First, let's guess, Jeb hired the opposition research. From the get-go, or from when he was called "low energy" by Trump.
He has family. They have intelligence community grounding going far back in time - some speculate into the early '60's.
The intel community liked the early bet; JEB! v. The Clintons. Both choices fit in just fine with what the "CIA annex" was doing in Benghazi, and the intentions of regime change in Syria; Qatari gas pipeline as motive, or otherwise. The JEB! camp wants intel community help against Trump, "What have you got," being the question.
JEB! tanks.
It becomes Trump v. The Clintons. There is IS being armed out of Benghazi (hypotheticals still, this one plausible, but still a guess), and Clinton's satisfied. Trump takes the opposite route; asking why more costly ill-thought-out warfare screw-ups, leave Syria to those already at play there, the Russians who we can work with will do fine, it is not our fight.
The Clintons take over the intel community support at some such point, and again, what have you got? Pence is the Trump VP pick. Somewhere in the timing.
The intel community, in the spirit of J.Edgar Hoover has its Trump portfolio, fat and including the trip to Moscow, fall of 2013, the beauty pageant, and there actually is video, held by our intel community not the Russians, that is compromising in a direction written up in the "dossier." Again, this is all hypotheticals of the possible; not offered as probable, but conceivable to some degree however small.
The consensus, this Trump guy is all ego and we have him nailed dead to right. And there is Pence, and the Russians actually are hacking the Dems, or somebody is and we can say it's the Russians.
Comey has an agent contact a low-level DNC web administrator, instead of DWS, and it's not trusted by the IT guy as a legit FBI contact, etc. Spin that out however you choose. DWS does not get notice, it's lost somewhere in her loose chain of command which is focused on deep-sixing Bernie.
Let the Russians, or whoever, hack the Dems, let WikiLeaks do as expected with fed info; perhaps from our own intel folks even, but Trump wins, with Chris Christie set to lead the transition team. Then the quick swap, Pence leads the team, Christie is shown the door and told again how much he loves New Jersey.
Trump gets told where the real bear is, what tearing up of business reputation the real bear can do to the Trump University king, and that generates a kind of a liking with Trump for Christie being shown the door and Pence taking reins of the transition with generals and DeVos and the Exxon man all getting a share. Trump complies, so the threat of what the intel folks hold is then false-flagged as Russian "kompromat" and the nominations hearings are held and the appointees testify exactly as Big Oil and Big Intelligence want, separate and apart from what Trump said while campaigning, and foreign affairs confirmations are assured as the intelligence community wants whereas the domestic agenda is allowed to Pence and Ryan to decimate against the people. The foreclosure guy gets a spot. The Wall Street guy who bailed Trump out on the casinos gets a spot. Guliani gets a spot commensurate with his consultancy cash cow; with it all fitting like a puzzle once all pieces are properly arranged.
This ponied up phony intel "dossier" gets circulated; published by Buzzfeed (who owns it is again a question) and the Russians say we have no such kompromat because they, in fact, do not. The false-flagged dossier is a veiled threat word to Trump, do not step out of line, conflicts of interest will be allowed to be finessed so you can go for enrichment, but play ball by our rules or else. And everyone lives happily ever after.
Sure it is a tenuous chain. But isn't it a great run of what-ifs?
Now, the headline? This ACLU link, find it within that item. It's there. The entire thrust of the ACLU item is the intelligence community is not now solely a government service thing, but an activist political player with agenda; much as in Russia where Putin's background is known FSB.
The "dossier" is out there, attributed to the Russians, while at anytime Trump does not walk the straight line given him, our intel guys can say, "Whoa, look what an Eastern European came in out of the cold to hand us, the video nobody thought really existed . . . This Gucifer2 guy really exists, an actual person and not a Russian fiction, but some guy with a laptop and internet connection and don't we wish we could penetrate Tor because we'd have found him much sooner."
Such a story, given soooo very much improbable drama so far as MSM has been reporting this election cycle, is not a story outside of the sphere of the possible. And it would be one hell of a dandy story if things had actually gone step-by-step as speculated. Wouldn't it?
