Phishing

I read this story about how hackers got into Colin Powell and John Podesta’s emails.

It is somewhat shocking to me that Google’s algorithms allowed fake emails from Google to get into a Gmail user’s inbox.

One of the many reasons I use Gmail over any other email service is its algorithms that keep spam and malicious emails out of my inbox. They have done a remarkably good job of that for me over the ten(ish) years I’ve been on Gmail.

This is not only a black eye for the Clinton campaign and Colin Powell. It’s a black eye for Google and Gmail.

I hope they take this as a challenge to improve their anti-phishing algorithms.

#email hacks

Comments (Archived):

  1. JimHirshfield

    That’s what I thought when I read the article. Google can recognize that link that shouldn’t otherwise come from anyone other than Google, right?

    1. AlexHammer

      We’re still learning how effective artificial intelligence is, and is not currently, as we come to better understand, over time, different ways in which intelligence manifests in our daily lives.

      1. JimHirshfield

        It’s must pattern matching that I’m referring to in this case.

        1. AlexHammer

          I don’t understand.

          1. JimHirshfield

            The URL used is a link to the user’s account settings. I think AI over-states what needs to be used here. The only entity that should ever send me a link to my account settings should be google.

          2. AlexHammer

            Yes, but someone, actually something has to know that. And that involves an algorithm (for Google) which is AI.Google doesn’t even use people (customer service) for users (only advertisers). Everything they do is primarily algorithmic based.

    2. Twain Twain

      Google can recognize (“pattern match”) that link shouldn’t come from them IF their data training sets contained enough examples of previous shortened URLs that turned out to be dodgy. If those data examples are not present or too sparse in Google’s filters, then the algorithm would have little or no idea the shortened URL is a threat.It’s easy to pick up phishing scams / spams if they contain keywords or sentence phrasing that trigger the red flags. The phishing email to Podesta didn’t by the looks of it.We attribute too much intelligence to the algorithms when the only thing they can do is count, correlate, calculate some probability risk (how spam & phishing filters work) and provide limited context.The context being how a piece of data is represented in a knowledge graph…https://uploads.disquscdn.c

      1. Adam Sher

        I imagine that when you post, you have an algorithm that summons and embeds the perfect chart(s) to accompany your words. Can you export your magic to Google’s phishing detection?

        1. Twain Twain

          Lol, Adam! Google would have to pay $$$$$$$$$$$$ for my magic to solve their data and Human+Machine Intelligence problems.

          1. Twain Twain

            Oh, that’s not my system. That’s the current “Earth is flat, Descartes & Bayes are right” version of data, economics and AI.THIS is my system. It’s the Da Vinci-Ada-BuckminsterFuller-Einstein version.https://uploads.disquscdn.c

          2. Adam Sher

            Batman is jealous.

      2. JimHirshfield

        Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t think it’s any more complicated (in the case outlined in the article) than pattern matching. The URL used is a link to the user’s account settings. The only entity that should ever send me a link to my account settings should be google.

        1. Twain Twain

          I hear you. The algo should pattern match that all “Your account has been compromised. Please adjust your security setting” emails must ONLY be from Google’s server.There may be info we don’t know yet. Such as that the email to Podesta somehow fooled the spam/phishing filters to believe IT WAS FROM GOOGLE’S MAIL ACCOUNT SERVERS.

          1. ShanaC

            If it was hosted through Google’s servers (but not mail servers) would that help

        2. LE

          Ok so you can just put in another link before the actual link that you want to use. Spray that over thousands of users and you will get someone to follow through and give you what you want.Look you can only go so far with this stuff. I noticed that my Comcast router allows admin access to a company called XYZ (redacted) after reversing the IP’s that are not blocked in the router. I then figured out that XYZ ‘probably’ does IT back office support for Comcast hence the need for access. However I am not absolutely certain of that since it would have been fairly easy for someone to plant that info for me (or some IT guy) to see and come to that conclusion. Most users wouldn’t know it’s there and most, if they saw it, wouldn’t have been curious enough to even think about it at all. Or they would have asked their IT guy who would have said “it’s probably ok”.Security really is a time consuming job. You have no idea how much time I personally spend on this type of thing and still it’s not possible to close every single hole.In the case of the IP address that I am questioning I can either remove it or make a phone call to double check. However if I do that most likely I won’t get an authoritative answer from whoever is in the cubicle that answers the phone. Additionally (see how involved this gets) this also (even if legit) opens up a hole for anyone with access or who hacks the IT contractor! And you wonder how this shit happens.Honestly if you understand all of the parts and social engineering techniques (I was born with that stuff) there are many ways to gain access if you want to. The only good news is the average person is not a high value target.

        3. chhhris

          Forget the links, I’m shocked Google’s spam filter did not red flag an email sent from someone other than Google, yet purporting to be from Google

      3. LE

        Yeah but I could get around that simply by not using a shortening service and with a bit more elbow grease in the social engineering part of it.If there is an important target out there (not spray and pray everyone and anyone which is a different issue) and they are of average computer aptitude it’s not that difficult of a problem.

      4. ShanaC

        With enough referrals/correctly designed https security, shortened urls start always looking legitimate.Furthermore, one of the advantages of spearfishing, as in this case, is always a lack of data. It’s a spear, not a net

    3. LE

      It’s not that simple and by the way the article honestly doesn’t provide enough forensic info as I’d like to comment further on this without speculation. One thing I did see though is the obvious social engineering which I’ve pointed to in the screenshot below. Notice the .tk domain. But someone could have also simply registered an ephemeral .com domain using google. Google pays for a service almost certainly to monitor registrations that contain or are close to their trademark. But there are ways around that precaution. I won’t tell you what they are though!… https://uploads.disquscdn.c

  2. Al Mazzone

    Just another thing we took for granted. “What, that food isn’t good for me? But I’ve been eating it for years!”

  3. Adam Sher

    Most recent phishing attempts I’ve seen look legitimate. Presumably, the originators of these scams are updating their processes so that their originating emails appear increasingly legitimate. As is in many cases, the bad guys can assess prevention methods better than the good guys can guess what the bad guys will do next. I agree with the article’s closing statement from bitly, that good social engineering (from phishing) will overcome a great amount of security. Phishing is preventable with awareness (like drunk driving)!I worked in tech support for my university and phishing scams were one of the most common hacks that we alerted the student and faculty about. Hackers targeted users through facebook (2004 wuuttt), gchat, AIM, or email. There were even bots that would respond, “LOL, I’m not a virus.”

    1. AlexHammer

      It’s an arms race between both sides.For all the work that some criminals seem to do, they should just go legit. Better career prospects!

      1. Adam Sher

        Or become so notorious that the government or private sector has to buy you in order to figure out what to do next!

        1. AlexHammer

          Some politicians (and businesses) seem almost criminal, and some criminals go to incredible lengths to appear legitimate.Blurring of lines (and perceptions).

          1. Adam Sher

            Hey now, when did this become a discussion about our presidential candidates?

          2. AlexHammer

            Not only politicians but many spheres of life.

    2. LE

      Most recent phishing attempts I’ve seen look legitimate.I don’t know. To me they stand out like a sore thumb but I am certainly no average userhttps://uploads.disquscdn.c… ….

      1. JLM

        .In the trade, they are called “language manglers.”I doubt I get more phishing attempts than anyone else but I have never seen one without a typo.My favorite ones are the ones from Wells Fargoe.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. LE

          Back in my printing company days I recognized very quickly that people were more likely to misspell words that they knew vs. words that were difficult. A difficult word says “slow down and make sure it’s right” (you read letter by letter). I word that you know (like your city) you read as a chunk in your brain. So you miss even obvious errors. Saw this over an over again with customers and employees doing proofs. Got lots of extra money for reprints. Customer always apologized for paying you extra money on a rush basis to meet the deadline after their mistake. Nice!

      2. Adam Sher

        I agree on all counts. Participating (and your excellent screen capture + paste) in this discussion outs you as an advanced internet user. The same cannot be said for many senior government officials, and that is the problem.

  4. awaldstein

    Internalizing that all of us have already been hacked and sometime when it is beneficial to someone on a broad scale it may become public.Got to say that as open and liberal and matter of fact as I am about privacy, hacking is starting to feel criminal to me.

    1. Adam Sher

      Phishing is impersonating another person/company in order to steal information. When are those things not criminal?

      1. awaldstein

        There are laws. There is cultural embrace of the laws. There is enforcement.What is relevant if we enforce those to the extent of the law based on cultural pressure.I’ve been lax in my feelings towards this.Not so much anymore.

        1. Adam Sher

          What event(s) moved you over the edge? Those Fred mentioned above? Hilary Clinton’s?

          1. awaldstein

            Good question.Cumulative I think is the answer and the aha that indeed, we–as in the world–has already been hacked.The crime is already perpetuated and now it becomes vengance or intent when it becomes public.

          2. pointsnfigures

            I think Arnold and I are of a generation that there are communications that should stay private. If I hand wrote a letter to Arnold, there is one copy of it and if it became public we’d all know how it became public.If I met Arnold for breakfast, and had a face to face conversation with him-it would be private.Initially, I think people assumed their email was like a hand written letter. We are finding out, nothing we do digitally (texting, email, purchasing) is private.Much of this hacking feels like hidden microphones and other secret ways of uncovering information that are illegal.

          3. awaldstein

            Agree and well articulated.Years ago I wrote this post about getting over ourselves that everything we do on the web is public by nature.http://arnoldwaldstein.com/…Realizing that it was too easy and naive.I think this a major shift in my thinking.

          4. Adam Sher

            I do not see Google at fault for human error. Google’s spam filtering and private company’s IT departments’ technology awareness campaigns, usually create sufficient user awareness to thwart phishing.

          5. awaldstein

            They are not at fault, they are complicit though. By nature of their monopoly they are obligated to be better.

          6. Matt Zagaja

            I disagree, I think there simply is a ceiling to how secure e-mail is and can be given the current technical constraints.

