Tag Archives: russian

Here’s How Obama Is Trump-Proofing His Legacy

by ShannonZaleski Posted on December 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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So what has President Obama done over the past month to get a few last-minute liberal priorities in place before Donald Trump takes over? Obama has moved forward on eight substantial executive actions so far:

Enacted a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic Seaboard.
Refused to veto a UN resolution condemning Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.
Designated two new national monuments totalling more than 1.6 million acres: Bears Ears Buttes in southeastern Utah and Gold Butte in Nevada.
Instructed the Department of Homeland Security to formally end the long-disused NSEERs database, which Trump could have revived as the backbone of a new Muslim registry.
Instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to deny final permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline where it crosses the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
Issued a final rule that bans the practice among some red states of withholding federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood and other health clinics that provide abortions.
Finalized rules to determine whether schools were succeeding or failing under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Began an investigation into charges of Russian hacking during the presidential campaign.

This last-minute flurry of activity is actually fairly normal, but Trump is annoyed anyway, saying he’s doing his best to “disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.” Too bad, Donald: there’s more to come. According to Politico, “As many as 98 final regulations under review at the White House as of Nov. 15 could be implemented before Trump takes office. Seventeen regulations awaiting final approval are considered “economically significant,” with an estimated economic impact of at least $100 million a year.” Here are fifteen of the most important ones:

A new policy making it easier to hire and retain highly skilled immigrants.
A new rule forcing state regulators to tighten oversight of for-profit colleges that operate online courses in their state.
New energy efficiency standards.
Regulations designed to discourage speculation on commodities trading.
A new rule that would regulate air pollution from the oil industry.
A change in the way Medicare drug payments are administered.
Reform of Medicare payments to doctors, moving toward a system that better evaluates the quality of care they provide.
Finishing up an investment treaty with China (though it would require Senate approval in 2017).
Speeding through a backlog of debt relief claims from students at ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges, two for-profit colleges that went out of business under pressure from the Obama administration.
A ban on cellphone calls on commercial flights.
A rule requiring that most freight trains have at least two crew members on duty.
Rules for the 2018 version of the Obamacare state insurance marketplaces.
Regulation of methane releases from oil and natural gas wells.
A major rule on leases for wind and solar projects on federal land.
A rule that aims to ensure poor and minority students get their fair share of state and local education funding.

Some of these actions could be overturned either by Trump or by Congress, but not all of them. Congress is restrained by the fact that it has limited floor time to review new rules. Trump is restrained because agency rules go through a lengthy rulemaking process before they’re finalized, and he would have to start up this entire process all over again to repeal them.

Of course, all of these actions are also susceptible to court fights, just as they always are. There’s no telling how that might turn out.

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Here’s How Obama Is Trump-Proofing His Legacy

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Vladimir Putin Is a Happy Camper These Days

by FrankieKpg Posted on December 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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In his annual press conference, Vladimir Putin took a victory lap:

“Democrats are losing on every front and looking for people to blame everywhere,” Putin said in answer to a Russian TV host, one of 1,400 journalists accredited to the marathon session. “They need to learn to lose with dignity.”

….“Trump understood the mood of the people and kept going until the end, when nobody believed in him,” Putin said, adding with a grin. “Except for you and me.”

Putin has repeatedly denied involvement despite the accusations coming from the White House, and the Kremlin has repeatedly questioned the evidence for the U.S. claims. On Friday he borrowed from Trump’s dismissal of the accusations, remarking “maybe it was someone lying on the couch who did it.”

“And it’s not important who did the hacking, it’s important that the information that was revealed was true, that is important,” Putin said, referring to the emails that showed that party leaders had favored Hillary Clinton.

That last line is almost word-for-word what Republican apologists say. As near as I can tell, Putin is basically just admitting that Russia was behind the hacks and then smirking about it. He must be having a good old time these days. I wonder how Republicans are going to feel about this when Putin decides it’s time to get rid of Trump and help the other side?

