They are going because it's a cool thing to do AND they will really have some great fun .. and much GOOD FUN LATER with other friends .. LOLOLOLoLOL .. oh I wish I could be at a few of those get togethers ...plus of course, the added benefit is that it takes some power back from the fat pig...it shows a lot of class .. .and they have it ... no matter what has been thrown at them ,,,they don't hide, they hold hands and walk right through it ... .. and everyone will want to be around them ... just wait and see .. let's face it ... trump is dull .. other than yelling out obscenities about some class of people or the other ,,, , they will have a great time .. they are not intimated, they are above him ,,,, in thousands of ways ,,,, ,,, there are many non believers going to that party .... who knows? ... ohh this could make a good book .. wish we had more time to write it ... ;)

and no hot flashes here please .. I don't believe in that 'above or below junk with people ' .... but trump does ... the crass fool

not one that has been mentioned anywhere yet. ... I'm waiting .. he, she will show at th'a't right time ..

I do have some ideas but I prefer not to give the opportunity to people who will start their bullshit on them immediately
to advance their own choice...If you say the same thing over and over again ... it works ........look no farther than the Clintons

Do you already have someone in mind?

Elizabeth Warren And Pals Introduce Bill To F*ck Trump’s Rich Cabinet Right In The Ear

Evan Hurst -
January 4, 2017 - 12:52pm


Evan Hurst -
January 4, 2017 - 12:52pm

Is our Democrats learning? MAYBE. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is all talkin’ big about how Senate Democrats are going to screw Donald Trump in his arse by doing the same thing to his Supreme Court nominee that Republicans did to Obama’s nice nominee Merrick Garland. Will they follow through? Hope so! And now Sen. Elizabeth Warren and some of her Senate pals, including Sheldon Whitehouse, Tammy Baldwin, and Dianne Feinstein, have introduced some new legislation [ http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/312594-senate-dems-want-to-curb-tax-breaks-trump-nominees ] to fuck all of Trump’s extremely rich cabinet nominees right in their ears:

Remember that thing about how Trump’s cabinet picks have a combined net worth greater than the entire bottom third of the American population, many of whom have negative net worth? Uh huh, they are rich. And when cabinet members are picked, they tend to have to sell whatever assets they have that could cause conflicts of interest (these rules don’t apply to Trump of course, because no reason they just don’t). People who have ONE BILLION ASSETS have a lot of stuff to sell, and they usually stick the proceeds in Treasury Bonds or mutual funds or whatever are considered OK for them to have, by ethical standards. (PFFFFT, “ethics.” Aren’t Republicans and Trump going to get rid of those?)
[ http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/dec/30/mark-pocan/do-17-picks-donald-trumps-cabinet-have-higher-net-/ ]

As the Washington Post helpfully explains, there is a law “designed to help ease the sting of being forced to suddenly sell investments,” that lets all these new appointed officials defer having to pay taxes on the capital gains they suddenly have, from selling all their sexxxy stocks in Walmart or Boeing or TruckNutz (big conflicts of interest, between gubmint and TruckNutz). They still owe the taxes down the road, let’s say, if they sell the Treasury Bonds they stuck their capital gains moneys in, but if they just keep their many moneys where they are, then WHEEEE TAX FREE! As The Economist reports, Dubya’s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson avoided paying approximately 200 MILLION DOLLARS in taxes on the sale of a half billion he held in Goldman Sachs stock. What lucrative fun it can be to be appointed to a fun cabinet post by a preznit, right? [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-cabinet-could-avoid-millions-in-taxes-thanks-to-this-little-known-law/2016/12/02/509d009a-b7f5-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html? ]
[ http://www.economist.com/node/7065901 ]

The law seems to make sense, even for normal rich people who weren’t planning to sell all their investments right then and there. But when every single cabinet member is a multi-gatrillionaire, going into what looks to be the most godawful, kleptocratic, pay-to-play presidential administration in U.S. American hist’ry, then you have a LOT of people who stand to benefit, in the financial way, from saying, “Yes, Dear Leader Trump, it would be so many honors for me to serve your orange face and tiny man fingers! KA-CHING ALSO TOO!”

So that is why this is funny. Sure, Trump nominees, you can sell ELEVENTY FUCK-BILLION DOLLARS worth of assets, but you only get to avoid taxes on one measly million bucks worth of that. AW SAD!

Will it pass a Republican Senate? HAHAHAHA OK, YOU ARE CUTE. But it’s a nice shot across the bow from Senator Liz and her pals, to send a message that they might be in the minority, but they’re going to do everything in their power to be as much of a pain in the ass to the Trump administration as they possibly can.

In other words, DON’T START NO SHIT WON’T BE NO SHIT.

[ http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/312594-senate-dems-want-to-curb-tax-breaks-trump-nominees ]-great photo of Liz
[ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-cabinet-could-avoid-millions-in-taxes-thanks-to-this-little-known-law/2016/12/02/509d009a-b7f5-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html?utm_term=.f1a6b454856e ]

http://wonkette.com/610108/elizabeth-warren-and-pals-introduce-bill-to-fck-trumps-rich-cabinet-right-in-the-ear

Peg really, your judgement has been off for such a long long time, your judgement depends on who you are tagging after .. .Sox was good ..... whoever you are tagging on to now . .not so much. You can really really tell that they don't know Hillary .. not one bit, not even close ... . and of course you may never have and maybe you just will not be able to hear the truth. That my friend is cult like behavior .. when the truth is before you and you can't hear or see it .. just keep repeating your mantras about Hillary over and over again ... lolol ... I guess that fills a hole for you... ............

I wonder why Cuomo is doing that ? .. it's not out of the goodness of his heart or beliefs etc.... I do know that some 'bernie guy' is running against Di Blasio . .. that should heat up and just the other day Cuomo threw out the bill that gave the poor legal representation .. and of course ... housing for the homeless .... isn't that the way it always is ? .... It's not Cuomo that is what I'm saying ... .. maybe ....maybe ... well, we'll see ..

These are the days when hannity a hack, palin a hick and trump (I can't say) decide that our intelligence community is
FOS and wikileaks is GOD! And they do it on live tv. AS IF that will decide something .. well, it will for the
stupid, for the trump voters, they are the 'believers' ..........

To Julian Assange: I apologize.

Please watch Sean Hannity's interview with Julian Assange (Wikileaks).

Exposing the truth re: the Left having been oh-so-guilty of atrocious actions and attitudes of which they've falsely accused others. The media collusion that hid what many on the Left have been supporting is shocking. This important information that finally opened people's eyes to democrat candidates and operatives would not have been exposed were it not for Julian Assange.

I apologize for condemning Assange when he published my infamous (and proven noncontroversial, relatively boring) emails years ago.

As I said at the time of being targeted and my subsequent condemnation, though, the line must be drawn before our troops or innocent lives deserving protection would be put at risk as a result of published emails.

Julian, I apologize.

- Sarah Palin

ps. If you get the chance, catch the movie "Snowden." That movie and Hannity's interview tonight are quite enlightening.


https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin/photos/a.10150723283643588.424640.24718773587/10154916952353588/?type=1&theater

ROTFLMAO! you know, there has got to be a way that we can make money off of these people ,, cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeerist! they're begging for it !

what he had was adoring crowds of milliennials ... start your campaign off at college campuses and EVERYWHERE young people hang out and then tell them that you will bring them FREE COLLEGE and FREE HEALTHCARE and you too can be a star.. .. hell! trump would have won by tons more if that had been his mantra going in and up .. .. ;) ..

too early for me to be posting ... not enough coffee

And yes, Hillary IS far superior to bernie as a presidential candidate ..

she was prepared and had great WRITTEN plans for us and good solid progressive policy ready to go

he didn't and he wasn't ...

he is an old coot and so is Liz and trump and Hillary and who else is thinking about running? . .hell the youngest is what? 71?

that's too damn old .. even 68 is. 65 better 62 better yet!

Senate Republicans just introduced an Obamacare repeal plan Democrats can’t stop

by Dylan Matthews
Jan 3, 2017, 2:10pm EST

This is a detailed, linked well written article that tells you how exactly this is going to happen ...
so I'm not wasting my time on posting it .. there really are quite a few links etc....

