Obama’s well-timed and coordinated betrayal of Israel—and it may not be over yet

The New Neo Posted on by

I suggest you read this excellent piece by Scott Johnson at Powerline. It’s a summary of what Obama actually accomplished in his seemingly-passive abstention in the Israel vote at the UN, and what it means for Israel.

Please read the whole thing. But I especially call your attention to this:

”¢ The next act is the Orwellian-named “peace conference,” to be held in Paris on January 15. It has but one objective: to set the stage to eradicate Israel.

”¢ In this new “Dreyfus trial,” the accused will be the only Jewish state and the accusers will be the OIC and officials from Islamized, dhimmified, anti-Israel Western states. As in the Dreyfus trial, the verdict has been decided before it even starts. Israel will be considered guilty of all charges and condemned. A draft of the declaration to be published at the end of the conference is already available. And another vote just happens to come up in the last days (literally) of Obama’s presidency…

”¢ The declaration is most likely meant [to] serve as the basis for a new Security Council resolution on January 17 that would recognize a Palestinian state inside the “1967 borders,” and be adopted, thanks to a second US abstention, three days before Obama leaves office. The betrayal of Israel by the Obama administration and by Obama himself would then be complete.

How much of this will the new administration and new Congress be able to reverse? I don’t know.

In terms of the recent UN resolution on Israel/Palestine—the one that took place right before Chanukah and Christmas of 2016—the White House has denied the reports that it orchestrated that resolution rather than merely being a passive abstainer:

On the heels of the hotly contested resolution, which condemned Israel for building homes in its capital, Jerusalem, senior Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden, have been identified as leading the charge to ensure the anti-Israel measure won approval by the U.N. Security Council.

The administration’s denials of this charge broke down during the past several days as multiple reporters confirmed the Obama administration worked behind-the-scenes to help shape and forward the resolution.

Actually, I don’t see why everyone—both Obama supporters and opponents alike—wouldn’t just assume that this is exactly what occurred (or something very much like it). And I don’t see why everyone—both Obama supporters and opponents alike—wouldn’t just assume that the administration would lie about it after the fact.

This is the Obama pattern: work behind the scenes on something the majority doesn’t want, then deny it and lie about it.

Who on earth would be convinced that this resolution just happened to come up at this particular moment, and because it was so very different from previous ones the US decided to react by abstaining rather than vetoing it? Sure. And I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn…

For example, in 2011 Obama vetoed a resolution that was remarkably similar. There was nothing especially pressing about the recent one, or the one to come in January. There has been no special crisis occurring in Israel or Palestine at the moment.

The only thing that has occurred that is different right now is that Donald Trump was elected president and Obama will be leaving office on January 20. Obama is in a hurry and his window of opportunity was small.

Are we really to believe that it was just a coincidence that this resolution (or resolutions, if the second one occurs as well) just came up without any pushing by the US, and that it just happened to be during the seven or so weeks that constitute Obama’s sweet spot (lame duck) period for doing this? Are we really to believe this resolution had such different characteristics (objectively speaking) from previous ones Obama had vetoed, that this time it seemed like a great idea to let it pass? Are we really to believe that when Egypt (the original sponsor) withdrew it, New Zealand just felt so strongly about it that it just had to leap into the fray and bring it to a vote? That all of this happened with the Obama administration sitting on the sidelines, twiddling its collective thumbs and saying “well, whatever”?

Did Obama think his administration’s role in this would go unreported and unleaked? Maybe. I think he may have hoped for that, but he knew there was a risk of the truth coming out and he just didn’t care. After all, what is anyone going to do to him now? Impeach him? He has a goal, and he accomplished it: the vote went forward, and it will hurt Israel, Netanyahu, and even Donald Trump (or at least give the latter a big fat headache).

For some details on how Obama’s decision may have gone down, see this Wapo article:

Skeptics, including Vice President Biden, warned [there would be] fierce backlash [to the UN referendum] in Congress and in Israel itself. But most agreed that the time had come to take a stand.

