Here’s a guide to the Trumpian spin on the Russian hacking report

Washington Post

President-elect Donald Trump and his aides have offered all sorts of reasons for dismissing or minimizing the “high-confidence” assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a cyberattack during the 2016 presidential election with the aim of undermining faith in the U.S. democratic process and hurting Hillary Clinton’s electability.

Here’s a guide to the talking points, drawn from statements made by incoming White House chief of staff Reince Preibus on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Jan. 8.

“Read the report itself. There is no evidence that Russia succeeded in any alleged attempt to disrupt our democracy or, in fact, to influence the election results.”

This echoes a claim that Trump made in a statement after the report was released – that “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.”

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched!

1:56 PM - 7 Jan 2017

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But this is clever sleight of hand designed to obscure the point of the report.

The intelligence report provided an accounting of Russian behavior during the election; the intelligence agencies were not tasked to assess whether Russian actions swayed the election. The report makes this clear:

“We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcomes of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.”

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. emphasized this when he testified before Congress on Jan. 5: Political analysis “certainly isn’t the purview of the U.S. intelligence community,” he said.

In other words, Trump officials are asserting a conclusion that does not exist in the report — because agencies were not asked to make such a conclusion. Because the report is silent on the question of whether the election was swayed, Trump officials falsely state there is “no evidence” that the Russian efforts succeeded.

Given Trump’s narrow election victory — just a switch of 40,000 votes in three states would have altered the outcome — analysts can point to any number of factors. Clinton’s email controversy — and the FBI investigation that resulted – was certainly a major drag on her electoral prospects. But at the same time, during the campaign Trump repeatedly seized on revelations made by WikiLeaks (which U.S. intelligence says came via Russia) to attack Clinton.

The answer will never be known, but it is not a question that U.S. intelligence was asked to explore.

“One of the two biggest political parties in the world, the DNC, that sat there like a sitting duck, allowed these entities into their computer systems.”

This is an example of attacking one of the victims, the Democratic National Committee. But it ignores the broader implications of the intelligence report — how the Russian government used Internet trolls and RT (Russia’s state-owned international news channel) to amplify negative reports on Clinton and U.S. democracy.

The Internet trolls started to advocate for Trump as early as December 2015, well before the WikiLeaks revelations began to be released on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

Meanwhile, “RT’s coverage of Secretary Clinton throughout the presidential campaign was consistently negative and focused on her leaked e-mails and accused her of corruption, poor physical and mental health, and ties to Islamic extremism,” the report said. (It does not mention that these attack lines mirrored attacks made by the Trump campaign.)

“By their own admission, they said that they lacked the training, and that they didn’t respond to the FBI when they called.”

Again, Preibus pins the blame on the DNC. But there was a miscommunication between the DNC and the FBI.[...]

Finally, Trump officials like to point to President Obama’s actions — or inactions — after officials accused China of accessing the Office of Personnel Management and obtaining information on 22 million Americans. They argue that because Obama sanctioned Russia, but not China, he’s trying to score political points and undercut Trump’s victory.

They may have a point, but the two situations are not directly comparable. The Russian campaign, as described by U.S. intelligence, involved more than just hacking, with the aim of disrupting and possibly influencing the political process. The Chinese hack had a more isolated goal — espionage. China appears to have wanted the material in order to engage in possible blackmail.

U.S. officials also say that China responded to U.S. pressure after the hack was discovered, and there are signs its espionage activities have been reduced. Timing is often important in diplomacy: China may have been receptive to U.S. pressure at the time because President Xi Jinping was about to visit the United States, and he did not want the hack to mar the visit. China even announced it had arrested the alleged hackers. (Obama had signed an executive order that could have been used to issue sanctions against China for the attack.)

In any case, Obama administration officials say the China case is different because it was purely a case of spying — something the United States does as well.

“We did not retaliate against an act of espionage any more than other countries necessarily retaliate against us for when we conduct espionage,” Clapper told lawmakers. “People who live in glass houses need to think about throwing rocks. Because this was an act of espionage and, you know, we and other nations conduct similar acts of espionage. So if we’re going to punish each other for acts of espionage, that’s a different policy issue.”