Welcome to dumbfueckistan, USA

The only free country in the WEST without public healthcare for ALL!

well what do we expect? ..just look at his belly fat, just look at his fat ass, just look at his hair IF you can bear it then.... just look at them, just look at the parents, just look at their schools? look at the school books? OMG

it's all understandable .. .. As Paul says we have become a STAN

A DUMBfueckingSTAN...


If interested in how they will take away people health care go here to this link below
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/3/14154820/senate-obamacare-budget-resolution-reconciliation

no doubt head dumbass will do some costly dumb shit before he's through though ...scary for us !

OH ... I do so hope that the Obamas join the Clintons
and the Bushes for the big party in Jan... .. that would be smashing!

that would then be THE BEST PARTY EVER! ..in January that is

I wonder how those republicans? are gonna like taking it in the? gut? from their dear leader?

How Trump Had It Both Ways on Congressional Ethics

The president-elect mildly scolded Republicans for gutting a watchdog, without fully
condemning the move—and then gets credited for their reversal of course.

David A. Graham 12:02 PM ET

President-elect Donald Trump has shown a rare talent for leaving his own allies and friends in a difficult and awkward spot, and he demonstrated that talent again on Monday, weakly condemning a move by House Republicans to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics as a misplaced priority, while also calling the office “unfair”—a very public demonstration of why even the president-elect’s strongest allies sometimes find it difficult to follow his lead.

Within hours of his tweets, and amid broad public outcry, the House Republican caucus called an emergency meeting, and pulled the amendment—a black eye for the congressional GOP and its leadership, perhaps made even more humiliating by the public rebuke from their own president-elect.

Trump weighed in around 10 a.m. on Tuesday, about 14 hours into a hubbub over the House move.

Donald J. Trump
?
@realDonaldTrump

With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it
7:03 AM - 3 Jan 2017

Donald J. Trump
?
@realDonaldTrump

........may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS
7:07 AM - 3 Jan 2017

At first glance, it looked as if Trump was picking a fight with Congress, which to a certain extent he is. But that overstates what he actually said. Trump went out of his way to acknowledge the complaint, voiced by some members of Congress, that the ethics committee stepped on their due-process rights and was time-consuming. (Norm Ornstein makes the case for the committee here.) [ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/the-gops-ethics-disaster/512021/ [ His only complaint was about the timing and priority of the move; needless to say, Trump would like the House to focus first on the things that he cares about most.

So what happened here? to put it simply, He grabbed the headline away from his 'top congressional leaders' .. just to say - yeah it's o.k. for us to get rid of the ethics committee, we are not going to listen to any of them anyway, but! ...COULDN'T YOU HAVE FOCUSED ON MY STUFF FIRTST? LIKE you know, OBAMACARE AND GETTING RID OF ALL THESE IMMIGRANTS AND MY TAX CUTS, again FIRST????? does congress know they were played ? ,,, I wonder, it seems as if dumb runs wild in everything republican now this is a long, information packed article .. so, IF interested go here
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trumps-weak-pushback-on-gutting-the-congressional-ethics-office/512039/

America Becomes a Stan

Paul Krugman JAN. 2, 2017

In 2015 the city of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, was graced with a new public monument: a giant gold-plated sculpture portraying the country’s president on horseback. This may strike you as a bit excessive. But cults of personality are actually the norm in the “stans,” the Central Asian countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union, all of which are ruled by strongmen who surround themselves with tiny cliques of wealthy crony capitalists.

Americans used to find the antics of these regimes, with their tinpot dictators, funny. But who’s laughing now?

We are, after all, about to hand over power to a man who has spent his whole adult life trying to build a cult of personality around himself; remember, his “charitable” foundation spent a lot of money buying a six-foot portrait of its founder. Meanwhile, one look at his Twitter account is enough to show that victory has done nothing to slake his thirst for ego gratification. So we can expect lots of self-aggrandizement once he’s in office. I don’t think it will go as far as gold-plated statues, but really, who knows?

Meanwhile, with only a couple of weeks until Inauguration Day, Donald Trump has done nothing substantive to reduce the unprecedented — or, as he famously wrote on Twitter, “unpresidented” — conflicts of interest created by his business empire. Pretty clearly, he never will — in fact, he’s already in effect using political office to enrich himself, with some of the most blatant examples involving foreign governments steering business to Trump hotels.

This means that Mr. Trump will be in violation of the spirit, and arguably the letter, of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars gifts or profits from foreign leaders, the instant he recites the oath of office. But who’s going to hold him accountable? Some prominent Republicans are already suggesting that, rather than enforcing the ethics laws, Congress should simply change them to accommodate the great man. --Yes, I think they did that already, about thirty minutes ago. There will still be OH so many ways that he will screw himself though, I laugh! ... .. I hope he goes riding .. hell riding .....riding anything... we can count on it

And the corruption won’t be limited to the very top: The new administration seems set to bring blatant self-dealing into the center of our political system. Abraham Lincoln may have led a team of rivals; Donald Trump seems to be assembling a team of cronies, choosing billionaires with obvious, deep conflicts of interest for many key positions in his administration.

In short, America is rapidly turning into a stan.

I know that many people are still trying to convince themselves that the incoming administration will govern normally, despite the obviously undemocratic instincts of the new commander in chief and the questionable legitimacy of the process that brought him to power. Some Trump apologists [ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/the-wealthy-would-never-steal-a-credo-for-trumps-party.html ] have even taken to declaring that we needn’t worry about corruption from the incoming clique, because rich men don’t need more money. Seriously.

But let’s get real. Everything we know suggests that we’re entering an era of epic corruption and contempt for the rule of law, with no restraint whatsoever.

How could this happen in a nation that has long prided itself as a role model for democracies everywhere? In a direct sense, Mr. Trump’s elevation was made possible by the F.B.I.’s blatant intervention in the election, Russian subversion, and the supine news media that obligingly played up fake scandals while burying real ones on the back pages.

But this debacle didn’t come out of nowhere. We’ve been on the road to stan-ism for a long time: an increasingly radical G.O.P., willing to do anything to gain and hold power, has been undermining our political culture for decades.

People tend to forget how much of the 2016 playbook had already been used in earlier years. Remember, the Clinton administration was besieged by constant accusations of corruption, dutifully hyped as major stories by the news media; not one of these alleged scandals turned out to involve any actual wrongdoing. Not incidentally, James Comey, the F.B.I. director whose intervention almost surely swung the election, had previously worked for the Whitewater committee, which spent seven years obsessively investigating a failed land deal.

People also tend to forget just how bad the administration of George W. Bush really was, and not just because it led America to war on false pretenses. There was also an upsurge in cronyism, with many key posts going to people with dubious qualifications but close political and/or business ties to top officials. Indeed, America botched the occupation of Iraq in part thanks to profiteering by politically connected businesses.

The only question now is whether the rot has gone so deep that nothing can stop America’s transformation into Trumpistan. One thing is for sure: It’s destructive as well as foolish to ignore the uncomfortable risk, and simply assume that it will all be O.K. It won’t.


Yeah,,,,,there's many more links at this link ... ;)
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/opinion/america-becomes-a-stan.html?_r=0

Impeaching Trump

The process begins now.



Robert Kuttner
01/01/2017 09:25 pm ET

Donald Trump is wildly unfit to be president, and he will demonstrate that in ways that break the law and violate the Constitution. Since the election, there have been three wishful efforts to keep Trump from the presidency: a recount doomed by a lack of evidence; a futile campaign to flip Trump electors; and an even more improbable drive to get the Supreme Court to annul the 2016 election.

These moves, indicative of magical thinking, make Trump’s opposition look a lot weaker than it is?at a time when the stakes for the Republic could not be higher. There will also be marches and demonstrations, but they will also look weak unless they have a strategic focus.

There is only one constitutional way to remove a president, and that is via impeachment.

What’s needed is a citizens’ impeachment inquiry, to begin on Trump’s first day in office.

The inquiry should keep a running dossier, and forward updates at least weekly to the House Judiciary Committee. There will be no lack of evidence.