“The time had come to take a stand” all right, but not because anything had significantly changed on the ground in Israel and Palestine. It was because time was about to run out for Obama:

The resolution’s sponsors, four countries in addition to Egypt, were determined to call a vote before Obama left office.

They’re not dumb. Nor is Obama.

And now I come to this sentence in the WaPo piece—basically, an admission of what I’ve been saying, and what is obvious anyway. But I’m surprised to see the WaPo say it on the record:

Israel had been a third rail of U.S. political debate for decades, but Obama, aides noted, never had to run for office again. He had nothing to lose.

The push seems to have started around September, in anticipation of a Clinton victory:

The first public hint of the move came in the heat of the U.S. presidential campaign in September, just after nominees Trump and Hillary Clinton held meetings with Netanyahu in New York. In an Israeli television interview, Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Obama was “asking himself” about the best way to promote a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This could be a statement we make or a resolution or an initiative at the U.N. .”‰.”‰. which contributes to an effort to be continued by the next administration,” he said.

Shapiro clearly anticipated a Clinton victory, reflecting thinking within the administration that if Obama took the heat for a critical statement or resolution, she would be in a better position to play the “good cop” and move Israel toward substantive negotiations. For her part, Clinton had expressed no interest in a resolution.

So, this wasn’t just about tying Trump’s hands; that effect was just an unexpected bonus. The Obama camp didn’t think that a Trump victory was at all likely (they certainly were not alone in this). But even in the event of the much-anticipated Clinton victory, they figured that they couldn’t count on Hillary to do it, so they had to squeeze this in before an inauguration no matter who was elected. But it absolutely had to be done after the election, so as not to jeopardize her chances by tainting her as a successor to Obama:

Trump’s Nov. 8 victory increased Israeli concern of a preemptive move by Obama…

I bet it did.

And rightly so.

The war against the Trump inauguration goes on

The New Neo Posted on by

Now Jennifer Holliday pulls out of her inauguration gig, apologizing to the LGBT Community for her “lapse of judgment” in agreeing in the first place.

This sort of thing is becoming more and more common. It’s “you’re either with us and do what we say or you’re against us and we’ll try to destroy you” for bastions of leftist open-mindedness such as the LGBT community (but not at all limited to it; this type of thinking is rampant on the left).

In reporting the story, the Daily Beast’s Kevin Fallon has this to say:

There’s no separating the booking of any of these stars from the fact that performing at the inauguration””any inauguration, sure, but especially this one””is a political act.

He doesn’t bother to say what’s so “especially” political about the act of performing at this particular inauguration. But let’s not worry about that, because I take issue with the entire statement. Any performer is free to choose to perform or not perform at any inauguration if asked, of course. If Hudson doesn’t want to do this for any reason whatsoever, that’s fine with me. But I disagree with the notion that performing at an inauguration is a political (as in partisan political) act.

Maybe it has become one. Maybe it always was, for all I know. I can’t say I’ve followed this particular issue at all. But it shouldn’t be.

Performing at a party convention—now, that’s a political act. That indicates support for that party and that nominee. But an inauguration is by definition for all of us. Once a president has been elected—and this was drummed into us kids when I was a child—that president would be president of everyone. We would unite ranks around that president in order to assure all the factions in the country and the world that we were living up to our motto of e pluribus unum.

Those days are gone. At least, they’re gone on the left. Does the right do this? I can’t recall it. When Obama was inaugurated, did anyone drop out? Or did he (or whoever does the inviting for these things) only invite Democrats?

You know the answer without even looking it up, of course (here’s a list, though). Thing is, most performers are already on the liberal side and would be (and were) very happy to perform for Obama. Not so for any Republican, and certainly not so for Trump.

[ADDENDUM: Apparently, Jennifer Holliday tried very hard to set down the principle I described in the post:

Holliday on Friday had defended the decision to sing at the inauguration, telling the Associated Press that she saw the performance as “singing for the people.”

