#1
Delightful! This is why the stoplights in the snowier reaches of America -- and presumably Canada as well -- have a delay built in when both directions are red. This allows sliders time to clear the intersection before those in the crossing direction venture into the shared space.
[Independent] The head of MI6 used information obtained by former officer Christopher Steele in his Trump investigation, in a warning against Russian cyberattacks and attempts to subvert Western democracies, The Independent has learned.
Sir Alex Younger’s briefing notes for his first public speech as head of the Secret Intelligence Service contained some of the material supplied by Mr Steele, according to security sources. Drawing on the alleged hacking carried out by Moscow in the US presidential campaign, he warned of the danger facing Britain and Western European allies, and especially to elections due to be held next year. Yes of course. When Labour loses, we'll simply blame the Russians, like the Yanks did.
Security sources stress that MI6 had extensive information, British and international, on the Russian threat apart from that of Mr Steele. But they pointed out that he is held in high regard and the contribution he provided was valuable.
In one of his recent tweets, Mr Trump described Mr Steele as a "failed spy". He also claimed in another tweet that "James Clapper [director of national intelligence] called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts. Too bad!"
Mr Steele had, in fact, a highly successful career in MI6, received a number of commendations and is highly regarded by both British and American intelligence agencies. Mr Clapper pointed out that what he had actually said was that the intelligence service "has not made any judgement that the information in this document is reliable".
Skipping down to para #8 for 'unconfirmed' CIA linkage.
Senior officials could not confirm media reports at the weekend that reassurance has been sought by London from the CIA that the identities of British agents in Russia will be protected in shared intelligence, with concerns about links between Mr Trump’s team and Moscow. One official said that the understanding was that unauthorised people should not have access to such detail in anything classified which is passed on.
#1
Senior officials could not confirm media reports at the weekend that reassurance has been sought by London from the CIA that the identities of British agents in Russia will be protected in shared intelligence.
I believe one can safely assume 'assurances' were discussed, but we can't know for certain because Christopher Steele is still on holiday.
#2
In other words, the CIA stated the same kinds of concerns about Mr. Trump, based on the invented file, to MI6 that they did to Israel. But MI6, not having Israel's insight into President Obama's Americans that the Israelis have, and being just as classist as the American elites they deal with, believe all as firmly as little children clapping their dear little hands to rosiness in an attempt to save Tinker Bell at the pantomime.
#3
Having scrolled further down the articles, it occurs to me this will go a fair way to undoing Prime Minister Theresa May's efforts with regard to the Paris anti-Israel summit to make up the deficit of goodwill her previous work around the UNSC anti-Israel thingy created. Unless she is silly enough to think that supporting Israel is the only thing he really cares about.
I note separately that being a successful spy for the British government is not at all like being a successful private political investigator in the private sector. What it takes to make the customer happy requires truth in the first case, while truthy will do in the second.
And if Mr. Clapper is indeed now saying that his people had merely never bothered to confirm the information rather than deeming it Russian disinformation, as has been reported, President Trump's first move needs to be to accept the resignations of all involved at all the "17 services" that were involved in the plot.
#4
Well said TW.
Also, I would recommend that the Trumpists get off of the false news 'denial train'. Better would be to promote the content as speculative fiction generated by the entertainment media. This action would serve to further remove what few vestiges of credibility remain.
#5
*blush* You are kindness itself, Skidmark. Before falling asleep again I came across an Instapundit link that seems appropriate -- Clarice Feldman at American Thinker:
...the dossier is so ridiculous, if anyone in the Intelligence Community fell for it, he’s too stupid to allow in place, and if no one did but they still played a role in publicizing it, everyone involved needs to be fired.
If your neighbor acquires a vicious biting hond. You assist with it's care and feeding, but do not warn your children. Who shares in the blame when your son is bitten.
Chess metaphors also being popular here of late, perfidious Albion is the Garry Kasparov of regime change.
The second 'EYE' in the 'FIVE EYES' intelligence classification marking is of course the UK.
#8
It seems the reason so many jihadist attacks succeed and the expansion of ISIS is clear to us now.
If you use all of the yeast, there will be no bread for the morrow. We are well into our second decade of constant war or conflict. Who now claims to be a 'victim' of a ranting, political maverick who insists on staying out of other people's business and 'draining the swamp?'
#11
Didn't the British PM say that this Steele hadn't worked for them for years?