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Vladimir Putin Is a Happy Camper These Days

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Russia Ran the Most Epic Ratfucking Operation in History This Year

by nydiapalazzi3 Posted on December 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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Back during the campaign, I was vaguely aware that the Russians had hacked not just the DNC, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as well. For some reason, though, I never put two and two together long enough to think about what this hack might mean. In my defense, no one else seems to have given it much thought either—despite the fact that hacked documents were showing up in local races all over the country:

The intrusions in House races in states including Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina can be traced to tens of thousands of pages of documents taken from the D.C.C.C., which shares a Capitol Hill office building with the Democratic National Committee….The seats that Guccifer 2.0 targeted in the document dumps were hardly random: They were some of the most competitive House races in the country.

….In Florida, Guccifer 2.0’s most important partner was an obscure political website run by an anonymous blogger called HelloFLA!, run by a former Florida legislative aide turned Republican lobbyist. The blogger sent direct messages via Twitter to Guccifer 2.0 asking for copies of any additional Florida documents. “I can send you some docs via email,” Guccifer 2.0 replied on Aug. 22….“I don’t think you realize what you gave me,” the blogger said, looking at the costly internal D.C.C.C. political research that he had just been provided. “This is probably worth millions of dollars.”

The hacked documents played a big role in a Florida congressional primary between Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia:

After Mr. Garcia defeated Ms Taddeo in the primary using the material unearthed in the hacking, the National Republican Campaign Committee and a second Republican group with ties to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, turned to the hacked material to attack him.

….After the first political advertisement appeared using the hacked material, DCCC chair Ben Ray Luján wrote a letter to his Republican counterpart at the National Republican Congressional Committee urging him to not use this stolen material in the 2016 campaign….Ms. Pelosi sent a similar letter in early September to Mr. Ryan. Neither received a response. By October, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a “super PAC” tied to Mr. Ryan, had used the stolen material in another advertisement, attacking Mr. Garcia during the general election in Florida.

The basic story here is simple: the Russians hacked, the media gave the revelations big play, and Republicans gleefully made use of the Russian agitprop. Altogether, the Russians released hacked documents from four different sources:

DNC
DCCC
The Clinton Foundation
John Podesta

But nothing was ever released from any Republican sources—despite the fact that, according to the New York Times, the Russians had hacked the RNC and possibly other Republican accounts as well. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s a good chance they hacked a few people at the Trump Organization too. So here’s where we are:

The Russians ran a very sophisticated operation designed to hack into both US government servers and the servers of US political organizations.
They released only hacked documents from Democratic organizations. Republicans were left alone.
The intelligence community told high-ranking leaders of both parties what was going on, but Republicans flatly opposed any public acknowledgment of what was happening.
Republicans cheerfully made use of all the hacked material, even though they knew exactly where it came from.

At this point, you need to be willfully blind to pretend this was anything other than what it was: a ratfucking operation on an epic scale aimed squarely at Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. And while it was happening, Republicans were happy to play along.

It’s inevitable that more details are going to emerge about all this—about both the hacking itself and Republican complicity in making use of the Russian material. This is not something that can be forgiven quickly or easily. Republicans may or may not care about this, but they’re going to have live with a smoldering, bitter anger from their Democratic colleagues for a very long time.

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Russia Ran the Most Epic Ratfucking Operation in History This Year

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Will Trump Really Pick Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State?

by SharronHTP Posted on December 10, 2016

Mother Jones

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly chosen Exxon Mobil president and CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state, according to NBC News.

Tillerson, whose consideration for the role only became public in recent days, has long had a contentious relationship with climate change. His company, for which he has worked for his entire career, has been accused of covering up research and misleading the public about climate change since the 1970s, according to two groundbreaking investigations by InsideClimateNews and the Los Angeles Times. The investigation led several attorney generals to launch a fraud inquiry into the company. Tillerson recently acknowledged that climate change has “real” and “serious” risks but has previously downplayed its effects.

Tillerson also has close ties to Russia: In 2011, he struck a deal with Russia that would have given Exxon Mobil and OAO Rosneft, a Russian state-owned oil company, exclusive access to Arctic resources, according to the Wall Street Journal. In 2012, he was awarded an Order of Friendship decoration by the Russian government. The deal was later blocked by sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

NBC’s report comes less than 24 hours after a bombshell report by the Washington Post indicated that the CIA has concluded Russia had intervened in the 2016 election and aided Trump’s win—a finding that Trump has ridiculed. If he were to follow through with this appointment, Tillerson’s close ties to Russia may put Trump at odds with GOP hawks.