“I didn’t see it as singing for Trump; I saw it as singing for the people on the mall,” Holliday said.

While Holliday voted for Hillary Clinton, the actress received scrutiny after the Inaugural Committee said Friday that she would be among several performers at the “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration.”

“It just really made my heart drop to my feet,” she told the news service.

“How could I have this much hate spewing at me, and I haven’t even done anything? I guess it’s not like those old days when political views were your own and you had freedom of speech. … We live in a different time now and a decision to go and do something for America is not so clear-cut anymore.”

Holliday wasn’t just shocked at the hate she received. She was intimidated, and she recanted.

What a sad story. You know what? I give Holliday points for at least trying. Not everyone can keep being a profile in courage against the mob.]

Silencing Legal Insurrection at YouTube

The New Neo Posted on by

As a contributor to the Legal Insurrection blog, I have a special interest in the attempt that’s presently going on to silence Legal Insurrection from reporting through YouTube videos on hearings connected with the BDS movement. Here’s the story as reported by Professor William Jacobson, the head of LI:

YouTube took down Legal Insurrection’s Channel without any prior notice based on “multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement,” but we never received any claims of infringement.

We have lost hundreds of videos, including a lot of original content on important news subjects. You now will see disabled videos in hundreds of our posts…

[The LI YouTube account was then re-instated.]

UPDATE 1-13-2017 9:50 a.m. ”” I just received notice from YouTube that the copyright claims were filed by the Modern Language Association based on excerpts of audio of pro- and anti-Israel speakers at the MLA Annual Meeting we reported on in this post, Massive DEFEAT for BDS at Modern Language Association.

We intend to fight this both at the YouTube and legal level. It is highly questionable that MLA owns the copyright for oral presentations at the Annual Meeting, and even if it did, the limited excerpts we used from the nearly 2-hour video posted by MLA on YouTube are well-within fair use. What I think is really going on here is that anti-Israel activists at MLA complained to MLA that MLA had posted the audio on YouTube. MLA took down its own 2-hour video and now seeks to silence our reporting.

I will certainly be following this.

I think the cache problem is fixed

The New Neo Posted on by

Most people are reporting that the blog is loading properly.

For some, the cache is still sticking the very first time they come here. But if they refresh and/or clear their cache, things are fine. Please let me know if there are any lingering problems for you.

What a frustrating process it was for me to diagnose and fix the glitch! It only took a few days, but a few days can seem like a long time with unresponsive “customer support.” If anything like this happens again, I’m changing hosts. But until this incident my host had been just fine, and the price is right, so for now I’m staying.

If you ever notice the blog not updating, and I haven’t announced I’m on vacation or something like that (vacation? what’s that??), then please try refreshing. And if that doesn’t work, clear your cache. If that doesn’t work, please go to my old blog to see if there’s an update.

Thanks for your patience. I think the storm has passed.

Makeover: how to become a different person

The New Neo Posted on by

This shows how little changes can add up to a big change.

This woman was fairly attractive to begin with. Nothing that big was done. Hair more or less the same color. Bangs were cut. A bit more makeup was applied.

And yet, what a difference! She looks like her own sister, mother, daughter, cousin—not sure which, but something far more sophisticated and extremely attractive, yet still relaxed and at ease:

Mosby lawsuit proceeds

The New Neo Posted on by

Most of the accused officers who were put on trial in the Freddie Gray case are suing the prosecution and the sheriff:

A federal judge is allowing key parts of a lawsuit against Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, brought by five of the six police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, to move forward.

U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis ruled that claims including malicious prosecution, defamation, and invasion of privacy can move forward against Mosby and Assistant Sheriff Samuel Cogen, who wrote the statement of probable cause.

Mosby’s attorneys had said she has absolute prosecutorial immunity from actions taken as a state’s attorney. But Garbis noted that her office has said it conducted an independent investigation.

