Who Is Edward Gallagher, the SEAL the Navy Wants to Expel?

By BY DAVE PHILIPPS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Ohp5He

Turn Off Your Phone for Thanksgiving

By BY DAVID LEONHARDT from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2KNFiBS

Mulvaney Asked About Legal Justification for Withholding Ukraine Aid

By BY MAGGIE HABERMAN AND ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2OiTd4V

Charges of Ukrainian Meddling? A Russian Operation, U.S. Intelligence Says

WASHINGTON -- Republicans have sought for weeks amid the impeachment inquiry to shift attention to President Donald Trump's demands that Ukraine investigate any 2016 election meddling, defending it as a legitimate concern while Democrats accuse Trump of pursuing fringe theories for his benefit.The Republican defense of Trump became central to the impeachment proceedings when Fiona Hill, a respected Russia scholar and former senior White House official, added a harsh critique during testimony Thursday. She told some of Trump's fiercest defenders in Congress that they were repeating "a fictional narrative" -- and that it likely came from a disinformation campaign by Russian security services, which themselves propagated it.In a briefing that closely aligned with Hill's testimony, U.S. intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow's own hacking of the 2016 election, according to three U.S. officials. The briefing came as Republicans stepped up their defenses of Trump in the Ukraine affair.The revelations demonstrate Russia's persistence in trying to sow discord among its adversaries -- and show that the Kremlin apparently succeeded, as unfounded claims about Ukrainian interference seeped into Republican talking points. U.S. intelligence agencies believe Moscow is likely to redouble its efforts as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies. The classified briefing for senators also focused on Russia's evolving influence tactics, including its growing ability to better disguise operations.Russia has engaged in a "long pattern of deflection" to pin blame for its malevolent acts on other countries, Hill said, not least Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. Since Ukraine won independence in 1991, Russia has tried to reassert influence there, meddling in its politics, maligning pro-Western leaders and accusing Ukrainian critics of Moscow of fascist leanings."The Russians have a particular vested interest in putting Ukraine, Ukrainian leaders in a very bad light," she told lawmakers.But the campaign by Russian intelligence in recent years has been even more complex as Moscow tries not only to undermine the government in Kyiv but also to use a disinformation campaign there to influence the U.S. political debate.The accusations of a Ukrainian influence campaign center on actions by a handful of Ukrainians who openly criticized or sought to damage Trump's candidacy in 2016. They were scattershot efforts that were far from a replica of Moscow's interference, when President Vladimir Putin ordered military and intelligence operatives to mount a broad campaign to sabotage the U.S. election. Russians in 2016 conducted covert operations to hack Democratic computers and to use social media to exploit divisions among Americans.This time, Russian intelligence operatives deployed a network of agents to blame Ukraine for its 2016 interference. Starting at least in 2017, operatives peddled a mixture of now-debunked conspiracy theories along with established facts to leave an impression that the government in Kyiv, not Moscow, was responsible for the hackings of Democrats and its other interference efforts in 2016, senior intelligence officials said.Russian intelligence officers conveyed the information to prominent Russians and Ukrainians who then used a range of intermediaries, like oligarchs, businessmen and their associates, to pass the material to U.S. political figures and even some journalists, who were likely unaware of its origin, officials said.That muddy brew worked its way into U.S. information ecosystems, sloshing around until parts of it reached Trump, who has also spoken with Putin about allegations of Ukrainian interference. Trump also brought up the assertions of Ukrainian meddling in his July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, which is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry into whether he abused his power by asking for a public commitment to investigations he stood to gain from personally.Trump referred elliptically to allegations that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election and brought up a related conspiracy theory. Asking Zelenskiy to "do us a favor," Trump added, "I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine."Russia's operation to blame Ukraine has become more relevant as Republicans have tried to focus public debate during the impeachment inquiry on any Ukrainian role in the 2016 campaign, U.S. officials said.Republicans have denounced any