A deep philosophical question to ponder for the next 1,461 days or so.

What’s a body to do (like the American Body Politic), when the Boss is so Stupid, he doesn’t even know how Stupid he is? Really.

Trump is back to obsessing on the now established Russian Spy Hacking Scandal (ongoing 2015-2017) and how it might tarnish his massive election victory, as if that is a high priority for America in the years to come.

Classic Trump: I’m Not Buying It Frown & Hip Thrust, New York 01/06/17

On Saturday morning he started in again with a TwitTinado roiling reiteration of his favorite talking points. Naturally, ans as expected within 140-characters,large fonts and no facts prevail.

This story and Trump’s tantrum are obviously not going away any time so, so we have only snapshot glances for now, through a red glass darkly.

Let’s try to examine just two of the most recent examples today, from the Great Man’s capacious cranial vault

Exhibit Number #1:

Here’s Trump’s Truth from the first of five Twits today on Russia, released to the world bright and early at 3:56 AM. Or, perhaps Trump was still so not buying his intelligence briefing yesterday he never got to sleep last night.

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 11h11 hours ago

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

So there, losers and haters!.

Here’s what the unanimous U.S. intelligence report (unclassified public summary), released Friday afternoon actually says (page 1):*

We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome 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.

Pretty straightforward statement by the Intelligence Boys. Standard English language phrasing, complete sentences, written by a native American English language speaker.

So what’s with Trump Does he have a cold or an ear infection? At age 70, does he have presbycusis, and need a hearing aid? Was he distracted by his intense focus on monitoring of the Fort Lauderdale shooting incident during his Russian briefing? Did he suffer a senior moment, and experience a brief episode of amnesia?

Did Trump have a TIA zone out during that part of the conversation with James Clapper (DNI) and the FBI, and CIA? Did his attention wander from residual childhood ADHA symptoms? Was he just bored and uninterested, because his gut had already given him the answers.

After all, he had clearly signaled he was holding the meeting as a forced courtesy, and to shut up his aides, who said his previously announced certainty about Russian non-interference was not playing well in the ether. Who cared about public reaction, Trump’s the Boss and he can always rub their stomachs for calm. But the pesky 52 Republican Senators can be very annoying if they decide to sit on their haunches.

Unfortunately the briefing was Friday at 1 PM and Trump’s mischaracterization occurred just about 12 hours later. So, Trump on Saturday couldn’t (or wouldn’t) accurately summarize what he was told face to face the day before.

Exhibit Number #2:

From Trump’s last Twit effort at 8 PM Friday evening.

Gross negligence by the Democratic National Committee allowed hacking to take place. The Republican National Committee had strong defense!

This is a continuation of the theme championed by Trump, and amplified by acolytes such as Reince (formerly Head of RNC, now White House Chief of Staff to be) that Democrats are stupid, while Republicans are so smart. The Russians couldn’t hack Republican campaign systems, only sloppy, negligent Democrats. It’s their own fault, so the Trump gut got it right all along, again. No Russian interference, Republicans are cyber warriors Supreme. That’s what Trump says. Here are some inconvenient facts to the contrary. Not secret, and not hard to find, if you actually look for the truth.

Here is what The Smoking Gun (TSG) had to say about the 2015-2016 hacking episodes this past summer, before Trump won anything (August 12).**

And while Democrats may appear to be the only crime victims, TSG has learned that numerous prominent Republicans and GOP groups have also been targeted. These hacking victims include John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Michele Bachmann, various state Republican parties, as well as assorted GOP candidates, PACs, and consultants.

As with Rinehart, none of the Republican victims contacted by TSG was aware that their web sites and e-mail servers had been compromised at some point in the past year.

DC Leaks, the site houses a hodgepodge of stolen e-mails offering fresh evidence of the scope and targets of the recent political hacking campaign.

A “portfolio” titled “The United States Republican Party” contains about 300 e-mails that were sent during a five-month period ending in late-October 2015.

A review of that correspondence shows that a wide variety of GOP e-mail accounts have been breached. The victims range from staffers for Senator John McCain’s campaign committee to a candidate running for State Senate in Virginia. Officials with four state Republican party organizations–Wyoming, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Illinois–had correspondence stolen. E-mails to the campaign committees of Senator Lindsey Graham, Rep. Robert Hurt, and former Rep. Michele Bachmann were also swiped. E-mails from Campaign Solutions, a leading Republican consulting firm, and the Stop Hillary PAC were pilfered.