The materials should be made public via a website. The inquiry should be conducted by a distinguished panel whose high-mindedness and credentials are, well, unimpeachable.

There needs to be a parallel public campaign, pressing for an official investigation. For those appalled by Trump, who wonder where to focus their efforts, here is something concrete?and more realistic than it may seem.

Trump has already committed grave misdeeds of the kind that the Constitutional founders described as high crimes and misdemeanors. With his commingling of his official duties and his personal enrichment, Trump will be in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which unambiguously prohibits any person holding public office from profiting from gifts or financial benefits from “any king, prince or Foreign state.”

Trump, who has entangled his business interests with his political connections at home and abroad, has already declared his contempt for these Constitutional protections. He declared, [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/business/dealbook/congress-may-hold-key-to-handling-trumps-conflicts-of-interest.html ] “The law is totally on my side, meaning the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” Oh, yes he can, and this president will.

In his dalliance with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s actions are skirting treason. John Shattuck, former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and former Washington legal director of the ACLU has pointed to the constitutional definition of treason: [ http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/12/16/trump-raises-specter-treason/zdwgXRuJBMChEXmX5kchhP/story.html ] a crime committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who... adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.” By undermining further investigation or sanctions against the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election, Trump as president would be giving aid and comfort to Russian interference with American democracy.

There will be a lot more once Trump takes office. Trump will make grievous mistakes. If we are lucky, they will be political and policy mistakes, not the sort of nuclear miscalculation that leaves the planet a cinder. If the blunders and assaults against the Constitution are serious enough, even Republicans in the House, which needs to originate an impeachment inquiry, will begin having second thoughts.

For instance, Trump will very likely use agencies of government to punish political enemies. The Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon explicitly cited Nixon’s political misuse of the CIA, the FBI and the IRS.

It’s worth recalling the Nixon chronology. In two years, the idea of impeaching Nixon went from loony-left fantasy, to mainstream, to inevitable.

On May 9, 1972—before the Watergate break-in?my former boss, Congressman William Fitts Ryan of Manhattan, submitted the first resolution to impeach Nixon, H.Res. 975, mainly for the illegal bombing of Cambodia, other war crimes, and spying against American citizens.

The break-in occurred in June 1972. Woodward and Bernstein got busy that summer and fall. The Senate Watergate Committee did not start hearings until May 1973, and the official House impeachment inquiry only began in May 1974. It took time for evidence, public pressure, and political courage to build. Nixon finally resigned in August 1974, more than two years after the break-in.

In October 1973, when removing Nixon from office still seemed a fantasy, the ACLU’s Chuck Morgan published a book-length bill of particulars urging Nixon’s impeachment. It bore a remarkable resemblance to the eventual Articles of Impeachment nearly a year later.

Nixon was a vile president with a creepy personality, but he was also a student of history and a serious person. In the end, even Nixon acceded to court orders to turn over evidence.

Trump is far more of a menace than Nixon. Trump will commit impeachable offenses. There is no way to contain him other than removing him from office, before the damage to our democracy is irrevocable. The process of building the impeachment case needs to begin now.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/impeaching-trump_us_5869b806e4b0eb586489f3a4

delete pls

LOL ... all the fake news sites are on that story! info wars, daily caller,
and red state, the blaze ... of course 'hot air' ,,,,sickening !

it's not made up and it's NOT FAKE you idiots!

Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say

You have to go to the link to view photos & a video

By Juliet Eilperin and Adam Entous December 31 at 11:50 AM

A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials.

While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a security matter, the discovery underscores the vulnerabilities of the nation’s electrical grid. And it raises fears in the U.S. government that Russian government hackers are actively trying to penetrate the grid to carry out potential attacks.

Officials in government and the utility industry regularly monitor the grid because it is highly computerized and any disruptions can have disastrous implications for the country’s medical and emergency services.

Burlington Electric said in a statement that the company detected a malware code used in the Grizzly Steppe operation in a laptop that was not connected to the organization’s grid systems. The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities.

Friday night, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) called on federal officials “to conduct a full and complete investigation of this incident and undertake remedies to ensure that this never happens again.”

“Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality-of-life, economy, health, and safety,” Shumlin said in a statement. “This episode should highlight the urgent need for our federal government to vigorously pursue and put an end to this sort of Russian meddling.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said he was briefed on the attempts to penetrate the electric grid by Vermont State Police on Friday evening. “This is beyond hackers having electronic joy rides — this is now about trying to access utilities to potentially manipulate the grid and shut it down in the middle of winter,” Leahy said in a statement. “That is a direct threat to Vermont and we do not take it lightly.”

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said the attack shows how rampant Russian hacking is. “It’s systemic, relentless, predatory,” Welch said . “They will hack everywhere, even Vermont, in pursuit of opportunities to disrupt our country. We must remain vigilant, which is why I support President Obama’s sanctions against Russia and its attacks on our country and what it stands for.”

American officials, including one senior administration official, said they are not yet sure what the intentions of the Russians might have been. The incursion may have been designed to disrupt the utility’s operations or as a test to see whether they could penetrate a portion of the grid.

Officials said that it is unclear when the code entered the Vermont utility’s computer, and that an investigation will attempt to determine the timing and nature of the intrusion, as well as whether other utilities were similarly targeted.

“The question remains: Are they in other systems and what was the intent?” a U.S. official said.

This week, officials from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shared the Grizzly Steppe malware code with executives from 16 sectors nationwide, including the financial, utility and transportation industries, a senior administration official said. Vermont utility officials identified the code within their operations and reported it to federal officials Friday, the official said.

The DHS and FBI also publicly posted information about the malware Thursday as part of a joint analysis report, saying that the Russian military and civilian services’ activity “is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-
enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens.”

Another senior administration official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said in an email that “by exposing Russian malware” in the joint analysis report, “the administration sought to alert all network defenders in the United States and abroad to this malicious activity to better secure their networks and defend against Russian malicious cyber activity.”

According to the report by the FBI and DHS, the hackers involved in the Russian operation used fraudulent emails that tricked their recipients into revealing passwords.

Russian hackers, U.S. intelligence agencies say, earlier obtained a raft of internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, which were later released by WikiLeaks during this year’s presidential campaign.

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned the veracity of U.S. intelligence pointing to Russia’s responsibility for hacks in the run-up to the Nov. 8 election. He also has spoken highly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite President Obama’s suggestion that the approval for hacking came from the highest levels of the Kremlin.

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said it would be “highly inappropriate to comment” on the incident given the fact that Spicer has not been briefed by federal authorities at this point.

Obama has been criticized by lawmakers from both parties for not retaliating against Russia before the election. But officials said the president was concerned that U.S. countermeasures could prompt a wider effort by Moscow to disrupt the counting of votes on Election Day, potentially leading to a wider conflict.

Officials said Obama also was concerned that taking retaliatory action before the election would be perceived as an effort to help the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

On Thursday, when Obama announced new economic measures against Russia and the expulsion of 35 Russian officials from the United States in retaliation for what he said was a deliberate attempt to interfere with the election, Trump told reporters, “It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.”

Trump has agreed to meet with U.S. intelligence officials next week to discuss allegations surrounding Russia’s online activity.

Russia has been accused in the past of launching a cyberattack on Ukraine’s electrical grid, something it has denied. Cybersecurity experts say a hack in December 2015 destabilized Kiev’s power grid, causing a blackout in part of the Ukrainian capital. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Petro ­Poroshenko accused Russia of waging a hacking war on his country that has entailed 6,500 attacks against Ukrainian state institutions over the past two months.

Since at least 2009, U.S. authorities have tracked efforts by China, Russia and other countries to implant malicious software inside computers used by U.S. utilities. It is unclear if the code used in those earlier attacks was similar to what was found in the Vermont case. In November 2014, for example, federal authorities reported that a Russian malware known as BlackEnergy had been detected in the software controlling electric turbines in the United States.