As secretary of state, the energy CEO could also face significant potential conflicts of interest. He owns more than $150 million worth of shares in Exxon, according to the Wall Street Journal. He would have to divest from these shares, providing him a huge tax break. His company has operations in more than 50 countries.

Trump’s transition team confirmed to Reuters that Tillerson had met with Trump Saturday morning but said it would not make an official announcement until next week at the earliest.

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Will Trump Really Pick Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State?

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Secret CIA Report Says Russia Intervened to Help Elect Trump

by NellEUHzum Posted on December 10, 2016

Mother Jones

Update, 11:48 p.m.: The New York Times reports that American intelligence officials found with “high confidence” that Russians also hacked the Republican National Committee, but did not release any information. Based in part on this finding, intelligence officials were able to conclude that Russia intended to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign and bolster Donald Trump’s.

Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to a secret assessment by the CIA, the Washington Post reported late Friday. In a closed-door meeting last week, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the agency told US senators that it had identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who had provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked DNC emails. The agency described them as “part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.”

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” a senior US official told the Washington Post. “That’s the consensus view.”

The Post story comes after numerous calls from both members of Congress and President Obama to investigate Russia’s role in the election. Earlier today, Obama ordered the national intelligence community to conduct a “full review” of Russian interference in the campaign. According to the Post, the White House had attempted to gain bipartisan support for investigating Russian hacking as early as September, but Republicans resisted making such a public challenge.

There were also disagreements from intelligence officials on the CIA’s assessment:

A senior US official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.

For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior US official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.

The Trump transition team issued the following response to the story late Friday:

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Secret CIA Report Says Russia Intervened to Help Elect Trump

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The Scriptwriter for “The Trump Show” Needs to Get a Grip

by GuadalupeWentche Posted on December 10, 2016

Mother Jones

From the Wall Street Journal:

Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Rex Tillerson has emerged as the leading candidate to become President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, according to two transition officials, marking the latest twist in a multiweek search for a top diplomat.

….Among those considered for the post, Mr. Tillerson has perhaps the closest ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, having negotiated a 2011 energy partnership deal with Russia that Mr. Putin said could eventually be worth as much as $500 billion. In 2012, the Kremlin bestowed the country’s Order of Friendship decoration on Mr. Tillerson.

Oh come on. Trump is planning to nominate a wealthy, inexperienced fossil-fuel mogul whose only qualification—literally—is that he’s sort of chummy with Vladimir Putin? And Republicans are expected to confirm him?

Who’s writing the script for this show? No one’s going to believe these plot twists. I gave up on Designated Survivor after a couple of episodes, and it was more realistic than this.

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The Scriptwriter for “The Trump Show” Needs to Get a Grip

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Democrats Intensify Push for Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign

by TamiLemmon13 Posted on December 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Congressional Democrats are increasing the pressure for an official and public inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Calif.), a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the House government oversight committee, announced they were introducing legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate any attempt by the Russian government or persons in Russia to interfere with the recent US election. The commission they propose is modeled on the widely praised 9/11 Commission. It would consist of 12 members, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. The members would be appointed by the House speaker, the Senate majority leader, and the two Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. This commission would be granted subpoena power, the ability to hold public hearings, and the task of producing a public report.

Cummings previously called on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chair of the House government oversight committee, to launch such an investigation via his committee. But Chaffetz, who before the election vowed to probe Hillary Clinton fiercely, has not replied to Cummings’ request, according to a Cummings spokesperson. Nor has Chaffetz responded to another Cummings request for a committee examination of Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) have both endorsed Cummings’ proposal for a congressional investigation of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 campaign. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) also have suggested that Congress examine Russian interference in the election.

The Democrats have not yet catapulted the issue of foreign interference fully into the media spotlight. But Swalwell and Cummings’ bill comes as more Democrats are demanding action. Last week, seven Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee publicly pressed the Obama administration to declassify more information about Russia’s intervention in the election. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who led that effort, wrote in a brief letter to the White House, “We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the US election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels.”

On Tuesday, seven high-ranking House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting a classified briefing on Russian involvement in the election, including “Russian entities’ hacking of American political organizations; hacking and strategic release of emails from campaign officials; the WikiLeaks disclosures; fake news stories produced and distributed with the intent to mislead American voters; and any other Russian or Russian-related interference or involvement in our recent election.” The signatories were Cummings, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip, Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the homeland security committee, Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee. They wrote:

We are deeply concerned by Russian efforts to undermine, interfere with, and even influence the outcome of our recent election. This Russian malfeasance is not confined to us, but extends to our allies, our alliances and to democratic institutions around the world.