None of the victims contacted by TSG–including the McCain campaign and the Connecticut GOP, were aware of the e-mail hacking.

Since it seemed unlikely that hackers would target such a wide array of individual Republican web sites and e-mail servers, TSG reviewed the DC Leaks “portfolio” in search of a common thread. That analysis revealed that the victimized campaigns, state parties, PACs, and businesses all contracted with the same Tennessee web hosting outfit.

The firm, Smartech, and its parent, AirNet Group, are major providers of data services, call centers, and web hosting for scores of Republican clients. Since the 2008 federal election cycle, the Republican National Committee has paid the companies more than $10.5 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The firms have done work for a Who’s Who of GOP figures, including Karl Rove, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and the Koch brothers.

A review of the domains on a single Smartech server in Chattanooga shows that nine of the sites whose e-mails were compromised are housed on that server.

Jeff Averbeck, Airnet’s CEO, did not respond to voicemail messages left by TSG, as well as an e-mail seeking comment on what seems to be a significant security breakdown at the company.

From Defense One (December 13, 2016):***

The argument that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee to help Donald Trump become president — put forward in a Friday story in the New York Times — rests in part on the assertion that the Kremlin-backed FANCY BEAR group hit the DNC’s Republican counterpart as well. If Moscow stole emails from both groups but leaked only Democratic ones, the argument goes, it shows that the Kremlin was aiming to put Trump in the White House.

The RNC has been pushing back against the assertions. Reince Priebus, its current chair and Trump’s pick for White House chief of staff, said over the weekend that the GOP organization had not been hacked.

On Monday, RNC spokesperson Sean Spicer denounced the allegation. “I know that we have worked with intelligence agencies right now that are saying that we have not been hacked,” he shouted at CNN’s Michael Smerconish. “Our own systems show that we have not been hacked.”

But in September, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have not only hacked into the DNC but also into the RNC….the Russians have basically hacked into both parties at the national level, and that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.” Several days later, McCaul said that he misspoke.

And the Kremlin-linked FANCY BEAR group is known to have stolen emails from other Republican individuals and groups. In June, emails stolen from several GOP Senate leaders, including John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., were published them on a site called DCLeaks. The site also published emails belonging to Republican public action committees and consultants.

In August, cybersecurity company ThreatConnect linked DCLeaks to FANCY BEAR. In October, so did the Office of the National Director of Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security in a statement.

ThreatConnect’s senior threat intelligence researcher, Kyle Ehmke, said, “We cannot speak to Priebus’ claims nor have we been contacted by the RNC or Airnet with respect to this issue, so we do not have any internal knowledge of the issue. However, the inclusion of dozens of Republican party-related emails on the FANCY BEAR faketivist site DCLeaks suggest that the Republican party was also targeted by FANCY BEAR operations. The emails that are in the Republican-related post on DCLeaks fall in the 6/9/2015 to 10/26/2015 timeframe and were posted on 6/4/2016 to DCLeaks.”

There is another “common thread” besides the timing, according to reporting by the website The Smoking Gun. In August, TSG reported that “the victimized [GOP] campaigns, state parties, PACs, and businesses all contracted with the same Tennessee web hosting outfit. The firm, Smartech, and its parent, AirNet Group, are major providers of data services, call centers, and web hosting for scores of Republican clients.”

TSG reported that the RNC had paid AirNet more than $10 million since 2008.

AirNet did not respond to multiple calls or emails from either the Smoking Gun or, more recently, from Defense One.

A representative from the RNC would say only that the committee had sought out a third-party vendor to help with cybersecurity. But CrowdStrike confirmed to Defense One it was not them.

Airnet’s website features a prominent endorsement from the RNC on its homepage: “From site hosting and web engineering design, server colocation, bandwidth resources…to database engineering, Airnet has been an all encompassing, intelligent technology provider and knowledge resource for the RNC.”

Logo of Russian Intelligence False Front Misinformation Web Site in U.S.