The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for the Energy Department and DHS declined to comment Friday.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-vermont/2016/12/30/8fc90cc4-ceec-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.2f9efb01bfdc

hey! .. Happy New Year! ..........;)

thanks for letting us know and all the good information

Bibi Netanyahu Makes Trump His Chump

Thomas L. Friedman DEC. 28, 2016

For those of you confused over the latest fight between President Obama and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, let me make it simple: Barack Obama and John Kerry admire and want to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel. I have covered this issue my entire adult life and have never met two U.S. leaders more committed to Israel as a Jewish democracy.

But they are convinced — rightly — that Netanyahu is a leader who is forever dog paddling in the middle of the Rubicon, never ready to cross it. He is unwilling to make any big, hard decision to advance or preserve a two-state solution if that decision in any way risks his leadership of Israel’s right-wing coalition or forces him to confront the Jewish settlers, who relentlessly push Israel deeper and deeper into the West Bank.

That is what precipitated this fight over Obama’s decision not to block a U.N. resolution last week criticizing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The settlers’ goal is very clear, as Kerry put it on Wednesday: to strategically place settlements “in locations that make two states impossible,” so that Israel will eventually annex all of the West Bank. Netanyahu knows this will bring huge problems, but his heart is with the settlers, and his passion is with holding power — at any cost. So in any crunch, he sides with the settlers, and they keep pushing.

Obama ordered the U.S. to abstain on the U.N. resolution condemning the settlements (three months after Obama forged a 10-year, $38 billion military aid package for Israel — the largest for any U.S. ally ever) in hopes of sparking a debate inside Israel and to prevent it from closing off any chance of a two-state solution.


President Obama, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel in September. Pool photo by Menahem Kahana

Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, and right now Obama and Kerry rightly believe that Israel is driving drunk toward annexing the West Bank and becoming either a bi-national Arab-Jewish state or some Middle Eastern version of 1960s South Africa, where Israel has to systematically deprive large elements of its population of democratic rights to preserve the state’s Jewish character.

Israel is clearly now on a path toward absorbing the West Bank’s 2.8 million Palestinians. [ http://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/the-palestinian-authority?inline=nyt-classifier ] There are already 1.7 million Arabs living in Israel, so putting these two Arab populations together would constitute a significant minority with a higher birthrate than that of Israeli Jews — who number 6.3 million — posing a demographic and democratic challenge.

I greatly sympathize with Israel’s security problems. If I were Israel, I would not relinquish control of the West Bank borders — for now. The Arab world is far too unstable, and Hamas, which controls another 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, would likely take over the West Bank.

My criticism of Netanyahu is not that he won’t simply quit all the West Bank; it is that he refuses to show any imagination or desire to build workable alternatives that would create greater separation and win Israel global support, such as radical political and economic autonomy for Palestinians in the majority of the West Bank, free of settlements, while Israel still controls the borders and the settlements close to it.

Bibi never lays down a credible peace plan that truly puts the ball in the Palestinians’ court. And when someone like Obama exposes that — and Bibi comes under intense criticism from the liberal half of Israel, which sees the country getting more and more isolated and less and less democratic — Bibi just calls Obama an enemy of Israel and caves to the settlers. U.S. Jewish “leaders” then parrot whatever Bibi says. Sad.

More worrisome is the fact that President-elect Donald Trump — who could be a fresh change agent — is letting himself get totally manipulated by right-wing extremists, and I mean extreme. His ambassador-designate to Israel, David Friedman, has compared Jews who favor a two-state solution to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis. I’ve never heard such a vile slur from one Jew to another.

Trump also has no idea how much he is being manipulated into helping Iran and ISIS. What is Iran’s top goal when it comes to Israel? That Israel never leaves the West Bank and that it implants Jewish settlers everywhere there.

That would keep Israel in permanent conflict with Palestinians and the Muslim world, as well as many Western democracies and their college campuses. It would draw all attention away from Iran’s own human rights abuses and enable Iran and ISIS to present themselves as the leading Muslim protectors of Jerusalem — and to present America’s Sunni Arab allies as lackeys of an extremist Israel. This would create all kinds of problems for these Arab regimes. A West Bank on fire would become a recruitment tool for ISIS and Iran.

One day Trump will wake up and discover that he was manipulated into becoming the co-father, with Netanyahu, of an Israel that is either no longer Jewish or no longer democratic.

He will discover that he was Bibi’s chump.

What a true friend of Israel and foe of Iran would do today is just what Obama and Kerry tried — assure Israel long-term military superiority to the tune of $38 billion, but, unlike Trump, who is just passing Israel another bottle of wine, tell our dear ally that it’s driving drunk, needs to stop the settlements and apply that amazing Israeli imagination to preserving Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/bibi-netanyahu-makes-trump-his-chump.html?_r=0

Trump Says He Is 'Never Going To Be Going Against' President Obama



Esme Cribb
December 29, 2016, 8:52 AM EDT

President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday night that he is "getting along very well" with President Barack Obama, hours after Trump took to Twitter to suggest that Obama was leaving "roadblocks" for his transition effort.

Speaking to reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said that he had "a very very good talk" with Obama earlier Wednesday.

"I actually thought we covered a lot of territory," the President-elect said according to a transition pool report. "Our staffs have been getting along very well and I'm getting along very well with him other than a couple of statements that I responded to."

Trump said that he and Obama "talked about it and smiled about it."

"Nobody is ever going to know because we are never going to be going against each other," he said.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said that Obama and Trump's conversation, "like the others since the election, was positive and focused on continuing a smooth and effective transition," according to a Politico report.

In a podcast interview with former advisor David Axelrod that went live on Monday, Obama said that he could have won the 2016 presidential election with a vision of "one America that is tolerant and diverse and open."

On Tuesday, Obama warned against "the urge to turn inward" and "demonize those who are different" in a speech at Pearl Harbor alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trump slammed Obama for his "inflammatory" statements in an apparent response which began on Twitter Monday afternoon and continued through early Wednesday morning.

"Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!" the President-elect tweeted on Wednesday.

Yet later the same day, Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that he thinks the transition is going "very, very smoothly."

President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday night that he is "getting along very well" with President Barack Obama, hours after Trump took to Twitter to suggest that Obama was leaving "roadblocks" for his transition effort.

Speaking to reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said that he had "a very very good talk" with Obama earlier Wednesday.

"I actually thought we covered a lot of territory," the President-elect said according to a transition pool report. "Our staffs have been getting along very well and I'm getting along very well with him other than a couple of statements that I responded to."

Trump said that he and Obama "talked about it and smiled about it."

"Nobody is ever going to know because we are never going to be going against each other," he said.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said that Obama and Trump's conversation, "like the others since the election, was positive and focused on continuing a smooth and effective transition," according to a Politico report. [ http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-obama-transition-233023 ]

In a podcast interview with former advisor David Axelrod that went live on Monday, Obama said that he could have won the 2016 presidential election with a vision of "one America that is tolerant and diverse and open."

On Tuesday, Obama warned against "the urge to turn inward" and "demonize those who are different" in a speech at Pearl Harbor alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trump slammed Obama for his "inflammatory" statements in an apparent response which began on Twitter Monday afternoon and continued through early Wednesday morning.

"Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!" the President-elect tweeted on Wednesday.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-says-getting-along-with-obama

yeah .. it's true the only way to FORCE him to answer questions etc... is to cut off the cameras .. ( never happen, BUT it would work) ... ... he goes totally nuts that Obama gets more attention and of course the type of attention that he would die for and may for all we know NEVER RECEIVE!... he's a whore ..............just take his damn photo! and tell him to stfu! .... NOT one word! .. move him out of all news cycles ... .. lol .. ;)

Donald Trump confirmed yesterday that his veterans’ health “plan” is a joke

by Matthew Yglesias
Dec 29, 2016, 10:20am EST



One of Donald Trump’s major themes on the 2016 campaign trail was the need to improve the health care offerings afforded to America’s veterans. We’re going to “take care of our veterans like they have never been taken care of before” was a fairly typical stump speech line, though he sometimes shortened it to simply a brief promise to “take care of our vets.”

