FBI Was Too Busy Policing Politics To "Protect and Serve" Citizens...,

WaPo |  FBI officials declined to say what precise searches were used to try to identify the owner of the account or to possibly link it with other social media profiles. Cruz had two Instagram accounts that also contain his name: cruz_nikolas and nikolascruzmakarov.

A law enforcement official said the FBI will review the steps it took in responding to the tip to determine whether anything could have been done differently or if practices should be changed for the future.

A search of the public records database Nexis for people with the name “Nikolas Cruz” returns 22 results, three of which use different spellings. It was not immediately clear if the FBI attempted to contact any of those people.

Without more to go on, officials felt there wasn’t enough legal justification to issue a subpoena to YouTube for the underlying information about the “nikolas cruz” who had threatened a school shooting, a law enforcement official said.

Google, which owns YouTube, has a policy of not turning over user information to the government without a subpoena, search warrant or other court order forcing it to do so. Google representatives did not return messages seeking comment.

Limited resources

Hosko, the former FBI assistant director, said the FBI gets more than 100 threat reports each day, in addition to other reports of mental health and other issues. That leaves supervisors in the difficult position of deciding how many resources should be devoted to each case and for how long. Even in terrorism cases, Hosko said, the bureau sometimes has to leave suspects unmonitored because the FBI lacks personnel to follow each of them all the time.

“The FBI has terrorism subjects that they’re looking at — they’re not all under 24-7 surveillance, and if they prioritize that wrong, yes, something bad can happen,” Hosko said. “These are the hard resource-allocation decisions you’re making if you don’t have unlimited resources.”

Hosko said in most cases of possible threats, an early question supervisors ask is, “At the end of the day, would we even have a federal crime if we proved a person sent this or posted this?” And in Cruz’s case — where the comment is a not a specific threat — the answer was probably no, he said.

Bennight said that after agents interviewed him about the comment in September, he didn’t hear anything more from the FBI — until Wednesday. Agents called him to say that there had been an incident and that they wanted to follow up on his earlier complaint.

Bennight said he did not know how it was connected to the shooting in Florida until agents informed him that the comment he’d flagged had been posted under a username matching the name of suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz.

Black Nixon Meme Older Than Mose's Toes...,

theburningplatform | What’s becoming clear now is Fusion GPS, the political dirty tricks operation, functioned as a cutout for the FBI and the Clinton campaign. The FBI shared secret intel with Fusion, who then sold it to the Clinton campaign or distributed to the media at the direction of the campaign. 

There’s a word for all of this and it is called treason. It’s one thing for a career intelligence officer to go bad and start selling intelligence to a foreign government. That just a part of the life of a nation state. It is an entirely different thing when senior members of the political class are working to undermine the fundamentals of the political system. It is the sort of thing that results in hangings or civil wars. It’s why the infamous memo has not been released, despite the fact it could be leaked or declassified by the White House.

That’s what brings us back to Dick Nixon. The mere hint of abuse of the FBI and CIA by the political side of the White House was considered enough of a threat to warrant impeachment. What we have here is worse than anything Nixon was accused of doing, even by his fiercest critics. Stuff that is orders of magnitude worse went on in the Obama White House. Imagine senior FBI men, faced with federal prison, agreeing to rat out major political actors. Imagine them pointing the finger at Obama or his top aides.

Again, this is fundamentally a political problem, but it cannot be ignored. That’s probably why no one is in a hurry to release that memo. It’s not just about partisan politics. Imagine how blacks would react if we have a full blown political crisis that paints Obama as worse than Nixon. That is looking increasingly possible. People have forgotten about the systematic abuse of the IRS, using it against conservative activists in the run-up to the 2012 election. There’s only so much that can be swept under the rug to protect Obama.

This will not end well.

Fifty Shades of Gov. Smackahoe Greitens...,

LATimes  |  The Missouri political establishment seemed surprised when the story broke.

In an audio recording broadcast Wednesday by KMOV-TV in St. Louis, a hairstylist told her ex-husband that she’d had an affair in 2015 with Eric Greitens — then philanthropist, now governor — and that he had tied her to home exercise equipment, taken a photo of her naked and threatened to publicly release it if she ever told anyone about him. She said Greitens later apologized and said he’d deleted the photo.

Greitens, 43, who has been married since 2011, acknowledged having an affair but denied blackmailing or abusing the woman.

The news raced across the internet and through the state’s halls of power. Several of Greitens’ fellow Republicans expressed serious concern about the allegations and urged the governor to be honest about his conduct; some Democrats said he should resign. St. Louis Circuit Atty. Kimberly Gardner said Thursday that she was launching an investigation.

But maybe the biggest surprise is how long it took for the story to go public.

Behind the scenes, many state political figures and journalists had been aware of rumors about Greitens’ affair with the woman, some of them for months and even more than a year.

