January 1, 2017


A BERNIE SANDERS DAY


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/upshot/the-campaign-ads-that-moved-people-the-most.html?_r=0

THE 2016 RACE

The Ad That Moved People the Most: Bernie Sanders’s ‘America’
Lynn Vavreck @vavreck
DEC. 30, 2016



They may be difficult to recall, but there were some things about the 2016 presidential election that made people happy and hopeful. Perhaps even harder to believe is that some of those things were campaign advertisements.

A few 2016 campaign ads stand out for how happy and hopeful they made people feel, and one ad in particular dominated. That ad was Bernie Sanders’s minute-long spot called “America.”


Video -- America | Bernie Sanders Video by Bernie 2016

The ad is a montage of American images — farms, cities, windmills, offices, coffee shops and kitchen tables — set to the well-known Simon & Garfunkel song of the same name. Other than the obligatory message of approval at the end, there’s no audio other than the tune and the background sounds of American life, which occasionally involve the waxing and waning of roars from the crowds as Mr. Sanders comes into and out of frame.

As the duo sing, “They’ve all come to look for America,” videos of thousands of supporters meeting Mr. Sanders, in different times and places, flow across the screen and divide into squares on a quilt that multiplies over and over until there are too many to see.

It was one of many ads that John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political scientist, and I showed to panels of people throughout the campaign. We ran a weekly experiment called SpotCheck in which we randomly assigned a representative sample of 1,000 people to see one of two campaign ads. We evaluated the ads’ persuasive effects and asked people to evaluate the ads on such criteria as whether the ad made them happy, hopeful, angry or worried.

By far, Mr. Sanders’s “America” was the ad from 2016 that made SpotCheck’s raters the happiest and the most hopeful. Nearly 80 percent of viewers said the ad made them at least a little bit happy and hopeful in the week it debuted — including over half of the Republicans who saw it.

We paired the ad with a spot from Hillary Clinton called “All the Good,” which also tested well. It featured the commanding voice of Morgan Freeman and a moving string soundtrack, yet only half the raters said this ad made them happy and hopeful.

Video -- All The Good | Hillary Clinton Video by Hillary Clinton
Mr. Sanders’s ad also made people feel better about our democracy and lifted his favorable ratings compared with those who saw a nonpolitical ad or the spot from Mrs. Clinton.

We asked people to think like an ad maker who was advising candidates. Would they tell the campaign to “run the ad a lot” because it was “good at accomplishing its goal?” Was it “good, but not great?” Or worse, did the ad need to be shelved because it “just doesn’t work?”

Here again Mr. Sanders’s “America” did better than any other ad. More than half of the people who saw this ad said they would advise the campaign to run it a lot — including 51 percent of Republicans and almost 60 percent of independents.

When I recently heard Tad Devine, Mr. Sanders’s chief strategist, talk about making this ad at a campaign post-mortem at the University of Southern California, he described the care with which each frame of the ad was chosen and later told the story about finding out that the iconic folk tune would be available for the campaign to use. He seemed to realize he was making an ad for the ages.


SCAN THESE TWO ARTICLES ON THE VA. THEY CONTAIN SOME DIFFERENT INFORMATION IN BOTH CASES.

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/bernie-sanders-blasts-trump-for-insulting-talk-of-privatizing-the-veterans-administration/

Bernie Sanders blasts Trump for ‘insulting’ talk of privatizing the Veterans Administration
Sarah K. Burris SARAH K. BURRIS
30 DEC 2016 AT 16:24 ET

Photograph -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to 'Young Turks' host Cenk Uygur on March 23, 2016. (YouTube)


Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called out President-elect Donald Trump Friday after he suggested a “public-private option” for veterans seeking healthcare.

“Privatizing the VA would be an insult to the more than 22 million veterans who risked their lives to defend our country and it would significantly lower the quality of health care they receive,” Sanders said in a statement, The Hill reported. “Our goal, shared by The American Legion and other major veterans’ organizations, must be to improve the VA, not destroy it.”

Earlier this week, a senior transition official told reporters that the president-elect was searching for a way to privatize the VA.

“We think we have to have kind of a … public-private option, because some vets love the VA … some vets want to go to the VA,” the senior official said. “So, the idea is to come up with a solution that solves the problem. And it’s not the easiest thing in the world because you’ve got all these little kingdoms out there, which is hard.”

No details were given on how the privatization would work and how much doctors would be paid for their services. The official refused to elaborate.

After veterans faced long waits for far away VA facilities, Congressional Republicans began looking for other options. Currently, veterans can get private care through the Choice Card program Congress created in 2014. Both of Trump’s expected VA secretary options reportedly want to expand that program to all veterans, however.

