March 31, 2017


News and Views


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-probing-whether-trump-aides-helped-russian-intel-in-early-2016/
FBI probing whether Trump aides helped Russian intel in early 2016
By JEFF PEGUES CBS NEWS March 31, 2017, 7:23 PM

Video – Scott Pelly CBS Evening News

CBS News has learned that U.S. investigators are looking into whether Trump campaign representatives had a role in helping Russian intelligence as it carried out cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political targets in March 2016.

This new information suggests that the FBI is going back further than originally reported to determine the extent of possible coordination. Sources say investigators are probing whether an individual or individuals connected to the campaign intentionally or unwittingly helped the Russians breach Democratic Party targets.

In March 2016, both Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton had emerged as their parties’ most likely nominees.

What we know in the FBI probe of Trump campaign’s Russia ties

According to a declassified intelligence assessment, it was in March when Russian hackers “began cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election.” In May, U.S. officials say the Russians had stolen “large volumes of data from the DNC.”

Photograph -- pegues-russia-hacking-investigation-2-2017-3-31.jpg, Donald Trump, U.S. investigators are looking into whether Trump campaign representatives had a role in helping Russian intelligence as it carried out cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political targets in March 2016. CBS NEWS

Starting in June, websites like Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks began posting the hacked documents.

In August, Trump confidant Roger Stone tweeted about Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

“Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel,” Stone tweeted.

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Roger Stone @RogerJStoneJr
Trust me, it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary
10:24 AM - 21 Aug 2016
408 408 Retweets 497 497 likes

Then on Oct 7, WikiLeaks began publishing Podesta’s personal emails. It was the same day the Department of Homeland Security and director of national intelligence publicly accused Russia of carrying out the cyberattacks.

Now, one year after the Russian operation began, sources say the FBI’s investigation is nowhere near over. It involves dozens of agents in Washington, New York and London. The NSA and CIA are also gathering intelligence from inside Russia.

Photograph -- pegues-russia-hacking-investigation-2017-3-31.jpg,
The NSA and CIA are gathering intelligence from inside Russia in their investigation into election hacking. CBS NEWS

Despite his denials, investigators believe the operation was authorized by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself and it involved both cyberattacks and information warfare.

According to testimony on Friday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, 15,000 operatives worldwide participated in spreading false news stories and conspiracy theories online. Those activities are also part of the FBI’s investigation - including who paid for them.

Law enforcement sources say one theory is that Trump associates could have been motivated by money. But sources tell us the FBI wants to get the investigation absolutely right so that the public will trust the result, whatever that turns out to be.


I FULLY UNDERSTAND FLYNN'S ASKING FOR PROTECTION AGAINST PROSECUTION, AND EVEN FOR PROTECTIVE CUSTODY AS WELL AFTER HE TESTIFIES, IF HE DOESN'T GIVE A CAREFULLY SANITIZED VERSION OF WHAT HAPPENED. I DISAGREE WITH SPICER THAT PROSECUTING HIM WOULD BE "UNFAIR, HOWEVER. IF MEMBERS OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DID COMMIT PERJURY, AID A LONGSTANDING FOREIGN ENEMY IN DESTABILIZING OUR GOVERNMENT, THEY SHOULD BE ARRESTED, AND TRUMP, IF HE WASN'T INNOCENT, SHOULD TAKE HIS FAIR SHARE OF THE BLAME. OF COURSE THE VERY WEALTHY RARELY DO.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-flynn-former-trump-national-security-adviser-seeking-protection-russia-investigation/
Flynn seeking protection before possible testimony on Russia meddling
CBS NEWS March 31, 2017, 7:08 AM

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is seeking protection against possible prosecution relating to investigations into Russian meddling in the U.S. election. In a statement Thursday night, Flynn’s lawyer said “General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit.”

The White House is playing defense again as news surfaced that Flynn is seeking legal protection before answering questions. It happened after news broke showing White House staffers were selectively leaking information to justify the president’s claims that he was unfairly surveilled.

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!
7:04 AM - 31 Mar 2017
11,084 11,084 Retweets 42,439 42,439 likes

Arriving back in his California district Thursday, Nunes refused to comment on news that Flynn requested immunity from FBI prosecution in exchange for testimony about potential Russian contacts with the Trump campaign, reports CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan.

During the election, Flynn condemned Hillary Clinton campaign aides for seeking immunity during the probe into Clinton’s private email servers.

“When you are given immunity, that means you’ve probably committed a crime,” Flynn had said on NBC.

Nunes, who previously served as a Trump transition official, is leading the House investigation into those Russian contacts.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer deflected questions about whether the administration is trying to influence that inquiry by leaking selective information, even after Nunes admitted he was given key evidence while at the White House.

“I cannot get into who those individuals were,” Spicer said.