When the United States exposed a Russian spy ring in 2010, discovering agents who had embedded themselves in U.S. society, the spies were arrested and eventually became part of a spy swap between the two countries. No sanctions were imposed – though that was also during the period when Obama was trying to “reset” relations with Russia.

Trump alleges leaks by U.S. spy agencies, says that's something 'Nazi Germany would have done'

LA Times  [see Godwin's Law]

President-elect Donald Trump amplified his already heated war with the intelligence community Wednesday, accusing agents of disseminating an ugly and unsubstantiated report about him, and comparing the leak to Nazi tactics.

The showdown threatens to further undermine trust between the next commander in chief and America’s spies amid heightened threats to national security from terrorist groups and adversaries around the world with powerful new cyberweapons.

Trump, for the first time, acknowledged intelligence findings that Russia hacked Democratic files in an effort to interfere with the election, but he denied that Moscow tried to help him win, and he praised President Vladimir Putin, even suggesting that the hack ultimately helped American voters.

“Hacking's bad and it shouldn't be done,” he told reporters. “But look at the things that were hacked, look at what was learned from that hacking.”

The claim was one of several bizarre moments at a wide-ranging news conference, Trump’s first since July, that also touched on his business conflicts, his biggest campaign promises and another of his main foils, the media.

The event went off with a typical level of theatrics: Trump stood in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York next to stacks of file folders, ostensibly containing documents detailing the handover of his businesses to his older sons, though they were acknowledged only as an afterthought. Several other speakers took turns at the lectern, including a tax lawyer, a spokesman and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Trump briefly argued with a CNN correspondent, refusing to take his question.

Trump was asked to rule out the possibility of contacts between his associates and Russian intelligence agents during the campaign and would not do so. But he lashed out against media organizations that published unverified allegations Tuesday from a report that claimed that Russians had gathered blackmail material against him and that people in his orbit had met with Russian agents during the campaign. [...]

“It was disgraceful — disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out,” Trump said. “That's something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do.”

Intelligence officials and their allies have stewed over Trump’s broadsides and were angered by his latest declarations of distrust.

“Kill the messenger and divert attention: That is the only trick Donald Trump has, and he does it viciously,” said Glenn Carle, a former senior CIA officer who spent more than two decades as a spy. “… The relationship is essentially damaged beyond the possibility of repair before it has even begun.”

Trump continued to dismiss criticism of Russia, much of it waged by members of his own party, over the hacking of Democrats. He noted that China also has breached U.S. government systems and insisted it is not getting the attention it deserves, one of several instances when he was asked about Russia and invoked China instead in his answer.[...]

“If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That's called an asset, not a liability,” Trump said.[...]

Trump spoke positively of improving relations with Russia during his presidency, praising Putin and saying Moscow “can help us fight [Islamic State], which, by the way, is, No. 1, tricky.”

Some of those views not only put him at odds with some U.S. intelligence officials but also many Republican members of Congress who call Putin an autocrat who violates human rights and unlawfully invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. That tension played out Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where Rex Tillerson, Trump’s choice for secretary of State, faced sharp questions during his initial Senate hearing from members of both parties. The former Exxon Mobil chief has had deep business ties in the country.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican who ran against Trump for president, showed particular frustration that Tillerson would not use the term "war criminal" to describe Putin, in light of atrocities reported in Syria, where Russian troops are aiding government forces.

And although Tillerson criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine and said policy toward Russia had to be “clear-eyed,” he stuck with his skepticism toward economic sanctions, which he said too often end up hurting U.S. businesses. They have been a key tool for the Obama administration to punish Russia for its incursions into Ukraine.[...]

Democrats warned that Trump was being shortsighted.

“Trump may think that denigrating the intelligence community is good politics, or a useful way to deflect attention from the gravity of Russia's intervention on his behalf during the election,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

At some point, Trump may need to rely on intelligence reports to justify military action overseas, he said.

“By casting doubt on their integrity, by mentioning the intelligence community in the same sentence as Nazi Germany, President-elect Trump is undermining the authority and credibility that he will need as president,” Schiff said.