Opponents of the privatization idea believe that funding other programs will pull money from the existing VA making programs even worse. Other critics note that VA doctors are experts in things like PTSD and treating health problems known for impacting veterans the most. One example is a rare liver cancer that was discovered by VA doctors that was isolated to Vietnam veterans stationed in certain areas known for serving a specific type of fish. In an NPR report, a VA doctor explained that a personal doctor wouldn’t have been informed about this type of cancer and the cause.

Sanders, who serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, pointed out that veterans groups are against the option the Trump transition is advocating.

“The veterans’ organizations are right,” he said. “We must protect the VA, not destroy it.”

American Legion Executive Director Verna Jones explained that “dollar-for-dollar, there is no better care or value available anywhere in the United States – period.” She urged Trump to look into the information on the issue.

“When men and women put their lives on the line to defend us, the president must listen to them, not to the Koch brothers and their extreme right-wing, anti-government ideology,” Sanders went on to say. “We will vigorously oppose any and all efforts to privatize the VA.”



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-trump-privatizing-the-va_us_5867e894e4b0d9a5945b9a88

Bernie Sanders Warns Donald Trump Against Privatizing The VA
It would be “an insult to the more than 22 million veterans who risked their lives to defend our country.”
12/31/2016 02:29 pm ET

SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a former Democratic presidential candidate, has vowed to hold President-elect Donald Trump accountable for his promises to help working people.


WASHINGTON ― Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned Donald Trump that the president-elect would face stiff opposition if he tries to privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs. The remarks from Sanders, a former chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, was a response to a report that Trump is considering the move.

“Privatizing the VA would be an insult to the more than 22 million veterans who risked their lives to defend our country and it would significantly lower the quality of health care they receive. Our goal, shared by The American Legion and other major veterans’ organizations, must be to improve the VA, not destroy it,” Sanders said in a statement Friday.

“We will vigorously oppose any and all efforts to privatize the VA,” Sanders added.

A Trump transition team official told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that full-scale privatization was “one of the options on the table,” as is a plan to allow veterans to opt out of the public system.

Trump is also considering candidates to lead the VA with ties to Concerned Veterans for American, a group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that backs privatization, the The Washington Post reported earlier this month. CVA, unlike traditional veterans groups, such as the American Legion, arose four years ago and is primarily focused on politics rather than services.

The American Legion, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Paralyzed Veterans of America and many other veterans organizations oppose privatizing the VA because they say that only a publicly run medical system, free from concerns about profit, has the versatility to serve the special needs of military veterans. They also worry that the vouchers the government would provide veterans to purchase private care under some proposals would fail to keep pace with the cost of services.

And creating a path for veterans to opt out of the VA system could ultimately sap it of funding, these advocates fear.

Few veterans advocates dispute that the VA continues to struggle with a major backlog that has resulted in veterans failing to receive critical health care. Amid rising anger about the wait times and reports that VA officials were deliberately covering them up, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned in May 2014.

Sanders, then-chairman of the VA committee, negotiated a bipartisan VA reform bill in the summer of 2014 that increased VA funding and permitted veterans to seek private care under select circumstances. Republican colleagues, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have praised Sanders’ efforts.

As a presidential candidate, Trump frequently touted the support he received from individual veterans and promised to improve the VA.

“There will be no more waiting in line,” Trump said in July.

But if Trump chooses to reform the VA through partial or total privatization, he may end up on a collision course with the American Legion and other mainstream groups popular among the veterans whose support he has trumpeted.

Privatization is a “slap in the face to what we stand for,” American Legion Executive Director Verna Jones said at a meeting with transition team officials earlier this month.

Also on HuffPost



PROGRESSIVE DAY OF ACTION -- EMAIL

https://berniesanders.com/news/

2016 ARTICLES, DAY OF ACTION AND MORE

CALL YOUR DEMOCRATIC PARTY HEADQUARTERS AND ASK WHAT THEIR PLANS FOR JANUARY 15 ARE!

https://berniesanders.com/news/

PRESS RELEASE
Hill Leaders Call for ‘Day of Action’ in New Session of Congress; Demand Trump Pledge to Veto Cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security
DECEMBER 29TH, 2016

Emily Schultheis is a reporter/editor for CBS News Digital.

Play Video --


WASHINGTON – Warning that congressional Republicans are about to “ram through a budget bill” to “throw our health care system into chaos,” Senate and House leaders called Wednesday for a nationwide “day of action” to mobilize grassroots support for programs that help millions of working families.

Senate and House Democratic Leaders Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) were joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the new leader in charge of outreach for Senate Democrats, in sending a letter to congressional colleagues asking for their help organizing rallies or other events on Jan. 15 at locations around the United States.

They also demanded that President-elect Donald Trump keep his promise to preserve Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security by pledging to veto legislation to cut the programs. “Millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump after he promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He must be held to his promises and should veto any legislation which cuts these vital and necessary health programs,” the letter said.

