CFR's Cultural Marxist Apparatus Falling Like House of Cards.

Council On Foreign Relations Global Apparatus falling like a house of cards-didn't know I would live long enough to experience such WINNING.

In the Trump Era, WINNING causes WHINING, To Wit: An Article by notorious Whiner, Daniel Larison in CFR Front publication, "The American Conservative" which should be honestly titled "The American Trotskyite Globalist NeoCon"

Why the Wrecking of the State Department Matters

Daniel Larison

3 minutes

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks during a meeting for the Global Coalition on the Defeat of ISIS at the State Department in Washington, D.C., March 22, 2017. (DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jette Carr)


Trump’s disdain and Tillerson’s mismanagement are doing lasting damage to the State Department:


While the State Department hemorrhages its own talent, it has also cut itself off from new talent by ending several distinguished fellowship programs to recruit top university graduates during its redesign.

The cumulative effect of a marginalized State Department, coupled with a freeze on hiring and budget pressures, could mean the next generation of diplomats will wither on the vine, current and former officials warn.

It has been clear for a long time that Trump has no respect for diplomacy or its results, but even so the determined effort to wreck the State Department is remarkably foolish. Trump and Tillerson are not only hamstringing this administration’s foreign policy in another example of self-sabotage, but they are ensuring that future administrations will inherit a diminished, dysfunctional department. They are going to make it harder to secure U.S. interests abroad in the near term, and they are practically guaranteeing the erosion of U.S. influence everywhere. Insofar as the State Department is the chief institution responsible for American “soft” power, weakening the institution simply makes it easier for an already intervention-prone Washington to rely on “hard” power to respond to crises and conflicts. That means more unnecessary wars, at least some of which might have otherwise been avoided.

It is not as if the U.S. has spent the last twenty-five years placing too much emphasis on diplomacy and international cooperation. On the contrary, these have already been neglected when the department was functioning reasonably well, and they will be neglected even more after Trump and Tillerson have finished with their demolition work. This is a part of our foreign policy that has already been overshadowed by increasing militarization and distorted by the demands of constant warfare, and it is the part that costs the U.S. the least while nonetheless yielding significant benefits.

Seven Ways Trump is Taking Back America's Culture

Mirror From Breitbart Original Article here:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/07/30/seven-ways-trump-taking-back-americas-culture/

Seven Ways Trump Is Taking Back America’s Culture

by Dr. Susan Berry30 Jul 20175,937

12-15 minutes

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Andrew Breitbart famously said, “Politics is downstream of culture,” and while establishment Republicans seem unwilling to defend America’s culture and values on many fronts, President Donald Trump is already changing the country’s politics by taking back its culture from progressives.

Here’s how he is doing it:
1. Trump announces ban on transgenders in military:
Trump’s decision to ban transgender individuals from the military sends a clear message that the U.S. military should be focused on defending the nation and winning decisive battles, not participating in social justice engineering or experimentation.
Accepting gender dysphoric individuals in the military – as former President Barack Obama did – and allowing them to undergo gender reassignment surgery and formally change their gender while serving in the military, weakens the ability of the military to focus on defense.
A 2016 RAND study estimated that about 3,960 transgender troops currently serve in the active and reserve components, although some say there could be as many as 15,000.
James Delingpole noted at Breitbart News:

[Transgendered individuals] were also about to cost the U.S. taxpayer heinous amounts of money – perhaps $8.4 million a year – because, thanks to legislation introduced last year by President Obama, the Defense Department was liable for the cost of the gender reassignment surgery on any soldier whose ability to serve was “adversely affected by a medical condition or medical treatment related to their gender identity.”
Not only were these transgender sensitivity policies burdening the military with unnecessary costs but they were also making it less effective…
Sensitivity training? In the military? This is not how wars are won.

