National Security

The threat of nuclear war should not rest in the hands of Donald Trump

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Our always insecure man-child Twitter-troll-in-chief really outdid himself over the New Year’s weekend, but he saved his most insane tweets for Tuesday when he was supposedly back at work (he was actually watching Fox & Friends). Fact-checking President Trump’s post-New Year’s tweets.

This is why for foreign leaders and diplomats around the world taking the measure of our man-child Twitter-troll-in-chief, “The word they all used was: ‘This guy is insane.’” Donald Trump’s Year of Living Dangerously.

The tweet that put the world on edge on Tuesday was President Trump’s threat of nuclear war with North Korea using the taunt of a man insecure in his own manhood. Trump Says His ‘Nuclear Button’ Is ‘Much Bigger’ Than North Korea’s:

President Trump again raised the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea, boasting in strikingly playground terms on Tuesday night that he commands a “much bigger” and “more powerful” arsenal of devastating weapons than the outlier government in Asia.

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Yeah, For Starters, There’s No Button. More importantly, a nuclear war may hinge on our always insecure man-child Twitter-troll-in-chief’s freudian insistence that “my missile is bigger than yours.”

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Mr. Trump’s combative response to a statement made the day before by Mr. Kim raised the temperature in the brewing confrontation between the United States and North Korea even as American allies in South Korea were moving to open talks with Pyongyang. The contrast between Mr. Trump’s language and the peace overture by South Korea highlighted the growing rift between two longtime allies.

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Why Florida Tea-Publican congressmen are leading the charge to discredit the Special Counsel’s investigation

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Putin’s troll farm and the Trump apologists who frequently troll the comments of this blog to parrot Donald Trump’s assertion that the Russia investigation is a”witch hunt” or “fake news” seem to have forgotten that a GOP campaign operative in Florida already freely admitted that he used hacked information provided by Gucifer 2.0 (Russian Intelligence) in congresssional campaigns in Florida. I posted back in May, GOP operative colluded with Guccifer 2.0 – Russian stolen info was used by the GOP:

The Wall Street Journal reported that hacked information was posted on a blog run by Aaron Nevins, the political operative, and then passed along to top Trump adviser Roger Stone during the campaign. The Republican operative in Florida received a trove of Democratic documents from the allegedly Kremlin-linked hacker, Guccifer 2.0. For months, both Congress and the FBI have been scrutinizing evidence that associates of Trump may have colluded with Russia during the campaign.

Nevins confirmed to the Journal that he told hacker Guccifer 2.0 to “feel free to send any Florida based information” after learning that the hacker had tapped into Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) computers last summer. From the DCCC, Guccifer 2.0 released internal assessments of Democratic congressional candidates, known as “self-opposition research,” to GOP operatives using social media. Nevins told the Journal that, after receiving the stolen documents from the hacker, he “realized it was a lot more than even Guccifer knew that he had.” The stolen DCCC documents also contained sensitive information on voters in key Florida districts, breaking down how many people were considered dependable Democratic voters, undecided Democrats, Republican voters and the like. Nevins made a war analogy, describing the data he received to Guccifer 2.0 as akin to a “map to where all the troops are deployed.”

After Nevins published some of the material on the blog HelloFLA.com, using his own pseudonym, Guccifer 2.0 sent a link of the information to close Trump associate Roger Stone — who is currently under federal investigation for potential collusion with Russia.

“I just threw an arrow in the dark,” Nevins, who set up a Dropbox account for Guccifer 2.0 to transfer data, told the Journal. “If your interests align,” the operative concluded, “never shut any doors in politics.”

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Special Counsel investigates Cambridge Analytica and RNC data operations for collusion with Russia in targeting social media

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MercersThe Wall Street Journal (paywall) recently reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has requested that a data analytics company owned by far-right Robert and Rebekah Mercer called Cambridge Analytica turn over internal documents as part of its investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm that might be a key Trump-Russia link, explained:

Cambridge Analytica specializes in what’s called “psychographic” profiling, meaning they use data collected online to create personality profiles for voters. They then take that information and target individuals with specifically tailored content (more on this below).