The New York Times identified Nunes’ sources as NSC staffer Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a friend of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Michael Ellis, a White House lawyer who previously worked for the congressman.

Their bosses, NSC legal adviser John Eisenberg and White House counsel Don McGahn, were likely also aware.

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Russia probe, health care bill's future
Play VIDEO
House Speaker Paul Ryan on Russia probe, health care bill's future

Nunes’ refusal to share information with fellow investigators has raised eyebrows, yet House Speaker Paul Ryan told “CBS This Morning” that he had full confidence in him.

“He had told me that – like, a whistleblower type person had given him some information that was new,” Ryan said.


The White House invited Senate and House Intelligence Committee leaders to privately view the documents “relevant” to the investigations. Congressman Adam Schiff said the secrecy surrounding their actions was perplexing.

“They can present it to the White House staff or the president himself at any time, so why all the cloak and dagger stuff?” Schiff said.

Flynn’s lawyer said: “No reasonable person would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.”



TRAVELERS TAKE CARE

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/body-missing-us-businessman-found-buried-under-house-ecuador/
Body of missing U.S. businessman found buried under house in Ecuador
AP March 31, 2017, 3:43 PM

Photograph -- This July 2002 photo shows a view of the seaport of Guayaquil, Ecuador AP

QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuadorean officials say they’ve found the body of a U.S. businessmen buried beneath a house.

The prosecutor’s office says a woman under investigation in the January disappearance of Jonathan Charles Gilchrist led them to the body of the 65-year-old, which was found beneath concrete about 6 feet deep at a house in the city of Guayaquil.

Prosecutor Santiago Rivadeneira said Friday that two residents of the house have been detained.

He says Gilchrist was a well-do-do man with properties in several parts of Ecuador.

He’d been living in the beach resort of Salinas, about 80 miles west of Guayaquil and 215 miles southwest of Quito, the capital.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mylan-announces-nationwide-epipen-recall-over-potential-defect/
Mylan announces nationwide EpiPen recall over potential defect
CBS NEWS March 31, 2017, 6:40 PM

File photo. Certain lots of EpiPen injectors are being recalled. RICH PEDRONCELLI, AP

Meridian Medical Technologies, makers of Mylan’s EpiPen injector, issued a nationwide, voluntary recall of EpiPen and EpiPen Jr.

According to the company, some of the devices may have a defective part that does not allow for the activation of the injector in case of allergic reaction.

“While the number of reported failures is small, EpiPen products that potentially contain a defective part are being recalled because of the potential for life-threatening risk if a severe allergic reaction goes untreated,” the company said in a statement.

The recall affects 13 lots of EpiPen and EpiPen Jr. devices distributed between Dec. 17, 2015, and July 1, 2016. Mylan will replacing any of the affected devices free of charge.

Mylan advised consumers to keep and use their current EpiPens if needed until they get a replacement. Consumers should contact Mylan at 800-796-9526 or customer.service@mylan.com with any questions.

The list of lots under recall follows:

epipen-list.png
© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



IF YOU OFTEN THINK I’M EXTREMELY UNFAIR TO THE RIGHT LEANING PART OF OUR POPULATION, DON’T READ THIS ONE. HE SAYS SO MANY OF THE THINGS THAT I THINK ARE THE REAL PROBLEMS THESE DAYS, HOWEVER, THAT I JUST CAN’T RESTRAIN MYSELF. THIS IS LONG, BUT IT'S THE LAST ARTICLE FOR TODAY.

https://www.laprogressive.com/crony-capitalism/
We Can No Longer Have Nice Things. Here’s Why
BY JAIME O'NEILL
POSTED ON MARCH 19, 2017

Though we are told routinely by politicians and pundits that we are the richest nation in the world, it appears we no longer can have nice things. Unlike other countries that are not so rich, we can’t have good roads, sound bridges, affordable health care for all, clean drinking water, a convenient and inexpensive system of public transportation, Meals on Wheels for poorer old people and others, drug prices competitive with what customers pay to the north and to the south of us, public schools with adequate resources, good teachers, and sensible teacher-to-student ratios, public money to support the arts Planned Parenthood, far fewer guns deaths, and a wide range of other nice things routinely found in places like France, Denmark, Iceland, or Australia.

There was a time, of course, when the United States, in particular, was known for having nice things. Such a time was later designated in popular culture as “happy days,” and they were anchored in the 1950s during a time of post-war prosperity. Hardly perfect in all ways even then, we did have high taxes on the richest Americans, lots of infrastructure projects, a strong labor movement, a commitment to education (hell, there was even a TV program called “The College Bowl” that extolled the value of knowing stuff), and a flood of American vets who energized education by taking advantage of the GI Bill that allowed lots of working class people to go to college who would never have had such a shot at advanced learning in earlier times. Back in those days, the “nice things” we liked tended to be generated from an educated and informed electorate and a truly progressive tax code. We were also less enamored of those “low-information voters” now so loved and revered by the American right, and always preferred by fascist regimes everywhere.