The integrity of democracy must never be in question, and we are gravely concerned that Russia may have succeeded in weakening Americans’ trust in our electoral institutions through their cyber activity, which may also include sponsoring disclosures through WikiLeaks and other venues, and the production and distribution of fake news stories.

In September, Schiff joined Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, to release a statement blaming Russia for the hacks of Democratic targets during the campaign:

Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the US election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election—we can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians. We believe that orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government.

The Obama administration has reached the same conclusion. In October, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security released a joint statement declaring, “The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.” A week after the election, the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release of hacked information during the campaign, and he said, “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.” He added, “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily.”

For some reason, Moscow’s effort to influence the presidential election has not been as big a story as, say, Trump’s tweets about the musical Hamilton or Alec Baldwin. That may be because Democrats, busy licking their wounds, have not aggressively sought to keep the issue front and center. (Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have not said much on this subject.) And most Republicans have shown little interest in investigating an assault on American democracy that helped their party win the White House and retain majorities in both houses of Congress. But Cummings has been trying mightily to kick-start a public investigation. (Presumably, the FBI, CIA, and NSA have been looking into Russian hacking related to the election, but their investigations are not designed to yield public information—unless they result in a criminal prosecution.)

With the legislation to establish an independent commission, Cummings and Swalwell are opening another front. In the coming days, they will be signing up co-sponsors and looking for Republican support. Their bill provides a proposal that concerned voters—including upset Democrats and activists—can rally behind. (Were this measure to pass next year, Trump, who has steadfastly refused to blame Moscow for the hacks of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, would have to decide whether to sign it.)

In his recent letter to Chaffetz, Cummings noted, “Elections are the bedrock of our nation’s democracy. Any attempt by a foreign power to undermine them is a direct attack on our core democratic values, and it should chill every Member of Congress and American—red or blue—to the core.” So far, few Republicans, including Trump, have acknowledged feeling that chill, and there’s certainly more opportunity for the Democrats to turn up the heat.

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Democrats Intensify Push for Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign

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Russia Has Killed Almost 10,000 Syrians in the Past Year, Says a New Report

by aniaxff2 Posted on September 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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Russia’s military has killed almost 10,000 people, including nearly 4,000 civilians, in Syria over the past year, according to a new report from a London-based group that monitors the Syrian civil war.

“The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was able to document the death of 9364 civilians and fighters from the rebel and Islamic Factions, Fath al-Sham Front formerly the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and the ‘Islamic state’ in the past 12 months,” the group wrote on its website on Friday. Russian airstrikes have killed more civilians (3,804) than members of ISIS (2,746) or members of rebel and other Islamic groups (2,814), according to SOHR. The civilian death count includes 906 children under the age of 18.

The Russian air force started bombing operations in Syria last September in support of the Syrian government’s military. While the Russian government claimed the strikes were being carried out against ISIS, the air campaign has heavily targeted non-Islamist rebel groups and civilian areas held by rebels. Russian aircraft frequently strike hospitals and other medical facilities and have been blamed for the bombing of a UN aid convoy during a short-lived ceasefire last week.

Russian air support has allowed the Syrian regime to consolidate its battlefield gains and even advance in some areas, despite being short on soldiers and increasingly reliant on allies including Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

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Russia Has Killed Almost 10,000 Syrians in the Past Year, Says a New Report

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Larry King Dupes Donald Trump Into Interview on Russian TV

by AbbieBenes Posted on September 9, 2016

Mother Jones

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Today we learn just how easy it is to trick Donald Trump. Yesterday he was interviewed by Larry King on RT, a TV network funded by the Russian government. That’s probably not a good look, especially for a candidate already viewed as alarmingly cozy with Vladimir Putin. So what happened?

Poor Donald. He used to be so sharp. Probably suffering from dysphasia or something.