“Plaintiffs’ malicious prosecution claims relate to her actions when functioning as an investigator and not as a prosecutor,” Garbis wrote.

Other counts, such as false arrest, false imprisonment and abuse of process, were dismissed, as Garbis had signaled he would do at an October hearing. All claims against the state were also dismissed.

This isn’t just about Mosby, either:

Ellin [an attorney for one of the plaintiffs in the suit] said he expected that Mosby’s attorneys will appeal. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court because of the questions it poses for prosecutors who take a more active role in investigations.

“The ramifications of this case are huge, and nationwide,” Ellin said.

It appears that, if Mosby and company hadn’t launched their own investigation, they would have been protected against all of this. What’s more:

The fact that prosecutors said they conducted an investigation that was independent from police also played a role in the criminal trials, with Circuit Judge Barry Williams ruling that they had to turn over documents that would normally be protected from the evidence discovery process.

However, the temptation to do the sort of thing Mosby did—and to garner the intense publicity she received—remains very great, and but for the independent investigation the prosecution also launched, there probably would have been little redress for these defendants.

The MSM had better watch out, or Trump will be getting sympathy

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a political moderate and who wondered whether I was starting to feel sympathy for Trump.

“No, not at all!” I protested. “I’ve never felt any sympathy for him, and he doesn’t ask for it. If anybody can fight his own battles, it’s Trump.”

And yet, as day after day goes by and I see the constant barrage of negative spin on everything the man says and does, I’ve begun to think that in addition to my weariness with the attacks, I’ll come to feel a certain amount of sympathy. And I can’t possibly be alone in this.

Take this rather subtle version, which I just read. It quotes Charles Krauthammer:

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer says President-elect Donald Trump has already lost any goodwill following his White House win.

“The shortest honeymoon on record is officially over,” he wrote in Thursday’s edition of his column.

“Normally, newly elected presidents enjoy a wave of goodwill that allows them to fly high at least through their first 100 days. Donald Trump has not been sworn in, and the honeymoon has already come and gone.”

It’s that word “lost” that’s so clever of the writers. Such a little word, isn’t it? But so meaningful. How can something be “lost” that never existed? How can something be “lost” that never had a chance of existing?

The Hill article then goes on to quote Krauthammer talking about Trump’s flaws, as well as the fact that, as Krauthammer writes, Democrats have been “pushing one line after another to delegitimize the election.” But the impression is that Trump initially had a chance to have a honeymoon, both with the people and the press, and that he has squandered it.

In service of that argument, Krauthammer cites polls:

The result is quantifiable. A Quinnipiac poll from November 17 through 20 ”” the quiet, hope-and-change phase ”” showed a decided bump in Trump’s popularity and in general national optimism. It didn’t last long. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, the numbers have essentially returned to Trump’s (historically dismal) pre-election levels.

The Hill echoes with some more poll evidence:

A Gallup poll released Friday found Trump has the lowest recorded approval rating of any president in the final days before first entering office.

Fifty-one percent of Americans disapprove of Trump before his Jan. 20 inauguration, while only 44 percent approve of him.

That last bit caught my eye, and made me think only 51%? I thought his disapproval was much higher than that.

And indeed it was, for most of the campaign season.

Fortunately, RealClearPolitics still has (as of this writing, anyway), a list of old polls that can be found here. If you scroll down there, you can see that in a poll from late last February (2/26-3/3)taken by Gallup, Trump’s disapproval was 63%. In May (5/1-5/22) Gallup had him at 60% disappoval, and in 6/13-6/19 at 64%. In July it was 59%, in three separate August polls it ranged from 63 to 61, and in September there were three polls with the same exact range. In October, 65, 66, and 62. And then in a poll taken in the days right after the November election, Trump’s disapproval scooted way down (that’s sarcasm, by the way) to 55. His approval ratings during all that time had usually been around 33 or so, climbing to 42 only in that same immediate post-election poll.