          7. awaldstein

            If email is not secure, then we must simply redefine how we use it culturally just as we have with the social nets.And there is a massive market then for a secure service then. The market is certainly there for it.

          8. Matt Zagaja

            Isn’t that basically Apple’s big advantage at this point?

          9. awaldstein

            Possibly.When shit breaks, opportunity arises.And right now, there is a bright light on how porous our personal informational security is.Do I really want to attach a confidential document to an email?Now I know why my doctors used these arcane–and most likely more sercure–closed systems.

          10. Adam Sher

            Electronic Medical Records (“EMR”) demolished this, and patient records are just as insecure as your emails. My primarily care doctor uses a mobile app to communicate patient information including direct test results, “email/messenging,” and scheduling.A major EMR data scandal would more likely than business/political emails be a catalyst for a change in how we think about and handle data security.

          11. awaldstein

            Lovely.Good discussion and I’ll take knowledgeable discomfort over foolish optimism any day.

          12. Adam Sher

            That is not a scandal, it is a moderate kurfluffle. Unfortunately, a scandal will involve a data breach and patients subsequently denied/canceled coverage and dying. Unless there is money or death involved, it is unlikely to garner enough momentum. Fortunately CRISPR is not yet a consumer device that can be included in these health data hacks.

          13. ShanaC

            the way Hipaa and gina are written, that is not happeningwhat would be a scandal is if the insurance company was cohacked at the same time and it was found that the hospital was making bad decisions because it was prodded to by the insurance company

          14. Adam Sher

            Good scary scenario. That would be scandalous, and disastrous.

          15. LE

            Oh there are all sorts of weak links in those EMR and hospital systems. Sorry that I can’t be more specific than that about the issues. I am of the school of not publicly disclosing security failure so as not to educate future hackers. That education and openess is actually a big part of the problem.

          16. ShanaC

            LE, I’m going to email you about EMRs

          17. Quantella Owens

            protonmail.com. not affiliated. just FYI.

          18. awaldstein

            thank you

          19. Adam Sher

            Complicit… interesting. How about email spam filtering as a corollary to fraud detection? In this regard banks operate as an oligopoly w/r/t transactional behavior. The onus is on the banks to automatically prevent, detect, and stop bank fraud. Perhaps email is the same.

          20. awaldstein

            Interesting and worth pursuing as an analog to fully comprehend this.We most certainly don’t as yet.

        2. Susan Rubinsky

          I’m not lax about it. My Mom, who is a smart person in all aspects of life except the internet/tech/computing, falls prey to phishing all the time and I am called in to help her when something goes wrong. Switching her over to Google helped relieve much of the incidents but not all of it. It’s an insidious problem.

          1. awaldstein

            Yup–so i now realize.

        3. JLM

          .Justice is supposed to be blind and, therefore, fairly enforced.The notion there are some laws which enforcement (politicians) can decide unilaterally NOT to enforce is criminal behavior.Sanctuary cities?These are criminal enterprises.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          1. awaldstein

            Of course.But it is not blind, certainly not color blind. And those of us with means live under a different set of rules.My thinking–and this is simply mulling it over is that–hacking used to be cool. Hacker were our heroes.When they touch information that can ruin our lives and livelihood, when they break cultural trust boundaries, they are criminals and should be punished as such.But I do strongly believe that culture drives awareness and awareness both drives the enforcement of laws and evolves the laws themselves.Discussions like this make me relish the time put into them.Thanks my friend.

          2. JLM

            .I am totally confused.Are we seeking equality in the US wherein the color of a man’s skin is not the determining factor of what kind of justice he receives; or, are we to become focused solely on the character of a man?Culture is not law. In certain cultures, one could find an adulterous woman stoned to death while the man is unpunished.Recently, HRC made some particularly ignorant utterances in regard to the makeup of the SCOTUS. She indicated it was an “agent for change” rather than the highest court in the land tasked with interpreting the laws of the Congress.We need to get back to enforcing our laws and getting rid of any the Congress doesn’t think are necessary any longer.This is a very fundamental consideration.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          3. awaldstein

            I’ll respond later as this is important.But need to say (and this makes me smile) that I’m sourcing a coach to work on some pieces of myself and the one I’m partial to told me that whenever I use the idiom “i’m confused” it is simply a passive aggressive way to say the other person is dead wrong.I think he is right–at least from my perspective for me 😉

          4. JLM

            .Of course it is. There is nothing wrong with being passive or aggressive or passive/aggressive. They are all genuine modes of communication.I sent a message and you got the right message.I would argue there are times we really are “confused” and it doesn’t have to even involve another person.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          5. awaldstein

            Each to their their own.I’ve decided after watching myself use this in team situations that it is not acceptable as an idiom and have simply adjusted by behavior and my writing to address this.

    2. jason wright

      Only starting to feel criminal? Why did hacking not feel criminal to you in earlier times?

      1. awaldstein

        answered below

  5. Varun

    A lesson about the unknown unknowns IMHO.While the hacks are a serious transgression, an attack on privacy and possibly national security, and should never be condoned, there is something to be said about the ways that these human intrusions exploit the unknown unknowns.Somewhat related, I recently stumbled across how folks are using browser based imacros and fake name generator to exploit AWS promo around free tier computing.Makes me think about where the carrots and sticks really are.https://www.youtube.com/wat

  6. AlexHammer

    It’s an arms race between the good guys and the bad guys, and probably always has been.Although they certainly don’t win every time the good guys have more societal weapons at their disposal, police, jails, courts, etc., so in the long run, cumulatively speaking, crime, as they say, doesn’t pay.

  7. William Mougayar

    So few users adopt 2FA. I think it makes a difference in being defensive about these incidents.

    1. Salt Shaker

      Why not just make 2FA mandatory? Some fin institutions I deal with amazingly don’t even offer it. Crazy.

      1. Amar

        Yup, recently opened an account with one of the largest banks in the world and was stunned nay dismayed to find out that I could not opt in for MFA even if i wanted to. Absolutely blows my mind!

    2. ShanaC

      2fa is also an antipattern – it impedes the userWe need a better sense of identity and checking identity in general, one that is more similar to how people think about checking identity among themselves without computers

      1. William Mougayar

        I agree that a solid biometric type of identity check would be a great addition to the mix.

        1. ShanaC

          or replacement.

          1. William Mougayar

            multiple checks make it more secure, no?

  8. LIAD

    everyone has to pick their poison.you pay your money and take your chances.whether you run your own server or rely on a hosted solution, whether through hacking or social engineering, one way or another emails are coming out.

    1. JLM

      .Nah, not if you keep it in the basement of your house (or a bathroom nobody’s using) and leave it unmonitored. Right?As long as you have an automatic irrigation system, it’s no problem.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  9. Joe Marchese

    I was wondering when somebody was going ask ‘and since when is gmail so effective for hackers?’ Same issue as Billy Bush becoming the second area of focus.

  10. John Frankel

    Phishing and Spear Phishing are real issues. We invested in GreatHorn for the very reason that this is a growing problem for email (we use Gmail and get monthly attacks) but also for Slack, and, really, everywhere where business messaging can live. I suspect that Gmail will improve their capability over time, but it is not the only vector of attack.

  11. Matt Zagaja

    Gmail works great but it is not perfect. The spam algorithms cannot overcome things like a user that believes an e-mail in the spam box is legit once they look there. I regularly see e-mails with actual friends of mine in the from field and I’m genuinely curious how they manage to do that (social media mining? hacking friends accounts? hacking my account?).The biggest issue with security is that security is what Gladwell would call a “weak-link” game. It doesn’t matter how good your best security is, or even if most of your security is great as long as a link is weak enough for a hacker to exploit. In the case of e-mail but also many other things you are signing up for the security of the person or entity you are interacting with.

    1. LE

      I regularly see e-mails with actual friends of mine in the from field and I’m genuinely curious how they manage to do that (social media mining? hacking friends accounts? hacking my account?).Oh that’s an easy one. Typically what they have done is hack your friends and get all of their contacts and then spam them. Dare I say that it happens way more with people using Windows than Mac OSX.

    2. JLM

      .Anything that is static is subject to the weak link theory of penetration. The best defense is making it dynamic.When something is static, one has an almost unlimited opportunity to hit a standing target. When it is dynamic, one has to hit a moving target.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

      1. someone

        how do you know everything? I am constantly amazed.

    3. Joe Cardillo

      You’re way on point there. Most IT security professionals I know say that a) software and web security tools work fine it’s just that most people, including high-level execs, don’t use them and b) a corollary to that is that it doesn’t matter how good you are if the people you have to communicate with are lazy.The last point really drives the high-level security folks crazy. I was at a couple of things involving the national labs in the last month, and the comment came up both times that they see cybersecurity as an issue of deep patriotism because of it.

    4. ShanaC

      Probably a mixture of methods

  12. pointsnfigures

    More than a black eye for Clinton campaign. Shows their true colors. Nasty. Combine that with the video of Dem operatives paying mentally ill people to cause violence at opposing political rallies and I wonder which “food group” I am in. My guess is the one going to the gulag.

    1. kidmercury

      i really don’t know how clinton supporters can continue in the wake of the revelations that the clinton group has (1) paid people to incite violence at rallies and (2) attempted to bribe the FBI to change classification status of emails to avoid culpability. this in addition to the history of crimes going back decades. can you imagine if bush or trump did stuff like this, what the reaction would be? i think this is the most extreme form of blind allegiance to a party that i’ve seen. #hillaryforprison

      1. PhilipSugar

        This is the absolute saddest election in history. The only way you can support one candidate is to cite the horribleness of the other. Literally that is what people do. I think most of us were taught in Kindergarten that you couldn’t use the excuse: But look at what Johnny or Jane did, but that is where we are. And the worst part is we have it in black and white. You literally couldn’t believe it if it wasn’t just a fact. You have these from Hilary and the tape from Trump.You literally can not support either.Sexually assaulting a woman is horrific and unforgivable.Saying you can do it because you’re rich and famous is arrogant and ignorantKnowing you are both married means you have no moral compassTalking about in the workplace means you don’t care about sexual harassment or hostile work environmentsSaying it when you know there might be a mike on is stupid and shows no impulse control.Using the excuse its locker room talk doubles it all down.

