Related: Trump Punts
There will be no return.
"Issues brought to Trump Tower meeting were shared with Kremlin" by Sharon LaFraniere New York Times October 27, 2017
NEW YORK — In the past week, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya’s allegations — that major Democratic donors were guilty of financial fraud and tax evasion — have been embraced at the highest levels of the Russian government. President Vladimir Putin of Russia repeated her charges at length last week at an annual conference of Western academics. A state-run television network recently made them the subject of two special reports.
The matching messages point to a synchronized information campaign.
I get the same thing every morning after picking up a copy of the Globe.
Like some other Russian experts, Stephen Blank, a senior fellow with the nonprofit American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, said they indicate that Veselnitskaya’s actions “were coordinated from the very top.”
Among their members are Newt Gingrich, James Woolsey, and Dov Zakheim.
The Trump Tower meeting is of keen interest to the special counsel, Robert Mueller. The memo that Veselnitskaya brought to the Trump Tower meeting alleged that Ziff Brothers Investments, a US firm, had illegally purchased shares in a Russian company and evaded tens of millions of dollars of Russian taxes.
JWho are the Ziffs?
The company was the financial vehicle of three billionaire brothers, two of them major donors to Democratic candidates including Hillary Clinton.
That reminds me: notice how fast the pee dossier and uranium sales to Russia were flushed down the memory hole?
Most foul.
Kremlin officials viewed the charges as extremely significant. The Ziff brothers had invested in funds managed by William F. Browder, an American-born financier and fierce Kremlin foe. Browder was the driving force behind a 2012 law passed by Congress imposing sanctions on Russian officials for human rights abuses.
Who is Bill Browder?
The law, known as the Magnitsky Act, froze Western bank accounts of officials on the sanctions list and banned them from entering the United States. It was named after Sergei L. Magnitsky, a tax lawyer who had worked for Browder and who died in a Moscow jail after exposing a fraud scheme involving Russian officials.
In his speech to Western academics at a Black Sea resort last week, Putin said that US authorities had ignored the allegations against Browder and his investors because the Ziff brothers were major political donors.
A spokesman for Ziff Brothers Investments declined to comment. Browder said the charges were concocted to discredit him and to undermine the Magnitsky Act sanctions.
A former prosecutor for the Moscow regional government, Veselnitskaya lives and works in Moscow but has traveled frequently to the United States in recent years, partly to lobby against the Magnitsky Act.
In a separate development related to federal hearings on Russian election interference, Facebook said Friday that it is moving to increase transparency for people who see and buy political advertising on its site.
Executives for the social media company said they will verify political ad buyers in federal elections, requiring them to reveal correct names and locations, and create new ways for users to find out more about who is behind the ads.....
Yes, the technology company executives are set to appear in front of congressional committees because they are “deeply committed to helping protect the integrity of the electoral process.”
I dunno; looks like matching messages pointing to a synchronized information campaign.
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Related:
"President Vladimir Putin has taken part in major military drills of Russian nuclear forces and personally directed the test-firing of four intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of the exercises, the Kremlin said Friday. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the drills Thursday involved all elements of the military’s nuclear triad — nuclear submarines, strategic bombers, and a land-based launcher. He added that the exercises were routine and not directly linked to any international developments."
Like in, you know, Korea.
"Iraq announced an offensive to retake the last major pocket of ISIS-held territory, on the western edge of the sprawling Anbar province. Having lost much of its territory, ISIS is returning to its roots......"
As the U.S. gets blocked.
"Residents of the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus are facing a ‘‘humanitarian emergency’’ as photos of children gaunt from hunger drew renewed attention this week to the Ghouta suburbs, one of the hubs of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad’s rule....."
When are the photos of gaunt Palestinians going to be featured in my jew$paper?
I would say declare independence but "at least six people have died in violence linked to the election."
"Files offer intriguing view of frantic days after Kennedy assassination" by Calvin Woodward Associated Press October 27, 2017
WASHINGTON — The documents on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that were released this week capture the frantic days after the shooting, during which federal agents chased after thousands of tips and outlandish rumors, and sifted through leads that rippled around the world.
They needed to wait 54 years to release that?
The records include cables, notes, and reports stamped ‘‘secret’’ that reveal the suspicions of the era — around Cubans and Communists. They cast a wide net over varied activities of the Kennedy administration, such as its covert efforts to upend Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba.
For historians, it’s a chance to answer lingering questions, put some unfounded conspiracy theories to rest, and perhaps give life to other theories.
And they fumbled it.
Despite having months to prepare for disclosures that have been set on the calendar for 25 years, President Trump’s decision to release some documents and withhold of others came down to a last-minute debate with the CIA and FBI.
Trump vented frustration with intelligence officials who sought to hold back portions of the files, but he ultimately decided he had “no choice’’ but to keep some material secret.
He had no choice -- if he wanted to live.
In the aftermath of the assassination, followed two days later by the murder of the shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald while in police custody, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover voiced frustration in one FBI report. It opened: ‘‘There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead.’’
But, reflecting on Oswald less than an hour after he died, Hoover already sensed that theories would form about a conspiracy to kill the president.
‘‘The thing I am concerned about, and so is [deputy attorney general Nicholas] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin,’’ he said.
Yes, you see, public confidence is and was the priority of this lying, looting government. Not justice or the truth, despite what they have told you.
A document from 1975 contains a partial deposition by Richard Helms, a deputy CIA director under Kennedy who later became CIA chief, to the Rockefeller Commission, which was studying unauthorized CIA activities in domestic affairs.
Commission lawyers appeared to be hunting for information on what foreign leaders might have been the subject of assassination attempts by or on behalf of the CIA.
A lawyer asks Helms: ‘‘Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or agent’’ — here the document ends, short of his answer.
HA!
Among the files is a more than 400-page document that appeared to describe people being monitored as potential threats to Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.
Officials described one such person this way: ‘‘Subject participated in pickets against JFK in 1961. Allegedly trained in guerrilla tactics and sabotage. Considered very dangerous by those who know him. Has visited USA and Cuba. Considered armed and dangerous.’’
The description they provide is also that of what they call faceless cut outs that can be quickly disposed of after the deed is done.
In a 1966 letter to a presidential assistant, Hoover wrote that officials of the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency, said it had information ‘‘purporting to indicate’’ that Johnson had a role in the assassination. It told its New York agents to investigate, but no credible information has ever emerged linking Johnson to the killing.
CUI BONO?
The collection also discloses a Sept. 14, 1962, meeting of a group of Kennedy’s senior aides, including brother Robert, the attorney general, as they discussed a range of options against Castro’s communist government.
Earlier, the CIA considered using James B. Donovan, the American lawyer and negotiator made famous by the movie ‘‘Bridge of Spies,’’ for one plot. He would give Castro a contaminated skin-diving suit while the two negotiated for the release of Bay of Pigs prisoners.
Some of the information included in the records:
■ The House Select Committee on Assassinations found it unlikely that Cuba would kill Kennedy as retaliation for CIA’s attempts on Fidel Castro’s life. ‘‘Such an act, if discovered, would have afforded the United States the excuse to destroy Cuba,’’ the draft states. ‘‘The risk would not have been worth it.’’
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Imagine if Oswald had a trial.
The nostalgia I'm feeling is so strong it has me feeling fond of George W. Bush -- NOT!
As for Puerto Rico, at least it is warm down there.