“This is the worst-kept secret in the world,” said St. Louis attorney Albert S. Watkins. He represents the woman’s ex-husband, who made and released the recording.

"National media outlets, local media, local newspapers … political operatives calling,” Watkins said. “It became clear that this was a story that was going to get out at some point.”

20 Years In Your Face Daily, And It All Comes Down To This!

BostonGlobe |  Longtime “Today” co-host Matt Lauer has been fired by NBC News after a “complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” the network reported Wednesday morning at the top of its “Today” broadcast. 

A memo from NBC News Chairman Andy Lack noted that it was the first complaint against Lauer, but also said the company had reason to believe it may not have been an isolated incident.

The network said it had received a complaint on Monday night from a colleague and made the decision to terminate his employment. 

“We are deeply saddened by this turn of events. But we will face it together as a news organization — and do it in as transparent a manner as we can,” Lack said in the statement.

Lauer had been an anchor on the show for 20 years, taking over in 1997.

CIA False-Flagging and Impersonating Kaspersky

wikileaks |  Hive solves a critical problem for the malware operators at the CIA. Even the most sophisticated malware implant on a target computer is useless if there is no way for it to communicate with its operators in a secure manner that does not draw attention. Using Hive even if an implant is discovered on a target computer, attributing it to the CIA is difficult by just looking at the communication of the malware with other servers on the internet. Hive provides a covert communications platform for a whole range of CIA malware to send exfiltrated information to CIA servers and to receive new instructions from operators at the CIA.

Hive can serve multiple operations using multiple implants on target computers. Each operation anonymously registers at least one cover domain (e.g. "perfectly-boring-looking-domain.com") for its own use. The server running the domain website is rented from commercial hosting providers as a VPS (virtual private server) and its software is customized according to CIA specifications. These servers are the public-facing side of the CIA back-end infrastructure and act as a relay for HTTP(S) traffic over a VPN connection to a "hidden" CIA server called 'Blot'.

The cover domain delivers 'innocent' content if somebody browses it by chance. A visitor will not suspect that it is anything else but a normal website. The only peculiarity is not visible to non-technical users - a HTTPS server option that is not widely used: Optional Client Authentication. But Hive uses the uncommon Optional Client Authentication so that the user browsing the website is not required to authenticate - it is optional. But implants talking to Hive do authenticate themselves and can therefore be detected by the Blot server. Traffic from implants is sent to an implant operator management gateway called Honeycomb(see graphic above) while all other traffic go to a cover server that delivers the insuspicious content for all other users.

Digital certificates for the authentication of implants are generated by the CIA impersonating existing entities. The three examples included in the source code build a fake certificate for the anti-virus company Kaspersky Laboratory, Moscow pretending to be signed by Thawte Premium Server CA, Cape Town. In this way, if the target organization looks at the network traffic coming out of its network, it is likely to misattribute the CIA exfiltration of data to uninvolved entities whose identities have been impersonated.

The documentation for Hive is available from the WikiLeaks Vault7 series.

Is MBS Tryna Drain the Broke Bush-Bandar-CIA Swamp?

theautomaticearth |  Trying to figure out what on earth is happening in the Middle East appears to have gotten a lot harder. Perhaps (because) it’s become more dangerous too. There are so many players, and connections between players, involved now that even making one of those schematic representations would never get it right. Too many unknown unknowns.

A short and incomplete list of the actors: Sunni, Shiite, Saudi Arabia, US, Russia, Turkey, ISIS, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Kurds, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas, Qatar, Israel, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Houthis, perhaps even Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan. I know I know, add your favorites. So what have we got, or what do we know we’ve got? We seem to have the US lining up with Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia against Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah. Broadly. But that’s just a -pun intended- crude start.

Putin has been getting closer to the Saudis because of the OPEC production cuts, trying to jack up the price of oil. Which ironically has now been achieved on the heels of the arrests of 11 princes and scores of other wealthy and powerful in the kingdom. But Putin also recently signed a $30 billion oil -infrastructure- deal with Iran. And he’s been cuddling up to Israel as well.

In fact, Putin may well be the most powerful force in the Middle East today. Well played?! He prevented the demise of Assad in Syria, which however you look at it at least saved the country from becoming another Iraq and Libya style failed state. If there’s one thing you can say about the Middle East/North Africa it’s that the US succeeded in creating chaos there to such an extent that it has zero control left over any of it. Well played?!

One thing seems obvious: the House of Saud needs money. The cash flowing out to the princes is simply not available anymore. The oil price is a major factor in that. Miraculously, the weekend crackdown on dozens of princes et al, managed to do what all the OPEC meetings could not for the price of oil: push it up. But the shrinkage of foreign reserves shows a long term problem, not some momentary blip

Another sign that money has become a real problem in Riyadh is the ever-postponed IPO of Saudi Aramco, the flagship oil company supposedly worth $2 trillion. Trump this week called on the Saudi’s to list it in New York, but despite the upsurge in oil prices you still have to wonder which part of that $2 trillion is real, and which is just fantasy.  