        1. awaldstein

          Yup it’s ugly.Trump has made it easy though to make a decision.It is not even a comparison for me.Decision made and move on.

          1. PhilipSugar

            No it’s horrible. If this is the best two parities can give us we need a third.

          2. awaldstein

            I’ve done more work to be informed, forced myself to listen to people I seriously despise to see if I can look beyond their shit.i”ve made my choice based on my concerns for safety and based on the facts that I can’t vote for for bigoted scum under any circumstances.Not happy but content for the moment.

          3. PhilipSugar

            I’m advocating a vote for neither. I know people say that is a wasted vote, I know people say that is a vote against the candidate they oppose. I think it is a vote for neither.

          4. kidmercury

            i used to be in this camp. while trump is still distasteful, i think he is materially better than hillary — and the election will be close enough that votes for him matter. hillary seems intent on war with russia, which is extremely foolish. also, for all the unforgivable and embarrasing character flaws that trump has, hillary has the same ones if not more. moreover, hillary’s tax plan will be severe and harsh.

          5. JLM

            .We are electing a President, not a Pope. I care not a whit about a man’s foibles. I care about his policies, his ability to get things done.It would be an even harder choice if we were electing a Pope.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          6. awaldstein

            I think if you vote your conscience with thought, I respect that.Regardless of the Hilary info, I can’t vote for Trump.I will vote to do what I can to insure he loses.We can still have a bottle of wine together–in fact, we are way overdue for this.

          7. PhilipSugar

            We are overdue. It is so sad that nobody in their right mind can say: I want to vote FOR somebody.

          8. Amar

            One is the known enemy and a career politician. The other is fresh blood but also high potential to end up as the 21st century’s equivalent of “Nero fiddled while Rome was burning” ….My take aways:1. We (the citizens) have no one to blame but ourselves. If all good decent men and women decided to not dirty themselves in the political arena, then within a few generations this is what happens. Our choices are between people who not just accept it but in some cases embrace how dirty the arena is.2. This election is both a sisyphean ask and a wake up call. Unless we change something systemic, we will be facing the same ask almost every election cycle going forwardp.s yes Nero did not really fiddle while Rome burned, I get it.

          9. PhilipSugar

            It is sad. Here is the Democratic Governor of DE. He refused to run for President, he ran against the Democratic machine for Governor against long odds. Grew up son of an accounting professor, 13th employee of Nextel, turned around the state budget, cut the government. LGBT progressive. Jewish in a state with a grand total of 19k Jewish residents.Won second term by 40%. That is not a typo. Head of the Governors association. Bi-partisan.Refused to run. I surmise he didn’t want to get smeared. Was at my office last month. Think about that.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

          10. Amar

            Amen 🙂 that gives me hope while I still ponder the “what if….” scenarios. So looking ahead, how do “we the people” influence the game so that folks like the Governor of DE do want to lead the country & not walk away.And yes, an argument can be made that surviving the gauntlet that is the party primary is a necessary test of what it takes to lead the country. But at what cost?

          11. PhilipSugar

            I think we just have to not tolerate the hate and spew that the media and others want to push upon us.I am sure we have our differences and we probably grew up differently.But we can also celebrate our similarities: for instance we both work for tech companies and like to use avatars 🙂

          12. LE

            Refused to run. I surmise he didn’t want to get smeared.Could also be because with that national level of scrutiny he knows that things will come out about him that don’t matter as much in a small state election. After all if someone isn’t committed enough to run for an office because they fear getting smeared or they don’t want to put the effort in then it’s probably great that they didn’t run.Point is the person for the job needs to have a wide range of abilities not just be the smartest guy in the room.

          13. PhilipSugar

            Or it could be that they are worth $1B and really just don’t care to deal with the shit.

          14. LE

            Well oddly enough I think someone who was worth 1 billion or super financially secure would actually in an odd way be more likely to run. First they have fuck you money. Second they are looking for a challenge since they have already met their financial goals and they are secure. This is why so many rich people are doing weird wacky shoot for the moon (or mars) stuff. They have to keep upping the ante.

          15. PhilipSugar

            See my other comment the only way you do it is if you want more power.

          16. LE

            Wanting more power is one reason. But there are other explanations.Why do I serve on my condo board? Well one reason is that I get more power as you say (I get to do things that tilt to my best interest and prevent things that aren’t in my interest). That’s what the outwardly obvious reason is.But the other reason is that I find the experience enjoyable. I like doing it. And I get a pride from developing and implementing policies (like the sign policy that I wrote or charging unit owners for certain things) that go with my way of thinking. It’s a thankless job as a general rule nobody (the doctors here) really give a shit. My wife doesn’t care. The management company often feels I am a pain (so I know I’m on to something when that is the case). It’s like commenting on AVC. You do it because it makes you feel good to do so (at least that is why I do it primarily). Or why I will walk into a store and give suggestions to the management without pay and usually without thanks. This has nothing to do with “doing good” or whatever others might cloak it in. It’s just the satisfaction of a job well done even when others don’t even see the well done job or know about it. Like Steve Job’s father would say ‘you know it’s there’. Of course in politics others do see it but you also get the negatives. Just another perspective.I have a deal right now where I am trying to buy something for someone. The seller doesn’t appear to be motivated by money. But I figured out that he is motivated by a sense of being a part of something bigger. So I have to find a hook a hot button on that to make a deal with him (have not done so yet but I am at least trying to think in the right direction).

          17. ShanaC

            How long has his family been in Delaware?(I have family that came from Delaware)

          18. PhilipSugar

            A long time. At least 56 years as he was born and raised Newark and his Dad was a college accounting professor at the University of Delaware. I have met his Mom and Dad but I really don’t know their background.

          19. ShanaC

            I don’t suppose I can convince you to help me talk to him about something involving vital records and medical records (making it easier to get death records to insert into contemporary medical records, per the surgeon general’s recommendation’s and the cdc’s recommendations)

          20. PhilipSugar

            email me a very specific request at my name (one L) at the gmail service. I am talking to him next week.

          21. JLM

            .What is remarkable is that we mention a man is a Jew in 2016.We should ask “When was the last time he went to temple or church?”When was the last time anyone saw a picture of a public figure in church/temple or coming from temple/mosque/church?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          22. PhilipSugar

            He is a close friend. I don’t even get searched with my cargo pants when I go up the back elevator and see him. He is proud of his Jewish Heritage. A VC who I became friends with (after a big dispute) and him would love talking about their upbringings. (I speak past tense because the VC tragically died early of cancer)

          23. LE

            I don’t even get searched with my cargo pants when I go up the back elevator and see him.Do they just recognize you on sight or is there a step before that where you need to present some kind of ID verifying that you are who they think you are?

          24. PhilipSugar

            They know me. As you say small state.

          25. LE

            Security wise I am going to say that is a bad idea on their part.Either you have a policy and it’s enforced for everyone or you chance someone fucking up the process (like a new guy etc.). So it’s kind of like an example has to be set on purpose. I remember at the OJ trial even the lawyers and prosecutors had to go through the metal detectors (at least in the movie they did hmmm.) Maybe in your case there wouldn’t be an imposter. But in another case knowing that someone looks distinct in some way (beard etc.) and knowing the policy perhaps someone could pass for someone else maybe not like you but another person. Maybe not his kids but maybe some guy that they thought they saw before.This is similar to social engineering. Assumptions are made and lower level people make mistakes. They screw up and they cut corners.Do you know how you social engineer, say, passwords out of a retail store? You call up a few times under another premise and establish a rapport with someone. Maybe this could even take weeks or months you say you are from another store. Then you go for the kill with what you really want. I don’t get passwords but I’ve done similar things non security related (and legal). You’d be surprised at how easy it is to do.Here is one for you. In my first business I started by doing deliveries. They knew me so well I was able to take a gas moped on the elevator of a hospital and up a few floors. I was using it to make quick deliveries instead of a car.

          26. PhilipSugar

            They do. If they personally know you they are looking at you, and believe me they have security.If I take anybody else, anybody. That is going to be a hugely different story.

          27. LE

            Back in the 90’s when I was living in another state my door bell rang and a woman (obviously jewish with 4 kids in the car) said that she broke down and wanted to use my phone. She looked harmless and exactly fit the part. I am not a high value target but I made her wait on the porch and gave her the portable phone. I didn’t let her in the house. I made sure my wife (at the time) understood why.As it happens that same wife (my first) was abducted at college by a guy who said he wanted a jump start for his car. So she goes with him (was in a hallway at college) and he ends up sexually assaulting her. He got 7 years in prison. So it was a big deal at the time.You know why she went with him (my theory anyway I would never say this to her)? Because he was probably a good looking guy and looked harmless. I never asked her that but I will assume he didn’t look dangerous and he even looked like a fellow good looking student. I am sure she wasn’t the first girl he did this to either.

          28. LE

            I think there are totally different dynamics in winning a small state election where you can literally walk door to door and cover a great deal of the state. Of course your opponent can as well. But my point is it becomes a bit different than winning California which is larger population wise and geographically. If I ever was going to run for office (which I will never do) I would feel it’s more possible if I could press the flesh and just work harder than the other guy. Never going to happen.In a small state name recognition is probably less important than in a large state. (Just like in a national election).Also I don’t think Markell is someone who comes across as Jewish in an in your face way. I didn’t even know that until you mentioned.This is actually important. I actually have a name for it when I used to call it “christian cross theory”. If you are raised to marry jewish there is actually a difference if you marry an Italian girl who looks jewish (and in some ways acts jewish) and marrying a non jew from the midwest who wears a big cross. Point being the fact that he was jewish might have mattered more if his last name was “Schwartz” or “SomethingStein” etc.We see this with bias against blacks as well. If their skin wasn’t black or brown they would definitely not have the same issues that they have because it’s in the face of those that are racists.

          29. PhilipSugar

            See my comment he is proud of his heritage.