Or is this an admission of Perfidious Albion?
Posted by: John Frum ||
01/16/2017 10:39 Comments ||
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#12
Didn't the British PM say that this Steele hadn't worked for them for years?
Or is this an admission of Perfidious Albion?
As has been pointed out recently by Bright Pebbles, Steel's 'research' firm, Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd is located less than 2 kilometers from MI6 headquarters in London. One of the most expensive real estate areas on the planet. I wonder how OBI is doing, with the 'head man' still on holiday.
Due simply to geography, some assumptions are easier arrived at than others.
#13
If I was Russian Intelligence and I wanted to damage the effectiveness of the incoming US government (whether it would be Trump or Clinton) I think I would leak information - bogus or real - to the benefit of each candidate that could be attributed back to Russia and thus degrade the 'legitimacy' of that candidate. Pretty much a no-lose scenario.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he will offer to end sanctions against Russia in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, The Times newspaper reported.
An interesting gambit...
In an interview with The Times of London, Trump said he wanted nuclear weapons arsenals of the world's two biggest nuclear powers -- the United States and Russia -- to be "reduced very substantially", Reuters reported.
“They have sanctions on Russia — let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it,” Trump was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Trump also criticized Russia for its intervention in the Syrian civil war, describing it as “a very bad thing” that had led to a “terrible humanitarian situation," The Times said.
Trump said that he would appoint Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to broker a Middle East peace deal, urged Britain to veto any new UN Security Council resolution critical of Israel and repeated his criticism of President Obama’s handling of the Iran nuclear deal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/16/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
You know, I'm getting the impression that Trump know how to play chess. Rather well at that.
[Guardian] A Turkish cargo jet has crashed near Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport, killing at least 37 people, most of them residents of a village struck by the Boeing 747 as it tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials said.
According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, near the capital city Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul. It crashed when trying to land in poor visibility at 7.31 am (0131 GMT) on Monday.
The plane ploughed for a few hundred metres through the village of Dacha-Suu, damaging some 15 buildings, said Mukhammed Svarov, head of crisis management centre at the emergencies ministry. At least 37 people had been killed, the ministry said.
Smoke was still thick in the area at 0600GMT and small fires burned in different parts of the village, but emergency services had nearly extinguished them.
Zumriyat Rezakhanova, a resident of Dacha-Suu, said the plane fell "right on the homes" where residents were sleeping.
[Daily Caller] GOP President-elect Donald Trump ratcheted up his war with the intelligence community Sunday by asking if CIA Director John Brennan himself was responsible for leaking a dossier of unverified information to the press about Trump’s alleged escapades in Russia.
After Brennan appeared on "Fox News Sunday" to call Trump’s comparison of the intelligence community to Nazi Germany "outrageous," Trump fired of a series of tweets, in which he questioned whether Brennan was personally behind BuzzFeed’s recent publication of a 35-page dossier of totally unverified information on Trump.
"What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany," Brennan said earlier on Sunday. "I do take great umbrage with that and there is no basis for Mr. Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly." "Already available information" is NOT a valid defense for dissemination.
Brennan said during that same interview that "there is no interest in undermining the president-elect."
But Trump doesn’t appear convinced, despite statements from Brennan and also from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper earlier this week that the intelligence community had nothing to do with the leak of the dossier, which BuzzFeed published last Tuesday. BuzzFeed has since been widely castigated for publishing the completely unverified dossier full of bizarre information about Trump’s alleged, scandalous activities in Russia. Trump is "not convinced" because Flynn and others have already mapped the leaks.
#2
It's clear President Trump is up against the idiot faction of the Intel community and it will be across the Five Eyes as all the arse-covering for years of failure in identifying and losing to Islamofascism steps up a notch.
hope he's wearing bullet-proof threads.
is there anybody now who doesn't think Brennan is compromised by his Saudi years?
Trump’s surprise VA pick known as turnaround artist
President-elect Donald Trump surprised many when he chose one of President Obama’s appointees to run the Department of Veterans Affairs after pledging to overhaul the department during the campaign.
But the nominee, current under secretary of health David Shulkin, has a long history in the private sector turning around struggling hospitals. Veterans groups called the choice a pleasant surprise, as they say Shulkin has overseen a turnaround in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and resisted calls for privatizing the federal system.
