Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Part 105, some of Russian meddling, and related, material from F6 big ones. These from Thursday,
01/11/18, headed, Prince Harry interviews ex-president Barack Obama (FULL INTERVIEW)
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=137596157

Seventh video down. Jones lies about Clinton giving two nuclear reactors to North Korea (they were never completed). Jones says he
hopes Trump does the right thing, then forecasts, on good authority, an American military strike in mid-February. That's during the
2018 Winter Olympics. It reeks of the FEMA camps to corral dissidents Jones raved about long ago. Anyway, this one is short.

More Clinton Connected FBI Agents Resign, Causes The Left To Panic

Streamed live on Dec 27, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWuk4lk1mqQ [with comments] [a must-watch]

Three more down

After praising Mueller, former Clinton prosecutor Ken Starr contradicts himself
The Beat With Ari Melber
12/27/17
The Republican independent counsel who led the Whitewater investigation into Bill Clinton recently praised Mueller’s
“integrity” and once said it’s “not fair to attack and calumny career civil servants” is now attacking Mueller. Duration: 7:53
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber/watch/after-praising-mueller-former-clinton-prosecutor-ken-starr-contradicts-himself-1125006403967

Into the second quarter Facebook, Internet.org and Trump's mate, Duterte.

Mark Zuckerberg under fire for Facebook’s deal with authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte

The Beat With Ari Melber
12/27/17
Beat special report on Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, “fake news” and how Rodrigo Duterte deployed the “Putin playbook” using the platform.
Melber’s message for Mark Zuckerberg: “Working with anyone and everyone to make money is not good for democracy.” Duration: 10:29
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber/watch/mark-zuckerberg-under-fire-for-facebook-s-deal-with-authoritarian-rodrigo-duterte-1125008963884 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk_ns1ynSRo [with comments]

Skip one to these three

As 2017 ends, Mueller investigation expands
All In with Chris Hayes
12/27/17
The president's lawyers said the probe would wind down by the new year, but
the special counsel is just beginning to pursue new leads. Duration: 8:26
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/as-2017-ends-mueller-investigation-expands-1124953155731

*

New Senate attempt to block Russian hacking

All In with Chris Hayes
12/27/17
Senator Amy Klobuchar explains a bipartisan bill she introduced today
to prevent Russian interference in future elections. Duration: 6:12
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/new-senate-attempt-to-block-russian-hacking-1124958787693 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqBToKwkTHQ [with comments]

*

13 pivotal days
All In with Chris Hayes
12/27/17
13 transformative days in the Trump presidency. Duration: 4:50
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/13-pivotal-days-1124972611615

From that one Trump still stuck with his blame Sessions syndrome. 'If only he had told me before i put him there that he would recuse himself!!!'

Over one to three here. Hmm, yeah, the first one. Ryan, too?

Mueller probing Republican non-Trump work with Russian hacking

The Rachel Maddow Show
12/27/17

Natasha Bertrand, political correspondent for Business Insider, talks with Joy Reid about a report that the Mueller investigation
is expanding to look at the extent to which RNC digital operations overlapped with Russian hacking activity. Duration: 13:00
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/mueller-probing-republican-non-trump-work-with-russian-hacking-1125032515802 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz_uQDOk1yg [with comments]

*

Trump legal team prepares Mike Flynn smear strategy: WaPo
The Rachel Maddow Show
12/27/17
Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney, talks with Joy Reid about a Washington Post report that Donald Trump's legal team is preparing a strategy to
discredit Mike Flynn in case his testimony is used against Trump, and the legal implications of a possible Trump pardon of Flynn. Duration: 8:22
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-legal-team-prepares-mike-flynn-smear-strategy-wapo-1125035075666

*

Indicted Trump aides struggle with legal fees
The Rachel Maddow Show
12/27/17
Joy Reid reports on how one indicted former Donald Trump aide, Rick Gates, is trying to convince a judge that
his participating in a fundraiser for his legal fees did not violate the gag order in his case. Duration: 1:34
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/indicted-trump-aides-struggle-with-legal-fees-1125039171719

Just over halfway, these two

Russia thinks U.S. is meddling in Putin's presidential campaign

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
12/27/17
Vladimir Putin, the man Trump praised for his leadership, has blocked his most formidable challenger from running in Russia's 2018 election.
WaPo Moscow Bureau Chief David Filipov says talk about Putin's challengers is being called meddling. Evelyn Farkas joins. Duration: 9:50
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/russia-thinks-u-s-is-meddling-in-putin-s-presidential-campaign-1125044291582 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWB4EC-_1w4 [with comments]