suggestion that their concerns about Ukrainian meddling are without merit or that they are ignoring Russia's broader interference. "Not a single Republican member of this committee said Russia did not meddle in the 2016 elections," Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said Thursday.Indeed, Stefanik and her Republican colleagues on the Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting the impeachment hearing, have also steered clear of the fringe notion that Trump mentioned to Zelenskiy, which is pushed by Russian intelligence: the so-called CrowdStrike server conspiracy theory, which falsely suggests Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the breach of Democratic operatives' servers.Trump repeated the baseless claim Friday in an interview with "Fox & Friends," laying out the narrative and doubling down after a host gently pressed him on whether he was sure of one aspect of the debunked theory, that the FBI gave a Democratic server to what Trump had inaccurately described as a Ukrainian-owned company."That is what the word is," Trump replied.Some Republicans have also focused on Hunter Biden, raising questions about whether his hiring by Ukrainian energy company Burisma was corrupt. Burisma hired Biden while his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential rival of Trump's in the 2020 election, was leading the Obama administration's Ukraine policy. On the July 25 call, Trump also demanded Zelenskiy investigate Burisma and Hunter Biden.Moscow has long used its intelligence agencies and propaganda machine to muddy the waters of public debate, casting doubts over established facts. In her testimony, Hill noted Russia's pattern of trying to blame other countries for its own actions, like the attempted poisoning last year of a former Russian intelligence officer or the downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014. Moscow's goal is to cast doubt on established facts, said current and former officials."The strategy is simply to create the impression that it is not really possible to know who was really behind it," said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Defending Democracy, which tracks Russian disinformation efforts.Although U.S. intelligence agencies have made no formal classified assessment about the Russian disinformation campaign against Ukraine, officials at several of the agencies have broadly agreed for some time that Russian intelligence services have embraced tactics to shift responsibility for the 2016 interference campaign away from themselves, officials said.Russia has relentlessly tried to deflect attention since the allegations of its interference campaign in the 2016 election first surfaced, one official said.Putin began publicly pushing false theories of Ukrainian interference in the early months of 2017 to deflect responsibility from Russia, said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who declined to answer questions about the briefing."These people are pros at this," said King, who caucuses with the Democrats. "The Soviet Union used disinformation for 70 years. This is nothing new. Vladimir Putin is a former KGB agent. He is trained in deception. This is his stock and trade, and he is doing it well."During a news conference in February 2017, Putin accused the Ukrainian government of supporting Hillary Clinton during the previous U.S. election and funding her candidacy with friendly oligarchs.It is not clear when U.S. intelligence agencies learned about Moscow's campaign or when precisely it began.Russian intelligence officers aimed part of their operation at prompting Ukrainian authorities to investigate the allegations that people in Ukraine tried to tamper with the 2016 U.S. election and to shut down inquiries into corruption by pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, according to a former official.One target was the leak of a secret ledger disclosed by a Ukrainian law enforcement agency that appeared to show that Paul Manafort, Trump's onetime campaign chairman, had taken illicit payments from Ukrainian politicians who were close to Moscow. He was forced to step down from the Trump campaign after the ledger became public in August 2016, and the Russians have since been eager to cast doubt on its authenticity, the former official said.Intelligence officials believe that one of the people the Kremlin relied on to spread disinformation about Ukrainian interference was Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who had ties to Manafort. After his ouster from the campaign, Manafort told his former deputy later in 2016 that Ukrainians, not Russians, stole Democratic emails. Deripaska has broadly denied any role in election meddling."There is a long history of Russians putting out fake information," said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official. "Now they are trying to put out theories that they think are damaging to the United States."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company