"While our membership has been clear in its preference to have a veteran leading the VA, I am heartened by the fact that Dr. Shulkin seems to legitimately ’get it,’ " AMVETS Executive Director Joe Chenelly said in a statement this week. "Even as the undersecretary for VHA, Dr. Shulkin has continued to personally see patients in an admirable effort to stay in touch with veterans and caregivers."
the reason is - he is an expert at hiring the best person to fit the job
that is what he has done successfully for 40 years. That's why he's president now.
That's why I KNOW he is going to be the best president since Reagan, even better - if only the intel community and bureaucrats can just get out of the way or at least remember their place as public servants. Servants.
#2
A couple of his picks I haven't been thrilled with, but I'm not all against them and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
The rest in my not so humble opinion have been just outstanding.
Trump has the makings of a good president with these people around.
#3
"While our membership has been clear in its preference to have a veteran leading the VA, I am heartened by the fact that Dr. Shulkin seems to legitimately ’get it’ "
The objective is not to fill a slot with a demographic preference; the objective is to find the most capable available to perform the mission.
If the Palestinians repudiate their recognition of Israel, this agreement will be stuck in a file somewhere while the Israelis take care of projects only on their own side of the line... wherever that line might move to.
[IsraelTimes] Renewal of Joint Water Committee is fourth key infrastructure agreement signed between Israel and PA in past year and a half.
Israel and the Paleostinian Authority signed an agreement Sunday to renew cooperation in water development after a six-year hiatus.
Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) office, and the Paleostinian Authority’s Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh signed an agreement to restart the Israeli‐Paleostinian Joint Water Committee.
The committee is tasked with developing and modernizing the water infrastructure in the West Bank, allowing better water access to Paleostinian towns and villages, maintaining existing infrastructure and approving new projects. It hasn’t met in six years.
Created in 1995 as part of the Oslo II interim peace deal, the committee was originally intended to be a temporary mechanism lasting five years.
Key topics under discussion include increasing water supplies to the West Bank and Gazoo, as well as approving drilling new wells and updating water rates.
The agreement was signed in winter in order to allow the committee to be fully operational when water demand is at its highest in the summer months.
The parties also announced that the two sides have approved a joint strategic planning mechanism that will operate until 2040, including new infrastructure ventures to deal with expected population growth.
Mordechai said the agreement shows it is possible to reach "understandings and agreements when dealing with practical, bilateral issues, free of external influences, dealing with natural resources and other infrastructure issues that affect the entire population."
The latest agreement is one of four such cooperation agreements signed between Israel and the PA over the past year and a half. Previous ones dealt with electricity, mail and 3G phone service.
If the Palestinians repudiate their recognition of Israel, that money can sit in a bank account somewhere, because Israel won't allow the fuel in.
[IsraelTimes] Donation comes amid energy crisis that sees barely 3-4 hours of electricity supplied to homes daily.
Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... agreed to the deal following a meeting Sunday in Doha between Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, Deputy Political Leader Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, emir of the State of Qatar, Hamas said in an online statement.
The Chairman of the Qatari National Committee for Reconstruction of Gazoo, Muhammad al-Amadi called the Acting Director of the Paleostinian Energy Authority Zafer Milhem, and told him Qatar agreed to pay four million dollars a month over the next three months, the Hamas-linked site Pal Info Center reported.
Paleostinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah confirmed the $12 million deal in statement to the official PA news outlet Wafa. He attributed the deal’s success to Abbas’s "continual communication" with Qatar.
The two million residents of Gazoo require around 450-500 megawatts of power per day, but are receiving less than half of that. With cold winters, demand has spiked -- leading to the shortages.
On Saturday, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... pledged to send 15,000 tons of fuel to the Gazoo Strip in an effort to end the crippling electricity shortage in the Paleostinian enclave.
Alaska Paul yesterday calculated that Turkey's generous donation comes out to six whole days of power. How much does $4mil/month buy after past due bills are taken out?
[INDEPENDENT.CO.UK] A company hoping to extract the Moon’s natural resources has just completed a $20 million financing round.
Moon Express, which is based in Silicon Valley, has received a total of $45 million (£37 million) in funding for its efforts a lunar lander.
The company is competing for Google’s Lunar Xprize, which will give whichever firm can land a rover on the moon $30 million (£25 million).
The winner must travel 500 metres on the Moon’s surface and transmit high-definition pictures back to Earth.
