In reporting yesterday from NBC News, head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, Jeanette Manfra, said, “We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were successfully penetrated.” This comes five months after Homeland Security notified those 21 states that Russian government hackers had been targeting them, and a full 17 months after NBC News reported attempted hacking. So far, only Illinois has confirmed that the hackers had been able to gain access to its systems. Continue reading “Trumpster Fire Day 385: Are We Sure the Election Wasn’t Rigged?”
Tag: Hillary Clinton
Trumpland Day 189: “Two Fish that Don’t Stink”
Well, Reince Priebus’s days as White House Chief of Staff are numbered. That became clear last week when President Trump hired Anthony Scaramucci to be the White House Communications Director, going around Priebus’s recommendations, and leading White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to resign. But events last night and this morning have hammered that idea home. Continue reading “Trumpland Day 189: “Two Fish that Don’t Stink””
Trumpland Day 173: Donnie Dumbass, Jr.
Last night the New York Times dropped a bomb on the Turdpol Kakistocracy. After a weekend where the Times reported that Donald Trump, Jr. met with Russian lawyers with Kremlin ties, reporting that Trump Jr. and his father both confirmed, it was further reported that Trump Jr. took the meeting with the understanding he would be receiving materials damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Then last night the Times reported that before the meeting, Trump Jr. received an email about the meeting that claimed that the promised materials were coming from the Russian government, which was engaged in an effort to aid the campaign of Donald Trump. If these articles from the Times are accurate, then this is the proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to undermine American democracy we all knew was out there somewhere. Continue reading “Trumpland Day 173: Donnie Dumbass, Jr.”
Trumpland Day 119: What a Week
A review of the last week in the Turdpol Kakistocracy:
- May 9, Tuesday: President Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. The administration claims the firing is over the Director’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
- May 10, Wednesday: Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the Unites States Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office and reveals highly classified intel to the Russians.
- May 11, Thursday: Trump has an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt where he torpedoes all the spin over the Comey firing coming from his own aides, and reveals that he fired Comey because of the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
- May 12, Friday: Trump threatens Comey on Twitter, warning him not to leak anything to the press.
- May 15, Monday: News breaks about Trump revealing the classified intel to the Russians.
- May 16, Tuesday: Reporting reveals that James Comey kept memos of his interactions with President Trump. One memo describes a meeting in February where Trump asked Comey to end the investigation into disgraced National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia.
- May 17, Wednesday: The Department of Justice appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special prosecutor to continue the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice.
There’s more, but those are the broad strokes. Without a doubt, this past week has been the most damaging to Trump’s presidency in a long string of weeks with not a lot of good news. Continue reading “Trumpland Day 119: What a Week”
Cocksuckers Ball: Harvest Time
The United States Senate is headed towards an historic moment this week. The nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch has gone to the floor for debate. As of right now, the Republicans do not have enough votes to impose cloture on the debate. It is expected that on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will introduce a vote to change Senate rules to allow cloture to be passed with a simple majority, clearing the way for a floor vote on Gorsuch. By the time we all sit down for dinner on Friday evening, Gorsuch will be confirmed as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Senate will begin a new era — one that is leaving many pundits uneasy. Continue reading “Cocksuckers Ball: Harvest Time”
Cocksuckers Ball: Turnabout Is Fair Play
In all the news this week, including a late-breaking story from CNN last night that said, in their carefully chosen words, “The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” it’s easy to forget that there were confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court nominee. Continue reading “Cocksuckers Ball: Turnabout Is Fair Play”
Potpourri à la Lupica
It’s been a week since I’ve seen anything in the news about Last Tango in Paris. I thought we were supposed to be outraged about that movie. That’s one of the things I hate about Twitter and celebrities. It amplifies nonsense because once one celebrity tweets their outrage, every other celebrity with a Twitter account had better join in or they look like assholes, but only for a couple of days or so. And then it’s on to the next outrage. I don’t even use Twitter, but I’m aware of Twitter outrage and Twitter wars and everything else because half the news articles on the web these days are recounts of what people have tweeted. Continue reading “Potpourri à la Lupica”
Missile Test Predicts! The 2016 Results
Holy fuck, America. We did it. We actually voted into the Oval Office a man who didn’t know, until he met with President Obama last week, that all the staffers in the West Wing are Democrats and will have to be replaced. We voted into office a man who hired, as his chief strategist, a white nationalist propagandist. We voted into office a man who, during the campaign, could be relied upon to disqualify himself from said office at least once a week, either through word or deed. But most importantly, America’s voting public went with most of my 2016 election gambling picks, thereby ensuring my Loyal Seven readers, who faithfully follow my advice, early and prosperous retirements. The results are below. My picks are first, with the winner in bold. Continue reading “Missile Test Predicts! The 2016 Results”
Election Day: 12:12am
The most amazing thing about Trump’s performance tonight is how much it was missed. Right now, whole piles of electoral votes east of the Mississippi are still up for grabs, after midnight. Clinton is still mathematically in this, but nothing has broken her way tonight, and there’s no reason to expect things will all of a sudden win her victory.
Was Clinton really despised so much that she couldn’t beat Donald Trump? Was the conservative disinformation machine that effective that voters could not make a fair comparison between her and Trump? Did people place far more weight on the email scandal than was deserved? Did James Comey deliver the election to Trump?
Or was this truly a populist rebellion? Has government gotten so out of touch with a majority of American voters that our representatives missed an underlying current of dissatisfaction? That’s a legitimate question. When the economy is doing well and unemployment is low, the temptation is to say that there is no big problem in the country. Apparently, there are other concerns than the economic that can sway the electorate. Figure out what that is, please.
Election Day: 11:41pm
I could not be more surprised at Donald Trump’s success tonight. For one, the polls were only fleetingly in Trump’s favor, and the electoral models even less so. When I look at this outcome, all I can see is a failure on the part of the American voter to do an honest comparison between the two candidates. There was an equivalency in voters’ opinions that had no basis in reality. Despite Clinton’s flaws (many of which are imaginary), nothing should have been sufficient to disqualify her compared to Trump. Donald Trump is not just unqualified for the presidency from a professional perspective, but from a temperamental one. Yet there he looks to be, occupying the same office as true giants of American, and human, history. It will be a tall order, indeed, for the United States to recover from a Trump presidency. The future of our country has not been this uncertain for a very long time.