But yeah, I know, there’s a million different stocks you can ask the same question about. Then again, seeing the wealth of some of the kingdom’s richest parties confiscated overnight can’t be a buy buy buy signal, can it? Looks like the IPO delay tells us something. 

And then you have the 15,000 princes and princesses who all live off of the Kingdom’s supposed riches (‘only 2,000’ profit directly). All of them live in -relative- wealth. Some more than others, but there’s no hunger in the royal family. Thing is, overall population growth outdoes even that in the royal family. Which means, since the country produces nothing except for oil, that there are 1000s upon 1000s of young people with nothing to do but spend money that’s no longer there. Cue mayhem.

"Acting White" for White People...,

NationalReview | Ice-T never received an Academy Award, which makes sense inasmuch as his movies have been for the most part crap. But as an actor, you have to give the man credit: Along with other gangster rappers such as Ice Cube, he turned in such a convincing performance — amplifying negative stereotypes about black men and selling white people their own Reagan-era racial panic back to them in a highly stylized form — that people still, to this day, believe he was the guy he played on stage. One social-media critic accused him of hypocrisy for having recorded the infamous song “Cop Killer” before going on to a very lucrative career playing a police officer on television. Ice-T gave the man an honest answer: “It’s both acting, homie.” Acting, indeed. Pretty good acting, too, across the board in the rap world. 

Consider the strange evolution of Tupac Shakur, who went from the quiet, effeminate young man seen in this interview — a former acting and ballet student at the Baltimore School for the Arts apparently pointed like a rocket at a career in musical theater — to the “Thug Life” antihero persona that made him famous in a remarkably short period of time. He played tough-guy Roland Bishop in Juice and basically stayed in character for the rest of his public life. As with Ice-T, many of his fans assumed the stage persona was the real man. There’s a whole weird little racial dynamic in there waiting for some doctoral student to sort it out. Nobody expects Anthony Hopkins to eat a census worker. 

A theater critic can’t really begrudge a performer for making a living, and Ice-T put on a great show. I do wonder how much damage those performers did by reinforcing and glamorizing criminal stereotypes of black men. And I do mean that I wonder — I do not know. Maybe the act is more obvious if you are the sort of person who is being dramatized or caricatured. (I experience something like that when I hear modern country songs on the radio, all that cheerful alcoholism and casual adultery and ridiculous good-ol’-boy posturing.) It would be weird to describe black men as “acting black,” but whatever they were up to was the opposite of “acting white.”

There’s a certain kind of conservative who loves to talk about “acting white,” i.e., about the legendary social sanction purportedly applied to African Americans who try too hard in school or who speak in an English that is too standard or who have interests and aspirations other than the ones that black people are stereotypically supposed to have. (“Acting white” isn’t a complaint exclusive to African Americans. My friend Jay Nordlinger relates a wonderful story about the American Indian educator Ben Chavis, who once was accused by a sister of “acting white.” His reply: “‘Acting white’ is not enough. I’m acting Jewish. Or maybe Chinese.”) Oh, how we love to knowingly tut-tut about “acting white,” with the obvious implication that black Americans corporately would be a good deal better off if they would do a little more acting white. That sort of thing is not entirely unique to conservatives, of course: Nine-tenths of all social criticism involving the problems of the American underclass consists of nice college graduates and policy professionals of many races and religions wondering aloud why they can’t be more like us, which is why so much social policy is oriented toward trying to get more poor people to go to college, irrespective of whether they want to do so or believe they would benefit from it. 

Conservatives have a weakness for that “acting white” business because we are intellectually invested in emphasizing the self-inflicted problems of black America, for rhetorical and political reasons that are too obvious to require much elaboration. It’s a phenomenon that may or may not be exaggerated. John McWhorter argues that it is a real problem, and makes a pretty good case. So did President Barack Obama, who called on the nation to “eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.” I am not sure that a white man from Lubbock, Texas, has a great deal to add to President Obama’s argument there. But I do have something to say about the subject of white people acting white.

White Anger or White Stupor (Don't Forget the 2-Piece/Biscuit Opioid Crisis)

unz  |  The phrase “angry white males” has been around awhile, but Donald Trump’s election has pushed it to the forefront. Indeed, at least for some, it is central to Trump’s election. As Steven M. Gillon put it in The Washington Post, “Donald Trump has tapped into this anger and manipulated it to his political advantage. The bond between President Trump and his white followers is not based on policy but on grievance. They both reject the cultural changes over the past half-century, and Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan signals his intent to unravel them.”