Schumer, Pelosi and Sanders said the rallies and other events – “Our First Stand: Save Health Care” – will demonstrate public support for programs that congressional Republicans are likely to put on the chopping block as soon as the new session of Congress convenes. “Beginning in January, it is likely that Republican leaders in Congress will follow through on their threats to ram through a budget bill that will severely undermine the health care needs of the American people,” the letter said.

They wrote that “radical proposals” expected to be included in the Republican budget would:

Take away health care coverage for more than 30 million Americans by dismantling the health care system.
End guaranteed Medicare benefits for millions of older Americans by converting Medicare into a voucher program.
Slash Medicaid and threaten nursing home care for more than 4 million vulnerable seniors.
Jack up prescription drug prices more than $1,000 a year for more than 5 million seniors and people with disabilities.
Slap a $4,800 tax hike on millions of average Americans, while providing hundreds of billions in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country.

TO READ THE LETTER, SEE PDF BELOW:
https://berniesanders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/161222-Dear-Colleague-Health-Care-SIGNED.pdf
161222-Dear-Colleague-Health-Care-SIGNED.pdf



http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bernie-sanders-2016-ad-happiest-most-hopeful-study-says/article/2610664#!

Bernie Sanders 2016 ad 'happiest,' 'most hopeful,' study says
By EDDIE SCARRY (@ESCARRY) • 12/31/16 11:51 AM

Play Video -- America


When it came to inspiring people with optimism in what was often a bitter campaign year, an ad produced by Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders claims the title for most hopeful.

A new study by two political science professors showed campaign ads throughout the year to a group of people to gauge their reaction.

It found that Sanders' ad, published at the start of 2016, generated the strongest feeling of optimism in people who viewed it.

"By far, Mr. Sanders's 'America' was the ad from 2016 that made ... raters the happiest and the most hopeful," UCLA political science professor Lynn Vavreck wrote Friday in the New York Times. She said that almost 80 percent of viewers claimed the ad "made them at least a little bit happy and hopeful in the week it debuted — including over half of the Republicans who saw it."

Vavreck conducted the study with John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political scientist.

The Sanders ad, titled "America," showed images from both rural and urban parts of America and of Sanders greeting enthusiastic supporters. Simon and Garfunkel's "America" plays over the images.



OTHER NEWS –


TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE – THREE ARTICLES


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-russia-hacking-us-response-20161229-story.html

Obama imposes sanctions on Russia over hack, expels 35 diplomats; Trump says time 'to move on'
News Nation & World
By Tribune news services Contact Reporter
December 29, 2016 7:51 PM

The United States struck back Thursday at Russia for hacking the U.S. presidential campaign with a sweeping set of punishments targeting Russia's spy agencies and diplomats. The U.S. said Russia must bear costs for its actions, but Moscow called the Obama administration "losers" and threatened retaliation.

A month after an election the U.S. says Russia tried to sway for Donald Trump, President Barack Obama sanctioned the GRU and FSB, leading Russian intelligence agencies the U.S. said were involved. Those sanctions could easily be pulled back by Trump, who has insisted that Obama and Democrats are merely attempting to delegitimize his election.

In an elaborately coordinated response by at least five federal agencies, the Obama administration also sought to expose Russia's cyber tactics with a detailed technical report and hinted it might still launch a covert counterattack.

"All Americans should be alarmed by Russia's actions," Obama said, adding, "Such activities have consequences."


Republican response to Russia sanctions: Some praise for Obama, some praise for the hackers

He said the response wasn't over and the U.S. could take further, covert action — a thinly veiled reference to a counterstrike in cyberspace the U.S. has been considering.

Trump issued a statement saying it was "time for our country to move on to bigger and better things." Yet in the face of newly public evidence, he suggested he was keeping an open mind.

"In the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation," Trump said.

As part of the punishment, the U.S. also kicked out 35 Russian diplomats who the U.S. said were actually intelligence operatives, and shut down a pair of Russian compounds, in New York and Maryland. The U.S. said those actions were in response to Russia's harassment of U.S. diplomats, calling it part of a pattern of aggression that included the cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.

FBI/DHS report on technical details of 'malicious' Russian cyberactivity
FBI/DHS report on technical details of 'malicious' Russian cyberactivity

It was the strongest action the Obama administration has taken to date to retaliate for a cyberattack, and more comprehensive than last year's sanctions on North Korea after it hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment. The new penalties add to existing U.S. sanctions over Russia's actions in Ukraine, which have impaired Russia's economy but had limited impact on President Vladimir Putin's behavior.

Russia, which denied the hacking allegations, called the penalties a clumsy yet aggressive attempt to "harm Russian-American ties." Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would take into account the fact that Trump will soon replace Obama as it drafts retaliatory measures.