          30. PhilipSugar

            You know Amar I was thinking while driving today.Both have the exact same trait which drives all of their behavior:An insatiable lust for money and power.It manifests itself differently, because of backgrounds and gender:One gets power from the government, one gets power tearing it down.One gets power cutting more trade deals one gets power building walls.One got money from their parents (and grew it) and one got money doing anything needed to get it (and grew it).It’s destructive behavior manifests differently too:One will say anything do anything to the opposite sex, the other tolerates a husbandOne says stupid shit because they have it, one says only the right things because they want to keep it.One doesn’t think they have to pay taxes, one doesn’t think they should have ethical responsibility not to take money from donors that you know require favors.One will do anything to get it, one thinks because they have it they can do anything.Depending on what benefits you like one or the other and will use the excuse of look how bad the other is to tolerate the abhorrent traits of yours.People think that Trump supporters are all “poor angry white guys” that is a base but If that were the case he wouldn’t have gotten past the primaries. There are many people that think government doesn’t work for them and getting more is just worse.People think that Hilary supporters are all people that “just want more free shit” that is a base but she got where she got because people think that the government can help them and their fellow citizens.But then there are some of us that look at the behaviors and traits and are just plain disgusted.

          31. ShanaC

            So why not create a third?I guess the next question is, what would this third party look like

          32. PhilipSugar

            Libertarian.The problem is everybody (probably correctly) thinks your vote is wasted. If in this election people can’t hold their nose and not vote against both candidates, I don’t think it is very viable.

          33. ShanaC

            they need to get their act together and get their details more on paper. And I like Gary Johnson, but he wasn’t prepared enough

          34. LE

            Nish good NINE! (German for “not good no!”)All that will do is tilt the vote in some way to one of the incumbents reason that Donald was threatening it in the beginning.

        2. sigmaalgebra

          You really, totally lost it that time. It’s like the mainstream media (MSM), the distorting, fabricating, lying propaganda arm of the Hillary campaign, gave you a direct electronic implant between your ears.So, you wrote And the worst part is we have it in black and white. You literally couldn’t believe it if it wasn’t just a fact. You have these from Hilary and the tape from Trump.You literally can not support either.Sexually assaulting a woman is horrific and unforgivable.Saying you can do it because you’re rich and famous is arrogant and ignorantKnowing you are both married means you have no moral compassTalking about in the workplace means you don’t care about sexual harassment or hostile work environmentsSaying it when you know there might be a mike on is stupid and shows no impulse control.Using the excuse its locker room talk doubles it all down Nope, point by point, what you said about Trump is not true or essentially not true, at all.Trump never said he had ever done any such thing to a female, and in the second debate he claimed that he never has.So, yes, Trump has wanted an image that he likes beautiful women (I certainly do), and clearly from that the MSM has wanted to get people to believe that Trump just grabs women. You seem to have swallowed that nonsense.Alas, so far there is no, zip, zilch, zero, credible evidence that Trump has ever even once done such a thing.What Trump was saying that some women would permit under some circumstances is absolutely, rock solidly, 100% true.Evidence: Seehttp://rockcenter.nbcnews.c…with NBC News, “Rock Center with Brian Williams” interview of Ms. Mimi Alford.In that interview and in Ms. Alford’s associated book, we learn that what Trump described is EXACTLY what JFK during his term and in the White House (while Jackie was traveling) actually DID to 19 year old, debutante, graduate of Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut, yes, the same school Jackie Kennedy went to, engaged to be married, and then recent White House intern. And apparently Miss Alford did not object because soon the two of them were with their clothes off in a White House bathtub playing with floating toy rubber ducks. Their relationship continued.Trump was 100% absolutely, totally, exactly correct. What JFK did is so close to what Trump said that Trump might have gotten his information only from the Williams interview.Boys/men very much need to know these facts of life, and otherwise we are on the way to more weak families. E.g., a man, husband, and father very much needs to know these facts of life to be a good father for his sons and daughters: He should tell both the facts about what some men will do and some women under some circumstances will permit but they, his sons and daughters, should never do or permit any such things.This information is very important to have but, in fact, for boys/men usually very difficult to discover.So, Trump was doing really well acting as a mentor to Bush.It is a rock solid fact that one of the most important ways boys/men can discover such information is via male locker room banter where they compare notes and exchange the information they do have.The only thing Trump did that might be objectionable was his use of a common street term for the anatomical term vulva. So what.For more, clearly Trump has been an excellent father. Both his daughters look very well reared, and his two older sons look like they are being good husbands and fathers. Not easy to do. Only a tiny fraction of men do that well.For more on how Trump DOES treat women, including very beautiful women, models, pin-up girls, readhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/…by the two Barbi twins with Trump with beautiful women “all over him”. He was always nice to the women, never took advantage of them, and was 100% business.You have been had by the MSM.Essentially always ignore the MSM, reporters, pundits, newsies, etc. and pay attention essentially only to rock solid reports with primary sources with rock solid references and signed pieces from credible authors. E.g., for Trump, watch his rallies and interviews on YouTube and look at his Web site.

        3. someone

          that’s where I came out. early-voted today, marked a box for every candidate except President. just couldn’t do it. she’s corrupt. he’s a creep. if Johnson weren’t such an idiot he would have gotten my vote. Weld/Johnson would have gotten my vote.blows my mind that we didn’t have a serious third-party candidate this year. could have gotten 20-30% of the vote.my country of ruins.

          1. PhilipSugar

            Yes, This is my view as well. I put my feelings about him. She is everything wrong with politics. Thinks she is royalty, she is not there to serve, she is there be served. Will do anything to get her way, anything. Uses Washington like a piggy bank.I think I’ll vote for Johnston just to show my anger at having to have these two choices.

          2. someone

            I should have done that. I just left the Presidential slot blank in disgust. Weld/JOhnson I would have voted, but JOhnson is sort of dippy

          3. PhilipSugar

            I figure as people say it’s a wasted vote, but at least it’s a vote. He is but you know what they say about least worst.

      2. JLM

        .The weaponization of our government for use as a political blunderbuss is an obscenity. This administration is not the first but they are the worst.The irregularities of the entire Clinton-FBI investigation is revolting. Dir Comey used his thumb on the scale to determine the outcome with only a political calculation to justify it.He has, literally, ruined one of the last institutions trusted by the American people.The notion that the Attorney General of the US did not have the sense not to meet with former President Clinton is beyond credulity.It IS a rigged gov’t.Who in the gov’t does anyone trust?I love my country. I served my country. I hate my gov’t. I don’t trust my gov’t.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. kidmercury

          JLM i owe you an apology. i’ve previously made fun of trump supporters but i’ve since “seen the light” — i’ll be voting for the donald this november. the clinton crimes are just too much, and to see the preposterous lengths the establishment — dems, repubs, and mass media — are going to to try to stop trump leads me to think he may be enough of an outsider to bring out the systemic change that is much needed. plus a vote for HRC is a vote for war with russia, which might be the dumbest idea in the history of the world.apologies for my previous diss of your decision to vote trump. but i’ve recognized my wrong and will be voting for trump in november!

          1. Adam Sher

            I took a screen shot of your admission. This is almost as good as my wife accidentally putting in writing that I am always right.

          2. creative group

            Adam Sher:after the major beating and mandate against that dark Neanderthal thinking you will hear the wounded swoon’s. The Democrats will not want to rub it in as the Republicans did during the mid-terms to embolden the obstructionist agenda.The only way to beat a bully is to hit them in their mouth. And don’t stop.The Confederacy lost the civil war and there are knuckleheads who are in the last leg of there life attempting and subliminally stroking that defeated movement. The results will not be any different in modern times. They are old worn down soilders hoping to brainwash the illiterate youth.

          3. Mark Essel

            hahahaha

          4. JLM

            .Vote early before you change you mind again. Thanks.I voted today.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          5. kidmercury

            waiting for the mail in ballot to arrive! 🙂

          6. JLM

            .Not to worry, I already sent yours and a few thousand others. You voted for Trump.[Director Comey, this is a joke. Sorry.]JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          7. creative group

            JLM:Comey is a respected Republican. Because he didn’t fulfill the Alt-Right, Tea Party and the right-wing bidding there was something criminal. The conspiracy theories are in full force and will be for the foreseeable future.Republicans will not win the White House until they rid that defeated Confederate thinking out of the party. At least the Republicans can take solace in knowing they can purchase tickets to visit the Whitehouse.Get that tin hat off that nugget.

          8. creative group

            JLM:”I voted today.”That wasn’t a vote you cast that was an affirmation of who you always have been.Wasted gas.

          9. JLM

            .Hey, I’m OK with that.To thine own self be true and Make America Great/Strong/Rich/Safe/Happy Again?Thank you for the kind thought. It means a lot.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          10. ShanaC

            Texas has early voting? Lucky!

