Trump forces has estimated
that as many as 34 Republican electors were prepared to
vote for someone besides Mr. Trump, but also said many
were afraid of the consequences and suggested that a poor
turnout of other anti-Trump electors would weaken their
resolve.
That appears to have been the case in Texas, where more
defections were expected, said Ryan Clayton, the leader of
Americans Take Action, a group opposed to Mr. Trump.
“When they saw the trend line, they just decided to get out
of the way of the electoral Alamo that was taking place,”
Mr. Clayton said.
That left most of the opposition to demonstrators who
protested outside and inside electoral voting sites in most if
not all 50 states.
In Michigan’s capital, Lansing, opposition protesters
chanted: “Vote your conscience! Follow your heart!” and
sang “We Shall Overcome” inside the State Capitol as
Republican electors gave all 16 of the states votes to Mr.
Trump.

While Mr. Trump’s opponents needed 37 Republican

defectors to bring his electoral-vote tally below 270, the
bulk of electors who broke ranks — four in Washington
State — were Democrats who otherwise would have voted
for Ms. Clinton. Instead, they voted for the former
Republican secretary of state Colin L. Powell and Faith

428
Protesters gathered at the Capitol in Lansing, Mich., before the state’s 16 electors said Mr. Cuomo, who was the Secretary of
cast their votes. Credit Rachel Woolf for The New York Times
Housing and Urban Development for the
Michigan: Demonstration in close quarters. Clinton administration in the 1990s. “He
showed that government mattered.” Mr.
Cuomo also praised Mrs. Clinton – a
The chants of protest inside the Michigan capitol building
Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009
never stopped. Not when the state’s 16 electors headed up
— as a role model and “a great friend to
the stairs to the state Senate chamber to start their meeting.
this state,” citing her work after 9/11.
Not when the doors to the chamber were closed. Not even
as the proceedings went forward — all 16 votes going, as
In brief remarks to reporters after the event, Mr. Clinton
expected, to Mr. Trump.
said he had “never cast a vote I was prouder of” than the
one for his wife.
State law requires Michigan electors to vote for the
candidate who won the state, which Mr. Trump did by
only about 11,000 votes. Still, a group of protesters that
gathered here on Monday for several hours said they had
hoped there might be one elector, maybe even two, who
might vote a different way. “Vote Your Conscience!” they
chanted, gathering on different floors of the building.

Many here said they had never before attended a meeting

of the electors. They had never thought to before, they
said. And there were signs in the capitol that this meeting
is not usually a focal point for demonstrators: Security
officials outside the state Senate chamber looked vaguely
uncomfortable as the protesters chanted right outside the
room, and, through an open door, Republican officials
could be seen settling in for their vote. — MONICA
DAVEY
Peggy Wurtz, of Burbank, Calif., held a sign to protest President-elect Donald J.
Trump on Monday in Lansing, Mich. Credit Rachel Woolf for The New York Times
In the end, however, Mr. Clinton suggested that his wife’s
candidacy was undone by Russian hacking as well as an
announcement just before the election by the F.B.I.
director, James B. Comey, that his agency would review
new emails related to a closed investigation of her use of a
private server. (Two days before the election, Mr. Comey
reiterated an earlier finding that Mrs. Clinton’s activities
had warranted no legal action.)

“At the end, we had the Russians, and the

F.B.I. deal, she couldn’t prevail against
that,” said Mr. Clinton, heading toward the
elevators in the State Capitol. “But she did
everything else. And still won by 2.8 million
Former President Bill Clinton and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo cast their votes as
electors at the New York State Senate in Albany. Mr. Clinton said he had “never votes.” — JESSE McKINLEY
cast a vote I was prouder of” than the one for his wife, Hillary Clinton. Credit
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

New York: Clinton for Clinton

Former President Bill Clinton cast the state’s first electoral

vote for his wife, Hillary Clinton, in a bittersweet scene
played out in the state Senate chamber in Albany. Mr.
Clinton, smiling, sealed the envelope with Mrs. Clinton’s
vote — one of 29 she won in her home state – just before
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, also an elector, praised him as
“always kind, always generous” in front of a partisan
Democratic crowd in a solidly blue state.
All 16 electors cast their vote for Donald J. Trump in Atlanta. Credit Erik
“The president taught an entire generation S. Lesser/European Pressphoto Agency
of elected officials what it means to be to a
professional and effective elected official,”
429
Georgia and Tennessee: A Trump sweep. Pennsylvania: Subdued protests in a swing state.

Mr. Trump won the unanimous votes of 16 electors in
Georgia and 11 in Tennessee, states he handily won in the
November election.
Protesters gathered outside the state capitol buildings in
Atlanta and Nashville before the ballots were cast, and in
the House chamber in Nashville, “there were a few
protesters in the gallery, and a couple of times they would
try to say something or shout — but nothing outrageous,”
said Adam Ghassemi, the spokesman for the secretary of
state.
Tennessee’s electors were bound by state
law to vote for the winning presidential
candidate. Georgia’s were not, but before
voting, electors there had to select a
replacement for an elector who earlier has
resigned, saying he could not vote for Mr.
Trump. — MICHAEL WINES
In Harrisburg, hundreds of protesters chanted and waved
signs on the steps of the State Capitol and in the lobby, but
they were fairly subdued, acknowledging that they did not
expect to affect the outcome.
Pennsylvania played a crucial role in the election, one of
three states — with Wisconsin and Michigan — that Mrs.
Clinton was expected to carry, but that Mr. Trump won by
less than 1 percent.
When the electors cast Pennsylvania’s 20 votes for Mr.
Trump, the legislative chamber echoed with a long round
of applause, followed by shouts of “shame on you” from
the visitors’ gallery. — RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Maine: A possible split.

Unlike most states, Maine does not award all four of its
electoral votes to the popular vote winner. It gives two
votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote, and one
each to the winner of the state’s two congressional
districts. The elector from the state’s Second
Congressional District is expected to support Mr. Trump,
who won the most votes in that district. Another elector,
David Bright, wrote on Facebook on Monday that he A protester outside the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa.
would vote for Mr. Sanders. Credit Charles Mostoller for The New York Times

Mr. Sanders was defeated by Mrs. Clinton in the
Democratic primary, but handily won the caucuses in
Maine, and the elector, David Bright, wrote that he wanted
to send a message to people who cast their first votes for
the Democratic Party to support Mr. Sanders.
Wisconsin: 10 more votes for Trump.
Electors in Madison cast all 10 of the state’s electoral
votes for Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence, as was widely
expected.

“I cast my Electoral College vote for Bernie
Sanders today to let those new voters who
were inspired by him know that some of us
did hear them, did listen to them, do
respect them and understand their
disappointment,” wrote Mr. Bright, whose
comments were reported by The Portland
Press Herald and the The Bangor Daily
News. The state’s other two Democratic
electors were expected to support Mrs.
Clinton. — JESS BIDGOOD
The meeting drew a crowd of several
dozen to the Capitol, and a few in the
audience booed and chanted “Shame!”
after the results were announced. A
handful of protesters were escorted out of
the room by the authorities, but most
stayed seated and the meeting continued
with only a few slight pauses. The meeting
adjourned after 19 minutes. — MITCH
SMITH

Demonstrators in Maine sing "God rest ye

merry gentlemen," modified as a Trump
protest tune: pic.twitter.com/VcHOlZai8E

— Jess Bidgood (@jessbidgood) Dec. 19,

2016

430

Joe F. Sanderson, an Electoral College voter, in Jackson, Miss., on
Monday. Credit Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press
Mississippi: It’s unanimous.
Mississippi’s six electors unanimously and uneventfully
cast their ballots for Mr. Trump, who carried the state in
November, according to the spokeswoman for the
secretary of state, Leah Smith.
A handful of protesters were outside the state capitol in
Jackson, and four quietly witnessed the vote in a meeting
room inside.
Among the electors, The Associated Press reported, was
Charles Evers, the former Republican mayor of Fayette, a
talk-radio host and the brother of Medgar Evers, the anti-
segregation activist whose murder in 1963 was a landmark
in the civil-rights movement. — MICHAEL WINES
Where to watch.
Most meetings of electors are being held in state capitals,
usually in legislative chambers where public seating is
limited. A number of states are live-streaming voting,
including (but not limited to) California, Florida,
Louisiana, Illinois, Washington, Virginia, Maryland,
Indiana and Tennessee. The offices and websites of
individual secretaries of state can offer more information
on whether and where meetings will be broadcast.
431
Arizona: Long-shot push falls short.
Arizona’s 11 electors were not obligated to vote for the
winning candidate, which explains why so many protesters
gathered on both sides of the State Capitol for a last-ditch
— and long-shot — push to get them to change their
minds.
Electoral College members in Arizona cast their ballots for Mr. Trump in
Phoenix. Credit Matt York/Associated Press
They carried signs that read, “Country before party” and
“Electors: Save us, dump Trump.” They brought their
children, their dogs and what was left of their hopes.
Karen O’Brien, 54, who voted for Mrs. Clinton, said, “I’m
praying that we can get the electors to flip their votes.”
It did not work.
Inside, Secretary of State Michele Reagan, a Republican,
asked the electors, “Are you ready to tie up this election
with a big red bow?”
And that is exactly what they did, casting a unanimous
vote for Mr. Trump, who won the state by 91,000 votes. It
was a smaller margin than that of Mitt Romney in 2012
(201,000 votes), but it was a victory nonetheless. —
FERNANDA SANTOS
Reporting was contributed by Michael Wines and Richard
Pérez-Peña in New York; Jess Bidgood in Augusta, Me.;
Monica Davey in Lansing, Mich.; Mitch Smith in
Madison, Wis.; and Fernanda Santos in Phoenix.
 Hillary Clinton Lost The November Election Because
She Blew Off Sanders Activists And Voters
It Wasn't The Russians!
By: Dave Lindorff
December 19, 2016 - 3:21pm
The incredible "group-think" that has seen the CIA, the
FBI, the NSA, President Obama, the Clinton campaign and
most of the corporate media braying that Vladimir Putin
scandalously upended American democracy and threw the
election to his favored candidate Donald Trump is based
on a ludicrous premise. That premise: that the election
went Trump's way because several tens of thousands of
voters in a few states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan and
Wisconsin -- switched away from Clinton to Trump
because of an alleged (and factually unproven) Russian
"hack" of Democratic National Committee and of Hillary
campaign chair John Podesta's emails.
According to this conspiracy theory -- and that is what it is
-- the "Russian" hack fully explains those narrow Trump
wins in three key swing states. It's proponents argue that
with the results of the alleged hacks allegedly passed on to
Wikileaks (which denies it was a hack or that is source was
Russian), and the resulting release of emails that showed
that the DNC had conspired to throw the primary election
to Clinton, and that revealed the contents of Clinton's
secret sycophantic quarter-million-dollar speeches to Wall
Street banks, turned those states red.
What is ludicrous about this alleged conspiracy is that
Sanders supporters already knew the DNC was in bed with
the Clinton campaign. They'd already learned that first
hand from Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-
HI), who quit in disgust as DNC vice-chair back in late
February, saying that the DNC was undermining Sanders
and working for Clinton. As for the bank speeches, Clinton
did all the damage herself by refusing to disclose what
she'd said in those extravagantly paid gigs, and by getting
caught in a lie that she couldn't release the texts because
they were "under the control" of the banks (she actually
owned the copyrights). She also hurt herself by lying and
saying during one debate that she hadn't asked for the high
fees when in fact her agent had demanded them. This
infuriating information was all out there way before
Wikileaks started releasing the documents in had in its
possession.
The truth is that it was Clinton's own actions that lost her
the support of Sanders voters. There was her repeating
lying about Sanders during the campaign, and her
gratuitous dissing of Sanders and his supporters even after
432
it was becoming clearer that she would win the primary
because of the corrupt support she had lined up from the
party's unelected so-called "super delegates." Then there
was her decision in the fall, after winning the nomination,
to ignore the 13 million Sanders voters from the primary
and instead to pursue the support of what she hoped were
disenchanted Republican voters upset that Donald Trump
had won the Republican nomination, all doomed her in the
general election.
The anger among Sanders backers by the time of the
convention at the end of July was palpable and was
demonstrated when over 700 Sanders delegates walked out
of the convention en masse, many tossing their convention
credentials over the tall security fence. Clearly they were
not going to back Hillary Clinton in November.
Remember, those delegates were Sanders activists who
represented millions of voters back in their home states.
Clinton's lies and distortions about Sanders and his positions
infuriated millions of Sanders voters, dooming her candidacy in the
general election
Hillary Clinton didn't lose Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Wisconsin and most
importantly Florida because a small
percentage of voters switched from her to
Trump in those states. She lost those
states because millions of Sanders
voters nationally, and hundreds of
thousands of Democrats and
independent progressives in those
crucial states decided they couldn't vote
for her because they were disgusted by
both her and the Democratic Party.
Some voted Green, some wrote in Sanders' name, which in
most states meant their votes weren't counted, and some
just got fed up and didn't vote at all, or just skipped the
presidential line on their ballot.
In other words, even if the Russians did hack the DNC and
Podesta emails, and even if the leaked emails (all of which
by the way were true and accurate, not fake or doctored!),
did manage at the last minute to persuade a few thousand
Clinton voters to switch their votes to Trump, or to simply
not vote for Clinton, that only had an impact because so
many hundreds of thousands of more progressive voters
had already written her off as a voting option. The point is
that the races in those states never should have been that
close in the first place, and wouldn't have been had the
Clinton campaign not played so dirty in the primary, and
then been so patronizing and vengeful towards the Sanders
campaign and Sanders voters after gaining the nomination.
Leaving aside the reality that there is no evidence that
Russian government hackers did obtain those emails and
handed them over to Wikileaks to release during the last
weeks of the campaign (the evidence is really that they
were obtained by insider leaks, not by Russian hackers),
.
433
the truth is that mounting evidence of Clinton corruption
and of cheating during the primaries -- evidence that was
coming to light even without and often before disclosure of
the emails -- led millions of furious Sanders backers to
decide they would never vote for Clinton.
The "false news" about Russians hacking US democracy,
pushed by the Clinton campaign, sclerotic Democratic
Party leadership, elements within the intelligence
establishment and the Obama administration and parroted
endlessly by the corporate media and by normally sentient
liberals usually quick to condemn "conspiracy thinking,"
doesn't bode well for any real effort to wrench the
Democratic Party away from its thoroughly discredited
corporatist political stance, and raises the prospect of
further Republican gains in the coming off-year
Congressional elections in 2018.
It's becoming increasingly clear that the only way forward
is going to have to be an abandonment of the Democratic
Party by progressives and its replacement by a genuine
progressive socialist party that is clearly of and for
working people, and for those who cannot find work in this
increasingly dystopic America.
 Judge Orders Unsealing
Of Search Warrant In Clinton Email Probe
By Josh Gerstein
12/19/16 01:36 PM EST
In the weeks since Hillary Clinton's unexpected loss, she and her
campaign aides have argued that James Comey's initial letter putting
her back under suspicion and the later letter effectively clearing her led
to a fall-off in support that cost her the election. | Getty
A federal judge has ordered the unsealing of a search
warrant that played a role in the controversial public
renewal of the investigation into former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton's email just before the presidential election.
The warrant was issued by a federal magistrate in late
October, after the FBI requested permission to search
emails contained on a laptop belonging to Anthony
Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma
Abedin. The FBI discovered the Clinton-related emails
after initially seizing the laptop during a probe over
Weiner's alleged sexually explicit online exchanges with a
minor.
U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel issued an order
Monday that the warrant linked to the Clinton probe and
related records be unsealed at noon Tuesday, unless a
higher court steps in. The judge acted after E. Randal
Schoenberg, a California lawyer who mainly investigates
art thefts, filed a suit seeking to force unsealing of the files.
The records to be unsealed will show how the FBI framed
its arguments for the search warrant to access the emails.
An affidavit submitted when seeking the warrant could
reflect what the FBI told the magistrate involved about
how likely the emails were to contain evidence of a crime.
On Oct. 28, FBI Director James Comey sent Congress a
letter advising lawmakers that new evidence had emerged
in the Clinton probe and was being reviewed. On Nov. 6,
.
434
two days before the election, Comey sent a follow-up letter
saying the evidence had not changed the FBI's conclusion
that no prosecution of Clinton was warranted in the case.
In the weeks since Clinton's unexpected loss, she and her
campaign aides have argued that Comey's initial letter
putting her back under suspicion and the later letter
effectively clearing her led to a fall-off in support that cost
her the election.
Justice Department prosecutors initially opposed the
unsealing, but they agreed in a sealed submission last week
that much of the information could be made public with
redactions about an unnamed person, who appears to be
Weiner.
Castel said that information in the documents referencing
another person should also be deleted due to that person's
"strong privacy interest in keeping his or her identity
secret." That person, called "Subject 2" in the public
paperwork, may be Abedin.
"The judicial determination whether to grant a
search warrant, and thus allow the government
to enter and search private property, directly
affects individuals' substantive rights," wrote
Castel, an appointee of President George W.
Bush. "Documents that a court relies on in
making this determination, such as affidavits,
directly affect the court's adjudication of those
rights. ... The common law presumption of
access to the search warrant and related
materials sought by this applicant is thus entitled
to great weight."
Prosecutors also asked the judge to delete the names of
FBI agents involved in the Clinton email probe, citing their
work in national security and counterintelligence
investigations. Castel agreed to redact those names "at this
stage," but he called that "a somewhat close question."
"The government has a strong interest in not
compromising the activities of agents working in
these sensitive areas," the judge wrote.
 Electors REMAIN FAITHFUL TO Trump AND SELECT
HIM AS OFFICIAL WINNER
By Tal Kopan AND Eric Bradner, CNN
Updated 7:57 Pm Et, Mon December 19, 2016

Trump was put over the top by electors in Texas. Thirty-

six of the state's 38 went for Trump, while two ignored the
state's Election Day results. One voted for Ohio Gov. John
Kasich and one backed former Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

The first response from Trump's camp came from Vice

President-elect Mike Pence, who tweeted:

"Congratulations to @RealDonaldTrump;
officially elected President of the United
States today by the Electoral College!"

Pence also wrote,

(CNN)Donald Trump surpassed the necessary 270 votes in
the Electoral College on Monday, taking the next step in
"I'm honored & humbled to be officially
the official process to become President.
elected today as the next Vice President of
the United States of America by the
Trump received 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's Electoral College."
227. Seven "faithless" electors voted for other candidates,
costing Trump two votes and Clinton four. Hawaii's votes -
- three for Clinton and one breaking from the state's results
and supporting Bernie Sanders -- were the last to be
counted.

The results mean Trump -- who lost the popular vote by

more than 2 percentage points to Clinton -- easily staved
off a long-shot bid by opponents to turn Republican
electors against him.

The Electoral College results will be officially certified

January 6 during a joint session of Congress.

"This election represents a movement that

millions of hard working men and women
all across the country stood behind and
made possible. With this historic step we
can look forward to the bright future ahead.
I will work hard to unite our country and be
the president of all Americans. Together,
we will make America great again," Trump
said in a statement.
He also claimed his win was "a historic electoral landslide
victory in our nation's democracy," though Clinton actually
won the popular vote by about 3 million ballots nationwide
making Trump the worst-performing winner in the popular
vote since 1876.
In Washington state, four electors opted for other
candidates, instead of backing Hillary Clinton. Three cast
ballots for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one
backed Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American activist
who's been involved in the North Dakota pipeline fight.
Those Washington electors also picked a mixed bag for the
vice presidency. One voted for home-state Sen. Maria
Cantwell. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine each got votes, as
well. And one went to activist Winona LaDuke, Ralph
Nader's running mate as the 2000 Green Party nominee for
vice president.

435
This is the first US presidential election since 1872 with
more than one "faithless elector."
Thirty-seven of Trump's pledged 306 electors would have
had to vote against him, becoming so-called "faithless
electors," to keep him under the 270 threshold to become
President. If Clinton were to reach 270 in that far-fetched
scenario, she could have become President. If no candidate
reached 270, the House of Representatives would have
held a vote when Congress reconvenes in January.

There have been a handful faithless electors in past cycles,

though never enough to change the outcome of the race.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, whose state was won

Former President Bill Clinton cast his ballot for his wife as
an elector in the state of New York. by Trump, tweeted a picture of the ballot for electors in his
state. It featured a ballot for Trump as President and Mike
Pence as vice president.
"As an elector from my home state of New
York, I've never been more proud to cast a
vote than my vote today for
@HillaryClinton," he tweeted.

When all the votes were counted in November, the

President-elect won 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232.
Some have since called on electors to vote against their
state results, after Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by
nearly 3 million ballots nationwide.

The 538 men and women voted primarily in accordance

with the results from November in their state. The electors,
chosen by state parties of the candidate who carried each Elsewhere in the country, Americans protested near
state, convened in all 50 state capitals and the District of electoral voting sites in a last-ditch plea to stop Trump's
Columbia. election, despite the high unlikelihood of success.

While electors are technically chosen to independently cast

their ballots for president, both precedent and, in most
cases, state laws require them to abide by the people's vote
in each state.

After a fraught election, some have called on electors to

vote against their state results.

In Minnesota, one elector was disqualified after declaring

he would vote for someone other than his state's winner,
Clinton. Under state law, he was replaced, and the
alternate voted for Clinton.

Protests had popped up around the country Monday as

frustrated Americans sought one last opportunity to stop
the candidate they opposed.

But mass defections of electors was always extremely

unlikely.

436

In Tallahassee, Florida, protestors began gathering before
10 a.m. outside of the Senate Chamber entrance on the
fourth floor of the Florida State Capitol. Asked if he
actually expected any outcome other than 29 votes for
Trump, Democracy Spring's Maxwell Frost sighed.
"I'm hoping for the best," he said. "We'll see
what happens."
.
437
While Trump has claimed he won in a landslide victory,
that description is inaccurate. He is expected to garner just
56.9% of the electoral vote, assuming all electors vote
according to their states' results. That will give Trump the
44th-largest share of the electoral vote out of 54
presidential elections since the modern system started in
1804.
The electoral votes will be officially counted on January 6,
when Congress returns. Vice President Joe Biden will
preside over the count.
Lawmakers can technically object -- in writing, with
objections signed by at least one House and one Senate
member -- to individual electoral votes or entire states'
results. If the House and Senate support that objection, the
vote or votes in question are thrown out. But that has never
happened.
Trump will be officially set for his inauguration at noon on
January 20 once all the electoral votes are counted.
CNN's Kevin Conlon in Tallahassee contributed to this
report.
 The Striking Audacity Of The Coup-In-Process
As A Result Of The Prestitutes’ Lies, Millions Of Peoples
Have Been Killed And Dislocated.
By Paul Craig Roberts
December 19, 2016
Unsubstantiated stories have been
planted throughout the presstitute
media by anonymous CIA officials that
Donald Trump’s electoral victory was
the result of Russian intervention.
This absurd claim has now been
elevated to the even more absurd claim
that Putin himself oversaw and even
conducted the manipulation of the US
presidential election.
No evidence has been provided for
these amazing claims.
The presstitutes are reporting unsubstantiated wild
accusations that portend both a constitutional crisis in the
US and a crisis with Russia. We know that the presstitutes
lie.
Iraq Propaganda
438
 The presstitutes lied when they reported contrary to the
weapons inspectors in Iraq that Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction.
 They lied about fake evidence of yellowcake and
alumninum tubes.
 They lied about Saddam Hussein’s al-Qaeda
connections.
 They lied about Iranian nukes despite the unanimous
report of all US intelligence agencies that Iran had
abandoned interest in nuclear weapons years ago.
 The presstitutes lied about Assad using chemical
weapons against the Syrian people.
 They lied about Gadaffi.
 They lied about Russian invasion of Ukraine.
 They lied about the cause of the Russian/Georgian
conflict.
 They lied about the Sochi Olympics.
Now the presstitutes are claiming that Russian interference
determined the outcome of the US presidential election
and the Brexit vote.
As a result of the prestitutes’ lies, millions of peoples have
been killed and dislocated. This blood is all on the heads of
the American media. So we know for a proven fact that the
US media has no integrity and no conscience.
Now the presstitutes have surpassed their previous level of
criminality. They are part and parcel of fomenting a coup
against the president-elect and throwing the country into a
crisis of unknown proportion.
Tomorrow the Electoral College meets to cast the ballots
for president. There is a well organized effort to disrupt
this normally routine procedure. Based on CIA lies spread
over the country by the presstitutes, 62 electors have
requested a CIA briefing prior to the vote on Russian
interference in the election.
As there is no formal CIA report and no
evidence in support of the allegations,
the briefing would consist of the
allegations.

