Monday, July 31, 2017

PEACE THROUGH DEVELOPMENT ... A WIN WIN FOR EVERYONE

China Bets Trump Won't Resort to Military Strike on North Korea ... a correct bet ... Trump must turn to Japan and South Korea to strengthen their responsibility and loosen them from restraints.  Japan needs to change their constitution allowing the government to arm themselves.  History is brutally clear on the capabilities of Japan ... offer to end the Korean War at the peace table thereby allowing the Korean peninsula to achieve an equitable balance in relationship with North Korea.
July 29, 2017, 9:30 AM EDT

People watch as coverage of an ICBM missile test is displayed on a screen in a public square in Pyongyang on July 29.

China is betting that U.S. President Donald Trump won’t make good on his threats of a military strike against North Korea, with Beijing continuing to provide a lifeline to Kim Jong Un’s regime.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson singled out China and Russia as “economic enablers” of North Korea after Kim on Friday test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the second time in a matter of weeks. 



While Tillerson said the U.S. wants a peaceful resolution to the tensions, the top American general called his South Korean counterpart after the launch to discuss a potential military response. 
China is North Korea’s biggest trade partner and arguably has the most leverage on Kim Jong-un’s regime. But while Beijing appears willing to condemn its neighbor’s nuclear developments, analysts say its cautious policies remain focused on stability.

China on Saturday indeed condemned the latest test while calling for restraint from all parties, a muted reaction to Pyongyang’s progress on an ICBM capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. Despite Kim’s provocations, analysts said Beijing still sees the collapse of his regime as a more immediate strategic threat and doubts Trump would pull the trigger given the risk of a war with North Korea that could kill millions.
“The military option the Americans are threatening won’t likely happen because the stakes will be too high,” said Liu Ming, director of the Korean Peninsula Research Center at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “It’s a pretext and an excuse to pile up pressure on China. It’s more like blackmail than a realistic option.”
THE CHICKEN AND THE EGG
Relations between the world’s biggest economies have soured after an initial honeymoon between Trump and President Xi Jinping. The U.S. last month sanctioned a regional Chinese bank, a shipping company and two Chinese citizens because of dealings with North Korea, a move that could be a precursor to greater economic and financial pressure on Beijing to rein in its errant neighbor.

Read more: The options for dealing with North Korea


China has repeatedly called for both sides to step back, proposing the U.S. halt military exercises in the region and North Korea freeze its missile and nuclear tests. The U.S. has dismissed that proposal, saying North Korea must first be willing to discuss stopping and rolling back its nuclear capabilities.

North Korea Isn't Backing Down


North Korea is “probably correct” in its view that it can survive sanctions long enough to build its arsenal to the point where the world has to accept it as a nuclear state, according to Andrew Gilholm, director of North Asia analysis at Control Risks Group. The U.S. is likely to make a “dramatic move” this year against China in a bid to stop that from happening, he said.

“If the U.S. really loses patience and moves against major Chinese banks or firms it will certainly impact North Korea’s financing, but I don’t see Beijing making a radical policy change under that kind of pressure,” Gilholm said from Seoul. “It’ll likely harden China’s insistence that Washington has to deal with Pyongyang, not coerce China into strangling it.”
Missile Shield

DON'T BITE THE HAND THAT FEED YOU ...
China’s relations with its neighbor and ally have become more fraught, though China still accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea’s trade. North Korea warned China of “grave consequences” earlier this year after it banned coal imports, while Beijing’s Communist Party media outlets stepped up criticism of Kim’s regime.