About DC Leaks from Wikipedia:

DC Leaks is a website that was established in June 2016. Since its inception, it has been responsible for publishing leaks of emails belonging to multiple prominent figures in the United States government and military. The site is thought by president Obama and his administration, to be a part of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.

While creators of the DC Leaks describe themselves as “American hacktivists”, cybersecurity research firm ThreatConnect concluded that the site is likely linked to Russian persona Guccifer 2.0 and the GRU hacker group Fancy Bear.

According to the DC Leaks site’s “About” page, their aim is “to find out and tell you the truth about U.S. decision-making process [sic] as well as about the key elements of American political life.” Of themselves, they say that they were launched by “the American hacktivists who respect and appreciate freedom of speech, human rights and government of the people.”

While DC Leaks claims to be American-run, cybersecurity research firm ThreatConnect concluded in their analysis that the project shows the hallmarks of Russian intelligence, matching the attack pattern of the GRU hacker group Fancy Bear.

The domain name dcleaks.com was registered on April 19, 2016. The dcleaks.com website was launched in June 2016.

On August 12, 2016, DC Leaks released roughly 300 emails from Republican targets, including the 2016 campaign staff of Arizona Senator John McCain, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, and 2012 presidential candidate and former Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann. The release included 18 emails from the Illinois Republican Party.

Intelligence Integration

It would be safe to bet a reasonable sum (say, a months rent) that Cyber Savant-in-Charge Trump did not know who or what Guccifer 2.0, FANCY BEAR, DC Leaks, or the AirNet Group are or do.

Cover Page of U.S. Intelligence Report (Unclassified Summary) January 6, 2017

The public version of the U.S. Intelligence briefing cited, by name, the following Soviet state actors and organizations involved in the Russian campaign misinformation campaign: Guccifer 2.0, FANCY BEAR, DC Leaks, GRU (Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate), RT America ($200 million annual Kremlin financing) and Sputnik, media outlets, and SVR Directorate S (Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) officers arrested in the United States in 2010).

It doesn’t really matter. Trump has Julian Assange to make him feel comfortable with his gut. And like Bush II before him, Trump can look Putin in the eye (on TV, of course, since they have never met in person) and see deeply into his soul to read the essential goodness of the man.

Despite Reince and Donald’s fervent beliefs, Republicans were hacked by the Russian in 2015 and 2016.

The list includes, that we know of:

  • Senator John McCain (R-AZ), campaign staff
  • Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), campaign committee
  • U.S. Representative Robert Hurt (R-VA, retired 2017)
  • Former U.S. Representative Michele Bachman (R-MN)
  • Republican State Committee- Wyoming
  • Republican State Committee- Connecticut
  • Republican State Committee-Rhode Island
  • Republican State Committee’ Illinois
  • AirNet Group, a $!0 million Republican Web Hosting and Technology Knowledge Source for the RNC since 2008)
  • Campaign Solutions, Republican Consulting Firm
  • Stop Hillary PAC
  • Unnamed Republican Candidate for Virginia State Senate

It is true that Trump has never had any foreign intelligence training, no professional work experience among America’s Spooks; never acquired any clandestine expertise in foreign intelligence as a result of his various business ventures over 50 years; hasn’t read any substantial material on the methods, and sources and issues of professional spy craft; so far as we know, doesn’t read popular espionage thrillers for fun and cheap learning; and hasn’t bothered to keep up with the actual Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefings available and urged on him since November 8th, that might have educated him a bit.

What we do have in Trump is a blank, rock-like slate, devoid of impression and form, obdurate in yielding to modification by evolving circumstances, and densely impervious to admitting light.

Early on, for a subject so important as U.S. Russian intelligence matters, there was a ray of hop for America’s Body Politic in Trump’s senior outside advisors.

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI, 2001-2015), Head of the National Security Transition Team for Trump, was kicked off the job November 15, 2016. Then Senior Advisor former CIA director James Woolsey quits Trump transition team on Thursday, January 5th. James Clapper, Current DNI, has already submitted his resignation effective at noon on January 20, 2017, as he does not choose to work for Trump even for one hour.