The day marked a low point for U.S. relations with Russia, which have suffered during Obama's years as he and Putin tussled over Ukraine, Edward Snowden and Russia's support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Maria Zakharova, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, took to Facebook to call the Obama administration "a group of foreign policy losers, angry and ignorant."

It was unlikely the new sanctions, while symbolically significant, would have a major impact on Russian spy operations. The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets and block Americans from doing business with them. But Russian law bars the spy agencies from having assets in the U.S., and any activities they undertake would likely be covert and hard to identify.

How to be declared 'persona non grata' and get yourself kicked out of the United States

"On its face, this is more than a slap on the wrists, but hardly an appropriate response to an unprecedented attack on our electoral system," said Stewart Baker, a cybersecurity lawyer and former National Security Agency and Homeland Security Department official.

Indeed, senior Obama administration officials said that even with the penalties, the U.S. had reason to believe Russia would keep hacking other nations' elections and might well try to hack American elections again in 2018 or 2020. The officials briefed reporters on a conference call on condition of anonymity.

Though the FBI and Homeland Security Department issued a joint report on "Russian malicious cyber activity" — replete with examples of malware code used by the Russians — it still has not released a broader report Obama has promised detailing Russia's efforts to interfere with U.S. elections.

The report has been eagerly anticipated by those hoping to make it politically untenable for Trump to continue questioning whether Russia was really involved. But U.S. officials said those seeking more detail about who the U.S. has determined did the hacking need look only to the list of sanctions targets, which includes the GRU head, his three deputies, and two Russian nationals wanted by the FBI for cybercrimes.

[(https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=GRU+STANDS+FOR) -- GRU STANDS FOR “Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye (Soviet Military Int)”].

Obama's executive order declaring sanctions against Russia

The move puts Trump in the position of having to decide whether to roll back the measures once in office, and U.S. officials acknowledged that Trump could use his executive authorities to do so. Still, they suggested that building the case against Russia now would make it harder for Trump to justify easing up.

U.S. allegations of hacking have ignited a heated debate over Trump's approach to Russia and his refusal to accept the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia's government was responsible and wanted to help him win. Though U.S. lawmakers have long called for Obama to be tougher on Russia, some Republicans have found that position less tenable now that Trump is floating the possibility of closer ties to Moscow.

"While today's action by the administration is overdue, it is an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia," said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia was trying to help Trump win when hackers connected to the government breached Democratic Party computers and stole tens of thousands of emails that were then posted on WikiLeaks, some containing embarrassing information for Democrats. Clinton aide John Podesta's emails were also stolen and released publicly in the final weeks of the campaign.

Associated Press



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-cybersecurity-russian-hack-dnc-20161221-story.html

Cybersecurity firm says it has proof Russian military unit was behind DNC hack
News Nation & World National politics
Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post
December 21, 2016 11:27 PM

Photograph -- The Democratic National Committee headquarters is seen, Tuesday, June 14, 2016 in Washington. The firm CrowdStrike linked malware used in the DNC hacking to malware used to hack and track an Android phone app used by the Ukrainian army in its battle against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine from late 2014 through 2016. (Alex Brandon / AP)


A cybersecurity firm has uncovered strong proof of the tie between the group that hacked the Democratic National Committee and Russia's military intelligence arm - the primary agency behind the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 election.

The firm CrowdStrike linked malware used in the DNC intrusion to malware used to hack and track an Android phone app used by the Ukrainian army in its battle against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine from late 2014 through 2016.

While CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC to investigate the intrusions and whose findings are described in a new report, had always suspected that one of the two hacker groups that struck the DNC was the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, it had only medium confidence.

Now, said CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch, "we have high confidence" it was a unit of the GRU. CrowdStrike had dubbed that unit "Fancy Bear."

The FBI, which has been investigating Russia's hacks of political, government, academic and other organizations for several years, privately has concluded the same. But the bureau has not publicly drawn the link to the GRU.

McConnell rejects calls for select panel on Russian meddling

CrowdStrike's fingering of the GRU helps to deepen the public's understanding of how different arms of the Russian government are carrying out malicious and deeply troubling cyber acts in the United States. The director of national intelligence and the homeland security secretary in October publicly blamed the Russian government for interfering in the U.S. election, including through hacks of political organizations and targeting of state election systems.

After the election, the CIA and other intelligence agencies concluded that one of Russia's aims was to help President-elect Donald Trump win the election through a campaign of "active measures" or influence operations that included the hacking and dumping of emails onto public websites.

The GRU, evidently, was key to this operation.

"The GRU is used for both tactical intelligence collection in the battlefield in support of Russian military operations and also strategic active measures or psychological warfare overseas," said Alperovitch, who is an expert on Russia and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "The fact that they would be tracking and helping the Russian military kill Ukrainian army personnel in eastern Ukraine and also intervening in the U.S. election is quite chilling."