          11. JLM

            .Only in the places where the tumbleweeds, the Indians, the cattle don’t get in the way.In ATX, you can vote at most grocery stores for the next two weeks.We have a comprehensive database and you can vote in any location, not just your precinct’s polling site.On election day, you can vote in any polling location (where you live or work, anywhere).You only have to be able to identify yourself — Texas ID, passport, voter ID card, etc.It is a very good system.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          12. someone

            voted early in MA today. asked if they wanted to see my ID. they said “not really, but you can show it to us if you want”. oy…

          13. JLM

            .That gives me a lot of confidence as it relates to voter fraud, you?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          14. someone

            ezzakly.you just have to know the name and address. very easy to fake it as in the okeefe videos

          15. JLM

            .In Texas, where I am an Election Judge, we have 3-4 positions. One doublechecks your ID v the voter rolls, one enters your info on the actual vote that day, one issues you your electronic code to use the voting machines.We get tons of people who are “substantially correct or similar” — maybe missing a middle initial, or using a maiden name, or have a shortened name (Jeffrey v Jeff). These are noted and corrected on the voter rolls.As an Election Judge, it is my job to ensure that such identifications are handled correctly and noted on the rolls with an “A” indicating the identification verification was “substantially similar.”Some time ago, I’d know everybody in my Precinct by sight. Today, when anybody can vote at any polling place, I don’t. A lot of people vote where they work.At my polling place, the same crew is always there. They do it strictly by the book.We also allow people to cast “provisional” ballots when there is some dispute as to their identification. This is noted on the rolls and they have a week to clear up any discrepancies. I don’t know if they ever do but there are always ten or so provisionals out of 2000.The states where the real cheating takes place are the ones where you can instantly register and vote — Ohio.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          16. ShanaC

            NY does not. You can only vote on election day at your polling place. You do NOT need an id, but you DO need to sign in with a formal signature swearing you are who you are (and I suspect if there are questions, they will compare your signature to ones they have on file)For a long time we also had crazy 800+ machines that looked like thishttp://washingtonstatewire….Apparently they were invented in NY! A part of me is disappointed we don’t use them anymore, but apparently they are NOT disability friendly and they also do NOT leave a paper trail. Otherwise they are super reliable.The only exception I have ever seen to this was last presidential election, when some of the voting law was suspended in the tri-state area because of Sandy. You were allowed to vote anywhere within the state. It made sense at the time: people were stranded in all sorts of places not near their assigned polling places, and it wasn’t even clear at the time if all the polling places could even work. I’m not even sure if Fred’s polling place at the time had electricity restored, and frankly the one I voted in at the time was lucky it had power. It was also the ONLY time I have ever personally heard of election fraud: My mother voted 2x when she found out about how some of the election law was being suspended, and decided to vote not only in her assigned location, but another nearby one that also had power that some of our family friends who were flooded were assigned and preferred to go to to see what would happen (answer: nothing) When she told that story the week after, tables of people looked at her like she grew green antenna.Knowing that about my mother (and how sometimes she can just be crazy in general) puts me in general ease about exactly how much voter fraud there is in the US. People who try it are generally considered so bizarre/anger inducing that the general public doesn’t tolerate it, and doesn’t consider it as something they would do themselves, even in times that are trying.

          17. LE

            Mentions of Trump have practically fallen off the front page of the NYT. They’ve all decided it’s game over with the lead that Hillary has.For Hillary this will be a Pyrrhic (thanks spell checker!) victory. Not only did she cheat to get it but she couldn’t even easily beat either Donald or Bernie. It’s amazing how many votes she is not going to get. That’s in addition to the fact that she would never be where she was w/o Bill (and, by the way, vice versa).

          18. kidmercury

            i don’t think hillary has a lead, or much of one if at all. the polling data has some serious issues.

          19. LE

            I actually started the Trump love here (but have ironically backed off it).Doing some opposition research (my specialty btw) JLM is on record as calling the man a jackass:http://themusingsofthebigre…Donald, my boy, you are a jackass!More negatives if you read the post.(Said all in jest JLM..)

          20. JLM

            .I still stand by the criticism. Ours is not a love affair absent either reality or criticism. I like his policies and little else.DJT is a study. Can you imagine how well he’d be doing if he had a filter between his brain and his mouth. I consider him the Chemotherapy Candidate.http://themusingsofthebigre…JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredcar.cxom

          21. LE

            Can you imagine how well he’d be doing ifTwo things come to mind:a) Sophia Loren w/o her nose is not Sophia Lorenb) If my bubba had batsim, she’d be my grandfather.

          22. JLM

            .Not a big haircut, just a 10% modification. Just a light trim.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          23. sigmaalgebra

            So, DJT can leave his brain idling with his mouth in gear?I like his frank, blunt stuff. The more filters, the less real, genuine, and credible.

          24. JLM

            .Not a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge filter, a little one.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          25. sigmaalgebra

            In spite of what Hillary said, apparently you are redeemable, worthy of redemption!

          26. Mark Essel

            Oh my, reminiscent of pro wrestling back in the day. Good guy becoming a villan who was secretly always a good guy.I’m in NY so – does my vote really matter? I have basic knowledge of stats and probabilities. Me voting for anyone is like sticking a spoon in a river in an attempt to redirect it.Where’s my libertarian non-insane candidate…

          27. RichardF

            Seriously Kid? As a complete outsider voting for trump look like voting for Hitler in the 30’s is that really where the USis right now?

          28. LE

            He is not that person and it’s an unfortunate and really bad comparison.

          29. kidmercury

            i dont understand the hitler comparison at all, i view it as completely unfounded. not to say that trump is some angel or something but only the “he ‘s hitler 2.0!” idea is something people repeat without any substance. if it is because of the muslim profiling stuff, hillary was in favor of racial profiling post 9/11, and wants to go to war with every muslim country on the planet — and russia. such aggression seems more dangerous to me than some potential xenophobia.

        2. Adam Sher

          You changed someone’s political opinion through an argument on the internet. You win the internet.

          1. JLM

            .Not “someone’s” political opinion — Kid Fucking Mercury.I wonder if I have to give back the emails I hacked from his account now?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        3. sigmaalgebra

          If we can’t count on the FBI, who will police the police?

        4. sigmaalgebra

          “Weaponized”: The recent story is that O goes to banks and, based, e.g., on the community reinvestment act, tells them to make contributions to liberal causes or will suffer from the WH.Used to be called a shakedown racket.Apparently was common in community organizing. Gee, were have we heard that phrase before.Look, there has long been good evidence that, basically, O just does NOT like the US, and now there is evidence that Hillary doesn’t either.

        5. Mark Essel

          Our government works when we have strong candidates with a modicum of integrity. It breaks without them.If you or Fred ran for anything, you’d improve the position.

          1. JLM

            .With Reagan’s passing, we have deified him. He was a good President and a better gentleman. He got caught in the entire Iran-Contra mess and that could have led to his impeachment as it was a direct violation of the law.Still, he is much beloved for his manners and predictability and, oh yeah, he broke the Russians.I don’t think Reagan could get elected today.The MSM and the political process has become so craven and mean, so lopsided in its hand on the scales that nobody could survive. In that regard, Trump is equal to the task. He can take it.In many ways, the corruption has become so deep and pervasive that we have to start anew.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

      3. Ben Dover ✓Verified

        “i really don’t know how clinton supporters can continue…”Because many of the left do not pay attention to current events.And the ones that do, do not believe negative news about Hillary.

        1. sigmaalgebra

          The mainstream media (MSM), ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, NYT, WaPo, Boston Globe, LAT, Slate, Salon, Huffpo, are all 100%, dyed in the wool, dedicated, devoted, in the tank for Hillary, just a deceptive, fabricating, lying propaganda arm of the Hillary campaign, paid off via ads from the Hillary campaign and otherwise biased from the owners, publishers, …, newsies. And in total that MSM has a lot of influence.Also, a lot of voters are starting to pay close attention only now.Also there is no shortage of voters who see that the 10 ditsy bimbos who, all at the same time, came forward and accused Trump of touching them “inappropriately” have to be doing it for the money as in the Mustang Ranch, an especially bad joke considering the long, credible, serious evidence of Bill attacking women all the way back at least to Oxford. Or if those organized, paid, ditsy bimbos are the worst the Hillary campaign can dig up, then Trump is squeaky clean.Look at it this way: Two to three times a day, five or six days a week, in New Hampshire, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Florida, at least, Trump is drawing 10,000 to 30,000 eager supporters, many waiting in line for hours, to his rallies while Hillary can’t fill a phone booth.After the debates, in all the on-line polls, Trump totally blows Hillary out of the water.The standard Hillary campaign attacks, racist, sexist, have been thoroughly debunked and run their course while the racist, sexist dirt on Hillary is still fresh.Hillary’s health looks awful.On social media, the pro-Hillary comments look paid for, and the pro-Trump comments don’t.Hannity is big on Trump, and he and Fox TV get a lot of eyeballs.Trump’s message is no secret.I believe Trump will win it.

        2. ShanaC

          ….you know, we do have people on the left here. Who believe negative news about Hillary, and also measure judgement differently. Remember, people who comment here are real,and can come to different conclusions based on evidence

      4. Salt Shaker

        Shocking, come on, since when hasn’t politics been dirty? Cheaters, liars, bribers, etc. It’s frankly even worse (aka corrupt) on the local level. The NYS legislature, for example, is a cesspool. Has been for decades.They’re all dirty in varying degrees. Pork is a classic example of dysfunction and how disaligned interests can be bought and sold. Is that horse trading or unethical behavior? Take your pick. Gov’t is all about pay to play in one form or another.Some politicians only need a good scrubbing, say a bit of dirt under the fingernails, while others could benefit from an acid wash. Regardless, it’s endemic.You think the RNC private emails are any less damning (or criminal)?Highly doubtful.PS–Money and power corrupts. Campaign finance reform and term limits would go a long way.http://mobile.nytimes.com/2

        1. JLM

          .I can’t agree with you.I am a Precinct Chair, an Election Judge, a member of the Travis County Republican Executive Committee and I’ve lobbied in five different states, successfully in three.What is happening today with the Dems, Clintons (WJC’s speeches, HRC’s speeches, the CGI, the Clinton Foundation), MSM, punditry, pollsters, blogosphere is a whole new level of corruption.It is an institutional level of corruption in which the White House has taken the lead in the weaponization of the CIA, the DoD, the DoS, the military, the IRS, the DOJ, the FBI, and the DHS.The lies told by the President in support of his eponymous legislation are breathtaking in their sheer magnitude.The lies told by HRC in regard to the email scandal are mind boggling.The destruction of the FBI to allow HRC to go free is unprecedented.The financial excesses of the CGI, the Clinton Foundation, the WJC/HRC grifter speeches are like nothing ever seen in this country.As a reminder, Gen of the Army George Catlett Marshal was offered by Time $1MM in the garden of his home, Dodona Manor, to write his memoirs.He refused, replying, “I did not enter public service to aggrandize my purse.” That was in the 1950s.No, this is the worst of times.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          1. Salt Shaker

            You’re a disgrace to Lyndon’s legacy, JLM :)No question, your points are quite valid. It’s disturbing on many fronts. A good article in yesterday’s NYT cited several analysts (the psycho kind, not financial) sharing a great deal of election based stress and distress among their patients.Nov. 8th can’t come soon enough, though between now and then my hunch is there will be many more unpleasant reveals (on both fronts).