--

Report: Trump legal team ready to attack Michael Flynn

The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
12/27/17
With Robert Mueller reportedly ready to talk to new witnesses in his seemingly expanding Russia probe, a new report says
the president's legal team is ready to discredit Michael Flynn if they need to. Our panel discusses. Duration: 9:51
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/report-trump-legal-team-ready-to-attack-michael-flynn-1125045827985 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ivjykmP_4 [with comments]

To "stashed December 27, 2017:"

Putin Critic Navalny Steps Up The Pressure After Kremlin Crackdown - Reuters
The opposition leader called for nationwide rallies to support his call for an election boycott.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/navalny-russia-election_us_5a43c73de4b0b0e5a7a43409
original https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-election-navalny/putin-critic-navalny-calls-election-boycott-rallies-idUSKBN1EL109

[hardly related, but important]
In Less Than A Year, Trump Has Stripped Back Workers’ Ability To Unionize
His revamped labor board issued a slew of new policies at the end of 2017 that will make collective bargaining harder.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-workers-union-rights-2017_us_5a42b5b1e4b025f99e187ea5

Four Russians Are Either Traitors To Their Country Or Pawns In A Putin Power Game
Four Russian hackers have been rotting away in a notorious prison for more than a year—and they are either traitors to their country for telling U.S. intelligence agencies about Russian meddling in last year's U.S. election or just pawns in a bizarre power game by President Vladimir Putin.
Almost nothing about the cases against Sergei Mikhailov, Dmitry Dokuchaev, Ruslan Stoyanov and Georgy Fomchenkov is known, except that all four are being held on charges of treason. Their lawyers won't talk about details of the cases, and even the legal papers haven't been made public. Newsweek spoke to one of the men's lawyers—and he wouldn't even confirm the name of his client, let alone whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty.
The trials are at the core of the Russian election-hacking scandal, which has roiled American politics since even before Election Day last year. But the cases also may reveal Putin's darkest political instincts. The Russian media, which are largely controlled by the Kremlin, say the men are spies. Others say they are pawns.
Then again, in Putin's Russia, they may be both at the same time.
This much is known: Mikhailov and Dokuchaev were officers in Russia’s Federal Security Service, the notorious FSB. Fomchenkov is a cyberexpert who also worked for the security agency. And Stoyanov is a cyberexpert at Kaspersky Lab, a software company that the U.S. government believes allows Russian intelligence access to customers' computers and, according to Bloomberg, has been working closely with Russian agents.
Such pedigree puts the four men at the heart of Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which the U.S. intelligence community believes was orchestrated at the highest levels.
So why are they in prison?
The arrests came around the same time that the U.S. intelligence community reported on Russian meddling, specifically on how Democratic National Committee emails were stolen by hackers and published by WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign. No individual hackers were ever identified.
Then, in January, the arrests of the four men were made public in Russia, prompting rumors that they were connected to the hacking. But if Putin was behind the hacking, why would he imprison the hackers?
A possible answer [my emphasis] came this month, when a Russian media outlet, The Bell, reported that the four men may have confirmed Russia's role in the hacking to U.S. intelligence.
Citing two sources, the website reported that "the men passed the information about last year’s Russian attacks on the Democratic National Committee." But that Bell report doesn't necessarily ring true.
Experts familiar with Russian intelligence practices are skeptical of the claims that the men had worked with U.S. intelligence, given Russia’s past history of privately handling potential spies and not using the courts, even ones veiled in secrecy.
“In my experience, over years and years they rarely catch spies and deal with them in that sort of open legal way,” said John Sipher, a former CIA operative who ran the agency’s Russia program for several years.
And, worse for Putin, putting spies on trial and leaking details to the press makes it more difficult to recruit future hackers, which the Russian government reportedly does through handlers.
But then again, putting spies on trial and leaking details to the press allows Putin to flaunt his power.
“He definitely wants his population to realize that he’s important on the world stage, that he’s powerful, and that he can control what happens in the United States,” Sipher said. “They could be trying to deflect from something that obviously is more covert and more real, whereas this stuff is already out there.”
Russia has never directly confirmed its role in the hacking campaign, but at times it has sought to subtly take credit. Putin told reporters in June that maybe “patriotically minded” private Russians hacked the U.S. political system, a seemingly tongue-in-cheek denial.
So which is it: Putin cracking down on treason or pretending to be disciplining rogue hackers? Another clue came from a different case this month when an accused hacker, Konstantin Kozlovsky, said that Dokuchaev had expressly ordered him to steal emails from the Democratic National Committee for the Kremlin.
But even that claim may be part of a larger game being played by Putin. The allegation by Kozlovsky came from an apparent audio recording and handwritten note that popped up on his Facebook page nine months after Dokuchaev was arrested—a posting that suggests tampering because Kozlovsky is being held in a high-security prison, where detainees typically don’t have access to the internet.
Some believe the Facebook posts are actually misinformation from the Kremlin. But then again, they may just be information: The U.S. intelligence community has never said how it was so certain about Russian hacking, but most experts assume that federal agencies had sources inside Russian intelligence who confirmed key details of the hacking campaign.
All four of the men have ties to Russia’s hacking underworld, a hybrid community of government employees and contractors viewed by cyberexperts as one of the best in the world.
Mikhailov was a key figure running the FSB’s cyberoperations through its Center for Information Security. The FSB has been tied to Russian hacking group Cozy Bear, one of the attackers behind the political hacking that yielded the Hillary Clinton campaign’s emails released by WikiLeaks.
Dokuchaev is on the FBI’s most wanted list, accused of having been involved in a hack of Yahoo’s systems that compromised the accounts of millions of users.
Russian hackers are generally recruited by government handlers after they are caught engaging in financial crime, according to cybersecurity experts. The handlers can then use the hackers, without directly employing them, while maintaining some plausible deniability for Russia’s government.
“It really makes it challenging for the U.S. intelligence community to understand the scope and size of their cyberforce,” said Jeff Moulton who runs Louisiana State University’s Transformational Technology and Cyber Research Center. “It gives them expertise that they probably don’t have. The criminal element is always more sophisticated.”
All four of the men and their lawyers were required to sign special security agreements preventing them from discussing the cases, including the specific nature of the charges that keep them at Lefortovo Prison, which was infamous as a torture facility for FSB's predecessor, the KGB.
Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer for one of the four men, told Newsweek that he could not even reveal his client's identity, adding that the “strict conditions” of the court bar him from talking about the case at all. But he did tell Newsweek that his client “has a hope that everything will be resolved without any public noise.”
That resolution, and the amount of noise it makes, will likely be decided by one man, Vladimir Putin.
http://www.newsweek.com/bizarre-treason-cases-tied-russian-election-hacking-759011