North Korea’s decision to launch the ICBM on Friday from Jagang, a province on the border with China, could further raise tensions between the countries. Still, China’s biggest fears remain a collapse of Kim’s regime that prompts a protracted refugee crisis and a beefed-up U.S. military presence on its border.
WHAT'S MISSING FROM THIS GRAPHIC IS THE NUMBER OF CHINESE CITIES KIM'S REGIME IS CAPABLE OF HITTING WITH HIS NEW ICBM'S ... 
Meanwhile, China’s dispute with South Korea over a missile shield risks flaring again. Seoul has partially installed a U.S. system known as THAAD despite Chinese protests. It had halted the roll out, but since the ICBM test, President Moon Jae-in has called for talks with the U.S. on temporarily deploying more launchers. China warned on Saturday that THAAD would disrupt the region’s strategic balance.

Despite the disagreement over THAAD, on the whole, China probably prefers Moon to the conservative South Korean government he replaced in May. Since taking office, Moon has sought to engage North Korea, calling for peace talks and saying he’d meet with Kim under the right conditions.
Mass Casualties


Moon’s dovish views on North Korea make it likely he’ll oppose a U.S. missile strike on North Korea that could risk a retaliatory hit on South Korea. U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned in June that an armed conflict with North Korea would leave millions of residents in Seoul facing casualties “unlike anything we’ve seen in 60 or 70 years.”

As relations with the U.S. cool, China has boosted ties with Russia. The countries blocked U.S.-led efforts to expand penalties against North Korea in a draft UN Security Council resolution condemning its first ICBM test on July 4. Those ties are likely to strengthen after Trump said he’d tighten sanctions on Russia for meddling in the U.S. election and aggression in Ukraine.

To placate Trump, China will likely take some more moderate measures against North Korea without doing anything that could collapse Kim’s regime, said Gilholm from Control Risks.

"China has a lot of room to step up pressure on Pyongyang while staying well short of a really destabilizing ‘cut-off,’” he said. “Personally I don’t think North Korea is going to roll over and give up its nuclear survival card even under a life-threatening level of economic pressure."
— With assistance by Ting Shi, Peter Martin, Keith Zhai, Heesu Lee, and Kanga Kong

Sunday, July 30, 2017

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

Scientists build DNA from scratch to alter life's blueprint ...


Scientists build DNA from scratch to alter life's blueprint
In this Tuesday, April 25, 2017, photo, assistant research technician Henri Berger, talks about live yeast cultures at a New York University lab in the Alexandria Center for Life Sciences in New York, where researchers are attempting to …more

At Jef Boeke's lab, you can whiff an odor that seems out of place, as if they were baking bread here.

But he and his colleagues are cooking up something else altogether: yeast that works with chunks of man-made DNA.

Scientists have long been able to make specific changes in the DNA code. Now, they're taking the more radical step of starting over, and building redesigned life forms from scratch. Boeke, a researcher at New York University, directs an international team of 11 labs on four continents working to "rewrite" the yeast genome, following a detailed plan they published in March.

Their work is part of a bold and controversial pursuit aimed at creating custom-made DNA codes to be inserted into living cells to change how they function or even provide a treatment for diseases. It could also someday help give scientists the profound and unsettling ability to create entirely new organisms.

The genome is the entire genetic code of a living thing. Learning how to make one from scratch, Boeke said, means "you really can construct something that's completely new."
The research may reveal basic, hidden rules that govern the structure and functioning of genomes. But it also opens the door to life with new and useful characteristics, like microbes or mammal cells that are better than current ones at pumping out medications in pharmaceutical factories, or new vaccines. The right modifications might make yeast efficiently produce new biofuels, Boeke says.

Scientists build DNA from scratch to alter life's blueprint
This Tuesday, April 25, 2017 photo shows a a petri dish containing live yeast cultures at a New York University labe at the Alexandria Center for Life Sciences in New York, where researchers are attempting to create completely man-made, …more

Some scientists look further into the future and see things like trees that purify water supplies and plants that detect explosives at airports and shopping malls.

Also on the horizon is redesigning human DNA. That's not to make genetically altered people, scientists stress. Instead, the synthetic DNA would be put into cells, to make them better at pumping out pharmaceutical proteins, for example, or perhaps to engineer stem cells as a safer source of lab-grown tissue and organs for transplant into patients.