Supreme Court rules that Rabbinical Court cannot rule on the Get of comatose husband for 21 days

Arutz 7

The High Court heard today (Wednesday) the petition of a woman against the Rabbinical Court presided over by Rishon Letzion Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who seeks to reajudicate the efficacy of a divorce (get) granted to a woman by her comatose husband.

The court forbade the rabbinical court to discuss the divorce's legitimacy for 21 days, until a decision on the woman's petition is forthcoming. During this period, the High Rabbinical Court will be in contact with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

The Vice-President of the Supreme Court, Justice Elyakim Rubinstein criticized the decision of Rabbi Yosef to reopen discussion on a get that had already been granted and released a woman from aguna status because the divorce had already been granted. "The court is not a place for symposiums, but rather for judicial decisions . Make a seminar, write articles, but why tamper with things?"

Rubinstein then asked the Legal Adviser to the rabbinical courts if he "knows of a precedent where a man from off the street with no connection to the case submits an appeal and the court is willing to discuss it? He would be shown the door immediately. Who would touch it? What role has he in this story? To summon 11 judges for an expanded hearing [as the Chief Rabbi did]? I understand that this is an halakhic dispute, one hundred percent, but to [actually adjudicate it] in court?"

In 2014, S. was given a divorce in a rare and unprecedented move by a religious court in the northern city of Tzfat, seven years after her husband was severely injured in a car accident and left in a vegetative state. A halakhic get must be granted by the husband and accepted by the wife. The rabbinic court in this case decided that they could be the husband's legal guardian and that he would have wanted to grant the divorce, calling it a get zicui. That principle, however, is used for receiving a get and is a passive, not an active, concept according to other rabbinic authorities.

Shortly after the ruling was issued and the divorce granted, Reuven Cohen, who opposed the decision but is unconnected to the couple in question, filed an appeal with the Supreme Rabbinic Court – the Chief Rabbinate’s highest judicial body – to challenge the divorce on halakhic grounds.

This is an unusual step in the rabbinic courts, although Israel's Supreme Courts constantly accept suits filed by uninvolved parties. Most of the cases involving land ownership in Judea and Samaria are filed by leftist NGOs which do not claim ownership of the land.

Two months ago, the Supreme Rabbinic Court and the chief rabbis decided to take on the case, in a move blasted by Mavoi Satum – The Organization for the Rights of Abandoned Women.[...]

This, however, is not a women's rights issue nor is it a civil rights issue, but a halakhic one. In the past, Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog and YU Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Herschel Shachter both expressed serious reservations about using the halakhic concept used in granting the divorce, granting a get zicui. Current Sephardic Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef would like to clarify its use in this case by convening a rabbinic court of 11, since it there is no precedent for it being applied in this way.

Does the Gay Issue Threaten the Continuity of Orthodoxy? by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

Cross-Currents

An essay penned by the lead educator at a Modern Orthodox high school warned of possible shock. “This may surprise many adults, but the reconciliation of the Torah’s discussion of homosexuality represents the single most formidable religious challenge for our young people today.”

The author’s declaration was every bit as surprising and shocking as he warned it would be. If true, we are looking at a systemic failure of Torah chinuch in significant parts of the Orthodox world. It would be to Orthodoxy what Galileo and Bruno had been to the Church – massive inability to respond appropriately to an intellectual challenge.

Reading on in the essay, the incredulity mounted.

More young people are “coming out” than ever before, and that repeatedly puts a face to this theological challenge…As they go off to college, students invariably face the painful moral dilemma created by the seemingly intractable conflict: believing in the primacy and validity of the Torah on the one hand, and following their hearts’ sense of morality with regard to loving and accepting their gay friends – or perhaps “coming out” themselves—on the other. All too often, this earnest challenge results in our children quietly losing faith in the Torah as a moral way of life. 

In my experience, many, if not most, 20 to 40-year olds in the modern Orthodox world struggle with the issue of homosexuality and the divinity of the Torah. They believe in a kind and just God and they want to believe in the divinity of the Torah. But at the same time they feel fairly certain that being gay is not a matter of choice. In the apparent conflict of these ideas, the first two premises seem to be losing ground.

