Taking National Security Seriously

Apparently, that not something The Stain does very well, according to the New York Times.  Shortly after North Korea conducted a missile test, The Stain huddled with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe --- at The Stain's Mar-a-Lago resort, in a public area.  At least one guest was so awestruck by the event that he posted to Facebook about it.

And this isn't an isolated occurrence.  Former NSA analyst John R. Schneider writes that the current administration is so lax about security matters that:

. . . out of worries about the White House’s ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway?

He goes on to quote an unnamed senior Pentagon intelligence official, who says that “since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM,” meaning the White House Situation Room.

But it's not like he's using a private email server to conduct business --- THAT would be WRONG!

A Study in Contrasts

I'm just sayin'.

Working-Class Whites watch: Day 19

Okay, it turns out that labeling these by day of The Stain's administration was a bad idea.  Anyway, look at The Stain's latest plan to Make America Great (with the full support of Republicans in Congress):

Insurers would have more leeway to vary prices by age, so that premiums for the oldest customers could be 3.49 times as large as those for younger customers. Today, premiums for the old can be only three times as high as premiums for the young, which is what the Affordable Care Act stipulates. According to sources privy to HHS discussions with insurers, officials would argue that since 3.49 “rounds down” to three, the change would still comply with the statute.

Yes, The Stain is eager to make health care more expensive for seniors.  And since the 3:1 ratio is stipulated in law as part of the Affordable Care Act, and since changing the law is tricky, The Stain wants to just wave his hands and make the change using 'rounding'.

Fortunately, this is unlikely to go anywhere, because if the administration actually tries to make this fly, it's likely to be laughed out of court --- even by a Bush- or Reagan-appointed judge.  But still, those Working-Class Whites have to appreciate how The Stain continues to devise exciting and creative ways to take money out of their pockets.

Russians

As a special favor to an 'acquaintance' of mine on Facebook (not a 'friend'.  We're not Facebook friends, and I know nothing about this person other than she has challenged me to 'research the true facts'.  Hi Patti!), I'm going to take a close look at the report on Russian hacking into the U.S. election, released jointly by the CIA, FBI and NSA.  Their conclusion:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.  Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.  We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.  We have high confidence in these judgments.

So there you go, Patti.  I have researched the 'true facts' that the U.S. intelligence agencies reported, and just like I thought, they reported that the Russians helped elect The Stain.

But that's not all they said!

Moscow's use of disclosures during the US election was unprecedented, but its influence campaign otherwise followed a longstanding Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations --- such as cyber activity --- with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or "trolls".

The Russians paid people to repeat pro-Trump or anti-Hillary propaganda on social media.  So Patti is right to make sure I have my facts straight!  Fortunately, I do, and I can assure you that no one is paying me to write this (I wish).  And I'm so old, I can remember when Russians undermining a U.S. election was considered a BAD thing.

The report actually goes into quite a bit of depth regarding the "state-funded media" aspect of Russian involvement in the election.  Fully half of the report is devoted to a discussion of RT America TV, which the report describes as "a Kremlin-financed channel operated from within the United States".  It also contains a section titled "RT Leadership Closely Tied to, Controlled by Kremlin", in which they conclude:

The Kremlin staffs RT and closely supervises RT's coverage, recruiting people who can convey Russian strategic messaging because of their ideological beliefs.

There seem to be a lot of Americans --- on the left AND the right --- who are unaware that when they're getting information from RT America, they're drinking in Russian propaganda.

The declassified report from the intelligence community contains no discussion of the degree to which The Stain may have been complicit in the Russian subterfuge.  It seems that a responsible Congress would want to conduct an investigation to find this out.  After all, this Congress spent literally YEARS investigating the Benghazi attack which left four Americans dead.  As tragic as that was, it was nowhere near the threat to democracy that a hacked election is.

Yes, a responsible Congress would definitely initiate a no-holds-barred investigation.  I wonder what this Congress will do?