Tag Archives: Russian hacking

The Big Hack … and Other News

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, religion, Social commentary

We are all so wrapped up in the election, in Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous behaviour, his inane ramblings and threats, the surging number of daily new cases and deaths from the pandemic, and the upcoming runoff elections in Georgia, that few seem to be paying attention to what would ordinarily be the biggest story of the day:  The Big Hack.

Thus far, hackers working for a Russian intelligence agency have breached the following:

  • Department of Energy (including Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
  • Department of Treasury
  • Department of Homeland Security
  • Department of Agriculture
  • Department of State
  • National Institute of Health (NIH)
  • Commerce Department’s telecommunications policy agency

Officials have spent days scouring federal networks for more information about the breaches but are still unsure of what the hackers took.  Federal agencies were not the only victims, as at least three states were also breached.  The true scale of the breach is still unknown but looks to have extended beyond the US government. On Thursday, Reuters reported that Microsoft was also hacked as part of the suspected Russian campaign.

The hack began as early as March, when malicious code was snuck into updates to Orion, a network safety tool used extensively by government agencies.  So far, the hackers are known to have at least monitored email or other data within the US departments of defense, state, treasury, homeland security and commerce.

Now, I don’t pretend to understand the mechanics here, but I know that anytime such agencies as Homeland Security, the Nuclear Security Administration, and Department of Energy are compromised, there is a very real threat to our nation, to our safety, to our very lives.  This is too important to ignore … yes, folks, it’s even more important than Trump’s babbling rants.

There are far more questions than answers:

  • What are they seeking?
  • What have they already obtained?
  • Why?
  • How?
  • Why now?

The timing … I’m not given to conspiracy theories, and frankly don’t have a theory about it, but I have to be suspicious of the timing.  We are very vulnerable right now in many ways, given that we essentially have no coherent leadership, and given that we are largely distracted by the surging pandemic and the post-election chaos.  There is some reason for these hackings, and some reason for the timing … but what?  Former homeland security advisor Tom Bossert chillingly predicts …

“It will take years to know for certain which networks the Russians control and which ones they just occupy.”

The FBI and other agencies have scheduled briefings for members of Congress today, and we may learn more after that, though I’m not holding my breath.  Not surprisingly, Trump has been too busy making threats and accusations to be bothered commenting on the situation.  This must not turn into a political game … our members of Congress must all pull together to give the agencies involved the tools they need to figure out the what, why, when, where and how of the breaches, and to minimize the damage.  My hope is that once Joe Biden takes office in 33 days, our security will once again be considered a top priority.

For now, however, it is important that we keep our eye on this ball.  People refusing to wear masks because they say it violates their civil rights, a lame duck president acting like a toddler, political arguments and name-calling should fade into the background until we understand just what the threat here is and how dangerous it is.

In other news …

  • In Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear issued an order requiring all K-12 institutions to temporarily cease in-person classes because of rising coronavirus cases. A religious school, Danville Christian Academy, joined by Kentucky’s attorney general, said it should not be subject to the order, and they took their case to the Supreme Court.  The Court, in an unsigned order noted that schools are about to begin their holiday breaks, and Governor Beshear’s mandate expires before schools reopen Jan. 4. If Beshear reissues the restriction, the court said, the plaintiffs could return to court.  My thoughts?  A school is a school is a school.  Why should a religious school be exempt from a mandate that is intended to protect teachers, students, and their families.  Good grief, people … do we have to tie you to a tree to make you understand that these mandates are for your own protection?
  • This morning at 8:00 a.m., Mike Pence and his wife Karen are scheduled to receive the coronavirus vaccine … live on television.  Ho hum.  First of all, who really wants to see somebody’s bare arm have a 4-foot long needle plunged into it?  Seriously?  Secondly, to what purpose?  Allegedly, it is to assure the people that the vaccine is perfectly safe, so that more people will be willing to take it.  But … since 90% of us will not even be able to receive it until next autumn, it really doesn’t matter, does it? And anyway, the after-effects that worry me most, given the haste with which the vaccine was developed, may well be long-range, such as people developing cancer 3-4 years from now.  And what if Mike or Karen have an anaphylactic reaction like the nurse up in Alaska … on television?  Then how assured are we going to feel?  Nice try, Mikey, but keep your arms to yourself and stop the voyeurism, please.