This was typically laced with references to the spring 2014 VA scandal and devoid of references to the bipartisan reform legislation [ http://www.vox.com/2014/7/28/5942797/va-scandal-reform-department-veterans-affairs-health-care-veterans-health-administration ] that passed in the wake of the scandal. Trump didn’t particularly have a policy critique of the Obama administration and never so much as mentioned any of Hillary Clinton’s policy ideas on the issue — the pitch he was making was, broadly, that Democrats didn’t respect or care about veterans as much as he did.

Wednesday he held meetings at his Florida estate with private sector health care leaders to discuss ways to improve things, and then, as described by the New York Times’s Michael Shear, briefed the press on his thinking:

Looking back to the campaign trail, it’s not hard to see what Trump was doing. Whether it was taking care of vets or respecting cops or reopening coal mines or getting Americans jobs in steel mills, wherever there was a stereotypically male occupational category, Trump was there to rhetorically elevate its social status.

He did not actually have a specific criticism of the veterans’ health care status quo or a specific plan to improve it, and I think Americans in the relevant parts of the country will soon find that he doesn’t have a plan to bring back coal mining or labor-intensive forms of domestic steel production either. In many cases, that reality probably won’t cost Trump votes. Voting for the guy who praises steel and coal and cops and veterans rather than the woman talking about reducing student debt is at least as much a matter of identity politics as it is a matter of policy. After all, anyone interested enough in the details of veterans’ health policy or energy policy could have figured out pretty quickly that there was no substance to Trump’s plans.

But there probably are some people out there who voted for Trump on the assumption that he had some notion of how to accomplish the things he’s promised. If so, they’re set to be sorely disappointed.


http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/29/14112394/donald-trump-veterans-health

Donald Trump Considers Moving VA Toward Privatization
[ http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-considering-moving-va-toward-privatization-1482974260 ]

Will this be like charter schools in education?? To prove the government is not doing it right?

President-elect Donald Trump is considering moving the Department of Veterans Affairs toward privatization, a transition team official said Wednesday, a policy decision major veterans’ groups have said they would oppose

Trump is considering changing the department to allow some veterans to bypass the VA heath-care system completely and get care exclusively from private-sector hospitals and clinics, the official said. It is an option that could give veterans full choice over their health care, but which many veterans groups argue is the first step toward privatization and one that will reduce the quality of health care over the long term.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028409390

one commenter said .. "Hell! in four years everything will be privatized .. .. they are right, imo. ..

I'm ready for Christmas, a holiday so significant Tchaikovsky set it to music


Christmas is the sum total of the little things we do, Charles M. Schulz said. That includes buying overpriced trees and fruitcake fraps. (United Features Syndicate)

Chris Erskine
December 21st 2016

I’ve been writing now for 40 years, not long. But my goal remains simple: to write something half as good as John Lennon’s worst song. Seriously, sometimes I wish he were worse. Sometimes I wish he hadn’t set the bar quite so high.

As you may know, I like bars and music and games of chance. I also like Christmas because you never know what you’re going to get. Could be an epic season, big and bawdy. Could be a tiny interlude, candlelit and serene.

Yet, in a world brimming with change and disappointment, we can always count on Christmas, a holiday so significant Tchaikovsky set it to music.

What’s so great about it? Well, how about the simple sound of an acoustic guitar in a crowded church? The clunk of an oven door. Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens … bright copper kettles….

Charles M. Schulz once said of it, “Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”

So there’s that.

I once parked a car for a freaked-out shopper in a crazy Hastings Ranch lot. To be honest, she rammed the curb so many times I was afraid she might eventually mow us all down. My ultimate goal, every Christmas, is not to wind up as B-roll on CNN.

Years ago, when the kids were quite small, we decided to dress up a little Charlie Brown tree for a beloved elderly neighbor and surprise her with it.

“You want how much for this scrawny thing?” I asked the tree lot attendant.

“Forty.”

“Dollars?”

“Forty bucks,” he insisted.

“It’s a twig,” I said. “It’s half a %#@*&% pencil.”

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad,” scolded my lovely and patient older daughter.

All my life, I’ve been drawn to misfits and malcontents; that’s why I had four kids. As I may have mentioned, our hospital has a no-returns policy on babies; they won’t even allow exchanges. Doesn’t matter — a day, a decade — you can’t return them, which is a lousy way to run a hospital, if you ask me.

On that day, in the tree lot, I looked down at my then-10-year-old daughter – obviously defective, obviously not even my own flesh and blood, for she didn’t think that 40 bucks was that bad a price for a piece of kindling wood. As every dad knows, $40 is a Christmas ham; $40 is a big bottle of Jack.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad,” she said.

“OK, you want it on the roof?” the tree attendant asked as he carried it to the car.

“No, just put it in the glove box,” I said.

If you’re a father, and the holidays give you the yips and inadvertent twitches, a heightened sense that you’re not in control in any way, just laugh at the whole bloody blob of it … the excesses, the expectations, the specials that don’t seem so special at all.

This year, for instance, Starbucks offered a special fruitcake frappuccino, perhaps the worst idea since the sitar. Or nuclear weapons. Or even “Bad Santa 2.”

Consider the photo of the fruitcake fraps. They look pre-digested, right? They look like a cup of moldy socks. Conveniently, little pieces of fruit kept blocking the straw, so you couldn’t actually drink it. So laugh.

The holidays are here, so laugh. Plug in a Chevy Chase movie. Call an old pal. Buy your bartender a pair of silly lighted antlers. Laugh.

Because Schulz was right, Christmas is merely doing a little something extra for someone. To that end, the little guy and I are burning homemade cookies together right now. Trust me, someone in the house will eat them.

Look, it’s been a long, brutal December here in Los Angeles. Daily highs have rarely broken 70, and all the women are wearing multiple scarves, as you would a neck brace, and doubling up on designer sweaters to ward off the cruel chill. Forecasters blame a polar vortex. I blame Nordstrom’s.

Obviously, it is a full-on state of emergency here, and I’m not sure how much more of this the townsfolk can take. Certainly, Santa won’t come within 300 miles of a place like this, nor should any of us.

So, if Santa’s a no-show, you might pick up some of the slack. Do that little extra something. Give a humble tree. Or a tray of homemade cookies. How about a bowl of overseasoned meatballs (is there a more succulent holiday sight?).

For in a world chronically short of kindness and charity, at least we’ll always have the holidays, at least we’ll always have meatballs.

And doorbells and sleigh bells … and schnitzel with noodles.

Merry Christmas.
And
Happy Holidays.

ALSO

Since when did Brussels sprouts become a dish we crave?





http://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-erskine-20161219-story.html?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=c6792684fc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-c6792684fc-74534693

There is some very good stuff to find here .. YES, SCROLL ALL the way down .. .;)

http://www.latimes.com/topic/entertainment/cartoons/charles-m.-schulz-PECLB00002403-topic.html

he's been very consistent about his feelings towards Russia---we need to be best buds, all you have to do is to take a
look at his appointments ... and you will know that he feels just as you do ..... 'Russia is NOT our enemy' ... fo sure.............;)

o.k. see you around New Years ... ;)

Heidi M. Przybyla / USA Today:
Lawyer: ‘Appalled’ by FBI warrant that shook Clinton — WASHINGTON — The FBI warrant that shook Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign in its final two weeks has been unsealed, and the lawyer who requested it says it offers “nothing at all” to merit the agency's actions leading up to the Nov. 8 election.

Discussion: Occupy Democrats and Politicus USA
RELATED:

The Huffington Post:

The Subpoena That Rocked The Election Is Legal Garbage, Experts Say — The warrant assumes that the mere existence
of emails from or to Hillary Clinton is probable cause that a crime occurred. —

National Reporter, The Huffington Post Senior Enterprise Editor, The Huffington Post Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post
Discussion: Washington Post, Hullabaloo and Gothamist
Matt Zapotosky / Washington Post:

Emails between Clinton and top aide, but little else, spurred FBI to resume controversial probe — The FBI told a federal judge that it needed to search a computer to resume its investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server because agents had found correspondence …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Balloon Juice and The Week

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Yep, Comey's Decision Was Just as Bad As You Thought — Apart from the question of its impact on the 2016, we now have confirmation of just how bad a decision, how unjustified a decision James Comey made when he rocked the presidential election a week before election day. Every bit as bad as you thought.