CrowdStrike found that a variant of the Fancy Bear malware that was used to penetrate the DNC's network in April 2016 was also used to hack an Android app developed by the Ukrainian army to help artillery troops more efficiently train their antiquated howitzers on targets.

Sen. John McCain calls for Russia hacking investigation: 'There's no doubt' of interference

The Ukrainian army's D-30 towed howitzers, which date to the Soviet era, typically take a number of minutes to position based on hand-drawn targeting data. With the Android app, positioning takes 15 seconds, CrowdStrike found.

The Fancy Bear crew evidently hacked the app, allowing the GRU to use the phone's GPS coordinates to track the Ukrainian troops' position. In that way, the Russian military could then target the Ukrainian army with artillery and other weaponry.

Ukrainian brigades operating in eastern Ukraine were on the front lines of the conflict with Russian-backed separatist forces during the early stages of the conflict in late 2014, CrowdStrike noted. By late 2014, Russian forces in the region numbered about 10,000. The Android app was useful in helping the Russian troops locate Ukrainian artillery positions.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Ukrainian artillery forces lost more than 50 percent of their weapons in the two years of conflict and more than 80 percent of their D-30 howitzers, the highest percentage of loss of any artillery piece in their arsenal, the report stated.

The app was not available in the Android app store and was distributed only through the social media page of its developer, who is a Ukrainian artillery officer, Yaroslav Sherstuk, according to CrowdStrike. It could be activated only after the developer was contacted and a code was sent to the individual downloading the application.

The other group that hacked the DNC also works for Russian intelligence, CrowdStrike reported earlier this year. But the firm is not sure if it is the more internally focused FSB, or the foreign intelligence arm, the SVR. Both grew out of the KGB.

That group, which CrowdStrike has called Cozy Bear, has not apparently been deployed in the influence operation, Alperovitch said. Rather, it is focused on traditional espionage. It is the group that is believed to have hacked unclassified networks of the State Department, White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.




http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-russia-diplomatic-estates-shuttered-20161231-story.html

Not a Cold War spy novel: Russian mansions accused of housing spies in the U.S.
News Nation & World
By Matt Pearce Contact Reporter
December 31, 2016 10:17 AM

Photograph -- State Department officials block the entrance to a Russian compound Dec. 29, 2016, near Centreville, Md. (Brian Witte / Associated Press)
Photograph -- Russian compound in Centreville, Md. A no-trespassing sign stands at the entrance to the road leading to a Russian diplomatic compound outside Centreville, Md. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Washington Post)


It wouldn’t be a bad opening for a Tom Clancy novel about the Cold War:

Without warning, American agents descended on a Russian-owned compound in rural Maryland. A similar surprise unfolds at an estate on New York’s Long Island. Both locations are accused of hosting Russian spies on American soil, and once again, two nuclear powers stand at each other’s throats.

Except there’s no need to dramatize, nor any need to set the story in the past. All this happened Thursday, as American officials punished the Russian government on allegations of hacking Democratic officials to influence the recent presidential election.

The measures ordered by President Obama included the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomatic officials accused of working as intelligence officers, plus sanctions against Russian cyberagents and firms accused of supporting hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

But it’s Obama’s order to shut down two Russian-owned mansions — best known as quiet getaways for diplomatic apparatchiks — that has raised eyebrows the most.

On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, about 60 miles east of the nation’s capital, a three-story, red-brick mansion and almost a dozen cottages sit on the banks of the Corsica River.

The Soviet Union bought the property in 1972 and transferred it to the Russian Federation in the 1990s, and the 45-acre compound also holds tennis courts, a swimming pool and playground equipment. It’s mostly known to the local community of Centreville for hosting parties and sailing regattas on Labor Day, if it’s known at all.

“If you didn’t know they were here, you wouldn’t know they were here,” said George Sigler, president of Centreville’s town council and a retired Marine, describing the compound as a place where Russians working in the embassy in Washington could “come to let their hair down and relax.”

The ordered shutdown of the compound caught Sigler by surprise. He had never recalled hearing of anything suspicious happening there, nor of Russian guests misbehaving in the community, where they would shop, eat, get haircuts and buy groceries and alcohol; one local liquor store had stocked up on vodka to serve Russian customers.

Sigler recalled visiting the property for a Labor Day picnic last year and “drinking copious amounts of Russian vodka.”

Sigler said he mentioned to the Russian ambassador that he didn’t think he could get vodka like that in the U.S. The next day, a Russian aide arrived at Centreville City Hall with a couple of bottles.

“They’re good neighbors, and have been the whole time they’ve been there,” Sigler said.

After Obama ordered the compounds closed Thursday, a woman who flashed an FBI badge and a man who said he worked for the State Department shooed people away from the Maryland property, the Baltimore Sun reported. A 14-acre property in Upper Brookville, Long Island, was also ordered closed.