Trump’s primary intelligence and national security Transition advisory team now consists of Mike Flynn, a former military intelligence officer, removed from his last military intelligence posting by his boss for work non-performance issues. On January 20th, unschooled and intelligence virgin Trump begins with no DNI supervising a U.S. intelligence budget of $52 billion per year. A replacement DNI nomination requires Senate Confirmation. Flynn, as designated National Security Advisor, does not need confirmation, so he can start work on Day 1, but he can’t spend the money or run the Agencies specifically under the DNI’s direction, which make up the greatest part of U.S. spy work expertise and expense, devoted to keep our country safe.

Why does Trump keep stumbling so badly on Russian interference in America’s election process, a subject which won’t just stop with Trump’s admonitions about just moving on? Just move on isn’t going to cut it. Surely, Trump is a patriotic American, ,according to his own lights, however much others disagree with his judgments and course of action. Surely, Trump doesn’t mean to be Putin’s dupe, or be played for a fool in front of the whole world watching this dance.

Part of Trump’s resistance may be bruised ego and desire for revenge against those he perceives as internal enemies for his less than resounding political election win. Some may be related to his high-stakes geopolitical naiveté. Part of it may be related to his life-long abhorrence to admitting a mistake or misinterpretation, however trivial, as forcing a stain on his own character.****

What to Do?

Americans can only hope and pray for Trump that this peculiar behavior is not the result of some simmering health issue age related to aging that will only become more serious and progressive as the weeks of his Administration pass by.

I earnestly hope that his distressing overreliance on juvenile Twitter tirades represents some sort of controlled acting-out as a political calculation, and not the truest measure of his mental functioning.

We all know that a precocious mind can hide in a juvenile body. We know the reverse can also occur. There is a reason we have a constitutional lower age limit to run for President of the U.S.

At the time the stricture was enacted, everyone assumed the chronobiology and unitary mental function of body and mind of the candidates would be roughly in sync. No one thought to address the consequences if this assumption proved faulty.

Alfred E. Neuman For President, “Truthful Absurdity” A Slogan for the Ages*****

We don’t need a mental 12-year old in a mature 70-year body structure. A sort of modern day movie remake of the 1988 Tom Hanks vehicle, Big, but without the charm and humor.

There is certainly no definitive proof that Trump is not in control of his full faculties. But he is the oldest man ever to assume the office. He bests Reagan by about 8 months, and is the only President aged more than 70 to begin office. In the last 100 years, Reagan and Trump are the oldest by more than 5 years over any others.

Of course, Reagan went on to serve two full terms in office. Questions about his fitness to serve were not hidden under the carpet. There is some published medical data from linguistic analysis that Mr. Reagan began to show some detectable effects of decreased mental performance by the beginning of his second term, particularly under conditions if high stress, like the 1984 Presidential debates with Walter Mondale (D). Control analysis of George Bush 1, who was only 5 years younger than Reagan at the time, did not show such progression. This is not indisputable proof, nor a perfect experimental contrast, but the results are striking nonetheless.

The job of President is a killer and premature aging multiplier, with unimaginable stress loads for a person even in excellent health and tip-top physical condition. Trump is not number one in either of those categories. One can only hope, for the sake of Mr. Trump’s personal well-being, and that of his wife and young son, that he will not not affected beyond bearing by his new job responsibilities.

The only thing more important than that genuine personal wish for Trump’s health, is that America’s national health and safety and its good governance are even higher priorities for all of us to be concerned about.

So, what’s a Body to do?

America is still the land of opportunity and endless hope. You can curl up in a ball under the covers. You can cancel your Internet ISP monthly contract. You can ask for or make yourself a Jack & Coke (or two). You can jog 10-miles every day to stay so dog-tired, it’s all a wash. You can play on-line poker 24-hours per day.

A Serving of Russia’s Borscht, with Sour Cream, on A Blue China Soup Plate

You can vote in the small elections: school board, mayor, zoning commissioner. You could learn to speak Russian fluently, and eat borscht in abundance. You could move off the grid. You could drown yourself in conspicuous consumption to match the Trumpian standards of consumer excellence. You could stand at the edge of your town and waiting for 20,000 new coal miner jobs to come back real soon.

You can read the Bible and seek heavenly guidance. You can arm yourself for the coming showdown. You can stock you root cellar with 6-months of potable water supplies, food rations. toilet paper, and batteries. You can buy a compact Ford or Toyota before the 35% tax is imposed. You could start an adventure travel expeditions business along the Texas-Arizona/Mexico border to guide tourists who want to see the Big Beautiful Mexican Wall get built this year.