 

Whether this anger is somehow justified is, of course, a question of immense complexity but let me offer three observations that explain its scope regardless of its justification. My point is that affirmative action and other egalitarian social engineering nostrums inescapably spreads antagonisms beyond those immediately affected by the policies. And the anger will only grow as government keeps pushing the egalitarian fantasy.

First, violating the merit principle, whether in college admissions or hiring police officers guarantees disgruntled white males far in excess of its true victims. Consider hiring five firefighters strictly according to civil service exam scores. Let’s assume that a hundred men apply for the position and can be ranked by test scores. The top four are white and are hired. Now, thanks to a Department of Justice consent decree, the fire department must hire at least one African American from the list and if the highest ranking black scores at 20 in the array he will be hired despite his middling score.

How many white males have actually lost their job to a black? The correct answer is exactly one, the fifth ranking applicant. But how many whites will mistakenly believe that they lost out to an affirmative action candidate? The answer is 14 since this is the number of rejected white candidates between 6 and 19 and, to be honest, all can make a legitimate claim of being passed over to satisfy the diversity bean counters. Further fueling this anger is that each of those fourteen “unfairly” rejected applicants may complain to family and friends and thus tales of the alleged injustice multiply though, in fact, only a single white applicant lost out to a less qualified black.

Affirmative action is thus a white grievance multiplier if this information is public (as is often the case in university admissions and in reverse discrimination litigation). No doubt, every Spring when colleges and professional schools such as law and medicine mail out their acceptance/rejection letters, millions of white males can honestly complain that they would have been admitted to their first choice if they had only been black or Hispanic and judged exclusively by test scores. Of course, if the university admitted all those whites who exceeded the scores of the least qualified black, the university would have to dramatically increase the freshman class, a policy that possibly tantamount to admitting nearly every white applicant.

Second, the greater the pressure to increase “diversity” via adding additional under-qualified blacks and Hispanics and not expanding enrollment, the greater the visible gap between affirmative action admittees and all others. Again, everything is purely statistical. For example, in the pre-affirmative action era only a few blacks attended college, nearly all of whom got there on merit. Whites (and Asians) would likely view them as equals, no small benefit in a society obsessed with expunging “racist stereotypes” regarding black intellectual ability.

Trump Trains Elite Monkey Brains How to Perform and Mainstream Dominance

theintercept |  As the controversy over protests during the national anthem grew, President Donald Trump denounced NFL owners as being “afraid of the players,” a state of affairs that he called “disgraceful”. The lament fits a pattern in Trump’s war with the NFL, which has routinely been characterized as the president attacking African-American athletes, when, in fact, Trump’s immediate target is one much closer to him: the class and race traitors who make up the owners of the NFL.

One of the most haunting aspects of Trump’s battle with the players has been his consistent refusal to talk directly to or with them. His complaint, that they are refusing to stand during the national anthem, has been directed at the owners, a way to offer up an extra level of disrespect to the players. That refusal continued this week, as Trump spoke directly to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, reminding him of NFL rules he said applied to players around the anthem.

When Trump sparked the national debate, he did so by going right over the heads of the players. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’” Trump bellowed at a rally in Alabama in September.

Trump went on: “You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s going to say, ‘That guy that disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it, they’ll be the most popular person in this country.” 

For Trump, it comes back to being popular — with the right audience. But if that carrot isn’t enough, he has the stick of tax and antitrust policy to wield at the owners. 

Like everything else with Trump, his war with the NFL is layered with motivations ranging from the base to the financial to the personal. It hints at his own history with the NFL, his particular vision of rule, and ultimately, a sense of betrayal that has set the league on a collision course with not just Trump, but his supporters as well. 

Trump has commodified a vision of ownership that demands that bosses project complete dominance lest they become traitors to both their class and their nation — and, to the extent that Trump sees himself embodying the national spirit, they are at war with him personally. Through his so-called populist campaign and his TV show “The Apprentice,” he’s democratized that vision, transforming many of his supporters not into would-be apprentices hoping to learn from the great man, but mini-moguls with their own innate, incontrovertible knowledge about who should be “fired” and under what circumstances. Every viewer a king.

U.S. Justice System Ignores Elite Criminality

libertyblitzkrieg  |  Two very important articles published in recent days serve to once again highlight America’s metastasizing elite criminality problem. A problem which our justice system simply refuses to address.

This corrupt two-tier justice system is something I’ve been focused on from the very beginning of my writings, and I continue to see it as a civilization-level threat for this country if not aggressively addressed and confronted in the very near future.

The two articles in question focus on different aspects of untouchable elite culture in America.

The first relates to the continued fraud pervasive in America’s largest financial institution, while the second covers a thirty year history of predatory sexual behavior by one of Hollywood’s biggest moguls, Harvey Weinstein. 