 Could this really be? A Jewish people fiercely clings to its love and devotion to HKBH through millennia of persecution, pogroms, penury, ghettos, auto-da-fes, Crusades, exile, religious and racial hatred and a Holocaust – only to lose its faith over the banning of behavior foreign to 98% of the population?

In those rare moments when our adversaries forgot about us long enough not to visit those horrors upon us, we contemplated a world in which suffering, disease, child mortality, ever-present warfare, and the brutish subjugation of the many by the few were the rule, not the exception. And we went right on proclaiming the goodness of G-d, Who gave us the Torah we cherished! [...]we never relaxed our conviction about Hashem’s justice – although repeatedly given the opportunity. Moshe emes, v’soroso emes.

And the gay issue is the burden that is too difficult to bear, the one that will open the exit door to observance for Orthodox young people?[...]

In some parts of the community, the question is moot. Gays are not discussed. Even using the word is taboo. What you don’t think about can’t be much of an issue. But this is not the case elsewhere, where people talk about the problem, are aware of families that have children who have come out, and have embraced Rav Aharon Feldman’s now-classic position paper on the subject.[1] They struggle to comprehend the pain and loneliness of people they know about – but giving up on the foundations of Judaism is not part of the response. Why not?

Essentially, we’re asking why Torah chinuch in some parts of the community – certainly no stranger to their own problems – nonetheless is more successful in this area. What does it take to produce loyal Jews rather than emunah-challenged socially orthodox ones?

We should be devoting serious study to this and related issues – meaning the collection of real data analyzed by proper scientific methodologies. Such study remains, at the moment, a pipe-dream. In its absence, I will offer one thought, which should be taken as nothing more than the product of some decades of observation, coupled with personal conjecture.

Two phrases seem notably absent in the conversation in parts of the community, while very much in evidence in others. I believe that they have a profound effect on the orientation of young people. Those phrases are kabolas ole, and avodas Hashem. I rarely – if ever – hear them from my Modern Orthodox students and associates. I hear them often enough in parts of the community further to the right. [...]

The combination of these two phrases is a potent elixir, providing those who drink it with the strength to endure many challenges.

I would never suggest that these two concepts describe the inner life and the outer behavior of the majority of the right-of-center Orthodox world. There are indeed many lapses, in deed and in intent. But words – memes – are important. They help define the boundaries of our thoughts, even if they do not linearly dictate their exact content. They create expectations that exert pressure – sometimes consciously, sometimes not – on behavior. [...]

I don’t have the wherewithal to reintroduce these phrases into the everyday discussion of some parts of the Orthodox world. But for those who read the essay by the high school principal with horror, the reaction should be clear. We should ensure that concepts close to our minds and souls remain in sharp focus. Repeating concepts like kabolas ole and avodas Hashem too often is a far better approach than not often enough.

May it be His Will that they rub off on both our children and ourselves.

[1] Among other things, it reminds us that the Torah forbids behaviors, not orientation; that our dealings with those with SSAs should be compassionate and respectful, rather than contemptuous; that Orthodox men and women with SSAs have a contribution to make to the Orthodox community.

Alshich - Why was woman created from man instead of from earth as man was?

Alshich (Bereishis 2:23): Avos d’Rabbi Nossan(Chapter 4) states, “Only this time is she bone of my bones... but after this a woman will not be from the bone of the man.” This doesn’t seem to be teaching us anything. And furthermore how does this indicate “Therefore a man should leave his wife...”? In fact the opposite seems to be true since except for Adam – man and his wife are not related so why should he cleave to his wife? In fact we wrote before the statement of Rabbi Abahu where he asked about the apparent contradiction. The Torah says “Male and female He created them but it also say “And G-d created the Man”. Rabbi Abahu concludes that initially it occurred to G-d to create two beings but afterwards He actually only created one being. 