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Pope in Hiroshima: Use and possession of atom bomb ‘immoral’

Pope Francis traveled to Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Sunday to demand that world powers renounce their nuclear arsenals, declaring the use and possession of atomic bombs an “immoral” crime and a dangerous waste. Standing before survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings, Francis denounced the steady erosion of arms control agreements and rejected the Cold War-era doctrine of deterrence that had been sanctioned by the Catholic Church for nearly three decades.

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America grapples with 'ghost guns' amid epidemic of violence

After his mother dropped him off at school, Nathan Berhow pulled a .45-caliber pistol out of his backpack, opened fire and killed two classmates, all using a weapon he'd assembled at home. Such guns are sometimes called "ghost guns" -- unregulated, easy to put together and almost impossible to trace because they have no serial number. The parts are readily available online, with no need for a background check.

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Kellyanne Conway Struggles to Defend Trump's DNC Server Conspiracy Theory on ‘Face the Nation’

“Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?” Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy asked on Friday after Donald Trump ranted for several minutes about a conspiracy theory that a Ukrainian-based company helped the Democratic National Committee frame Russia for interference in the 2016 election. “Well, that is what the word is,” the president replied. On Sunday morning, it was up to White House counsel Kellyanne Conway to defend that baseless claim and she more or less came up empty-handed. “The president gave an extended interview on Fox on Friday, and he said once again that they, meaning Ukraine, have the server from the Democratic National Committee,” Margaret Brennan told Conway on Face the Nation. “Fiona Hill, the Russia expert formerly of the Trump White House, said this is something that's propagated by Russian security services- services. It's false narrative.” George Conway Blasts GOP’s ‘Incoherent’ Hearing Performance in MSNBC DebutWith that, the host presented an excerpt from a 60 Minutes report airing Sunday night in which John Demers, the Justice Department official in charge of investigating the 2016 election, completely debunks the idea that anyone besides the Russians is responsible for “hacking and dumping” DNC emails. “Well, our indictment spells out what it is—the evidence that we have has shown, which is it was the Russians who were behind the hacking and dumping of the Democratic campaign in 2016,” Demers said. “We could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.” Then came this question from Brennan: “Why doesn’t the president believe his own Justice Department and intelligence experts?” “But the president has said he accepts that,” Conway answered, misleadingly, before undercutting her own point. “But also, there are plenty of ways to interfere in elections.” She then proceeded to deflect by saying, “if we're doing this, we're back to Mueller and we've already spent two and a half years and thirty five million taxpayer dollars for a Mueller report that was produced in March. It was a big bomb.” Instead of answering Brennan’s direct questions about Trump’s preferred conspiracy theory, Conway began warning that the “mainstream media” could “interfere in the 2020 election the way they tried in the 2016 election.” “She's going to win. He has zero percent chance of winning,” Conway said, repeating the conventional wisdom in 2016. “That's a different kind of interference, and that's dangerous, too.” She could not ultimately explain or defend why the president refusing to take his own Justice Department and intelligence officials at their word. Meghan McCain Explains Why Kellyanne Conway Will Never Betray TrumpRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Leaked documents show operations of prison camps in China's Xinjiang

Leaked documents released on Sunday detailed how China controls everything from the frequency of haircuts to when the doors are locked in the mass detention camps of its Xinjiang region. The documents, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and published by 17 media outlets worldwide, show the strict protocols governing life in the network of camps in the far-western region, which rights groups and outside experts say house more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities. The latest leak consists of a list of guidelines Xinjiang's security chief approved in 2017 for running the detention camps, along with intelligence briefings that show how police use data collection and artificial intelligence to select residents for detention.

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Spain Beats Canada to Win Davis Cup at Home

By BY CHRISTOPHER CLAREY from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2OfTi9k

I Give Thanks for the Matriarchs

By BY MARGARET RENKL from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/37seEYK

I Invented the World Wide Web. Here’s How We Can Fix It.

By BY TIM BERNERS-LEE from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/33eHyZ5

U.S. defense secretary fires Navy chief over handling of SEAL saga

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper fired the Navy's top civilian after losing confidence in him over his handling of the high-profile case of a Navy SEAL convicted of battlefield misconduct in Iraq, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

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For Trump, Impeachment Is a Show

By BY CHARLES M. BLOW from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/35u2DjH

Duque opens Colombia talks following protests: official

President Ivan Duque, the target of unprecedented anti-government protests in Colombia, on Sunday opened a national dialogue aimed at assuaging popular anger. Duque, a conservative who is deeply unpopular 18 months after his election, "initiated the social dialogue" with mayors and other officials at 3:00 pm (2100 GMT), the presidency said in a statement. The president had proposed the talks on Friday in response to nationwide protests a day earlier that descended into violence, leaving three dead.