In both cases, countless people have known and reported on repeated abuses perpetrated by both the institution and the man, yet the U.S. justice system and the vast majority of “elite” culture happily help shield them from justice. Predators are predators, and elite predators are far more dangerous to society that your average street crook, so why does our justice situation deal with it in the exact opposite way?

Let’s start with the blockbuster article published in The Nation by the always informative David Dayen. The article is titled, How America’s Biggest Bank Paid Its Fine for the 2008 Mortgage Crisis—With Phony Mortgages!

Here’s just brief excerpt:

Harvey Weinstein: Give Me A Second Chance To Get It Up Again Together...,

HuffPo  | The situation surrounding Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment allegations has only continued to worsen.

A desperate email from the film executive surfaced on Monday afternoon, courtesy of Janice Min, a strategist at Eldridge Industries and part owner of The Hollywood Reporter. Min tweeted out a transcribed iteration of an email she claims was read to her “by a disgusted (male) recipient.” She also noted that the email was sent to Hollywood “CEOs, moguls” mere hours before Weinstein was fired from his role at The Weinstein Company.

“My board is thinking of firing me,” the letter reads. “All I’m asking, is let me take a leave of absence and get into heavy therapy and counseling. Whether it be in a facility or somewhere else, allow me to resurrect myself with a second chance.”

Black Identity Extremist Stripper Blows Up Miami Dolphins Offensive Line...,

NYPost |  The model behind the release of the video featuring offensive line coach Chris Foerster snorting a white powder before a meeting leaked the damning clip in response to the intense political climate, according to recent Facebook posts.

In a since-deleted comment, Las Vegas-based Kijuana Nige said coaches should take responsibility for their actions as players who protest during the national anthem are chastised over their decisions on whether to stand.

“I have plenty of white friends so I’m not making this a race issue. People are missing the point. My point is everyone has to be held accountable for their decisions they roast players over anthems while the coaches be high as s–t and probably can’t sing along,” she wrote, per Obnoxious Boston Fan.

The 33-year-old model also spoke out Monday on social media.

“The white people mad at me like I forced blow down this mans nose and like I recorded it on tha low,” Nige shared on Facebook. “No those are his habits and he recorded himself and sent it to me professing his love.

“So quick to make excuses for him but will roast a minority player over an athem [sic], dog fight, weed, domestic issues etc. But y’all keep saying ALL LIVES MATTER STFU!!” she continued.

The relationship between Foerster and Nige is not clear. In the video, he said he misses her.

Less than 12 hours after the recording surfaced, Foerster announced his resignation Monday following one season and four games with the Miami Dolphins.

Can The Anglo-Zionist Empire Continue to Enforce Its "Truth"?

medialens |  The goal of a mass media propaganda campaign is to create the impression that 'everybody knows' that Saddam is a 'threat', Gaddafi is 'about to commit mass murder', Assad 'has to go', Corbyn is 'destroying the Labour party', and so on. The picture of the world presented must be clear-cut. The public must be made to feel certain that the 'good guys' are basically benevolent, and the 'bad guys' are absolutely appalling and must be removed.

This is achieved by relentless repetition of the theme over days, weeks, months and even years. Numerous individuals and organisations are used to give the impression of an informed consensus – there is no doubt! Once this 'truth' has been established, anyone contradicting or even questioning it is typically portrayed as a shameful 'apologist' in order to deter further dissent and enforce conformity.

A key to countering this propaganda is to ask some simple questions: Why are US-UK governments and corporate media much more concerned about suffering in Venezuela than the far worse horrors afflicting war-torn, famine-stricken Yemen? Why do UK MPs rail against Maduro while rejecting a parliamentary motion to suspend UK arms supplies to their Saudi Arabian allies attacking Yemen? Why is the imperfect state of democracy in Venezuela a source of far greater outrage than outright tyranny in Saudi Arabia? The answers could hardly be more obvious.

The Weaponization of Information

RAND |  State-sponsored propaganda and disinformation have been in existence for as long as there have been states. The major difference in the 21st century is the ease, efficiency, and low cost of such efforts. Because audiences worldwide rely on the Internet and social media as primary sources of news and information, they have emerged as an ideal vector of information attack. 

Most important from the U.S. perspective, Russian IO techniques, tactics and procedures are developing constantly and rapidly, as continually measuring effectiveness and rapidly evolving techniques are very cheap compared to the costs of any kinetic weapon system—and they could potentially be a lot more effective.

At this point, Russian IO operators use relatively unsophisticated techniques systematically and on a large scale. This relative lack of sophistication leaves them open to detection. For example, existing technology can identify paid troll operations, bots, etc. Another key element of Russian IO strategy is to target audiences with multiple, conflicting narratives to sow seeds of distrust of and doubt about the European Union (EU) as well as national governments. These can also be detected. The current apparent lack of technical sophistication of Russian IO techniques could derive from the fact that, so far, Russian IO has met with minimal resistance. However, if and when target forces start to counter these efforts and/or expose them on a large scale, the Russians are likely to accelerate the improvement of their techniques, leading to a cycle of counter-responses. In other words, an information warfare arms race is likely to ensue.