Delingpole adds as well that perhaps the most important effect of the ban on transgender individuals in the military is that Trump is taking “a step towards saving Western Civilization.”
“He did the right thing,” he writes. “He did the only possible thing for anyone who still believes in truth, justice, social order, common sense, decency, logic – and all the other values which have traditionally underpinned our culture and made us great.”
Trump’s decision is a clear rejection of politically correct, forced gender ideology, which attempts to eliminate the natural social and civic order that recognizes only two sexes – male and female.
The Pentagon now awaits the White House’s guidance on the implementation of Trump’s ban on transgender individuals in the military.
2. Trump reinstates and expands the “Mexico City Policy”:
The president is implementing his executive order that reinstated what is known as the “Mexico City Policy,” one that prohibits any non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive U.S. aid from performing and promoting abortion overseas. However, Trump also has expanded that policy – called “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance” – by directing the Secretary of State to ensure the ban on taxpayer funds for overseas abortions is in place across most U.S. global health programs that provide assistance.
The fact that Trump issued the executive order reinstating the Mexico City Policy within days after his inauguration sent a clear message that he intended to keep his promises to the pro-life base of the Republican Party that helped to elect him. Unlike many Republican politicians who, even recently, have failed to pass pro-life legislation – such as the provision to defund Planned Parenthood included in all of the bills to repeal Obamacare – Trump has shown he intends to keep his promises.
CBN News reports that $8.8 billion will be appropriated to the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Defense Department – all of which must adhere to Trump’s expanded policy now.
NGOs that refuse to accept the pro-life policy of the United States will not receive funds, but those funds will be given to other organizations that comply.
“Foreign NGOs that agree not to perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning, or provide financial support to any other foreign non-governmental organization that conducts such activities, will remain eligible for global health assistance funding,” a White House official reportedly said, according to CBN.
“The Executive Memorandum implemented today is one of the reasons pro-life voters worked to elect Donald Trump to the White House,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser on the day of the signing. “With the implementation of Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, we have officially ceased exporting abortion to foreign nations.”
3. Trump signs executive order that he intends to “vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom”:
Signed in May, the president’s order also directs the Attorney General of the United States “to guide all agencies in complying with relevant Federal law…interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law.”
Though perhaps just one small step forward in the battle to protect religious liberty, the language still sets the stage for a culture shift.
Alveda King, director of Civil Rights for the Unborn for Priests for Life – and the niece of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. – said Trump’s order confirms “the foundational principle of religious freedom, which means that citizens are free to act in accordance with their religious beliefs, not just in church, but in every arena of life.”
“President Trump has kept another promise to pro-lifers and people of faith with this executive order,” King said.
Many conservatives, however, would like to see a stronger statement on religious liberty coming from the White House, particularly with regard to the imposition of same-sex marriage even on states whose voters rejected it at the polls. A prior draft of the executive order that was leaked to left-wing media was more definitive, but, apparently, was scuttled.
Consequently, the Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson wrote that Trump’s religious liberty executive order was “woefully inadequate.”
“Trump’s election was about correcting problems of the last administration, including religious liberty violations and the hostility to people of faith in the United States,” Anderson said. “This order does not do that. It is a mere shadow of the original draft leaked in February.”
4. Trump signs resolution overturning Obama’s Planned Parenthood state funding mandate:
The president signed a resolution in April that overturned Obama’s rule – enacted during his last days as president – that forced states to provide family planning grants under Title X to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
The House approved H.J. Res. 43, introduced by Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), in February. The resolution used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to rescind the Obama administration rule, enacted during the last days of the former president’s term.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) sponsored the measure in the Senate. Vice President Mike Pence cast a tie-breaking vote at the end of March to enable approval in that chamber after Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against it.
The Heritage Foundation’s Melanie Israel wrote at the Daily Signal the resolution was necessary “to both protect life and reassert that the states have Tenth Amendment rights to allocate Title X family planning grants in such a manner that prioritizes community health clinics and true family planning over the industrial abortion industry as represented by Planned Parenthood.”
