Archive for July, 2017

Russian Hackers Discussed Sending Hillary Clinton’s Emails to Trump Adviser – TIME

(WASHINGTON) Russian hackers discussed during the 2016 presidential campaign whether they could obtain emails pilfered from Hillary Clinton and ultimately get them to an adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, according to a report published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal said investigators probing Russian meddling in the election have examined intelligence agency reports about how hackers wanted to get emails from Clinton's server to an intermediary and then to Mike Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and senior adviser to Trump who went on to serve briefly as his national security adviser. The newspaper also references a Republican operative who was convinced emails missing from Clinton's server were in the hands of Russian hackers, and who implied in conversations that he was working with Flynn.

The newspaper said it was not clear whether Flynn played any role in the quest of the operative, Peter W. Smith, who died shortly after speaking with the newspaper. The Journal said Flynn did not respond to requests, the White House declined comment, and the campaign said Smith never worked for it and that any such action undertaken by Flynn, if true, was not on its behalf.

Congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating Russian influence in the election and potential coordination with the Trump campaign. Russia has been blamed for pilfering emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and of the DNC.

But the newspaper said Smith and the hackers were focused on some 33,000 emails that Clinton said had been deleted and that Smith believed, with no proof, were acquired by hackers. Officials have said there is no evidence Clinton's private email server was hacked.

Smith told the newspaper that he was unsure of the authenticity of emails hackers eventually did send to him and he told them to pass them to WikiLeaks, the same outfit that published the emails taken from Podesta and the committee.

"We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government," Smith told the newspaper. He died on May 14 at 81, about less than two weeks after being interviewed.

In emails Smith sent to potential recruits for his project, and which the newspaper reviewed, he referenced Flynn and Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, several times.

Mike Flynn was fired after less than a month because of revelations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russia's ambassador to the United States.

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Russian Hackers Discussed Sending Hillary Clinton's Emails to Trump Adviser - TIME

Nikki Haley channels Hillary Clinton – Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Donald Trump nominated Nikki Haley as the administrations ambassador to the United Nations. She seems to have mistaken the signal. She thinks shes the Nikki Haley ambassador to the U.N. Or maybe Hillary Clintons.

Trump has repeatedly reminded Americans that he is the president of the United States, not president of the World. His constitutional duty is exclusively to defend the American people against actual or imminent aggression with invincible self-defense, not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. During the campaign, he embraced the sentiments of Sen. Henry Clays rebuff of Hungarys plea for United States military intervention to protect against the Russian Bear:

Far better is it for ourselves, for Hungary, and for the cause of liberty, that, adhering to our wise, pacific system, and avoiding the distant wars of Europe, we should keep our lamp burning brightly on this western shore as a light to all nations, than to hazard its utter extinction amid the ruins of the fallen or failing republics in Europe.

Nikki Haley didnt get the message. During a February meeting of the U.N. Security Council, she said, our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, however, nominee Trump blocked a proposal for economic warfare against Russia to retaliate for its annexation of Crimea and occupation of eastern Ukraine.

Mrs. Haley might as well have been Hillary Clintons U.N. ambassador. Mrs. Clinton also championed gladiatorial opposition towards Russia during her campaign. We have to do more to get back to talking about how we try to confine, contain, deter Russian aggression in Europe and beyond. Candidate Clinton insisted that the U.S. shouldsend more fundingto Kiev and provide new equipment and training for the Ukrainians in retaliation for the Russian annexation of Crimea.

As regards humanitarian war, Mrs. Haley and Mrs. Clinton are two peas in a pod. Last April, Ambassador Haley at the U.N. Security Council threatened a United States humanitarian war against Syria to diminish the grisliness of civilian killings there. When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action. For the sake of the victims, I hope the rest of the council is finally willing to do the same.

Mrs. Haleys words echoed Hillary Clinton. As then-Secretary of State in 2011, Mrs. Clinton said that humanitarian concerns justified a war to overthrow Libyas Muammar Gaddafi. It predictably turned Libya into a wilderness and a mecca for terrorists, but Mrs. Clinton called it peace and smart power at its best. In 2013, Mrs. Clinton supported President Barack Obamas exhortation to Congress to authorize war against Syrian President Bashir-al Assad under a humanitarian banner.

In contrast to Mrs. Haley and Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has pledged to withdraw from our trillion-dollar military capers in the Middle East that have only compounded horrifying carnage and needlessly forced courageous American soldiers to give or risk that last full measure of devotion to conceal amateurish political miscalculations:

[W]hat weve done in the Middle East, weve spent $4 trillion and were far worse than when the first gunshot that was fired and weve got to at some point get out of there, because we have to rebuild our country.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations last March, Ambassador Haley spoke like a mouthpiece of Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Haley sermonized that the United States would work tirelessly to purge the planet of immorality. In a homily worthy of John Knox, she gave failing grades to several nations deficient in human rights: The United States is the moral conscience of the world. We will not walk away from this role, but we will insist that our participation in the UN honor and reflect this role. For me, human rights are at the heart of the mission of the United Nations. That simply parroted what Mrs. Clinton had preached during her bumbling presidential campaign. Part of what makes America an exceptional nation is that we are also an indispensable nation. In fact, we are the indispensable nation. People all over the world look to us and follow our lead.