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money
Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Clinton allies rip into FBI after search warrant unsealed
Discussion: Bipartisan Report, Raw Story, Washington Free Beacon, ABC News, Hot Air and TheBlaze
Dan Hopkins / FiveThirtyEight:
Voters Really Did Switch To Trump At The Last Minute
Discussion: Salon, New York Magazine, Was

well sure, Migo, I'm just not used to listening to and then agreeing with trump on foreign policy yet

you'll have to give me some time and a little success before I'm able to agree with him there, particularly there

So pleased to hear from You! Have a most beautiful Holiday Season! With all your family!!!

yes, I'm aware that you took this moment to let me know that You still neither like nor trust our in-tell ---oh well, you,ve been
in that club for a long time

Have A Great One! so good to see you !

Japan's top court deals blow to opponents of U.S. base on Okinawa


Four Sea Knight transport helicopters and a Super Stallion helicopter are parked at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan on Okinawa May 3, 2010. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Tue Dec 20, 2016 | 3:54pm EST

Japan's top court on Tuesday ruled in favour of a government plan to relocate a U.S. military base on the island of Okinawa, dealing a blow to islanders' efforts to get rid of the base altogether.

The government and Okinawa authorities have been at loggerheads for years over the U.S. Marines' Futenma air base as resentment has simmered among residents who bemoan what they see as an unfair burden in supporting the U.S. military presence in Japan.

Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga has led the campaign to get the base off the island while the central government has proposed moving it away from the urban area where it is located to a less populated part of the island called Henoko.

As part of his campaign, Onaga rescinded approval for land reclamation work, issued by his predecessor, to clear the way for the base relocation.

But a high court ruled his decision illegal and on Tuesday the Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

The defence ministry, which is overseeing the plan to relocate the base, said it would resume work as soon as it was officially cleared to go ahead.

"We plan to do our utmost for the transfer of the Futenma air base to Henoko to prevent the air base from becoming fixed at the current location and to remove the danger posed by the base," Defence Minister Tomomi Inada said in a statement.

The U.S. State Department applauded the ruling.

"We welcome the decision by the Japanese Supreme Court," State Department spokesman John Kirby said. "The United States and Japan remain committed ... to the plan to construct the Futenma replacement facility at the Camp Schwab-Henoko area and adjacent waters."

The Futenma base is surrounded by schools, hospitals and shops and residents worry about air crashes. Crime by U.S. servicemen has also on occasion inflamed anger.

A U.S. military tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey aircraft came down in the sea off Okinawa last week.

Onaga has indicated he will maintain his opposition to the relocation of the facility to the current the site of the Camp Schwab Marine Corps base.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Brown)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-okinawa-base-idUSKBN149148

Russia Missing from Trump’s Top Defense Priorities, According to DoD Memo

Meanwhile, Pentagon brass say Moscow is the No. 1 threat to the United States.

By John Hudson, Paul McLeary, Dan De Luce
December 20, 2016



A Pentagon memo outlining the incoming Trump administration’s top “defense priorities” identifies defeating the Islamic State, eliminating budget caps, developing a new cyber strategy, and finding greater efficiencies as the president-elect’s primary concerns. But the memo, obtained by Foreign Policy, does not include any mention of Russia, which has been identified by senior military officials as the No. 1 threat to the United States.

“People there now would be pretty concerned to see Russia not on the list,” said Evelyn Farkas, a former senior Pentagon official who worked on Russia policy before leaving in 2015.

For years, top cabinet officials at the Defense Department and the intelligence community cited Russia as the foremost threat because of its vast nuclear arsenal, sophisticated cyber capabilities, recently modernized military, and willingness to challenge the United States and its allies in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and other regions.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will remain in that role after Trump takes office Jan. 20, told Congress last year that no other threat is more serious.

“If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia,” Dunford told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.” He listed China, North Korea, and the Islamic State as the next biggest threats, in that order.

The memo, dated Dec. 1, was written by acting Undersecretary of Defense for policy Brian McKeon to employees in his office. In it, McKeon said the four-point list of priorities was conveyed to him by Mira Ricardel, a former Bush administration official and co-leader of Trump’s Pentagon transition team.



The full memo is here. [ https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/screen-shot-2016-12-19-at-1-44-09-pm.png ]

Besides placing an emphasis on budgetary issues, “force strength,” and counterterrorism in Iraq and Syria, the memo noted other briefings between the Defense Department and the Trump transition team on China and North Korea. But Russia was not mentioned.

A Trump transition official declined to say where Russia fits into the president-elect’s defense priorities, but said the memo is “not comprehensive.”

“For the media to speculate that this list of issues represents all of the president-elect’s priorities is completely erroneous and misleading,” said the Trump official, who insisted on anonymity.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the incoming Trump administration’s priorities, but said the transition team had been briefed on issues related to Russia.

“We would leave it up to them to describe their priorities,” Gordon Trowbridge, the deputy Pentagon press secretary told FP. “We have provided them with multiple briefings that touched on Russia policy. That’s the extent of our knowledge on their priorities.”

Since the beginning of his campaign, Trump has openly argued that an improved relationship with Russia is in the interest of the United States, especially relating to counterterrorism efforts in Iraq and Syria.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of ISIS?” Trump said in July, a line he frequently reiterated on the campaign trail.

Last week, he nominated ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, arguing that the oilman’s extensive business dealings in Russia would be a major asset in international negotiations. Under Tillerson’s leadership, Exxon has lobbied against U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow over its armed incursion into Ukraine and seizing of Crimea in 2014. The oil giant stands to profit from deals in Russia worth billions of dollars if the sanctions are lifted.

Trump’s messaging throughout the campaign markedly improved GOP attitudes on Russia, according to recent polling. But the U.S. foreign policy establishment — including large swaths of employees at the Pentagon, State Department and CIA — remains deeply skeptical of Moscow.

Steven Pifer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who spent 25 years as a State Department diplomat, said the memo was “both surprising and concerning … given what the Russians are doing against Ukraine, their military modernization effort, the bellicose tone we’ve heard from Moscow the past three years, and NATO’s effort to bolster conventional deterrence and defense capabilities in the Baltic region.”

Last February, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper [ http://wtop.com/j-j-green-national/2016/02/target-usa-odni-chief-says-isil-cant-destroy-u-s-russia-can/ ] the Islamic State terrorist group isn’t nearly as threatening to U.S. interests as Moscow. The Islamic State “can’t inflict mortal damage to the United States,” he said. “Russia can.”

That outlook is reflected in how the federal government has directed billions of dollars of defense spending. The Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer earlier this month said that U.S. defense budgets are now focused primarily on countering Moscow. [ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-military-russia-idUSKBN13U0CX?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews ]

The White House earmarked an extra $3.4 billion[ in the 2014 defense spending bill to deploy two more U.S. Army brigades to eastern Europe — along with hundreds of tanks and heavily armored vehicles pre-positioned for use in case of war with Russia.

The Pentagon and its NATO allies have revamped some training exercises specifically to replicate fighting Russian armed forces, head of the U.S. Army in Europe, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, told FP. ] Hundreds of American, British, and Canadian troops are deployed to western Ukraine, where they’re training Ukrainian forces who are seeing daily combat with Russian-trained and equipped separatists in the country’s east. Many of those separatist units are led by Russian officers, Hodges said.

Under a Trump administration, those initiatives could be scaled back, but not without a fight. Republican hawks in Congress, including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and John McCain of Arizona, have pledged to oppose a softer line on Russia. Last week, Rubio openly cast doubt on his support for Tillerson in what will likely be a testy confirmation battle.

Others said it was too soon to judge the posture that Trump’s Pentagon would take toward Russia as Gen. James Mattis, his pick for defense secretary, hasn’t been confirmed yet.

“I would give this a little bit more time to be fleshed out and to hear more directly from Gen. Mattis about what his priorities will be,” said Heather Conley, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A defense official with knowledge of the transition process confirmed that the Trump transition team has met with relevant officials tasked with Russia policy at the Pentagon, but said: “There’s not a lot of back and forth, it’s been mostly ‘how are you set up.’”