Some have found the idea of remaking human DNA disconcerting, and scientists plan to get guidance from ethicists and the public before they try it.

Still, redesigning DNA is alarming to some. Laurie Zoloth of Northwestern University, a bioethicist who's been following the effort, is concerned about making organisms with "properties we cannot fully know." And the work would disturb people who believe creating life from scratch would give humans unwarranted power, she said.

"It is not only a science project," Zoloth said in an email. "It is an ethical and moral and theological proposal of significant proportions."

Scientists build DNA from scratch to alter life's blueprint
In this Tuesday, April 25, 2017 photo, yeast cultures are stored in a freezer in a New York University lab at the Alexandria Center for Life Sciences in New York, where researchers are attempting to create completely man-made, custom-built…more

Rewritten DNA has already been put to work in viruses and bacteria. Australian scientists recently announced that they'd built the genome of the Zika virus in a lab, for example, to better understand it and get clues for new treatments.

At Harvard University, Jeffrey Way and Pamela Silver are working toward developing a harmless strain of salmonella to use as a vaccine against food poisoning from salmonella and E. coli, as well as the diarrhea-causing disease called shigella.
A key goal is to prevent the strain from turning harmful as a result of picking up DNA from other bacteria. That requires changing its genome in 30,000 places.

"The only practical way to do that," Way says, "is to synthesize it from scratch."

The cutting edge for redesigning a genome, though, is yeast. Its genome is bigger and more complex than the viral and bacterial codes altered so far. But it's well-understood and yeast will readily swap man-made DNA for its own.

Scientists build DNA from scratch to alter life's blueprint
In this Tuesday, April 25, 2017 photo, NYU School of Medicine Professor Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Jef D. Boeke speaks during an interview in his office at the Alexandria Center for Life Sciences in New York,…more

Still, rewriting the yeast genome is a huge job.
It's like a chain with 12 million chemical links, known by the letters, A, C, G and T. That's less than one-hundredth the size of the human genome, which has 3.2 billion links. But it's still such a big job that Boeke's lab and scientists in the United States, Australia, China, Singapore, and the United Kingdom are splitting up the work. By the time the new yeast genome is completed, researchers will have added, deleted or altered about a million DNA letters.

Boeke compares a genome to a book with many chapters, and researchers are coming out with a new edition, with chapters that allow the book to do something it couldn't do before.
To redesign a particular stretch of yeast DNA, scientists begin with its sequence of code letters—nature's own recipe. They load that sequence into a computer, then tell the computer to make specific kinds of changes. For example, one change might let them rearrange the order of genes, which might reveal strategies to make yeast grow better, says NYU researcher Leslie Mitchell.

Once the changes are made, the new sequence used as a blueprint. It is sent to a company that builds chunks of DNA containing the new sequence. Then these short chunks are joined together in the lab to build ever longer strands.

Scientists build DNA from scratch to alter life's blueprint
In this Tuesday, April 25, 2017, photo, post doctoral fellow Leslie Mitchell, works at her bench at a New York University lab in the Alexandria Center for Life Sciences in New York, where researchers are attempting to create completely …more

The project has so far reported building about one-third of the yeast genome. Boeke hopes the rest of the construction will be done by the end of the year. But he says it will take longer to test the new DNA and fix problems and to finally combine the various chunks into a complete synthetic genome.

Last year, Boeke and others announced a separate effort, what is now called Genome Project-write or GP-write. It is chiefly focused on cutting the cost of building and testing large genomes, including human ones, by more than 1,000-fold within 10 years. The project is still seeking to fund.

In the meantime, leaders of GP-write have started discussions of ethical, legal and social issues. And they realize the idea of making a human genome is a sensitive one.

"The notion that we could actually write a human genome is simultaneously thrilling to some and not so thrilling to others," Boeke said. "So we recognize this is going to take a lot of discussions."