Add to all that the fact that the disparity in wealth between the richest and everyone else has widened grotesquely since those days when we had nice thingss, back when we had shared dreams of even nicer things in days to come, before we dumped a few trillion dollars into Vietnam, before Nixon, before Reagan, before Bush, and before Trump, a list of names that all by itself explains a great deal about our long slide away from being a place where we could have nice things.

Why can’t we have nice things here in the United States of America? How do we resolve the contradiction between these vast riches we are said to have and the fact that we are increasingly living in a country that looks like more and more like a dump most anywhere one might cast an eye.

Unless, of course, that eye resides in a gated community reserved for tech gazillionaires, unless that eye seldom strays from the haunts of the rich and famous, unless that eye is largely confined to those places reserved for very rich people, served by “lesser” people with far less money who ride the subway home, or sit in bumper-to-bumper commute traffic after their services have been rendered, staring out at the bleak landscape they drive through on pothole-pocked roads, past ugly billboards, blighted strip malls, graffiti-smeared buildings, railway cars, and the panorama of scenes so familiar to all those who don’t live in golden towers or baronial enclaves of wealth and privilege, the preserves that shield the 1% from the riff raff, the 21st century peasants those remote rich folks so commonly disdain or disregard. Republicans, in other words, or rich pricks and jackasses, words that have become synonymous with Republicans.

That old rhetorical question about why people couldn’t have nice things carried an implied answer: the kids break everything, or the old man is drinking up his salary with his n’er-do-well pals down at the tavern. At least those were the the culprits my mom seemed to be calling out back in my working class household when I was a boy.

Lots of the reasons we can’t have nice things are contained in words that begin with the letter C, words like corruption, crony capitalism, con men, corporate tax machinations, corporate lobbyists…

But considering that old rhetorical question in the context of a nation where a lot of people are behaving like spoiled brats, and where the man in charge and his cronies seem like a bunch of reckless and irresponsible drunks, I found that lots of the reasons we can’t have nice things are contained in words that begin with the letter C, words like corruption, crony capitalism, con men, corporate tax machinations, corporate lobbyists, corporate lawyers, criminals, criminality, callous indifference to things like the environment, the planet, or our fellow human beings. Oh, and let’s not forget the word “conservatives,” or what passes for conservatives these days, when the word is just a synonym for crooks who aren’t conserving a thing, least of all taxpayer money. If there’s anything at all about contemporary conservatives that conserves anything but the perks and privileges of the wealthy, I can’t think of what that might be, except perhaps ignorance, poverty, pollution, and plutocracy.

Another “c” word that could be added to the list of reasons we can’t have nice things would be “colonels.” We’ve got a lot of them, and we’re likely to have more now that the budget for “defense” spending is being ramped up even more obscenely. The average colonel in the American military makes something like $150,000 a year in salary, though most are eligible for additional compensation. There are 40,000 Americans who hold the rank of colonel or above, but what we pay the colonels alone amounts to around a half a billion bucks a year in salary alone, and that figure doesn’t factor in the “additional compensation” they earn, or scam the system to get.

Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels are only a tiny slice of the well over 50% of our annual budget spent on the military, and the half a billion in salaries spent on those colonels who are actively serving doesn’t include the handsome retirement benefits paid to so many of their brethren who often retire early and draw their retirement pay for decades while finding their way into well-paid post-retirement slots in the offices of lobbyists and defense contractors who once relied upon them for help in getting boondoggles approved by the Pentagon brass. There’s a whole bunch of these overpaid paper shufflers in the Pentagon, most of them spending their military careers far from danger, dining with those aforementioned defense contractors, wined and dined and shown a good time in exchange for shuffling those papers forward that benefit outfits like Halliburton, or Trumpsters of one stripe or another.

Let the colonels be emblematic, then, of why we can’t have nice things, unless you consider nice things to be all those expensive gadgets produced at such great expense by the military-industrial-tech and corporation complex–those airplanes that don’t work, those subs we build to fight desert-bound terrorists, those aircraft carriers that cost more than the entire GDP of some less affluent countries, or all that waste, fraud, and theft that include actual pallets of cash that just disappear in places like Iraq.

jaime oneillIn short, to state the obvious, we can’t have nice things because, in the most time-honored fashion, the avaricious, the swinish,the pampered, and the cloistered few have commandeered all the engines of power to keep the nice things entirely to themselves. They are, apparently, indifferent to the fact that a habitable planet may be the ultimate nice thing their machinations cannot reserve for themselves alone.

Jaime O’Neill
POSTED ON MARCH 19, 2017