Russia compound on Long Island

A fence encloses an estate in the village of Upper Brookville on Long Island, Dec. 30, 2016. The Obama administration closed this compound for Russian diplomats in retaliation for spying and cyber-meddling in the U.S. presidential election. (Alexander F. Yuan / AP)

At a news briefing, Obama administration officials did not give details on what kind of spying allegedly happened at the compounds in Maryland and Long Island, except that they “were used for intelligence collection activities” as well as for recreation. (Part of the administration’s justification for the mansion closures included complaints that U.S. diplomats were being harassed and mistreated in Russia.)

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin complained that the sites were popular getaways for diplomats’ families.

"I think it's quite scandalous that they chose to throw out our kids," Churkin said, according to The Associated Press. "They know full well that those two facilities they mentioned, they are vacation facilities for our kids, and this is Christmas, and this is vacation time for our schools. This is the time when the kids go to those facilities. So to close our access to them just while those holidays were starting, to me was rather silly."

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union restricted the movements of each others’ visiting diplomats, requiring them to stick to certain parts of the countries. A high-ranking Soviet defector, the diplomat Arkady N. Shevchenko, said at least one of the Russian-owned mansions on Long Island served double duty as electronic surveillance posts for the Soviet Union’s intelligence agency, the KGB.

“When I first came to the United States in 1958, there were three or four KGB communications technicians and their gear sharing the former servants' quarters in the attic,” Shevchenko wrote of the Soviets’ Killenworth mansion on Long Island in a 1985 memoir, “Breaking with Moscow.”

Photograph -- Russian compound in Glen Cove, N.Y. Killenworth is an estate in Glen Cove, N.Y., built in 1913 for George du Pont Pratt and purchased by the former Soviet Union in 1951. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AFP/Getty Images)

“By 1973, the specialists in intercepting radio signals numbered at least a dozen, and they had taken over the whole floor,” wrote Shevchenko. “Their equipment occupied so much space, in fact, that one of the two large unused greenhouses had been commandeered to store it. These quarters were off limits to other personnel.”

Shevchenko, who died in 1998, also told the Norwich Bulletin newspaper that the Soviets were pleased after buying the Maryland compound in 1972 and added that the property’s location was “not accidental.”

“I'm not privy to the details, but I remember how happy they were when they bought this estate,” Shevchenko reportedly said.

If there was spying going on in Maryland, it may have gone both ways. Soviet officials once complained to U.S. officials that they found a special cable and a special device attached to the compound’s internal phone system in 1977.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the sanctions package “provocative and aimed at further weakening the Russia-U.S. relationship.”

But this was not the same old Cold War story. While Putin’s foreign minister had called for Russia to expel an equal number of American diplomats and close their dacha outside Moscow in addition to another facility, Putin said he would not retaliate, instead hoping to “restore Russian-U.S. relations based on the policies of the Trump administration.”

President-elect Donald Trump responded by pinning a congratulatory tweet to the top of his Twitter page: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!” The Russian embassy in the U.S., in turn, retweeted Trump’s message.

In Centreville, Md., comments on the residents’ Facebook page were mostly critical of Obama’s decision to shut down the Russian compound, according to Sigler, who also had his doubts about the spying claims.

“Were they spying on anybody? I wouldn’t know why. It’s just a sleepy little town on a sleepy little river,” Sigler said, adding, “Once this all blows over, they’ll probably come back.”

matt.pearce@latimes.com
Twitter @mattdpearce



2017 CHALLENGES


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-are-the-countrys-biggest-challenges-in-2017/

What are the country’s biggest challenges in 2017?
By EMILY SCHULTHEIS CBS NEWS
January 1, 2017, 10:30 AM


What are the biggest challenges facing the country in 2017 -- and how worried should Americans be about them?

A panel of journalists and editors outlined those challenges, from President-elect Donald Trump in the White House to the challenges to democracy across the globe.

Asked what the biggest story of 2017 will be, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said it’s “the upending of American politics.”

“The story is of the outs coming in and the ins going out,” Goldberg said. “...And the deeper story, also, I don’t want to forget this -- the deeper story is globalization, and technological disruption, and anxiety born of rapid change, rapid, destabilizing change, the fragility of institutions.”

“We are at a hinge moment in history,” he added. “Since 1945, we have played a certain role in the world. And it’s not entirely clear that after January 20th we’re going to play that same role.”

David Frum, a senior editor at the Atlantic, said it’s not just an American crisis -- it’s a global crisis of democracy as we know it.

“A neo-fascist party may win the presidency of France this year. Democratic institutions in the countries liberated in 1989 are falling apart in Hungary, and Poland, and other places -- Croatia, elsewhere. The European Union is cracking apart,” he said.

Frum called the current “crisis of democracy” something that hasn’t been seen since World War II.

“It’s not an American story,” he added. “It’s a global story.”