Idiot of the Week – Mike Cernovich

Posted on by under Idiot of the Week, Political commentary

Idiot of the Week medal

Well, I have returned from my ‘mini-vacation’ well-rested, both mentally and physically, recharged and ready to get back into the saddle.  But … I cannot seem to find my saddle!  After an hour of perusing the ‘Trump news’, I concluded there is much going on, and yet nothing has really changed.  Every story I read leaves me shaking my head and thinking, “okay, but what’s new?”  So ….. after some consideration, and this one idiot that keeps flitting across my radar, making me want to swat him like a mosquito, I have decided to do an Idiot of the Week today!  Those are always fun, though they often make me growl and grumble, but such is the way of a curmudgeon.

Remember Pizzagate?    Well, though there are many who were guilty of propagating the myth that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the backrooms of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., the man who dreamed up the faux news story was one Mike Cernovich.  I had never heard the name until recently, but apparently this man has been working his way toward the Idiot of the Week award for quite some time now.

cernovich-2Cernovich allegedly obtained a law degree from  the University of Illinois, Pepperdine University School of Law, though I have my doubts.  Why is it that so many of my idiots have law degrees (think Michele Bachmann) … I always thought earning a J.D. was a pretty tough thing, but these days I wonder.  Anyway, in 2012, Cernovich started a website he calls Danger & Play, which began benignly enough, focused mainly on self-improvement.  And then, in 2016, along came Trump, and Cernovich found his niche.

Described as a member of the alt-right (haters of all things not lily-white, male & Christian), he switched his focus to pro-Donald Trump and anti-Hillary Clinton commentary. That, in itself, would not have been extraordinary, nor would it have landed him squarely on my radar.  What does bring him into the limelight, however, is his made-up, blatantly false stories … stories that were seen by many who then spread the lies and hate until … well, Pizzagate where a man with a gun, believing the lie, shot up a pizza place where people were dining and it is nothing short of a miracle that nobody was killed.  Personally, I think this in itself should have earned Cernovich a jail sentence, but let us look back a bit …

  • He started the (false) rumour that Hillary Clinton suffered from seizures and Parkinson’s Disease, a rumour that was embraced by Trump, his campaign, and became a #1 trending topic on Twitter.
  • Cernovich advocates IQ-testing for all immigrants and ending federal funding of universities.

A few words from the man himself::

  • “To beat a person, you lower his or her social status. Logic is pointless,”
  • “What are Trump’s policies? I don’t particularly care.”
  • “If Trump offends you, it’s because you live in a cucked world where no one speaks their minds.”
  • “I haven’t washed my hair in years, and it’s luxurious. Shampoo is another hoax spread by the media.”
  • “Have you guys ever tried ‘raping’ a girl without using force? Try it. It’s basically impossible. Date rape does not exist.”
  • Of the baby girl he and his wife are expecting, he says, “I’ll be nice to her, as long as she’s not a basic bitch”.
  • “Yes, I’m banned from TV. I was too effective a Trump supporter …”

He has many other utterances that further highlight his idiocy, but they are extremely lewd and highly offensive, thus I refuse to give them a voice on this blog.

None of this, however, is what put him onto my radar.  What did is the fact that Donald Trump, Jr., the killer of wild animals, claims that Cernovich should win a Pulitzer Prize for his “journalism”.  And equally disturbing, Trump mouthpiece and herself a former recipient of the Idiot of the Week award, Kellyanne Conway, agrees!  Even Mike Flynn, short-time NSA Director, has praised Cernovich.  The story that led to all this high praise is as follows:

cernovich-trump-jr

cernovich-kellyanne

On Sunday, In what is largely considered a continuation of Trump’s fanatically paranoid claims that President Obama ‘wiretapped’ his phones, Cernovich claimed that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice “unmasked” the identities of Americans connected with President Trump’s campaign and transition who were mentioned in foreign surveillance intelligence reports.  Just as with the wiretapping claim, Pizzagate, and rumours of Hillary’s health, the right took the ball and ran with it. Senator Rand Paul called it “a smoking gun”, while Senator Tom Cotton referred to Rice as “Typhoid Mary”.

According to both The Washington Post and the New York Times, there is, first off, zero evidence that such an “unmasking” ever occurred, and secondly, even if it did, as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, she could very well have had legitimate reasons to ask to unmask individuals in these intelligence reports.  There is no smoking gun, plain and simple, but this, like the false wiretapping claim, is a useful (for Trump) distraction from the ongoing and expanding investigations and discoveries regarding Trump’s shady connections to the Russian government.