We wrote how it is possible to say He created them and He called their name Adam when in fact they had not actually been created? The answer is that there is no question that G-d’s mere thought makes an impression which was that male and female traits were created from the earth. If he had created them totally separately there would be no attraction between them. Therefore He created the male alone in actual deed but the female aspect was created by His thought which was placed in potential in Man in his rib. It was because the female potential was in Man when he was created that both male and female were called Adam because they were both from the earth. Therefore their attraction for each other had to be because she was created from his rib. And they - thought they were two bodies one male and one female - he contained an aspect of the female as we will discuss. This was done deliberately because even though they were separate entities – one being from the spiritual dimension of masculinity while the other from the dimension of femininity – but in G-d’s thought they were both created from the earth in a subtle manner in order that they should have unity. But at the same time he should be dominate and she should be subordinate to him. Therefore in reality they are one because she is included within him. Consequently even when she was taken from him there exists a unity between them and she is subordinate to him. 

All of this is understood from the statement “This time she is bone of my bones.” That is to say this time there is greater unity then the previous time when G-d had thought to create two entities and call them Adam totally from the aspect of thought. That is because now she is in reality bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Before this there was no unity between us because we were both originally called Adam because we were both from earth and therefore there could be no unity between us because we were to be made separately from earth. However now there is now a connection of unity between us. The reason is because she is called isha (woman) because she was taken from man – i.e. she was not taken from me until I was created as man. Therefore it was good that G-d made us this way and not the way He thought to do initially that we would both be from earth. It was good that she was included within me and then taken out from me. Therefore this explains why she was called woman because she was not made until I was made man. 

Or you can say that if she had been created from a bit of earth it would not indicate unity saying she would not be called Adama (derived from Adam) because adama is the name for earth. But now that she has been taken from the man – the name describes the unity that she was taken from man. 

You can also say that according to what we have written that she did not come from a rib without a nefesh and she did not need to be given a soul. That is because she had a soul already potentially within the rib. Concerning this it is said that if the rib was just a chunk of raw meat and she was created to be just like that bone – then she would not have been called isha for the sake of his rib. That is because since she would have been created from a dead limb there is no reason to describe her as similar to him for the sake of dead matter. But this that she was called woman is because she is derived fully from the man. In other words when the rib was taken from him it was not simply a rib - but she was taken as a full entity that was contained in the rib.

Trump - despite clear evidence to the contrary - denies he mocked a disabled reporter

update: Added a video which claims that Trump was not mocking the reporter. I don't agree

This video clearly shows Trump mocking the disabled reporter. Despite his categorical denial of doing so in his attack on actress Meryl Streep  - who said the mocking was disgusting - which it is.

Trumps attack is a familiar technique

NY Times


Under fire after intelligence report, Trump lashes out — at Meryl Streep

The Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night featured a scathing speech by the actress Meryl Streep against Mr. Trump:

“There was one performance this year that stunned me — it sank its hooks in my heart,” Ms. Streep said. “Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth.

“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter,” she said, referring to a speech in 2015 when Mr. Trump shuddered and flailed his arms, appearing to mock a disabled reporter at The New York Times. “It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”

Mr. Trump, in his inimitable way, spoke with Patrick Healy of The Times to respond to that attack — and then took to Twitter.Donald J. Trump

✔

@realDonaldTrump

Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a.....

1:27 PM - 9 Jan 2017

 
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Donald J. Trump 

✔@realDonaldTrump

Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him.......

1:36 PM - 9 Jan 2017

 
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Donald J. Trump 

✔@realDonaldTrump

"groveling" when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!

1:43 PM - 9 Jan 2017

 
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For the record, Mrs. Clinton did not lose big. She won the popular vote by nearly three million votes and lost the presidency by losing Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by about the number of people who cheered the Packers at Lambeau Field on Sunday.

Also for the record, here is the video of his original speech referring to that disabled reporter:Mr. Trump told Mr. Healy that he was “not surprised” that “liberal movie people” were going after him on national television, and he said he “never mocked anyone.”

“People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter’s disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing,” Mr. Trump said in the interview.

“And remember, Meryl Streep introduced Hillary Clinton at her convention, and a lot of these people supported Hillary,” he said, referring to Ms. Streep’s remarks at the Democratic National Convention last summer on behalf of his opponent.

================================

The following video claims he is not mocking the disability because he has used similar expressions regarding non-disabled people. However I don't see that the response is the same and stand by my original assertion that he did in fact mock the disabled reporter.

