If we found out that Donald Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee had paid a firm working for the Russians to create a file of fabricated attacks on Hillary Clinton during the election, would the media treat it as an impeachable offense? Would such efforts be considered an attack on the foundations of our democracy? Would liberal columnists make sensationalistic claims that the Russians had "carried out a successful plan to pick the government of the United States"? Would they argue that the election had been rigged? Would they demand that Republicans pick their country over their party?

Of course they would.

What if a major media organization had taken that ginned-up dossier, one that included a number of unsubstantiated stories about Hillary's supposed sexual fetishes and shady business dealings with foreign powers, and put it online so millions of readers could judge the content for themselves? What if the firm that helped disseminate that file was also feeding a number of reporters alleged scoops that helped shape post-election coverage? Would we now be engaged in a national conversation about the responsibility journalists have to avoid broadcasting questionable information about candidates? Would the outlets that ran with those stories apologize for regurgitating items that might have been concocted by the Russians themselves? Because all of that sure sounds like fake news to me.

The Intercept has just released a new top-secret NSA document unearthed from leaked intelligence files provided by Edward Snowden which reveals in stunning clarity that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the war which has now claimed half a million lives.

The US intelligence memo - marked "Top Secret" - is arguably the most damning piece of evidence to date which gives internal US government confirmation of the direct role that both the Saudi and US governments played in fueling an armed insurgency which launched massive and well-coordinated attacks on civilians, civilian infrastructure, as well as military targets in pursuit of regime change. The NSA report is sourced to the intelligence agency's controversial PRISM program - which gives the NSA the ability to sweep up all communications and data exchanged through major US internet service providers like Google. The memo focuses on events that unfolded outside Damascus in March of 2013.

According to the document, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was ordered to "light up Damascus" and "flatten" the Syrian capital's international airport by Prince Salman bin Sultan - a prominent member of the Saudi royal family tasked with overseeing operations in Syria as a top Saudi intelligence officer. The document further reveals that the "Saudis sent 120 tons of explosives/weapons to opposition forces" - presumably in the lead up to the operation.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee added a notch to their belt Tuesday, with the bombshell revelation that the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funded the infamous anti-Trump dossier.

A series of subpoenas issued by the committee this month against the research firm, Fusion GPS, appear to have smoked out the client, who was identified by The Washington Post as Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias.

"It's very obvious, understanding that they leaked a story to the Washington Post to try to get it out there with as sympathetic spin as possible on an absolutely terrible story for them and Democrats," speculated one source familiar with the House Intelligence Committee's activities.

On Tuesday, a lawyer at Perkins Coie, where Elias is a partner, sent a letter to Fusion GPS's attorney relieving the firm of its confidentiality obligations regarding the dossier project.

"In the circumstances," wrote Perkins Coie's Matthew Gehringer, "we believe it is appropriate to release Fusion GPS from this obligation as it relates to the identity of Perkins Coie."

According to Gehringer, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie last March offering to continue its ongoing opposition research on Trump.

For the first seven days after Clinton/Russia/Uranium The Hill published startling new information about the scandal, the 24-hour cable news giant CNN had produced less than five minutes (3 minutes, 54 seconds) of actual news coverage about the case.

From 7am ET October 17 through 7am ET October 24, CNN's reporters and anchors only mentioned the scandal twice: first, on October 19, after President Trump scolded reporters for failing to cover the story, anchor Wolf Blitzer offered a 19-second explanation of what Trump was talking about.

Then, on October 20, Blitzer's 5pm Situation Room included an interview with an ex-Obama administration official, Jake Sullivan, who told Blitzer that Trump's charge of corruption against the Bill and Hillary Clinton "had no basis in fact." Blitzer, to his credit, at least pushed back, asking Sullivan about how "some of these Russians who were involved were giving the Clinton Foundation thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Bill Clinton was going to Russia to deliver speeches for huge speaking fees?"

The Washington Post's blockbuster report that the Hillary Clinton campaign, in partnership with the DNC, hired the firm that utilized gossip from various unnamed Russian government officials to create the so-called Trump Dossier, marks a key turning point into the investigation into Russia's attempts at influencing American politics.

The DNC not only accepted this second-hand, uncorroborated information, but actually sought it out, financed it, and disseminated it through Washington.

Now rewind the clock to July, after The New York Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. had been approached by a mysterious Russian lawyer with an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Trump Jr. accepted the meeting but by all accounts, the lawyer had misrepresented her intent, and no anti-Hillary intel was exchanged.

Nonetheless, the media and many prominent Democrats fell into a fit of hysteria.

Trump Jr. was quickly accused of "treason" and "colluding" with a hostile actor. Some said he would certainly be going to jail.

A former senior employee of the Podesta Group is ready to open up about DC corruption.