CIA Director John Brennan, along with Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper.
A Harvard Law School professor, Lawrence Lessig,
involved in the Stop-Trump movement, has promised free
legal defense of electors who break with precedent and
cast their votes differently from the majority vote of their
states.
This effort, which presents a grave and continual threat to
the Constitution, to domestic tranquility, and to
international stability, is said in a nationwide media ad
campaign to be necessary in order to block Trump from
presenting
“a grave and continual threat to the
Constitution, to the domestic tranquility,
and to international stability.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-12-15/long-
shot-bid-to-block-trump-arrives-at-electoral-college-monday
If the effort tomorrow fails, President Obama has put in
motion a second shot at blocking Trump’s inauguration
with his order to the CIA to produce a report on Russian
election meddling prior to January 20. This report could be
.
439
used to delay the inauguration or to convey to the Amerian
public and peoples abroad so many doubts that Trump’s
effectiveness as a leader would be undermined.
And of course, the constant assaults on Trump can result in
his assassination by a “lone nut” patriot incensed over
having in office a president declared by the New York
Times to be a Putin stooge and useful idiot for the
Russians. This is the newspaper of record’s
characterization of the president chosen by the American
people.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research adds
another dimension to the struggle—a fight between rival
oligarchic interests.
Trump and his announced Secretary of State want the
business deals that result from normal relations with
Russia.
The military/security oligarchs want the immense budgets
and power that comes from positioning Russia as a dire
threat.
Even if Trump survives the CIA’s challenge to his
election, his cabinet appointees will have to survive
confirmation fights and, if they do, ongoing challenges to
their efforts to change policies from policies that favor
oligarchs enriched by war to policies that favor oligarchs
enriched by peace.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-foreign-policy-and-the-
electoral-college-vote-towards-a-december-19-surprise/5561928
In other words, whatever the outcome tomorrow and
January 20th, the fight is ongoing.
 Trump Private Security Force ‘Playing With Fire’
The President-Elect Continues To Employ A Battalion Of Retired Cops
And FBI Agents To Protect Him And Clamp Down On Protesters.
By Kenneth P. Vogel
12/19/16 05:07 AM EST
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — President-elect Donald
Trump has continued employing a private security and
intelligence team at his victory rallies, and he is expected
to keep at least some members of the team after he
becomes president, according to people familiar with the
plans.
The arrangement represents a major break from tradition.
All modern presidents and presidents-elect have entrusted
their personal security entirely to the Secret Service, and
their event security mostly to local law enforcement,
according to presidential security experts and Secret
Service sources.
But Trump — who puts a premium on loyalty and has
demonstrated great interest in having forceful security at
his events — has opted to maintain an aggressive and
unprecedented private security force, led by Keith Schiller,
a retired New York City cop and Navy veteran who started
working for Trump in 1999 as a part-time bodyguard,
eventually rising to become his head of security.
Security officials warn that employing private security
personnel heightens risks for the president-elect and his
team, as well as for protesters, dozens of whom have
alleged racial profiling, undue force or aggression at the
hands of Trump’s security, with at least 10 joining a trio of
lawsuits now pending against Trump, his campaign or its
security.
“It’s playing with fire,” said Jonathan
Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent
who worked on President Barack Obama’s
protective detail during his 2012 reelection
campaign. Having a private security team
working events with Secret Service
“increases the Service’s liability, it creates
greater confusion and it creates greater
risk,” Wackrow said.
“You never want to commingle a police
function with a private security function,” he
said, adding, “If you talk to the guys on the
detail and the guys who are running the
rallies, that’s been a little bit difficult
because it’s so abnormal.”
440
Wackrow, who left the Secret Service in 2014 and is now
executive director of a security company called RANE
(short for Risk Assistance Network + Exchange), said if he
were the lead agent at a Trump rally,
“I wouldn’t allow it.” But he suggested it’s a
tricky situation for the Secret Service.
“What are they going to do, pick a fight with
the president-elect and his advisers? That’s
not a way to start a romance.”
Several past presidential nominees have used private
security or, in the case of governors running for president,
state police details. But the experts could not think of
another example of a president-elect continuing with any
private security after Election Day, when Secret Service
protection expands dramatically for the winner. In fact,
most candidates drop any outside security the moment
they’re granted Secret Service protection.
Trump’s spending on private security, on the other hand,
actually increased after he was granted Secret Service
protection in November 2015.
Through the end of last month, Trump’s campaign had
spent more than $1 million on private security contracting,
compared with $360,000 spent by the campaign of his
vanquished Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, according to
Federal Election Commission reports. That’s despite the
fact that every other aspect of her campaign operation
dwarfed his. Overall, her campaign outspent his by nearly
75 percent.
Whereas Clinton’s security spending — like that of most
presidential campaigns — went mostly to protection for
her offices and payments to local law enforcement or
security companies for ad hoc event security, Trump’s
campaign took it to a whole different level. It built a robust
private security force that traveled the country
supplementing the protective personal security supplied by
the Secret Service, and working to identify and remove
possible protesters — or just people Trump and his allies
had a bad feeling about — from his events.
The private security team has been present at each of the
seven rallies on Trump’s post-election “Thank You Tour”
and has removed protesters — sometimes roughly — at
many stops.
That included about a dozen protesters during a rally here
on Dec. 9 in a minor-league arena called the Deltaplex,
where Trump mostly shrugged off the interruptions until
he became impatient with a particularly disruptive
protester. “Get ‘em out!” the president-elect instructed his
private security. That appeared to spur Trump’s security
director, Schiller, to venture away from the stage, where he
arrived with Trump, and wade deep into the crowd to assist
other private security personnel with the removal.
Before the end of the rally, Schiller returned to his place
by Trump’s side, along with a Secret Service contingent of
which he is often misidentified as a member. (Despite
being — at 58 years old — significantly older than most
agents, Schiller looks the part, invariably sporting a
uniform of dark suits and white shirts, along with a Secret
Service-issued perimeter pin, and maintaining an athletic
6-foot-4-inch, 210-pound frame.) Together, the entourage
accompanied Trump back to the airport, onto his plane and
back to New York. It was the same routine as Schiller and
Trump repeated countless times during the campaign, and
it likely will be repeated countless more times over the
coming years, since Schiller is expected to follow Trump
into the White House, according to multiple sources on the
transition team.
In interviews with about a dozen people who interact with
Trump, they said even as the president-elect’s Secret
Service detail has expanded significantly since the
election, he remains most comfortable with Schiller and
his team. A native of New Paltz, New York, and father of
two, Schiller has been director of security for The Trump
Organization since 2004.
The Trump associates say Schiller is expected to become a
personal White House aide who would serve as the
incoming president’s full-time physical gatekeeper, though
he might not be able to offer his boss the wide range of
services he has in the past. For instance, federal law
prohibits anyone other than law enforcement officers from
bringing firearms into federal buildings, and there are even
stricter rules about who can carry on the White House
grounds or around Secret Service protectees. Schiller had
been armed at times early in the campaign, but it’s unclear
whether he continued carrying a firearm after Trump was
granted Secret Service protection.
Even after the arrival of Trump’s Secret Service detail,
which typically marks the end of any pre-existing security
arrangement, Schiller never strayed from his boss’ side.
The associates say Schiller provides more than just
security. Trump has been known to ask Schiller’s opinion
on all manner of subjects. When people want to reach
441
Trump, they often call Schiller’s cellphone and he decides
who gets through to the boss.
Photos often show Schiller looming over Trump’s shoulder
as he works crowds, standing sentry by the stage as Trump
speaks, or ejecting protesters from rallies. He’s developed
a small but avid fan base on Twitter, where Trump
supporters cheer Schiller’s confrontations with protesters,
pose for selfies with him at events and backstage, and
praise him as a brave “American Eagle” who kept Trump
“safe & sound.”
And Schiller, a registered Republican, showed signs of
reveling in Trump’s campaign, creating his own Twitter
account just before the first primaries to promote the
campaign and chronicle his unique perspective from the
trail. He occasionally channeled his boss’ attacks on rivals
like Ted Cruz (“Wow Lyin Ted is becoming unhinged! So
sad...,” he tweeted as Trump was clinching the GOP
nomination over the Texas senator) and spread false claims
about Democrats, including that 20 percent of Clinton’s
campaign cash came from people who were responsible
for the September 2001 terrorist attacks, that a grand jury
had been convened to investigate her use of a private email
server for State Department business and that Obama
encouraged undocumented immigrants to vote illegally.
Yet Schiller mostly remains — as one former campaign
aide put it — “the most important man no one has ever
heard of.”
That influence comes from Schiller’s ability to essentially
control access to Trump, acting as his liaison to everyone
from staff and well-wishers to dignitaries — and even
Secret Service agents.
“Keith is kind of a consigliere,” said a
transition team official. “He knows all the
players, all the properties. He has the
confidence of Trump and of the family. To
describe him as a body guy would be very,
very beneath the role that he actually
plays.”
A younger aide — possibly the campaign’s trip director
John McEntee — likely will be tapped for the traditional
body man valet-like role, while Schiller would fill a new
type of a hybrid staff-security role, the official explained.
“Keith knows Trump inside and out. He
knows when he turns right and when it
turns left,” the official said.
Yet Schiller’s tight relationship with — and protectiveness
of — his boss has already complicated the Secret Service’s
rigid protection protocols, say allies of the agency and
independent security experts.
In March, when a 32-year-old man jumped a barricade and
rushed toward the stage as Trump was speaking at a rally
in Dayton, Ohio, Secret Service agents immediately
descended on Trump from opposite sides of the dais,
encircling him in a human shield as a handful of other
agents tackled the man before he could leap onto the stage.
About a second after the first two agents reached Trump,
Schiller leapt onto the stage and moved to position himself
between the scrum and his boss.
The response appeared tightly choreographed to the
untrained eye — a phalanx of men in dark suits and close-
cropped hair swarming to protect their charge.
But in law enforcement circles, Schiller’s reaction was
panned as too slow and was the subject of disapproving
conversation among agents, according to a law
enforcement source briefed on the conversations. The
source said one agent described Schiller as the “JV trying
to keep up in a varsity game.”
Specifically, the source said that Schiller came from a
position on the dais that the agents would have used to
evacuate Trump if that were to have been necessary.
“If that happened, they would have run right
into Keith. He was about three seconds too
late,” the source said.
Joe Funk, a former Secret Service agent who worked
several presidential campaigns, said agents throughout
their careers are “trained nonstop to react to different
situations based on your position and distance from the
protectee in what they call AOP, or assaults on the
principal.” That includes intensive drilling as a detail
before being deployed to protect a presidential candidate
or president “to familiarize yourself with the people who
you are going to be working with.”
Stressing that he wasn’t assessing the response to the
Dayton incident, Funk said
“without any slight to Keith or to any of the
guys on his team, they just haven’t had the
opportunity to go through the Secret
Service training that would allow them to
respond to a situation like a Secret Service
agent would.”
Since retiring from the Secret Service in 2005, Funk has
provided private security for presidential candidates,
including Obama in the early stages of the 2008 campaign
and Mitt Romney in 2012. In both those cases, he said that
when the Secret Service took over, he almost immediately
stepped aside. “My assignment was over. That was it.”
So Funk said that he was “very surprised,” while providing
security for Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign, to witness
442
firsthand Trump’s “composite detail” including the Service
and private security at multicandidate events during the
primary. “I was under the impression that at some point
this would be weeded out,” or that the private security
would revert to more of a traditional staff role, said Funk,
who is senior vice president at a private security firm
called TorchStone Global. As for why that appears not to
have occurred, Funk said
“there may be a very good reason for it, but
as a layperson on the outside looking in,
I’m just kind of scratching my head. In my
experience, this is unprecedented.”
Agents and their associates told POLITICO that Schiller
and his team initially bristled at the Secret Service’s move
to take the lead, and that the continued presence of the
private security brigade at events has caused tension and in
some cases gotten in the way of the Secret Service’s
protocols.
During the campaign, Schiller and his team could be seen
at rallies appearing to direct Secret Service agents, local
police and employees of security companies hired for
specific events.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to respond to a
series of questions about the private security officials, who
is paying them, their relationship with the Secret Service,
whether they’re armed and what their roles will be after
inauguration. Instead, she said in a statement,
“Trump rallies are incredibly safe events
and are executed with support from USSS,
local law enforcement and private security
to ensure the safety and enjoyment of all
guests in attendance. For further details
please reach out to the USSS.”
Secret Service spokeswoman Nicole Mainor issued a
statement saying,
“The Secret Service does not provide
information regarding our protective
operations,” and referring to a section of
the U.S. Code that outlines the agency’s
obligations to protect the president-elect.
As for the agency’s relationship with Trump’s security
personnel and whether the Service has asked Trump to dial
back his security or whether the security carry firearms,
Mainor responded only:
“The individuals you are referring to are
staff personnel.”
Schiller did not respond to requests for comment.
In a little-noticed video interview recorded in Trump
Tower less than two months after then-candidate Trump
was granted Secret Service protection, Schiller said his
team had “a great working relationship” with the Secret
Service.
“They bring their own set of assets, which
is right now, we can use everything we can
get, as far as the way the world is right
now, and the campaign in itself. It’s
inherently a risky business every day,”
Schiller said in the interview, which was posted in January
of this year.
But he also noted that he had received “some dignitary
protection training through the Secret Service” when he
was on the New York City police force, and he touted the
capacity of the private security team he oversees.
“We have the best assets money can buy, I
can assure you of that, as far as protecting
him, his family and his property,” Schiller
told the interviewer, Rich Siegel, one of his
childhood buddies from New Paltz.
Schiller explained that he has “more than a dozen people”
working for him.
While he said that “I’m no stranger to
putting my hands on people,” thanks to his
days in the New York City Police
Department’s narcotics units, he added,
“Things are different right now. I hire big
guys who do all the fighting.”
The identities and numbers of the employees who
constitute Trump’s private security operation — as well as
other details — are not entirely clear. That’s partly because
at least some of the costs — including Schiller’s salary at
one point in the campaign — appeared to be split between
The Trump Organization corporate structure and Trump’s
presidential campaign, and also because the campaign paid
many of its security officials, including several who
continued working for Trump after the election, through
opaque corporate structures.
Schiller himself was paid $181,000 for campaign work
from July 2015 through mid-November, according to FEC
filings, with some of it coming in the form of in-kind
payments, likely indicating money paid to Schiller by The
Trump Organization, and possibly reimbursed by Trump
personally.
The campaign also paid $50,000 for “security services”
during the second half of the year to a company called KS
Global Group LLC. While the company, which was
registered anonymously in Delaware in October 2015,
443
bears Schiller’s initials, neither he nor the Trump transition
team would comment on who is behind it.
Another company, Black Tie Protection Services, which a
Trump campaign operative said is linked to Schiller’s
team, was paid more than $106,000 in the final four
months of the campaign.
And the campaign paid $28,000 for security services to a
company called ASIT Consulting, which is owned by a 62-
year-old former FBI agent named Don Albracht, who has
been known to film and occasionally taunt protesters.
But by far the biggest recipient of Trump security cash is a
company called XMark LLC, which boasts on its website
that its employees have expertise in surveillance,
“close quarter battle” and “tactical shooting
skills" and that the firm “provided all PPD
[personal protection detail] for Mr. Trump’s
campaign travel to include all advance
work and coordination with local law
enforcement agencies, in support,
throughout the country, until being relieved
by the United States Secret Service in mid-
November of 2015.”
Yet the company continued receiving payments from
Trump’s campaign after that point, with $89,000 coming
after Election Day. Its officials — including president
Eddie Deck and vice president Gary Uher, both of whom
are retired FBI agents — were seen policing the crowds at
Trump rallies throughout the campaign, as well as during
the post-election "Thank You Tour." The pair — combined
with XMark and a retired New York City cop named
Michael Sharkey, who also is associated with the company
— have been paid nearly $579,000 and counting by the
campaign.
Trump transition team sources say the thank you rallies are
being funded by Trump’s campaign committee, but that
Trump, as president, might headline rallies funded and
organized by a still-in-the-works outside group that will be
able to accept huge donations unbound by federal
campaign limits.
While Trump’s Saturday rally in Mobile, Alabama, was
the last one scheduled on the tour, he hinted to the crowd
that he intends to resume the rallies as president.
“This is the last time I’ll be speaking at a
rally for maybe a while. You know, they’re
saying as president he shouldn’t be doing
rallies, but I think we should, right?” he
said, prompting loud applause. “We’ve
done everything else the opposite. Well,
no, this is the way you get an honest word
 out, because you can’t give it to [he press]
because they’re so dishonest.”
If Trump’s team continues funding the rallies using private
money, it would have the right to “decide who can attend
their events, including which opinions or speech they deem
acceptable by attendees,” said Lee Rowland, a senior staff
attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union.
She co-wrote a post in March on the ACLU’s website
bemoaning that the removal of protesters of color from this
year’s presidential campaign rallies is “certainly not what
we want our democracy to look like.”
Nonetheless, Rowland told POLITICO that as long as
Trump’s campaign or an outside group “organizes and sets
the rules for a private event, and a politician, including the
president, is an invited guest, then the host can decide
whether and when to revoke attendees’ invitations. That
would make them trespassers and allow them to be legally
removed.” If the rallies were funded or organized by the
government, on the other hand, then only law enforcement
could identify protesters for ejection and actually remove
them, and only then for breaking the law, she said.
Trump’s private security team has taken full advantage of
that latitude, and Deck, who appears to be the leader of the
rally security unit, has served as the point of the spear.
Deck, a buff 62-year-old who at various times took to
wearing street clothes to blend into rally crowds so he
could sleuth out protesters, has drawn repeated complaints
about excessive force and ejecting people solely because
they don’t look like Trump supporters.
At an April rally in Harrington, Delaware, Deck was
captured on video calling for assistance from Delaware
state troopers to remove two young African-Americans
separately. When one, Anwar Dyer, protested
“I didn’t say anything,” Deck responded “I
don’t care. You’re leaving. You’re leaving.
And if you don’t leave, you’re gonna get
hooked up, and I know you don’t want to
get hooked up.”
A college student who attended a Trump rally in Tucson,
Arizona, in March told POLITICO that Deck “grabbed my
arm and angrily pulled me through the crowd,” adding: “I
genuinely believe I was kicked out because I am
transgender.”
At an August rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Deck
removed an 18-year-old Indian-American Trump supporter
named Jake Anantha, who Deck accused of having
protested at past Trump rallies. Anantha, a registered
Republican who was wearing a Trump shirt, later
444
complained to The Charlotte Observer, “Why are all these
white people allowed to attend and I’m not?”
Messages left for Albracht and at XMark email and phone
numbers were not returned. And it was not clear whether
they would continue working with Trump’s security team
in any rallies he might do as president.
Henry Brousseau — who alleges that he was punched in
the stomach by Trump supporters after shouting “Black
Lives Matter” at a March rally in Louisville, Kentucky —
said Trump’s security “did not seem to be interested at all
in public safety. They were there to keep the rally on
message. They were being speech police.”
Brousseau, who was a high school senior at the time, and
two fellow protesters were ejected. And now they’re suing
Trump and his campaign, as well as the convention center
for failing to provide adequate security, while also
claiming that Trump’s calls to “get 'em out” were
“calculated to incite violence against the plaintiffs.”
Brousseau said “it is a pattern of silencing
his opponents" that is "unpresidential,
undemocratic and un-American.”
Another lawsuit was filed three weeks before the election,
in part by an African-American man who alleges he was
punched, kicked and called racial slurs by Trump
supporters at a November 2015 Trump rally in
Birmingham, even after security arrived on the scene — all
while Trump yelled “get him the hell out of here!” It calls
on Trump’s campaign, the convention center and the city
of Birmingham
“to pay for damages, institute new
procedures for security and issue a public
apology to those who attended the rally in
question and to the residents of
Birmingham.”
A third lawsuit alleges that Schiller, Deck, Uher and two
other Trump security officers assaulted a handful of
protesters during a raucous protest outside the campaign’s
Manhattan headquarters in September.
In an affidavit in the case, Schiller acknowledged that he
struck one of the protesters in the head. But he says that
was because he felt the protester
“physically grab me from behind and also
felt that person’s hand on my firearm,
which was strapped on the right side of my
rib cage in a body holster. Based on my
years of training, I instinctively reacted by
turning around in one movement and
striking the person with my open hand.”
The protesters’ lawyers deposed Schiller, Deck and Uher “Trump has had a substantial role in
in the days leading up to the Grand Rapids rally. bringing about violence on the part of his
security guards.”
The judge in June ruled that Trump would not have to
provide a deposition in the case, despite the assertion by
the protesters’ lawyers that

445
 The Best Election Map Yet
Behold, The Clinton Archipelago...
by Tyler Durden
Dec 19, 2016 9:25 PM

h/t @JohnCardillo

446
 Trump Sweeps 304 of 306
GOP Electors, Hillary Loses
By Stephen Lendman
12-20-2016
It’s all over but the postmortems. The campaign to dump
Trump fizzled. The only surprise was Hillary losing five
elector votes.
Commenting on why he rejected her, Hawaii Democrat
elector said
“(t)hey can call me faithless, but the point is
if we don’t think someone’s qualified - and
Hillary Clinton I do not feel is qualified.”
Four Washington state Democrat electors dumped her.
Three others in Colorado, Maine and Minnesota
unsuccessfully tried switching their votes from her.
For the first time in US history, more than one elector
defected. Trump swept all GOP delegates except two in
Texas. One voted for Ron Paul.
Commenting on his triumph, Trump said
“(t)oday marks a historic electoral landslide
victory in our nation's democracy.”
“This election represents a movement that
millions of hard working men and women
all across the country stood behind and
made possible.”
“With this historic step we can look forward
to the bright future ahead. I will work hard
to unite our country and be the President of
all Americans. Together, we will make
America great again.”
Separately, he tweeted
“(w)e did it. Thank you to all of my great
supporters, we just officially won the
election (despite all of the distorted and
inaccurate media).”
Monday’s vote was Hillary’s third humiliating defeat -
losing to Obama in 2008, defeated by Trump in November,
and electors on Monday making it official.
They overwhelmingly rejected her, despite weeks of
intensive scoundrel media supported efforts to dump
Trump.
447
The threat of the most ruthlessly dangerous presidential
aspirant in US history ended with a resounding rejection of
her unfitness to serve.
On January 6, a joint congressional session will certify
Monday’s results, Trump’s inauguration to follow on
January 20 - disruptive tactics continuing.
Inauguration day protests are planned to block his peaceful
transition. From January 2 - 20, a Center for Biological
Diversity (CBD) #Earth2Trump campaign promises
resistance, demonstrations planned in over a dozen cities,
concluding in Washington.
CBD calls for “rallying and empowering defenders of civil
rights and the environment" to galvanize a network of
resistance.
The organization headlined
“The fight is on,” saying “(w)e must stand
and oppose every Trump policy that hurts
wildlife; poisons our air and water; destroys
our climate; promotes racism, misogyny or
homophobia; and marginalizes entire
segments of our society.”
CBD urged supporters to sign a
“Pledge of Resistance to Donald Trump's
Assault on America's Environment,
Democracy and Civil Rights.”
It accused him of a laundry list of offenses before he’s
done anything. Its pledge states:
“I pledge to resist Trump through action.”
“I pledge to speak out, make phone calls,
sign petitions, join rallies, support
conservation and civil rights groups,
educate my family and friends, and keep a
compassionate, loving heart while fighting
fiercely for the values I cherish most.”
What’s vitally needed is resistance against money-
controlled duopoly governance, endless imperial wars on
humanity at home and abroad, corporate favoritism at the
expense of beneficial social, economic and political
change, along with police state rule - policies enforced by
both wings of America’s one-party state.
Grassroots revolutionary change alone can fix things.
Nothing else can work. Elections are farcical, voting a
waste of time, ordinary people shut out entirely.
.
448
Wealth, power and privilege alone are served at their
expense. It’s the American way, unchanged throughout its
history - continuing for four more years, the process
repeating each election cycle no matter who’s elected
president.
 Trump WINS Electoral College
Vote Amid Protests By Liberals
By Caleb Stephen -
12.20.2016 @9:17 AM EST

conscience vote. He posted this offer at least twice on

Twitter and described it in great detail in a mini-essay on
his official Facebook page.

Liberals are furious their new president is not going to be Hillary

Clinton

(INTELLIHUB)– It’s official! Donald J. Trump has

surpassed the required 270 Electoral College votes on
Monday completing the next step to the Oval Office.

Trump received 304 electoral votes compared to Hillary

Clinton’s 227. Seven “faithless” electors voted for other
candidates, costing Trump two votes and Clinton four.

Interestingly, this is the first U.S. presidential election

since 1872 with more than one “faithless elector.”

The results mean Trump — who lost the popular vote

(thanks to voter fraud, illegal immigrants voting and dead
voters on the electoral role) by more than 2 percentage
points to Clinton — quite easily staved off a concerted bid
by opponents to turn Republican electors against him.
Trump declared his win was “a historic electoral landslide
victory in our nation’s democracy.”
Despite protests and pressure upon electors from
Democrats and key anti-Trump figures for GOP electors to
“go rogue”, Trump is officially locked in as the 45th
President of the United States by the Electoral College.
The Electoral College results will be officially certified on
January 6th during a joint session of Congress.
Liberal talking head and CNN contributor Michael Moore
even offered to pay the fines of GOP electors who made a
As Intellihub Editor-in-chief Shepard
Ambellas rightly points out, Moore is
essentially guilty of election tampering by
offering to bribe GOP electors.
It should be noted that Moore has essentially opposed
Trump right from the beginning and has been doing his
utmost to ensure Trump won’t make it to inauguration
even going so far as organising and encouraging protests
on January 20th.
Trump is basking in the limelight of victory right now:
“This election represents a movement that
millions of hard working men and women
all across the country stood behind and
made possible. With this historic step we

449
 can look forward to the bright future ahead.
I will work hard to unite our country and be
the president of all Americans. Together,
we will make America great again.”

He also tweeted the announcement thanking his supporters

and made sure to throw a quick punch at the mainstream
media saying “we just officially won the election (despite
all of the distorted and inaccurate media).”
Pence also wrote: “I’m honored & humbled to be officially
elected today as the next Vice President of the United
States of America by the Electoral College.”

The first person from Trump’s camp to offer

congratulations to the President-elect was non other than
Vice President-elect Mike Pence. The next and final step to becoming the 45th President of
the United States is of course inauguration day on January
20th. No doubt, Michael Moore is busily planning new
tactics and strategies to unite his little army of sore loser
liberals in the offensive on the democratically elected
President-elect Donald Trump. Don’t worry, he’ll fail like
already has numerous times.
.

450
 NYT Ex Post Facto Electoral
College Opposition
By Stephen Lendman
12-20-2016
In the wake of Trump’s unexpected triumph over Hillary,
Times editors urged ending the Electoral College. Arguing
its merits or demerits should be considered separately from
the election’s outcome.
What’s really needed is ending America’s money-
controlled system. The Electoral College is a peripheral
issue. The Constitution’s Article II, Section 1, Clause 2
states:
“Each state shall appoint, in such Manner
as the Legislature thereof may direct, a
Number of Electors, equal to the whole
Number of Senators and Representatives
to which the State may be entitled in the
Congress: but no Senator or
Representative, or Person holding an
Office of Trust or Profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
The 12th Amendment says in part
“(t)he electors shall meet in their respective
states and vote by ballot for President and
Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall
not be an inhabitant of the same state with
themselves; they shall name in their ballots
the person voted for as President, and in
distinct ballots the person voted for as
Vice-President…”
It’s fair arguing for electing presidents directly, not giving
unelected electors final say. It’s not so much an
“antiquated mechanism,” as Times editors claimed. It’s a
dubious one. No other nation operates this way.
Five times in US history, popular and Electoral College
votes differed. They favored:
 John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson and Henry
Clay in 1824;
 Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden in 1876;
 Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland in 1888;
.
451
 GW Bush over Al Gore in 2000; and
 Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Times editors:
“…Trump won under the rules, but the
rules should change so that a presidential
election reflects the will of Americans and
promotes a more participatory democracy.”
Fact: Trump indeed won “under the rules,” but no
“participatory democracy” existed since the republic’s
inception - not earlier or now. The founders rejected one to
assure rule by powerful interests, not popular ones.
Times editors propose changing how America elects
presidents, urging
“electors vote for the winner of the national
popular vote.”
Then why have an Electoral College in the first place?
Eliminating it requires a constitutional amendment,
approved by 38 states (a three-fourths majority).
Under the current system, if no candidate wins an elector
majority, House members choose the president. America’s
money-controlled system reinforces duopoly power rule,
independents shut out, including getting scant major media
coverage.
Seventeen times in US history, winning presidential
candidates won a minority of votes. Under a winner-take-
all system, no runoff occurs.
When half the electorate opts out, as in 2016, presidents
are elected with as few as around one-fourth of eligible
voters - hardly a popular mandate.
America’s money-controlled system is too debauched to
fix. Major issues run much deeper than whether to retain or
eliminate the Electoral College.
 What Happens When
The Trump Bubble Bursts?
By David Rosen
December 20, 2016