          2. JLM

            .I am a huge admirer of LBJ as a politician. He got stuff done. It is quite interesting to hear his tapes at the LBJ Library at the University of Texas.The distress in his voice when discussing the Viet Nam War is incredible. He suffered.In those days, they put things up for a vote. The Civil Rights Act was voted in by Republicans but it was shepherded along by LBJ.It is difficult to imagine there is any fresh flesh upon which to make a bruise for either candidate. Or there is any honest broker whose telling of any tale would be believed.The big reveal — the media is a joke. A total, complete joke. Even I am surprised to see how far they are into the bag.Who does anyone trust anymore?Nobody.We better get our house in order as we have a decent chance of being in a shooting war in the next 2 years.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          3. creative group

            JLM:Confederate talk radio predictions because the Alt-Right, Tea Party and base didn’t offer America a viable Candidate who wasn’t race baiting and appealing only to the disenfranchised white male who is unemployed, underemployed or under educated. The Million college graduates you will cite don’t account for the majority of NASCAR country music white males.

          4. creative group

            JLM:you forgot to add one listing to your duties.. Totally nuts outside of business operation knowledge.The majority of admitted Democrats on this board will run to your defense with the Kumbaya My Lord but afraid, meek, etc to address your false talk radio narratives and conspiracy theories.If there were one Democrat attempting to do what you do regularly we would have the pleasure of addressing them in kind also. There are some crazy thoughts on the Democrats side but they are much too meek to post it.

          5. DisentAgain

            “I am a Precinct Chair, an Election Judge, a member of the Travis County Republican Executive Committee and I’ve lobbied in five different states, successfully in three.”|Assuming these claimed credentials are true (and I seriously doubt it), it just proves your bias, and doesn’t serve as evidence of any particular D wrongdoing or R innocence.

          6. JLM

            .Wow, you are really working hard, friend. Bit pathetic, no?I admit I ran unopposed for Precinct Chair because they couldn’t get anyone else to work Precinct 216 but I did have to go to training to be an Election Judge.When we set up the polling point at Brykerwoods Elementary, I make the Dem Election Judge and her daughter do all the set up.I do get everyone lunch — for which I pay, intending to extract some favorable mojo from them.I have a loathsome attendance record for TCRPEC (Travis Cty Rep Party Exec Comm) meetings and, from time to time, they threaten me with expulsion.Not only that, I live in the same neighborhood as Ted Cruz did. Also, the former Texas Longhorn football coach, with whom I never discussed football for which he was eternally grateful. We both used to have Labs.Now, you know all of my secrets.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          7. DisentAgain

            Your claimed credentials don’t mean anything here. This is the internet. Only your *ideas* matter here. Anyone can claim anything at all. None of those claims make your arguments more valid.Your ideas peg you as someone looking to confirm his bias, not evaluate the evidence at hand rationally. Oddly, those same claimed credentials would render you *less* credible on any topic of politic or governance than even your average American. It’s like you are begging to be taken *less* seriously.Your ideas also identify you as someone desperate for credibility in an environment where only your ideas can give you credibility. They really are not helping your case in any way.

          8. JLM

            .DA, our ideas are informed by our experiences.Ideas, ungrounded in experience, are pipe dreams. A well-reasoned idea is based on logic and experience.We all confirm our biases but there is nothing inherently wrong with that when we develop our biases based on experience. [Do not draw to an inside straight. Do not assume any weapon is not loaded.]I am not remotely interested in the opinion of someone who does not have any experience on a subject.I recall with great clarity listening to a long winded dissertation on how easy it was to cheat on electronic voting.I was able to discern the weaknesses in those arguments because I had physically worked elections at a polling point (including assembling the electronic voting equipment) and knew exactly what database was accessed to allow a person who did not have the correct identification to cast a “provisional” ballot — a bit of arcana which one could only have gleaned from experience and the reality that our electronic voting tech was 20 years old and did not have the feature which the speaker contended was subject to intrusion.I plead guilty on both counts. Ideas, absent experience, are worthless musings. We all look for confirmation of our own biases which is healthy when those biases are based on experience.I urge you not to take this seriously.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          9. DisentAgain

            “Ideas, absent experience, are worthless musings.” No, ideas stand on their own merits. What you are describing is a logical fallacy known as the appeal to authority. I’m shocked no one taught you this.For example, 1+1 = 2 is an idea. It’s a valid and well-formed idea regardless of your experience or mine. If you claim to have been a mathematician, or to have done that equation regularly, it doesn’t make the statement more rational nor does it make it less. It changes nothing about the idea whatsoever.Your experience with voting machines does not change the requirements of evidence for those making the claims that they are rigged. Your experience means nothing to the facts of the claim.”I was able to discern the weaknesses in those arguments…” Sure. But your experience had nothing to do with the rational truth, just your ability to understand the issue at hand. The facts were the same, regardless of your experience.Same thing here. You are making a baseless claim, and backing it up *only* with an appeal to authority – your own (I’ll paraphrase): “The RNC would never do this kind of thing, I know because I do things loosely connected to the RNC”. Logical fallacy, 101. Your experience does not address the evidence needed to support the claim. It’s perfectly plausible for the RNC to cheat, and for you to know nothing about it. More – we don’t even have any way to confirm your claimed credentials even if they mattered, which they don’t… So it’s doubly irrelevant as well as irrational.Like I said – claimed credentials mean nothing here. Your ideas need to support themselves. You just need to back your claims rationally, not anecdotally or reliant on authority. It’s a low bar.

          10. JLM

            .I think we’ve found the problem, DA.1 + 1 = 2 is an equation, not an ideaHope this helps.Experience allows us to test the hypothesis of any idea based on a measure of reality, something known to be known.In the example noted above, the RNC has nothing to do with voting machines in Travis County and thus my experience was dispositive of the allegation.As a general observation, the RNC isn’t well organized enough or energetic enough to cheat. Too lazy.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          11. DisentAgain

            “1 + 1 = 2 is an equation, not an idea”… Oh we see the problem indeed, apparently, you fail to grasp even the most basic of logical concepts. It’s an idea *and* an equation. All rational ideas are logically constructed concepts – well-formed ideas. In short, if your idea is not a rational equation, it’s not a rational idea. That’s the root concept of logic. Literally: “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.” 1+1=2 is a valid logical construct. It’s *also* a mathematical equation, but that’s not relevant.Let’s try another:Premise: According to person A, ‘Z’, is true.Conclusion: Therefore, ‘Z’ is true.That’s a logical fallacy – the appeal to authority. In your statement, you are person A, and your claim is Z. It’s a logical fallacy to jump to the conclusion. The authority does nothing for the logical validity of the idea.How did you not learn this?

          12. JLM

            .DA, we agree on something.”…not relevant.”*Boring.*JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          13. DisentAgain

            Right – because rational thought and reasoned discourse is sooooo boring. Pretty low bar, actually. Just the basics of human idea exchange.

          14. JLM

            .Oh, sorry, my bad. You were going to change gears?It’s been fun but I have to run — TCRPEC meeting tonight. We’re planning the victory party, I think.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          15. DisentAgain

            Adorable. “Victory”. The hits just keep on coming.

          16. Amar

            It is not claimed credentials. Google search every one of those claims for Jeffrey L Minch and you will find the proof. I would encourage you to do your homework before you make statements like”Assuming these claimed credentials are true (and I seriously doubt it), “cause when it turns out to be true (like it is), it takes away credibility from the rest of your rebuttal which might very well be worth taking seriously.

          17. DisentAgain

            His credentials *don’t matter*. That’s the point. His credentials, claimed or otherwise, don’t magically make his ideas more valid or well-formed rationally. How have you not been taught the basics of logic?Why would I Google his credentials when they are utterly *irrelevant* to his point?

          18. LE

            My reply to commenter, in case you didn’t see it was:Wow! It’s like he said it was 9 inches or something!

          19. JLM

            .I don’t think @DisentAgain:disqus gets sarcasm.And, yes, everything is bigger in Texas, y’all.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          20. DisentAgain

            Yep. I’m *totally* the one who missed the sarcasm. Yep. Sure.

          21. JLM

            .Haha, you need to take a diesel bath and toughen up that prickly sensitive skin of yours, DA. You are too easy.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          22. DisentAgain

            Zing! You got me there! I tell ya, that wit of yours is uncanny.

          23. LE

            Wow! It’s like he said it was 9 inches or something!

          24. DisentAgain

            Pretty much exactly like that.

          25. sigmaalgebra

            We were so politically correct, that is, so eager to beat up ourselves for even tiny imagined faults, that to eradicate any evidence of racism we rushed to elect O who we already knew hated the US. And we elected him twice. From his mother’s politics, one of his early mentors, his mysterious background at Columbia, his do nothing record on the Harvard Law Review, his long time minister, his do nothing record in the IL legislature, and much more, we knew what the heck we were getting. And he did a lot of damage.Hillary could be even worse.

        2. LE

          You remember my saying is “you can only be as honest as the competition”.You have to understand one thing about politics which is the same thing about crime and the local car repair place, back when people got their car fixed at such a place. And landlords. It’s not a matter of getting rid of it. It’s just a matter of making sure it isn’t to much of a problem. For example say it’s a given you will get ripped off at the local car repair place. You just hope you don’t get ripped off to much. That the guy is just a pig and not a hog.Point being if everyone else is generally wheeling and dealing in politics any new entrant will have to do the same. Even someone like Elizabeth Warren. Otherwise nothing will get done. It’s favor trading.

          1. Salt Shaker

            You can never fully sanitize the men’s room at Grand Central Station. It’s a germ fest. You can scrub w/ bleach, Pinesol or whatever and reduce the scum and bacteria, but it likely will still be somewhat contaminated. One can perpetually turn a blind eye or one can build systems and constraints that minimize wrong doing. Politics is a cesspool cause of lobbyists, campaign financing, PACs, entitlement, lack of term limits, etc. There are things that can be done to minimize, not eliminate, corruption and unethical behavior if it’s truly desired. Not sure it is here, though.