Moon Express’s goal is to bring back “precious resources, metals, and moon rocks” to Earth and chief executive Bob Richards, described the space rock as the “unexplored eighth continent”.
“Our goal is to expand Earth’s social and economic sphere to the Moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent, and enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests,” Mr Richards said in a statement, Florida Today reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Interesting numbers.
I wonder if creating fanciful recreational islands with dredge pumps isn't more expensive.
[NationalInterest] If the U.S. Army has its way, America’s next secret weapon may be an electromagnetic pulse artillery shell that paralyzes an enemy city.
These special shells won’t carry high explosive. Instead they will emit EMP bursts, or some other non-kinetic technology, to disrupt the computers, radio communications, Internet links and other ties that bind modern societies. And do so without creating any physical damage. Guess they found some "Atomic Annie's" or Neutron bombage ready for repurposing.
On the internet, nobody can tell you're a dog. Idiocy is painfully obvious, however.
[PaulCraigRoberts.org] Readers have asked me why 10 of 11 US aircraft carriers are lined up in a row in dock allegedly for maintanence.
Occam's razor would suggest it is because they are in need of maintenance, but let us proceed.
It reminds them of the battleships at Pearl Harbor. Readers ask if this could be an indication that the Deep State is planning a false flag attack on the carriers, as was carried out on the World Trade Center and Pentagon
...it is not promising that the blogger is a 9/11 truther...
in order to get the US at war with the independent Muslim world,
...that was the idea, true, but it was Osama bin Laden's idea, not ours.
this time in order to get the US at war with Russia before Trump can restore normal relations.
No need for deep state conspiracies when Barack Obama is in residence in the White House with his phone and pen, happy to create mischief foreign and domestic for his unwanted successor.
I don’t think so.
What you are doing does not reach the level of thinking. Thinking requires an IQ with two digits.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was real, if provoked. The deception apparently was in the fact that Washington had warning but did not share it with the US Navy in Pearl Harbor. The Battleships were outmoded weapons, and the aircraft carriers had been removed.
I have no idea what this sentence means.
It would be extremely difficult to blame a false flag attack on US aircraft carriers on Russia. Indeed, if Russia wants to attack the US, the target would not be obsolete weapons such as aircraft carriers.
According to what I have been told by former(?) intelligence officers, the aircraft carriers are in dock so that their copper wiring can be replaced by fiber optics.
All at once? Nonsense.
Apparently, the Russians have the capability to shut down the operating systems of our ships and aircraft that are copper wired. In behalf of this conclusion, there were news reports that a missile ship Washington sent to impress the Russian naval base in Crimea had all its systems shut down by the overflight of one Russian jet. According to another news report, two Israeli US jet fighters were sent to express disobedience to Russia’s controlled airspace in Syria. The Russians asked the Israelis to leave, and when they did not, the Russians shut down the fire control and communication systems of their aircraft.
We watch the news here at Rantburg, and saw no such report. Israel has recently been shooting up that Syrian Air Force station outside Damascus where Hizb'allah takes delivery of Iranian weaponry, but absolutely nobody has managed to interfere.
According to what I have been told, the Russians discovered that copper wiring permits them to disrupt the operating systems with certain radar frequencies built into their air control systems. Any of this true?
The gentleman writes well, with a good sense of grammar and spelling, so there's that.
#3
So the Russians selectively whacked fire control and communications, but left delicate control untouched. Sounds like someone is on a fishing expedition.
#6
As a counterpoint, I seem to remember full flyby events of US Naval vessel Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea not too long ago.
A rabid conspiracist might consider the dual formation event a 'jammer' followed by a monitoring sensor platform. All that is really needed is to force a weapon system C&C component into an error reset condition which triggers a timeout and reboot protocol.
#7
"The deception apparently was in the fact that Washington had warning but did not share it with the US Navy in Pearl Harbor. " Gen. Martin & Admiral Bellinger did their jobs in March 1941 of predicting the details of the Pearl Harbor attack that followed on 7 Dec. 1941, but their report was studiously ignored by the higher command. The "deception" was merely self-deception on the part of the US higher command. The part played by Martin & Bellinger continues to be studiously ignored by historians.