On January 20, 2017, president-elect Donald Trump will  Stopping Muslim immigration to the US has been
be inaugurated the nation’s 45th President. Almost a year amended – he’s now calling for “extreme vetting” and a
to the date, on January 24, 2016, Republican candidate shutdown on immigration from countries compromised
Trump boasted at a Sioux Center, IA, campaign rally, by terrorism.
 His pledge to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue Act (Obamacare) has been clarified – he now proposes
and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose to keeping coverage for pre-existing conditions and
voters.” youths under 26 years of age on their parent’s health
plans.
Sadly, he was probably right then — and his prediction
will likely be worse after January 20 th. But how long will Trump is wobbling, taking more accommodating,
Trump’s electoral halo keep him covered in a superhero conventional Republican positions on still other promises
costume of invincibility? made. While calls to “Lock her up!” are still heard at his
“victory” rallies, the president-elect has backed off from
his campaign call to appoint a special prosecutor to
Following his inauguration, Trump and his ever-increasing
investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email system.
entourage of family and business cronies will take over the
While he championed torture techniques on terrorist
White House and transform the Kennedy-era Camelot into
suspects during the campaign, he is no longer certain that
a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Mirroring the gaudy,
torturing is a good idea. While promising to void the Paris
ostentatious bad taste of his “luxury” hotels, it will come to
climate agreement, he now claims an “open mind” about
resemble Dante’s eighth level of Hell, Malebolge, an
the accord. Perhaps most surprising, the unstoppable real-
amphitheatre-shaped pit in which panderers, pimps,
estate hustler has admitted illegal deals by his family
seducers and others are whipped, ducked in boiling pitch
foundation and made an out-of-court settlement with those
and their feet licked by flames. In Trump’s Malebolge,
conned by his dubious “Trump U.” One can only guess
old-style sinners will be replaced by 21st century crooks
how many more of his promises will be “clarified” once he
and con-men be they Goldman Sachs scam artists, ex-
takes office.
military hustlers or political hacks as well as their legions
of enforcers, the vast bureaucracy that distributes the
spoils. Trump is riding high, whether greeting well-wishers at his
urban estate on Fifth Avenue, on his victory tour
throughout the country or at the Army-Navy football
The Washington Post estimates that Trump made 282
game. His Cabinet nominees have been greeted with
“promises” during the campaign and since the election he
wonder, the most ill-prepared and ideological backward-
has masterfully begun to back-peddle, dropping one after
looking assembly of has-beens ever to (if confirmed) run
another. A handful of his growing list of misdirections
the U.S. government. Often forgotten, the federal budget
include:
is a $3.8 trillion slush fund that accounts for more than a
fifth (21%) of the nation’s economy or GDP.
 The building of a Mexican wall has been downsized —
“For certain areas I would [use fences], but certain
Mainstream Republicans are going along with Trump’s
areas, a wall is more appropriate,” he said. “I’m very
incoherent statements (i.e., Tweets), dubious international
good at this, it’s called construction.”
initiatives (e.g., toward Taiwan) and audacious
 The mass round-up of 11 million undocumented
nominations (e.g., ExxonMobil’s Rex Tillerson) because
immigrants has been revised –“What we are going to
he’s given them nearly-absolute control over the U.S.
do is get the people that are criminals and have
budget and policy-making for the next four years (at
criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a
least). Like pigs at the trough, they know the system is
lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even
theirs for the taking – and they will squeeze it for all they
3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we
can get.
are going to incarcerate.”
452
The U.S. government is a corrupt business enterprise – not
unlike many state and city governments throughout the
country — in which the laws have been written so that the
guilty can legally rip off the system. For those
Republicans on the lucrative revolving door of
government-official-turned-lobbyist-turned-corporate-
officer, the great shakedown is surely underway. Who
knows how many expense-account lunches and after-work
cocktails have been shared during which unofficial deals
have been cut, commissions calculated and hookers
exchanged? And who but the most apparently corrupt TV-
huckster should oversee the enterprise?
Trump drew much of this grassroots support from two
vengeful rightwing tendencies, Christian moralists and
white nationalists. For those Republicans who wear their
religion like a military medal, Trump’s victory is leverage
for the cultural zombies calling for the return of the
repressed. Their first initiative will be to secure the
appointment of an arch-conservative Supreme Court judge
in the Antonin Scalia mold. After that, pick your target –
Obamacare, the environment from fracking to Standing
Rock, abortion, birth control and sex education, gay and
trans rights, minimum wage and (why not?) school prayer.
And who but the least apparently moral politician in recent
history should oversee the coming great cultural
regression?
Trump is a great showman, a postmodern 21 st century
figure cast in the mold of the legendary, premodern circus-
master, P. T. Barnham. Barnham (1810-1891) is
remembered today, if at all, for the Barnham & Bailey
Circus, officially the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey
Combined Shows started in 1919. Barnham lived a
complex life. He founded a weekly newspaper and served
as mayor Bridgeport, CT, and two terms in the Connecticut
legislature before establishing the “P. T. Barnum’s Grand
Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome.”
But Trump is not Barnham. Where Trump is a regressive
comic-book character, Barnham was a true progressive.
He was a Republican when it meant being allied with Pres.
Lincoln and the Union’s war against slavery. Reflecting
on the 13th Amendment concerning slavery and African-
American suffrage, Barnum declared, “A human soul, ‘that
God has created and Christ died for,’ is not to be trifled
with. It may tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an
Arab or a Hottentot – it is still.”
Trump came to power repeating Ronald Reagan’s
campaign mantra, “make America great again.” His
ceaseless incantation of this failed rhetoric speaks to a
narcissistic attempt to reverse history, to contain
capitalism’s ceaseless effort at globalization. This process
is being imposed on the U.S. and the president-to-be. His
proposal of Tillerson for Sec. of State illustrates just how
much corporate power has gained control over the federal
government. The state – and its taxing authority – is seen
by Trump and his associates as a cash machine.
453
The American rightwing will rule! It is a complex
political and social force that includes Christian
conservatives, race nationalists, 2nd Amendment gun-
salesmen and armed anti-taxers along with oil executives,
hedge-fund barons, medical-industry scamers and real-
estate hustlers as well as many other “ordinary” – and
mostly white — Americans.
Trump and the Republican establishment share one thing
in common: to the victor go the spoils. After January 20th,
they will run the show and Trump will deliver on his true
promise to his core backers: greater wealth to the 1
percent. But greed and opportunism can only go so far.
What happens when all the low-hanging political and
financial spoils have been picked? What happens when
promises are not met and disillusionment deepens?
Stroking a crystal ball, one can image that during Trump’s
first year or two as President, his administration will
function under a media and political halo, one modeled
after his campaign and popular series, “The Apprentice.”
That halo will enable Trump’s backers to get away with
everything. The U.S. will finally have a president who
embodies what the Situationists’ identified as the
“spectacle”: Trump is the living commodity spectacle.
Trump’s cronies will loot the nation’s coffers through
dubious contracts and side deals, especially at the Dept. of
Defense with a budget about $600 billion. They will also
kill-off beneficial programs for those most in need – and
potentially most threatening to corporate and rightwing
Christian power – by shrinking the Departments of Labor,
Environmental Protection, Housing, Healthcare and
Education. Say good-by to the Supreme Court and with it
a women’s right to an abortion and birth control, to more
tax cuts for the rich and corporations and less benefits for
ordinary Americans, to the end of restrictions on fracking
and coal mining, an end to gay and trans rights, to public
education, to financial regulation and, very likely, to
National Endowments and PBS-NPR. Trump’s presidency
will be a nightmare come true.
Trump’s campaign fantasy to make the U.S “great again”
is doomed by the self-interest of his corporate and
Congressional backers, the 1 percenters and their hacks.
But it is also doomed by the historical development of
capitalism, from a nation-state enterprise of production to a
global system of financial tyranny. During this century-
long process, the extraction of surplus value, wealth, was
ever-more rationalized. Over the last century, capitalism
has taken over the economic space (i.e., marketplace), then
moved on the public space (i.e., government) and, finally,
to the colonization of private life (i.e., unconscious).
As president, Trump will be the commander-in-chief of
distraction. Like innumerable other real-estate and reality-
TV hucksters, Trump thrives on hustling, of deal making.
Over the next few years, Trump’s often-ecstatic
celebration of American “greatness” will likely be echoed
by the mainstream media. It did the same during the
campaign; Trump holds the media hostage as they chase
his nocturnal Tweets. They will do anything for a few
minutes with “the Donald.”
But how long will this coverage distract Americans from
the truth of their living existence? How long can the
distraction industry go on endlessly telling people that
things are better than they are experiencing? The social
fiction of “making America get again” can only last for so
long. Over time and seeing through the miasma of
corporate media, people – many of them his former
supporters – will question whether Trump can deliver on
the promises he made during the campaign primary. What
happens if the promises Trump made to his white working-
and middle-class backers fail to be fulfilled? As Malcolm
X warned, the chickens will come home to roost.
One response to likely deepening disillusionment is
evident in the efforts by some of Trump supporters to
establish a 21st century version of the post-WW-II HUAC-
McCarthy witch-hunts and blacklists. For them, the words
“terrorist threat” provides the rationale for an all-powerful
security state, restriction of First Amendment freedoms
and the repression of unions, advocacy groups and
independent activists.
If Trump economic efforts flounder, one could imagine a
significant “terrorist” attack(s) occurring during his
presidency. Well-researched studies suggest that the next
terrorist attached will be executed by either a lone-wolf
jihadist or a rightwing, white nationalist; social terror is
intensified deeply troubled men often. Under Trump,
federal authorities and mainstream media will likely
artfully turn the jihadist into a “terrorist threat,” while
dismissing the white Christian nationalist as a “fanatic.”
Fueled by his uncompromising rhetoric, Trump’s security
state will likely establish or allege a link between a
suspected “terrorist” and an activist or an activist group,
most likely someone on a terrorist watch list. It could
serve as a great distraction, a “false flag” attack like some
consider the Boston marathon bombing. How far will
Trump’s law-enforcement apparatus go? Will they
criminalize populist movements like Standing Rock, Black
Lives Matter, anti-fracking and $15 minimum wage?
Trump, his family and his Cabinet – officially — believe
they can deliver on the promises he made during the
.
454
campaign. A successful TV gameshow host truly believes
he can lie his way out of the great political contradiction –
of promising and not delivering — by redefine the
promises once made.
What happens if Trump fails to delivery on his promises
and popular disillusionment spreads among his followers?
What happens if, during Trump’s first few years as
President, the modest gains of the Obama years falter as
Trump’s economic policies fulfilling Republican promises
(e.g., tax and social-spending programs) takes over? Will
the strutting presidential showman be unmasked as nothing
more than a grand conman?
At some point, growing number of ordinary Americans
will likely feel more dismal, squeezed by their flat
paychecks, yet stretched by the hard reality of paying bills,
for housing, healthcare and increased taxes. Wage
stagnation has characterized the plight of working
Americans since the 1970s; it will likely only get worse as
Trump’s tax plans favoring the rich take effect.
Misdirection is the art of American politics, but what
happens when the truth of a deepening social crisis peaks
its head through the miasma of a showman’s fiction?
What happens if – and it’s a big “if” — social
disillusionment deepens (especially among Trump
supporters) over the next two years. What if a radical
insurgency challenges the rigged state-gerrymandered
system that determines legislative districts?; what if they
upset the Republican hold on Congress? It could be a
transformative period.
Such a development might lead more “moderate”
Republicans – the old-fashioned country-club
establishment — to oppose Trump and his administration
of self-serving fools. And, who knows, new “leaks” from
a federal security service operative revealed that a high-
level Trump insider (e.g., Rudi Giuliani, Corey
Lewandowski?) was intimately involved in how the
“revelations” garnered from the Russian hack of the
Democrat Party was exploited, found its way to W. It
could lead to a bi-partisan Clinton-like impeachment effort
in which espionage replace sex scandal as the mass-market
hook.
Christmas and the New Year are coming so one can wish
for better days.
 Scarborough: Clintons Must
'Get Out Of The Way' After Election Loss
By Randy Hall
December 20, 2016 | 6:57 PM EST
MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough
hammered Bill Clinton on Tuesday regarding a number of
comments the former Democratic president had made
blaming “angry white men” and other external factors for
GOP candidate Donald Trump's win over his
Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton.
Scarborough was particularly peeved about Clinton's
insistence that his wife only lost because America had
entered a “post-truth” era.
“Oh, my god,” the male host told co-host
Mika Brzezinski. “This coming … from the
man that said it depends on what your
definition of 'is' is!”
According to an article by Alex Griswold for the Mediaite
website, the male co-host said:
“I would ask if he has no shame, but he
proved decades ago that he didn’t. If [the
Clintons] would just get out of the way
and be gracious about this, there would be
people carrying their water.”
“Scarborough slammed the former
president's use of the term 'angry white
men' that annoyed Scarborough the most,”
Griswold noted.
“Those ‘angry white men’ that Bill Clinton is
talking about are the same ‘angry white
men’ that got him elected president and the
same ‘angry white men' that Bill Clinton
was complaining about for months that the
Clintons weren’t reaching,” the Mediaite
reporter noted.
455
During the interview, the former president stated:
You know, I've watched her work for two
years. I watched her battle through that
bogus email deal and be vindicated at the
end when Secretary [of State Colin] Powell
came out, and she fought through that.
She fought through everything, and she prevailed against
it all, but you know, in the end we had to rush it and the
FBI deal, she couldn't prevail against that and she still won
by two million votes.
At that point, Brzezinski came onscreen to quote
“some more recent venting from the former
president earlier this month.”
“Bill Clinton spoke with the [unnamed editor
of the Bedford-Pound Ridge] Record
Review, a small weekly newspaper near
the Clintons' home in Chappaqua,” she
noted.
“While the former president browsed at a
local book store in the comments obtained
by Politico, Clinton acknowledged he
received a phone call from Trump on the
day after the election and that the
Manhattan billionaire was strangely cordial,
'like it was 15 years ago,'” Brzezinski noted.
At that time, Trump
“was friendly with the Clintons and would
socialize with them.” Clinton also said
Trump told him that Hillary Clinton “was
tougher than I thought she’d be.”
“Of the new president, Clinton said he
doesn't know much, but the one thing
does know is how to get angry white men
to vote for him.”
As for the big news story of the moment, Clinton made it
perfectly clear that he believes Russia backed the hacks of
the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta,
Hillary’s campaign chairman.
“You would need to have a single-digit IQ
not to recognize what was going on,” he
said.
James Comey “cost her the election,” he added, noting:
“We were seven points up at the time”
when the FBI director began “re-stoking the
fires of the private email server
controversy” by announcing with less than
two weeks to go before the election that
the bureau was examining fresh
evidence related to her use of a private
email server during her tenure as secretary
of state.
.
456
“And he took a dig at Trump's win,” the
Mediaite correspondent added, asking:
“Landslide? I got something like 370
electoral votes,' correctly recalling his 1992
total. "That was a landslide.”
Clinton also said we're living in a new world, a
“post-truth era where facts don't
matter.”
That's an amusing comment coming from the president
who shook his finger at the TV cameras in 1998 and said:
“I did not have sexual relations with that
woman, Miss [Monica] Lewinsky,”
regarding the intern he later had to admit
he did indeed have an intimate relationship
with.
 NYT Post-Election Sour Grapes
By Stephen Lendman
12-20-2016
On Monday, electors confirmed Trump’s November 8
triumph. On January 20, he’ll be sworn in as America’s
45th president, ending Obama’s deplorable tenure - a
record of unaccountable high crimes for eight long
depressing years.
NYT editors won’t end their fury. They continue bashing
Trump relentlessly - likely angry because their one-sided
pro-Hillary press agent services failed.
They lashed out, knowing Trump will succeed Obama,
also upset over twice as many Democrat electors defecting
as GOP ones, along with Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin recounts adding small numbers to his winning
margin in all three states.
Pouting won’t change things. The scheme to delegitimize
his triumph by phony claims of Russian election hacking
fizzled.
Times editors:
“Leaders of groups that were lobbying the
electors had privately believed they had a
chance to sway enough Republican
electors to defect, denying him an Electoral
.
457
College majority and throwing the election
to the House of Representatives.”
Fact: As things turned out, the ill-conceived coup plot
failed. Trump won. Hillary lost. Results won’t change.
Senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway denounced anti-
Trump elements for
“attempting to foment a permanent
opposition that is corrosive to our
constitutional democracy and ignores what
just happened in this election…They’re
trying to deny him what he just earned.”
Times editors:
“Democrats…are unified in their view that
the Trump presidency represents an
existential threat.”
Fact: Who can know? He has no public record. He hasn’t
done anything yet except announce cabinet and other
appointments.
Judge him solely on his actions in office, not on campaign
rhetoric. What politicians do matters, especially heads of
state, not what they say.
 2 Russian Hacks: 10 Times Coverage
For The One Media Use To Bash Trump
By Mike Ciandella
December 20, 2016 | 11:43 AM EST
The broadcast networks treat accusations of Russian
hacking very differently when they can use it as an angle
to bash Trump. When Russian cyber criminals were
accused by intelligence agencies of hacking the emails of
the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John
Podesta, the networks devoted 58 minutes, 47 seconds to
these allegations since December 12.
But, when Russian hackers were accused of hacking into
the White House in 2014, it went largely ignored. Between
the three of them, ABC, CBS and NBC evening news
shows only spent 4 minutes and 51 seconds total on the
White House hack – less than one-tenth as much coverage
as the 2016 hack got in only eight days.
In fact, while NBC Nightly News managed to devote 22
minutes and 9 seconds to the Russian hacking in 2016 –
the most of the three evening shows (ABC: 14 minutes, 34
seconds; CBS: 22 minutes, 4 secs) – that network failed to
even mention the 2014 White House hack until April of
the following year and even then only for 51 seconds – the
least total coverage for any of the three evening shows
(ABC: 78 seconds; CBS: 3 minutes, 23 seconds)
At least part of the reason for this seems apparent: a breach
of White House security in 2014 would have reflected
poorly on President Obama. On the other hand, journalists
can use stories on Russian interference in 2016 to bash
Trump for failing to criticize Putin, or for remaining
skeptical of US intelligence reports.
Some reporters even used this story to imply that Trump
would have never won the 2016 election without Russia’s
help.
458
On December 16’s NBC Nightly News, Senior
Investigative Correspondent Cynthia McFadden reported
that
“Officials tell NBC News that the nation`s
intelligence agencies all agree, seeing
Donald Trump elected became one
of Russia`s motives, along with
undermining confidence in the U.S.
election.”
On World News Tonight on December 12, ABC’s Tom
Llamas seemed surprised that Trump wouldn’t admit that
the Russian government was interfering with American
politics on his behalf.
“The President-elect also disputing reports
the CIA believes Russia's goal was to hurt
Hillary Clinton and help Trump get elected.”
“The Trump transition has been
overshadowed by allegations of Russian
interference in the presidential election,”
CBS Evening News correspondent Errol
Barnett said on December 17. “In a memo
to CIA staff Friday, Director John Brennan
said he, FBI Director James Comey, and
Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper, are all on the same page about
Russian interference and that the intent
was, in part, to boost Trump once he won
the Republican nomination. During the
campaign, Trump was criticized for cozying
up to Russia.”
But the media couldn’t blame the 2014 hack eight months “One theory is that they’re retaliating due to
before he officially declared his candidacy on Trump. U.S. support for economic sanctions
Instead of blaming any American for that cyber-attack, or because of Russia’s suspected role in the
wondering about the competence of the administration’s Ukrainian conflict.”
defense against hacking, network reporters didn’t speculate
about a reason, or, like ABC’s Pierre Thomas, they simply
stated that,

459
 Trump Secures Victory In Electoral College,
As Bid To Flip Electors Flops
Foxnews.Com
Published December 20, 2016
Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote on Monday
and secured his election as the 45th president of the United
States, as the latest – and perhaps last – stop-Trump
movement failed to gain traction in state capitals.
A fervent push by anti-Trump forces to persuade electors
to defect had turned the normally mundane civic procedure
into high drama.
But Trump easily surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed
to win, as representatives tabbed to cast ballots in
accordance with their states’ Nov. 8 decision mostly
adhered to the election results. After all the states had
voted, Trump finished with 304 votes and Clinton had 227.
Texas put Trump over the top, despite two Republican
electors casting protest votes.
California sees spike in gun sales
Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote on Monday
and secured his election as the 45th president of the United
States, as the latest – and perhaps last – stop-Trump
movement failed to gain traction in state capitals.
460
A fervent push by anti-Trump forces to persuade electors
to defect had turned the normally mundane civic procedure
into high drama.
But Trump easily surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed
to win, as representatives tabbed to cast ballots in
accordance with their states’ Nov. 8 decision mostly
adhered to the election results. After all the states had
voted, Trump finished with 304 votes and Clinton had 227.
Texas put Trump over the top, despite two Republican
electors casting protest votes.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence afterward tweeted
"congratulations" to his running mate while saying he was
"honored & humbled" to be officially elected the next vice
president.
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Sharon
Day urged Trump’s detractors to stop fighting his election,
now that his victory is affirmed.
“This historic election is now officially over
and I look forward to President-elect Trump
taking the oath of office in January,” she
said in a statement. “For the good of the
country, Democrats must stop their cynical
attempts to undermine the legitimacy of this
election, which Donald Trump won
decisively in the Electoral College with
more votes than any Republican since
1988.”
Elector antics were few and far between throughout the
day, with most the disruptions occurring on the
Democratic side. A Democratic elector in Maine tried to
vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders, but switched to Clinton after
it was ruled improper. Another who tried to vote for
Sanders in Minnesota was replaced; a Colorado elector
who tried to back Ohio Gov. John Kasich likewise was
replaced. One of the biggest deviations was in Washington
state, where three electors voted for Colin Powell and one
voted for “Faith Spotted Eagle;” the remaining eight went
to Clinton, the state’s winner.
It marked the first time in four decades the state's electors
broke from the popular vote. Washington Secretary of
State Kim Wyman vowed to work with the state attorney
general and charge the four unfaithful electors with a demonstrators gathered at Pennsylvania's Capitol,
violation of Washington state civil law. Such violations chanting,
carry a fine up to $1,000.
"No treason, no Trump!"
With Trump’s win now secured, a joint session of
Congress is scheduled for Jan. 6 to certify the results.

Trump’s clear Electoral College victory could serve to

deter any further last-ditch efforts to effectively nullify his
November win and prevent his inauguration, though the
battle may shift next to his Cabinet picks.

Few expected the “faithless elector” push to imperil

Trump’s victory on Monday.

Only one Republican elector – Texas’ Chris Suprun –

publicly stated he would vote for an alternative candidate.
(He backed Kasich, while another Texas elector used his
ballot to vote for former congressman Ron Paul.) More
than three dozen Republicans would have had to abandon
Trump to complicate his path to the presidency.
But GOP electors still faced immense pressure -- with
some even receiving threats -- from Trump foes in the run-
up to Monday’s Electoral College vote. Those urging
disorder in state capitals often cited Clinton’s popular-vote
win, by roughly 2.6 million votes, over Trump in
November.
Celebrities made public appeals to electors to use the
arcane process to upend Trump’s victory, as some
Democratic electors tried to persuade their Republican
counterparts to defect. Reports that U.S. intelligence
officials determined Russia interfered in the election to
boost Trump – findings disputed by Trump himself – only
fueled efforts to wield the Electoral College vote as a
political circuit-breaker.
Both states, and dozens of others, cast their electoral votes
for Trump anyway.
In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant dismissed attempts to
sway Republican electors.
"This idea … that we want to change the
electors’ minds who have been dedicated
to Donald Trump very early in the process I
think is just misguided,” he said.
If nothing else, the furor over Monday’s proceedings has
served to re-acquaint Americans with a process that few
pay attention to every four years.
The Electoral College was devised at the Constitutional
Convention in 1787. It was a compromise between those
who wanted popular elections for president and those who
wanted no public input.
The Electoral College has 538 members, with the number
allocated to each state based on how many representatives
it has in the House plus one for each senator. The District
of Columbia gets three, despite the fact that the home to
Congress has no vote in Congress.

To be elected president, the winner must get at least half

plus one -- or 270 electoral votes. Most states give all their
electoral votes to whichever candidate wins that state's
popular vote. Maine and Nebraska award them by
congressional district.
Bill Votes For Hillary
After a joint session of Congress certifies the results on
Jan. 6, the next president will be sworn in on Jan. 20.
As electors met, thousands of protesters descended on state
capitals Monday in one last push to convince Trump voters
to change their minds. Trump already is nearly done naming his Cabinet
appointees, as he prepares for confirmation hearings and
the inauguration ceremonies, in addition to his first 100
In Arizona, dozens of protesters gathered outside the
days agenda.
meeting site, marching around the Capitol mall and
carrying signs that said, "Stop Trump." More than 200
461
Despite the transition process being well underway,
Republican electors said they were deluged with emails,
phone calls and letters urging them not to support the
billionaire businessman in the days and weeks leading up
to Monday’s proceedings. Many of the emails were part of
coordinated campaigns.
"The letters are actually quite sad," said
Lee Green, a Republican elector from
North Carolina. "They honestly believe the
propaganda. They believe our nation is
being taken over by a dark and malevolent
force."
Wirt A. Yerger Jr., a Republican elector in Mississippi,
said,
"I have gotten several thousand emails
asking me not to vote for Trump. I threw
them all away."
.
462
Arizona elector Robert Graham told Fox News on Saturday
that the state’s 11 electors received hundreds of thousands
of emails telling them not to vote for Trump and that he’s
received information that some of the other 10 have been
followed or have received a death threat.
“It’s out of hand when you have such … a
small group of people that is pushing so
hard against millions if not hundreds of
millions of people who still appreciate this
whole system,” said Graham, chairman of
the Arizona Republican Party. “The
Electoral College is part of the
Constitution.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 Bozell & Graham Column:
The Double Standard On Election Acceptance
By Brent Bozell And Tim Graham
December 20, 2016 | 11:51 PM EST
Two months ago, the liberal media erupted in horror after
the third presidential debate when Fox’s Chris Wallace
challenged Donald Trump to accept the election results,
and Trump said he would “wait and see.” NBC described a
“flood of condemnation” and cited
President Obama accusing Trump of
“undermining our democracy.’ Today co-
host Savannah Guthrie called it an
“earthquake.”
Guthrie turned to retired anchorman Tom Brokaw to
denounce Trump.
“This is not a banana republic,” he said.
“We’ve got more than 200 years of
presidential elections and graceful and
peaceful transitions to the new
administration, as you saw, even Richard
Nixon, Al Gore, the people who were
caught up in very close races, said, ‘I
accept the new president.’”
Then Trump won the election handily with 306 votes in
the Electoral College, and the Democrats flip-flopped,
sullenly refusing to accept the results, and neither did the
“objective” media. On December 18, there was no
“earthquake” at NBC when Clinton aide John Podesta
refused to say Trump won a “free and fair election,” saying
instead it was rigged by the Russians.
And the ballot errors. And Comey. And the “fake news
epidemic.” And the Constitution (that blasted Electoral
College!) Nobody brought in Tom Brokaw to lecture Team
Hillary about banana-republic behavior.
463
Back in October, The New York Times issued this front-
page alert:
“In a remarkable statement that seemed to
cast doubt on American democracy,
Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that he
might not accept the results of next month’s
election if he felt it was rigged against him -
- a stand that Hillary Clinton blasted as
‘horrifying’ at their final and caustic debate
on Wednesday.”
Two months later, they were eagerly giving oxygen to any
protest, no matter how fanatical, against Trump.
“In Florida, protesters swarmed the Capitol
rotunda, one hoisting a ''Trump Is Too
Rusky'' sign featuring a hammer and sickle.
In Wisconsin's statehouse, a heckler
shouted, '’We're all going to go to war and
die thanks to you.’”
This was somehow democracy in action. There was no
“remarkable” or “horrifying” adjective at the top of the
story. Instead, the Times turned to Adam Jentleson, a top
aide to retiring Sen. Harry Reid, who warned
“There's not going to be a grace period this
time because everybody on our side thinks
he's illegitimate and poses a massive
threat.”
Even the leftist late-night comedians showed the double
standard. CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert mocked
Trump in October:
“Oh, suspense! Democracy's going to end
in a cliffhanger! I guess we're all going to
have to wait until November 9 to find out if
we still have a country. If Donald Trump is
the mood for a peaceful transfer of power
or if he's just going to wipe his fat ass with
the Constitution.”
This was Colbert after the Electoral College voted:
 “Walking around the streets of New York hearty applause. Somehow they weren’t fat dictators using
today, a lot of people, a little rough. You the Constitution as toilet paper.
know, you could see it in their eyes...This is
what it feels like, when America's made The Times insisted
great again.” The crowd laughed. “And I
was really hoping it would feel better
“the uneasiness with Mr. Trump has hardly
because this sucks! Sucks! And I don't
receded in the nearly six weeks since his
know if you guys had any trouble getting in
election.”
here tonight because, right now, tonight,
thousands of people have taken to the
streets in protests in cities all over That is because the press will not stop agitating, and all the
America.” while calling it “news.”

Colbert told his audience to accept President Trump (how That, folks, is also “fake news.”
noble, that), but still the protesters drew screams and
.

