The Manchurian Candidate: Reports have surfaced that both President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump were shown intelligence documents that say Russian operatives claim to have information that is both personally and financially compromising to Trump. CNN and The New York …

Conflict and Interest: The Senate and Trump transition team appear to be trying to ram through cabinet appointees who have yet to receive complete background and ethics screenings. The man who leads the Office of Government Ethics says the schedule …

The Intel: A senior member of Russia’s parliament mocked and dismissed the CIA report on Russian hacking of the US election. Alexey Pushkov, a member of the defense and security committee of the Russian Parliament’s upper house, said via Twitter, …

The Intel: Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” and demonstrated “a clear preference for President-elect Trump” over Hillary Clinton, according to a declassified version of an intelligence report on Russian …

The Intel: The Washington Post reports that US intelligence intercepts found Russian leaders celebrating Donald Trump’s election win over Hillary Clinton as a geopolitical victory for Moscow. The Post also reports that intelligence agencies identified “actors” who turned over hacked …

The Intel: President-elect Trump is thinking about limiting the power of the Director of National Intelligence and doing some reorganizing, particularly at the CIA, according to some reports. In the meantime, Trump is taking sides with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange …

It’s Political: After a Twitter whipping by President-elect Donald Trump and public outrage, House Republicans scurried yesterday to reverse their vote to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. The headline on a NY Times editorial says, “House Fires at …

Heavy Weather: A violent storm system swept across Gulf Coast states yesterday bringing tornadoes and flooding. Four people died when a tree fell on a mobile home in Alabama. Some of the heaviest rains are expected tonight in Georgia. Nation: …

Murder Town: The city of Chicago finished 2016 with 762 murders, more than New York and Los Angeles combined. Another four thousand people were wounded by gunfire in bullet city. It’s an enormous increase from the 485 Chicago murders reported …

Overnight: A gunman opened fire inside an Istanbul nightclub full of New Year’s Eve celebrants, killing 39 of them. Sixty-nine more people were sent to the hospital, four of them in critical condition. The gunman entered the nightclub about an …