5. Trump’s nomination of now-Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court:
Constitutionalists and pro-life leaders celebrated the confirmation of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and the affirmation of their relationship with Trump.
“The swift fulfillment of President Trump’s commitment to appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices is a tremendous win for the pro-life movement,” said Susan B. Anthony List’s Dannenfelser.
“President Trump made history by telling voters who he would appoint to the Court by providing a list — the American people chose him and he in turn chose from the list, keeping his promise,” Family Resource Council President Tony Perkins added.
Similarly, Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America, said Gorsuch’s confirmation is “a huge win for the Trump administration and for the pro-life movement.”
6. Trump makes key appointments to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):
In addition to the appointment of former Rep. Tom Price, a pro-life physician, as HHS secretary, Trump tapped several religious liberty and pro-life leaders to top-level positions within that department. HHS was once led by Obama-era secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who administratively implemented much of Obamacare, including the HHS contraceptive mandate, which forced many employers to provide free contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization procedures to their employees through health insurance plans.
In April, Trump appointed religious liberty defender Roger Severino to head HHS’s Office for Civil Rights.
A former director of the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, Severino is known for his criticism of Obamacare’s “nondiscrimination” regulations on the basis of “gender identity.” The guidelines propose to penalize healthcare professionals who are morally and professionally opposed to sex change surgeries and treatments.
Severino wrote at the Daily Signal last year on the issue of North Carolina’s bathroom privacy policy, “The radical left is using government power to coerce everyone, including children, into pledging allegiance to a radical new gender ideology over and above their right to privacy, safety, and religious freedom.”
LGBT rights advocates criticized Severino’s appointment.
“I could not think of a more dangerous person to head up the Office of Civil Rights at HHS,” JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president of policy and public affairs at the Human Rights Campaign said, according to Yahoo. “Once again, Donald Trump is declaring war against our community by appointing anti-LGBTQ people at all levels of his administration.”
Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, added Severino’s appointment is “part of a disturbing trend by the Trump administration of naming people who disagree or outright oppose the mission or role of an agency or office to leadership positions within those entities.”
In late April, Trump also appointed well-known pro-life advocate Dr. Charmaine Yoest as assistant secretary of public affairs for HHS. As the former president of Americans United for Life (AUL), Yoest implemented a campaign to emphasize the negative consequences of abortion for both women and their unborn babies and emphasized the need for young girls to obtain their parents’ consent prior to abortion.
Planned Parenthood tweeted its rejection of Trump’s nomination of Yoest:
The abortion industry giant – which receives grants from the federal government for teaching “comprehensive sex education” (CSE) in schools – also expressed its condemnation of Trump’s appointment in June of Valerie Huber, a longstanding advocate of “abstinence” sex education, as chief of staff to the assistant secretary for health at HHS.
Huber’s appointment matched Trump’s budget proposal to maintain funding for Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) education – a public health term Huber prefers over “abstinence” – and eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP), a CSE approach that was initiated early on in the Obama administration and which Planned Parenthood embraced.
In contrast to Trump, Obama’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2017 eliminated all funding for “abstinence” education.
Planned Parenthood tweeted its disapproval of Huber’s appointment:
7. Trump vows to defend law enforcement:
Last week, the president delivered tough words to gang members and the promise of support to law enforcement, a sign that Trump intends to uphold both the nation’s physical boundaries and its laws – neither of which he wishes to see diminished or undermined through political correctness or social justice activism.
“Together, we’re going to restore safety to our streets and peace to our communities, and we’re going to destroy the vile criminal cartel MS-13 and many other gangs,” Trump promised.
“From now on, we’re going to enforce our laws, protect our borders, and support our police like our police have never been supported before,” he added, criticizing mayors who have dubbed their communities “sanctuary cities.”
“Failure to enforce our immigration laws had predictable results: drugs, gangs, and violence — but that’s all changing now under the Trump administration,” the president said.
In just six months, Trump has set the tone for a culture shift in America – back to the values of life, religious liberty, common sense civic order, and respect for the law of the land.