464
 A Fitting Finale For The House Of Clinton
By Chris Stirewalt
Published December 20, 2016
On the roster: A fitting finale for the House of Clinton -
Time Out: Secret love in Motown - New ethics cloud for
Trump transition - Trump’s trillion-dollar men - Srsly
bro?
A FITTING FINALE FOR THE HOUSE OF
CLINTON
Looked at one way, Hillary Clinton is something of a
tragicomic figure.
Her blighted presidential political career is hapless even by
comparison to history’s worst candidates. Somewhere,
Hubert Humphrey is feeling a little better about it all.
What more would you need to know about Clinton than
this: her final distinction as a candidate was to having the
most faithless presidential electors ever.
Well, they did tell us that she’d make history…
What takes us from tragedy to farce on this, though, is that
Clinton’s unhappy historical footnote came in an attempt
to hurt Donald Trump.
A handful of Democrats were wedded to the idea of
getting 37 Trump electors to flip, and thereby throw the
contest to the House of Representatives. In the end, Trump
lost two while Clinton lost five.
Woof.
It was amazing, then, that Clinton’s spokesman, Brian
Fallon, had the chutzpah to scold the faithless Clinton
electors referring to their behavior as “some kind of coup.”
One of the backers of the electoral revolt was Fallon’s old
boss, erstwhile Clinton campaign chairman, John “The
465
Phisherman” Podesta. Podesta had argued that electors
should receive a classified national security briefing on the
extent of Russia’s efforts to influence the campaign, an
obvious effort to prejudice them against voting for Trump.
To have a spokesman complaining about unseemly coups
after the gambit failed is a little too rich. After all, Clinton
herself and her top spokespeople had been reinforcing the
message on Russian involvement, seemingly hourly, for
the past two weeks.
In the end, it not only backfired on Clinton, but robbed her
of an opportunity to restore some luster to her name. Many
prominent Democrats spoke out against the Electoral
College shenanigans, urging Democrats to support the
system even when they didn’t support its result.
Clinton passed on the chance to be an advocate for
republican virtues and defender of democratic ideals in
favor of hoping maybe she might be able to shoplift a term
in the White House.
It’s sort of like the Clinton campaign jumping in on the
Wisconsin and Michigan recounts only to actually find
votes for Trump in Wisconsin and then accidentally
expose widespread irregularities in the mostly Democratic
precincts of Detroit.
Sad!
One elector who stayed, ahem, faithful was her own
husband, Bill Clinton, who fulminated to reporters outside
the statehouse in Albany about the unfairness of the whole
campaign.
The former president may have lost a couple of steps since
his heyday, but his gift for a triple bank-shot soundbite was
still intact.
In one paragraph, he managed to falsely claim that his wife
was “vindicated at the end” about her mishandling of state
secrets by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and then
still manage to pin the blame on “the Russians” and “the
FBI deal.”
“She did everything else and still won by
2.8 million votes,” the former president
said, and one can just imagine that bony
 finger when it’s squarely in the face of the
assembled press corps.
But she was not vindicated. And she did not win by “2.8
million votes.” She lost by 77.
All of the excuse making. All of the focus on perceived
slights. All of the hubris. All of the entitlement. All right
there in one Clintonian paragraph.
Whatever history’s eventual verdict on the very eventful
life of the 67th secretary of state, 42nd presidential nominee
of the Democratic Party and 42nd first lady, part of her
story will always be that after an astonishing failure in her
second presidential run, she refused to take responsibility
for her own failings.
While it might be bad for Democrats to not be facing down
the hard truths of their 2016 swan dive, there’s more at
stake here than rebuilding a political party.
Republicans like to laugh at Americans who are anxious
about the dramatic changes taking place at the beginning
of the Trump era. They should, as the song says, “put a
little love in [their] heart.”
It’s fun to laugh at anxious people. It makes one feel
superior, especially in victory, but the number and
magnitude of questions about the stability of our system,
even if overstated, reflect a country unsure of itself and its
future. After decades of a sustained, bipartisan assault on
the institutions that keep America running, lots of people
have given up hope that the system could work.
On Monday, Clinton failed a key test. Had she spoken out
in favor of the integrity of the electoral process and urged
electors to abide by the voters’ wishes, rather than
complaining to her donors about Russia’s mischief aimed
at her, we might have a little more social capital going into
what could be a very tumultuous time.
THE RULEBOOK: LIVING OFF THE LAND
“We may calculate, therefore, that a rich
and fertile country, of an area equal to the
inhabited extent of the United States, will
soon become a national stock.” – James
Madison, Federalist No. 38
TIME OUT: SECRET LOVE IN MOTOWN
New Yorker:
“Motown was headquartered in Detroit, and
so the Motown metaphors are industrial:
the record label was a machine, a factory,
an assembly line fitting songs together, part
466
by part. But the heart of the company was
human, and much of the art it produced
can be traced to the exertions of two
brothers, Brian and Eddie Holland, and
their friend Lamont Dozier. With all due
respect to Smokey Robinson, the Motown
Sound as we know it was created by
Holland-Dozier-Holland…Eddie Holland
used to go around asking women for the
secrets of their relationships—inner
thoughts, hidden hopes, deepest fears. ‘I
always thought that females were the most
interesting subjects,’ he once said. This
goes some way toward explaining why,
although H-D-H wrote for almost every
classic male Motown act, their most riveting
work came with the Supremes, and through
the odd instrument that is Diana Ross’s
voice.”
Flag on the play?
- Email us at HALFTIME REPORT@FOXNEWS.COM
with your tips, comments or questions
NEW ETHICS CLOUD FOR TRUMP TRANSITION
The Hill:
“Donald Trump’s two older sons are
reportedly behind a nonprofit that is selling
access to the president-elect during
inauguration weekend, the Center for
Public Integrity reported Monday. The
Opening Day Foundation offers access to
Trump in exchange for million-dollar
donations to ‘conservation’ charities,
according to the report. Donors to the
‘Opening Day 2017’ event can get a
‘private reception and photo opportunity for
16 guests with President Donald J. Trump,’
a ‘multi-day hunting and/or fishing
excursion for 4 guests with Donald Trump,
Jr. and/or Eric Trump, and team,’ and
tickets to other inauguration
events. According to the Center for Public
Integrity, the foundation was created on
Dec. 14.”
TRUMP’S TRILLION-DOLLAR MEN
WaPo:
“President-elect Donald Trump is
preparing to create an infrastructure ‘task
force’ that will help carry out the ambitious
federal spending program he intends to
undertake upon taking office, according to
 several individuals briefed on his plans.
Key members of Trump’s team — including
his son-in-law Jared Kushner, senior
counselor Stephen K. Bannon, senior
adviser Stephen Miller and Gary Cohn,
whom Trump has tapped to head the
National Economic Council — are all
involved in the discussions, according to
one person familiar with the initiative. The
task force head is ‘not Cabinet level,’ this
individual said, but would play a critical role
in coordinating among federal, state and
local officials as well as private investors as
the new administration prepares to inject
hundreds of billions of dollars into projects
across the country.”
AUDIBLE: OH YEAH? SEZ YOU!
“He doesn’t know much. One thing [Trump]
does know is how to get angry, white men
to vote for him.” – Former President Bill
Clinton talking to his local newspaper the
Hudson Valley of New York.
“[Bill Clinton] ‘doesn’t know much’ …
especially how to get people even with an
unlimited budget out to vote in the swing
states (and more). They focused on wrong
states” – Donald Trump’s tweets in
response.
PLAY-BY-PLAY
Trump dined with Mexican telecom billionaire and NYT
heavyweight Carlos Slim over the weekend - Fox News
Poll: Majority of Americans either pessimistic or uncertain
about Trump’s presidency - WSJ
Trump Education pick was big donor to some of the
Senators in her confirmation hearing - Politico
Gingrich suggests Trump pardon advisers who break the
rules - Politico
Obama announces record wave of pardons, commutations
- Fox News
Obama used Cold War ‘red phone’ to warn Russia against
messing with U.S. election - NBC News
Michelle Obama says she wants to set a good example of
welcoming Trumps to White House - CBS News
Where GOP Senators spent big in 2016? Google -
National Journal
467
Portman campaign director Corry Bliss to head two big
House PACs - Columbus Dispatch
Sen. Corey Gardner, R-Colo., set to introduce bill next
year creating cybersecurity committee - The Hill
FROM THE BLEACHERS
“‘…but every American ought to be
concerned about our enemies playing
gatekeeper to information available to
American voters.’ Very true. Then again, if
hackers are finding information relevant to
the ‘public interest’ when our own media is
disinterested (or worse, covering it up),
what can be done?” – Mark Hoffman, Des
Moines
[Ed. note: Not to be a stickler, Mr. Hoffman, but we want
our press to be disinterested, that is to say, without a
rooting interest for any faction. We do often have a
problem with an uninterested press, however, especially as
it relates to crucial issues. But hacking into private email
accounts is not something we want reporters to start taking
an interest in. There’s a difference between digging for a
story and stealing. The line between legal and illegal is
clear even when journalistic ethics aren’t. Let me be a
contrarian and say I think we are living in something of a
golden age for journalism. No, seriously! There is so much
good work being done by so many journalists right now, it
is astonishing. Unfortunately, much of it gets crowded out
by sensational clickbait and partisan polemists
masquerading as newsmen and newswomen. But, as Agent
Mulder told us: “The truth is out there.” The challenge for
us as citizens and for me as a journalist is to find it. While
many people find Twitter to be primarily a space for
vomiting bile into the internet, I find it to be the greatest
news aggregator I have ever known. Simply by following
the journalists whose work I respect I can make a low-cost
investment of my time to see a broad spectrum of the great
work being done today.]
“As it appears without California the
popular vote in the election would have
been won by Mr. Trump, I wonder what the
view from the other states is on CalExit?” –
Jeff Jones, Fillmore, Calif.
[Ed. note: And if he hadn’t struck out all those times, Babe
Ruth would have had a better batting average. One
supposes that residents of California or New York would
feel the same way that you do about them if there were a
Texit or Florexit. The thing about the Union is that it’s
indivisible, hopefully with liberty and justice for all.]
“Chris, I have never responded to anything
ever posted here. However, and I read and
enjoy your tome every day, the post
 [Monday] was above and beyond brilliant
both with its prose, and its content. The
brilliance exemplified therein has prompted
this response. Thank you for your
continued efforts, and thank you for the
education you provide.” – Mike Myers,
Osprey, Fla.
[Ed. note: Sometimes, when I go for a high-altitude
aerobatics I end up with little more than motion sickness.
Sometimes, it works. I’m glad you though Monday was one
of those times. Thank you for your very kind words.]
“‘Sewing chaos’ I think not. Knitting chaos
perhaps, crocheting chaos more likely, but
sewing chaos, never! Macrame anyone?
Keep up the GREAT work! All the best.” –
Guy Goodwin, Lecanto, Fla.
[Ed. note: Mr. Goodwin, I think you can tell we were
grasping at threads as deadline approached! Thank you
for your kind reproof and readership.]
Share your color commentary: Email us at
HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please
make sure to include your name and hometown.
SRSLY BRO?
WJW: “The father of two 14-year-old
students at Middleburg Heights [Ohio]
.
468
Junior High School says he was angry
when they showed him a photo they
snapped of their algebra lesson from earlier
this month. It reads: ‘Tony can send 5 texts
and 3 nudes in 19 minutes. He could also
send 3 texts and 1 nude in 9 minutes. How
long would it take him to send one text and
one nude?’ …
Superintendent Michael Sheppard says the math teacher,
Daniel Rapp, was issued a written reprimand.
‘He’s a good teacher, and just in this case
used the inappropriate word,’ said
Sheppard.”
Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox
News. Sally Persons contributed to this report. Want FOX
News Halftime Report in you inbox every day? Sign
up here.
Chris Stirewalt joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in July of
2010 and serves as digital politics editor based in
Washington, D.C. Additionally, he authors the daily "Fox
News First" political news note and hosts "Power Play," a
feature video series, on FoxNews.com. Stirewalt makes
frequent appearances on the network, including "The Kelly
File," "Special Report with Bret Baier," and "Fox News
Sunday with Chris Wallace." He also provides expert
political analysis for Fox News coverage of state,
congressional and presidential elections.
 Trump Fires Back At Bill Clinton
Over Election Comments
Foxnews.Com
Published December 20, 2016

Donald Trump fired back at Bill Clinton on Tuesday after

the former president was quoted mocking the incoming
president’s intelligence and blaming FBI Director James
Comey and “angry, white men” for Hillary Clinton’s
defeat.

The comments emerged after an editor at the Bedford-

Pound Ridge Record Review caught an impromptu Q-and-
A with Bill Clinton at a New York bookstore and
published the details in the paper’s print edition. The
editorial did not appear online but the contents were
reported by Politico.

“He doesn’t know much,” Clinton said when

asked if Trump was smart. “One thing he
does know is how to get angry, white men
to vote for him.”

Clinton, though, had placed the blame for Hillary Clinton’s

defeat squarely at the feet of Comey, who announced 11
days before the election that the FBI was reviewing newly
discovered emails for any ties to the investigation of
Hillary Clinton’s secret server. Comey told Congress two
days before the election the FBI didn’t find any new
evidence.

He also said Trump called him the day after the election.

Trump, on Twitter, disputed that detail and tried to turn the

tables on the former president – questioning the Clinton
team’s grasp of what it took to motivate voters in key
swing states.

“They focused on wrong states,” Trump
wrote, in an apparent reference to post-
election reports that detailed how the
Clinton campaign failed to focus their
resources and get-out-the-vote efforts on
key Midwestern states that helped swing
the election to Trump in the end.
Clinton later tweeted back: "Here’s one
thing @realDonaldTrump and I can agree
on — I called him after the election."
“James Comey cost her the election,”
Clinton said during the discussion at the
New York bookstore.
Clinton also said he believed the allegations that Russia
was responsible for a series of pre-election hacks that
revealed embarrassing – and politically damaging – acts by
some prominent Democrats associated with Hillary
Clinton’s campaign.

469
Clinton doubled down Monday as he cast his electoral vote Russians and the FBI deal and she couldn’t
for his wife in Albany, N.Y. prevail against them.”

According to CBS News, he said she battled Trump’s victory was affirmed in the Electoral College on
Monday.
“through that bogus email deal” and
“prevailed” but “at the end we had the
.

470
 Telemundo Solves Riddle Of Latino Trump
Voters Through Actual Journalism
By Jorge Bonilla
December 20, 2016 | 4:02 PM EST
The question hangs heavy over our domestic Spanish-
language news media: "Why Did Hispanics Vote For
Donald Trump?" As the inauguration of the 45th
President of the United States continues to approach, our
two leading networks took widely divergent approaches to
this question.
Univision has chosen to treat the question as if it were an
unsolvable enigma- not unlike a 17-sided Rubik's Cube
delivered straight from the bowels of hell. Anchors and
hosts alike have been utterly confounded as to the reasons
why a vast number of Latinos would reject the network's
messaging (not to mention the network itself). Anchor
Jorge Ramos simply wrote off those Latino Trump voters
as having "forgotten where they came from", rather than
asking tough questions to which one does not know the
(brutal) answer.
.
471
But Telemundo took a different approach. Rather than
speculate as to the motives of Latino Trump voters,
Telemundo found these voters...and spoke to them, and got
some answers. From last Thursday's edition of Noticiero
Telemundo:
ELIZABETH PEREZ, TEXAS TRUMP VOTER: I
called for a vote for Donald Trump because of his plan
to reduce taxes that will favor the creation of more
jobs here in the United States.
VICTOR HUGO RODRIGUEZ, CORRESPONDENT,
TELEMUNDO: She tells us her father lost his job
following the implementation of NAFTA, which
President-elect Donald Trump now wants to end. Like
Elizabeth, many other Hispanics overlooked the
threats of deportation and the construction of a wall,
and trusted in his promises of jobs.
ELIZABETH PEREZ, TEXAS TRUMP VOTER: So
then now, many of those companies can return here
to the United States, because there is going to be a
reduction in taxes.
When the interviewee gave an answer that did not fit with
the network's established convential narratives, she was
not demonized as a race-traitor or as having lost touch with
her roots. Her response was taken at face-value and given
its own weight and consideration.
Imagine that...a journalistic outfit that went into the
field and performed actual journalism in lieu of activism.
 “No Really, The Russians Hacked Us” (VIDEO)
Posted by Rory Hall
Date: December 20, 2016

As a result, the generic fake news meme regarding the

election results has turned into

“the Russians hacked us.”

All this mind you in an utterly complete void of proof.

Where’s the proof? None of Hillary’s supposed
intelligence agencies can produce one shred of evidence
that points to Russian email hacking. Show us the money.
Please. Lost in this entire Orwellian fog of lies is the bare
truth, for all to see.

If the Wikileak emails revealed that the

Hillary and her supporters have vehemently asserted that
“seventeen intelligence agencies” agree with the
assessment that Russia hacked the election. It might be
greater news to the American people to hear that there
actually are seventeen such agencies out there. Perhaps
Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama might explain exactly what
they are beyond the CIA, the FBI, the DIA, the NSA, and
DHS. Personally, I feel less secure knowing that there are
so many additional surveillance services sifting through
everybody’s digital debris trail. – James Kunstler, “Deep
State Blues”
The public voted with its wallet and truthseeking data
reveals that in any election in which the growth in average
household real disposable income is less than 3.1%, the
incumbent party loses the White House. The study goes
back to the 1932 election. Real disposable income growth
was well below 3.1% in 2016 and the Democrats lost the
White House. It’s really as simple as that, for the most
part.
Democratic Party – led by Hillary Clinton – is
profoundly corrupt to the core, what
difference does it make from where the
source of truth, the source of holy light,
appeared?
The truth is the enemy now. Rather than fearing Russia,
the public should be looking for reasons to not live in fear
of the U.S. Government.
The same Orwellian fog has enveloped the gold and silver
markets, especially as the facts apply to the massive
demand for gold in the eastern hemisphere. Mainstream
western financial media has become flooded with highly
misleading and outright fraudulent news stories about the
precious metals markets. In this latest episode of the
Shadow of Truth, we dissect through we pull away the
wizard’s curtain to shed light on the facts:

In addition, enough of the voting public determined that,

with the help of the Wikileak emails, Hillary Clinton could
not be trusted. In fact, the Wikileak oeuvre revealed that
the entire Democratic Party was indefatigably corrupt. At
the root of this corruption is the Clinton Foundation. But
beyond that it was discovered that, among other atrocities,
the DNC conspired to rig the Democratic Primary against
Bernie Sanders and the current DNC Chairman, Donna
Brazile, slipped debate questions to Hillary ahead of the
debates.

The reaction to this by the mainstream media, largely

conduits of pro-Clinton propaganda, the DNC and Hillary
is to blame the Wikileak truth revelations on the Russians.
472
 5 Problems With CIA Claims Of Russian Hacking
Submitted By Claire Bernish Via Thefreethoughtproject.Com
Dec 20, 2016 11:10 AM
When unnamed officials with the CIA recently claimed
Russia hacked the U.S. presidential election, but failed to
provide any evidence, suspicions immediately circulated
that the allegation constituted a fabrication — particularly
as left-leaning corporate media unquestioningly parroted
the story.
This, after the Washington Post first tried — and miserably
failed — to convince the U.S. populace professional
Russian propagandists were running nearly every
alternative and independent media outlet, and had plotted
to smear Hillary Clinton to ensure Donald Trump’s
victory.
In tandem with the ratcheting up of anti-Russia
propaganda by the left political and media establishment
has been the equally laughable war on putative fake news,
because — according to Clintonite Democrats and a
smattering of Republicans — fake news also helped
Trump win.
Of course, the irony in all this is the mainstream media’s
articles on the CIA’s claims and allegations of Russian
meddling are the exact sort of fake news which threatens
to do actual, physical, palpable damage — whether by
crushing dissent or instigating war with the U.S.’ old Cold
War foe.
Fortunately, alternative media — sans
any paychecks from President Putin —
and a few journalists with integrity have
brilliantly torn through the American
propaganda machine to shine the light
of truth on claims of Russian hacking.
One mainstream journalist, Ben Swann — who frequently
breaks ranks with the corporate-approved narratives
proffered by his colleagues — offers a much-needed
Reality Check on the situation.
Swann notes there are five, specific
problems with the CIA claiming Russia
hacked the Democratic National
Committee and Clinton campaign chair
John Podesta’s emails — worsened, he
says, because “most media” isn’t
“actually asking for evidence of these
claims.”
473
The CIA, he explains,
did not formally release a report about
Russia’s hacking
— rather anonymous sources inside the agency allegedly
leaked the “conclusion” to the Washington Post and New
York Times. This is highly problematic for obvious
reasons, not the least of which is the near impossibility of
verification — both of the sources and the information.
According to the Post, who first reported the story,
“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.”
Leaking this supposed information to the corporate press
might indeed represent the easiest way to launch
propaganda without the burden of proof — proof it most
likely lacks.
As Swann explains, this absence of evidence — and that
the sources remained anonymous —
means there “is no one accountable to
provide that proof.”
No politicians or other media outlets have any way to
verify claims printed by the Post and Times.
The third major problem with the Russian hacking story,
Swann reports, is — put simply —
“the CIA lies.”
Indeed, the CIA could be considered notoriously
mendacious, and has made public claims that have been
proven untrue. For one, Swann notes,
“the Senate Intelligence Committee blasted
the CIA in 2014, for an ‘ongoing culture of
misinformation,’ which they said has
undermined the public’s trust in America’s
Intelligence leadership.”
Senator Ron Wyden, quoted by Swann, said at the time,
“That trust has been seriously undermined
by senior officials’ reckless reliance on
secret interpretations of the law and
battered by years of misleading and
deceptive practices” within the CIA.
An easy second example concerns the CIA’s torture
program as exposed in a four-year study by the Senate
which found the agency repeatedly lied about the use of
brutal techniques and more.
Swann’s fourth problem of note surrounds a little-
discussed fact from the Post’s article —
even CIA investigators don’t
unanimously agree on the assessment
Russians hacked those systems.
Reported the Post:
“A senior U.S. official said there were minor
disagreements among intelligence officials
about the agency’s assessment, in part
because some questions remain
unanswered.”
“Well, what does that mean?” Swann asks.
“What are those disagreements? And
without providing that information, how can
we trust these disagreements are actually
minor, since that’s, of course, a relative
term?”
Indeed, considering these CIA ‘officials’ felt the need to
remain anonymous lends credence to the idea the discord
is anything but minor — but we have no way of knowing
for certain.
And that brings us to the fifth problem:
The one person with the most intimate
knowledge about the DNC and Podesta
.
474
files, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange,
has repeatedly asserted the information
was leaked from the inside, not hacked
at all — and certainly not by Russians.
In fact, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig
Murray — a close friend of Assange — recently said “he
has met the person who gave the DNC emails to Assange
and to Wikileaks, and he says it is not the Russians,”
Swann explains.
“I’ve met the person who leaked them, and
they are certainly not Russian and it’s an
insider,” Murray said. “It’s a leak, not a
hack; the two are different things.”
Just because a report sounds official coming from the CIA
does not give it instant viability — and the allegation
Russian agents hacked the system is too shaky to stand on
its own.
Swann concludes,
“So what you need to know is that on top of
all of these questions is one fundamental
issue that everyone is missing: The claim is
that Russia decided to hack the election —
not by altering voting results — but by
making public actual emails from the
Clinton campaign and the DNC.
“Look, I have said this before and I will say
it again: how bizarre is it that the argument
is not that the Russians were trying to
influence the election through lies or
electronic voting; but, rather, the claim — if
you really boil it down — is that the
Russians swayed the election for Donald
Trump by revealing the truth about the
Clinton campaign and the truth about the
DNC.”
 Trump Ally Calls
For Clinton’s Prosecution
Tue Dec 20, 2016 10:20AM

designate Jeff Sessions to gather all

appropriate evidence and submit it to the
grand jury to make the potential decision
about the Clintons’ potential indictment,”
the petition added.

Clinton sent more than 30,000 potentially confidential

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton (File photo by AFP)
Renowned American strategist Roger
Stone has launched a petition, asking
President-elect Donald Trump to
prosecute former secretary of state
Hillary Clinton and her family for
breaching the law.
emails while heading the US State Department. This is
while, she deleted thousands of the emails before turning
over the server.
Before their ultimate face-off on November 8, Trump
accused Clinton of violating federal laws for using a
private email server and using her political links to get
away with the crime.

The long-time ally of Trump said Monday that Clinton’s

crimes in using a private server to exchange sensitive data
between 2009 and 2013 should not go unpunished.

“No way should Hillary Clinton avoid

prosecution #LockHerUp Sign our petition
to the Donald Trump Administration,” Stone
said in a tweet, while introducing
chargehillaryclinton.com, his new website. Political consultant Roger Stone speaks with media after meeting
with US President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower, New York,
December 6, 2016. (Photo by AFP)
The website included a petition addressed to Trump and
his nominee for attorney general Republican Senator Jeff
He repeatedly pledged to prosecute Hillary Clinton in case
Sessions, asking them to also probe Hillary’s husband,
he won, reminding the American public that other US
former president Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea.
officials had faced severe punishments for mishandling
secrets on much smaller scales.
“Either we are a nation of laws or we are a
‘banana republic’ led by criminals,” the
The Republican president-elect even criticized the FBI for
petition said. "After the Watergate scandal,
clearing Clinton of all charges twice.
the mainstream media told us repeatedly
that ‘no person is above the law.’”
He also accused the Clintons’ family foundation of
“It is premature for the Trump accepting foreign donations in exchange for political
administration to decide whether Bill, favors.
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton should be
prosecuted,” it continued. "In truth, the
After winning the vote, however, Trump retracted his
American people do not yet have a full
earlier statements and said Clinton’s defeat was
cataloging of their many crimes."
punishment enough for her and a prosecution was no
“We respectfully urge President-elect longer needed.
Donald Trump and Attorney General
.
475
Krugman: "To Join Trump Administration You Have To Be
A White Nationalist, Conspiracy Theorist"
By Tyler Durden
Dec 20, 2016 10:10 PM

Paul Krugman wants you to know that, in his view, the scheme than an actual plan to boost public
markets are misinterpreting "Trumponomics" and because investment.
he is far smarter than you, the markets, and pretty much
So what we’re really looking at is a
anyone else, it's important to pay attention.
combination of tax cuts and spending
cuts. Overall, this will surely increase
Of course, this shouldn't be terribly surprising as Trump budget deficits.
could literally announce that he found a cure for cancer
and Krugman would immediately take to the New York But the tax cuts will go to the wealthy, who won’t spend
Times to pen an op-ed defending malignancies, and how much of their windfall, while the spending cuts will fall on
its eradication would mark the end of "hope" for mankind. the poor and struggling workers, who will be forced into
sharp cutbacks in spending.
In any event, Krugman posted a short article to his twitter
account this afternoon warning that the markets'
The overall effect on demand is
interpretation of "Trumponomics" is all wrong. While the therefore likely to be negative, not
confused Keynsian would ordinarily praise aggressive positive.
infrastructure plans, like the one proposed by Trump, in
this case he's willing to make an exception and notes that
the plan looks more like a "privatization scheme" than an For proof of his view on "Trumponomics," Krugman
"actual plan to boost public investment." And while provided the following tweet storm, for your reading
Krugman has never before seen a budget deficit that he pleasure, highlighting the "gathering of gold bugs" known
didn't criticize for being too small, Trump's "privatization as Trump's cabinet. Apparently Mnuchin "hangs out" with
scheme" combined with "tax cuts for the rich" suddenly John Paulson so he's guilty by association. Meanwhile,
has him extremely worried about federal debt balances. Mulvaney had the audacity to imply that the Fed's 0%
interest rate policy might result in a weak USD. And
Larry Kudlow, well everyone knows that he is under the
Financial markets seem to have decided perpetual illusion that we're still living in the 1970's.
that the Siberian candidate will pursue
strongly expansionary macroeconomic
policy. Long-term interest rates have risen
sharply; expected inflation is also up,
although not as much.
But are the markets getting this right? I
suspect not: fiscal policy probably won’t
be expansionary as expected (or maybe
at all), and Trump’s economic team is
looking like a gathering of goldbugs,
who will if anything push for deflation.

On the fiscal side, I’m still seeing people talking about a

huge infrastructure push. But there’s no indication that
Republicans in Congress are at all eager to get moving on
this push; their priorities seem to be repealing
Obamacare and tax cuts for the rich, perhaps especially
the estate tax.

And in any case what we know about that

supposed infrastructure push is that it
looks much more like a privatization
476
 He also ignores the reduction in corporate taxes that will
impact 1000's of small businesses around the country and
the expectation that the new administration will slash
regulations which is nothing more than a massive,
conservative form of fiscal stimulus. But lets not allow
facts to get in the way of a good narrative.

