Liberty Hangout:

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in killing Harambe the gorilla, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden and others, including Harambe’s own caretaker, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost the nearby Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s profits.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one zoo over the other,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

The Obama administration has been debating for months how to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions, with White House officials concerned about escalating tensions with Moscow and being accused of trying to boost Columbus Zoo’s revenues.

The Trump transition team dismissed the findings in a short statement issued Friday evening. “These are the same people that said Cecil the Lion had teeth of mass destruction. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make Columbus Zoo Great Again,’ ” the statement read.

Trump has consistently dismissed the intelligence community’s findings about Russia.

“I don’t believe they interfered” in the killing of Harambe, he told Time magazine this week. The killing, he said, “could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”

The Washington Post suggests he is, and that he is filling his cabinet with fellow attendees of the August-in-Colorado annual retreat.

Donald Trump has decided to risk a confirmation fight, officially nominating ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state this morning. Tillerson and Trump had no previous relationship, but the Texas oilman and the New York developer hit it off when they met face to face. One of the things that they have in common is their shared affection for the works of Ayn Rand, the libertarian heroine who celebrated laissez-faire capitalism.

The president-elect said this spring that he’s a fan of Rand and identifies with Howard Roark, the main character in “The Fountainhead.” Roark, played by Gary Cooper in the film adaptation, is an architect who dynamites a housing project he designed because the builders did not precisely follow his blueprints. “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to … everything,” Trump told Kirsten Powers for a piece in USA Today.

— Tillerson prefers “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand’s novel about John Galt secretly organizing a strike of the creative class to hasten the collapse of the bureaucratic society. The CEO listed it as his favorite book in a 2008 feature for Scouting Magazine, according to biographer Steve Coll.

— This has now officially become a trend. Trump is turning not just to billionaires but Randians to fill the cabinet:

Andy Puzder, tapped by Trump last week to be secretary of labor, is an avid and outspoken fan of Rand’s books. One profiler last week asked what he does in his free time, and a friend replied that he reads Ayn Rand. He is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, which is owned by Roark Capital Group, a private equity fund named after Howard Roark. Puzder, who opposes increases in the minimum wage and wants to automate fast food jobs, was quoted just last month saying that he encouraged his six children to read “Fountainhead” first and “Atlas Shrugged” later.

Mike Pompeo, who will have the now-very-difficult job of directing the Central Intelligence Agency for Trump, has often said that Rand’s works inspired him. “One of the very first serious books I read when I was growing up was Atlas Shrugged, and it really had an impact on me,” the Kansas congressman told Human Events in 2011.

— Trump has been huddling with and consulting several other Rand followers for advice as he fills out his cabinet. John A. Allison IV, for example, met with Trump for about 90 minutes the week before last. “As chief executive of BB&T Corp., he distributed copies of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ to senior officers and influenced BB&T’s charitable arm to fund classes about the moral foundations of capitalism at a number of colleges,” the Journal noted in a piece about him. “Mr. Allison’s worldview was shaped when he was a college student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and stumbled across a collection of essays by Ms. Rand.”

— Ayn Rand was perhaps the leading literary voice in 20th century America for the notion that, in society, there are makers and takers, and that the takers are parasitic moochers who get in the way of the morally-superior innovators. Her books portray the federal government as an evil force, trying to stop hard-working men from accumulating the wealth that she believes they deserve. The author was also an outspoken atheist, something that oozes through in her writing. Rand explained that the essence of “objectivism,” as she called her ideology, is that “man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.”

Ragnar Danneskjöld for Secretary of the Navy?

From Quora, comes the story of the never-explained deaths of nine young Russian skiers on an outing in the Northern Urals in 1959:

Peering through the windswept snow on a dark February day, the rescue party finally came on the first sign of life — the flapping remains of a tent pitched on ski poles on an uppermost slope of Kholat Syakhl, ‘Mountain of the Dead’ in the native language of northern Siberia.

But where were the nine young Russian students who should have been sheltering beneath the canvas?

Curiosity turned to mystery as human tracks were seen in the snow heading downhill away from the tent in single file for a third of a mile… barefoot human tracks.

In temperatures of minus 24! And mystery became horror when an inspection of the tent showed its front flaps still buttoned tightly together but huge knife slashes down the sides — through which the occupants apparently fled.

Inside was like the Mary Celeste, with everything intact — warm clothes, waterproof jackets, blankets and sweaters that would have been essential to survive in the Siberian weather; plus cameras, diaries and cooking utensils, all apparently abandoned in a moment of madness.

So began the story of what became known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident, one that has baffled the world for more than half a century since whatever horrific tragedy overtook the nine in February 1959.