Those Awake on Left and Right Know Russia Hacking is CIA/DNC Hoax

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The Forensicator is the anonymous member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

The report as laid out by The Forensicator:

Based on the analysis that is detailed below, the following key findings are presented:

• On 7/5/2016 at approximately 6:45 PM Eastern time, someone copied the data that eventually appears on the “NGP VAN” 7zip file (the subject of this analysis).  This 7zip file was published by a persona named Guccifer 2, two months later on September 13, 2016.

• Due to the estimated speed of transfer (23 MB/s) calculated in this study, it is unlikely that this initial data transfer could have been done remotely over the Internet.

• The initial copying activity was likely done from a computer system that had direct access to the data.  By “direct access” we mean that the individual who was collecting the data either had physical access to the computer where the data was stored, or the data was copied over a local high speed network (LAN).

• They may have copied a much larger collection of data than the data present in the NGP VAN 7zip.  This larger collection of data may have been as large as 19 GB.  In that scenario the NGP VAN 7zip file represents only 1/10th of the total amount of material taken.

• This initial copying activity was done on a system where Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) settings were in force. Most likely, the computer used to initially copy the data was located somewhere on the East Coast.

• The data was likely initially copied to a computer running Linux, because the file last modified times all reflect the apparent time of the copy and this is a characteristic of the the Linux ‘cp’ command (using default options).

• A Linux OS may have been booted from a USB flash drive and the data may have been copied back to the same flash drive, which will likely have been formatted with the Linux (ext4) file system.

• On September 1, 2016, two months after copying the initial large collection of (alleged) DNC related content (the so-called NGP/VAN data), a subset was transferred to working directories on a system running Windows. The .rar files included in the final 7zip file were built from those working directories.

• The computer system where the working directories were built had Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) settings in force.  Most likely, this system was located somewhere on the East Coast.

• The .rar files and plain files that eventually end up in the “NGP VAN” 7zip file disclosed by Guccifer 2.0 on 9/13/2016 were likely first copied to a USB flash drive, which served as the source data for the final 7zip file. There is no information to determine when or where the final 7zip file was built.

The most important aspect about the report is the “estimated speed of transfer (23 MB/s)” at which the documents were copied. It’s inconceivable DNC documents could have been copied at such speed from a remote location.
Disobedient Media reports:

Importantly, The Forensicator concluded that the chance that the files had been accessed and downloaded remotely over the internet were too small to give this idea any serious consideration. He explained that the calculated transfer speeds for the initial copy were much faster than can be supported by an internet connection.
This is extremely significant and completely discredits allegations of Russian hacking made by both Guccifer 2.0 and Crowdstrike.
This conclusion is further supported by analysis of the overall transfer rate of 23 MB/s. The Forensicator described this as “possible when copying over a LAN, but too fast to support the hypothetical scenario that the alleged DNC data was initially copied over the Internet (esp. to Romania).” Guccifer 2.0 had claimed to originate in Romania. So in other words, this rate indicates that the data was downloaded locally,  possibly using the local DNC network. The importance of this finding in regards to destroying the Russian hacking narrative cannot be understated.
If the data is correct, then the files could not have been copied over a remote connection and so therefore cannot have been “hacked by Russia.”
The use of a USB drive would also strongly suggest that the person copying the files had physical access to a computer most likely connected to the local DNC network. Indications that the individual used a USB drive to access the information over an internal connection, with time stamps placing the creation of the copies in the East Coast Time Zone, suggest that  the individual responsible for initially copying what was eventually published by the Guccifer 2.0 persona under the title “NGP-VAN”  was located in the Eastern United States, not Russia.

During the presidential campaign, POLITICO reported what now appears to be a disproven story about Guccifer 2.0 hacking and releasing DNC documents:

The hacker persona Guccifer 2.0 has released a new trove of documents that allegedly reveal more information about the Democratic National Committee’s finances and personal information on Democratic donors, as well as details about the DNC’s network infrastructure.
The cache also includes purported memos on tech initiatives from Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine’s time as governor of Virginia, and some years-old missives on redistricting efforts and DNC donor outreach strategy.
DNC interim chair Donna Brazile immediately tied the leak to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s Donald Trump,” she said in a statement Tuesday night, adding that Trump has “embraced” Russian President Vladimir Putin and “publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign.”

POLITICO then suggests Guccifer 2.0 hacked into the DNC:

If authentic, the documents would represent the latest strike from the mysterious hacker persona that has already roiled the 2016 election with leaks of documents stolen from the DNC and the House Democrat’s campaign arm, the DCCC. Earlier document dumps include the internal communications that forced the resignation of former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz this summer and fueled allegations of party bias against Bernie Sanders.

The bombshell report brings murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich back into focus, who many believe may have been the WikiLeaks source for the DNC emails.
WND reports:

Private investigators have claimed there is evidence Rich was the source WikiLeaks used to obtain thousands of DNC emails released on the eve of the party’s presidential nominating convention last July. The emails, indicating the party was manipulating the primary race in favor of Hillary Clinton, led to the resignation of former DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. On July 22, just 12 days after Rich’s death and days before the Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks released 20,000 DNC emails.
Also as WND has reported, former detective Rod Wheeler was initially hired by Rich’s parents through a third party to find their son’s killer. Wheeler alleges former interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazille contacted the Metropolitan Police Department demanding to know why he was “snooping” after Wheeler began investigating Rich’s murder. As a result, he said, law-enforcement authorities are now refusing to provide him with more details about the case.

Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence – Consortiumnews

15-20 minutes

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In a memo to President Trump, a group of former U.S. intelligence officers, including NSA specialists, cite new forensic studies to challenge the claim of the key Jan. 6 “assessment” that Russia “hacked” Democratic emails last year. 
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Was the “Russian Hack” an Inside Job?
Executive Summary
Forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device, and that “telltale signs” implicating Russia were then inserted.
Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack. Of equal importance, the forensics show that the copying and doctoring were performed on the East coast of the U.S. Thus far, mainstream media have ignored the findings of these independent studies [see here and here].
Independent analyst Skip Folden, a retired IBM Program Manager for Information Technology US, who examined the recent forensic findings, is a co-author of this Memorandum. He has drafted a more detailed technical report titled “Cyber-Forensic Investigation of ‘Russian Hack’ and Missing Intelligence Community Disclaimers,” and sent it to the offices of the Special Counsel and the Attorney General. VIPS member William Binney, a former Technical Director at the National Security Agency, and other senior NSA “alumni” in VIPS attest to the professionalism of the independent forensic findings.
The recent forensic studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original “Guccifer 2.0” material remains a mystery – as does the lack of any sign that the “hand-picked analysts” from the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the “Intelligence Community Assessment” dated January 6, 2017, gave any attention to forensics.
NOTE: There has been so much conflation of charges about hacking that we wish to make very clear the primary focus of this Memorandum. We focus specifically on the July 5, 2016 alleged Guccifer 2.0 “hack” of the DNC server. In earlier VIPS memoranda we addressed the lack of any evidence connecting the Guccifer 2.0 alleged hacks and WikiLeaks, and we asked President Obama specifically to disclose any evidence that WikiLeaks received DNC data from the Russians [see here and here].
Addressing this point at his last press conference (January 18), he described “the conclusions of the intelligence community” as “not conclusive,” even though the Intelligence Community Assessment of January 6 expressed “high confidence” that Russian intelligence “relayed material it acquired from the DNC … to WikiLeaks.”
Obama’s admission came as no surprise to us. It has long been clear to us that the reason the U.S. government lacks conclusive evidence of a transfer of a “Russian hack” to WikiLeaks is because there was no such transfer. Based mostly on the cumulatively unique technical experience of our ex-NSA colleagues, we have been saying for almost a year that the DNC data reached WikiLeaks via a copy/leak by a DNC insider (but almost certainly not the same person who copied DNC data on July 5, 2016).
From the information available, we conclude that the same inside-DNC, copy/leak process was used at two different times, by two different entities, for two distinctly different purposes:
-(1) an inside leak to WikiLeaks before Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, that he had DNC documents and planned to publish them (which he did on July 22) – the presumed objective being to expose strong DNC bias toward the Clinton candidacy; and
-(2) a separate leak on July 5, 2016, to pre-emptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish by “showing” it came from a “Russian hack.”
*  *  *
Mr. President:
This is our first VIPS Memorandum for you, but we have a history of letting U.S. Presidents know when we think our former intelligence colleagues have gotten something important wrong, and why. For example, our first such memorandum, a same-day commentary for President George W. Bush on Colin Powell’s U.N. speech on February 5, 2003, warned that the “unintended consequences were likely to be catastrophic,” should the U.S. attack Iraq and “justfy” the war on intelligence that we retired intelligence officers could readily see as fraudulent and driven by a war agenda.

Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations on Feb. 5. 2003, citing satellite photos which supposedly proved that Iraq had WMD, but the evidence proved bogus.