Finally, Neeraj Agrawal wins the award for "most

outstanding response" to Krugman's latest rant:

And finally, not satisfied with his almost-insane

allegations, Krugman played the race-card
While Krugman blasts the Trump tax plan as a blatant gift
to rich people he ignores that people of all tax brackets
would get breaks under Trump's plan. Trump Tax Plan:

Current 2016 Tax Brackets:

477
 Bozell, FNC Panel Unload On Media Pushing
‘Ridiculous,’ ‘Twisted’ Electoral College Story
By Curtis Houck
December 20, 2016 | 10:56 PM EST
On the Tuesday edition of the Fox News Channel’s Special
Report, Media Research Center president Brent Bozell and
the show’s “All Star Panel” collaborated for a thorough
trashing of the news media for their “sick, twisted,” and
“ridiculous” narrative that the Electoral College could
stop Donald Trump from becoming president.
Bozell kicked off the festivities near the beginning of a
segment around the 6:47 p.m. Eastern mark with a taped
soundbite blasting the media for pushing “a mythology”
that they’re merely engaging in some “introspection” but
their motives are anything but well-intentioned.
“In fact, what they're really upset about
is they didn't defeat Donald Trump and
now they are working overtime to make
up for that. Hence, giving oxygen to
every single Democratic complaint, no
matter how specious, no matter how
unreasonable, no matter how ridiculous.
This Electoral College debate was a
ridiculous story. It was never a story to
begin with,” Bozell explained.
Host Bret Baier then appeared back live with a few doses
of sarcasm concerning this wild goose chase led by the
media:
Well, the coverage going into it, you
wouldn't think that because there was a lot
of time, a lot of ink, a lot of space given to
this story — the Electoral College vote, the
final, Donald Trump 304. He lost two of the
state's 38 electors in Texas. One voted for
John Kasich. One voted for Ron Paul. But
Hillary Clinton was down five....That was
478
the most faithless electors deserting
someone — they deserted Hillary Clinton
— since 1872.
Conservative syndicated columnist and frequent panelist
Charles Krauthammer admitted that it’s rather
“[p]oetic justice that she should set the
indoor record for the most faithless
electors” after some of her supporters
backed what was actually “a joke from the
beginning.”
As usual, conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham
offered the bluntest take, slamming the media’s pathetic
failures in 2016 and suggested they stop living in their
“sick, twisted fantasy and actually start
reporting on America”:
The media just have to get things right more often than
wrong and last year, we had example after example after
example when they fed their mostly elite consumers bad
information. So I would suggest they stop engaging in this
sick, twisted fantasy and actually start reporting on
America. That would be nice.
Meanwhile, reporter Jonathan Swan represented the media
establishment since he works for The Hill, but even he had
some serious gripes about this “absurd” obsession his
cohorts have had since Election Day that became the very
definition of “insanity.”
“See, I mean, two parts to this. One is
you're an assignment editor in a
newsroom. You have a limited number
of reporters. You have a limited amount
of money. You have to decide what your
reporters cover and at newsrooms all
across the country, they said, you know
what? We are going to chase down the
story of the moon shot scenario
whereby 37 electors flip their votes and
hand the presidency to Hillary Clinton,”
Swan opined.
He then added:
 I mean, that's just insanity....Then there’s
the serious element which is electors are
flipping votes? There — was it 7? Was it 8?
In a close election as Nate Silver pointed
out, that could mean something...It's
something that, you know, as a matter of
democracy we need to discuss, but in this
election, it was absurd.
Prior to moving on, Ingraham chimed in to emphasize that
there was a large “bias element” involved in the media
coverage of the Electoral College seeing as how
“I don't think we would be talking about
the Russians if Hillary won.”
“[T]he public doesn't trust media today.
So, again, they can keep going on this
fanciful quest for the stories that are
never going to happen, but I think over
the last 18 months, we saw them get
issue after issue, major media figures.
We had pollsters saying that Donald
Trump was going to lose and Hillary
Clinton was going to have 400 electoral
votes,” observed Ingraham.
Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from FNC’s
Special Report with Bret Baier on December 20:
FNC’s Special Report
with Bret Baier
December 20, 2016 - 6:47 p.m. Eastern
BRENT BOZELL: There's a mythology that's being
pushed by the press today which is they didn't see the
elections coming, turning out the way they should have
and there's a lot of introspection. In fact, what they're
really upset about is they didn't defeat Donald Trump and
now they are working overtime to make up for that. Hence,
giving oxygen to every single Democratic complaint, no
matter how specious, no matter how unreasonable, no
matter how ridiculous. This Electoral College debate was a
ridiculous story. It was never a story to begin with.
BRET BAIER: Well, the coverage going into it, you
wouldn't think that because there was a lot of time, a lot of
479
ink, a lot of space given to this story — the Electoral
College vote, the final, Donald Trump 304. He lost two of
the state's 38 electors in Texas. One voted for John Kasich.
One voted for Ron Paul. But Hillary Clinton was down
five. One of the four state electors in Hawaii voted for
Bernie Sanders instead of Clinton and four of the state of
Washington's 12 electors broke ranks. Three voted for
Colin Powell, one for Faith Spotted Eagle. That was the
most faithless electors deserting someone — they deserted
Hillary Clinton — since 1872. We're back with the panel.
Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Poetic justice that she
should set the indoor record for the most faithless electors.
Look, it’s been — it was a joke from the beginning. What
we heard in the first sound bite, it is our responsibility to
stop a man who could be a demagogue. He could be a
Manchurian candidate. The fact is that's why you have
elections. That's why you have a year and half of
campaigns. That's why you have one primary after another
and, in the end, you count up the delegates and get a
nominee. In the end, you count up the votes and you get a
winner. That's how it's done. You don't stop them after the
game. After the game, the score is determined. I mean, this
is simple. I think it was just sort of a lull in the transition,
most of the big cabinet slots had been allocated. It was a
sort of a slow news week or two. So why not stuff it in?
And, of course, there was also the motive; anything that
appears to delegitimize or minimize the Trump victory. I
wasn't a fan of Trump, but he won fair and square and it's
over.
(....)
LAURA INGRAHAM: The media just have to get things
right more often than wrong and last year, we had example
after example after example when they fed their mostly
elite consumers bad information. So I would suggest they
stop engaging in this sick, twisted fantasy and actually
start reporting on America. That would be nice.
(....)
JONATHAN SWAN: See, I mean, two parts to this. One is
you're an assignment editor in a newsroom. You have a
limited number of reporters. You have a limited amount of
money. You have to decide what your reporters cover and
at newsrooms all across the country, they said, you know
what? We are going to chase down the story of the moon
shot scenario whereby 37 electors flip their votes and hand
the presidency to Hillary Clinton. I mean, that's just
insanity.
So, there’s that whole element of it. Then there’s the
serious element which is electors are flipping votes? There
— was it 7? Was it 8? In a close election as Nate Silver
pointed out, that could mean something. So, down the
track, this could actually be a serious issue. It's something
480
that, you know, as a matter of democracy we need to
discuss, but in this election, it was absurd.
BAIER: Right, but when it became news that more
electors flipped for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, it
became less a ceremonial hurdle that was crossed. Not the
big thing. It became, well, no big deal.
INGRAHAM: And there’s where and also the bias element
also comes in here. I don't think we would be talking about
the Russians if Hillary won and if Hillary Clinton had won,
you know, a lot of this would go away. They were pressing
Trump to accept the legitimacy of the outcome and they
had to get that — they tried to get that in blood from him.
He didn't kinda give it to them. He said, “we'll see” But,
you know, the public doesn't trust media today. So, again,
they can keep going on this fanciful quest for the stories
that are never going to happen, but I think over the last 18
months, we saw them get issue after issue, major media
figures. We had pollsters saying that Donald Trump was
going to lose and Hillary Clinton was going to have 400
electoral votes. That's what someone told me before I went
on Fox election night and I was like wow, that's a pretty
big victory for Hillary.
 U.S. Economic Confidence Surges To The Highest Level
That Gallup Has Ever Recorded
By Michael Snyder
December 20th, 2016
Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index has never been
higher than it is today. The “Trumphoria” that has gripped
the nation ever since Donald Trump’s miraculous victory
on election night shows no signs of letting up. Tens of
millions of Americans that were deeply troubled by Barack
Obama’s policies over the last eight years are feeling
optimistic about the future for the first time in a very long
time. And it is hard to blame them, because what we have
already seen happen since November 8th is nothing short
of extraordinary. The stock market keeps hitting record
high after record high, the U.S. dollar is now the strongest
that it has been in 14 years, and CEOs are personally
promising Trump that they will bring jobs back to the
United States. These are things worth getting excited
about, and so it makes perfect sense that Gallup’s U.S.
Economic Confidence Index has now risen to the highest
level that Gallup has ever seen…
Americans’ confidence in the economy continues to
gradually strengthen after last month’s post-election surge.
Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index averaged +10
for the week ending Dec. 18, marking another new high in
its nine-year trend.
The latest figure is up slightly from the index’s previous
high of +8 recorded in both of the prior two weeks.
The first positive double-digit index
score since the inception of Gallup Daily
tracking in 2008 reflects a stark change
in Americans’ confidence in the U.S.
economy from the negative views they
expressed in most weeks over the past
nine years.
481
And of course this booming level of confidence is not just
reflected in Gallup’s numbers. As I discussed in a
previous article, the mammoth shift in the results of
CNBC’s All-America Economic Survey after the election
was nothing short of historic…
The CNBC All-America Economic Survey for the fourth
quarter found that the percentage of Americans who
believe the economy will get better in the next year
jumped an unprecedented 17 points to 42 percent,
compared with before the election.
It’s the highest level since President
Barack Obama was first elected in 2008.
The surge was powered by Republicans and independents
reversing their outlooks. Republicans swung from deeply
pessimistic, with just 15 percent saying the economy
would improve in the next year, to strongly optimistic,
with 74 percent believing in an economic upswing.
Optimism among independents doubled but it fell by more
than half for Democrats. Just 16 percent think the
economy will improve.
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at
yet another all-time record high.
That was the 17th record close since election day, and
overall the Dow is up a whopping 8 percent during that
time span.
I don’t think that we have ever seen an extended post-
election stock market rally quite like this one, and the U.S.
dollar is rallying too. On Tuesday, the U.S. dollar was the
strongest that it has been in 14 years…
The dollar hit a fresh 14-year high on Tuesday, boosted by
upbeat comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen
that kept alive market expectations for swifter U.S. interest
rate hikes next year than had been expected.
The greenback climbed broadly but its gains were
strongest against the yen, which slid as much as 1 percent
after the Bank of Japan kept monetary policy unchanged.
But of course not everything is rainbows and unicorns.
Signs of trouble continue to erupt all over the U.S.
economy, and there are many that believe that Trump will
be facing some very serious economic concerns very early
in his presidency.
Just look at what is happening in the auto industry. Unsold
vehicles are piling up at an alarming pace at dealers all
over the nation, and GM just announced that it is going to
temporarily close five factories…
GM has been reacting to its fabulously ballooning
inventory glut by piling incentives on its vehicles. But that
hasn’t worked all that well though it cost a lot of money.
Now it’s time to get serious.
It will temporarily close five assembly plants in January
and lay off over 10,000 employees, spokeswoman Dayna
Hart said today.
And GM is definitely not alone. Back in October, Ford
made a similar announcement…
In October, Ford announced that it would temporarily shut
down production at one of its F-150 assembly plants
(Kansas City), along with production at a plant that
assembles the Escape and the Lincoln MKC (Louisville),
plus two plants in Mexico. It would also lay off about
13,000 workers, 9,000 in the US and 4,000 in Mexico.
Another signal that the economy is slowing down is the
tremendous difficulty that Uber is experiencing right now.
If you can believe it, they just announced that they lost a
staggering 800 million dollars in the third quarter…
482
Uber racked up pro-forma losses of more than $800m in
the third quarter of this year as a price war with rival ride-
hailing service Lyft in the US and heavy spending on new
initiatives weighed on its figures, according to a person
familiar with its recent financial performance, reports The
Financial Times.
The third-quarter figures, first reported by tech news site
The Information, show that Uber still faces steep losses
even after pulling back from China.
I don’t understand how Uber could possibly lose 800
million dollars in three months. Something is definitely
very wrong over there.
Personally, I hope that things go as well as possible during
the Trump administration. If we truly are entering a new
golden era of peace and prosperity, that would be more
than okay with me.
But we should not forget that our economic fundamentals
have continued to deteriorate all throughout the Obama
years, and our nation has been steadily accumulating the
largest mountain of debt the world has ever seen.
Unless there is some sort of unprecedented miracle, there
is no way that this giant bubble that we are in at the
moment is going to end well. So it is definitely good to be
optimistic, but we also need to be realistic about where we
are right now and about the great challenges that we will
soon be facing.
 The Real Saboteurs Of
A Trump Foreign Policy
Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org
Dec 20, 2016 5:30 PM
The never-Trumpers are never going to surrender the
myth that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the
hacking of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John
Podesta and the Democratic National Committee to defeat
Clinton and elect Donald Trump.
Their investment in the myth is just too huge.
For Clinton and her campaign, it is the only way to explain
how they booted away a presidential election even Trump
thought he had lost in November. To the mainstream
media, this is the smoking gun in their Acela Corridor
conspiracy to delegitimize Trump’s presidency.
Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sees
Russian hacking as a way to put a cloud over the
administration before it begins. But it is the uber-hawks
hereabouts who are after the really big game.
They seek to demonize Putin as the saboteur of
democracy — someone who corrupted an American
presidential election to bring about victory for a “useful
idiot” whom Clinton called Putin’s “puppet.”
If the War Party can convert this “fake story” into the real
story of 2016, then they can scuttle any Trump effort to
attain the rapprochement with Russia that Trump promised
to try to achieve.
If they can stigmatize Trump as “Putin’s
president” and Putin as America’s
implacable enemy, then the
Russophobes are back in business.
Nor is the War Party disguising its goal.
Over the weekend, Sen. John McCain called for a
congressional select committee to investigate Russian
hacking into the Clinton campaign.
The purpose of the investigations, said
Sen. Lindsey Graham, “is to put on
President Trump’s desk crippling
sanctions against Russia.”
“They need to pay a price,” Graham chortled on Twitter.
483
“Crippling sanctions” would abort any modus vivendi,
any deal with Russia, before Trump could negotiate one.
Trump would have to refuse to impose them — and face
the firestorm to follow. The War Party is out to dynamite
any detente with Russia before it begins.
Among the reasons Trump won is that he promised to end
U.S. involvement in the costly, bloody and interminable
wars in the Middle East the Bushites and President Barack
Obama brought us — and the neocons relish — and to
reach a new understanding with Russia and Putin.
But to some in Washington, beating up on Russia is a
conditioned reflex dating to the Cold War. For others in
the media and the front groups called think tanks,
Russophobia is in their DNA.
Though Julian Assange says WikiLeaks did not get the
emails from Russia, this has to be investigated. Did Russia
hack the DNC’s email system and John Podesta’s email
account? Did Putin direct that the emails be provided to
WikiLeaks to disrupt democracy or defeat Clinton?
Clinton says Putin has had it in for her because he believes
she was behind the anti-Putin demonstrations in Moscow
in 2011.
But if there is to be an investigation of
clandestine interference in the politics
and elections of foreign nations, let’s
get it all out onto the table.
The CIA director and his deputies should be made to
testify under oath, not only as to what they know about
Russia’s role in the WikiLeaks email dumps but also about
who inside the agency is behind the leaks to The
Washington Post designed to put a cloud over the Trump
presidency before it begins.
Agents and operatives of the CIA should
be subjected to lie detector tests to
learn who is leaking to the anti-Trump
press.
Before any congressional investigation, President-elect
Trump should call in his new director of the CIA, Rep.
Mike Pompeo, and tell him to run down and remove, for
criminal misconduct, any CIA agents or operatives leaking
secrets to discredit his election.
Putin, after all, is not an American. The CIA saboteurs of
the Trump presidency are. Will the media investigate the
leakers? Not likely, for they are the beneficiaries of the
leaks and co-conspirators of the leakers.
The top officials of the CIA and Carl
Gershman, president of the National
Endowment for Democracy, should be
called to testify under oath. Were they
behind anti-Putin demonstrations during
the Russian elections of 2011?
Did the CIA or NED have a role in the
“color-coded” revolutions to dump over pro-
Russian governments in Moscow’s “near
abroad”?
If Russia did intrude in our election, was it
payback for our intrusions to bring about
regime change in its neighborhood?
What role did the CIA, the NED and John
McCain play in the overthrow of the
.
484
democratically elected government of
Ukraine in 2014?
McCain was seen cheering on the crowds in Independence
Square in Kiev.
Trump has promised a more hopeful foreign policy than
that of the Republicans he denounced and is succeeding.
No more wars where vital interests are not imperiled. No
more U.S. troops arriving as first responders for
freeloading allies.
The real saboteurs of his new foreign policy may not be
inside the Ring Road in Moscow; rather, they may be
inside the Beltway around D.C.
The real danger may be that a new
Trump foreign policy could be hijacked
or scuttled by anti-Trump Republicans,
not only on Capitol Hill but inside the
executive branch itself.
 As The Coup Against Trump Fails,
The Threat Against His Life Rises
Paul Craig Roberts
December 20, 2016
The use of the presstitute media to deny Trump the
Republican presidential nomination failed.
The use of the presstitute media to deny Trump victory in
the presidential election failed.
The vote recount failed.
The effort to sway the Electoral College failed.
But the effort continues.
The CIA report on Russia’s alleged interference in the US
presidential election ordered by Obama is in process.
Faked evidence is a hallmark of CIA operations.
In their determination to seal Trump’s ears against
environmental concerns, a group of environmentalists plan
to disrupt the inauguration. This in itself is of little
consequence, but chaos presents opportunity for
assassination.
Trump himself seems to think he is in danger. According
to MSNBC, Trump intends to supplement his Secret
Service protection with private security. As there is
evidence of CIA complicity in the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy (film shows Secret Service
agents ordered away from JFK’s limo immediately prior to
his assassination), Trump, who is clearly seen as a threat
by the military/security complex, is not being paranoid.
MSNBC implies that Trump’s private security is to
suppress protesters, as if government security forces have
shown any compunction about suppressing protesters.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/will-trump-
use-private-security-as-president-837040707540
485
This provides an indication of the threat that the CIA sees
in Trump:
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/donald-trump-will-
ruthlessly-decimate-cia-turning-against-him/ri18205
Global Research’s Michel Chossudovsky has explained
that Trump’s peaceful approach to Russia aligns him with
oligarchs, whose wealth benefits from business deals with
Russia, and puts Trump at odds with the military/security
oligarchs, who benefit from the one trillion dollar annual
military/security budget. The latter group have been in
control since President Eisenhower warned us about them
and can muster deep state forces against a Trump
presidency.
To take on a group like this requires a tough SOB.
Anything less than Trump wouldn’t have a chance. Indeed,
if Douglas Valentine’s just published book, The CIA As
Organized Crime (Clarity Press, 2017) is even half true,
Trump’s life is certainly at risk.
Donald Trump is clearly no saint. Given what we are up
against—dangerous tensions between nuclear powers and
the military/security complex’s stake in these tensions—a
saint is not what the situation calls for.
The military/security complex has been entrenched since
NATO’s formation on April 4, 1949, a provocation that
preceded by six years the formation of the Warsaw Pact on
May 14, 1955. Any president willing to confront this
entrenched deep state superpower deserves the support of
all of us.
 FBI Warrant For Clinton Emails Released
As Democrats Slam Decision:
“I Am Appalled”
By Tyler Durden
Dec 21, 2016 5:35 AM
Since November 8th, disaffected Democrats have tried and
failed repeatedly to undo the 2016 Presidential election.
First their was the failed recount effort launched by Jill
Stein, an obvious front for the Clinton campaign, in
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Embarrassingly,
that effort actually resulted in a wider margin of victory
for Trump but not before Stein wasted $7 million raised
from devastated Hillary supporters.
Then there was the coordinated efforts of the White House,
other prominent democrats and the mainstream media to
turn the Electoral College against Trump, because Russia.
Ironically, that effort too resulted in a
wider margin of victory for Trump as
only 2 electors refused to vote for him while
5 electors abandoned Hillary.
Anyone else noticing a theme here?
Now, with the Electoral College vote done
and no other options left, the angry,
demoralized Dems have turned their
fury toward the FBI with allegations that
the warrant issued for Anthony Weiner's
computer did not "give rise to probable
cause" which must therefore imply some
nefarious collusion between James Comey,
Trump and Putin.
Per Bloomberg, attorney Randol Schoenberg sued for the
warrant to be released and has since expressed that he is
"appalled" by its contents which failed to present
"probable cause."
Schoenberg said he sought the documents because he
couldn’t figure out why a judge found there was probable
cause that a crime was committed, given that the FBI had
already concluded its investigation of Clinton’s e-mails
and not charged her.
486
"I see nothing at all in the search-
warrant application that would give rise
to probable cause," attorney Randol
Schoenberg, who sued on Dec. 12 for the
release, said in an e-mail after reviewing
the documents.
A judge is required to find probable cause that a crime may
have been committed before issuing a warrant.
"I am appalled," he added.
We assume Schoenberg simply missed the following two
paragraphs which point out that FBI agents, without
reviewing contents, happened upon
"thousands of emails" sent to/from
Huma Abedin using State Department
email addresses around the same time
they know that classified information
was sent out over unclassified systems.
If that's not enough, perhaps Mr. Schoenberg could
comment on whether the following Reddit thread from
Hillary's IT guy "would give rise to probable cause" (see
"Dear FBI, This Is Intent: Hillary's "Oh Shit" Guy
Sought Reddit Advice On How To 'Strip VIP's
Emails'").
Combetta started the thread on July 24,
2014 with the following question seeking
technical advice on how to "strip out a
VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a
bunch of archived email[s]." "Ironically,"
the day before the Reddit thread
appeared, the Benghazi Committee
reached an agreement with the State
Department on the production of email
and other records related to their
investigation.
 But sure, Mr. Schoenberg, we'll take your word for it. No classified information, just happen to show up on the
reason at all for alarm when "thousands of emails" from computer of a man under active investigation for
State Department addresses, which could contain sensitive, pedophilia.

487
 Final Tally Shows Trump Lost Popular Vote By 2.8 Million
– But He BEAT Clinton By 3 Million Votes Outside Of
California And New York
 Clinton Won California By 4.2 Million Votes And New York By 1.6 Million, Running Up The Score In
Places Where She Would Have Won No Matter What
 Outside Of Those Two Liberal States, Trump Was 3 Million Votes Ahead
 California Alone Accounted For More Than Clinton's National Popular-Vote Edge
 Newt Gingrich Mocked: 'This Is Football Season. A Team Can Have More Yards And Lose The
Game. What Matters Is How Many Points You Put On The Board'
By David Martosko, US Political Editor For Dailymail.Com
Published: 09:01 EST, 21 December 2016 | Updated: 14:17 EST, 21 December 2016

Final vote tallies from the November 8 election show that

Democrat Hillary Clinton out-polled President-elect
Donald Trump by 2.8 million votes while losing the
contest by a wide margin in the all-important Electoral
College.

Her upper hand with voters, however, came down to

performances in New York and California that were far
stronger than necessary.

Clinton won California by 4.2 million and took New York

by more than 1.6 million. The combined 5.8 million-vote
advantage in just those two states was more than twice the
size of her overall edge nationwide.
SMALL COMFORT: Hillary Clinton collected more
When the dust settled, she lost the rest of the country by 3 votes than Trump but did it by running up the score in
million votes. California and New York, two very liberal states that were
virtually guaranteed to her

Trump tweeted, deleted and replaced a message

Wednesday morning suggesting that the Electoral College
system presents more difficult challenges than an election
that relies only on raw vote totals.

'Campaigning for votes under the Electoral

College system is much more difficult, and
different, than the popular vote,' he wrote
on Twitter at first.

That message disappeared almost immediately, and Trump

replaced it 20 minutes later with a more aggressive tweet
including a direct shot at Clinton.
BIG WIN: Donald Trump won the presidency with broad
support of a majority of states in the all-important 'Campaigning to win the Electoral College
Electoral College that actually selects America's president is much more difficult & sophisticated than
and vice president the popular vote. Hillary focused on the

488
 wrong states!' he wrote in the replacement
tweet.
Trump wrote in a followup message that
'I would have done even better in the
election, if that is possible, if the winner
was based on popular vote - but would
campaign differently.'
Then he added:
'I have not heard any of the pundits or
commentators discussing the fact that I
spent FAR LESS MONEY on the win than
Hillary on the loss!'
SORE LOSERS: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
on Wednesday morning blasted liberals who insist Trump's
victory is illegitimate because more Americans voted for
Clinton
.
489
BEFORE AND AFTER: Trump tweeted (top), deleted
and then replaced (bottom) a message about raw vote totals
and the Electoral College on Wednesday morning
Trump ended Election Night controlling 306 votes in the
Electoral College, a number that slipped to 304 when
presidential electors cast their ballots on Monday. Clinton
had 232, but lost five turncoats for a total of 227.
Clinton would still have won California's 55 electoral
votes if her margin there had been far smaller. The same is
true of New York's 29 electoral votes.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday
morning blasted liberals who insist Trump's victory is
illegitimate because more Americans voted for Clinton.
'This is football season. A team can have
more yards and lose the game. What
matters is how many points you put on the
board. The Electoral College is the points,'
he said on 'Fox & Friends.'
'Trump actually carried – in the 49 states
outside of California, he had a 1.2 million
vote majority. He got killed in California
because he never campaigned there,'
Gingrich said.
'The Democrats had two people running for
the U.S. Senate the way California law
works, no Republican running for the U.S.
Senate. So we got beaten in the biggest
state. It didn't matter. That's not how you
pick the presidency. Trump's now going to
be president. She's not going to be
president. That's called winning the game.'
He said some Democrats are
'not going to get used to the idea' of a
President Trump 'because he is, from their
standpoint, horrifying. ... They live in a
delusional world. That's why they lost the
election: They decided to stay with the
delusion.'
 Clinton Donors Want To Investigate How Hillary Spent
$1.5 Billion In Campaign Donations
By Martin Armstrong
Posted Dec 21, 2016
Clinton’s fallout is interestingly causing an internal
revolution among Hillary’s big donors. At her New York
bash to “thank” her big donors of $1 million or more, she
took no blame and pointed the finger at Comey and Putin.
Her spin did not work and she has lost a lot of credibility
according to confidential sources. They were smart enough
to realize that even if Russia “hacked” the DNC and
Podesta emails, there would be no release if there had been
no wrongdoing to begin with.
Now Clinton’s biggest backers want a “campaign
autopsy,” which could expose Clinton’s entire operation.
The donors are demanding to know where Clinton spent
the near $1.5 billion in campaign resources she collected in
the closing months. They want the receipts. They are
demanding an honest investigation of how Clinton failed
to read the mood in swing states and how her Brooklyn
operation misread polling data.
490
The donors are not buying the Russian hack story. Putin
isn’t the only explanation for her failure and they are now
pointing the finger at Hillary. She never bothered to go to
Wisconsin. The story running behind the curtain is
that fundraisers are cutting off all donations to the
Democratic Party until this honest review is carried out.
They do not want to hear about Comey and Putin.
Foreign governments have been cutting off funds to the
Clinton Foundation. At last, the money is being cut
off. Bill Clinton has lost it, mocking President-elect
Donald Trump’s intelligence. “[Trump] doesn’t know
much,” Bill Clinton said of Trump. “One thing he does
know is how to get angry, white men to vote for him.” Bill
is keeping it racist and gender oriented. Obviously, Bill is
lashing out because the Clinton money machine came to a
screeching halt.
 Neocon Civil Servants Quitting
En Masse Ahead Of The Trumpening
Many Mid-Level Bureaucrats Are Abandoning Ship Ahead Of Donald
Trump's Inauguration In Disagreement With Him And The Next National
Security Advisor Mike Flynn Over Policy
Philip Mollaret
Wed, Dec 21, 2016

The White House is struggling to prevent a crippling

exodus of foreign policy staffers eager to leave before the
arrival of the Trump administration, according to current
and former officials.

The top level officials in the National Security Council

(NSC) are political appointees who have to submit
resignations and leave in a normal transition. The rest of
the 400 NSC staff are career civil servants on secondment
from other departments. An unusual number of these more
junior officials are now looking to depart.

In a related story, democrats in congress are trying to

protect establishment bureaucrats in the US State
Department from getting canned by Trump. They sent a
letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking that he not
reveal names of state department officials who worked on
foreign policies at odds with Trump's.

Although the mainstream media may be saying the sky is

Apparently the established policy bureaucracy in falling due to this departure of seasoned personnel, in
Washington is getting the shivers at The Donald's reality, Trump's team neither wants nor needs these
approach. careerist hacks in their positions.