Trump finally acknowledges that Russia might have meddled in U.S. elections

Meryl Streep voices concern about Trump's bullying and humiliating others

NY Times

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please sit down. Please sit down. Thank you. I love you all. You'll have to forgive me. I've lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this weekend. And I have lost my mind sometime earlier this year. So I have to read.

Thank you, Hollywood foreign press. Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said. You and all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it. Hollywood, foreigners, and the press. But who are we? And, you know, what is Hollywood anyway? It's just a bunch of people from other places.

I was born and raised and created in the public schools of New Jersey. Viola [Davis] was born in a sharecropper's cabin in South Carolina, and grew up in Central falls, Long Island. Sarah Paulson was raised by a single mom in Brooklyn. Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Italy. Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem. Where are their birth certificates? And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Ethiopia, raised in―no, in Ireland, I do believe. And she's here nominated for playing a small town girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people, is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here for playing an Indian raised in Tasmania.

Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. If you kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts. They gave me three seconds to say this. An actor's only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, passionate work.

There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life.

And this instinct to humiliate, when it's modelled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.

This brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage.That's why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution. So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood Foreign Press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the committee to protect journalists. Because we're going to need them going forward. And they'll need us to safeguard the truth.

One more thing. Once when I was standing around on the set one day whining about something, we were going to work through supper, or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me, isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor. Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight.

As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art. Thank you.

Trump replied

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/movies/trump-meryl-streep-golden-globes-speech.html

Donald Trump Casts Intelligence Aside

NY Times

What plausible reason could Donald Trump have for trying so hard to discredit America’s intelligence agencies and their finding that Russia interfered in the presidential election? Maybe he just can’t stand anyone thinking he didn’t, or couldn’t, win the presidency on his own.

Regardless of his motives, the nation’s top intelligence officials were having none of his nonsense on Thursday. In an extraordinary pushback against the president-elect, James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was “even more resolute” in believing that Russia not only hacked the computers of the Democratic National Committee and others but also disseminated classic propaganda, disinformation and fake news.

Flanked by the Pentagon’s top intelligence official and the head of the cyber command, Mr. Clapper acknowledged that the intelligence agencies can at times make mistakes. But he distinguished between presidential skepticism about their findings, which is healthy, and “disparagement” of the professionalism of the agencies, which is perilous for national security.

With his refusal to accept regular intelligence briefings on threats facing this country and his persistent denigration of the intelligence community, Mr. Trump has shown time and again that he worries more about his ego than anything else. He is effectively working to delegitimize institutions whose jobs involve reporting on risks, threats and facts that a president needs to keep the nation safe.

Since last summer, Mr. Trump has dismissed intelligence findings that the Russians were responsible for hacking the Democrats and leaking the emails that were eventually made public by WikiLeaks. In November, when the Central Intelligence Agency went further and concluded that the Russian hacking was intended to favor Mr. Trump, he rejected the finding as “ridiculous,” though he and President Vladimir Putin of Russia have repeatedly expressed a bewildering and alarming mutual admiration.

Since then, President Obama has sanctioned Russia for its interference in the election and his administration has released limited corroborating information while most Democrats and some Republicans in Congress voiced outrage over the Russian role and called for a full investigation. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump and his spokesmen have continued to deny there was any evidence of Russian involvement, and on Wednesday, Mr. Trump proved he could still shock people by embracing Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who has been long reviled by Republicans as an anarchist lawbreaker.

On Twitter, Mr. Trump enthusiastically endorsed Mr. Assange’s insistence that the “Russians did not give him the info” with the leaked emails. This was after Mr. Trump had mocked the intelligence community about a classified briefing he is due to receive on Friday. Given such an attitude, one has to wonder whether Mr. Trump’s plans to reform the intelligence agencies are intended as a vendetta or a serious initiative to make the kinds of meaningful changes that some experts say are needed.[...]

If he ever decides to govern responsibly, Mr. Trump has made his job much more difficult. Having worked so hard to convince the American people that the intelligence community cannot be trusted, what will he tell the country when agents inform him of a clear and present danger?