And those changes touch the media as well, said Michele Norris, a journalist who heads the Race Card Project -- particularly when there is very little public trust in the media.

“We have to learn how to operate in a world where there is no longer a common set of facts,” she said. “People get their news in such a way that it usually affirms or confirms everything that they already believe. We have someone who is about to occupy the Oval Office who is dismissing many of the publications that we work or have worked for and is trying to bypass us and go directly to people.”

All of those challenges beg the question: how worried should Americans be about the fate of the country in 2017? The panelists had mixed views.

“Someone I know a little bit will come up to me, and say hello, and then say, ‘Tell me that everything is going to be okay,’” Frum said. “And what I realize is, I can’t give you the assurance you want. I am not sure that everything is going to be okay.”

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson said there’s real cause for concern both because Mr. Trump might overreach -- but also because his government could collapse under the weight of its inexperience.

“I think there’s a deep concern about the possibility of overreach,” he said. “But I think we should be also concerned about the possibility of an entirely ineffective government that doesn’t value governing experience, that doesn’t value, you know, what government should do and what it can do under the right circumstances.”

Goldberg, however, argued that there’s reason to hope: the country has been through far worse before, and it will endure through the challenges of the next year and the new administration.

“We’ve survived worse things than whatever we’re facing at the moment,” he said. “I’m just-- you know, keep hope alive.”


Emily Schultheis
Emily Schultheis is a reporter/editor for CBS News Digital.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-promises-new-revelations-on-russian-hacking-this-week/

Donald Trump promises new revelations on Russian hacking this week
By EMILY SCHULTHEIS CBS NEWS
January 1, 2017, 10:27 AM

Play VIDEO -- Will Trump reverse Russian sanctions?


Speaking to reporters before his New Years Eve party at Mar-a-Lago Saturday night, President-elect Donald Trump suggested there would be new revelations coming this week about Russian hacking activities in the United States.

“I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation,” Mr. Trump said, referring to U.S. intelligence agencies’ assertion that Russia worked to influence the U.S. presidential election in his favor.

Asked to elaborate, Mr. Trump just responded: “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

Mr. Trump said he is knowledgeable on the subject of hacking, adding that “no computer is safe.”

“I know a lot about hacking,” he said. “And hacking is a very hard thing to prove.”

The president-elect also suggested that when people have something important to send, they should “write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I’ll tell you what - no computer is safe. I don’t care what they say.”

Though President Obama and most congressional Republicans have denounced Russia for its alleged election interference in the weeks since both the CIA and the FBI reached and released their conclusions, Mr. Trump has been reluctant to accept intelligence agencies’ findings on the issue.

Asked to respond to the issue the day before the Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia and expelled 35 of its diplomats from the U.S., Mr. Trump said: “I think we ought to get on with our lives.”

© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Emily Schultheis
Emily Schultheis is a reporter/editor for CBS News Digital.


SHOWBIZ GREATS

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mother-daughter-debbie-reynolds-and-carrie-fisher/

Mother & daughter
CBS NEWS
January 1, 2017, 9:37 AM

Photograph -- carrie-fisher-debbie-reynolds-620-ap-9702090433.jpg, Debbie Reynolds is hugged by her daughter Carrie Fisher backstage at the 11th annual American Comedy Awards in Los Angeles Sunday, Feb. 9, 1997. Reynolds was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony. AP PHOTO/RENE MACURA



Debbie Reynolds seemed unstoppable -- and yes, unsinkable -- in the 1964 film, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” In the end, it took nothing less than the death of her daughter Carrie Fisher to bring her down.

Mo Rocca now, with an appreciation, times two:

That Debbie Reynolds died just one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher is somehow both shocking and poignant. Todd Fisher said about his mother’s passing, “She wanted to be with Carrie.”

Carrie Fisher, iconic “Star Wars” actress, dead at 60
Debbie Reynolds dead, actress once known as “America’s Sweetheart,” dies at 84

Debbie and Carrie lived right next door to each other.

When Rita Braver visited them in 2004, she asked, “What did you think when your mother said, ‘Oh, by the way, honey, I’m buying the house down the driveway from you’?”

“I tried to litigate,” Fisher replied.

“She called me about the house,” Reynolds said. “She said, ‘Mother, the man just died.’ And I said, ‘Should I go to the funeral?’ And she said, ‘No, you should buy the house.’”

But a good part of what made them so captivating as a pair was what seemed to be their differences, dramatized in Carrie’s thinly-veiled novel-turned-movie “Postcards From the Edge,” where the mother and daughter were played by Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep.

If you only knew Debbie and Carrie from their screen work, you’d think that they were from different, well, galaxies. Each epitomized her generation.

debbie-reynolds-singin-in-the-rain-carrie-fisher-star-wars-620.jpg
Left: Debbie Reynolds with Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952). Right: Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in “Star Wars” (1977). MGM/LUCASFILM

Debbie Reynolds was one of the brightest stars during Hollywood’s Golden Age of movie musicals. Hers was the school of “Whatever you do, keep on smiling.”