The Guardian reports that many career staffers of the They have led US foreign policy down a disastrous road
National Security Council are quitting their jobs and for decades. Let them retire to academia or think tanks,
looking for other work, believing they have no future and be replaced by fresh people with a different
under Gen. Michael Flynn's tenure: understanding of what is in America's interest.

Good riddance!
.

491
 Resisting The Mind Games Of
Donald Trump And The One Percent
By Roy Eidelson
December 22, 2016
Smooth-talking con artists are familiar figures in American
folklore. The well-dressed hustler arrives in an
unsuspecting town. He pitches some miracle cure or get-
rich-quick scheme, door-to-door or from atop a soapbox.
Then before his customers realize they’ve been duped, he
steals away in search of his next mark. It’s a risky
vocation, one that demands quick feet, a keen
understanding of human nature, and a talent for telling
stories that both arouse and reassure.
But when it comes to profiting off people’s hopes and
fears, by far the most successful purveyors of lucrative lies
and false promises are some of the denizens of this
country’s palatial estates, corporate boardrooms, and
corridors of political power. And unlike their small-time
counterparts, they’re never on the run — despite the
misery they leave in their wake. Enter Donald J. Trump,
soon to be the 45th President of the United States.
In a country beset by extreme and distressing inequality,
America’s premier hustler sold the electorate a wagonload
of beguiling and deceptive tales about what’s gone wrong,
who’s to blame, and how he’ll make things better. He
persuaded not through rational argument, analysis, and
truth-telling, but rather by manipulating our imperfect
reasoning and our unreasoning emotions. Although this
playbook has been around for a long time, Americans have
never witnessed this level of mastery before. Trump’s
unanticipated success dramatically illustrates the
importance of understanding the “mind games” that
allowed him to win, despite breaking almost every rule of
evidence, logic, and propriety.
492
In my research as a psychologist, I’ve found that the
psychological appeals used by those eager to maintain or
extend their extraordinary wealth and power tend to target
five key concerns in our daily lives: issues of vulnerability,
injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. Each is a
fundamental lens through which individuals and groups
make sense of the world, evaluate their circumstances, and
decide what actions, if any, to take. Each is also linked to a
basic question we ask ourselves every day: Are we safe?
Are we treated fairly? Who should we trust? Are we good
enough? Can we control what happens to us?
Let’s consider several examples of how Trump targeted
these concerns in charting his path to the White House.
Vulnerability: Are We Safe?
When our security is in jeopardy, nothing else matters as
much. The mere prospect of danger on the horizon can
quickly consume all of our energy and focus. That’s why
ensuring the safety of people we care about is such a
powerful factor in determining the policies we support and
oppose. Unfortunately, however, we’re not particularly
good at accurately judging peril. As a result, we’re
susceptible to manipulation by those who misrepresent
dangers in order to advance their own agenda.
On the campaign trail, Trump consistently fed our worries
about vulnerability. Describing himself as “the law and
order candidate,” he warned that “our very way of life”
was at risk, and assured us that only he could protect us
from a wide range of purportedly catastrophic threats.
Promising to build a “great wall” along our border with
Mexico, he falsely claimed, “They’re bringing drugs.
They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” With similar
over-the-top rhetoric, he railed against bringing Syrian
refugees to the U.S. as “a personal invitation to ISIS
members to come live here and try to destroy our country
from within.” Trump also exploited fears in a different
way: by issuing disturbing threats of his own. For example,
responding to a protester at a rally, he told the crowd,
“You know what they used to do to a guy like that in a
place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”
He also had a warning for media representatives who
criticized him: “We’re going to open up libel laws, and
we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got
sued before.”
Injustice: Are We Treated Fairly?
From everyday slights to profound abuses, the recognition
of injustice can be a powerful force for change. When
we’re aware of mistreatment, it often stirs outrage and a
desire to correct wrongs and bring accountability to those
we hold responsible. But our perceptions of injustice are
imperfect and uncertain. This fallibility can make us easy
targets for those with a self-serving interest in shaping our
views of right and wrong and misleading us about victims
and perpetrators.
Throughout his campaign for the White House, Trump
portrayed his candidacy and platform as an effort to
address wrongdoing on multiple fronts. When announcing
his run, he lamented, “The U.S. has become a dumping
ground for everybody else’s problems.” Months later in his
acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention,
he feigned common cause with “the forgotten men and
women of our country,” promising “to fix the system so it
works justly for each and every American.” At the same
time, Trump was quick to cast himself as an aggrieved
victim of injustice as well. For example, prior to his
victory he repeatedly claimed that the election was rigged
against him (“They even want to try to rig the election at
the polling booths…voter fraud is very, very common.”).
And on several occasions he insisted that he was being
mistreated by the media (“I get very, very unfair press
having to do with women and many other things.”).
Distrust: Who Should We Trust?
We tend to divide the world into people and groups we
deem trustworthy and others we don’t. Unfortunately, the
judgments we make can be flawed and imprecise.
Sometimes these errors create unwarranted barriers of
distrust that interfere with the building of coalitions and
working together toward mutually beneficial goals. Those
who have a vested interest in preventing such collaborative
efforts often manipulate our suspicions in order to promote
their own agenda.
Trump routinely characterized his political opponents as
untrustworthy. For example, he referred to Ted Cruz as
“Lyin’ Ted” and to Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary.”
He also cast doubt on the integrity of his media critics,
arguing, “They are horrible human beings, they are
dishonest. I’ve seen these so-called journalists flat-out lie.”
Trump encouraged the public’s distrust of specific
marginalized groups as well. He described the Black Lives
Matter movement as “looking for trouble,” and placed
American Muslims under a cloud of suspicion, expressing
potential support for special identification cards and a
registry database. Meanwhile, Trump presented himself as
the only reliable truth-teller, one who shunned the
deceptions of political correctness. When he accepted the
Republican nomination in July, he told the attendees,
“Here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will
493
honor the American people with the truth, and nothing
else.”
Superiority: Are We Good Enough?
The positive and negative judgments we form about
ourselves are often based on comparisons with others. The
yardstick can be nearly anything: for example, our
intelligence, attractiveness, professional success,
community stature, or moral values. To reinforce our
positive self-appraisals, we sometimes focus attention on
the very worst characteristics of other people or groups.
Not surprisingly, our self-evaluations are prime targets for
manipulative appeals by those eager to turn our hopes and
insecurities to their own advantage.
With his “Make America Great Again” campaign Trump
aimed to instill a sense of pride and superiority in his
supporters. In part, he lifted them up by viciously belittling
his adversaries, describing them as “disgusting,” “total
failures,” “idiots,” and “losers.” Likewise, he claimed that
current leaders had failed the American people and the
U.S. flag that proudly represents “equality, hope, and
fairness…great courage and sacrifice.” For example,
Trump complained that Americans “have lived through
one international humiliation after another” and that
“everyone is eating our lunch.” At the same time, he
presented himself as a savior who would make sure the
country and its citizens regained the stature they had lost.
He claimed that his own accomplishments surpassed those
of everyone else, boasting in one interview, “I’m the most
successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far.”
Trump also repeatedly insisted that his name — and
everything he does — is synonymous with top quality, on
one occasion explaining, “Nobody can build a wall like
me.”
Helplessness: Can We Control What Happens to Us?
Control over what happens in our lives is very important to
us, and we therefore resist feelings of helplessness. But if
we nonetheless come to believe that our efforts are futile,
eventually we stop trying. This is true for individuals and
groups alike. That’s why a sense of collective helplessness
is such a serious obstacle to effective political
mobilization. Manipulating our perceptions of what’s
possible and what’s not is a common strategy for those
seeking to advance their own interests.
Throughout his campaign, Trump extolled his capability,
his expertise, and his doggedness regardless of the odds
against him. He told one interviewer, “My life has been
about winning.” In his acceptance speech he denounced
“the system” and claimed, “I alone can fix it”; he
concluded with “I’m with you, and I will fight for you, and
I will win for you.” Memorably, he also told a crowd in
Washington, “We will have so much winning if I get
elected that you may get bored with winning.” Trump
contrasted this purported track record of consistent success
with the helplessness Americans would experience if his
opponents prevailed. He warned of “uncontrolled
immigration,” “mass lawlessness,” and
“overwhelm[ed]…schools and hospitals;” and he described
prospects for immigrants to join the middle class as
“almost impossible.” On Twitter, Trump claimed, “Crime
is out of control, and rapidly getting worse.” And he
cautioned that efforts aimed at reforming gun laws would
make Americans helpless to protect themselves: “You take
the guns away from the good people, and the bad ones are
going to have target practice.”
From Bad to Worse
To be clear, it certainly makes sense that our core concerns
— about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and
helplessness — should be front-and-center when it comes
to thoughtful deliberations about matters of public policy
and the common good. Meaningful, far-reaching
progressive change requires nothing less. But it’s
profoundly destructive — and deeply immoral — when
these concerns are instead exploited in a manipulative and
disingenuous manner to advance narrow interests that
bring harm and suffering to so many. That’s the legacy of
Trump’s successful presidential campaign. It’s also a
disturbing preview of what we should expect from him and
his administration going forward.
At the same time, we shouldn’t mistake Trump’s targeting
of these concerns as unique. Indeed, back when he was
known as just an ethically impaired real estate mogul and
entertainer, other plutocracy-enabling leaders in both
major parties were relying on similar psychological mind
games: to block climate change initiatives (Senator James
Inhofe in 2003: “Could it be that manmade global warming
is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American
people? It sure sounds like it.”); to justify voter
suppression tactics (Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2006:
“In Texas, an epidemic of voter fraud is harming the
electoral process.”); to defend discriminatory law
enforcement practices (former New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg on stop-and-frisk in 2014: “Every
American has a right to walk down the street without
getting mugged or killed.”); to oppose wage hikes (New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2012: “Here’s what’s
going to happen — they’re going to have to lay people
off.”); to preserve healthcare as a profiteer’s paradise
(Senator Rand Paul on healthcare as a right in 2011: “I’m a
physician. That means you have a right to come to my
house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery.”);
to protect tax breaks for the super-rich (U.S. House
Committee on Ways and Means, on the estate tax in 2015:
“The death tax is unfair and in conflict with the American
Dream”); to turn public education over to greedy
privatizers (former Obama Education Secretary Arne
Duncan on the 2010 premiere of a pro-charter school, anti-
teachers’ union film: a “Rosa Parks moment”); and to
galvanize support for deadly wars of choice (President
494
George W. Bush in 2002: “Facing clear evidence of peril,
we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun —
that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”).
Those are just a handful of examples.
In some ways, then, Trump’s move to Washington will
simply reinvigorate a well-entrenched predatory agenda
that already enriches the few at the expense of everyone
else. But there’s also something that clearly makes him
qualitatively worse than many other prevaricating one-
percenters: he brings to the White House a toxic brew of
bigotry, belligerence, and brutality. This has obvious and
far-reaching significance. It means that those who are now
disadvantaged — especially people of color and other
marginalized groups — will face even tougher times ahead
as scapegoating and misdirected hostility intensify.
But Resistance Isn’t Futile
There are avenues for withstanding and rebuffing the
coming onslaught. The mind games used by Trump and
others like him are primarily designed to mislead, to
confuse, and, most importantly, to suppress broad
opposition to extreme inequality and the withering of
democracy. That’s why their worst nightmare is the
formation of strong coalitions that bridge stubborn
cultural, racial, religious, gender, and class divides.
Building and nurturing these coalitions must therefore be a
top priority. It’s an endeavor that will require unwavering
support for those most immediately at risk and,
simultaneously, a clear recognition of what we share in
common: voices that have grown weaker, opportunities
that have grown scarcer, and children whose futures have
grown dimmer. In short, organized and unrelenting
resistance will be a key element in obstructing the new
administration’s calamitous ambitions.
It will be equally important to directly counter and debunk
the President-Elect’s continuing barrage of duplicitous
psychological appeals. During the election campaign, this
effort proved inadequate. In part that’s because there was a
widespread failure to fully appreciate the extent to which
Trump’s false claims and assurances rang true for millions
of disgruntled voters eager for change. Just as
problematically, his final opponent was ill-suited to
persuasively offer a compelling alternative narrative, one
that would energize an electorate yearning for a candidate
who’d take their fears, doubts, frustrations, and hopes
seriously.
The 2016 election is over. Now it’s time to work together
to make sure that Donald Trump’s hollow tales lose their
luster and his self-aggrandizing motives are laid bare for
all to see. In the weeks and months ahead, Americans of all
stripes must come to realize that, through artifice and
manipulation, super-sized hucksters have fleeced and
betrayed the country and the people that made their
staggering wealth and power possible.
 Trump’s Economic Plan Is A
Betrayal Of The People Who Voted For Him
By Mike Whitney
December 22, 2016
Trump’s economic plan has sent stocks ripping higher for
six weeks straight. But what’s going to happen to stock
prices when Congress gives Trump’s plan a big thumbs
down? Has anyone thought about that yet?
And what about the Fed? Does anyone seriously think that
Fed chairman Janet Yellen is going to sit on her hands
while Trump launches a $1 trillion fiscal stimulus package
that triggers a sudden burst of growth followed by a sharp
uptick in inflation?
No, Yellen’s not going to sit on her hands. She’s going to
raise rates to prevent the economy from overheating which
is going to throw cold water on Trump’s pro-growth
government-spending plan.
So why has the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)
climbed more than 1,600 points and gained nearly 10%
(“the biggest post-election rally on record”) when Trump’s
plan is either going to be derailed by the Fed’s higher
interest rates or blocked by the obstructionist Congress? It
doesn’t make any sense, does it? And if the plan doesn’t
survive in its current form, then stocks are going to retrace
all the gains they’ve made in the last month and a half.
That’s roughly 1,700 points erased in the blink of an eye.
Bottom line: Trump’s Santa Rally could turn into a stock
market bloodbath unless he’s able to deliver on his
promises, which doesn’t look very likely. Check this out
from Bloomberg:
“President-elect Donald Trump’s race to
enact the biggest tax cuts since the 1980s
went under a caution flag Monday as
495
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
warned he considers current levels of U.S.
debt “dangerous” and said he wants any
tax overhaul to avoid adding to the deficit.
“I think this level of national debt is
dangerous and unacceptable,” McConnell
said, adding he hopes Congress doesn’t
lose sight of that when it acts next year.
“My preference on tax reform is that it be
revenue neutral,” he said…
The Committee for a Responsible Federal
Budget, a nonpartisan think tank, has
projected that Trump’s plans would
increase the debt by $5.3 trillion over a
decade, with deficits already over $600
billion a year and rising on autopilot…
What I hope we will clearly avoid, and I’m
confident we will, is a trillion-dollar
stimulus,” he said. “Take you back to 2009.
We borrowed $1 trillion and nobody could
find that it did much of anything. So we
need to do this carefully and correctly and
the issue of how to pay for it needs to be
dealt with responsibly.”… (McConnell,
Warning of ‘Dangerous’ Debt, Wants Tax
Cut Offsets, Bloomberg)
It doesn’t sound like McConnell is a big fan of Trump’s
economic plan, does it? So why has the Dow risen to
within 26 points of the 20,000-mark if that’s the case?? Do
investors think that Trump can simply issue an executive
order and force Congress to do what he wants?
Good luck with that. The deficit-crazed Republicans are
just as committed to austerity as ever, mainly because
slashing government spending coupled with low interest
rates is a tried-and-true method of transferring obscene
amounts of money to the 1 percenters. Why would they
tinker with a mechanism that works perfectly already?
They won’t, at least not to the extent that it’ll have any
meaningful impact on the living standards of millions of
working people across America. Congress is going to
prevent that at all cost. And so will the Fed. Just listen to
what Yellen had to say to a journalist from the Washington
Post last week following the FOMC meeting. She was
asked point-blank whether she thought the economy
needed more fiscal stimulus or not. Her answer:
“Well … I called for fiscal stimulus when the
unemployment rate was substantially
higher than it is now. So with a 4.6 percent
unemployment, and a solid labor market,
there may be some additional slack in labor
markets, but I would judge that the degree
of slack has diminished, So I would say at
this point that fiscal policy is not obviously
needed to help us get back to full
employment … But nevertheless, let me be
careful that I am not trying to provide
advice to the new administration or to
Congress as to what is the appropriate
stance of policy.”
Nice, eh? Yellen threatens Trump with three more rate
hikes in 2017, torpedoes his $1 trillion infrastructure plan
with a wave of the hand, and then has the audacity to deny
that she’s dictating policy.
Of course she’s dictating policy. What else would you call
it?
Yellen is saying as clearly as possible, that if Trump
launches his fiscal spending plan, the Fed’s going to slap
him down by raising rates. If that’s not a threat, then what
is??
(BTW, the NY Times Neil Irwin commented on this very
issue just days ago when he said,
“any stimulative fiscal policy from the
Trump administration could well face an
equal and opposite tightening of monetary
policy by a Fed that raises interest rates.”
In other words, the Fed holds all the cards.)
But in Yellen’s defense, we should add that Trump’s
infrastructure scheme wasn’t going to work anyway. The
whole thing is another shabby giveaway to private-equity
investors. It’s NOT a serious effort to rebuild America’s
crumbling infrastructure or provide good-paying jobs to
qualified construction workers.
According to economist Alan S. Blinder,
“Trump’s plan would provide “an 82% tax
credit to attract private-equity investors into
the infrastructure business.” … (So) ” A $3
billion public-private “partnership”… could
be financed like this: $2.5 billion in
municipal bonds, $410 million in tax credits
from the federal government, and $90
496
million in private equity. This means $90
million in private money winds up
controlling a $3 billion asset. Mr. Trump
likes leverage, but isn’t 33-to-1 a little
ridiculous?”
Great. In other words, the public takes all the risk, while
privately-owned businesses nab all the profits. When have
we heard that before?
And there’s more too:
“Infrastructure projects selected in the
traditional way, by governments, are
chosen based on public benefits, the
community’s ability to pay—and sometimes
crass political favoritism…
Under the Trump plan, project selection
would be left to profit-seeking investors,
using the same criteria they use to decide
which hotels to build, for example.”…
(Trump’s Infrastructure Mistake, Alan S
Blinder, Wall Street Journal)
Trump’s Infrastructure Mistake
Princeton professors Alan S. Blinder and Alan B. Krueger
write that the president-elect wants to draw in private
money—but do investors swoon to fix leaky school roofs?
See? This isn’t about rebuilding America or putting people
back to work or even getting more money circulating in
the economy. This is just another ripoff by a flim-flam
man who wants to use his power as president to enrich his
crony buddies. Trump might be a hero to millions of
working people who think he’s got their interests at heart,
but the facts just don’t match the rhetoric. His
infrastructure plan is just another elitist swindle aimed at
enriching the few at the expense of the many.
According to Blinder there are much better alternatives to
this private equity hocus pocus, like
“Build American Bonds (BABs), a special
breed of municipal bonds … which can use
them for routine maintenance and other
projects that lack a revenue stream … for
the great bulk of infrastructure needs,
BABs would be a far superior solution. If
the Trump administration is serious about
making our public infrastructure great
again, it should worry less about finding
ways to make the rich richer.” (WSJ)
Then again, if Trump’s real objective is to boost
employment and increase growth, there are much easier
ways to go about it, like suspending the payroll tax on
everyone making under $75,000 per year or adding a few
hundred dollars per month to Social Security payouts or
expanding the food stamps program to include more
applicants. None of these ideas will help to rebuild
America’s dilapidated bridges or pothole-strewn roads, but
they do put more money into circulation pronto which
increases demand, activity, hiring, capital investment and
growth. More growth means upward pressure on stagnant
wages, rising standards of living, strengthening of the
middle class, and the beginnings of a virtuous circle.
Trump’s infrastructure plan will achieve none of these. It
won’t even push stock prices higher. It’s a dead-loss for
everyone except the PE mandarins.
But there parts of Trump’s economic plan that could push
stocks much higher, in fact, they could take today’s
moderately-inflated stock market bubble and turn it into
the most gargantuan asset-price balloon of all time. We’re
talking about Trump’s tax cuts. The president elect wants
to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15
percent and, at the same time, initiate a “repatriation
holiday”, which will allow tax-dodging US corporations to
bring “more than a trillion dollars in corporate cash parked
overseas” back to the US paying a measly 10 percent tax
on the total. Trump thinks the surge of capital reentering
the US will boost employment, productivity and growth,
but the experts disagree. They know it’s another giveaway
to Wall Street. Get a load of this from Bloomberg:
“Deutsche Bank: “If a repatriation holiday is
introduced at a ~5 percent rate, as
opposed to the generally proposed 5-14
percent rates, 10 percent even by Trump,
then we think ~$500 billion will be
repatriated in 2017. These funds will go to
a combination of dividends, buybacks,
onshore debt reduction, Mergers and
Acquisitions and capex…”
JPMorgan Chase and Co.:
“Cash repatriation alone could boost
shareholder payouts by ~$350 billion … we
estimate that buybacks from repatriation
alone could add ~$1.30 to S and P 500
earnings per share, assuming that 60
497
percent of potential payouts come in the
form of buybacks.”…
JPMorgan Chase and Co.:
“We estimate that Trump’s corporate tax
plan, which incorporates a 15 percent
statutory federal tax rate, would add
roughly $15 to S and P 500 earnings.”
(Wall Street’s 2017 Forecasts Are Doomed
If Trump Doesn’t Follow Through On
Campaign Promises, Bloomberg)
Wall Street’s 2017 Forecasts Are Doomed If Trump
Doesn’t Follow Through On Campaign Promises
There’s a lot of room for error.
Get the picture? None of this money is going to dribble
down to the working stiffs who cast their ballots for Trump
in the presidential election. Heck, no. Every dime is going
into stock buybacks and bigger dividends for fatcat CEOs
and their voracious shareholders so they can rake in bigger
profits while the country continues its downward spiral
into insolvency and depression. That’s what this tax fiasco
is all about, rewarding the millionaires and billionaires in
Trump’s coterie of dodgy friends.
So, yeah, stocks could rise even higher on back of more
than a trillion dollars of new capital flowing into the
markets, but that money is not going to do jack for anyone
who punches a clock for a living. And that should matter
to the people who voted for Trump thinking that he had
their interests at heart, because he doesn’t have their
interests at heart. It’s a joke. Trump’s economic plan
focuses entirely on the welfare of the mega rich plutocrats
like himself. Everyone else gets mere table scraps.
And that’s why Trump’s supporters should be so
disappointed, because they stood by him through the most
vicious campaign in history and helped to shoehorn his
sorry posterior into office. And now he has sold them
down the river.
Thanks a lot, Don.
 If Democrats Ran The Olympics, Losers Would All Get
Gold Medals, And Winners Would Be Accused Of
Working For The Russians
By: JD Heyes
Thursday, December 22, 2016
During an appearance recently on Fox News Sunday with
Chris Wallace, President-elect Donald J. Trump was
having none of the phony Democratic/media narrative that
the Russians hacked the election in favor of him and to the
detriment of his opponent, now two-time presidential loser
Hillary Clinton.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Trump told the host.
“I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t
believe it. I don’t know why and I think it’s
just – you know, they talked about all sorts
of things.”
Trump went on to note that he won several competitive
battleground states by large margins to arrive at an
electoral count of 306 (270 are needed to win the
presidency outright) to Clinton’s paltry 232. He also
pointed out correctly that there is no “consensus” among
the intelligence community on this, and even the heads of
the intelligence community are not buying into it, despite
what one agency – the CIA – has said (without coming
right out and saying it has evidence to prove its case).
Finally, Trump also pointed out that all nations with the
capability to do so hack or attempt to hack into U.S.
government and political systems.
“They have no idea if it’s Russia or China
or somebody,” he said. “It could be
somebody sitting in a bed some place. I
mean, they have no idea.”
498
He is spot-on; “they” don’t. And neither does the
Democratic Party’s propaganda division, the much-
maligned and wholly discredited “mainstream” media,
which – by the way – has also reported that nobody knows
for sure if Russia did hack its way into influencing the
election for Trump.
The fact is, this is the Democratic Party imploding – trying
to create a false narrative to a) explain away their butt-
kicking at the polls, and b) to delegitimize the Trump
presidency early and often.
But what do we expect from a party which advocates for
“participation trophies” so as to deny children the
opportunity to learn how to lose with dignity (because
most of us lose more in life than we win)? This is the party
that would hand out gold medals to losers at the Olympics
just to make everyone “feel good,” while claiming that any
athlete who actually won is just a Russian propaganda
stooge.
It really has come down to this for the beaten, battered and
rejected Democratic Party – but its leaders and members
are too arrogant and too smug to believe it is their policies
America doesn’t like, along with the candidate they
nominated (in an underhanded way at that). Clinton was,
without question, the most legitimately controversial
presidential candidate in the country’s history. Convicted
or not, she has been investigated more times by
government law enforcement agencies than anyone before
her. And, in the process, she created more divisiveness
during her 30-plus years of “public service” and
controversy (all of the various “-gates” during her time as
first lady, coupled with the scandalous behavior of her
family’s foundation) than anything Trump has produced.
But it’s only going to get worse. No matter how out-of-
touch and irrelevant the Democrats and their lock-step
media become, they’ll still be screaming the same thing for
years: The Russians did it!
 Lest We Forget, Clinton Wanted
To Privatize Social Security
By Andrew Stewart
December 22, 2016
The collapse of the liberal media into a miasma of identity
politics and guilt trips is fascinating to watch. After having
been laid for a killer trip for how my support for Jill Stein
is going to bring about the return of back-alley abortion, I
think I have a bit of a right to just point out yet again that
Hillary Clinton, if elected, wanted to put my parents in the
poorhouse by privatizing their Social Security.
The first place to look for confirmation of this was the
Podesta email cache. On October 10, Wikileaks released
the infamous Wall Street speeches Clinton made behind
closed doors, which said:
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, this may be
borne more out of hope than experience in
the last few years. But Simpson-Bowles —
and I know you heard from Erskine earlier
today — put forth the right framework.
Namely, we have to restrain spending, we
have to have adequate revenues, and we
have to incentivize growth. It’s a three-part
formula. The specifics can be negotiated
depending upon whether we’re acting in
good faith or not. And what Senator
Simpson and Erskine did was to bring
Republicans and Democrats alike to the
table, and you had the full range of
ideological views from I think Tom Coburn
to Dick Durbin. And they reached an
agreement. But what is very hard to do is to
then take that agreement if you don’t
believe that you’re going to be able to
move the other side. And where we are
now is in this gridlocked dysfunction. So
you’ve got Democrats saying that, you
know, you have to have more revenues;
that’s the sine qua non of any kind of
agreement. You have Republicans saying
no, no, no on revenues; you have to cut
much more deeply into spending. Well,
looks what’s happened. We are slowly
returning to growth. It’s not as much or as
fast as many of us would like to see, but,
you know, we’re certainly better off than
our European friends, and we’re beginning
to, I believe, kind of come out of the long
aftermath of the ’08 crisis. [Clinton Speech
For Morgan Stanley, 4/18/13]
499
Simpson-Bowles, for those of you who forgot, was part of
a long line of Democratic moves over the past 8 years that
would lead the way for privatizing the fund. I previously
documented this issue for Counterpunch on September 30
and stand by my reporting despite claims from the pwogs
that this is a conspiracy theory.
Second of course is Robin Blackburn’s classic essay How
Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security, which retrieved
from the Clinton archive primary documents from the
beginning of the effort dating back to 1998. Following his
destruction of Welfare, Bubba had decided to set his sights
on retirement “entitlements” with the aid of his Robert
Rubin-Larry Summers fiscal brain trust. Of course, when
the intern with that magic blue dress became a national
punchline, he was forced to pivot to the left to shore up his
anti-privatization base as the GOP hounds began to circle
for the kill. Nevertheless, the effort has been simmering on
the back burner for the past two decades and remains
tenable. Obama has put in place as custodian of the Social
Security trust fund Charles P. Blahous III, who supported
privatizing under George W. Bush, and manipulated the
chained Consumer Price Index, used to generate yearly
coast of living adjustments, so to sow enough dissent and
cause people to think the system no longer works. The
blade of the guillotine only needs be released at this point,
all that is needed has been prepared.
Right now the media pundits who created this whole mess
in the first place are spewing metric tons of nonsense about
the Democrats coming to save us all from the Donald. This
has an air of credibility due to the quite obvious fact that
his Rogues Gallery of staff and cabinet posts, neocons and
neo-Confederates to quote Jeffrey St. Clair, is obviously
awful. But this whole discourse is missing a crucial class
analysis and so has all the merit of a spitball launched at
the lunchroom bully. Only with a class analysis that
articulates the truth about Democratic Social Security
policy do we see the real discourse emerge.
To further cement this point, I would suggest a brief
exercise that begins with two quotes.
The longest-lived effort to construct
socialism was the USSR, but in this case
we find the deployment of one or both
 biblical narratives – a ‘betrayal’ or a ‘Fall’
narrative – to account for its ‘failure’. For
many, Stalin embodies the manifestation of
that betrayal. Was he not, after all, a
paranoid and omniscient dictator, ruling by
a bloodthirsty and capricious will?
Caricatures aside, once one opts for a
narrative of the ‘Fall’, one is playing a
theological game. By ‘Fall’ narrative I mean
a narrative that is structured in terms of a
fall from grace, analogous to the story in
Genesis 2–3, in which Eve and then Adam
eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree (of the
knowledge of good and evil) and are
thereby banished by God from paradise. -
Roland Boer
One of the most devious traps which lurk
for Marxist theorists is the search for the
moment of the Fall, when things took the
wrong turn in the history of Marxism: was it
already the late Engels with his more
positivist-evolutionary understanding of
historical materialism? Was it the
revisionism AND the orthodoxy of the
Second International? Was it Lenin? Or
was it Marx himself in his late work, after
he abandoned his youthful humanism (as
some “humanist Marxists” claimed decades
ago)? This entire topic has to be rejected:
there is no opposition here, the Fall is to be
inscribed into the very origins. (To put it
even more pointedly, such a search for the
intruder who infected the original model
and set in motion its degeneration cannot
but reproduce the logic of anti-Semitism.) -
Slavoj Zizek
I would argue the neoliberals are not, despite pwog pleas
to the contrary, the aberration within the Democratic
edifice, they are in fact the norm. I would like to try to
hammer this home using a point that is the antithesis of the
one made by Boer and Zizek by explaining what happened
to American liberalism in the 1930s.
The myth that has gone on for nearly a century is that
Franklin Roosevelt was the grandfatherly Keynesian who
saved the economy and American capitalism by creating
the welfare state. Dr. Vijay Prashad touched on a fact,
however, that repudiated this earlier this year when he
wrote
“Roosevelt’s main [1933 campaign] plank
was to shrink the government and expand
U.S. trade with the world. These were
policy positions much favored by the elite.
During the election, there was little sign
that Roosevelt would expand the U.S.
government and use state spending to
enhance economic activity.”
500
Justin Raimondo at AntiWar.com also nears this point
when he discusses his beloved Old Right, the collection of
both isolationist Democrats and Republicans who hated the
New Deal. While it is true that his Old Right did have a bit
of a soft-gloves approach to European fascism, it is clear
that he is not referring to the Klan, who were the actual
right wingers in America, as much as anti-Keynesian
moderates.
What I am trying to articulate here is that, if there is any
tradition that deserves a Fall narrative, it is American
liberalism. Until the election of FDR, the Democrats were
a liberal party in accordance with the tenets of that
philosophy. But, in the midst of a near-revolutionary
moment that we call the Great Depression and Second
World War, Roosevelt changed its very character to that of
a European labor one, staving off Communists, Socialists,
Trotskyists, and Musteites who were on the verge of
expropriating the expropriators. Roosevelt told the
financial elites at that point refusal to allow the creation of
the welfare state was at their peril.
In this sense, the Fall narrative should be the four decades
of economic development seen in America, spanning the
election of Roosevelt to the fall of Nixon, who was ousted
just as much by a right wing base enraged by his fiscal
policies as by the Watergate break-in. The welfare state
itself was the heresy of the capitalist parties that would
otherwise have been happy to allow further suffering of the
population just as long as they were ensconced in comfort.
In this sense the Clintons are, true to their Southern roots,
like an old-time revivalist tent show, inclined to all sorts of
chicanery and smoke-and-mirror operations to hide from
the congregation how they are robbing the people in the
pews.
Mark Blyth, the Eastman Professor of Political Economy
at Brown University, recently wrote in a column titled
Global Trumpism for Foreign Affairs of how the welfare
state was unsustainable:
…[O]nce you target and sustain full
employment over time, it basically
becomes costless for labor to move from
job to job. Wages in such a world will have
to continually rise to hold onto labor, and
the only way business can accommodate
that is to push up prices. This mechanism,
cost-push inflation, where wages and
prices chase each other up, emerged in the
1970s and coincided with the end of the
Bretton Woods regime and the subsequent
oil shocks to produce high inflation in the
rich countries of the West in the 1970s. In
short, the system undermined itself…
This is the nature of any heresy in the theological sense,
they contain a certain element that makes them prone to
self-destruction. In America, we have just witnessed the
collapse of a multi-decade Protestant one, the Prosperity
Gospel, which was embraced for decades by Evangelical
Christians. These same Evangelicals just voted in droves
for a Chief Executive who embodies every anathema
within that theological matrix, a crass, crude, adulterous
philandering scum bag landlord from the godless, Jew-
infested Big Apple.
The reason for this collapse is related directly to the nature
of liberalism as a philosophy of the capitalist revolution
that smashed the feudal system. It is a philosophy that is
premised on the notion of identity, saying that all are equal
before the law, and it does not have within its logic the
dimension of class that Marx later added through the use
of the Hegelian dialectic. The half-hearted efforts of the
presidents from 1933-1975 to solve this conundrum
created a welfare state that infamously depended on both
imperialism and the perpetuation of an apartheid order
ostracizing people of color from the bounty. Clinton’s
corporatist policies, including but not limited to privatizing
Social Security, were classical liberal positions, just as
Trump’s are. The Libertarian Party at least is honest about
these sorts of things as the true believers in liberalism.
The rectification of this heresy within liberalism requires
an embrace of a uniquely eco-communist vision of our
future politics. The notion of eco-socialism is frankly
lacking because of the nature of the crisis at hand. When
Lenin renamed the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
(Bolshevik) the Communist Party, that was an act
reflecting how radically he wished to push things to the
left in the face of a global cataclysm that continues to
impact our daily lives a century later. The European
Socialist movement, gathered around the Second
International, had collapsed in the face of this cataclysm,
.
501
the First World War, and had in fact enabled a Trump-like
brand of vicious racism by espousing a Clintonite style of
imperialism. By repudiating Socialism in the name of
Communism, he was directly opposing this latter brand, a
polite colonialism composed of gentlemen technocrats and
efficient gendarmes.
In the present circumstances, we must not only oppose the
privatizing of Social Security but promote its expansion.
Social Security itself was a first enacted by the state
socialist program of Bismarck, who effectively coopted the
German Socialist program to maintain a worker class base
and stave off a revolt for a generation. In the face of the
climate crisis, we cannot allow for similar coopting.
We should further begin to develop a critique of neoliberal
imperialism that recognizes the “disaster capitalism”
discussed by Naomi Klein in her The Shock Doctrine as a
weapon of imperialism, that American government apathy
in the face of climate change is in fact a barely-hidden glee
at the prospect of profits for the imperial state. The anti-
colonial struggle being waged at places like Standing Rock
are therefore nothing more than auguries of a wider eco-
communist struggle to come as the crisis accelerates. The
question of whether one should embrace accelerationism in
this sense is simply moot because it is actually a fact that
the capitalist system is the party who selected this
perspective.
Eco-communism is the only solution to what we face.
Blyth gave a succinct and clear diagnosis of what is on the
horizon when he closed his recent essay by writing
“The era of neoliberalism is over. The era
of neonationalism has just begun.”
 Democrat Donors Just Paid $3.5 Million To Help Trump
Gain 131 Votes In Wisconsin’s Official Recount
By: JD Heyes
Date: December 22, 2016
President-elect Donald J. Trump owes Democratic donors
a word of thanks, because they helped him extend his
popular vote lead in Wisconsin over his vanquished
presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, who has now lost
twice in her bid for the Oval Office.
As reported by the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper, the
Jill Stein-led recount of votes in the state netted Trump
another 131 votes, extending his lead over Clinton and
further solidifying that state’s Electoral College votes for
his victory.
Stein, however, gained too: Another 66 votes.
The paper reported further that in all, there was a net
change of 1,769 addition votes that were counted, or about
0.06 percent of the more than 2.9 million that were cast.
The last statewide recount in a 2011 state Supreme Court
contest netted an extra 1,233 votes from 1.5 million
ballots.
In all, Trump gained an extra 837 votes while Clinton
gained 706 votes. Trump was victorious in Wisconsin—
the first Republican candidate to do so since the late
1980s—by 22,308 votes.
“Completing this recount was a challenge,
but the real winners are the voters,” said
Mark Thomsen, chairman of the Wisconsin
Election Commission, in a statement.
“Based on the recount, they can have
confidence in Wisconsin’s election results
accurately reflect the will of the people,
502
regardless of whether they are counted by
hand or by machine.”
The WEC had originally told county clerks to ensure their
recounts were complete by 8 p.m. Dec. 12, so that the
results could be certified the following day—the last day
federal law guarantees a state’s electoral votes will reflect
the popular vote when the Electoral College convenes Dec.
19.
Democrats only accept election results when they
win
The recount of nearly 3 million votes was launched Dec. 1
after Stein, with the Green Party, paid the estimated $3.5
million cost to have it performed. The actual cost won’t be
known for a few more weeks, according to commission
spokesman Reid Magney. She will be responsible for
paying any additional costs over that amount if they are
incurred; she will be refunded any amount under the $3.5
million mark.
News of the increased vote count in Wisconsin for Trump
comes as a judge halted a planned recount effort in
Pennsylvania, with the latter state also affirming its vote
tally for the billionaire businessman.
U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond said he rejected the
Stein-led recount effort in Pennsylvania on at least six
grounds, The Associated Press reported. The recount effort
was being opposed by Trump, the Pennsylvania
Republican Party and the state attorney general’s office.
“Most importantly, there is no credible
evidence that any ‘hack’ occurred, and
compelling evidence that Pennsylvania’s
voting system was not in any way
compromised,” Diamond wrote.
So there you have it: Trump owes some gratitude to Stein
for helping him extend his lead over her and Clinton.
Democrats and Leftists have no problem accepting
elections when they win. They just don’t like to do it when
they don’t.
 FBI Can’t Agree With
Politicized CIA’s Faulty Intelligence
By: JD Heyes
Date: December 22, 2016
It’s becoming a game of “he said, they said,” between the
FBI and the CIA over what President-elect Donald J.
Trump has called a highly-politicized (and bogus) claim
that Russia interfered in the presidential election to sway
the results in his favor.
In recent days, the echo chamber “mainstream media” has
been pushing the narrative that there is a “consensus”
among CIA analysts that Moscow hacked the Democratic
National Committee and the campaign of Hillary Clinton
only, with the goal of helping Trump to win the election.
This nonsensical and unexplained narrative is not
supported by a whit of evidence, mind you, and is all based
on the premise of undermining Trump’s legitimacy by,
among other things, interfering with the final tally of the
Electoral College, whose electors voted Dec. 19. (One
thing missing here, by the way, is CIA Director John
Brennan’s ringing endorsement of this “consensus.”)
Now, the FBI has waded into this fabricated
“controversy,” and frankly, the bureau isn’t buying it.
As The Daily Caller noted, a senior FBI official who met
with Republican and Democratic members of the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence did not
concur with the CIA’s assessment, “frustrating
Democrats.”
That Democrats were “frustrated” tells you all you need to
know here, but we digress.
503
While the CIA believes that Moscow “quite” clearly
wanted Trump to win, it is a very bold claim, and again,
one that is not substantiated by any real evidence – one of
the main reasons the FBI isn’t going along with the spy
agency’s assessment. In fact, as Newsweek reported,
veteran CIA operatives are warning the agency not to jump
to conclusions because there is no substance to the claim.
But none of that matters. Nor does it matter that, had
Clinton won and it was Trump who was challenging the
victory, trying to mess with the outcome of the Electoral
College and blaming his loss on Russian hacking, he
would have been lambasted, shamed and called a
conspiracy nut.
No one answering the most basic question here
The lamestream press has jumped on the bandwagon en
masse, and so are some members of Congress. One – a
congressman from Connecticut, Democratic Rep. Jim
Himes – took to begging the Electoral College to vote
instead for Clinton, the most security-compromised,
criminally investigated presidential nominee in U.S.
history.
All of this was meant to effect a “soft coup,”effectively
denying Trump the presidency or, at the very least,
denying him legitimacy.
That the FBI has stepped up and said it doesn’t agree with
a small cadre of politically motivated CIA agents’
assessment that Moscow interfered is a good thing. Trump
needs all the help he can get if he’s going to make good on
clearing the D.C. swamp.
And for the record, the CIA and the lamestream media
have failed to answer the most important – and basic –
question in all of this: Why help Trump when Clinton is so
compromised that Vladimir Putin would be writing U.S.
foreign policy towards Russia?
 Poll Shows Most Democrats & Independents
Oppose A 2020 Hillary White House Run
By Stephen Lendman
12-22-2016
She’s widely reviled. Most Americans consider her
untrustworthy and dishonest, unfit for public service.
I called her the most ruthlessly dangerous presidential
aspirant in US history, representing an unprecedented
threat to world peace and stability.
It’s hard imagining why anyone aware of her public record
would support her - other than special interests she serves
at the expense of ordinary Americans.
A December USA Today/Suffolk University poll released
Wednesday showed 62% of Democrats and independents
surveyed oppose her conducting another run for the White
House.
Only 23% support the idea. Two-thirds of respondents
favor “someone entirely new” as Democrat party standard
bearer. Nearly 60% believe Trump will “significantly
dismantle” Obama’s legacy, evenly split on whether it’s a
good or bad idea.
Around 40% support Trump’s ascension to power. About
the same percentage opposes him. One fourth of
respondents think he’ll be a failed president, 12% think
he’ll be great, 18% good, 15% fair and 30% undecided.
504
Only 16% are excited about his becoming America’s 45th
president, 38% hopeful, another 38% alarmed.
Most respondents want him to do more to
“prevent conflicts of interest between his
business interests and the country’s
interests.”
Most likely voters urge him to keep his pledge to be
“the greatest jobs president that God ever
created.”
Their top priorities include jobs creation and protection,
combating terrorism, and draining the swamp.
Half of respondents believe he should do whatever it takes
to get the job done, even if it means breaching campaign
promises, sure to come like always.
The December 14 -18 telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters
nationwide has a plus or minus 3% margin of error.
A month ahead of Trump’s taking office, the poll assessed
pure guesswork opinions of what type president he’ll be
since he has no public record on which to judge him.
 Washington State’s Rogue Electors Make History – Fined
$1,000 For Not Voting Clinton
Published Time: 23 Dec, 2016 08:14
Four Washington state electors who broke their pledge to
vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton are each
being fined $1,000, after 3 chose to vote for ex-Secretary
of State Colin Powell, and one for Native American tribal
elder Faith Spotted Eagle.
They will all be fined next week, and have 60 days to pay,
according to the spokesman for Washington Secretary of
State Kim Wyman, who spoke to the AP. He added that an
appeals process is being formulated in case of a challenge.
This is the first time anything like this has happened in the
state in 40 years, when one elector went rogue and voted
for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford, who won in
Washington but lost the general election to Democratic
candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976. It was that year that the
penalties for going rogue were signed into law, but 2016 is
the first year they will be enforced.
This time, one third of the electors went rogue in an act of
symbolic protest, giving Clinton eight votes, instead of the
12 she had secured, thus making Washington the leading
state in so-called ‘faithless electors.’ The vast majority of
the Electoral College voted as expected, sealing Donald
Trump’s victory, with 304 but two votes to Clinton’s 227.
It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.
.
505
The only state to defy Trump was Texas, with two GOP
electors casting protest votes. The only other faithless
elector was in Hawaii – picking US Senator Bernie
Sanders instead of Clinton.
In the weeks following Trump’s victory, many Americans
started to take a closer look at the Electoral College, with
the very formal and quiet ceremony garnering unusual
attention this year. Anti-Trump protesters gathered outside
of the Capitol in Olympia, Washington where electors cast
their final votes with the traditional feather pens.
These results undermine the efforts of the Hamilton
Electors – a group of electors inside the College who tried
to go rogue and get multiple states to unite behind a
different Republican candidate. It was the group’s three
electors who voted for Colin Powell, as well as voting
against Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine.
They were not dissuaded by the threat of a fine on
Monday. The group’s founder, Bret Chiafalo, expressed
his disagreement with Washington’s decision:
“I think we did what we thought was right,”
arguing that the rule forbidding electors
from voting individually was
“unconstitutional.”
Chiafalo added that he will appeal the state’s decision to
impose the fine.
“Guerra and Chiafalo filed a request last
week to have the fine waived, citing
Alexander Hamilton’s writings on the
Electoral College. The electors argued that
the Electoral College is the last line of
defense to prevent an unfit president from
taking office, and electors should be free to
vote their conscience.”
 Trump’s Team: Who’s Who
In President-Elect’s Cabinet, White House
Foxnews.Com
Published December 22, 2016