The January 6 “Intelligence Community Assessment” by “hand-picked” analysts from the FBI, CIA, and NSA seems to fit into the same agenda-driven category. It is largely based on an “assessment,” not supported by any apparent evidence, that a shadowy entity with the moniker “Guccifer 2.0” hacked the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
The recent forensic findings mentioned above have put a huge dent in that assessment and cast serious doubt on the underpinnings of the extraordinarily successful campaign to blame the Russian government for hacking. The pundits and politicians who have led the charge against Russian “meddling” in the U.S. election can be expected to try to cast doubt on the forensic findings, if they ever do bubble up into the mainstream media. But the principles of physics don’t lie; and the technical limitations of today’s Internet are widely understood. We are prepared to answer any substantive challenges on their merits.
You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this. Our own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down.
Copied, Not Hacked
As indicated above, the independent forensic work just completed focused on data copied (not hacked) by a shadowy persona named “Guccifer 2.0.” The forensics reflect what seems to have been a desperate effort to “blame the Russians” for publishing highly embarrassing DNC emails three days before the Democratic convention last July. Since the content of the DNC emails reeked of pro-Clinton bias, her campaign saw an overriding need to divert attention from content to provenance – as in, who “hacked” those DNC emails? The campaign was enthusiastically supported by a compliant “mainstream” media; they are still on a roll.
“The Russians” were the ideal culprit. And, after WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, “We have emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication,” her campaign had more than a month before the convention to insert its own “forensic facts” and prime the media pump to put the blame on “Russian meddling.” Mrs. Clinton’s PR chief Jennifer Palmieri has explained how she used golf carts to make the rounds at the convention. She wrote that her “mission was to get the press to focus on something even we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.”

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the third debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump. (Photo credit: hillaryclinton.com)

Independent cyber-investigators have now completed the kind of forensic work that the intelligence assessment did not do. Oddly, the “hand-picked” intelligence analysts contented themselves with “assessing” this and “assessing” that. In contrast, the investigators dug deep and came up with verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of the alleged Russian hack.
They found that the purported “hack” of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else. Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider. The data was leaked after being doctored with a cut-and-paste job to implicate Russia. We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI.
The Time Sequence
June 12, 2016: Assange announces WikiLeaks is about to publish “emails related to Hillary Clinton.”
June 15, 2016: DNC contractor Crowdstrike, (with a dubious professional record and multiple conflicts of interest) announces that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was injected by Russians.
June 15, 2016: On the same day, “Guccifer 2.0” affirms the DNC statement; claims responsibility for the “hack;” claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that the forensics show was synthetically tainted with “Russian fingerprints.”
We do not think that the June 12 & 15 timing was pure coincidence. Rather, it suggests the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to “show” that it came from a Russian hack.
The Key Event
July 5, 2016: In the early evening, Eastern Daylight Time, someone working in the EDT time zone with a computer directly connected to the DNC server or DNC Local Area Network, copied 1,976 MegaBytes of data in 87 seconds onto an external storage device. That speed is many times faster than what is physically possible with a hack.
It thus appears that the purported “hack” of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 (the self-proclaimed WikiLeaks source) was not a hack by Russia or anyone else, but was rather a copy of DNC data onto an external storage device. Moreover, the forensics performed on the metadata reveal there was a subsequent synthetic insertion – a cut-and-paste job using a Russian template, with the clear aim of attributing the data to a “Russian hack.” This was all performed in the East Coast time zone.
“Obfuscation & De-obfuscation”
Mr. President, the disclosure described below may be related. Even if it is not, it is something we think you should be made aware of in this general connection. On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks began to publish a trove of original CIA documents that WikiLeaks labeled “Vault 7.” WikiLeaks said it got the trove from a current or former CIA contractor and described it as comparable in scale and significance to the information Edward Snowden gave to reporters in 2013.
No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA’s Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015.
Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the “Marble Framework” program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as “news fit to print” and was kept out of the Times.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a media conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. (Photo credit: New Media Days / Peter Erichsen)