          2. JLM

            .I agree more with you than you do with yourself.I wonder if there is one thing we can start with — such as lobbyists being prohibited from bundling money for campaign contributions — and build from there.I was involved before the invention of PACs and there was less money in politics. There was a time before some of this stuff existed.As an observation — all the money has begun to anesthetize people. Nobody watches the commercials. They DO watch the cable news shows, however.Drain the swamp, kill the gators.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        3. sigmaalgebra

          For the W and Paul Ryan Republicans, I have a very low opinion. For Trump and my Congressman Chris Gibson, I have a very high opinion. I might have a high opinion of a few other Republicans but not Cruz or Rubio.Really, though, as much as I dislike most Republicans, I can’t believe that their e-mail traffic or back room BS sessions would be nearly as bad as those of Hillary or the DNC. Why? Because Hillary and the DNC have been caught red handed in a lot of really dumb, that is, too easy to get caught, really dirty tricks politics, worse than Nixon, and the Republicans so far have yet to be caught in anything at all serious.For the Democrats, there’s lots of smoke and, as we know now, fire. For the Republicans there isn’t even smoke.The DNC has been the dumb de dumb dumb delusional Debbie and Donna show, along with dirty Hillary, and the RNC has been run by Priebus. Huge difference.Priebus looks like a solid guy.Debbie and Donna look like angry feminist college or even high school sophomores drinking Gatorade and vodka all night and commiserating on how except just for sexism they could be making the really big bucks as stars in the NFL or NBA. They don’t understand that on the first play they would get knocked into the nickel seats or the 10 cent a day part of the parking lot.

      5. DisentAgain

        1) never actually happened and 2) never actually happened. Try actually *reading* the evidence instead of listening to other report random attacks.

        1. JLM

          .The two guys who “resigned”? Never. Actually. Happened?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          1. DisentAgain

            That’s proof of 1 and 2, …how, exactly? Your tin-foil hat is on a bit tight this AM.

          2. JLM

            .A couple of guys resigned after they were exposed in a Veritas video, why? In their own words, they took credit for violence at Trump rallies. Bragged about it.They resigned cause it never really happened — what the video indicated happened?Who are you going to believe HRC or your lying eyes?Tin-foil hat? Haha, very funny stuff.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          3. DisentAgain

            “they took credit for violence at Trump rallies. Bragged about it” No, that’s not remotely what the video showed.None of the events discussed om the video actually took place, nor was any actual violence incited. Try understanding the evidence, not just listening to kooks like those Veritas con artists.The *video* happened and it’s from known fraudster James O’Keefe – Robert Creamer resigned because of the noise around the video – and the fact that the discussion was embarrassing – not because of any criminal acts or charges. So again, no proof that any violence was incited, or that the dems “paid” anyone. Non-issue.Plenty of things to critique the dems for, these are not those things.

          4. JLM

            .I don’t know, DA? Bob Creamer “resigned because of the noise around the video?” Seems a little contrived, no?<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/emb…” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””></iframe>Take a look for yourself, no?Seems like a bit of violence being incited to me but then I may have better reception — tin hat and all?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          5. DisentAgain

            Except for the part that there were no incidents of anyone inciting or paying for *anything* remotely as described. No evidence of anything beyond conversations from one random guy. Nothing to corroborate it, no actual incidents, nothing whatsoever.This is what James O’Keefe does to keep his name in lights… He finds dubious low-level folks and engages them in inappropriate conversation. He baits, then edits, then sensationalizes and uses it to discredit the opposition. It’s not hard to do, and it’s not journalism. It’s a manipulative formula – pure easy propaganda. You fell for it again.There is nothing pointing to the conversations on that tape being anything more than conversations.Stop listening to fake journalists. Follow the evidence, and there is nothing there but smoke, mirrors, and a puffed up local wannabe.

          6. JLM

            .Yeah, a random guy who is married to a US Congressman, been to the White House 345 times, and met with Pres Obama 47 times — just a random guy.Oh, yeah, a random guy who resigned and disappeared.Yeah, that random guy.Total propaganda, indeed.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          7. DisentAgain

            So where is the *evidence*? What money changed hands? Where are those who were “hired”? Which rallies were affected? Where are those corroborating these alleged efforts? Where are the aggrieved parties? You know – actually providing substantive support for the accusation. Actual journalism.It’s confirming your bias – but it’s not actual proof of anything.Stop listening to kooks with vapor and calling it “proof”. That’s what suckers do.

          8. JLM

            .DA, dear, I am not a journalist. You knew that, right?I do think the corroboration of the alleged hijinks is contained in the very words of those gents in the Veritas video who bragged of their actions in inciting trouble in Chicago, amongst other places, as well as an illuminating description of the flow of both information and expenses.You do recall a little trouble at a Trump rally in Chicago and the part of the video wherein the gentleman bragged of his involvement, no?Seemed clear to folks.As to the hired — I suggest you check with the two chaps who “resigned” over the baseless and unproven allegations? One of whom visited the White House 345 times and met with President Obama 47 times and is married to a Dem Congressman.Small fish, I am sure.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          9. DisentAgain

            “I am not a journalist. You knew that, right?” Never said you were. It’s the videographer and the whole Veritas scam I take issue with – he’s posing this weird little political attack as journalism. It’s not. It’s just like the Acorn nonsense he passed off a few years ago – a manufactured propaganda ploy.O’Keef *admitted* he manufactured the conversations and the edits to look embarrassing:When asked this week to release the raw footage, he declined stating, ” “it’d probably paint a different picture.”… Sop there you go. Debunked from his own mouth.”I suggest you check with the two chaps who “resigned” – We did. Here’s what Creamer said:”We regret the unprofessional and careless hypothetical conversations that were captured on hidden cameras of a regional contractor for our firm, and he is no longer working with us,” he said. “While none of the schemes described in the conversations every took place, these conversations do not at all reflect the values of Democracy Partners.”Again – simple rule of law. If there is *evidence* of a crime, bring charges. Otherwise, we get to ignore wild accusations from known frauds.Feel free to keep falling for it though.

          10. JLM

            .Did I miss something, DA?Cause the words of Rob’t Creamer don’t apply to him. I know it’s tempting to believe a bad actor when he protests his innocence. But in this instance, he didn’t even speak to his own situation.I admit to a bit of a reading comp challenge but he’s not talking about himself, is he?He resigned because he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Not a complicated story to fathom, no?I am absolutely certain James O’Keefe “debunked” his own efforts. Certain.This is pretty simple stuff. They got caught. Creamer is a modestly big fish. Wife is a Congressman. Went to the WH hundreds of times. Met with the President 47 times.No, this is exactly what it appears to be. Sorry.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          11. DisentAgain

            “They got caught.” Doing *what*? Talking about stuff? There is no *evidence* any actual crimes took place, and the guy who took the video admitted he edited the video to tell the story you wanted to hear.”I am absolutely certain James O’Keefe “debunked” his own efforts. Certain.” Literally and in his own words – yes, he did. “[a journalist would never release ] raw unedited materials because it’d probably paint a different picture.”There you go. That’s your bias. You believe the words on tape without question nor context, but ignore the words of the tape maker when he clearly admits to altering the “picture”.Wonder why that is?

          12. JLM

            .Yes, DA, video evidence is likely to be people talking about stuff and pics of them doing the talking. That is the nature of video evidence.Nobody put words in their mouths, did they?And, the guy did resign, no?Nothing to see here, no?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          13. DisentAgain

            Edited video evidence, from a man known to historically engineer, doctor, and manufacture video evidence – and who admits to doing so in this case.”And, the guy did resign” This magically makes evidence of …. what, exactly? The video was an engineered embarrassment to the party… the guy in it resigned. Shocking. He got punked. He’s gone. End of tale, without *actual* evidence of a crime.Get back to me with evidence of illegal *actions*, not political attack propaganda engineered to get you to do exactly what you are doing.

        2. kidmercury

          well, for better or worse, everyone has their own version of the truth these days. hopefully we can all strive to pursue an objective truth when appropriate.

          1. DisentAgain

            I’d settle for separating signal from noise. This is done by not treating every claim as equally valid, and requiring substantive evidence before screaming “LOCK THEM UP!!!” You know – the basics of journalism and the rule of law.

          2. kidmercury

            lol, well, given that 9/11 was an inside job and all the evidence in the world points to that, and society as a whole still can’t accept this very elementary truth, i’ll refrain from holding my breath. people need to focus more on disciplining their own innate biases. thanks to the internet, all the evidence is already out there on the vast majority of important issues for anyone who dares to seek the truth.

          3. DisentAgain

            “given that 9/11 was an inside job” Claims like this require evidence. This is what I’m talking about. Noise like that is not helpful. It’s unsubstantiated at best, and wildly reckless to the point of intentionally deceptive based on the evidence we *do* have.Less noise more signal. The only way to do that is to ignore claims that have no evidentiary support. Simple, fair, rational.”society as a whole still can’t accept this very elementary truth” Because no rational evidence has ever been presented to believe claim. None. Zero. We don’t believe it because there is no rational reason *to* believe it.”all the evidence is already out there on the vast majority of important issues for anyone who dares to seek the truth.” You need to look up confirmation bias… then get back to us.

          4. kidmercury

            Lol do have evidence for your thesis? Patriotsquestion911.Com is the starting point I recommend.

          5. DisentAgain

            I don’t have a thesis, I’m not making the positive claim. You are making a claim unsupported by evidence. The burden of proof is on *you*.My evidence is simple – your lack of evidence.

          6. kidmercury

            but surely you must have some thesis as to what occurred on 9/11, right? for instance, if my thesis can be dismissed so readily, it must only be because of a pre-existing thesis that has greater validity prima facie……anyway, no worries. i know you don’t know the first thing about 9/11 and won’t care to research it anyway, even though we’re all basically all walking around with the world’s information in our pockets these days. i’m just bringing that up to illustrate the larger point on people’s biases interfering with their ability to consume the truth even when it is readily available.

