presidential election

It won't be the first time Julian Assange was interviewed and asked whether the source of the hacked DNC and Podesta emails was Russia; however, it will be the first time everyone pays attention to his answer. Recall that the first such interview of Assange - when the question of who had sourced Wikileaks with the hacked emails came up - took place exactly two months ago, on November 3. Back then, in an interview televized by RT, John Pilger explicitly asked Asange where the emails in question had come from.

Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

In an oddly self-reflective moment of realization, The New York Times' investigative reporter James Risen, writes an oddly un-liberal op-ed pointing out the hypocrisy of Obama administration proclamations with regard 'free press' and transparency and the awkwardly dismal facts on the ground.

If Donald J. Trump decides as president to throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama.

With 2016 still fresh in most investors' minds, and questions about 2017 pressing, here is a summary, courtesy of Goldman's Allison Nathan, of where Goldman believes we closed out 2016, what is in store in the coming year, and ultimately, "what keeps Goldman up at night" about 2017.

2016, and a peek at 2017

Over the weekend, Trump made waves among policy and media circles when during a brief, informal exchange with reporters on New Year's Eve at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, the president-elect questioned the official version of "Russians hacking the election", saying it was possible "somebody else" compromised the Democratic campaign’s servers, and adding that he will reveal some previously undisclosed facts in the coming days by hinting that "I also know things that other people don’t know, we they cannot be sure of the situation."