Cartoon

American Intelligence

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Nick Anderson)

In other news, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) has become the 4th GOP senator to oppose the "repeal and delay" strategy for Obamacare.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in Texas have introduced their own anti-transgender "bathroom bill," because they'd apparently like to embroil themselves in the same mess as North Carolina.

Finally, the office of the director of national intelligence has declassified and released the intelligence community's comprehensive report on Russian interference in our election.

You can read the full report here. The primary judgement of the intelligence community is that Vladimir Putin personally ordered the influence campaign. The report also assesses that Putin personally preferred Trump.

The report also confirms that Russia uses paid internet trolls.

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments. [...]

Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with covert efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.” Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on US presidential elections that have used intelligence officers and agents and press placements to disparage candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin.

There's a lot more to the report which I encourage you to read for yourself.

Have a good weekend.