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Larry King Dupes Donald Trump Into Interview on Russian TV

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Aliens Are (Maybe) Finally Knocking. The Pentagon’s Plan Is Underwhelming.

by Sean43618048 Posted on August 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Saturday, Paul Gilster, who blogs about deep space exploration and other interstellar issues, broke the news on his blog that in May 2015, a team of Russian scientists had detected an interesting signal coming from a star system about 95 light-years from Earth. Gilster was very measured in his report, noting that “no one is claiming that this is the work of an extraterrestrial civilization, but it is certainly worth further study.” The researchers involved believe the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, a nonprofit organization that’s looking for life in the universe and has the equipment to scan the skies for signals from deep space, might follow up on the lead.

But that didn’t stop others from going wild, most notably the New York Observer, which published an attention-grabbing story Monday titled “Not a Drill: SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal From Deep Space.”

SETI is, in fact, scanning for the signal, according to Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the organization, who discussed the matter in a blog post available on the group’s website. “Could it be another society sending a signal our way?” he wrote. “Of course, that’s possible. However, there are many other plausible explanations for this claimed transmission—including terrestrial interference. Without a confirmation of this signal, we can only say that it’s ‘interesting.'”

UFOs, extraterrestrials, and life in outer space has gained new currency over the last year or so. Last fall, a team from Yale University announced they had found a star that gave off such unique light patterns that some speculated it was being orbited by an alien megastructure. Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, have both repeatedly discussed the need for the release of information about US government research into extraterrestrials. (You can read more about Clinton’s history with the UFO issue that goes back more than 20 years here.) A week ago, scientists announced they had found a potentially life-supporting, Earthlike planet just 4.5 light-years away, within Earth’s closest celestial star system neighbor.

This whole thing got us thinking: What would happen if extraterrestrials not only reached out to communicate, but showed up on our doorstep? Is there a plan?

I put this question to the Department of Defense last fall when I profiled Stephen Bassett, the only registered lobbyist in Washington whose major focus is to force the US government to reveal what it knows about extraterrestrials contact with the human race. To people like Bassett, the question of what to do when they show up is moot because it has already happened; the people who need to deal with it already are.

The Department of Defense does not agree. Here’s the answer I got from them: “The Department of Defense does not maintain plans for hypothetical dangers for which we have absolutely no information—either to the likelihood of the danger, or to what form the danger would take.” For what it’s worth, the DoD spokesman also said the department doesn’t have an office or organization that handles “issues related to UFOs and/or extraterrestrials,” and the DoD has never interacted with or recovered any kind of material related to extraterrestrials.

Do we really not have any plans in place should we be contacted by an alien race? I checked the DoD’s answer with Christopher Mellon. A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, among other roles, he said, “I think you got an honest answer from DoD. How would you plan for the arrival of an advanced civilization without any understanding whatsoever of their capabilities, technology or intentions?” He added that his sense was that the government had “little if any idea” of what we’d be up against and “whatever it is would be so far beyond us it would look and appear magical or spiritual, totally beyond our ability to cope with or resist if hostile. If such an event occurred we’d simply have to muddle through as best we could.”

“Meanwhile,” he says, “DoD has an overflowing plate already and I suspect the Joint Staff has little patience for such seemingly unlikely, open-ended and ill-defined scenarios.”

Nick Pope, a former official with the British Ministry of Defense whose job it was to investigate UFO sightings, doesn’t think powerful governments should get off that easy. He told me Tuesday he’s long advocated some sort of contingency plan but never saw any evidence that the British or US governments had one. When he asked colleagues in the intelligence and military world about plans, “there was no real enthusiasm for it. It was a combination of skepticism and almost this feeling that this was the ultimate taboo, that something like this could just not be put down on paper.”

Pope said news about a potential signal from another civilization should trigger a whole series of thorny questions: Is this just a signal letting us know they’re there, or is there information encoded within it? If there is information in it, can we decode it? Should we? If we could, should that information be disclosed? Who should control the information in the signal, if there’s anything there?

That’s a far cry from a scenario that finds us dealing with an extraterrestrial craft in orbit around Earth or actually landing. “The No. 1 priority would obviously be avoiding getting in a fight with these people,” he said. But what do we do then? Who’s in charge? Who speaks for planet Earth? What is the message?

Pope admits that the possibility of this scenario playing out is miniscule, describing it as “the ultimate low probability, high impact scenario.” But, he said, “We don’t need to go into Star Trek territory to say it’s possible we could be visited. That being the case, it just seems prudent to have a plan.”

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Aliens Are (Maybe) Finally Knocking. The Pentagon’s Plan Is Underwhelming.

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