A Strategy to Counter the Russian Threat
Because the culture and history of each country is unique and because the success of any IO defense strategy must be tailored to local institutions and populations, the most effective strategies are likely to be those that are developed and managed on a country-by-country basis. An information defense strategy framework for countering Russian IO offensives should be “whole-of-nation” in character. A whole-of-nation approach is a coordinated effort between national government organizations, military, intelligence community, industry, media, research organizations, academia and citizen organized groups. A discreet US Special Operations Force could provide individual country support as well as cross country coordination.

Just as in the physical world, good maps are critical to any IO strategy. In the case of IO, maps show information flows. Information maps must show connectivity in the information environment and help navigate that environment. They exist as computer software and databases. Information cartography for IO is the art of creating, maintaining, and using such maps. An important feature of information maps is that they are constantly changing to reflect the dynamic nature of the information environment. Because they are artificially intelligent computer programs, they can answer questions; provide situation awareness dynamically; and help to plan, monitor, and appropriately modify operations. Information maps are technically possible today and already exist in forms that can be adapted to support the design and execution IO strategy.

As an example, most of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states, as well as several non-NATO partners, are already subject to concentrated Russian IO and they illustrate ongoing Russian IO techniques. Using information cartography, it is possible to map key Russian sources as part of Russian IO operations against a target state. These sources might include:

• Russian and target country think tanks
• foundations (e.g., Russkiy Mir)
• authorities (e.g., Rossotrudnichestvo)
• television stations (e.g. RT)
• pseudo-news agencies and multimedia services (e.g., Sputnik)
• cross-border social and religious groups
• social media and Internet trolls to challenge democratic values, divide Europe, gather domestic support, and create the perception of failed states in the EU’s eastern neighborhood
• Russian regime–controlled companies and organizations
• Russian regime–funded political parties and other organizations in target country in
particular and within the EU in general intended to undermine political cohesion
• Russian propaganda directly targeting journalists, politicians, and individuals in target
countries in particular and the EU in general.
 

Similarly, the mapping of target state receivers as part of Russian IO against the target state
might include:

• national government organizations
• military
• intelligence community
• industry
• media
• independent think tanks
• academia
• citizen-organized groups.

An effective information defensive strategy would be based on coordinated countering of information flows revealed by information maps. An effective strategy would include methods for establishing trust between elements of the defense force and the public. The strategy also will include mechanisms to detect the continuously evolving nature of the Russian IO threat and rapidly adapt in a coordinated fashion across all defense elements.

Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews of the RAND Corporation observe: “Experimental research in psychology suggests that the features of the contemporary Russian propaganda model have the potential to be highly effective.”14 They present a careful and concise analysis of relevant psychological research results that should inform any information defensive strategy. For example, they describe how propaganda can be used to distort perceptions of reality:

• People are poor judges of true versus false information—and they do not necessarily remember that particular information was false.
• Information overload leads people to take shortcuts in determining the trustworthiness of messages.
• Familiar themes or messages can be appealing even if they are false.
• Statements are more likely to be accepted if backed by evidence, even if that evidence is false.
• Peripheral cues—such as an appearance of objectivity—can increase the credibility of propaganda.15
 

Here is what a typical offensive strategy against a target population might look like. It consists of several steps:

1. Take the population and break it down into communities, based on any number of criteria
(e.g. hobbies, interests, politics, needs, concerns, etc.).
2. Determine who in each community is most susceptible to given types of messages.
3. Determine the social dynamics of communication and flow of ideas within each community.
4. Determine what narratives of different types dominate the conversation in each community.
5. Use all of the above to design and push a narrative likely to succeed in displacing a narrative unfavorable to you with one that is more favorable.
6. Use continual monitoring and interaction to determine the success of your effort and adjust in real time.
 

Technologies currently exist that make it possible to perform each of these steps continuously and at a large scale. However, while current technologies support manual application of the type of psychological research results presented by Paul and Matthews, they do not fully automate it. That would be the next stage in technology development.

These same technologies can be used for defensive purposes. For example, you could use the techniques for breaking down communities described above to detect adversary efforts to push a narrative and examine that narrative’s content. The technology can help researchers focus while searching through massive amounts of social media data.

Bannon: Alt-White Clowns, Losers, and Useful Idiots

thenation  |  In Steve Bannon’s now-famous call to Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect the day before he was fired, Bannon described the white supremacists who had marched in Charlottesville as “losers” and “a collection of clowns.” Of course, those are the same sorts of people Bannon mobilized to vote for Trump, the most loyal part of his base. I asked Joshua Green about that—he wrote the definitive book on Bannon, Devil’s Bargain. We spoke the evening before Bannon was fired as chief strategist at the Trump White House.