Ryan Zinke
Secretary of Interior
U.S. representative, Montana; member of
House Natural Resources Committee;
former Navy SEAL
President-elect Donald Trump has quickly announced his  Trump announces Rep. Zinke as
picks for key Cabinet and White House positions since the choice for Interior secretary
November election. The following are his selections so far
– Cabinet nominees are subject to Senate confirmation.

Cabinet-level positions

Individuals Trump intends to nominate

James Mattis
Secretary of Defense
Retired Marine general; former commander
of U.S. Central Command
 Mattis says he's 'grateful' to be
nominated as defense secretary; House
Rex Tillerson GOP introduces waiver language
Secretary of State
CEO, ExxonMobil
 GOP senators challenge Trump
on secretary of state prospect's Russia ties

Steven Mnuchin
Secretary of Treasury
Trump campaign finance chairman; former
Goldman Sachs partner; Hollywood
Rick Perry producer
Secretary of Energy  Trump nominates Steven
Former Texas governor; former Texas Mnuchin for Treasury secretary
agriculture commissioner, two-time
presidential candidate
 Trump announces Perry as pick
for energy secretary

Jeff Sessions
Attorney General
U.S. senator, Alabama

506
  Lobbying push in full swing to Secretary of Transportation
confirm Sessions as AG Former Labor secretary
 Trump nominates Elaine Chao to
be Transportation Secretary

Ben Carson
Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development Nikki Haley
Former director of pediatric neurosurgery at U.S. Ambassador to United Nations
Johns Hopkins Hospital; 2016 candidate for Governor of South Carolina
president  Trump chooses South Carolina
 Trump to nominate Carson as Gov. Nikki Haley as UN ambassador
HUD secretary

Andrew Puzder
Wilbur Ross Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Commerce CEO, CKE Restaurants Inc.
Investor; former banker  Fast food exec Puzder is Trump's
pick for Labor secretary

Tom Price
Secretary of Health and Human Services John Kelly
U.S. representative, Georgia; chairman of Secretary of Homeland Security
House Budget Committee; orthopedic Retired Marine general; former commander
surgeon of U.S. Southern Command
 Trump nominates Rep. Tom
Price for HHS secretary

Scott Pruitt
Administrator of the Environmental
Betsy DeVos Protection Agency
Secretary of Education Oklahoma attorney general; former state
Charter school advocate; philanthropist; senator
Republican donor  Trump to nominate EPA critic
 Trump picks charter school Pruitt to lead agency
advocate Betsy DeVos for education
secretary

Mick Mulvaney
Director of Office of Management and
Elaine Chao Budget
507
U.S. representative, South Carolina; former
South Carolina state senator and
representative
 Trump taps conservative South
Carolina Rep. Mulvaney as budget chief

Stephen K. Bannon
Chief Strategist
Executive chairman of Breitbart News

Linda McMahon
Administrator of the Small Business
Administration
Former CEO of World Wrestling
Entertainment Donald McGahn
White House White House Counsel
Individuals Trump has appointed Former member of the Federal Election
Commission
 Trump taps campaign attorney
Donald McGahn as White House counsel

Reince Priebus
Chief of Staff
Chairman of Republican National
Committee Kellyanne Conway
 Priebus backs Trump, ‘Don’t Counselor to the President
want that drone back’ Former Trump campaign manager and
senior adviser; pollster

Michael Flynn
National Security Adviser Sean Spicer
Former director of Defense Intelligence Press Secretary
Agency; retired Army lieutenant general Chief strategist and communications
director, Republican National Committee