Again, the caveat, this is a what-if, not a "there's evidence." Do not regard it in any way as something more than it actually is.
A second caveat, the ACLU item IS real. A web document apart from any hypotheticals premised here. It stands, hard to knock it down. It is what makes the remainder of speculation here at least plausible.
Think that over.
_______________UPDATE______________
Ah, the French. How can we work the French up into the hypothetical chain? They get their gas from Russia via Germany, their oil from where, Libya? They have fewer wind turbines than Germany, Denmark or the UK, and rely on nuclear power with fuel reprocessing done in France big time; while they have a large Islamic population from former colonial north Africa; so where do they fit in aside from a Qatari gas pipeline through Turkey into Europe being a second source opportunity? This screen capture of blog traffic:
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| click the image to enlarge and read |
It remains a mystery where weekly traffic is greater in France, if we are to believe Blogger stats, than in the US where things are authored, in English solely; and while having never been to France, it would be a great visit if somebody would step up and finance a trip. Great cathedrals. A big arch. Museums. Fine and cordial people.
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| Pretorian Guard - Wikipedia entry. |
We know Snowden is living a feee man in Moscow; facing severe criminal charges if he returns. The image used above was suggested by this ACLU cautionary tale.
But why in the world trust the CIA more or less than the Russians? Give me a sound answer to that. If they move in secret I don't know what they are up to so why give any credibility to Fancy Bear? How can I believe it is not Langley Bear, Disinfo Bear? Tell me why the Buzzfeed published stuff is not Langley disinformation, with a pinch of Brit thrown in for flavor. The Dulles brothers were not nice folks.
Again, this ACLU link. It has been said the founding fathers distrusted standing armies. What about standing cadres of spies? Tyranny was the worry the founders held in mind. We revere them as wise. For some that might be lip service.
One last question, since the French public (presumably that, not bureaus) seems to read Crabgrass: Why should I not believe IS is modeled on the French Foreign Legion with Allah mixed in for cohesion? What we know, the French created their Foreign Legion. What we may have differing guesses about is who created IS. Who owns a share, who's the major shareholder? What is clear, the Russians surely have no reason to like IS. Reason, in their nation, cuts the opposite way.
Feature this: I do not even know nor trust MSM sources to tell me whether Gitmo is a detention center or a training camp. Do you know? What are your information sources?
Watch this Young Turks YouTube (again). Aside from the follow the money argument, they do not know who is behind that dossier, and they largely admit it. Follow the money makes sense. But putting in an oil patch person into high government power position is what Bush did - he WAS/is an oil patch person - so was Bush destabilizing Iraq and the oil market then with the Russians behind him? Kite up energy prices so Putin's people got better money out of Europeans to their west not having domesic fossil fuel sources?
And The Young Turks is "alternate media." As distinct from Mainsteam. We see alternate media honestly admitting things are unclear. Not saying the Russians hacked this or that, as if given in stone to Moses before he descended the hill to see the golden calf being worshiped.
At least that. But if the CIA as a coherent cadre wants to intimidate, they've experience in interference in other nations' affairs, so if they are unsettled about things here, they will be hands off?
That cannot be reasonably expected. Nor is it what Snowden's disclosures suggests.
We should trust our manipulative secret honchos, not theirs? Or might we be better served trusting neither, and downsizing intelligence and the military? On that question, the evidence is Trump's generals. Is it a military agenda vs. an intelligence agenda, or are their agendas the same?
The hateful inexorable war on social decency that Paul Ryan epitomizes is so galling because it has no distaste for giant secret budgets and flowing wealth from the people's tax money to Lockheed Martin.
Generals remain off the welfare rolls. Generals leave the Pentagon and move to Lockheed Martin. Keeping freindships and ties. Google McChrystal. He consults. Michael Hastings' writings got him riffed out of service. Now he consults while Hastings is dead.