The most recent Gallup poll isn’t in that RCP link (at least, I can’t find it). But it’s cited in article after article in the press. I won’t bother to link to them all, but there are plenty of them (here’s a typical one), and they all describe it as the lowest ever for a president at the beginning of his term.

Interestingly, most don’t give a link to the poll, but here it is. You can see that the disapproval/approval is 51/44, and a month ago it was 48/48. Way way down in the results (which are only a summary), the margin of error is stated to be plus or minus 4. So whatever change has occurred in the last month is within the margin of error, although no one points that out that I’ve seen.

More importantly, to my way of thinking—and outside the margin of error—is the large improvement in Trump’s pre- vs. post-election ratings, involving both the lowering of his disapproval by more than 10 points and the raising of his approval by a similar margin. My guess is that this represents mostly an approval increase among conservatives and moderates.

As for those Quinnipiac polls cited by Kauthammer, they’re pretty interesting, too. He wrote that the latest Quinnipiac poll shows Trump’s disapproval “numbers have essentially returned to Trump’s (historically dismal) pre-election levels,” after a bump in the November 17-20 poll. Again, however, there’s no link to those polls. But if you go to that RCP page, you’ll see that the most recent Quninnipiac poll was taken on 1/5-1/9 and showed a disapproval/approval spread of 51/37. That’s somewhat of an outlier in that its approval rating is quite a bit lower than in the other polls taken at the same time, but its disapproval rating is similar to that found in other polls, including the Gallup poll already discussed.

So, what of that November 17-20 bump? Again, if you look at the chart and compare that November Quinnipiac poll to other polls taken at pretty much the same time, you will see that the Nov. 17-20 poll (which showed 46 disapproval and 44 approval) was the most Trump-favorable poll of all, with the others varying quite a bit from each other, but all of them finding a disapproval rating of 52 or more, which is similar to Trump’s disapproval rating of 51 in the most recent Quinnipiac poll.

So as far as I can see, this squandered-bump theory appears to be wrong.

And what about Trump’s disapproval ratings returning to his “(historically dismal) pre-election levels”? Nope. Not one poll I could find had a pre-election disapproval level of 51% for Trump—not Quinnipiac and not anyone else. Again, that RCP chart is informative, and if you bother to do what I did (I went back to December of 2015, checking all the disapproval ratings from then to the election, which took place almost a year later) you can see that the pre-election polls agreed that Trump’s disapproval was in the high 50s and the 60s, with nothing at 51 prior to the election. And that includes Quinnipiac.

So one can only conclude that Trump’s disapproval ratings have fallen since the election, and his approval ratings have gotten higher. That’s pretty much across the board, in all the polls. The small fluctuations and variations appear to represent mere noise and not to be consistent or meaningful.

You may think I’ve spent way too much time dealing with these numbers. You may be right. Who cares about polls?

Well, lots of people. And—to return to the original point of this post—pundits use them to create an impression of something and to describe and document a supposed phenomenon. They rely on people not going back themselves to check the work they’ve done. And most people won’t—because, let me tell you, it’s tedious work to do.

It may even be tedious to read. For that, I apologize. But this sort of distortion gets my goat, and is extremely frequent. On both sides, let me add.

And it might even get me to feel sympathy for Trump.

The Times walks the tightrope

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not going to write much more about the Trump “dossier” story today, because I think it’s been beaten to death by now.

I’ll simply add that it’s served its purpose. I would wager that most of the people I know are aware of the story and think the allegations are true. That was the point, wasn’t it?

I also say that my hat is off to the NY Times, doing what they do best. What’s that? It’s a subtle and delicate thing, a way of writing about something that seems fair to most regular Times readers but contains twists and omissions and nuances that lead in the direction the Times intends.

Case in point, today’s article headlined “How a Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for Donald Trump.” Sounds a tiny bit Trump-friendly, doesn’t it? “Sensational, unverified”? On reflection, however, shouldn’t the title be “How a Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for the Media“? After all, Trump seems to have turned that “crisis” on its ear.

