US intelligence has identified the go-betweens the Russians used to provide stolen emails to WikiLeaks, according to US officials familiar with the classified intelligence report that was presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday.
In a Fox News interview earlier this week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denied that Russia was the source of leaked Democratic emails that roiled the 2016 election to the detriment of President-elect Donald Trump’s rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, US intelligence has received new information following the election that gave agencies increased confidence that Russia carried out the hack and did so, in part, to help Trump win.
Included in that new information were intercepted conversations of Russian officials expressing happiness at Trump’s win. Another official described some of the messages as congratulatory.
President Barack Obama delivered a mandate to Democrats on Wednesday: “Don’t rescue” Republicans on Obamacare.
Less than three weeks out from leaving the White House, Obama visited Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill with a mission to save his signature healthcare reform law as Republicans are moving quickly to unroll the Affordable Care Act.
In the closed-door meeting, the President urged fellow Democrats to not “rescue” Republicans by helping them pass replacement measures, according to sources in the room.
He also floated this idea: Start referring to the GOP’s new plan as “Trumpcare.”
The suggestion was a clear indication of the Democratic Party’s goal of turning the tables on Republicans, who are already facing pressure to quickly craft a replacement bill.
As he walked by a scrum of reporters, Obama would only say this about the Democratic Party’s message: “Look out for the American people.”
Donald Trump called WikiLeaks “disgraceful” and suggested there be a “death penalty” for their actions during a 2010 interview.
Speaking on camera to preview Brian Kilmeade’s radio show, the Fox News anchor brought up the topic of WikiLeaks. At the time, WikiLeaks had published hundreds of thousands of classified documents and videos that were leaked to the organization by Pfc. Chelsea Manning, known at the time as Pfc. Bradley Manning.
“I think it’s disgraceful, I think there should be like death penalty or something,” Trump said during the quick exchange uncovered online by CNN’s KFile.
President Barack Obama sanctioned top Russian officials on Thursday in response to Moscow’s reported hacking during the U.S. presidential election.
“All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions,” the president said in a statement.
Obama’s successor, president-elect Donald Trump, has cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia was responsible for unearthing and releasing material damaging to Trump’s Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On Wednesday, Trump said it was time to “move on” and repeated that he believes it’s impossible to know who targeted Clinton.
But Obama appears committed to proving Russia’s responsibility. His administration wants Congress to receive intelligence reports showing the proof before Trump enters office and is able to call off such investigations. Officials may release some public details on its findings soon, according to The New York Times.
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Sputnik/Kremlin/Alexei Druzhinin/via REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, on Sept. 5, 2016.
In 1996, Purdue Pharma introduced a new painkiller it said carried a low risk of abuse or addiction. It called the drug “OxyContin.”
In reality, of course, OxyContin was extremely addictive — and Purdue knew it. A decade later, three Purdue executives, and the company itself, pleaded guilty to criminal charges tied to OxyContin’s marketing and agreed to pay more than $600 million in fines.
But the executives dodged prison time, and the prosecution did little to slow the rise of opioid use. The pharmaceutical industry had spent the past 10 years and billions of dollars pushing the medical community to ramp up the use of OxyContin and other opioids. By 2013, the number of annual opioid prescriptions, including short term and multiple, had nearly tripled, topping 200 million — in a country of just over 300 million people.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Monday asked the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), to look into President-elect Donald Trump’s financial entanglements and make sure he’s not breaking the law.
“The scope of Mr. Trump’s conflicts of interest around the world is unprecedented,” the 17 Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote. “Over the past two weeks, new revelations have raised serious concerns about the intermingling of Mr. Trump’s businesses and his responsibilities as president.”
Trump’s potential conflicts of interest are staggering, with business interests across the globe and no clear firewall between those businesses and the office of the presidency. Trump had said previously that he would enter into a blind trust, which would require him to sell many of his businesses and be unaware of his holdings, but he’s backed away from those promises. Trump also said he would step away from his dealings and have his children run day-to-day operations. But several of Trump’s children are intimately involved in his political operation ― Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. are all on the presidential transition team ― and simply handing over the businesses to his children wouldn’t disassociate Trump from his enterprises. He still knows what businesses he owns.
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Alex Wong/Getty Images
Committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) waits for the beginning of a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, July 7, 2016.
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President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly offered Republican Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions ― who was rejected as a federal judge in 1986 due to allegations of racist comments ― the position of attorney general.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, 69, would serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official if nominated by Trump and confirmed by his fellow members of the Senate. Sessions, an early Trump backer, is an immigration hard-liner who has been in the Senate since 1997 and previously served as attorney general for the state of Alabama.
Back in the mid-1980s, when Sessions was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, President Ronald Reagan nominated him to become a federal judge. But during the nomination process, allegations emerged that Sessions had called a black attorney “boy,” that he suggested a white civil rights lawyer was a race traitor, that he joked he liked the Ku Klux Klan until he found out they smoked marijuana and that he referred to civil rights groups as “un-American” organizations trying to “force civil rights down the throats of people who were trying to put problems behind them.”
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
President-elect Donald Trump claimed Thursday that he made Ford Motor Co. keep a factory in Kentucky instead of moving it to Mexico.
“Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky – no Mexico,” Trump tweeted.
“I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky,” he said in a follow-up tweet. “I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!”
After the tweets, a spokesman for Ford confirmed the company had reversed its plan to stop making the Lincoln MKC at a plant in Louisville, but the company had never said the plant would close.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
More than a dozen women have accused President-elect Donald Trump of sexual misconduct, ranging from forcible kissing to assault. Many Americans who did not support Trump’s candidacy have grappled with shock since his election. But for these women, his win is also deeply personal.
“I’ve gone out with my girlfriends and had a pinch or a grab here and there, and I’d turn around and they were gone. But I turned around and it was Trump,” said Mindy McGillivray, who claims that Trump groped her at his Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, when she was 23.
McGillivray told The Huffington Post that in her eyes, Trump is a “habitual offender,” one whose behavior could affect his presidency. “I hope it doesn’t, because this is who we’re stuck with, and in my heart, I want to forgive and move on,” she said.
Elizabeth Warren delivered a blunt message to a large group of wealthy liberal donors Monday, arguing that the Democratic Party’s failure to connect with working and middle-class people had opened the door for Donald Trump to win the presidency.
Warren, according to sources in the room, ran through a litany of issues on which Democrats had left people behind, either by offering too little or nothing at all. Perhaps her most surprising criticism was directed at the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
The Massachusetts senator, who walked in to a standing ovation before she’d even been introduced, told the bereft gathering that she was as capable as any other politician at defending Obamacare and rattled off its benefits ― no more exclusions based on pre-existing conditions, you can stay on your parents’ plan until age 26, 20 million Americans covered. “But let’s be honest: It’s not bold. It’s not transformative,” she added.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) says Democrats should have acknowledged the problems with Obamacare and promised to improve it.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
James' World 2 