How are the CIA, the NSA, Oliver North and Stanley McChrystal better for me than the Russians? And that is not an argument in favor of the Russians.
It argues against the generals and the spooks who spy on us as well as on the rest of the world. Why trust either?
Does this inspire your trust? The man blinks a lot. And, let his entire argument be directed against our intelligence services overreaching instead of against the Russians. The thing hangs together either way. And MSNBC taking in ex-FOX folks? What's happening?
Does this bother you, an ex-spook saying "The intelligence community on which he has to rely," as if that's gospel. In the Kennedy sense bucking that community can be a danger, Kennedy distrusted and removed Allen Dulles prior to Dallas; hence, basing an argument on a flimsy premise - that the intelligence community is trustworthy - makes a flimsy argument. If Trump has an honest and constructive broom for that rats' nest, bless the possibilities.
Now, this. If this is not proof that sanity is wait and see, what is it?
This?
Closing, who are those people:
https://www.crowdstrike.com/
They got to see what FBI allegedly did not, and they say what they purportedly believe.
Comey, has yet to speak. So, if there was hacking, a private firm is saying Fancy and Cozy Bears did such deeds; and we are to trust, "Trust me." Because they've a slick website? Why else?
Who are they, who's their chief technical honcho, with what ultra-trustworthy background? Search it. Find the source of this quote, and find what you can about the two named individuals:
Co-founders George Kurtz and Dmitri Alperovitch realized that a brand new approach was needed — one that combines the most advanced endpoint protection with expert intelligence to pinpoint the adversaries perpetrating the attacks, not just the malware.
Woo woo. "Endpoint protection." It sure sounds sound, doesn't it? How about starting point? Mid-point? They've got their Bears in line. They say so, so it is so. They had access to the DNC network and say they found a Bears' nest. Gee.
Is this the best analysis out there of "the dossier." What it deserves?
____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
The surveillance state put together that thing about Trump and the Russians. If it has substance beyond gossip, none has been made public.
Oh, right, sources and methods. Have to keep sources and methods secret, or else how can they be effective?
They are being kept secret, and effectiveness is shown in the document itself. If that's effectiveness of the spy community, why tolerate them? On simple cost/benefit grounds, spend the money on helping the homeless and helping battered women shelters.
Does Colbert have any remaining credibility with anyone after this was broadcast and then memorialized on YouTube? He had it scripted, he delivered it, is he a better man for having done so?
Buzzfeed was correct in publishing what had become a gossip low point among the DC movers/shakers, circulated hand-to-hand with sniggering.
All that begs the question - who created the thing, with what dark motives, and what was the thinking about putting it into circulation?
McCain says somebody at a security conference gave it to him. Somebody is not near the equivalent of giving a name. The alleged author of the stuff has been spirited away, by whom?
What is next? What will be "news" into the future, if this is news today? Again, read the ACLU item already cited, and follow ACLU item links. The entire notion of privacy being compromised, NSA, secret courts and secret orders, CIA activism vs service, generals just retired being offered to head the DoD, it is not a future I'd want if young now, nor is it one to be handing to the nation's youth. They are being subjected to coarse treatment that goes well beyond the student debt crisis. Whose agenda is this? Neo-feudalism is not something to be pursued as a "good way to operate the world." It is far less than that. Orwellian? Dastardly? Sick? Many words can be used, but unholy, immoral, and other traditional words serve well, and should be used. An affront to the nation's people? It is so tawdry a character assassination of a chief of state that it is total fair game to ask, who is behind it? Who started that ball rolling, and who has any words of justification for it? Trump, he was one of two two-party offerings. The other was flawed also. Is a continuation of the two-party setup a good future? It is what has brought us to this point in time and history. If the Bernie Sanders candidacy, its popularity, did anything lastingly good, it is that the word "socialism" has been rescued from the trampling of evil feet to again be a word to be respected as caring for the well being of a populace instead of disdaining them while huckstering periodically for their vote as offering the proposed propped-up "lesser evil." Of two. Time to muck the stable? Past due?