Russia warns U.S. against 'meddling' in presidential election (. . .)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/12/27/russia-warns-united-states-against-meddling-presidential-election/984117001/
.. more: https://news.google.com/news/story/dAHYByewPLHfBxMjiy5rJk-99FZbM?ned=us&gl=US&hl=en

[i'm only taking a few of a big bunch here]

Mueller is reportedly zeroing in on the Trump campaign's data operation — and the RNC
Special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly begun to question Republican National Committee staffers about the party's digital work with the Trump campaign last year.
The report indicates that Mueller may be homing in on yet another facet of Russia's election interference — its social media influence campaign and targeted political advertising.
Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner managed the Trump campaign's data operation and recently hired a crisis public relations firm to handle all press inquiries.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-questions-rnc-digital-operation-trump-campaign-russia-2017-12

Mueller probe outgrows its ‘witch hunt’ phase
By Michael Isikoff
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mueller-probe-outgrows-witch-hunt-phase-100045988.html

It's Mueller, his team and the FBI who are overdue for an investigation says Florida's Rep. Rooney
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/12/27/its-mueller-his-team-and-fbi-who-are-overdue-for-investigation-says-floridas-rep-rooney.html

A solution for Mueller: The Watergate model
By Kenneth W. Starr - incredible chutzpah
December 22, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-solution-for-mueller-the-watergate-model/2017/12/22/1a84fb6a-e432-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html

This Congressman Wins the Prize for the Most Odious Attack on Bob Mueller - Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio - at 12-7-17 House Judiciary Committee hearing (included at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=137201297 )
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/this-congressman-wins-the-prize-for-the-most-odious-attack-on-bob-mueller.html

Trump's supporters are laying the groundwork for a constitutional crisis
By Max Boot
Foreign Policy
December 13, 2017
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-trump-mueller-russia-crisis-20171213-story.html [another source for this one]