The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima, it seems, “did not get the memo” in time. Her March 31 article bore the catching (and accurate) headline: “WikiLeaks’ latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations.”
The WikiLeaks release indicated that Marble was designed for flexible and easy-to-use “obfuscation,” and that Marble source code includes a “deobfuscator” to reverse CIA text obfuscation.
More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report, Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a “forensic attribution double game” or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi.
The CIA’s reaction was neuralgic. Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates “demons,” and insisting, “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia.”
Mr. President, we do not know if CIA’s Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA’s Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review.
Putin and the Technology
We also do not know if you have discussed cyber issues in any detail with President Putin. In his interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly, he seemed quite willing – perhaps even eager – to address issues related to the kind of cyber tools revealed in the Vault 7 disclosures, if only to indicate he has been briefed on them. Putin pointed out that today’s technology enables hacking to be “masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can understand the origin” [of the hack] … And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or any individual that everyone will think that they are the exact source of that attack.”
“Hackers may be anywhere,” he said. “There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can’t you imagine such a scenario? … I can.”
Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.
We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental. The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times. This is our 50^th VIPS Memorandum since the afternoon of Powell’s speech at the UN. Live links to the 49 past memos can be found at https://consortiumnews.com/vips-memos/.
FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY
William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center
Skip Folden, independent analyst, retired IBM Program Manager for Information Technology US (Associate VIPS)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Michael S. Kearns, Air Force Intelligence Officer (Ret.), Master SERE Resistance to Interrogation Instructor
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
Lisa Ling, TSgt USAF (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, Jr., former NSA Technical Director for the Office of Signals Processing
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and CIA analyst
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Cian Westmoreland, former USAF Radio Frequency Transmission Systems Technician and Unmanned Aircraft Systems whistleblower (Associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Sarah G. Wilton, Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.); Commander, US Naval Reserve (ret.)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat

Syria: Was it Really "A Chemical Weapons Attack?"

More than two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)*
SUBJECT: Syria: Was It Really “A Chemical Weapons Attack”?
1 – We write to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russia – with the risk of escalation to nuclear war. The threat has grown after the cruise missile attack on Syria in retaliation for what you claimed was a “chemical weapons attack” on April 4 on Syrian civilians in southern Idlib Province.

President Trump at a news conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on April 5, 2017, at which the President commented on crisis in Syria. (Screen shot from whitehouse.gov)

2 – Our U.S. Army contacts in the area have told us this is not what happened. There was no Syrian “chemical weapons attack.” Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died.
3 – This is what the Russians and Syrians have been saying and – more important –what they appear to believe happened.
4 – Do we conclude that the White House has been giving our generals dictation; that they are mouthing what they have been told to say?
5 – After Putin persuaded Assad in 2013 to give up his chemical weapons, the U.S. Army destroyed 600 metric tons of Syria’s CW stockpile in just six weeks. The mandate of the U.N.’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW-UN) was to ensure that all were destroyed – like the mandate for the U.N. inspectors for Iraq regarding WMD. The U.N. inspectors’ findings on WMD were the truth. Rumsfeld and his generals lied and this seems to be happening again. The stakes are even higher now; the importance of a relationship of trust with Russia’s leaders cannot be overstated.
6 – In September 2013, after Putin persuaded Assad to relinquish his chemical weapons (giving Obama a way out of a tough dilemma), the Russian President wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said: “My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this.”
Détente Nipped in the Bud
7 – Three-plus years later, on April 4, 2017, Russian Prime Minister Medvedev spoke of “absolute mistrust,” which he characterized as “sad for our now completely ruined relations [but] good news for terrorists.” Not only sad, in our view, but totally unnecessary – worse still, dangerous.
8 – With Moscow’s cancellation of the agreement to de-conflict flight activity over Syria, the clock has been turned back six months to the situation last September/October when 11 months of tough negotiation brought a ceasefire agreement. U.S. Air Force attacks on fixed Syrian army positions on Sept. 17, 2016, killing about 70 and wounding another 100, scuttled the fledgling ceasefire agreement approved by Obama and Putin a week before. Trust evaporated.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations while in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017. (Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ford Williams)