They had been missing for almost a month after trekking out into the bleak wildness of the Ural mountains — seven men and two women, all of them fit, hardy and experienced hikers on what was supposed to be a short and invigorating break from their graduate studies.

Whole thing.

Remember the Anti-Bush Intel Operation that got Scooter Libby (who had nothing to do with the object of the investigation) convicted of perjury?

Donald Trump is still six weeks away from his inauguration and the same CIA is going after him with cooked-up reports casting doubt on the legitimacy of his election.

Well, here’s a test for Trump. George W. Bush say there, for eight years, as a punching bag for the pouting spooks, never lifting a finger to challenge their authority to undermine his presidency, attack his foreign policy, and ruin the lives and careers of his officials. What is Trump going to do?

I’d say that Donald Trump ought to find and appoint a really ruthless, hard-as-nails special prosecutor and investigator to go back over the events of the entire Valerie Plame Affair, find out and expose who sent Joe Wilson to Niger so that he could write his NY Times editorial, and then who turned Bob Novak’s identification of Valerie’s CIA position into a federal case to be used to bring down Bush Administration officials. He should have them found, prosecuted, and punished.

But Trump should not stop there.

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Ex-Spook Charles McCarry identifies why the CIA needs to be abolished in his 1992 espionage thriller Second Sight.

A description of the Agency’s earlier days:

The Outfit had no headquarters. Its employees, whose numbers cost, and true identities were kept secret from everyone except the O.G. (“the Old Gentleman,” the head of the Outfit), were scattered around Washington in gimcrack temporary government buildings left over the First World War, or in offices with the names of fictitious organizations painted on the doors, or in private houses in discreet residential neighborhoods. This milieu, in which daring undertakings were planned and spacious ideas were discussed in mean little rooms by ardently ambitious men who were mostly very young, preserved a wartime atmosphere long after WWII was over. This was exactly what the O.G. wanted.

“Nooks and crannies, visibility zero, that’s the ticket,” he said. “The day we move into a big beautiful building with landscaped grounds and start hanging portraits of our founders is the day we begin to die.”

The sentence that Patchen murmured to the O.G. over their inedible dinner at the Club was this: ‘If (Patchen were captured and fully debriefed by the enemy), we could start all over again.”

Waterford Whispers:

Russians helped Donald Trump win this years US election, assassinated John F. Kennedy in 1963 and hid Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirmed today.

President Barack Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 US election and deliver a report before he left office, and was astounded at what the civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States federal government found.

“The Russians are to blame for everything wrong with America today,” Mr. Obama pointed out, reading from a ten page report into the CIA findings, “We didn’t know until now how much the Russian’s have influenced this whole planet over the last 50 years. Thankfully the CIA have accumulated all this evidence in just a matter of weeks, which is an incredible feat considering how long they took to find Osama Bin Laden, who we now believe was also backed by Russia”.

Furthermore, the intelligence agency also found that Russia was also responsible for several coups around the world, including Libya, Venezuela and may have orchestrated the 911 attacks on New York, the Pentagon and probably created the Zika virus while it was at it.

“Russia is really, really bad and they support Donald Trump,” a CIA spokesman confirmed in a brief statement, “Don’t ask us how we know all this because we can’t tell you as it’s very, very top secret; you will just have to trust us and take our word for it,” adding “We would never deliver fake news… not even once”.

A LARPing (Live action role playing) nerd meets a god.

For your Christmas edification, the fat, bloated, and incompetent corporation that owns your PC has delivered a sanctimonious PC sermonette which ought to make a lot of viewers want to go out and throw up in the street.

John Glenn and his battle-damaged fighter jet, Korea, 1953.

Wikipedia:

“On February 3, 1953, he reported to [Pohang Airport], where he was assigned to VMF-311, one of the two Marine fighter squadrons there, as its operations officer. VMF-311 was equipped with the F9F Panther jet fighter-bomber, and was assigned a variety of missions. Glenn flew his first, a reconnaissance flight, on February 26, 1953.

He flew 63 combat missions in Korea with VMF-311, gaining the nickname “magnet ass” from his alleged ability to attract enemy flak, an occupational hazard of low-level close air support missions. On two occasions, he returned to his base with over 250 holes in his aircraft.”

Another horror story from 2016. Toronto Life

USS Nevada, beached and burning at Hospital Point.

James Gawron, at Ricochet, quotes Walter Lord’s Day of Infamy describing one of the braver incidents that fatal December 7th:

At 8 am on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the 183 Japanese planes of the first attack wave descended on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nagumo’s attack fleet was less than 100 miles from Pearl. Luckily the Enterprise, the huge American aircraft carrier, was at sea. Not so lucky was the fact that the American battleship fleet was anchored and inert, tied up in a neat row called Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor. The battleships were huge sitting targets. Even if someone had sounded an alarm when the planes were spotted on radar, it wouldn’t have made that much difference as it takes two hours for a battleship’s boilers to come up to full pressure so she can move properly. All of the battleships at Pearl had dead cold boilers that morning. Completely tied up at anchor, after coming up to full boiler pressure, it would have taken another 45 minutes with the help of multiple tugboats to get a battleship away from Battleship Row and moving.