For there to be a suggestion that somebody like Cernovich should be awarded a Pulitzer Prize is a slap in the face to genuine journalists such as Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, and many others who have earned the prize in years past for excellence in journalism.  If Cernovich should be considered for an Pulitzer, it should be in the category of ‘fiction’, but even at that … his writing just is not that good.

Cernovich has actually written and published three books:

  • Gorilla Mindset: How to Control Your Thoughts and Emotions and Live Life on Your Terms (2015)
  • MAGA Mindset: Making YOU and America Great Again (2016)
  • Danger & Play: Essays on Masculinity (2015)

Perhaps what most qualifies Cernovich for the award is the fact that he takes himself so seriously, appears to actually believe that he is a hero of some sort, and sees himself as “committed to bringing you the best news and journalism, and my “beat” primarily focused on exposing the fake news media,” as per his Facebook page.

cernovich-3

No surprise, right?

One final note:  Cernovich has emphasized the importance of simplicity in social media commentary, noting that when he made his posts “too complex”, none of it got “through to people”. Could it be because of the mental caliber of the people he is trying to reach?

And so, Mr. Mike Cernovich, I hereby name you this week’s recipient of Filosofa’s Idiot of the Week award!!!  No thanks are necessary, and you have certainly earned it with your lies, deceit, arrogance, and all your alt-right phobias!

What Does Putin Want?

Posted on by under Global Issues, Political commentary, Re-blogs

Warfare has taken on many personae throughout history, from the spears, shields and swords used in ancient Greece and Rome to the hydrogen bomb used by the U.S. to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. More recently, the world has seen the ‘new and improved’ version of nuclear weapons, though thankfully they have not been used to eradicate cities or nations … yet. But it may well be that nuclear weapons are not needed to wreak havoc and cause mass destruction. Perhaps all that is needed is … a computer? Today I am sharing a comprehensive post by fellow-blogger and friend, Robert Goldstein who has done a great deal of research and his post deserves … nay, NEEDS … to be read and pondered by us all. Please take a few moments to check out his post, and also some of his links. If you have been following the news about the Russian government hacking the DNC in order to manipulate our elections, you will find this post chilling. Thank you, Robert, for the hard work you put into this, and for generously permitting me to share it!

Roger Stone … The Making Of The President … ???

Posted on by under Political commentary

roger-stoneRoger Stone … remember him?  A real piece of work.  He and his ex-wife jointly won Filosofa’s Idiot of the Week award back in July 2016.  Well, guess what?  He has written a book … I should say another book, but since until tonight I wasn’t aware he had written previous books, it doesn’t really matter.  The title of his new book?  The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution.  It is touted as being “In the tradition of Theodore White’s landmark books, the definitive look at how Donald J. Trump shocked the world to become president.”  Trust me … Stone is no T.H. White!

I have read only the equivalent of about the first 20 pages, having downloaded a sample from Amazon onto my kindle, just to get a feel for the tone of the book, author’s writing style, etc.  A few excerpts:

  • “This [Trump’s electoral win] can only be attributed to the talent, energy, and foresight of Donald Trump himself.” And the Russians, and FBI Director Jim Comey, and the media …
  • “The increasingly vigorous alternative media, whose reporting standards are superior …” This is a joke, right?
  • “Trump’s skillful courting of the conservative media, like The Daily Caller, Breitbart News, WND.com, and InfoWars, made Trump the first presidential candidate to reach these disaffected … “ An apt description of what is wrong in this country
  • “American voters have finally become hip to the fact that the media and the political establishment work hand-in-glove …” Not all of us … in fact, not even most of us.

As you can see, this is not much more than a 408-page propaganda missive, though admittedly there is some interesting historical context.  As my blogger-friend Keith has mentioned before, Trump was groomed in his early years by none other than Roy Cohn, the “legendary mob and celebrity lawyer, who was an attorney and advisor to the young real estate mogul.”  Cohn was also former Senator Joseph McCarthy’s right-hand man during the era of the McCarthy communist witch hunts.

nixon-stone

Richard M. Nixon with a much younger Roger Stone

There are numerous comparisons throughout the brief bit of the book I read that compare the Trump campaign to Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign, which may be quite apt:  Nixon – Watergate; Trump – Russia.  At any rate, turns out that Roger Stone was actually an advisor to Nixon’s campaign. In 1972, he joined Nixon’s “Committee to Re-Elect the President”, and while I find no evidence that he was directly involved in Watergate, he played dirty pool, bragging, “By night, I’m trafficking in the black arts. Nixon’s people were obsessed with intelligence.”