9 – On Sept 26, 2016, Foreign Minister Lavrov lamented: “My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine, [which] apparently does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.” Lavrov criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia on Syria, “after the [ceasefire] agreement, concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama, had stipulated that the two sides would share intelligence. … It is difficult to work with such partners. …”
10 – On Oct. 1, 2016, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned, “If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region.”
11 – On Oct 6, 2016, Russian defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov cautioned that Russia was prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft – including any stealth aircraft – over Syria. Konashenkov made a point of adding that Russian air defenses “will not have time to identify the origin” of the aircraft.
12 – On Oct 27, 2016, Putin publicly lamented, “My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results,” and complained about “people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice.” Referring to Syria, Putin decried the lack of a “common front against terrorism after such lengthy negotiations, enormous effort, and difficult compromises.”
13 – Thus, the unnecessarily precarious state into which U.S.-Russian relations have now sunk – from “growing trust” to “absolute mistrust.” To be sure, many welcome the high tension, which – admittedly – is super for the arms business.
14 – We believe it of transcendent importance to prevent relations with Russia from falling into a state of complete disrepair. Secretary Tillerson’s visit to Moscow this week offers an opportunity to stanch the damage, but there is also a danger that it could increase the acrimony – particularly if Secretary Tillerson is not familiar with the brief history set down above.
15 – Surely it is time to deal with Russia on the basis of facts, not allegations based largely on dubious evidence – from “social media,” for example. While many would view this time of high tension as ruling out a summit, we suggest the opposite may be true. You might consider instructing Secretary Tillerson to begin arrangements for an early summit with President Putin.
* Background on Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a list of whose issuances can be found at https://consortiumnews.com/vips-memos/.
A handful of CIA veterans established VIPS in January 2003 after concluding that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had ordered our former colleagues to manufacture intelligence to “justify” an unnecessary war with Iraq. At the time we chose to assume that President George W. Bush was not fully aware of this.
We issued our first Memorandum for the President on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 2003, after Colin Powell’s ill-begotten speech at the United Nations. Addressing President Bush, we closed with these words:
No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is “irrefutable” or “undeniable” [adjectives Powell applied to his charges against Saddam Hussein]. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.
Respectfully, we offer the same advice to you, President Trump.
*  *  *
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Eugene D. Betit, Intelligence Analyst, DIA, Soviet FAO, (US Army, ret.)
William Binney, Technical Director, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, (ret.)
Thomas Drake, Senior Executive Service, NSA (former)
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Robert Furukawa, Capt, CEC, USN-R, (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service Officer (ret.)
John Kiriakou, former CIA analyst and counterterrorism officer, and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Lisa Ling, TSgt USAF (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, CIA and National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Torin Nelson, former Intelligence Officer/Interrogator, Department of the Army
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, and former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Sarah G. Wilton, Commander, US Naval Reserve (ret), DIA (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat

Deep State Puppet Congress: Or Why did they pass new Russia Sanction?

NOTHING exposes the total control by the Deep State Globalist of the U.S. Congress more than the vote on MORE Russian Sanctions today. While I was happily enjoying my day, the Senate passed the sanctions with ONLY two NON-Globalists voting against it, and I have REASON to doubt both Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, and so do you.

This is a national shame. After Obama "colluded" that is, partnered with the Muslim Brotherhood to destroy Syria and create Christian Genocide in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, under the cover of the so-called "Arab Spring" KNOWING that the death toll would have been much higher without the level-headed intervention of the Russians, and what is the reward for our Globalist Carnage and Russian Bravery in the face of a hugely superior military power in the U.S., Saudis, and NATO?  Did you even know that the Saudis spend more money on defense than do the Russians?  Standing down the Luciferian New World Order in Syria and Ukraine was a David and Goliath story, and this time the U.S. was on the wrong side of History.  So what do we do? Do we acknowledge our sin and make peace with Russia. NO, we can't, even though that is the path the President wants to take. We can't because the puppets in the Congress are OWNED by the Mega Trillion Dollar Power Structure know as the Deep State Globalists, and they are LUCIFERIAN.  They HATE Christian Russia. There is NOTHING they were love better than to see the Christians of Russia and the Christians of America Slaughtering each other in the tens of millions.

Please don't think I exaggerate and this is a rant; I do not rant because this is fact.  May God have mercy and preserve Peace between the U.S. and Russia, and CLEANSE the Congress of every Luciferian Devil.

+++ Donald Trump just stopped funding and supporting the CIA/Muslim Brotherhood/ISIS Partnership.  This is the REAL reason for the Globalist Congress pushing back so  hard against him today, and suddenly willing to put on a BIG SHOW, and "compromise on Obamacare." That is Congress trying to rehabilitate their image, as they seek to destroy Trump, and they are united Democrats and Republicans in their goal to destroy Trump. You see, they thought they would conquer Syria and Yemen, Iran and Russia with this force that Trump is, at this very moment, destroying.  If you doubt me watch this video.

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