During his visit to Saudi Arabia last May, President Trump repudiated the Haley-Clinton White Mans Burden vision of the United States. We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be or how to worship. When will Ambassador Haley awaken from her intellectual stupor and remember that Mr. Trump, not Hillary Clinton, won the 2016 presidential election?

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Nikki Haley channels Hillary Clinton - Washington Times

Hillary Clinton gave us our summer reading list – HelloGiggles

Book Bites Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SeriousFun

The busier you get, the harder it can be to find time to read. We bet no one knows this more than Hillary Clinton, which is why we were thrilled when Clinton listed all the books shes been reading since November.

Though were positive Hillary would rather be running the country right now, the former democratic presidential nominee has enjoyed herself the last few months.After this election, one of the things that helped me most, aside from long walks in the woods and the occasional glass of chardonnay, was once again going back to the familiar experience of losing myself in books, she said during her speech at the American Library Association.

Thats a beautiful feeling, and one we should take more time to experience ourselves. Even post-election, were no doubt less busy than Hillary Clinton.

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Thanks, Hil!

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Hillary Clinton gave us our summer reading list - HelloGiggles

Effective Tips of Drastically Improving SEO in Your Business – Bdaily

Be it for the sake of competition or the launching of a new online business, its improtatn that you have some knowhow of search engine optimization tactics. With the right mindset and a great SEO campaign, the growth of you business will have no limit.

Whether you are high or low on Google search engine result pages (SERPs,) theres always some room for improvement. Ranking high on Google will have some very positive effects on your business, and can lead to significant growth with the right strategies. You could either learn how to optimize both your content and site for SEO, or you could hire an SEO Agency to do it for you. However if you are looking to exponentially grow your business, you need to come up with a much better approach. Though most entrepreneurs are already investing heavily on SEO, there are some who still dont believe in it. The following are some tips of helping improve yours extensively in a few months or so:

Whether the online business you plan on improving is small or big, its important that all the members be SEO conversant. Working with ignorant people could be harmful to your business even if you are super careful. Training them or hiring an SEO Agency to educate them on the basics would go a long way in improving your SEO gradually and quickly.Whether the online business you plan on improving is small or big, its important that all the members be SEO conversant. Working with ignorant people could be harmful to your business even if you are super careful. Training them or hiring an SEO Agency to educate them on the basics would go a long way in improving your SEO gradually and quickly.

Due to the fact that search engine optimization is ever changing, its important that you make the trainings constant. From the content creators, graphic designers and even the editors, you need to ensure that they all have some knowledge of the basics. Keeping them all up-to-date with the latest SEO trends would be an added advantage.

When it comes to the drastic improvement of your blogs SEO you need to pay some proper attention to your link building. Though internal linking is good for your site for ensuring that visitors view relevant information on your site, its important that you dont over use them.

Creating organic links by use of solid and useful content is a much more efficient way of link building. You could have the SEO Agency you are working with or one of your in-house SEO team help achieve this by engaging visitors and answering their questions.

To help ensure that your search engine optimization campaigns are working positively, you need to keep track of your progress. If you are not going to be doing your campaigns yourself, you should look for an SEO Agency thats willing to share the stats with you. Not all online digital marketing agencies are so eager to do so.

Tracking your progress will help you know what campaigns are working well for your blog and which are not. If most of your visitors use mobile devices, you should have your site optimized such that its compatible with all mobile devices.

As you organically improve your SEO campaign strategies, youll start seeing an increase in both your number of visitors and even conversion rates. If you are working with an SEO Agency, you should ask for the stats the gather when working to improve you search engine optimization. These stats will help you determine whether your plan is working or it needs an adjustment.

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Effective Tips of Drastically Improving SEO in Your Business - Bdaily

Erdogan, Trump talk amid dispute over arms to Kurd fighters – The Seattle Times

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump amid tensions over Washingtons decision to arm Syrian Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State group, a Turkish official said Friday.

Mahir Unal, a spokesman for Erdogans ruling party, said the two leaders spoke by phone but did not provide details on their discussions. He told reporters, however, that the Turkish leader later also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Turkey considers the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia group the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG to be terrorists linked to outlawed Kurdish insurgents in its country.

The YPG is the largest group within the Syrian Democratic Forces battling to oust IS from its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

Ankara has vowed to intervene if the YPG poses a security threat. This week Turkeys military returned fire in response to a cross-border attack by the group.

Turkeys president stressed the need to oppose all kinds of terrorist groups, including Kurdish rebels and IS, according to his office.

Earlier, Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy for the international coalition against IS, met with Turkish foreign ministry and military officials, a Turkish official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.

McGurk said on Twitter he was holding consultations with Turkey on mutual efforts to defeat (IS) and ensure it can never return.

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Erdogan, Trump talk amid dispute over arms to Kurd fighters - The Seattle Times