UP ON A TIGHTROPE WITH UNDOCUMENTED DEMOCRATS, RINO'S AND ASSHOLES

Can a president at war with both Republicans and Democrats govern?
TRUMP WITH TWO UNDOCUMENTED DEMOCRATS



Donald Trump is becoming a president without a party.

From the start of his unconventional campaign two years ago, Trump has been more of a populist than a Republican, from his combative style to his protectionist stance on trade. His ability to reach voters drawn by his personal appeal rather than his party affiliation has been a source of political strength and possibility in a nation where allegiance to both Republicans and Democrats has eroded.

But the most disruptive week of a disruptive presidency is testing whether other elected Republicans will continue to back him up and whether he can govern if they don't.

Trump, whose tenure already has worn out the use of the word "unprecedented," is ignoring some lessons of history about what presidents need to do to get things done.

"He was elected by a minority vote and, as the polls show, continues to cultivate a populist base that is not a majority," says Harvard professor Joseph Nye, author of Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era. "In contrast, George W. Bush, who also won the presidency without a popular majority vote, moved to the center and reached across the aisle to Senator (Edward) Kennedy and others. Trump has not reached across the aisle, and he has also attacked important senators in his own party.

"This makes it difficult to govern in a country where the constitutional separation of powers requires the executive and legislative branches to cooperate."

In recent days, the GOP's governing coalition has been at risk of unraveling:

• The stunning collapse early Friday morning of Senate efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act — a core campaign promise by Trump in 2016 and by congressional Republicans for the past seven years — underscored GOP divisions that neither the president nor congressional leaders were able to bridge. Afterward, Trump unleashed a tweetstorm of attacks, threats, and demands on his fellow Republicans.
• The messy ouster of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus announced a few hours later continued what effectively has been a purge of presidential aides with the closest ties to the GOP establishment, among them former press secretary Sean Spicer, former deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh and former communications director Michael Dubke.
• The public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was serving his fourth term as an Alabama senator when he resigned to join Trump's Cabinet, prompted Senate Republicans to circle the wagons around their former colleague. Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley warned the White House — on Twitter, of course — that the committee wouldn't have time to hold confirmation hearings on a replacement this year if the president fired Sessions.
• The easy passage of a bill tightening Russian sanctions reflected the determination by Republicans as well as Democrats to tie the president's hands when it comes to dealing with Moscow. Passed by veto-proof margins last week — the Senate vote Thursday was 98-2 — the White House had little choice but to say Trump would sign it.
When Trump was elected last November by carrying such traditionally Democratic states as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, some analysts argued he had an opportunity to tap broad dissatisfaction with politics-as-usual and forge a sort of Party of Trump. Some presidents have managed to govern with a certain partisan independence. After Democrats were rebuked by voters in the 1994 midterm elections, then-president Bill Clinton adopted a strategy of "triangulation" that distanced himself from congressional Democrats and cut deals with Republicans on a welfare overhaul and deficit reduction.

But Trump made no effort to reach across the aisle when he took office in the opening health care battle or other issues, and the reality of the polarization that has divided the capital into warring tribes might have made it impossible to achieve even if he had.

"Polarization in Congress is so high that presidents have no margin of error to lose members of their own party, like tightrope-walking with no net," says political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston. "Without cementing party solidarity and no hope for crossover votes from the other party, a polarized president cannot legislate."

He cautioned: "A president without a party in polarized Washington is in danger of being irrelevant."



President Trump delivers remarks alongside Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski during a meeting with Senate Republicans to discuss health care legislation at the White House on June 27, 2017. 

Consider the debate over what to do next on health care.

Trump says fight.

"Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead!" he tweeted Saturday. "Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!"

He coupled that with a threat to stop paying the subsidies to insurance companies that help control premium costs for low-income Americans and others on the Obamacare exchanges, which are also used by Congress: "If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!"

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a speech on the Senate floor Friday, said it was "time to move on." The Kentucky Republican, who takes the prerogatives of the Senate seriously, hasn't publicly responded to a string of caustic presidential tweets over the weekend demanding that the Senate abolish the legislative filibuster.

"Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don't go to a 51 vote majority NOW," Trump tweeted. "They look like fools and are just wasting time."

In fact, the measure to repeal the Affordable Care Act wasn't blocked by a filibuster. Republicans used a legislative maneuver that required only a 51-vote majority to pass; they managed to get just 49. McConnell has said in the past he wouldn't end the legislative filibuster — aware, perhaps, that Republicans are more than likely to find themselves in the minority down the road.

Congressional Republicans seem increasingly willing to buck the White House. Both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee last week questioned White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner about the Russia allegations that Trump denounces as a hoax and political witch hunt.

And Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski appeared unconcerned when she confirmed on Thursday that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had called her to threaten retribution against The Last Frontier if she persisted in voting against the Republican proposal to scale back the Affordable Care Act.

While Trump remains a formidable political force in some states and congressional districts, his national standing continues to hit historic lows for a president early in his term. In the latest USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll, 42% of those surveyed approved of the job Trump was doing as president; 53% disapproved. His favorable-unfavorable rating also was underwater by double digits, 40%-55%.

That said, his favorability standing was still better than the ratings for the Democratic Party (35%-51%) or Republican Party (32%-55%).

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, one of the two most vulnerable GOP senators up for re-election next year, defended efforts by Republicans to push back to Trump. "There are times when you have to stand up and say, 'I'm sorry. This is wrong,'" Flake said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. "There are truths that are self-evident. And you've got to stand up and call — whether it's the White House or other elected officials — to task when they're not doing what they should."

That was not the message from Corey Lewandowski, at one point Trump's campaign manager. He offered some free advice to incoming White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine Corps general.

"The thing that Gen. Kelly should do is not try to change Donald Trump," Lewandowski said on NBC's Meet the Press. "I say you have to let Trump be Trump. That is what has made him successful over the last 30 years. That is what the American people voted for. And anybody who thinks they're going to change Donald Trump doesn't know Donald Trump."

The Trump presidency: A new era in Washington










TRAITORS ... UNDOCUMENTED DEMOCRATES ...

EXCLUSIVE: White House Fingers John McCain As Media Leak; Believes U.S. Senator Eavesdropped on Trump’s Classified Phone

This could be the beginning of the end for embattled Sen. John McCain’s life in politics. According to White House officials, McCain is believed to have somehow gained access to the content of President Donald Trump’s private, classified telephone calls with world leaders. And he isn’t keeping quiet about what was talked about either.

139:12.6 Judas was an only son of unwise parents. When very young, he was pampered and petted; he was a spoiled child. As he grew up, he had exaggerated ideas about his self-importance. He was a poor loser. He had loose and distorted ideas about fairness; he was given to the indulgence of hate and suspicion. He was an expert at misinterpretation of the words and acts of his friends. All through his life Judas had cultivated the habit of getting even with those whom he fancied had mistreated him. His sense of values and loyalties was defective.
An analysis of McCain’s recent public statements by White House officials, coupled with information from intelligence personnel working with the Trump administration, paints a disturbing picture for McCain — or any elected U.S. politician. Officials believe the senator has inside knowledge of a number of President Trump’s telephone conversations, including at least one conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Even more alarming, officials believe McCain is secretly sharing this sensitive information with colleagues and his cabal of friendly mainstream media journalists in a dangerous clandestine campaign to damage Trump’s presidency even before it has a chance to succeed. Trump has been searching for media rats in the Beltway in recent weeks. White House aides are confident they have now outed one of the major leaks plaguing the early days of the Trump presidency. To everyone’s surprise, it is a senior senator supposedly belonging to the same side of the political aisle as the president.

