Russian government arresting FSB operatives with possible ties to hacking of American presidential election. Update!

Courtesy of Radio Free Europe: 

Russian media have reported that another Federal Security Service (FSB) officer has been arrested on treason charges in a case that may be linked to cyberattacks targeting the U.S. presidential election campaign. 

The reports by Rambler News Service on January 26 come a day after the Kommersant newspaper reported that a senior officer of the cyberintelligence department of the FSB -- Russia’s lead security agency -- had been arrested. 

Kommersant said Sergei Mikhailov, deputy chief of the FSB's Center for Information Security, had been arrested in December on treason charges. 

Another Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, on January 26 corroborated the Kommersant report. 

Novaya Gazeta quoted unidentified sources as saying Mikhailov was arrested during a meeting with other FSB officers in Moscow, and was taken from the room with a sack over his head. 

Also arrested in December was a manager of the renowned Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab.

I read about the Mikhailov two days ago on the New York Times who suggested that "the detention of an official who would have been in a position to engage in the election hacking in America could indicate a good-will gesture to the United States, which has penalized Russia for the electoral meddling."

Yeah somehow I doubt that, but RFE suggests another, more sinister, possibility:  

The newspaper quoted unidentified sources as saying that Mikhailov is suspected of providing U.S. intelligence with information about King Servers, a hosting service owned by Russian citizen Vladimir Fomenko. 

King Servers was used as a platform by hackers who targeted state-election computer systems in Arizona and Illinois last year. Fomenko, who rents space on his servers, has denied any links to the perpetrators of the cyberattacks. 

Currently American intelligence agencies are attempting to investigate the Russian hacking and its effect on our last election.

So if it is true that Mikhailov was helping those intelligence agencies, and he has now been arrested by the Russian government and charged with treason, what is the likelihood that he will still be accessible to the FBI and CIA?

If anything it appears that the Russian government is doing a clean sweep to remove the possibility that the American intelligence agencies will be able to find any definitive links between the hacks and the Russian officials.

Update: And the plot thickens.

Courtesy of the Telegraph:  

An ex-KGB chief suspected of helping the former MI6 spy Christopher Steele to compile his dossier on Donald Trump may have been murdered by the Kremlin and his death covered up. it has been claimed. 

Oleg Erovinkin, a former general in the KGB and its successor the FSB, was found dead in the back of his car in Moscow on Boxing Day in mysterious circumstances. 

Erovinkin was a key aide to Igor Sechin, a former deputy prime minister and now head of Rosneft, the state-owned oil company, who is repeatedly named in the dossier.

In Russia there are no coincidences. This is what happens when Vladimir Putin wants you silenced.

In my humble opinion this is confirmation that the Russian did indeed hack our election to help get Donald Trump elected, and that they are now desperately working to cover their tracks before our intelligence agencies can put all of the puzzle pieces together. 

Ammon Bundy and seven members of his band of merry militia wannabes arrested during Oregon traffic stop. Well except for the one that was shot dead of course. Update!

From top left, booking photographs of Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier and Shawna Cox. From bottom left, Ryan Waylen Payne, Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy and Peter Santilli.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Ammon Bundy, the leader of an armed seizing of a federal wildlife refuge in rural eastern Oregon, was arrested and one person was killed Tuesday afternoon in a traffic stop in rural Oregon, the F.B.I. and the Oregon State Police said. 

Seven other people, including Mr. Bundy’s brother Ryan Bundy, were arrested, the authorities said. Another person was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening. 

The authorities did not identify the man who was killed, but a member of the Nevada State Assembly, Michele Fiore, who has been a supporter of the Bundy family, said on Twitter that it was LaVoy Finicum. Mr. Finicum had become a de facto spokesman for the occupiers.

The seventh man arrested was that loudmouth Jon Ritzheimer, who claimed in a YouTube video that he could not be with his children because he was too busy standing up for the Constitution.

In fact he got scared and ran home to Arizona: 

“FYI. I came home to AZ to visit my family,” Ritzheimer posted late Tuesday. “The feds know I am here and are charging me with Conspiracy to impede a federal officer. I need an attorney. My family needs help and I am hoping they grant me bail.” 

The FBI issued a statement early Wednesday saying the 32-year-old Ritzheimer had turned himself in and was arrested without incident. 

“Ritzheimer faces one federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372,” the FBI said in a statement.

You know as a rule I really don't want ANYBODY shot and killed. But I have to admit that if this Ritsheimer guy had gone out in a blaze of "glory" I would not have shed a tear at his demise.

But as it turned out he was just a sniveling coward with a big mouth.

Which should not be news to anyone.

So exactly what was accomplished here?

No seriously I'm asking, WHAT was accomplished here?

Update: Here is Ritzheimer using his children in order to evoke sympathy and convince people to send him money. 

If you are like me it will likely make your blood boil.

Two young elementary school children bring handguns to Kentucky school thinking them toys.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

A first-grader and his brother in kindergarten took two handguns, one of them loaded, on a bus to a Kentucky elementary school Thursday morning after apparently thinking they were toys, authorities said. They said no one was hurt and the firearms were seized when the boys reached school. 

The boys, ages 6 and 7, had a gun each in their school backpacks and showed them to some other pupils on a bus headed to Dewitt Elementary School in Flat Lick, said Kentucky State Police Trooper Shane Jacobs. He said one student alerted a teacher and the eastern Kentucky school was briefly locked down and the guns were confiscated. 

"We never felt that the kids' intent was to hurt anyone at the school," Jacobs said by phone. "We feel the kids didn't know that they were actually a firearm. They thought they were toy guns."

Even though the children did not seem to know better each was charged with possession of a firearm on school property.

The parents have also been charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, and even the school bus driver was charged, because he knew about the weapons and did not contact the school.

Obviously this could have been so much worse.

But it also goes to show that when you make your toys look like real guns, and real guns look like toys, you are asking for trouble.