508
 My Position On Donald Trump
By Jon Rappoport
December 22, 2016
I’ve written many words about the man and what he’s been
doing. To repeat a few of them, his two most important
achievements are: he’s contributing, in a major way, to the
ongoing destruction of the credibility of big media; and he
kept Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
Concerning the media— I am tremendously enthusiastic
about what Trump has done. I pop champagne corks on
that one. He’s provided a public service for the ages. We
would be light years beyond where we are now, if the
world of conventional journalism hadn’t sold its soul, its
morality, its intelligence, and its hunger for getting to the
bottom of things so long ago. In his own improvisations
and riffs, Trump has turned the media stars on their heads
looking out of their asses. He has been merciless. He has
worked acrobatic tricks worthy of a Salvador Dali. When
they thought he was here, he was there. When they thought
they had him pinned against the wall, he vanished and
there was no wall. When they thought he was done, he was
starting. When they assumed they were occupying a higher
position, he was poking them in the solar plexus of their
pretensions and exposing them as rank amateurs. They go
sober-serious, he laughs. They deride and mock him, he
reminds them they’re supposed to be professional. They
scream and go ballistic, he walks away. He’s supposed to
be in Washington, he’s in New York. He’s supposed to lay
out his schedule for them, he vanishes. He shouldn’t talk to
a foreign leader, he talks to a foreign leader. The
Washington Post reports the Russians hacked the election,
he says the CIA is making it up.
Make no mistake about it, Globalists of every stripe and
disguise infect Washington like the plague. Their goals,
reputations, connections, and paychecks are on the line.
They want to neutralize Trump by any means possible. He
has hammered the TPP, and said he’ll cancel it (Chuck
Schumer has already said it’s dead). He is raising the
banner of nationalism, not Globalism, and he promises to
bring back jobs to America…everything he promises in
this regard is running counter to the Rockefeller agenda of
destruction.
Will he change the pernicious culture, which is devolving
to the point where “free-everything” for nothing is
considered the most illuminated version of political
philosophy? He will try, but indirectly, by opening up new
levels of employment.
509
Will he continue to slam major media control of the
information flow? Yes. In that regard, he has already done
more than any president in modern history.
And if language is important (and it is), his communication
with the American people, in its direct colloquial style, is a
distinct departure from the polished, empty, grotesque
media/politician mechanical mind-numbing bullshit that
has all but taken over the landscape.
Will he try to curtail the divide-and-conquer “race-war”
mentality that has been heavily promoted over the last
eight years? Again, his basic strategy is: give people jobs.
Renew the economy. Float all boats.
Will Trump curtail open borders and reduce the reality of
terrorists and criminals entering the US? Will he knock
aside the unproven claims of global warmists and erase the
absurd and dangerous carbon-tax plan? Will he rebuild the
fading infrastructure of this country? Will he put Common
Core out of its misery? I believe he will make progress in
all these areas. How much progress? Impossible to predict.
Will he refuse to launch wars and covert ops of Empire?
Will he bring massive numbers of US troops stationed
abroad back home, kick the neocons out on their asses, and
scale back the enormous influence of the military-
industrial complex, which, after JFK, encircled America
with its dream of a forever World Empire? This would be
one of the most important actions he could launch as
president. And the effort is like trying to turn an oil tanker
around in a small space. To the degree he rebuilds the
military, he’ll keep pouring $$ into the maw of the
military-industrial machine. I think it’s possible that he and
his advisors see, from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, that
American Empire has reached an end-point. It is a failure.
It can’t go further. The blowback on America has
outflanked its lists of Empire-conquests. However, until
Trump shows he’s really going to try to cancel the neocon
American Empire, and means it, I’m not making any
assumptions whatsoever.
Is Donald Trump more than a puppet in the hands of
Globalists? I believe he is more than that.
Is he a mere tool who was handed the election by
Globalists who realized Hillary Clinton was too sick and
deranged to stay the course in the White House? I believe
he is not a mere tool in their hands, even if they ended up
supporting him.
Does he want the job of president ONLY for the purpose
of feathering his personal nest and stroking his own ego? I
don’t think that’s the case now, if it ever was.
***However, unraveling his myriad business interests is
necessary, in order to discover whether his decisions as
president add to his wealth. Handing over those businesses
to his family isn’t a barrier against self-aggrandizing
policies. Trump is, after all, a real estate hustler from way
back.
One question in this regard: Trump appears ready to give
US corporations a tax holiday, so they can bring back huge
amounts of money they’ve stashed overseas, for the
express purpose of buying shares of their own companies.
This practice has been a way CEOs can make their
operations look good (share prices go up) while actually
producing nothing new. As a reader of mine suggested
(and I ask), will this Trump policy of share-buying do
nothing to rejuvenate those businesses, thus creating no
new jobs? And will this policy enable Trump’s family to
buy shares in whatever piece of the Trump empire is
publicly traded, pushing up its stock price? This needs
serious attention.
Will Trump roll back the many local incarnations of the
UN’s criminal Agenda 21 blueprint for closely monitored,
extensively planned technocratic towns and cities? I’m not
sure he’s even aware of this massive incursion on life in
America—aside from sanctuary cities fronted by virtue-
signaling liberal snowflakes and paid operatives. He will
take steps to reduce those bastions of hope and change.
Is it possible that, when all is said and done, Trump’s most
important action will have been his merciless attack on
major media—and by extension, their Globalist handlers?
Yes. And by my measure, he would then have achieved a
step toward freeing information and truth from its century-
long prison of mind control. The consequences of such a
liberation could be titanic. In the long run, Trump is far
less important than the millions of people who could wake
up from their deep slumber.
I believe Trump’s plan to bring employment back to
America will involve a kind of FDR/New Deal program of
trillion-dollar government contracts to rebuild the
infrastructure. This is by no means free-market America. If
his plan gets through the Congress, many new jobs will be
created, yes. On the other hand, the $$ power of the federal
government will increase. It’s never a great idea to give the
feds more control as the number-one employer in the
nation.
I think Trump favors jobs, all jobs, and will go to extremes
to create them. This includes giving the green light to tech
giants to keep carrying out contracts to expand the
Surveillance State. He’ll find ways to allow the FDA to
license new drugs more quickly, thus maiming and killing
510
more Americans. He’ll cast a blind eye toward big
corporate toxic GMOs/pesticides. He’ll overlook and
ignore major areas of agricultural and industrial pollution,
and permit them to expand.
Will Trump curtail the disturbing trend of militarizing
local police forces across America? Doubtful.
Will he root out and eliminate the power of vicious gangs
in inner cities—gangs who are holding residents hostage in
their own communities? I believe he’ll make at least a
minimum effort. Even if a president is motivated, that’s a
very tall order.
I assume that as a businessman he has committed criminal
acts of one kind or another. Do they rank as high as the
pay-for-play Clinton Foundation and the mass obliteration
of Libya, two of Hillary Clinton’s favorite operations? No.
Not even close.
Will Trump favor big-corporate cronies with the gift of
government contracts? I would think so.
Will he make deals and side-deals, some of which go
beyond the literal bounds of law, to advance his
presidential agenda? I would certainly think so. What
president hasn’t?
Could everything I’m mentioning in this article go by the
boards, because Trump’s enemies create sudden disasters
for him to manage—disasters which dwarf all other issues
and programs? Absolutely.
Could Trump himself make a fatal error that brings his
house down? For example, could his advisors convince
him to make a wide-ranging deal with Russia that includes
the extradition of Edward Snowden to stand trial in
America? Maybe.
Could Trump be convinced to start a dangerous war
somewhere, perhaps in response to a planned false-flag
operation designed for that very purpose? It’s possible.
Does he see that so-called liberals, who are really socialists
and Globalists and technocrats, have come very close to
taking over this country, under the banner of “share and
care” and “empathy” and “love”—behind which they hide
an endless supply of venom for those people who believe
in a) working for their own rewards; b) individualism; and
c) independence of thought? I think he plans to approach
that gigantic reality with jobs and more jobs; his blanket
solution. Put America back to work. Is that a real solution?
Yes, it certainly helps. But here we are talking about the
culture, and what he can possibly say to the American
people to restore a sense of traditional values (life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness) that doesn’t come across as
vapid sentimentality. He is a clever man. I believe he
wants to sidestep a direct confrontation with “the values
issue.” Instead, he wants to cure the genuine desperation
many Americans feel because they can’t find decent work.
He wants to create a boom in the domestic economy that
floats all boats. I can’t fault him for that. However, a major
part of the US economy has long been predicated on jobs
that either produce nothing or produce toxic outcomes.
Those engines aren’t going to go away.
I believe Trump can make progress in decimating the
political-correctness disease. I believe he can help reverse
the obsession with parsing people’s words and finding
“hidden racist content.” And the issue where all this rubber
meets the road is: immigration.
His opponents will keep saying that anything less than
wide open borders is Hitlerian. His point is: there is a
threat and a danger. Letting in felons; letting in potential
terrorists and actual terrorists; letting in people who hate
America and want everything they can get for free in
America; letting in people who take jobs from Americans
(including legal immigrants); letting in people who
overburden the economy via all the free services they can
obtain—this is wrong, this is suicide, this is crazy. It has
nothing to do with racism.
If he succeeds in reducing this immigration threat—wall or
no wall—he will go a significant distance in proving that
protecting America has nothing to do with hatred.
At the same time (and I have to stress this again), he can’t
decide to keep forwarding Empire abroad, thus
exacerbating the desire for revenge against America
among many people who feel the destructive force of the
US military machine.
If he turns into just another jingoist, he’s finished. And he
should be.
He needs to talk to Ron Paul. At length.
What about draining the swamp in Washington? This is
another case of trying to turn around an oil tanker in a
small space. He needs to provide vivid examples. For
starters, he should pursue, with all speed, the gathering of
.
511
specific evidence for the prosecution of Hillary and Bill
Clinton, vis-à-vis the Clinton Foundation and its nefarious
activities. No stone should be left unturned. That would set
a new tone.
For people who need a heavy dose of who and what the
Clintons are, I recommend immersing yourself in
everything the late Christopher Hitchens wrote and said
about them. (I’m sure Hitchens would hate a Trump
presidency.)
—If I were in charge of everything from the beginning of
the Republic in the 18th century (!), my goal would have
been to make a hundred Republics with severely limited
governments on this continent—with virtually no foreign
entanglements of any kind (political or commercial)—
instead, opting for self-sufficiency as the primary value.
But that’s another story for another time. Meanwhile, I see
a glint of light here, and I see risks and possibilities, and I
see that perhaps we can make steps toward ridding
America of the festering woes that have beset it: Empire,
on the one hand; hideous liberalism masking a technocratic
Globalist takeover that would sink us, on the other hand.
At no time over the past 30 years of working as a reporter
have I felt all is lost. At no time have I felt that the forces
arrayed against us are too great or too smart. At no time
have I felt that all doors are closed. I take the long view.
Many things can happen to wake people up—mainly
themselves when they finally feel their way of operating
and living has become self-defeating.
Rather than opting for pure hope now, I believe Trump’s
feet should be held to the fire. He made promises. Those
promises are clear. We should see authentic efforts from
him in those directions.
I’m aware that some readers can only accept extreme
views of Trump or any politician. Wonderful or terrible.
Messianic or hideous. That’s not what I’ve presented here.
I’ve presented what I see. So be it.
Stay tuned…
 Leftist McCarthyism: Liberal
Journalists Declare Donald Trump An Actual Traitor
Pathetic Liberals Embrace New Age McCarthyism
By Alex Thomas -
12.22.2016 @9:57 PM EST
(INTELLIHUB) — Multiple liberal writers have now gone
on the record with their belief that President-elect Donald
Trump is an actual traitor to America, with one even going
as far as to suggest that not only Trump but Republicans in
Congress as well as actual Trump voters are all guilty of
treason.
Former Bill Clinton appointee John Shattuck first raised
the question late last week with a column in the Boston
Globe that claimed that Trump’s actions (as well as the
totally unconfirmed claim by the CIA) raise the “specter”
of treason.
“A specter of treason hovers over Donald
Trump. He has brought it on himself by
dismissing a bipartisan call for an
investigation of Russia’s hacking of the
Democratic National Committee as a
“ridiculous” political attack on the legitimacy
of his election as president,” wrote
Shattuck.
“Seventeen US national intelligence
agencies have unanimously concluded that
Russia engaged in cyberwarfare against
the US presidential campaign. The lead
agency, the CIA, has reached the further
conclusion that Russia’s hacking was
intended to influence the election in favor of
Trump,” he continued.
Shattuck completely ignores the documented fact that
many within the intelligence community do not believe the
so-called “CIA assessment” which was first reported by
the openly anti-Trump establishment Washington Post. He
also ignores an absolutely key fact about the corporate
media and the CIA in his attack piece on all things Trump.
As Carey Wedler recently reported, the Washington Post
has a long history of collusion and conflicts of interest
involving the Central Intelligence Agency.
The outlet’s behind-the-scenes relationship with the CIA is
nothing new. In 2013, a conflict of interest arose shortly
after Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, purchased
the newspaper. As the Nation reported at the time:
512
“[Jeff Bezos] recently secured a $600
million contract from the CIA. That’s at
least twice what Bezos paid for the Post
this year. Bezos recently disclosed that the
company’s Web-services business is
building a ‘private cloud’ for the CIA to use
for its data needs.”
As this occurred, a petition calling on the Washington Post
to disclose its new ties to the CIA when reporting on the
agency garnered 30,000 signatures. According to the
RootsforAction petition:
“The Post often does reporting on CIA
activities. The coverage should include full
disclosure that the owner of the
Washington Post is also the main owner of
Amazon — and Amazon is now gaining
huge profits directly from the CIA.”
Wedler also detailed the past connections between the CIA
and many of the major corporate media news outlets,
including the Post.
In 1977, Carl Bernstein, a former Post journalist, wrote
about the CIA’s efforts to infiltrate the news media, often
with the assistance of top management at the papers. In
total, Bernstein reported, over 400 journalists were
involved:
“Journalists provided a full range of
clandestine services—from simple
intelligence gathering to serving as
go-betweens with spies in Communist
countries. Reporters shared their
notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared
their staffs. Some of the journalists were
Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished
reporters who considered themselves
ambassadors without-portfolio for their
country…In many instances, CIA
documents show, journalists were engaged
to perform tasks for the CIA with the
consent of the managements of America’s
leading news organizations.”
Though Bernstein failed to name the Post as an offender in
his article, according to Tim Weiner, a Pulitzer Prize-
winning journalist, the CIA worked directly with the
Washington Post, among many other outlets. In his
comprehensive history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes,
Weiner wrote of the CIA’s first official chief, Allen
Dulles:
“Dulles kept in close touch with the men
who ran the New York Times, The
Washington Post, and the nation’s leading
weekly magazines. He could pick up the
phone and edit a breaking story, make sure
an irritating foreign correspondent was
yanked from the field, or hire the services
of men such as Time’s Berlin bureau chief
and Newsweek’s man in Tokyo.”
With Shattuck floating the idea of the next President of the
country being a traitor, other liberal propagandists have
taken it to the next level, including Salon writer Chauncey
Devega who declared Trump, the Republicans in
Congress, and any Trump voter who doesn’t denounce him
as guilty of treason.
Devega, who in the past has openly called anyone that
disagrees with his take on Black Lives Matter racists, dove
straight in to the new leftist McCarthyism in his
declaration that everybody he disagrees with politically is
a traitor.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Republican
nominee Donald Trump urged a foreign power, Russia, to
interfere in the American election in order to undermine
his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Russia complied. The
American intelligence community, including the CIA and
FBI, has reached a “strong consensus” that the Russians
interfered with the presidential election in order to help
Donald Trump win.
It has also been reported that Russian President Vladimir
Putin personally directed this espionage operation. So
serious was Russian interference in the American
presidential election that the Obama administration warned
Putin that it was tantamount to “armed conflict.”
Republican leaders in Congress were briefed on Russia’s
interference in the presidential election and how it was
targeted at elevating Trump and hurting Clinton. Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional
Republicans chose to block any public discussion of these
findings. In what could be construed as a quid pro quo,
McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, has been selected by
President-elect Trump for a Cabinet position in his
administration.
513
Donald Trump’s flirtations with Russia and Vladimir Putin
are part of a broader pattern of reckless and irresponsible
behavior. Trump has numerous conflicts of financial
interest that would appear to violate the emoluments clause
of the Constitution. His sons, Eric and Donald Jr., were
involved in a scheme (since withdrawn) that looked a lot
like an attempt to sell access to his administration through
million-dollar “charity” donations.
Trump has threatened to violate the First Amendment by
suppressing freedom of the press, encouraged violence
against Clinton and those he deemed his enemies,
suggested he would not respect the outcome of the election
if he lost and now promoted people widely regarded as
white supremacists or white nationalists to senior positions
in his administration. Donald Trump has also selected key
advisers and cabinet level officials who have close
personal and financial relationships with Russian leaders in
banking, finance and government.
The sum total of these facts leads to a very troubling
conclusion.
President-elect Donald Trump is a traitor. As suggested by
John Shattuck, a Harvard university professor, in the
Boston Globe, Trump’s actions may approach the legal
definition of treason as defined by U.S. federal law.
Not happy to simply openly label the incoming president
as a traitor, Devega takes it one step further by declaring
members of the Republican Party and American citizens
who voted for Trump as guilty of treason as well.
Members of the Republican Party who knew about
Russia’s efforts to interfere with the presidential election
and chose to suppress or block such information, for fear
of hurting their candidate’s chances, are also traitors.
In light of Russia’s interference with the presidential
election, Republicans and others who voted for and
support Donald Trump are also traitors, at least to the
degree that they do not now work against and denounce
him.
So there you have it. In the insane and fabricated world of
new age McCarthyism, Donald Trump, Republicans in
Congress, and the tens of millions of people who voted for
him and still support him are all traitors who have
“possibly” broke U.S. federal law.
This is the new America in the age of Trump.
The same liberals who claimed Trump could destroy the
country if he didn’t accept Hillary’s presumed win have
now gone into full fledged “blame the Russians for
anything we don’t agree with” mode and have no problem
declaring the President-elect a traitor.
 Federal Reserve Initiates End Game
As Trump Heads To White House
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Dec 22, 2016 10:15 PM
For years, alternative economic analysts have been
warning that the “miraculous” rise in U.S. stock markets
has been the symptom of wider central bank intervention
and that this will result in dire future consequences. We
have heard endless lies and rationalizations as to why this
could not be so, and why the U.S. “recovery” is real. At
the beginning of 2016, the former head of the Dallas
branch of the Federal Reserve crushed all the skeptics and
vindicated our position in an interview with CNBC where
he stated:
“What the Fed did — and I was part of that
group — is we front-loaded a tremendous
market rally, starting in 2009.It’s sort of what I
call the “reverse Whimpy factor” — give me
two hamburgers today for one tomorrow. I’m
not surprised that almost every index you can
look at … was down significantly.” [Referring
to the results in the stock market after the
Fed raised rates in December.]
Fisher continued his warning (though his predictions in my
view are wildly conservative or deliberately muted):
“…I was warning my colleagues, “Don’t go
wobbly if we have a 10-20 percent correction
at some point. … Everybody you talk to …
has been warning that these markets are
heavily priced.”
Here is the issue — stocks are a mostly meaningless factor
when considering the economic health of a nation. Equities
are a casino based on nothing but the luck of the draw
when it comes to news headlines, central banker
statements and algorithmic computers. Today, as Fischer
openly admitted, stocks are a purely manipulated indicator
514
representing nothing but the amount of stimulus central
banks are willing to pour into them through various
channels.
Even with the incredible monetary support pooled together
by international financiers, returns on equities investments
continue to remain mostly flat. It would seem that the
propping up of indexes like the Dow has been only for the
sake of keeping up appearances. For many people, revenue
is barely being generated.
Unfortunately, the majority of Americans do not care to
educate themselves on the finer points of finance.
Their only relation to the health of the
economy is their daily glance at the Dow. If it
is green, or at all time highs, they assume
that all is well, even if their gut is telling them
something is not quite right.
The elites that stand at the helm of the
Federal Reserve understand this dynamic
very well. They are not stupid.
They know that the whole of the global economy could be
in a shambles but as long as stocks remain positive the
masses will continue to ignore reality until the flames of
destabilization are at their very doorsteps.
With this fact in mind one might think that the
Fed would consider it in their best interest to
keep stimulus measures operating
indefinitely; but that is not what they are
doing.
In fact, the Fed along with other central banks
like the ECB has been slowly peeling back
pillars of support from markets that have
been in place since 2008-2009 and leaving the
system open to a crisis event that should
have been dealt with years ago.
I examined this process of deliberate destabilization in my
article 'The Global Economic Reset Has Begun.'
In that piece I outlined the three major pillars holding up
the U.S. market system and certain parts of our economy
and how they were being systematically removed.
 The first pillar was the use of bailouts and
quantitative easing measures. These were
diminished through the implementation of the
Fed “taper,” which I predicted would happen
three months prior that year.
The second pillar was the use of near zero
interest rates, which allowed numerous
banks and corporations to access low-cost
and no-cost overnight loans from the Fed.
These companies then used these loans in large part to
support a never-ending program of stock buybacks, which
reduced the stock pool and artificially boosted the values
of the remaining stocks. I predicted in August of 2015 that
the Fed would hike interest rates and that this would be the
beginning of the end for the stock buyback bonanza. The
Fed hiked rates in December of that year.
This process of removing backdoor manipulation through
low interest rates should be our main concern right now.
Early in 2016 I believed that the Fed would reach a
position in which it would finally unleash a series of rate
hikes. I did not think they would be so blatant as to wait
until right after the U.S. presidential election to do so. I
was wrong.
This is why I eventually predicted the launch
of a series of rate hikes starting right after the
election of Donald Trump in my article 'World
Suffers From Trump Shell Shock — Here’s
What Will Happen Next.'
The Fed has now once again hiked interest rates with
assertions that they will be “accelerating” such hikes
throughout 2017.
As I have been arguing for most of the past year, the
election of Donald Trump was inevitable and would
precede the triggering of the final stage of our ongoing
economic crisis. I came to realize that the Fed’s timing of
their latest rate hike is highly strategic. Not only does it set
the stage for a series of hikes that will crush U.S. stock
markets this coming year and finally shock the public out
of their fiscal stupor, but it also maneuvers the crisis
right into the lap of Donald Trump and the
conservative movements that support him.
Beyond this, it perpetuates an increasing Left/Right
division in America. Think about it — during a fiscal
crisis under Trump, tiggered by accumulating Fed rate
hikes, liberals will immediately set upon Trump as the
culprit, while conservatives will immediately defend
Trump as a victim of Federal Reserve meddling.
The Federal Reserve and the mainstream media are
already composing the narrative by stating that Trump's
potential economic policies and a widening budget deficit
515
would REQUIRE higher rates at a faster pace in order to
be accommodated.
I have heard arguments from some that this tactic would
simply not work. That people would “never buy” a
narrative in which Trump and conservatives are blamed for
a market collapse that was at least eight years in the
making. I have to say, this view is incredibly naive.
I understand why people would want to embrace the notion
that the public is as savvy as the liberty movement when
looking at economic events, but this simply isn’t reality.
A large portion of the U.S. population
identifies with the “Left” end of the political
spectrum. We have already seen how they
react in the face of a Trump election win.
They are predisposed to believe that Trump is
responsible for a market crash regardless of
the facts.
Not to mention, much of the rest of the world is
economically ignorant and will likely jump on the anti-
conservative bandwagon during a crisis as well.
But the real master stroke of this strategy on the
part of the elites is that it creates the perfect
platform for the destruction of the U.S.
dollar’s world reserve status — the third and
final pillar I mentioned months ago that is
supporting our economic system.
Imagine that the Fed’s rate hike frenzy sparks an open feud
between the central bank and Trump?
Some people might say “Good! Shut the
bastards down!” However, this is exactly
what the elites want. With the Fed “at odds”
with the president of the U.S., faith in the U.S.
dollar will plummet.
Its world reserve status will be destroyed. And instead of
being blamed on central banks, the majority of people
around the world will claim it was the fault of Trump.
With a historically sufficient excuse for the end of dollar
dominance in hand, the elites can move forward with their
great global reset, which includes the replacement of the
dollar with the IMF’s special drawing rights as the go-to
reserve currency mechanism. The SDR basket is an
essential bridge in the formation of a single global
monetary authority and a true single global currency.
I believe that the Fed will not only continue hiking
interest rates throughout 2017, but that some of these
rate hikes may be LARGER than many people expect
(50 basis points or more). I believe this will be designed to
foster extreme tensions between the executive branch and
the central bank.
A few months ago I would have said that Trump may or
“may not” be aware of this dynamic and the potential that
he is a scapegoat. Now that I have seen Trump’s cabinet
picks which include neo-con and Goldman Sachs alumni, I
have little doubt that he is fully cognizant of the plan. I
will be writing more on the issue of Trump as a "Trojan
horse" in my next article. In the meantime I would point
out that all of the elements of psychological support for
stock markets will also disappear in the face of a Trump
verses establishment narrative.
All those leftist media outlets cherry picking
economic stats and telling half truths to
support the recovery lie now have no reason
to continue cheerleading for the economy. I
expect that propaganda rags like Reuters and
.
516
Bloomberg will quickly change their tune with
Trump in the Oval Office and begin a consistent
chorus of negative financial data. Not only will
the Fed remove all support from the system,
but the mainstream media will be pounding
day traders with the kind of “doom and
gloom” headlines that they have been
criticizing us for over the years.
Make no mistake, the election of Trump may have some in
the liberty movement ready to pack up their preps and
forget about any national crisis in their lifetimes, but the
truth is, vigilance is needed now more than ever. I said
it before the election and I’ll say it today — do not get
comfortable; the times are about to get even more
interesting.
 Deep State Desperation
Submitted by Robert Gore via StraightLineLogic.com,
Dec 22, 2016 8:35 PM
The pathetic attempts to undo Donald
Trump’s victory are signs of desperation, not
strength, in the Deep State.
The post World War II consensus held that the USSR’s
long-term goal was world domination. That assessment
solidified after the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb in
1949. A nuclear arms race, a space race, maintenance of a
globe-spanning military, political, and economic
confederation, and a huge expansion of the size and power
of the military and intelligence complex were justified by
the Soviet, and later, the Red Chinese threats.
Countering those threats led the US to use
many of the same amoral tactics that it
deplored when used by its enemies:
espionage, subversion, bribery, repression,
assassination, regime change, and direct and
proxy warfare.
Scorning principles of limited government, non-
intervention in other nations’ affairs, and individual rights,
the Deep State embraced the anti-freedom mindset of
its purported enemies, not just towards those enemies,
but toward allies and the American people. The Deep
State gradually assumed control of the government and
elected officials were expected to adhere to its policies and
promote its propaganda. Only John F. Kennedy directly
challenged it, firing CIA Director Allen Dulles after the
Bay of Pigs disaster. He was assassinated, and whether or
not CIA involvement is ever conclusively proven, the
allegations have been useful to the agency, keeping
politicians in line. The Deep State also co-opted the media,
keeping it in line with a combination of fear and favor.
Since its ascension in the 1950s, the biggest
threat to the Deep State has not been its
many and manifest failures, but rather what
the naive would regard as its biggest
success: the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Much of the military-industrial complex was suddenly
deprived of its reason for existence—the threat was gone.
However, a more subtle point was lost.
The Soviet Union has been the largest of statism’s many
failures to date. Because of the Deep State’s philosophical
blinders, that outcome was generally unforeseen. The
command and control philosophy at the heart of Soviet
communism was merely a variant on the same philosophy
espoused and practiced by the Deep State. Like the
517
commissars, its members believe that “ordinary” people
are unable to handle freedom, and that their
generalized superiority entitles them to wield the
coercive power of government.
With “irresponsible” elements talking of peace dividends
and scaling back the military and the intelligence agencies,
the complex was sorely in need of a new enemy. Islam
suffers the same critical flaw as communism—command
and control—and has numerous other deficiencies,
including intolerance, repression, and the legal subjugation
of half its adherents. The Deep State had to focus on the
world conquest ideology of some Muslims to even conjure
Islam as a plausible foe. However, unlike the USSR, they
couldn’t claim that sect and faction-ridden Islam posed a
monolithic threat, that the Islamic nations were an empire
or a federation united towards a common goal, or that their
armaments (there are under thirty nuclear weapons in the
one Islamic nation, Pakistan, that has them) could destroy
the US or the entire planet.
There was too much money and power at stake for the
complex to shrink. While on paper Islam appeared far
weaker than communism, the complex had one factor in
their favor: terrorism is terrifying. In the wake of the 9/11
attacks, Americans surrendered liberties and gave the Deep
State carte blanche to fight a war on terrorism that would
span the globe, target all those whom the government
identified as terrorists, and never be conclusively won or
lost. Funding for the complex ballooned, the military was
deployed on multiple fronts, and the surveillance state
blossomed. Most of those who might have objected were
bought off with expanded welfare state funding and
programs (e.g. George W. Bush’s prescription drug
benefit, Obamacare).
What would prove to be the biggest challenge to the
centralization and the power of the Deep State came,
unheralded, with the invention of the microchip in the late
1950s.
The Deep State could not have exercised the
power it has without a powerful grip on
information flow and popular perception. The
microchip led to widespread distribution of
cheap computing power and dissemination of
information over the decentralized Internet.
This dynamic, organically adaptive decentralization has
been the antithesis of the command-and-control Deep
State, which now realizes the gravity of the threat.
Fortunately, countering these technologies has been like
trying to eradicate hordes of locusts.
The gravest threat, however, to the Deep
State is self-imposed: it’s own incompetence.
Even the technologically illiterate can ask questions for
which it has no answers. Why has the US been involved in
long, costly, bloody, and inconclusive wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq? Why should the US get involved in similar
conflicts in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, and other
Middle Eastern and Northern African hotspots? Isn’t such
involvement responsible for blowback terrorism and
refugee flows in both Europe and the US? Have “free
trade” agreements and porous borders been a net benefit or
detriment to the US? Why is the banking industry set up
for periodic crises that inevitably require government bail-
outs? (SLL claims no special insight into the nexus
between the banking-financial sector and the Deep State,
other than to note that there is one.) Why does every debt
crisis result in more debt? How has encouraging debt and
speculation at the expense of savings and investment
helped the US economy? The Deep State can’t answer or
even acknowledge these questions because they all touch
on its failures.
Brexit, Donald Trump, other populist,
nationalist movements catching fire, and the
rise of the alternative media are wrecking
.
518
balls aimed at an already structurally
unsound and teetering building that would
eventually collapse on its own.
The shenanigans in the US after Trump’s election—violent
protests, hysterical outbursts, the vote recount effort, the
proof-free Russian hacking allegations, “fake news,” and
the attempt to sway electoral college electors—are the
desperate screams of those trapped inside.
Regrettably, the building analogy is imperfect, because it
implies that those inside are helpless and that the collapse
will only harm them. In its desperation, incompetence,
and corrupt nihilism, the Deep State can wreak all
sorts of havoc, up to and including the destruction of
humanity. Trump represents an opportunity to strike a
blow against the Deep State, but the chances it will be
lethal are minimal and the dangers obvious.
The euphoria over his victory cannot obscure a
potential consequence: it may hasten and amplify the
destruction and resultant chaos when the Deep State
finally topples.
Anyone who thinks Trump’s victory sounds
an all clear is allowing hope to triumph over
experience and what should have been hard-
won wisdom.
 Prince Charles Issues Veiled Warning
Over Donald Trump And Return To 'Dark Days Of 1930s'
'We Are Now Seeing The Rise Of Many Populist Groups Across The
World That Are Increasingly Aggressive To Those Who
Adhere To A Minority Faith,' Warns Prince Of Wales
May Bulman = @Maybulman
Thursday 22 December 2016

Prince Charles has issued a warning over the “rise of
populism” in a veiled apparent reference to the election of
Donald Trump and increasingly hostile attitudes towards
refugees in Europe.
The Prince of Wales said there were “deeply disturbing
echoes of the dark days of the 1930s”, adding that “evil”
religious persecution was taking place across the globe.
The “suffering doesn’t end when they arrive seeking
refuge in a foreign land," he said in the pre-recorded
message for BBC Radio 4's Thought For The Day.
“We are now seeing the rise of many populist
groups across the world that are increasingly
aggressive to those who adhere to a minority
faith. All of this has deeply disturbing echoes of
the dark days of the 1930s," he said.
“My parents’ generation fought and died in a
battle against intolerance, monstrous extremism
and inhuman attempts to exterminate the Jewish
population of Europe.”
Citing UN statistics, he added that a "staggering" 65.3
million people abandoned their homes in 2015 — 5.8
million more than the year before.
“The suffering doesn’t end when they arrive
seeking refuge in a foreign land," he said. "We
are now seeing the rise of many populist groups
across the world that are increasingly aggressive
towards those who adhere to a minority faith."
He went on to urge listeners to remember this Christmas
While the prince did not make direct reference to
Mr Trump, his address will be widely linked to the
billionaire's rise to power.
It came as the President-elect signalled he may be intent on
pushing through a proposed Muslim 'registry'.
“Thank you Prince Charles for calling out the
creeping trend of modern authoritarianism in
which Trump and Putin are significant players,"
one Twitter user wrote.
Presumably we'll get a tweet from Donald Trump
attacking Prince Charles by the end of the day.
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) December
22, 2016
The heir to the throne's address also comes after an
apparent surged in far-right and nationalist sentiment
across Europe, which appeared to gather momentum in the
wake of the UK's Brexit vote.
Front National candidate Marine Le Pen is expected to
reach a second-round run-off in next year's French
presidential elections, while similar political parties have
also seen an increase in support in countries
including Germany, Austria and Netherlands.
The speech was the third time Prince Charles has appeared
on Thought for the Day.
He first did so on the fiftieth anniversary of VE Day in
1995 and then again in January 2000 to mark the new
millennium.

“how the story of the Nativity unfolds with the

fleeing of the holy family to escape violent
persecution”.
.

519
 Trump Reaffirms Plans To 'Drain The Swamp' Of Ex-
Officials Lobbying US Government
© AFP 2016/ JEFF KOWALSKY US 20:21 22.12.2016(Updated 20:22 22.12.2016)
The campaign pledge to "drain the swamp" is not going anywhere
and the incoming administration will always try to confront the
practice of former officials being able to lobby the government for
personal gain, President-elect Donald Trump said in a Twitter
message on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Throughout the 2016 US
presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised that he
would impose a five-year waiting period before former
government officials can lobby the US Congress, political
appointees, agency bureaucrats and the White House.
.
520
"Someone incorrectly stated that the phrase
‘drain the swamp’ was no longer being used by
me," Trump tweeted. "Actually, we will always be
trying to DTS [drain the swamp]."
Someone incorrectly stated that the phrase
"DRAIN THE SWAMP" was no longer being used
by me. Actually, we will always be trying to DTS.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 22
декабря 2016 г.
On Wednesday, former US House of Representatives
Speaker and Trump supporter Newt Gingrich said he was
told that Trump disclaims the pledge, and while the
president-elect thought it was cute on the campaign trail,
he does not want to use it anymore.
Since winning the November 8 presidential election,
Trump nominees for top administration posts have raised
concerns that private interests will have outsized influence
on government policy.
Reader Notes:

521