You can raid your kids’ piggy banks, dig under the couch cushions, and start to gather recyclable cans for the nickel deposits to save up for the wonderful new Republican Health Insurance Plan they are about to drop on your head any time. You could move to Canada, before the Canucks wake up and impose immigration restrictions on unhappy Americans. You can go fishing. Yoga is here to stay.

This practical and helpful list could go on for pages. You could just lean back, relax, and luxuriate in the true and certain knowledge that Trump will do just what he promised, just how he promised, and just when he promised, and everything will be all right as Trump presides majestically over MAGA.

Maybe Putin will have a personality transplant, or Donald will so dazzle the Russian military, spy services, and state apparatchiks with Trump’s superior brand of BS, that Putin gives up, bleeding from the ears, and screaming, “No Mas, senor! No Mas!”

Yeah, that ought to do it.

May God Bless America, and Keep Her Safe in 2017.

We’ll let Peter, Paul, and Mary have the final musical word on the subject.

Peter, Paul & Mary Sing “If I Had A Hammer” (1963)

Peter, Paul & Mary Sing “If I Had A Hammer” Newport Jazz Fest (1965)

*Excerpt from “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” (January 6, 2017):

Scope and Sourcing

Information available as of 29 December 2016 was used in the preparation of this product.

Scope

This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies. It covers the motivation and scope of Moscow’s intentions regarding US elections and Moscow’s use of cyber tools and media campaigns to influence US public opinion. The assessment focuses on activities aimed at the 2016 US presidential election and draws on our understanding of previous Russian influence operations. When we use the term “we” it refers to an assessment by all three agencies.

 This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment. This document’s conclusions are identical to the highly classified assessment, but this document does not include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence on key elements of the influence campaign. Given the redactions, we made minor edits purely for readability and flow.

We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome 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.

 New information continues to emerge, providing increased insight into Russian activities.

**More Complete Excerpt from The Smoking Gun:

And while Democrats may appear to be the only crime victims, TSG has learned that numerous prominent Republicans and GOP groups have also been targeted. These hacking victims include John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Michele Bachmann, various state Republican parties, as well as assorted GOP candidates, PACs, and consultants.

As with Rinehart, none of the Republican victims contacted by TSG was aware that their web sites and e-mail servers had been compromised at some point in the past year.

Several security groups have theorized that “Guccifer 2.0” is a Russian invention, a hype man tasked with publicizing criminal acts that were actually committed by skilled government hacking groups. While he has described himself in e-mails as an “unknown hacker with a laptop” and a foe of “all the illuminati and rich clans which try to rule the governments,” “Guccifer 2.0” has acted more like a press flack, promising “exclusives” and pushing journalists to do stories based on stolen documents carrying little news value.

In reviewing e-mails sent by “Guccifer 2.0”–including 25 messages provided by TSG–researchers with ThreatConnect, a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm, determined that he usually connected to a series of burner e-mail accounts via a Russian virtual private network (VPN) as a way of masking his identity. On three occasions, “Guccifer 2.0” made contact with TSG via a Miami, Florida IP address connected to the Russia-based Elite VPN service. ThreatConnect, which has investigated the recent hacking spree, today published a new analysis of developments on that felonious front.

But instead of attaching the documents to an e-mail or providing a download link to a file sharing site (as he had previously done), “Guccifer 2.0” told TSG that the material would be available through DC Leaks, a web site he described as a “sub project” of Wikileaks. In fact, DC Leaks has no connection at all with Wikileaks or Julian Assange.

When “Guccifer 2.0” wrote in late-June to introduce TSG to DC Leaks, the web site had barely been online for three weeks, according to tracking data. The DC Leaks Twitter and Facebook accounts debuted on June 8, the day that the site itself appears to have launched. While nobody else had heard of DC Leaks, “Guccifer 2.0” had somehow not only discovered the site, but had privileges that allowed him to provide TSG with access to a password-protected section of the site.

On its “About” page, DC Leaks describes itself as a “new level project” committed to exposing “Wall Street fat cats, industrial barons and multinational corporations’ representatives who swallow up all resources and subjugate all markets.”