McCain has been lambasting Trump to anyone and everyone who will listen since the newly minted president’s inauguration. This includes a Russian comedian who pranked McCain posing as Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. Even during that troubling conversation, where McCain shared sensitive U.S. intelligence with an imposter, White House aides said McCain unknowingly exposed himself as having inside knowledge of Trump’s telephone conversations.
“He has been given transcripts or actually listened to the calls and is sharing what he has heard,” an administration insider said. “There is no doubt. He is one of the major leaks.”
Just last week, True Pundit published a troubling account of how a Russian comedian duped McCain, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. McCain incredibly even coached the phone-prankster-posing Prime Minister on joining NATO.

This audio recording of the phone call is absolutely incredible.

It’s time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to determine the level McCain’s involvement and just how many laws he has broken.

RELATED STORY: BUSTED: Open Borders Hero John McCain Lives in Exclusive $15 Million Remote Mountain Compound Surrounded by Water, Fences, Ridges
RELATED STORY: Wikileaks Exposes John McCain’s Illegal Request for Campaign Cash From Russian Ambassador Who Suddenly Died Monday in NYC

THE FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD DOWN ... OR SO GOES THE STORY

It would appear that America's have used the psychological theory of Transference and elected "THE DONALD" as their stand in for the next four (4) years! 

Transference is a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood".[1] Another definition is "the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object".[2] Still another definition is "a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person ... for the original object of the repressed impulses".[3] Transference (German: Übertragung) was first described by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for a better understanding of the patient's feelings.

It is common for people to transfer feelings from their parents to their partners or children (that is, cross-generational entanglements). For instance, one could mistrust somebody who resembles an ex-spouse in manners, voice, or external appearance or is overly compliant to someone who resembles a childhood friend.

In The Psychology of the Transference, Carl Jung states that within the transference dyad both participants typically experience a variety of opposites, that in love and in psychological growth, the key to success is the ability to endure the tension of the opposites without abandoning the process, and that this tension allows one to grow and to transform.[4]

Only in a personally or socially harmful context can transference be described as a pathological issue. A modern, social-cognitive perspective on transference explains how it can occur in everyday life. When people meet a new person who reminds them of someone else, they unconsciously infer that the new person has traits similar to the person previously known.[5] This perspective has generated a wealth of research that illuminated how people tend to repeat relationship patterns from the past in the present.

High-profile serial killers often transfer unresolved rage toward previous love or hate-objects onto "surrogates", or individuals resembling or otherwise calling to mind the original object of that hate. In the instance of Ted Bundy, he repeatedly killed brunette women who reminded him of a previous girlfriend with whom he had become infatuated, but who had ended the relationship, leaving Ted rejected and pathologically rageful.[6] This notwithstanding, Bundy's behavior could be considered pathological insofar as he may have had a narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder.[7] If so, normal transference mechanisms cannot be held causative of his homicidal behavior.

Sigmund Freud held that transference plays a large role in male homosexuality. In The Ego and the Id, he claimed that eroticism between males can be an outcome of a "[psychically] non-economic" hostility, which is unconsciously subverted into love and sexual attraction.[8]
Transference and countertransference during psychotherapy
In a therapy context, transference refers to redirection of a patient's feelings for a significant person to the therapist. Transference is often manifested as an erotic attraction towards a therapist but can be seen in many other forms such as rage, hatred, mistrust, parentification, extreme dependence, or even placing the therapist in a god-like or guru status. When Freud initially encountered transference in his therapy with patients, he thought he was encountering patient resistance, as he recognized the phenomenon when a patient refused to participate in a session of free association. But what he learned was that the analysis of the transference was actually the work that needed to be done: "the transference, which, whether affectionate or hostile, seemed in every case to constitute the greatest threat to the treatment, becomes its best tool".[9] The focus in psychodynamic psychotherapy is, in large part, the therapist and patient recognizing the transference relationship and exploring the relationship's meaning. Since the transference between patient and therapist happens on an unconscious level, psychodynamic therapists who are largely concerned with a patient's unconscious material use the transference to reveal unresolved conflicts patients have with childhood figures.