But that’s not the angle the Times takes in the story, because it’s not the angle they want their readers to take. I won’t bother to go through the text step by step, but if you read the article I think you’ll see what I mean. And although the Times takes pains to let its readers know that the dossier’s accusations are “unverified” (it repeats the word several times), “unverified” doesn’t mean “false”—because it also wants you to think those accusations (at least, some of them) might be true although as yet unverified.

During the early days of the Trump campaign, back in the summer and fall of 2015, Trump’s opponents learned to their sorrow that revelations about Trump, as well as supposed “gaffes” by the candidate—all of which were supposed to sink him for good—failed to do the trick. The MSM rejoiced, because they thought that a Trump nomination meant an inevitable Hillary Clinton victory (I thought that as well, by the way, although the prospect gave me deep grief rather than joy). They were wrong then, and I think they would be wise to stop the flailing around now to try to find the silver bullet to kill the Trump monster that threatens them.

Monica Crowley and plagiarism

The New Neo Posted on by

It seems that Monica Crowley may have plagiarized a substantial portion—amounting to “thousands of words”—of her doctoral dissertation.

According to Politico:

An examination of the dissertation and the sources it cites identified more than a dozen sections of text that have been lifted, with little to no changes, from other scholarly works without proper attribution. In some instances, Crowley footnoted her source but did not identify with quotation marks the text she was copying directly. In other instances, she copied text or heavily paraphrased with no attribution at all.

Plagiarism is a bad thing, a deception that goes to the heart of a person’s integrity and his or her academic capabilities as well. It’s not uncommon, either, for a fairly well-respected public person to be accused of it—for example, Doris Kearns Goodwin, a liberal writer, historian, and pundit who defended herself by citing sloppy research methods.

And indeed, it really could be sloppy research methods—but that’s not okay, either. Although it can be quite difficult to differentiate a disingenuous intent to deceive from a negligent carelessness, both are bad and reflect poorly on the author, albeit in different ways.

I don’t know which it is with Crowley. But over a thousand words is a lot of words, not just a phrase or a sentence. It would be helpful, however, to know how many of the “over a thousand” words were offered without any attribution at all, and how many were properly footnoted but not given the necessary quotation marks. That latter offense seems much more likely to be carelessness than the former, although all could be carelessness (which is, as I said, no excuse, but it is generally thought to be a lesser offense than a deliberate lie would be).

I think this should disqualify Crowley for an appointment for her National Security Council job, but if previous experience is any guide Trump may decline to pull her out. She may, of course, decide to withdraw her own name.

I don’t watch that much TV news and therefore don’t know all that much from personal observation of Crowley. But from what I’ve seen she’s obviously smart and quick, so if she plagiarized purposely it wasn’t through lack of brainpower.

Crowley is now in her late forties, and she got her doctorate from Columbia in 2000. That was well after the invention and popularization of the internet, which is an excellent tool for detecting plagiarism. Anyone who had purposely plagiarized anything post-internet is not just dishonest, but foolish. Careless plagiarizing is something different, and could happen to anyone who isn’t OCD-level careful. But “thousands of words” isn’t just one careless error; it’s a pattern, and a bad one at that.

[CLARIFICATION 3:45 PM

Just to clarify—in a response to a question by commenter “The Other Gary”—I want to explain how a person could fail to attribute a quote with quotation marks through carelessness rather than intention. Gary asks how this could happen, with the ease of cut-and-paste.

My answer is that it’s simple, particularly in the days I was a student, prior to the internet. In a dissertation from 2000, it’s not clear at all that most of Crowley’s sources would have been online; probably her sources at the time were regular hard-copy books.

You take notes on index cards for that. Usually, handwritten notes, back in those days. It’s a lot of work, with thousands upon thousands of cards. Direct quotes are different than paraphrases, and must be indicated as such on your handwritten notes. It’s rather easy to slip-up unless you’re very very careful. You might not even be able to read your own hand-writing very well. Or you might have been careless in noting it to begin with.