While the DC Leaks proprietors claim to be “American hacktivists,” the site includes some odd phrasings. Hillary Clinton is identified as “the most probable candidate for the President of the Democratic Party,” while a collection of campaign newsclips is described as “media reports from Hillary Clinton’s electional staff.”

According to domain records, the dcleaks.com address was registered in mid-April via a small web hosting company in Romania. The site itself traces back to an IP address in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In a series of e-mails over the past week, DC Leaks has corresponded with TSG via a Gmail account in the name of “Steve Wanders.”

Since being provided a password by “Guccifer 2.0,” TSG has monitored DC Leaks for further evidence that the site is being used as a cut-out for the cabal behind the DNC hacking and the “spear phishing” directed at Clinton campaign workers.

While the e-mails and documents stolen from Soros and Breedlove have gotten some press coverage for DC Leaks, the site houses a hodgepodge of stolen e-mails offering fresh evidence of the scope and targets of the recent political hacking campaign.

A “portfolio” titled “The United States Republican Party” contains about 300 e-mails that were sent during a five-month period ending in late-October 2015.

A review of that correspondence shows that a wide variety of GOP e-mail accounts have been breached. The victims range from staffers for Senator John McCain’s campaign committee to a candidate running for State Senate in Virginia. Officials with four state Republican party organizations–Wyoming, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Illinois–had correspondence stolen. E-mails to the campaign committees of Senator Lindsey Graham, Rep. Robert Hurt, and former Rep. Michele Bachmann were also swiped. E-mails from Campaign Solutions, a leading Republican consulting firm, and the Stop Hillary PAC were pilfered.

None of the victims contacted by TSG–including the McCain campaign and the Connecticut GOP, were aware of the e-mail hacking.

Since it seemed unlikely that hackers would target such a wide array of individual Republican web sites and e-mail servers, TSG reviewed the DC Leaks “portfolio” in search of a common thread. That analysis revealed that the victimized campaigns, state parties, PACs, and businesses all contracted with the same Tennessee web hosting outfit.

The firm, Smartech, and its parent, AirNet Group, are major providers of data services, call centers, and web hosting for scores of Republican clients. Since the 2008 federal election cycle, the Republican National Committee has paid the companies more than $10.5 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The firms have done work for a Who’s Who of GOP figures, including Karl Rove, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and the Koch brothers.

A review of the domains on a single Smartech server in Chattanooga shows that nine of the sites whose e-mails were compromised are housed on that server. Oddly, that server also includes the web site for comedian Stephen Colbert’s super PAC. Defunct since 2012, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow still maintains a home page with a photo of “Ham Rove,” its late “advisor and chief strategist.”

Jeff Averbeck, Airnet’s CEO, did not respond to voicemail messages left by TSG, as well as an e-mail seeking comment on what seems to be a significant security breakdown at the company.

The firm’s web site notes that it understands “the delicacy of your data and importance of meeting your security comfort levels.” That delicate data is safeguarded, the company assures, with “security features including triple layered authentication, 24X7 monitoring, and re-enforced concrete walls, redundant power grids.”

***More Complete Excerpt from Defense One (December 13, 2016):

The argument that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee to help Donald Trump become president — put forward in a Friday story in the New York Times — rests in part on the assertion that the Kremlin-backed FANCY BEAR group hit the DNC’s Republican counterpart as well. If Moscow stole emails from both groups but leaked only Democratic ones, the argument goes, it shows that the Kremlin was aiming to put Trump in the White House.

Is it true? No direct evidence has yet publicly emerged show that the Russian actors hit the RNC. But if the theory holds, that’s the point.

A Washington Post story on Monday repeated the Times claim, reporting that a senior FBI counterintelligence official told congressional officials last week that Republican systems had been targeted. The Post reported that the FBI official also “acknowledg[ed] the apparent imbalance in damage done to Democrats, but refrain[ed] from assigning a pro-Trump motive to the Kremlin.”

The RNC has been pushing back against the assertions. Reince Priebus, its current chair and Trump’s pick for White House chief of staff, said over the weekend that the GOP organization had not been hacked.

On Monday, RNC spokesperson Sean Spicer denounced the allegation. “I know that we have worked with intelligence agencies right now that are saying that we have not been hacked,” he shouted at CNN’s Michael Smerconish. “Our own systems show that we have not been hacked.”