Countertransference[10] is defined as redirection of a therapist's feelings toward a patient, or more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a patient. A therapist's attunement to their own countertransference is nearly as critical as understanding the transference. Not only does this help therapists regulate their emotions in the therapeutic relationship, but it also gives therapists valuable insight into what patients are attempting to elicit in them. For example, a therapist who is sexually attracted to a patient must understand the countertransference aspect (if any) of the attraction, and look at how the patient might be eliciting this attraction. Once any countertransference aspect has been identified, the therapist can ask the patient what his or her feelings are toward the therapist and can explore how those feelings relate to unconscious motivations, desires, or fears.

Another contrasting perspective on transference and countertransference is offered in Classical Adlerian psychotherapy. Rather than using the patient's transference strategically in therapy, the positive or negative transference is diplomatically pointed out and explained as an obstacle to cooperation and improvement. For the therapist, any signs of countertransference would suggest that his or her own personal training analysis needs to be continued to overcome these tendencies.

Friday, July 28, 2017

DIGITAL KA0PECTATE ... STOPS MESSY LEAKS


FBI lawyer allegedly under investigation for purportedly leaking about Yahoo, Inc. program
The FBI’s top lawyer is allegedly under investigation for purportedly leaking classified material featured in a Reuters report last year that disclosed a top-secret U.S. surveillance program built by Yahoo Inc, according to several government officials with knowledge of the investigation. The Reuters report stated a software program developed by Yahoo Inc. for the U.S. government that allowed the intelligence community to search Yahoo emails containing specific characters or phrases. The U.S. government has not publicly acknowledged the program reported by Reuters.

James A. Baker, the general counsel for the FBI, is allegedly under a criminal investigation for an apparent connection to the story published in October 2016, according to several government officials. The Reuters report exposed the top secret security program built by Yahoo Inc. in 2015, that has not been disclosed by the U.S. government. The program, which was built at the request of the U.S. government, allowed intelligence officials to scan what is known as "upstream data" using specific characters or phrase words, according to Reuters. Upstream data is information from a device such as a phone or a computer to a server.
Reuters stated that Yahoo Inc. complied with a classified demand by the U.S. government, “scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said three former employees and a fourth person apprised of the events.”

FBI spokeswoman Carol Cratty said the bureau would not comment on Baker and did not confirm or deny the alleged criminal investigation. Attempts by Circa to reach Baker, who is reportedly a close confidant of former FBI Director James Comey, through the bureau were not successful. DOJ officials would not comment on Circa’s inquiry but said, Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be making an announcement next week about the department’s “stepped up efforts on leak investigations.”

A senior government official, with close knowledge of the intelligence community, alleges Baker opposed the Yahoo Inc. software program and has in his position at the FBI held up Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, which are warrants to monitor person’s communications overseas and must be approved by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
“Under Baker, many FISA warrants languished for both counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations,” the source said.
A current intelligence official, who spoke on condition that they not be named due to the nature of their work, said exposure of programs, such as the alleged Yahoo Inc. software, “gives the enemy an upper hand and hinders U.S. national security.”

Authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008, the controversial practice of so-called “upstream” bulk collection allowed for intelligence agencies to ask U.S. phone and Internet companies to provide customer data to aid foreign intelligence-gathering.

At the time of the Reuters report, Yahoo responded saying, "Yahoo is a law-abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States.”

Baker was appointed FBI general counsel by Comey in 2014 and has had a long and distinguished history within the intelligence community. After working as a federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice during the 1990s, he joined the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review In 1996, according to his FBI bio.

From 2001 to 2007, during the Bush Administration, Baker was counsel for intelligence policy and head of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.

In 2006 Baker received the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in counter-terrorism—the CIA’s highest counter-terrorism award, according to his biography. During Baker's long and distinguished career he received the "NSA’s Intelligence Under Law Award; the NSA Director’s Distinguished Service Medal; and DOJ’s highest award— the Edmund J. Randolph Award."

He is a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

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