“He said similar things to me,” Green said; “he called them ‘freaks’ and ‘goofballs.’” Bannon, he said, “views these kinds of alt-right Internet trolls as useful idiots whom he can manipulate to do his bidding. He sees them as a small but powerful and energetic cohort that will help him tear down the Republican political establishment and open up room for Donald Trump. He sees them also as a group of people who won’t hesitate to attack the mainstream media, which is another obsession of Steve Bannon’s.” 

The big questions about Bannon, of course, are how Trump views him, and how he views Trump. Green emphasized that Trump’s biggest problem with Bannon always was the way Bannon got credit for Trump’s victory. For a long time, he said, Trump has been “furious at the idea put forward in the press, and frankly that’s also the thesis of my book—the idea that…without Bannon’s guidance, Trump probably wouldn’t be president.” Green pointed to a Saturday Night Live sketch that “portrayed Bannon as the real president, making Donald Trump sit at the little boy’s desk—Trump hates that sort of thing.” 

More Authoritah And Respeck For My Two-Piece and a Biscuit Wymyn

unz |  This past Saturday night, August 12, the media was filled to overflowing with nothing but lurid and hysterical accounts of the “violence” and the “massacre” by so-called “white nationalists” (alternately identified as “white supremacists” or “white racists”) inflicted on poor, innocent “counter demonstrators” in Charlottesville who were “protesting hate and bigotry.” That’s the narrative that showed up, including wall-to-wall coverage on Fox, overpowering everything else, and spewed forth as if handed down from Mount Olympus by assorted “wise” Republican senators, including most notably Marco Rubio, Orrin Hatch, and John McCain, whose biggest complaint was that Donald Trump somehow did not specify that the violence was exclusively caused by something that is termed the “Alt-right.”

 

Nary a word about the ultimate and real responsibility of the American Left for a continuing history of violence, nary a word about the responsibility of the so-called “resist Trump” organizations and their actions, nary a word about the uncontrolled rampaging of the Black Lives Matter movement (e.g., Ferguson, Baltimore, etc.), nary a word about the stepped up and planned confrontations by the “antifa” (self-titled “antifascists”) militants. That is, not one word about the history of virulent street action, fire bombing, trashing of private property, and, yes, attempts to kill anyone (e.g., Representative Steve Scalise) to the perceived right of, say, John McCain, anyone who might in any way say a good word about Donald Trump, or defend older American traditions and beliefs.

Continually, the networks portray what happened Saturday as simply the manifestation of extremism and bigotry from the Right. And practically the only voice that got even remotely close to a rational perspective came from, quite ironically, a black professor, Carol Swain at Vanderbilt University, who distinguished between the very legitimate desires, aspirations and fears of America’s under-attack white majority and the misapprehension that somehow those desires equal inevitably “white racism” or “white supremacy.” As Swain indicated, what has happened during the past few decades is a palpable marginalization of millions of hard working Americans, mostly white and mostly Christian, who have been sidelined and left behind by the advancing progressivist revolution (these last words are mine). They are not naturally “racists” or even “white supremacists,” but rather they seek to guarantee their own survival, and the survival of their families, their communities, and their culture. They have seen the standards, beliefs, traditions, morality and customs that they inherited and have cherished—they have seen them attacked, ridiculed, and, in many cases, banned, even criminalized.

The so-called “Alt-right” march and their demonstration in Charlottesville, then, must be seen as something of a predictable boiling over of that legitimate and simmering sentiment. Protesting the attempt to take down the historic Robert E. Lee statue was not, in this sense, the underlying reason for the Alt-right protest. Rather, it served as a much broader, if much angrier and extreme, reminder of what is and has been occurring in our society, a symbol of the continuing destruction of this nation and its history by those who zealously possess and attempt to impose a world view, a template, which is the antithesis of those beliefs and that faith that millions of us have inherited and which we hold dear and believe.

 

The attacks by nearly the entirety of the media—including notably Fox—on the “Alt-right” demonstrators as “white racists” and “white supremacists,” then, is not only misguided scattershot, but it partakes in the dominant and ideologically leftist Deep State establishment narrative which posits as absolute truth that “hate,” “bigotry,” “racism,” ad nauseum, only come from what they identity as the “far” or “extreme” right, or more recently, “Alt-right.” And those terms are all-inclusive for anyone who dissents even in the slightest from the ongoing progressivist Revolution.

Thus, when the president condemned violence from “both sides,” it was as if Mount Vesuvius had erupted and had poured down its ash and lava all over Pompei! The Mainstream Media went literally berserk in outrage and demanded that he specify by name the “right” and “rightist violence.” And in jumped with both feet the obsequiously sickening Marco Rubio and Karl Rove, obedient to the standard Deep State mindset, urging the president to condemn “white nationalism” and “white supremacy.”