Now that the Podesta brothers and Paul Manafort are central figures in "Russia Probe 2.0", former associates connected to the powerful DC lobbyists are starting to divulge what they knew to journalists willing to listen.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson was contacted by a former senior employee of the Podesta Group, who witnessed first hand how Tony Podesta, Paul Manafort and Hillary Clinton collaborated to get secure millions of dollars in lobbying fees in exchange for political favors.

"We got an email from a man with direct personal knowledge from that story (Podestas being investigated). He's a former senior employee of the Podesta Group."

Over the past several weeks, the Russia-related talking points of Democrats and their mainstream media echo chambers have shifted from constantly insisting that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election to focus on a seemingly irrelevant amount of advertising dollars that may have been spent on various social media platforms by people that "may have been connected" to the Kremlin...which, to our understanding, is defined as anyone with their browser language set to Russian.

Alas, as the Washington Examiner points out today, this shift in talking points could finally indicate that Democrats are admitting that there is no 'there' there when it comes to the 'Trump collusion' narrative.

Män som hatar kvinnor - 'Men Who Hate Women'. That's the original Swedish title of Stieg Larsson's runaway best-seller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Those who have read the novel or seen the Swedish film adaptation know that it's the perfect description. Larsson weaves a story of rape, sadism, spousal abuse, human trafficking, white-collar crime, and political corruption around the iconic characters of Lisbeth Salander and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Yeah, it may just be a novel, but after the research I've been doing lately, I'm convinced that there's more to the Larsson's subject matter than just a page-turning good read. As the character 'V' put it in V for Vendetta, "Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up." That's the truth, and if I've learned anything in recent years, it's that truth is stranger than fiction, and even more disturbing.

While I'm a fan of Larsson's work, and fiction in general, there's something to be said about true accounts. They have a way of 'seating' in the mind, making what was at first only 'interesting' and perhaps 'entertaining' fiction become real: solid, vital, life-altering. Fiction gives us the truth, but at a distance. It's up to the reader to divine the real-life applications and implications. But when they become clear, it can be a profound and painful experience. It's all too easy to take the easy way out when that experience is just too painful, with the potential of shattering too many deeply held illusions about the way reality really works. "It's just a story, after all." Those six curiosity-killing words are enough to prevent a person from doing the research to see that there may be more to a story than just the product of a good imagination. There may be a disturbing underbelly to the surface events of everyday life. In my case, that's where real-life investigative reporter Nick Bryant's 2009 book The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal comes into the story. It's the book that made a lot of things hit home for me, and it was absolutely devastating.

Bryant is a professional journalist, having published articles in many 'mainstream' newspapers and journals. But after deciding to research the infamous 'Franklin scandal' of the late '80s and early '90s, no mainstream editor would take his story. It was just too hard to believe. For those readers unfamiliar with the scandal, you can watch a never-aired documentary produced by UK-based Yorkshire Television titled Conspiracy of Silence. The documentary was commissioned by Discovery Channel, who pulled out at the last minute. Luckily, someone with access to a rough cut of the piece leaked it and Bryant has made it freely available on his website, here. The Franklin Scandal not only confirms what the Yorkshire team presented, but adds reams of new details and documents demonstrating a level of criminality, corruption, perversion of justice, and sadism that is simply mind-blowing.

Former President George H. W. Bush, now 93, has apologized for a 2014 incident that actress Heather Lind termed a "sexual assault."

According to the Daily Mail, Bush attended the premiere of Lind's AMC show, Turn: Washington's Spies, and during a photo opportunity, the former President - then 91 years old - reportedly leaned over in his wheelchair, patted Lind on her bottom, and told her a "dirty joke."

Lind told the story on Instagram, where she claimed in a post that the president had his wife, Barbara Bush, by his side, and that Barbara simply "rolled her eyes" "as if to say 'not again.'"

The photo is now gone off the social media network, but the Mail captured Lind's caption.

When I got the chance to meet George H. W. Bush four years ago to promote a historical television show I was working on, he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo. He didn't shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke.

The actress went on to say that a nearby security guard told her she shouldn't have stood next to the former president for the photo op, and to excoriate the former president whom she says she will no longer refer to with any titles of honor.

"We were instructed to call him Mr. President. It seems to me a President's power is in his or her capacity to enact positive change, actually help people, and serve as a symbol of our democracy," the lengthy post went on.

"He relinquished that power when he used it against me and, judging from the comments of those around him, countless other women before me."

Lind said that she shared the assault with her cast members who were very supportive.

A former Crimean prosecutor has accused presidential hopeful Kseniya Sobchak of showing disrespect for her own people by referring to Crimea as "Ukrainian territory" at a recent press conference.

"This could only be said by a person who sees nothing outside their 'party crowd' and 'creative minority' world," said Natalia Poklonskaya, a Duma deputy and former chief prosecutor of Crimea.

"The status of Crimea cannot be discussed, I cannot believe that there are some people left who do not know that Crimea and Sevastopol are in Russia," she told RIA Novosti.

"Such statements coming from public figures who lack foresight and deal mostly with reality shows, can prove only one thing - their disrespect for people and own motherland."