The United States intelligence community is so virtuous that it never spies on foreign governments or attempts to meddle in the politics of other nations, right?
And those intelligence sources would never fabricate stories about other nations spying on the United States and interfering with its political process, right?
So, we should all believe the claims of outgoing president Barack Obama and all his Democratic cronies and pals that Russia interfered with the U.S. election and helped Donald Trump’s campaign against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, right?
Give me a break . . .
Produce the evidence, Barack.
That’s what the Russians are saying, while flatly denying the accusations, calling them “baseless and inappropriate,” according to a CBC report.
As the CBC report points out, there has been “no specific, persuasive proof.”
But Obama is talking tough today (Friday, Dec. 16), saying the U.S. will retaliate against Russia “at a time and place of our own choosing.”
I have to wonder if Barack and company are hoping the electoral college voters will fall for it all, and deny Trump the votes he won.
Naw . . . The Democrats crowd wouldn’t stoop to such levels, right? No dirty tricks from them.
Message to Donald Trump: If a foreign nation were able to directly interfere with the U.S. election process, then heads should roll, figuratively speaking, in the American intelligence community — if not in the White House. That should be one of your first priorities: fire the incompetent people drawing pay cheques for defending the nation against such forms of attack.
And, of course, investigate if any American intelligence officials and politicians have ever attempted to interfere in the political process of foreign nations, and fire them — if not have them thrown in jail.
Right?
— Jillian
Photo credit: The Kremlin in Moscow. (Alexandergusev/Wikipedia)
Jillian Page 
Actually, there has been a growing chorus of Republican senators calling for hearings to investigate the Russian hacking. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, neither of them particularly friendly with Obama, have called for a bi-partisan commission to investigate. And, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, while not agreeing a special commission is necessary, does say the standing Congressional committees should investigate further. House Speaker Paul Ryan seems to agree with McConnell.
Trump’s own response has seemed like a kid, with chocolate frosting on his face, denying he had anything to do with the missing cake. Shakespeare again, methinks he dost protest too much.
But, what’s to be expected from this president-elect who refuses to take daily intelligence briefings? He’s like much of his followers, he only wants to hear the news he likes.
What makes this much more concerning is that Trump will be getting his briefings from a National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, who has practiced the spreading of bogus news stories through his own Twitter account. A former General who has even defended his own re-tweeting of the baseless story of a child-porn ring run by Hillary Clinton out of a pizza place. The same false story which motivated a crazed man to drive from North Carolina to said pizzeria in Washington, D.C., where he fired an assault-type rifle inside the place while a children’s birthday party was taking place. (Fortunately, the door he fired through was just a closet with computer equipment, not where the children’s party was taking place.)
John King from CNN, is a Boston boy, and he calls-in to a public radio show in Boston, each week, to discuss what’s going on in the world, in an almost-off-the-record manner. Two weeks ago, he said that he’s spoken with a number of Generals, who are former colleagues of Flynn, who think that he’s losing his mind and is really not fit to be the chief adivisor to a president on national security matters. (The position Flynn is slated for doesn’t require Senate confirmation.)
We also have to remember, when the G.W. Bush administration made the “weapons of mass destruction” claims, leading to the invasion of Iraq, that was done using intelligence which had been cherry-picked by political appointees to justify their agenda, intentionally omitting information which would not have been helpful to their goals.
A practice I’m afraid we may see a lot more of by Trump and those around him.
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I know there is a lot of worry about the damage Trump and his team might do. I’m not quite so pessimistic, but then again, I don’t live in the United States. But if he could make peace with Russia, I would be happy.
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