Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Trump in late 1980s, seeking US intel

The communist intelligence service in Prague stepped up its spying campaign against Donald Trump in the late 1980s, targeting him to gain information about the “upper echelons of the US government”, archive files and testimony from former cold war spies reveal.

Czechoslovakia’s Státní bezpečnost (StB) carried out a long-term spying mission against Trump following his marriage in 1977 to his first wife, Ivana Zelníčková. The operation was run out of Zlín, the provincial town in south-west Czechoslovakia where Zelníčková was born and grew up.

Ivana’s father, Miloš Zelníček, gave regular information to the local StB office about his daughter’s visits from the US and on his celebrity son-in-law’s career in New York. Zelníček was classified as a “conspiratorial” informer. His relationship with the StB lasted until the end of the communist regime.

New archive records obtained by the Guardian and the Czech magazine Respekt show the StB’s growing interest in Trump after the 1988 US presidential election, won by George HW Bush. The StB’s first directorate responsible for foreign espionage sought to “deepen” its Trump-related activity.

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The comments by former StB officers suggest Moscow and Prague were intensely interested in Trump in the late cold war era. Spy agencies in both socialist capitals noted Trump’s growing political ambitions and sought to exploit his in-laws and family ties, using them as a dynamic intelligence channel.

The scale of Soviet Moscow’s spying operation on Trump is unknown. No documents are public. It is unclear when the KGB began a file on the future president. In Prague about 60,000 StB documents were declassified in the mid-1990s, after the collapse of communism. The StB destroyed most records.

However, secret memos written by the KGB chief, Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the mid-1980s reveal that he berated his officers for their failure to cultivate top-level Americans. Kryuchkov circulated a confidential personality questionnaire to KGB heads of station abroad, setting out the qualities wanted from a potential asset.

According to instructions leaked to British intelligence by the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, they included corruption, vanity, narcissism, marital infidelity and poor analytical skills. The KGB should focus on personalities who were upwardly mobile in business and politics, especially Americans, the document said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/29/trump-czechoslovakia-communism-spying

TIME magazine publishes bad take on the plus side of NATIONALIST

NYT Video: If You're Not Scared About Fascism in the U.S., You Should Be

By JASON STANLEY, ADAM WESTBROOK and JAPHET WEEKS | Oct. 15, 2018 | 5:02
When fascism starts to feel normal, we’re all in trouble.

https://nyti.ms/2AaOVFI

Newt Gingrich says media has "earned" the label "enemy of the people"

The douche most responsible for the toxicity of our current political climate today says....

Speaking at an Axios event in Washington Thursday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said that Trump's attacks on the media as "the enemy of the people" don't help improve the American political divide, but that he thinks "they've earned it."

The big picture: Gingrich claimed the toxicity of the current political climate is "everyone's fault," pointing to social media and the "tribalization" of cable news — specifically CNN — as some of the main factors. When asked why there was such a quick move on the right to call yesterday's mail bombs a conspiracy, Gingrich answered, "Because it's October."

#MAGABomber

White Nationalist Richard Spencer's Wife Says In Divorce Filings That He Physically and Emotionally

“The only language women understand is violence,” Nina Kroupiianova said Spencer told her. Spencer said, “I dispute many of her assertions.”



The wife of Richard Spencer, the white nationalist leader, has accused him of being “physically, emotionally, verbally and financially abusive” throughout their marriage, according to divorce filings in Flathead County District Court in Montana.

Nina Kroupiianova, who married Spencer in August 2010, and has two young children with him, alleges that Spencer physically abused her, including instances where she was “being hit, being grabbed, being dragged around by her hair, being held down in a manner causing bruising, and being prevented from calling for help.”

Kroupiianova — who went by Kroupianova in some public interviews and N.K. in the documents — “has been reluctant to call police or seek an order of protection for fear of further reprisal by” Spencer, her lawyers said in court documents. “Much of the abuse has occured in the presence of the parties’ children.”

The documents said that Spencer’s “controversial public life” has led to “his entire family to be targets of violence,” and Spencer kept a loaded weapon in his bedroom that was “accessible by children” after he was “assaulted in public” on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

“Despite the risk to his family,” Kroupiianova argued in court, “[Spencer] continues to engage in extremely polarizing public speech advocating ‘peaceful ethnic cleansing’ and a white-only ‘ethno-state’ which tends to invite passions and violence.”

“Most, if not all, of [Spencer’s] public speaking events result in violence,” the affidavit states.

more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/talalansari/richard-spencer-divorce-abuse-wife-allegations

Van Jones sucking up to Jared Kushner

I am so done with this guy...

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1054373108847689728

Florida City Commissioner Charged With Murder After State Rejects Stand Your Ground Claims

A city commissioner in Florida was indicted on a charge of second-degree murder after the state rejected his stand your ground claim in the fatal shooting of a supposed thief at his store, The Ledger reports. Lakeland City Commissioner Michael Dunn, 47, allegedly shot 50-year-old Christobal Lopez as he was attempting to leave Dunn’s Vets Army Navy Surplus Store with a stolen hatchet. According to a store surveillance video released by Lakeland Police and a police report, Lopez did not make “any threatening movements toward the suspect” during the encounter. In addition, Dunn allegedly made “no attempt to help Lopez after the shooting.” “It might be fair to say, that if I just stepped back and let somebody come in and take what they want, that there would be no issue!” Dunn allegedly told police when they interviewed him about the incident. State Attorney Brian Haas told reporters that Dunn’s case was not a fit for the state’s stand-your-ground laws that protect actions of self-defense because Lopez was not threatening Dunn. Dunn could face up to a life sentence in prison. He was reportedly booked into Polk County Jail on Friday without bail.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-city-commissioner-charged-with-murder-after-state-rejects-stand-your-ground-claims

Lukovich: I'm 100% certain it was Putin that attacked me...

Alexander Nix - former Cambridge Analytica chief on Barbados leaders - "They're just n*ggers."

Alexander Nix - former Cambridge Analytica chief - responded to rejection of his business pitch by political leaders in Barbados by saying:

“They’re just n*ggers.”

Former Cambridge Analytica chief used N-word to describe Barbados PM

Exclusive: leaked papers reveal racist slur by Alexander Nix, who is pitching to run election campaigns in Caribbean

Nix had worked in the region previously for SCL Elections, a sister company of Cambridge Analytica, before both closed down earlier this year.

New details around the firm’s work in the Caribbean – and the tactics it was prepared to use – have emerged from leaked emails and documents relating to SCL.

The Guardian has seen an exchange of messages in which Nix appears to refer to Mia Mottley, who was elected prime minister of Barbados in May, and senator Lucille Moe, who is the country’s information minister, as “niggers”. The messages are dated October 2010.

At the time, it appears SCL was pitching for business with the Barbados Labour party and had apparently attempted to make contact with Moe and Mottley, who was then leader of the opposition.

A member of SCL’s team wrote to Nix on 15 October, saying: “I get the distinct impression they don’t want to talk to us.” To which the SCL Elections boss replied: “they just niggers.”



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In an emailed statement, Moe confirmed that SCL had contacted the Barbados Labour party in order to offer its services. She said: “We were not comfortable working with them so we took a decision not to engage their services.”

The disclosure is likely to fuel concerns about a return by Nix to the region, where his work was the subject of controversy and denunciations from local politicians long before SCL and Cambridge Analytica came under scrutiny in Britain.

more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/08/former-cambridge-analytica-chief-alexander-nix-used-n-word-to-describe-barbados-pm