A second Pentagon official called the meetings professional, but said it is hard to discern the shape of the next administration’s policies before a defense secretary is in place.

Farkas, after reviewing the memo, said she would expect significant resistance from Pentagon officials if the next president tries to pursue its policy priorities as outlined. “They will find ways to drag their heels,” she said. “Clearly, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs still has six months to go, and he also agrees that Russia is the No. 1 threat.”


The thing is that trump is heavily indebted to the Russian Oligarchs .. I don't know if Russia has banks .. they probaby use the same ones trump does .. what is it? deustch? . .something like that ... ;) .. my point is .. .our BIGGEST THREAT to OUR COUNTRY is TRUMP .. and we do NOT even have his tax returns ..... ..
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/20/russia-missing-from-trumps-top-defense-priorities-according-to-dod-memo/?utm_content=buffer63979&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

From the "cannot make this shit up" files

by digby
Monday, December 19, 2016



That's a beautiful old growth tree up there. Naturally, his people stole it from a public park: [ http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/12/mobile_chief_of_staff_apologiz.html ]

Here's what the jerk who did it said: That little event sums up so many of Trump's supporters. They are cheapskates who take anything they want without regard to their fellow citizens, all in the name of venerating their leader. And when someone objects they respond with juvenile commentary worthy of a snotty tween.



http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/12/from-cannot-make-this-shit-up-files.html

as I said, years ago .... Low Life White TRASH! .. I must begin working in stupid somehow.. as IF

could we say .... China has him by the ying yangs? ... or is that ? .... too rude?

AND .... and ..and ........................and ...and.. EVEN his WIFE doesn't want to live with him!

who could blame her? ....no one.

Good Article Borealis .. thanks so much ....

California has a much bigger economy than the bear does
.. and probably many other states too ...

for sure Europe, England etc.. etc ..

gee ... there are lots and lots of governments, ambassados etc.

. ..... .......who have that coming

of course, no one will pay much attention ... nothing effects us plus most ... .. ;)

White nationalists target Jews in small Montana town

A call to action in the Daily Stormer describes Jews as a “vicious, evil race of hate-filled psychopaths.”

Such nice people our new prex has brought with him..

The article is here at Think Progress and at the Missoulan
[ http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/white-supremacist-website-calls-for-action-in-montana/article_3b95f7d3-d6f5-5d2d-831c-d2c2cb647010.html ]


https://thinkprogress.org/white-nationalists-target-jews-in-small-montana-town-71f3ed16d14b#.mkh3llxut

ExxonMobil helped defeat Russia sanctions bill

The company’s formidable lobbying operation cleared the way for outgoing CEO Rex
Tillerson to help restore a program worth billions of dollars as secretary of state.

By Isaac Arnsdorf and Elana Schor
12/18/16 07:11 AM EST

ExxonMobil's intervention against the Russia sanctions bill could add to concerns among senators.

ExxonMobil successfully lobbied against a bill that would have made it harder for the next president to lift sanctions against Russia, clearing the way for the oil giant to restart a program worth billions of dollars if Donald Trump eases those restrictions as president.

The company’s effort could be helped by outgoing CEO Rex Tillerson, who, if confirmed as secretary of state, would be a key adviser on the decision.

The bill, known as the STAND for Ukraine Act, would have converted into law for five years President Barack Obama’s measures punishing Russia for annexing Crimea, making it more difficult for Trump to roll them back. The Senate left town on Monday without acting on the bill, making it easier for Trump to end the sanctions with a stroke of the pen.

The sanctions forced Exxon to step back from a drilling project in Russia’s Arctic, a loss that the company valued in a regulatory filing at as much as $1 billion. Exxon also lobbied the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against previous bills punishing Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, according to a person familiar with the company’s efforts on Capitol Hill.

Exxon’s intervention against the sanctions bill could add to concerns among senators — including Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio — that Tillerson is too chummy with Vladimir Putin. Exxon’s business partner in Russia is state-owned Rosneft, led by Igor Sechin, a close Putin ally who was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2014. Tillerson and Putin personally concluded the joint venture in 2011.

In a statement, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said the company “sought and provided information” about its activities in Russia and Ukraine and disclosed its lobbying as required. "Our contacts were reported per congressional requirements, but were mainly in the first half of 2014," when the Russia sanctions were first imposed, he added.

Exxon reportedly raised concerns that the implementation of European sanctions against Russia, developed in concert with the U.S. restrictions, would give the company's overseas competitors an unfair advantage.

Russia sanctions have been a key point of disagreement between Exxon and U.S. government policy in recent years. Exxon and Rosneft collaborate on 10 joint ventures in the Russian Arctic, the Black Sea and western Siberia. Tillerson has said the company would go “back to work” if sanctions are lifted in 2017.

Though Tillerson would come to Trump’s Cabinet with no government experience — he has worked at Exxon since college — he has some claim to knowing his way around the halls of power from having presided over a chain of policy successes and one of the capital’s most formidable corporate lobbying shops.

The Washington operation, whose annual budget has hovered around $12 million for the past six years, is led by Theresa Fariello, who used to work for the Energy Department and former Rep. Jerry Kleczka (D-Wis.) and was a bundler for Hillary Clinton.

The company also retains former Sen. Don Nickles of the Nickles Group, former Hillary Clinton appointee and John Kerry aide David Leiter of ML Strategies, Teresa Gorman of LPI Consulting, and other firms, including Kelley Drye & Warren, Capitol Counsel, McGuireWoods Consulting and Ernst & Young.

Exxon’s lobbyists aren’t bomb-throwers like some other fossil-fuel companies’ can be, but they are known for being ruthlessly efficient on their top issues. When environmental groups began a well-funded campaign charging that the oil giant fraudulently misled the public and investors about its climate change research, Exxon met privately with its congressional Democratic critics — while publicly lambasting activist groups for selectively editing the company’s record.

“It’s a culture of education, of growth and of loyalty,” said a lobbyist who frequently interacts with Exxon. “Call it getting what you want, but at the end of the day, when you give people this much pride and passion in their company, they’re going to be good soldiers for you.”

Exxon lobbyists’ awareness of their own clout makes them more cautious than some rivals because they know how the public or the press might seize on any missteps.

“A movie like ‘Thank You for Smoking’ could never be done with ExxonMobil as the subject,” one former employee said. “Any company that has that kind of profile by definition tends to do things very carefully.”

Exxon often works closely with its trade associations, such as the American Petroleum Institute, as it did last year when Exxon and the rest of the industry celebrated the end of the U.S. ban on crude oil exports as a rider to the year-end government spending deal.

On Russia sanctions, Exxon sometimes works through the U.S.-Russia Business Council, where Tillerson used to be a board member. In May, the group brought a handful of people who work for American companies in Russia, including Caterpillar and JPMorgan, to discuss topics including sanctions with House Democrats.

Randi Levinas, the U.S.-Russia Business Council’s lobbyist, said the House Foreign Affairs Committee Democratic staff invited the group to weigh in on the sanctions bill. The group also lobbied the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, she said.

The Ukraine bill passed the House anyway but stalled in the Senate at the hands of Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who was also in the running to be the nation’s top diplomat.

The Senate version was introduced Dec. 9, days before the chamber adjourned for the year, with only Democratic cosponsors. A Corker aide blamed a lack of consensus between the administration and lawmakers from both parties for the absence of bipartisan support in the Senate following bipartisan passage in the House.

Though Exxon’s Washington office typically operates without much interference from headquarters in Irving, Texas, one of Tillerson’s first big initiatives as CEO was to review the company’s position on climate change. According to the book “Private Empire” by journalist Steve Coll, Tillerson wanted the company to find a way to conform to the scientific consensus on climate change without admitting it ever strayed, which could open the door to tobacco company-style lawsuits.

Tillerson’s acceptance of climate science puts him at odds with Trump, who has repeatedly question man-made global warming. As secretary of state, Tillerson would have significant sway over the Trump administration’s climate policy, including the future of its participation in the United Nations pact to cut global emissions, which conservatives abhor. Exxon itself backed the Paris climate deal, which Trump has said he is still deciding whether to cancel.