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US judge awards $180M to Post reporter held by Iran

A U.S. federal judge has awarded a Washington Post journalist and his family nearly $180 million in their lawsuit against Iran over his 544 days in captivity and torture while being held on internationally criticized espionage charges. The order in the case filed by Jason Rezaian came as Iranian officials appeared to begin restoring the internet after a weeklong shutdown amid a security crackdown on protesters angered by government-set gasoline prices sharply rising. The U.S. government has sanctioned Iran’s telecommunications minister in response to the internet shutdown.

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Joe Biden: Stacey Abrams, Sally Yates could be potential vice president picks

Joe Biden identified several prominent Democratic women when asked at a town hall in Iowa who he would choose as vice president.

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Despite Trump tweets, Navy won't stop disciplinary process unless there's an official order

They may not quit, but they don't seem particularly happy, either.Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer said Saturday he has no intentions of resigning. Instead, he said if President Trump orders the Navy to halt its process of deciding whether four Navy SEALs -- including Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who was acquitted of murder charges but demoted for posing for a picture with the corpse of an Islamic State fighter -- are fit to continue serving in the force, the Navy will comply. "I work at the pleasure of the president," Spencer said. "I do not interpret what the president does. I do what he says."Spencer did, however, add that he does not consider a tweet to be an order, so Trump assuring that the Navy won't expel Gallagher on Thursday over the social media platform doesn't count; the process will only stop in light of an official directive and will continue as planned for now. Earlier reports indicated Spencer and Rear Adm. Collin Green were ready to resign if Trump intervened in the process, but Spencer has denied the rumor and said he doesn't believe Green has any intention of stepping down either. Just in case, though, NBC reports that military leaders have lobbied the president not to an issue the order so the Navy doesn't lose Spencer or Green.Trump has drawn the ire of some top military and Defense Department officials lately for his determination to clear the names of several service members accused of war crimes. The military believes they should go through the proper channels of the military judicial system, rather than receive presidential pardons. Read more at The Washington Post and The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com Outed CIA agent Valerie Plame is running for Congress, and her launch video looks like a spy movie trailer Democrats, don't hand impeachment to Mitch McConnell 5 more scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's very bad impeachment week

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Lion cub mummies feature in huge ancient Egypt find

Egypt on Saturday unveiled a cache of 75 wooden and bronze statues and five lion cub mummies decorated with hieroglyphics at the Saqqara necropolis near the Giza pyramids in Cairo. The Antiquities Ministry announced the find at the foot of the Bastet Temple, dedicated to the worship of cats among ancient Egyptians, in the vast necropolis.

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Why Does Taiwan Need M-1 Abrams Tanks?

Is this just a total waste of money or a powerful weapon to stop China if they invade?

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Death toll from Kenya landslides rises to 56 as heavy rains lash country's north west

The death toll from landslides in northwestern Kenya triggered on Saturday by unusually heavy rains has risen to at least 56 people, a local official said. The downpour began on Friday in West Pokot County, which borders Uganda, and worsened overnight, causing flooding and mudslides that swept away four bridges and left villages inaccessible by road. Samuel Poghisio, a senator from the county, told Reuters by phone on Sunday that 56 people were confirmed dead and an unknown number were missing.

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Ageing Japan bomb survivors back pope's anti-nukes call

Kenji Hayashida thought about committing suicide in the years after an atomic bomb was dropped on his hometown of Nagasaki. On Sunday he will hear Pope Francis call there for a world without nuclear weapons, a message 81-year-old supports passionately. Like many ageing survivors of the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Hayashida hopes the pope can bring fresh international attention to the cause of nuclear abolition, and also keep alive the memory of the devastating bombings.

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Will Donald Trump be impeached and when would it happen?

Everybody has an opinion about the impeachment investigation into Donald Trump.As officials testified on Capitol Hill, people argued the information they provided was more than proof of the president’s duplicitousness and dishonesty

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'She leaves him. He kills her.' Thousands in Belgium march to demand end to violence against women

Thousands of people protested in Brussels on Sunday against violence targeting women, placing pairs of women's shoes painted red outside a court to symbolize victims of femicide. Singing and chanting, protesters carried banners reading "She leaves him, he kills her", "A dress is not a 'Yes'" and "My body, my choice, my consent", a day after thousands also marched in France against domestic violence. Police said about 10,000 people attended the protest, which took place on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

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