After Nixon won the 1972 presidential election, Stone worked for the administration in the Office of Economic Opportunity. After Nixon resigned, Stone went to work for Bob Dole, but he was fired after columnist Jack Anderson publicly identified Stone as a ‘Nixon dirty trickster’. Here is an interesting article from 1986 about Stone and his shady dealings.

Stone began his political career early … in his junior year of high school, he manipulated the ouster of the class president, then succeeded him.  “I built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket. Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school to run against me. You think that’s mean? No, it’s smart.” (This is reminiscent of the day Trump said his manipulations of the IRS code to avoid paying taxes was “smart”.)

At age 12, Stone read Barry Goldwater’s book, Conscience of a Conservative, and volunteered with the Goldwater campaign (1964), deciding that he was “a staunch conservative but with libertarian leanings.” In 2007 Stone, a top adviser at the time to Joseph Bruno (the majority leader of the New York State Senate), was forced to resign by Bruno after allegations that Stone had threatened Bernard Spitzer, the then-83-year-old father of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer. Interestingly, when Trump learned of the incident he said it was “ridiculous and stupid”.  But that was then, and this is now. And in the here and now, Stone advised Trump that he must run his campaign like a dictatorship, that trying to run his campaign as a democracy would only lead to divisiveness and rivalries. Trump listened to Roger.

Roger Stone has not changed since then, either. During the 2016 Republican National Convention, he threatened to send supporters to delegates’ hotel rooms if they switched from Trump to another candidate, a move that then-RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said at the time was “just totally over the line.”

As mentioned in an earlier post, Stone was initially a campaign advisor to Trump, but was soon fired for the same racial, sexual and ethnic slurs that got him banned from CNN & CNBC. But the man continues to make the rounds, as he is a regular on Alex Jones’ radio show, and a frequent guest of Sean Hannity. That should tell you something right there. Though not officially a part of Trump’s White House staff, there is little doubt that Stone is an advisor to Trump in an unofficial capacity.  Just last night, in fact, Stone tweeted the following:

“The buck stops here. Obama responsible for illegal surveillance of @realDonaldTrump – must be charged, convicted and jailed.”  Link to The Week article

In mid-January, Stone claims that he was poisoned with a radioactive agent, Polonium, in order to keep him from “exposing the “Russian Hacking” LIE b4 the Congressional Investigation”.  Comic book stuff?  Spy vs Spy? Interestingly, he claims that his book contains the evidence to dispel the Russian hacking “lie”.  Since his book was released on January 31st, why would somebody try to poison him at that stage of the game?  Methinks this was an ‘alternative fact’, probably a ploy to gain attention a week before the book came out.

As for the book, no, I do not intend to buy or read it.  Just reading the sample in bed last night was enough to cost me some sleep.  Interestingly, it garnered pretty good reviews … 4.5 / 5 stars from 194 reviewers on Amazon.  But then, likely Trump supporters are the only ones who have any interest in reading it.  In the past, T.H. White’s “The Making of the President” accounts of the 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1980 presidential elections have been historical documents, well-written and certainly credible.  Stone’s book falls far short, as it is a piece of propaganda, though there is some historical context, but presented from a thoroughly biased viewpoint.

I think we have not seen the last of Roger Stone.  It is interesting to note that the aforementioned Idiot of the Week post from July, featuring Roger and Ann Stone has been viewed 40 times in the past week!  Apparently people are still interested in him.  Like a bad penny, or a nightmare … he just won’t go away!

Does Putin Have The Dirt On Trump?

Posted on by under Global Issues, Political commentary

Last Friday, Trump received an intelligence briefing in regards to the Russian hacking of the DNC and possibly the RNC by top people in the intelligence community, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. All experts in their field and highly regarded.  Prior to the briefing, Trump had consistently and vociferously denigrated the idea that Russia was responsible for the cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee, even saying that he would believe Julian Assange over the U.S. intelligence community.  After the meeting, he issued the following statement:

“I had a constructive meeting and conversation with the leaders of the Intelligence Community this afternoon. I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation.

While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines. There were attempts to hack the Republican National Committee, but the RNC had strong hacking defenses and the hackers were unsuccessful.