And so it went throughout that afternoon and evening…until I finally couldn’t take it any longer, and switched over to watch John Wayne in John Ford’s 1950 film masterpiece, “Rio Grande.” (It is always a gracious reward at the end to hear the Yankee band strike up “Dixie” as the Union troops pass in review!)

Certainly, the Alt-right demonstrators in Charlottesville included some extreme elements. Certainly, some would advocate a form of “supremacy,” or rather a return to a time when white people had more authority in this nation.

Why Unite the White Was a Neckbeard Sausage Festival

realitycallshow |   CK: My big question is this: Why does the alt-right movement appear to be so overwhelmingly male? Is it just that less women come out to highly-visible protests like Charlottesville, or are there just far fewer women involved in the movement than men?

TM: Judging by the analytics data of my and other Alt Right personalities’ social media accounts, I estimate the Alt Right is about 15% female.

White males are fed up of being systematically disenfranchised and discriminated against through affirmative action in all of its many manifestations. But maybe more importantly, the Alt Right is overtly patriarchal.

We expect men to take leadership positions and to put themselves on the front lines. We do not expect, or want this of women – not because we hate women, but because we don’t view it as their job. The Alt Right doesn’t expect women to put themselves in dangerous situations, and instead seeks to protect them.

CK: Do you think the media tries to minimize the presence of women at alt-right gatherings like this? (almost all the big photos circulated from Charlottesville featured men)

TM: The media tries to minimize all aspects of the Alt Right that make it look remotely reasonable. We see this when they show closeups of the few odd guys out of thousands who take it upon themselves to do Nazi salutes or wear KKK outfits.

Most of us in the Alt Right view Nazi and KKK symbolism either with distaste, or we use it ironically to trigger hysteria in the uninitiated (for entertainment purposes).

The vast majority of people in the Alt Right don’t care about Nazis, or about the KKK. We are focused on the issues that whites face today.

CK: If you agree that there are far fewer women involved, what stops them from affiliating with the alt-right? Ideological reasons, or something else?

TM: What motivates the Alt Right is the love of our people and the desire to protect them from being disenfranchised politically. Men are naturally more likely to notice trends like this and to feel it is their duty to take action to protect their people. So we put this down to biological male/female roles.

We don’t believe that male/female roles are conditioned by society to any great extent, but that they are biologically engrained in us, so we would not consider this ideological but simply a manifestation of the natural way of things.

It’s not the role of women to protect the borders, the nation, or the family. So we do not expect this of women, nor do we find it strange that they are less represented in something that we view as an innately male occupation: guarding territory.

What Are These White Men Fighting For?

You May Not Know It But This Man's a Spy - An Undercover Agent For the FBI...,

NationalReview | Jeff Sessions looked at the morning newspapers. Both the Times and the Post had the story. He turned on Morning Joe just in time to hear Mika Brzezinski speculate that his career as attorney general may be over.

 “Ну, дерьмо,” he sighed, as he pulled down the bottom of his cashmere sweater vest to eliminate any unwanted creases. He then calmly walked to his private Senate office and pulled a painting of some ducks and spaniels off the wall. He paused to look at the scene, as if for the first time. “Ridiculous, Americans,” he muttered to himself. “Bears. Men hunt medvedi,” he said, letting himself enjoy speaking Russian after all of these years.

EUTimes |  Need we remind each and every single one of you Demonrat schizophrenics that Jeff Sessions was a US SENATOR up until only a few days ago? He was not part of the Trump campaign. If the Demonrats manage to destroy Sessions as they did with Flynn then there will simply be no hope left.

Now top House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi demands US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions resign for “lying under oath” during his confirmation hearings. Sessions’ spokeswoman said he was speaking of Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, not of his own activities. Ohh yeah everybody is a Russian spy according to those schizophrenics.

“Jeff Sessions lied under oath during his confirmation hearing before the Senate. Under penalty of perjury, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, ‘I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.’ We now know that statement is false,” mentally ill demonrat Pelosi wrote.

Unnamed Justice Department officials told the Washington Post on Wednesday that Sessions spoke to Russian Ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak twice last year, which would contradict statements Sessions made as US senator during Senate hearings for his confirmation to the Attorney General post.

Comey and Mueller: Pretty Much Just Head Snowflakes in Charge

Counterpunch |  Mainstream commentators display amnesia when they describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put into proper perspective.

Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.

Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller’s role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI’s illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other “top echelon” informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang.

Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into those 2001 murders, which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfill) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller’s FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of “national security letters” to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating “terrorism.”

For his part, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, too, went along with the abuses of Bush and Cheney after 9/11 and signed off on a number of highly illegal programs including warrantless surveillance of Americans and torture of captives. Comey also defended the Bush Administration’s three-year-long detention of an American citizen without charges or right to counsel.