Still, Tillerson’s position will not spare him a skewering from Democrats, who are eager to use his confirmation hearing to confront him on Exxon’s record. The New York and Massachusetts attorneys general are investigating whether Exxon downplayed the risks of climate change.

“I am deeply troubled by Mr. Tillerson’s vocal opposition to U.S. sanctions on Russia following its illegal invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea, Ukraine, and his close personal relationship with Vladimir Putin,” Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. He added: “Mr. Tillerson has demonstrated he knows the corporate world and can put his shareholders’ interests first, but can he be a respected Secretary of State that puts the national security interests of the American people first? It remains to be seen.”


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/exxon-mobile-russia-sanctions-rex-tillerson-232770

Leak reveals Rex Tillerson is director of Bahamas-based US-Russian oil company

Documents from tax haven will raise more questions over
suitability of Donald Trump’s pick for US secretary of state


Rex Tillerson is a director of ExxonMobil’s Russian subsidiary.
Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Rex Tillerson, the businessman nominated by Donald Trump to be the next US secretary of state, is the long-time director of a US-Russian oil firm based in the tax haven of the Bahamas, leaked documents show.

Tillerson – the chief executive of ExxonMobil – has been a director of the oil company’s Russian subsidiary, Exxon Neftegas, since 1998. His name – RW Tillerson – appears next to other officers who are based at Houston, Texas; Moscow; and Sakhalin, in Russia’s far east.

The leaked 2001 document comes from the corporate registry in the Bahamas. It was one of 1.3m files given to the Germany newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung [ http://www.sueddeutsche.de/ ] by an anonymous source. The registry is public but details of individual directors are typically incomplete or missing entirely.

Though there is nothing untoward about this directorship, it has not been reported before and is likely to raise fresh questions over Tillerson’s relationship with Russia ahead of a potentially stormy confirmation hearing by the US senate foreign relations committee.

ExxonMobil’s use of offshore regimes – while legal – may also jar with Trump’s avowal to put “America first”.

Tillerson’s critics say he is too close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and that his appointment could raise potential conflicts of interest.

ExxonMobil is the world’s largest oil company and has for a long time been eyeing Russia’s vast oil and gas deposits. Tillerson currently has Exxon stock worth more than $200m.


The interesting stuff is here -
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/18/leak-rex-tillerson-director-bahamas-based-us-russian-oil-company

Bravo to his producers who had the forethought to think of this months ahead!


https://www.google.com/amp/www.today.com/amp/popculture/james-corden-just-gave-us-perfect-christmas-gift-star-studded-t106060?client=safari

Alec Baldwin blasts Donald Trump over misspellings before teasing ‘Saturday Night Live’ return

BY Nicole Bitette
Saturday, December 17, 2016, 2:46 PM



Alec Baldwin will be live from New York once again.

The "30 Rock" star took to Twitter on Saturday to mock Donald Trump over his recent misspelled tweets before announcing he'll be back on "Saturday Night Live."

"I won't apple-agize. Tonight at 11:30. Live," he tweeted.


Yes, MUCH MORE ( nothing) lots and lots of it
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/alec-baldwin-blasts-trump-misspellings-snl-return-article-1.2914438

I thought we needed one here .. ;)

Lol .. .they also got one of our underwater drones ... . yes, we've asked for it back ...
IF our site keeps working I'll get the link tomorrow .. ...

heck it's on google news, at least it was yesterday ..

U.S. Demands Return of Drone Seized by Chinese Warship

By HELENE COOPER DEC. 16, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/us/politics/us-underwater-drone-china.html?_r=0

In Major Step for Drone Delivery, Amazon Flies Package to Customer in England

By NICK WINGFIELD and MARK SCOTTDEC. 14, 2016


Amazon made its first commercial drone delivery on Dec. 7 in Cambridgeshire, England. Credit Amazon

When Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, first said [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/technology/amazon-delivers-some-pie-in-the-sky.html ] that the e-commerce giant wanted to use drones to deliver packages directly to customers’ homes, many people thought he was crazy.

Three years later, his claims no longer look so outlandish.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bezos announced on Twitter [

First-ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books. 13 min—click to delivery. Check out the video: https://t.co/Xl8HiQMA1S pic.twitter.com/5HGsmHvPlE

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 14, 2016

] that his company had made its first commercial drone delivery, on Dec. 7, to an Amazon shopper in Cambridgeshire, England, a major step forward in its experiments with automated shipments.

The flight — to deliver an Amazon Fire streaming device and popcorn to a customer identified only as Richard B. — took off from a nearby Amazon warehouse and lasted 13 minutes, covering about two miles.

Amazon said it would now test drone deliveries with two more customers near Cambridge, an English city where the company has a large drone-testing plant. If the tests are successful, the company says it wants to expand the number of consumers who could participate in the trial to dozens in the coming months, eventually allowing hundreds to use the drone service.

The start of customer trials for the drone delivery service, which Amazon calls Prime Air, is a milestone for a technology that could eventually automate an important part of Amazon’s business as the company looks to cement its position as the world’s dominant online retailer.

There are reasons to be skeptical about how broadly drones can be used, however, because of aviation rules, weather restrictions and weight limitations on cargo.

Experts say that the advent of widespread drone deliveries, even if technically possible, would take years, and regulators from the United States and elsewhere could block the plans.

Even if drones end up handling only a small portion of Amazon’s overall deliveries, the implications could be far-reaching.

The company, for instance, might not need as many truck drivers or other costly logistical operations. Drones could also have environmental benefits, by reducing reliance on pollution-belching vehicles. The biggest boon may be to customers, who could be able to receive their orders more quickly, depending where they live.

The fact that Amazon’s latest drone tests were in Britain is no coincidence.

The country’s regulators have been more cooperative than their American counterparts about such flights, even signing an agreement with Amazon in July to allow the testing of drones in rural and suburban areas.

As part of those trials — some of which have taken place [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/technology/britain-amazon-drone-test-delivery.html ] at a secretive farm in rural Cambridgeshire — Amazon has been allowed to fly drones without a human pilot at the controls, navigating to destinations solely by GPS. The company says it has developed “sense-and-avoid” technology to help the machines fly around towers, birds and other obstructions.

Not all of the residents in the area have been fans, however.

Julia Napier, who helped found a Cambridgeshire association that maintains public footpaths around one of Amazon’s test sites, said the company’s drones threatened wildlife and the wider countryside, something that the company has denied.

“They are testing those drones here because they can’t do it in America,” she said. “Whatever the Americans don’t want, I don’t want it, either.”

While Amazon has experimented with different drone designs, the one that makes the delivery in the company’s video [

] appears to be a quadcopter — a helicopter with four rotors — that can take off and land vertically.

So far, the devices are limited to carrying cargo weighing less than five pounds. They use cameras to identify landing marker pads that customers place in their backyards or in other unobstructed locations.

In the United States, regulators have been more cautious about drone tests, though the Federal Aviation Administration issued new rules this year to allow for the commercial use of drones under certain circumstances. One major limitation was the stipulation that devices must be operated remotely by a human pilot.

Amazon is not the first company to test drone delivery.

The Chinese internet retailer JD.com has a fleet of drones flying autonomously on round trips of a maximum of 15 miles to reach rural communities (though a person still takes the package on the last leg of its journey to the recipient). In New Zealand, Domino’s Pizza is testing drones to deliver fast food across the country.

And in the United States, 7-Eleven said in July that it had delivered Slurpees, doughnuts and other food to a customer in Reno, Nev. Google has tested drone delivery of Chipotle burritos on the Virginia Tech campus.

Amazon, however, with its deep pockets, logistical expertise and technological prowess, still seems the most likely to push widespread drone delivery into the mainstream, at least in the Western world.

so many more Embedded Links are at this link below
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/technology/amazon-drone-england-delivery.html

yeah............what the heck..if there's a space somewhere anywhere ... we gotta fill it, hopefully so 'they' can make more money.... until we've killed everything ... is it possible? I don't know ? ..........we are sure getting rid of our animals fast . Christ .... the Giraffes ... ? why ? we really don't deserve this beautiful place ~