But in September, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have not only hacked into the DNC but also into the RNC….the Russians have basically hacked into both parties at the national level, and that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.” Several days later, McCaul said that he misspoke.

And the Kremlin-linked FANCY BEAR group is known to have stolen emails from other Republican individuals and groups. In June, emails stolen from several GOP Senate leaders, including John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., were published them on a site called DCLeaks. The site also published emails belonging to Republican public action committees and consultants.

In August, cybersecurity company ThreatConnect linked DCLeaks to FANCY BEAR. In October, so did the Office of the National Director of Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security in a statement.

ThreatConnect’s senior threat intelligence researcher, Kyle Ehmke, said, “We cannot speak to Priebus’ claims nor have we been contacted by the RNC or Airnet with respect to this issue, so we do not have any internal knowledge of the issue. However, the inclusion of dozens of Republican party-related emails on the FANCY BEAR faketivist site DCLeaks suggest that the Republican party was also targeted by FANCY BEAR operations. The emails that are in the Republican-related post on DCLeaks fall in the 6/9/2015 to 10/26/2015 timeframe and were posted on 6/4/2016 to DCLeaks.”

There is another “common thread” besides the timing, according to reporting by the website The Smoking Gun. In August, TSG reported that “the victimized [GOP] campaigns, state parties, PACs, and businesses all contracted with the same Tennessee web hosting outfit. The firm, Smartech, and its parent, AirNet Group, are major providers of data services, call centers, and web hosting for scores of Republican clients.”

TSG reported that the RNC had paid AirNet more than $10 million since 2008.

AirNet did not respond to multiple calls or emails from either the Smoking Gun or, more recently, from Defense One.

A representative from the RNC would say only that the committee had sought out a third-party vendor to help with cybersecurity. But CrowdStrike confirmed to Defense One it was not them

Airnet’s website features a prominent endorsement from the RNC on its homepage: “From site hosting and web engineering design, server colocation, bandwidth resources…to database engineering, Airnet has been an all encompassing, intelligent technology provider and knowledge resource for the RNC.”

Another thick strand in the rope of Trump’s amazingly persistent resistance to accepting the consensus view of America’s spy experts, may be his excessive fondness for the shiny bauble conspiracy theory spinning Breitbart News website, renowned for its ever vigilant, splashy, trashy, fake news and rumor amplification system, As everyone knows by now, Steve Bannon of Breitbart will sit at the right hand of the President in the Trump White House, as Chief Strategist. How Bannon will fare with Kellyanne and Reince in the same rarified Presidential work zip code and the Oval Office elbow thrusting contest, will be a hot topic for months to come.

****Here is a December Breitbart piece from these sparkling misdirectors, on the non-significance of Russian hacking in America in 2016:

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that, according to anonymous U.S. officials (who are still driving the entire “election hacking” story with unsubstantiated leaks, on a daily basis), Russian hackers tried to hit the Republican National Committee as well as the Democrats, but were foiled by superior RNC security.

The Journal then quotes another group of anonymous “people close to the investigation” who said the hackers’ failure to penetrate RNC servers “indicated a less aggressive and much less persistent effort by Russian intelligence to hack the Republican group than the Democratic National Committee.” In the end, the hackers were able to harvest only a single email from a “long-departed RNC staffer.”

“The possibility that Russians tried and failed to infiltrate the RNC doesn’t necessarily conflict with the CIA’s conclusion. A senior U.S. official said analysts now believe what started as an information-gathering campaign aimed at both parties later took on a focus of leaked emails about Mrs. Clinton and Democrats,” the Wall Street Journal adds later in its article, without making it clear which anonymous official offered that opinion.

As the Wall Street Journal goes on to report, the RNC was targeted with the exact same kind of phishing emails that worked on the DNC, but RNC security dealt with them so effectively that staff members “didn’t realize they had been the target of spies until June, after Democratic committee leaders revealed that hackers had successfully gained a foothold inside their networks.” The RNC’s filters shot those phishing emails down before staffers even saw them.

*****Mad Magazine’s iconic Alfred E, Neuman, cover boy and spokesmodel, the face of the magazine. If Trump can aspire to be President, the Time is Right for Alfred.

Here is a YouTube video record of the history of AEN.