The "Birther" meme attached to President Obama was a cleverly crafted and slimy attempt to derail his Presidential campaign. While it developed a life of its own after his inauguration it never was going to be a call to action by patriots. The Trump - Russia meme in my opinion is a much more serious information operation because it is designed to question the legitimacy of a President Trump defence and foreign policy actions.
To put that another way, this IO is not political point scoring, its attempting to influence U.S. foreign and defence policy in a very direct way - precluding a whole raft of policy options related to normalizing relations with Russia, winding back NATO expansion and other areas that I don't even know about. I don't know if this is against the law or not.
CNN has just led with a story that the intelligence community presented Trump with a dossier alleging five years work by the Russian Government to both compromise Trump and promote his presidential prospects and allege collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian Government.
"....(CNN)Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.
The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump...."
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/index.html
Buzzfeed obligingly then leaks all 35 pages of the alleged "Memos" on which the summary is allegedly based, that go into scatalogical detail about Trump in Russia.
Folks, to me, it doesn't seem to me that American politics can get more surreal. I don't think I've seen more flaky conglomerations passing as intelligence summaries, ever..... and CNN apparently bought it,..... and the liberal media follow suit. Trump wanted to defile the bed that President Obama slept in at a hotel in Moscow, so he arranged a sex party???
The Alt right are now digging and it seems that at least the plot for that particular memo ( the sex party one) was fed by a prankster to one DNC operative Wilson, who appears to have run with it. CNN, Fake News all of the time.
I'm half a world away in opposite time zones, please tell us what your morning brings... It seems to me that a "Trump the Traitor" meme is a very dangerous creation.
ya, James, it's been known for decades that Trump is a germaphobe & clean-freak in his autobiographies (I read his 'Art of the Deal') & many news articles on Trump's germaphobia
such as this link that better details Trump's germaphobia
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/02/does_donald_trump_have_a_glad-.html
The fact that they still put that in the 'intel' report without any caveats about his germaphobial makes it likely a hoax or 4chan prank
or
the CIA, Clapper, & Brennan (who ALL LIED about 'WMDs in Iraq') is up to their old propaganda tricks
Intel officers are NOT stupid --you have to score very high on IQ, aptitute tests --I scored above 99.5% on the military's ABSVAB test & offered any MOS (Militay Occpuational Specialty) I wanted when I was offered my 4 yr Air Force ROTC scholarship)
so the fact that they ingnored Trumps' germaphobia (they would have known nit doing a background check on Trump & reading his biograhies & articles about him)
means it was included in the report ON PURPOSE for character assassination, especially towards the 30% of Republican voters that are religious 'right'
It's like how the CIA spread WMDs propaganda about the hoax Mobile WMDs labs on CANVAS TARP trucks ..
anyone with a brain would realize that no scientist or country would use CANVAS TARP for a WMDs lab because ANY rip or tear in the tarp would mean releasing toxic pathogens or chemicals into the surround area to kill the scientist or the nearby city or even country
Yet the fake hoax WMDs mobile CANVAS TARP TRUCK were featured as evidence of Iraqi active WMDS program
CIA officers aren't that stupid but they are ruthless enough to use it as part of any propaganda misinformation program to acheive regime-change --whether in Iraq, Syria .. or even the US?
Larry Johnso was a CIA officer/analyst & Deputy Director of CounterTerrorism at State Dept & he has good insight here:
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/79535/failed-cia-coup/
Johnson also recommends this great takedown of the hoax here by Glen Greenwald, one of the few reporters who isn't afraid to speak truth to power & fair to Trump:
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11/the-deep-state-goes-to-war-with-president-elect-using-unverified-claims-as-dems-cheer/
Posted by: BuddhistHarmony | 11 January 2017 at 11:40 PM
Exactly. I concur that this is all designed to make Trump comply with the status quo.
Posted by: Jack | 11 January 2017 at 11:46 PM
Babak, that is of no importance. What will have you fired, abandoned by friends, shunned by society and snarled at by dogs is to be far right wingers/racist/non-inclusive/deplorable. Woe upon you if you do not share the values of the liberals. You can be a white man (never good), or a white woman (traitor!) or even an immigrant (house n**ro). And a hawker of fake news and a Putin troll.
Terrorist? Our politicians will give a speech and place some flowers, create a hashtag and move on to the next Bilderberg meet.
Posted by: FkDahl | 12 January 2017 at 12:38 AM
I am always puzzled by acronyms:
ProPornOT = Professional Porn Off Topic
Is that it?
Posted by: jld | 12 January 2017 at 01:47 AM
I think there are two different issues that people are conflating here. One is the allegation, circulating since last summer, that FSB had kompromat on Trump. The second is the specific content purported to be the substance of that allegation posted by Buzzfeed. IMO 4chan via Rick Wilson is credible as a source of what Buzzfeed posted, but as b, TTG, and others have pointed out, it is not credible as a source of the allegations that were circulating earlier (b makes a case for Ukrainians connected to the Clinton campaign as the source). There are telltale signs in the Buzzfeed release that it originated in the feud between Wilson and 4chan. Wilson had referred to 4chan as a bunch of guys who jack off to anime. One of the allegations in the Buzzfeed release is that Trump jacked off to anime in the company of Russian whores. So the way the Buzzfeed story unfolds for me is that 4chan baited the hook for Wilson and he bit hard (somehow he didn't take the reference to anime as a sign that something was up, the fool!) and forwarded it to Buzzfeed. Maybe not as delicious as the CIA biting on the hoax, but seeing Buzzfeed go down with it is good enough.
Posted by: Thirdeye | 12 January 2017 at 03:13 AM
Western politician: "I decide who is a terrorist."
Posted by: Bandit | 12 January 2017 at 06:19 AM
You propose an entirely plausible scenario but it requires step seven, silence the leaker for if he goes public it blows the whole operation. At 0420 on July 10 Seth Rich a DNC staffer was shot in the back a block from home. It was assessed as a robbery by the DC police though his wallet, phone and watch were not taken. Strangely enough with several dozen murders a day in the US Julian Assange who never comments about his sources commented that this murder showed that "our sources take serious risks" and offered a $20,000 reward to solve this crime. How obvious does it have to be?
Posted by: Peter Reichard | 12 January 2017 at 07:34 AM
Biden and the CIA have been directing Ukraine for some time, cf. Hunter Biden/Devon Archer/Burisma or the CIA admin building in Ukraine. Poroshenko has been alleged to be a CIA asset. Means exists. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Imagine | 12 January 2017 at 03:21 PM