#10
'The Puge' does look a little crowded though,
47.553538° -122.649150°
Google Earth: Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Intermediate Maintenance Facility, Farragut Avenue, Bremerton, WA
#11
More BS than produced by half the cows in India
Posted by: John Frum ||
01/16/2017 16:28 Comments ||
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#12
As Injun Bucket8891 said in #5, MilSpec and hardening is mandatory. Otherwise, just going through a lighting storm is enough to take out the electronics.
The US Military isn't stupid, often dumb yes, but not stupid, they know they have to survive combat.
#13
#8 is correct. Three are based in San Diego, and I can only remember one time all 3 were ported
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/16/2017 21:24 Comments ||
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#14
Looked at google earth. The Stennis and Regan are there. The other 4 carriers are former mothballs and ready to be scrapped - CV62 is visible on one, and that is USS Independence. Other 3 look to be same class, and that would make them the former USS Forrestal USS Constellation and USS Ranger.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani was riding a wave of optimism one year ago. The long-negotiated nuclear deal with world powers he had sold to Iranians as an end to their economic woes was finally being implemented.
But as the first anniversary of implementation day approaches on January 16, Rohani has been saddled by the high expectations he set, as Iran's economy continues to struggle and the great boost in foreign investment and other benefits he envisioned has so far failed to materialize. With hard-liners seizing on the opportunity to criticize Rohani for a deal they opposed from Day One, the relatively moderate president is once again scrambling to sell the advantages of the deal to the Iranian people.
Rohani has been accused of overhyping the agreement and being duped by Washington and five other world powers at the negotiating table. In many ways, it mirrors the situation in the United States, where supporters have fended off consistent opposition to the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), in which Tehran agreed to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, since it was signed in July 2015. With President-elect Donald Trump preparing to take office, his campaign promises to rework a deal he portrays as poorly negotiated and bad for the American people have cast a pall on the future of the JCPOA.
Rohani, who is expected to run for another term in Iran's May presidential election and who has banked a lot of his political capital on the deal, has responded to his critics by touting the agreement's "win-win outcome." He has urged Iranians to remain patient, promising that the benefits of the deal are "appearing."
Indeed, the main economic indicators point to improvement in Iran. Economic growth is projected to reach 4.3 percent and 4.8 percent in 2016 and 2017, respectively, compared to 0.5 percent in 2015. The effort to bring inflation to under two digits has seen success and the fiscal deficit has fallen.
But that is only part of the picture. The Iranian currency, the rial, hit a record low against the dollar in recent weeks, prompting fears that efforts to boost the exports of industrial goods will suffer and anticipated foreign goods will be prohibitively costly. The unemployment rate is on the rise, reaching 11.3 percent in 2016 compared to 10.8 in 2015.
In a nutshell, the limited economic progress Rohani's government has made has yet to trickle down to the average Iranian household in terms of jobs, salaries, and the prices of basic goods. This is something that none other than Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has pointed out, saying in August that Iranians had yet to see a "tangible effect" in their daily lives.
Rohani has had to contend with internal resistance from hard-liners, including clerics, the judiciary, and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which is estimated to control much of the economy. Meanwhile, Khamenei has sharpened his criticism. He has continued to emphasize a "resistance economy" aimed at boosting domestic production for export and warned against Western "infiltration" by way of the agreement.
"Rohani is the lightning rod for the economic issue and the nuclear deal, so if they ever go south, the supreme leader can blame Rohani, and that's where we are right now," says Scott Lucas, an Iran specialist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. "The two men had a pragmatic relationship where each needed the other at a certain point. But the value of each to the other is quickly running out."
Posted by: Pappy ||
01/16/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
With hard-liners seizing on the opportunity to criticize Rohani for a deal they opposed from Day One, the relatively moderate president is once again scrambling to sell the advantages of the deal to the Iranian people.
this smells of ValJar/Obama's argument that they are supporting the "Moderates™" in the face of possibly worse. Bullshit
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/16/2017 9:58 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he will offer to end sanctions against Russia in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, The Times newspaper reported.
[Daily Caller] GOP President-elect Donald Trump ratcheted up his war with the intelligence community Sunday by asking if CIA Director John Brennan himself was responsible for leaking a dossier of unverified information to the press about Trump’s alleged escapades in Russia.
Trump’s surprise VA pick known as turnaround artist
[NationalInterest] If the U.S. Army has its way, America’s next secret weapon may be an electromagnetic pulse artillery shell that paralyzes an enemy city.