[T]his story is specifically about how team Trump, with the help of this data company, might have facilitated Russia’s meddling in the US presidential election.

So here’s what we know about Cambridge Analytica, its connections to the Trump campaign, and what sorts of things Mueller is likely looking into.

Trump’s digital army

In June 2016, the Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica to take over its data operations.

We know from the reporting of Nicholas Confessore and Danny Hakim at the New York Times that Jared Kushner, who was charged with overseeing Trump’s digital operations, is the reason Cambridge Analytica joined the Trump campaign.

Kushner hired a man named Brad Parscale, a Texas-based digital expert who had worked previously for team Trump. According to Confessore and Hakim, Cambridge Analytica convinced Parscale (who has since agreed to be interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee) to “try out the firm.” The decision was reinforced by Trump’s campaign manager, Steve Bannon, who is also a former vice president of Cambridge Analytica (and whose Breitbart News site is funded by Robert and Rebekah Mercer).

It’s not clear to what extent Cambridge Analytica helped (Parscale denied that Cambridge was of any use in a recent 60 Minutes interview), but we do know that Trump’s digital operation was shockingly effective. Samuel Woolley, who heads the Computational Propaganda project at Oxford’s Internet Institute, found that a disproportionate amount of pro-Trump messaging was spread via automated bots and anti-Hillary propaganda. Trump’s bots, they reported at the time of the election, outnumbered Clinton’s five to one.

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Follow the money: the Trump connection to Deutsche Bank and Russian money

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Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Special Counsel Mueller Subpoenas Deutsche Bank Records Related to Trump:

Deutsche Bank received a subpoena earlier in the fall from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s office concerning people or entities affiliated with President Donald Trump, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The subpoena requested documents and data about accounts and other dealings tied to relationships with Mr. Trump and people close to him, the person said. The bank has lent more than $300 million to entities affiliated with Mr. Trump, according to public disclosures.

Ty Cobb, the White House’s chief lawyer handling the Russia investigation, said bank records of Mr. Trump and his family weren’t subpoenaed. “Previous reports today about subpoenas for financial records relating to the president and his family are false,” Mr. Cobb said.

A Deutsche Bank spokesman said Tuesday that the bank “takes its legal obligations seriously and remains committed to cooperating with authorized investigations into this matter.” The subpoena was earlier reported by German newspaper Handelsblatt.

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The GOP assault on the Special Counsel is appeasement of Russia

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The Washington Post today has an exclusive report about how our always insecure egomaniacal Twitter-troll-in-chief is leaving the U.S. vulnerable to continuing cyber war attacks from Russia because he does not want to believe the intelligence that Russia engaged in a cyber war against the U.S. in the 2016 election. Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked:

Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House.

The result is without obvious parallel in U.S. history, a situation in which the personal insecurities of the president — and his refusal to accept what even many in his administration regard as objective reality — have impaired the government’s response to a national security threat. The repercussions radiate across the government.

Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat and he has resisted or attempted to roll back efforts to hold Moscow to account.

His administration has moved to undo at least some of the sanctions the previous administration imposed on Russia for its election interference, exploring the return of two Russian compounds in the United States that President Barack Obama had seized — the measure that had most galled Moscow. Months later, when Congress moved to impose additional penalties on Moscow, Trump opposed the measures fiercely.

Trump has never convened a Cabinet-level meeting on Russian interference or what to do about it, administration officials said.

This is the equivalent of ordering the U.S. military and intelligence agencies to “stand down” and to do nothing in response to the cyber war that is being waged against this country by Russia. This is not just appeasement, but it makes Trump a collaborator with Vladimir Putin in his war against the U.S. (like Vichy France). Some would dare call it treason.

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