Whether it is our government, organizations, associations or businesses we need to aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks. I will appoint a team to give me a plan within 90 days of taking office. The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm. Two weeks from today I will take the oath of office and America’s safety and security will be my number one priority.”

In part, the report summarized, “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”

Yesterday (Tuesday), four days later, The Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, and CNN all report that a two-page appendix was included with the main report.  The information contained in the two pages is reported to contain compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump. The material has not yet been corroborated, but intelligence agencies evaluated the sources, considered them credible, and determined that it was plausible that they would have first-hand knowledge of Russia’s alleged dossier on Trump. Thus they decided President Obama, Trump and congressional leaders needed to be told about it and informed that the agencies were actively investigating it.

I will not even speculate about the information itself, other than to say that I cannot imagine anything much worse than what we already know of the man.  Lying, cheating, sexual abuse, illegal activities … what else is left??? Nonetheless, we need to focus more on what the purpose, if the information is verified, is on the part of the Russian government.  Trump won the election as Putin had, apparently, hoped, and will be inaugurated in just nine days. What is left?  What is left is, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.  What is left is relations between Russia and the U.S. after January 20th.  What is left is cooperation between nations. Perhaps Putin felt that Trump, with neither political nor foreign policy experience, would be more malleable than Hillary Clinton and more willing to side with Russia in its relations with Turkey, Syria, and Western Europe. I cannot know Putin’s motives, but if it is proven that he ordered the hacking of the RNC as well as the DNC, and if it is proven that he does, in fact, have compromising information on Donald Trump, it certainly opens doors for infinite speculation.

Also included in the two pages are allegations of ongoing contact between members of Trump’s inner circle and representatives of Moscow.  To some extent, this is already public knowledge.  For example, Trump’s choice for national security advisor, Michael Flynn, attended a dinner at the Metropol Hotel in honor of the 10th anniversary of RT, a Russian news agency that has been publicly identified by American intelligence as a primary outlet for Moscow’s disinformation campaigns. Flynn, who was two seats away from Russian President Vladimir Putin at the dinner, has frequently appeared on RT, despite public warnings by American intelligence that the news agency is used for Russian propaganda.

Trump, of course, denies the report.  He let his fingers speak for him on Twitter last night, tweeting, “FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”  Sigh.  This man and his irrational, rude, crude tweets is exhausting me.  Just once … just once, I would like to see him speak or tweet and make a bit of sense, use proper English, and say something that shows a small bit of intellect.  If this man stays in office more than a year, I will be ready for a padded room.  At any rate, the reason for his denial is obvious.  The narcissist has convinced himself that he won the election without help, because he is great and wonderful, and if it can be proven that he had massive amounts of help, without which he would now be preparing to oversee his casinos rather than a nation, his ego couldn’t handle it.

Just to be clear, what I have written here is speculation based on information that the U.S. intelligence agencies have NOT yet confirmed.  I am merely saying that there is some logic to the assumption, and I do not believe that the FBI would have included this information if they did not believe in the credibility of their sources.  I think there is enough smoke to believe there is a fire somewhere. But, before we can draw further conclusions, we must have facts (you know, those silly, cumbersome little details that are not supposed to matter in this post-truth world?).  I think that either way, Trump needs to remember that Russia is not our ally, but that Western European nations are.  His praise of Putin in recent months is concerning, whether or not the Russian government now has the means to blackmail him. Our European allies have been understandably nervous ever since Trump’s electoral win in November, but tensions are even higher in light of these latest developments. 17 current and former officials from a range of Central and Eastern European countries wrote in a letter to Trump that reads, in part:

“Putin does not seek American greatness. As your allies, we do. As your treaty-bound allies, we appeal to Americans in the new U.S. Administration and Congress to stand firm in the defense of our common goals and interests: peace, Atlantic strength, and freedom.”

The letter was signed by one sitting European leader, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, and several former heads of government and foreign ministers, including former Romanian president Traian Băsescu, former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, former Latvian president Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, and former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister Carl Bildt.

While not jumping to conclusions, it would serve us well to remember that Trump’s campaign has been shrouded in controversy and that his ability to be discreet and keep his mouth shut and fingers off Twitter seems nil.  If, in fact, the allegations are proven, it makes Trump the most compromised president in modern U.S. history.  What does that mean for his presidency?  Stay tuned, folks  ….