It was Sunday morning and almost everyone was at Sunday morning services. However, to this fact and everything I stated in the preceding paragraph, there was one exception. The Battleship USS Nevada had about one-third of her crew and one officer and one quartermaster aboard. The boilers of the Nevada were at about half pressure. She was making repairs, even on Sunday morning.

The Japanese planes of the first attack wave descended without any warning whatsoever. Seeing the sitting ducks on Battleship Row, the pilots converged instantly for the attack on the American ships.

The Nevada was the last ship on Battleship Row in position 8. Ahead of her at anchor was the Battleship USS Arizona. In the first 15 minutes of the attack, a bomb struck the Arizona perfectly penetrating her forward deck armor and exploding her forward ammunition magazine. The entire ship detonated in a huge explosion. The explosion killed 1,117 of her crew of 1,400. Half the ship was gone and the other half was a burning inferno.

All of Pearl Harbor was mad confusion. People running everywhere trying to get to their posts, pinned down by strafing Japanese planes. On the Nevada, the highest ranking officer was Ensign Joseph Taussig, Jr. [Read his obituary] He was the youngest officer, just out of the Naval Academy and had only been on the Nevada a few days. Also aboard was Quartermaster Chief Robert Sedberry, a man with many years of experience. Ens. Taussig manned the forward anti-aircraft battery himself. A shell smashed his leg, it would later be amputated. Still conscious, he continued to command the anti-aircraft defense. Meanwhile, Sedberry and others made the decision to take the ship into action. They must swing the ship free from her berth without the aid of tugboats, without two hours to bring the ship to full steam, without a civilian harbor pilot, without the navigator, and without the captain. Sedberry manned the helm.

She got past the burning remains of the Arizona just barely. As the Nevada slowly pulled free of her anchorage and steamed down past Battleship Row wild screaming cheers were heard all over Pearl. There she was, the Nevada moving! She was heading for the harbor mouth. She was heading out to sea for the counter attack! As she got about dead center of Pearl Harbor, out of the sky came 171 Japanese planes, the second wave attack.

The Japanese pilots of the second wave were greeted by a riveting sight. Most of the American ships were in flames but a single American battleship was moving out to sea. They knew very well that this ship had 14-inch guns on board. These guns could fire accurately over 20 miles. This ship could do over 30 knots (about 35 miles per hour). In two hours at full speed, she would be in range of their attack fleet. A single 14-inch shell would pierce the unarmored deck of any of their aircraft carriers. One shot might easily sink a Japanese carrier.

The entire second wave descended on Nevada. It is interesting to note that it is not so easy to hit a moving target as it is to punch holes in a sitting duck. However, Nevada wasn’t moving that fast and there were 171 planes to get her. Soon Nevada was on fire from one end of the ship to the other. She had been torpedoed and was taking on water. Ens. Taussig, although severely wounded, continued anti-aircraft fire at the Japanese planes. Chief Quartermaster Sedberry had been radioed a final order. If the Nevada sunk in the harbor channel she would plug Pearl Harbor for a prolonged period of time. Most of the crew had already abandoned ship. The Quartermaster and a few men guided the huge ship towards Hospital Point just inside the harbor mouth to the east. There they beached the Nevada in the sand like a giant canoe. Still conscious, Taussig was carried off the ship.

What is significant about this? Why am I relating this story? Simply because human events, their outcomes and their significance, are so hard to predict. At first, you might think the Nevada‘s short but glorious cruise a total waste and insignificant. However, because she was moving when the second wave appeared, most of the Japanese planes wasted their bombs attacking her. If the Japanese pilots had instead found all of the American ships out of action, they would have immediately turned their attention to the rest of Pearl Harbor’s extensive military facilities. The dry docks most of all. Back in Tokyo, Admiral Yamamoto received the full report. He was furious about the second wave and its failure to bomb the dry docks. He said:

Because of Nevada, most of Pearl remained intact and was fully operational in short order. With Pearl Harbor’s facilities, The American fleet quickly recovered. At the Battle of Coral Sea, the Japanese found themselves to be less than invincible and suffered major damage.

Wikipedia:

Subsequently salvaged and modernized at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Nevada served as a convoy escort in the Atlantic and as a fire-support ship in four amphibious assaults: the Normandy Landings and the invasions of Southern France, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.