But it doesn’t resemble cut-and-paste on a computer at all.

None of this is an excuse. Either way, intentional or not, it’s inexcusable.]

“Dog bite man”…

The New Neo Posted on by

…isn’t ordinarily considered a story.

“Dog bites young woman” really isn’t, either.

Unless it’s one of the White House dogs, Sunny, who recently bit a young female visitor on the face:

We’re told the incident occurred Monday when the 18-year-old was visiting the White House. Sources connected to the girl tell us she went to pet and kiss Sunny, and the dog bit her on the face.

Sunny — a female Portuguese Water Dog — left a nasty gash under the girl’s eye. We’re told the Obamas’ family physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, checked her out and decided she needed stitches.

She’s gonna be okay, but we’re told she’ll likely have a small scar … which upset her. She posted various pics of the injury and her visit to Dr. Jackson on social media.

It’s a sign of the times that, when I read this story, I wondered whether it was fake news.

If a previously gentle dog of a breed not known for aggression does something unaccountable and apparently unprovoked like this, I think it’s a warning sign that something may be wrong with the dog. Or perhaps Sunny’s previously sunny disposition was just discombobulated by the results of the election.

Can we call CNN “faux news” now?

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, it’s not as alliterative as saying it about Fox News. But check this out.

Recall as you read it that CNN claimed earlier today that Trump had been briefed by the intelligence community on memos alleging that the Trump campaign had communicated with Russia about damaging information the Russians had against him. The implication by CNN was that the allegations might indeed be true, although unsubstantiated as yet (and, if true, would certainly be important), and that that’s why the intelligence community had bothered to do the briefing.

Checking just now on the CNN story (which has been updated since earlier today), it still makes claims such as this:

The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump…

Some of the memos were circulating as far back as last summer. What has changed since then is that US intelligence agencies have now checked out the former British intelligence operative and his vast network throughout Europe and find him and his sources to be credible enough to include some of the information in the presentations to the President and President-elect a few days ago.

On the same day that the President-elect was briefed by the intelligence community, the top four Congressional leaders, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees — the so-called “Gang of Eight” — were also provided a summary of the memos regarding Mr. Trump, according to law enforcement, intelligence and administration sources.

The two-page summary was written without the detailed specifics and information about sources and methods included in the memos by the former British intelligence official. That said, the synopsis was considered so sensitive it was not included in the classified report about Russian hacking that was more widely distributed, but rather in an annex only shared at the most senior levels of the government: President Obama, the President-elect, and the eight Congressional leaders.

Sounds very much as though they are saying that these allegations were both very serious and very credible, and that Trump was told in some detail about them.

But—well—not exactly, according to another “senior official” who has spoken to NBC news [emphasis mine[:

While multiple officials say the summary [of the charges against Trump] was included in the material prepared for the briefers, the senior official told NBC News that the briefing was oral and no actual documents were left with the Trump team in New York. During the briefing, the president-elect was not briefed on the contents of the summary .

“Intel and law enforcement officials agree that none of the investigations have found any conclusive or direct link between Trump and the Russian government period,” the senior official said.

According to the senior official, the two-page summary about the unsubstantiated material made available to the briefers was to provide context, should they need it, to draw the distinction for Trump between analyzed intelligence and unvetted “disinformation.”

The briefers also had available to them unvetted “disinformation” about the Clinton Foundation, although that was not orally shared with Trump.

Nor with us.

Now, of course, it might be NBC and its informant “senior official” who’ve gotten it wrong. In a contest between the veracity of CNN or NBC I really don’t know which I’d choose; maybe “neither”?

[Hat tip: Ace.]

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

Hey, even spambots are on-target now and then. Got this yesterday:

This blog doesn’t display appropriately on my blackberry ”“ you may wanna try and repair that.

I have, I have!