“My entire life I have always fought back, and I just feel that you don’t give up, and if you get a blow you go on,” Reynolds said.

Debbie Reynolds: Ever and always a trouper (“Sunday Morning”)

The story of how she was discovered sounds like the plot to an MGM musical. She was competing in a local beauty pageant when she was spotted by a movie studio talent scout.

Debbie Reynolds 1932-2016
53 PHOTOS
Debbie Reynolds 1932-2016

“They had a screen test,” Reynolds recalled to Rocca in 2013. “There was a camera there, and they said, ‘Look in the camera.’ And I said, ‘So, okay.’ And they said, ‘Now just talk, just ad-lib.’ I said, ‘Why would I do that? I don’t know what I’m doing here. This is all so silly!’

“And they said, ‘Well, you wanna be a movie star, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘No. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t wanna be a movie star. I can’t possibly be a movie star!’ So Jack Warner saw the test, and he said, ‘Well, she’s funny! So let’s put her under contract, $65 a week.’”

Two years later, she was singin’ in the rain with Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly.

Reynolds was 20 years younger than Kelly, and had no dance training: “No, no, I had no training of any kind.”

But she was the ultimate trouper. “So we danced 10, 12 hours every day. There were no days off.”

Play VIDEO
From 1994: The "Unsinkable" Debbie Reynolds

She danced ‘til her feet were bleeding. “I think your heart hurt that, could you keep up? Were you going to fail? And Gene Kelly kinda scared me, because he was the boss, and he was brilliant. And he was a wonderful teacher. He had to teach me! And to be given a little kitty cat, and expect it to be a lion, it didn’t happen overnight. I had to work, work, work without question.”

Reynolds didn’t just play innocent; she was innocent, said her son Todd Fisher: “All those early movies, ‘Tammy’ and all that? Shoot, that’s just her,” he said.

Rocca said, “I don’t want to say ‘naive,’ but -- “

“But she is an innocent. You know, she’s a true innocent.”

Carrie Fisher 1956-2016
26 PHOTOS
Carrie Fisher 1956-2016

On the other hand, her daughter, Carrie Fisher was all about candor and not masking the pain, and finding the humor in the vicissitudes of her very unusual life.

She was the child of a global scandal, when her father, crooner Eddie Fisher, left Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor.

“The best thing Elizabeth Taylor did for me was to get Eddie Fisher out of our house,” Carrie said.

After becoming internationally famous as Princess Leia in “Star Wars,” she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. As Fisher once noted, “My mother wants you all to know this comes form my father’s side.”

As Rita Braver noted, in discussing Fisher’s 2004 novel, “The Best Awful,” “You probably are the only person in the world who could make going off on a manic depressive swing and ending up in a mental institution funny.”

From 2004: Carrie Fisher's open book
Play VIDEO
From 2004: Carrie Fisher's open book

“It better be funny!” Fisher replied. “Otherwise, what I say is, if my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true, and that’s unacceptable.”

Fisher saved herself -- and helped a whole lot of other people -- by writing. “Everything worked out very well in books,” she said. “Much more organized and ordered than everything out here.”

The differences between mother and daughter were real enough that they didn’t talk for nearly 10 years.

But what was always striking, said Rocca, wasn’t just that they loved each other, but that they really liked each other.

They may have come of age in two starkly different decades -- the 1950s and the 1970s -- but these two women “got” each other.

As Reynolds noted, “The reason [Carrie] can write so many books is because of me.”

“Because you had given her so much material?” Braver asked.

“Uh huh.”

“And she is great for material,” Fisher added.

Both enormous talents, both extraordinarily likable and funny. Both of them unsinkable.



I didn’t feel particularly attached to Carrie because I only knew her through the Star Wars movies, of which I only saw the first two. She had that well-known energy in her portrayals of Princess Leia and an unusual, very delicate beauty. In my view, she looked more like her father than her mother, but she was an excellent actress. As for Reynolds, she has always been one of the most endearing and talented performers within my memory, and her death makes me sad, as the death of Dinah Shore did. I was at work correcting data entry errors when the news that she had died came on the radio. I’m glad I was alone, because I started crying. I couldn’t help myself. It’s fascinating how closely people we don’t actually know can become involved in our worldview. Worldview is a good word for it, because both of those women were on the scene during an extraordinarily innocent time period, the 1950’s. My remembrance of that time was one of relative peace and safety. Ten years later it erupted in the turmoil of the Vietnam war and the Civil Rights era. Oh, dear, dear, dear! I did NOT live in serene times for the most part, so now the Trump years are upon us, and I really hate to think what they are going to bring.