          7. DisentAgain

            “but surely you must have some thesis as to what occurred on 9/11, right? ” We have what the *evidence* tells us.” if my thesis can be dismissed so readily” No. All ideas have the same bar to pass – evidence, support, logical validity. Yours are not subject to anything others are not *also* subject to. It’s just that they don’t meet the basic standards and others do.” i know you don’t know the first thing about 9/11″ You would be wrong. Not only have I read the official reports (hard-copy no less), I’ve also explored most of the common theories and “alternative” explanations. There is *no* credible nor plausible evidence of an inside job. It’s just that simple. There is no evidence to support your claim.We’ve looked. It’s just not there.

          8. kidmercury

            then surely you know a criminal investigation has never occurred, and lawsuits against saudi arabia are currently underway, and of course there is no mention of building 7 in the 9/11 commission report.

          9. DisentAgain

            OMG, the building 7 nonsense again. Look, you clearly have some fixed notions and conclusions you jumped to – nothing I can say will help you.Some people believe the world is flat, others believe angels exist, others think the moon landing was fake – you think 9/11 was a conspiracy. The thing all of these items have in common is exactly the same amount of supporting evidence.It’s that simple. You have no evidence to support your claim. Until you get some, we get to ignore you like all the other unfounded ideas.

          10. kidmercury

            still waiting for your claim, and your evidence, as to what happened on 9/11…..btw, i am simply repeating the assertions of over 500 architects and engineers who don’t believe the physics-defying pancake theory….. http://www.ae911truth.org/

    2. JLM

      .Join me in the BBQ food group with a minor in TexMex. It’s a spicy group but the company is good.There is not going to be any food at the gulag. That’s part of the gulag shtick.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

    3. DisentAgain

      Voters don’t know the difference between this, the Bengazi mails, the private server issue, or the DNC files. Considering there was nothing in the hacked emails other than mundane chatter and no evidence of anything relevant, it’s a mild embarrassment at best.This is a black eye for Google, and makes the Trump campaign look even more incompetent for over-focusing on it.

    4. sigmaalgebra

      But, but, but, it’s TIME for the US to set aside the despicable shame of sexism and have its first woman President! Besides, it’s HER turn!Besides, it’s her temperament, her special, presidential temperament: E.g., she shouts and insults her security guards from the Secret Service and the State Department — the senior guards used their seniority to avoid being on Hillary duty. She hit a security guard with a bible. She routinely screamed at Bill and security guards. She threw things at Bill, not just the vase.Net, in public Hillary is just an act, especially with her forced smiles. In private, she’s some wicked witch.Here’s a picture of Hillary’s temperament:https://pbs.twimg.com/media…Here she is being presidential “in her fashion”:http://media.breitbart.com/…Hillary is NASTY.Read the book by former, long time White House Secret Service agentGary J. Byrne, Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate, ISBN-10: 1455568872, ISBN-13: 978-1455568871, Center Street, June 28, 2016.or articles on it and interviews of him, e.g., athttp://www.breitbart.com/ra…There is the old movie on Hillary’s dirt going back to her time as First Lady and in Arkansas in Hillary Clinton Exposed, athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…A lot of dirt there.For more recent explanations of nasty Hillary, see the movie Clinton Cash, based on Peter Schweizer’s book of the same name, athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…For the movie passing some fact checks from, right, the mainstream media (MSM), seehttp://www.breitbart.com/bi…One of the stories in the movie is how Hillary, as Secretary of State, made a special exception to the sanctions on Iran for Swedish electronics company Ericsson to permit them to sell to Iran.As inhttp://www.breitbart.com/bi…the day after the movie was released, the CEO of Ericsson resigned — apparently some people don’t like nasty stuff. Gee, if Hillary gets elected and takes the US totally into the toilet, maybe I should move to Sweden.For more on nasty Hillary, see her laugh at how she got an acquittal for the 41 year old man who raped a 12 year old girl violently enough to seriously injure her:https://www.youtube.com/wat…For more nasty stuff, do a Google search onHillary “that awful internet video” and see how at the airport when the coffins of the four Americans killed in Benghazi came back to the US, at the airport, standing by the coffins, Secretary of State Hillary told the families of the dead that the cause of the attack was “that awful internet video”. That was a lie, and Hillary knew it at the time, a really nasty thing to tell the families.If continue that story, then when one of the families later complained about Hillary’s nasty lie, Hillary attacked back with another nasty lie.In Clinton Cash can see how Bill and Hillary redirected a lot of the billions in Haiti earthquake relief to their buddies who gave kickbacks to Bill and Hillary. Nasty Hillary stole food from the mouths of starving children of Haiti.It’s easy to find reports of how the people of Haiti now hate nasty Bill and Hillary.Lying HillaryHillary lies, a lot. She lied to the American people about her e-mail usage; here is a comparison of some of Hillary’s statements and corresponding statements of FBI Directory Comey:https://www.youtube.com/wat…There are more such A-B video clips inhttps://www.youtube.com/wat…Can look up the reports on the FBI interviews of Hillary, e.g.,Tal Kopan and Evan Perez, “FBI releases Hillary Clinton email report”, CNN, Updated 5:35 PM ET, Fri September 2, 2016.athttp://www.cnn.com/2016/09/…where in her interviews with the FBI on her e-mail usage, 39 times Hillary said that she didn’t “recall” or didn’t “remember”:Hillary Clinton repeatedly told the FBI she couldn’t recall key details and events related to classified information procedures, according to notes the bureau released Friday of its July interview with the Democratic presidential nominee, along with a report on its investigation into her private email server. Gee, Hillary has been around US classified information at least since her terms as a US Senator and certainly in her term as US Secretary of State. That’s quite a lot of exposure to classified information. If she can’t remember the procedures, then either she lied to the FBI (IIRC a felony) and has to be disqualified from serving as POTUS or is seriously mentally impaired and incompetent to serve as POTUS.There is a 70 minute collection of video clips of some of her statements, good candidates for lies:https://www.youtube.com/wat…For more on Hillary’s lies, there isJoel B. Pollak, “Blue State Blues: Fact-Check — Top 20 Lies in Hillary’s ‘Alt-Right’ Speech”, Breitbart News, 26 Aug, 2016 26 Aug, 2016.athttp://www.breitbart.com/bi…For much more on Hillary’s lies there is”Trey Gowdy grills Jim Comey on Hillary Clinton Email Scandal”athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…And easily enough there is much more on Hillary’s lies.Lesson: Hillary lies; she lies so much that no way can anyone believe her on anything.That we can’t believe Hillary is a crucial disqualification from her having any important role in government or anything else. Why?Recently I watched the movie The Sum of all Fears. There is a lot in that movie related to some parts of my early career around DC.Well, if look at the movie overall, and in more detail at the communications over the Hot Line between the POTUS and the head of the USSR or Russia, then understand that quite broadly it is just CRUCIAL for the leaders, their senior staffs, and their lower staffs to be able to communicate with trust and certainly without lies.With the scenario in the movie, a lying Hillary POTUS would have resulted in the world being destroyed in a full nuclear war.Instead, it is just CRUCIAL that the POTUS have credibility, in the White House, with the American people, with foreign countries, etc. Well, Hillary, due if only to her lying, has zero — zip, zilch, and zero — credibility on anything.To me, just from the records, Hillary is a habitual, flagrant, shameless, fearless, guiltless, pathological liar. For more, and also just from the records, and closely related, Hillary is, as in her 1994 speech as athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…on “super-predators”, without conscience or empathy. That is, by her own definition, she is a super-predator.Actually there is a pattern of Hillary accusing others of her faults.I can conclude that Hillary is an excellent actress. She is really good with smiles, facial expressions, endearing feminine gestures, etc.In grade school, boys are told never to hit a girl. So, a girl can attack or insult a boy and not have to have a fist fight after school. More generally, in our society, females are privileged persons, to be protected. So, Hillary uses these norms about girls and women to avoid the very serious criticism and, really retribution, including jail time, for her lies.Criminal HillaryOn Hillary’s use of her home based e-mail server, there is”FBI Director James Comey News Conference”, July 5, 2016with video and transcript athttp://www.c-span.org/video…There Comey says that with Hillary’s use of e-mail, her handling of US classified information was “extremely careless”.What does “extremely careless” mean?For an answer, athttp://mediamatters.org/res…there isBobby Lewis, “The ‘Gross Negligence’ Claim About Clinton Emails That The FBI Specifically Rejected Research”, MediaMatters, July 5, 2016 5:49 PM EDT.with a lot of details including a long interchange between Kimberly Guilfoyle and Mayor Rudy Giuliani.Net, from a law dictionary “extremely careless” is the first and most important case of “gross negligence” which is the sole criterion for violation of section (f) of the US Espionage Act as in “18 USC 793” as athttps://www.law.cornell.edu…Note that “intent” is not mentioned in section (f).From the number of e-mail messages involved, it is fair to say that Hillary’s violation of section (f) was massive. If prosecuted and convicted, Hillary might be vulnerable to spending the rest of her life in jail. If elected POTUS, apparently she would also be vulnerable to impeachment. Also if elected, she might be subject to prosecution by a special prosecutor.From the movie Clinton Cash, it appears that as Secretary of State, Hillary is guilty of bribery from doing favors for UBS, Ericsson, and the Russians.From the recent data on paid violence at Trump rallies, Hillary and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) may be subject to various criminal charges including inciting violence.To me, Hillary looks like a seriously bad criminal who should be spending the rest of her life in jail.Foreign Policy Disaster HillaryApparently nearly everything Hillary touched in foreign policy became a disaster — Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Honduras.There are more details in”The Grand Legacy of Hillary Clinton”athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…A big pattern is that she wants to depose existing leaders with little concern for what will follow. In all cases where she did depose existing leaders, what has followed is something much worse than before.The US and the world should have learned its lesson in Cambodia when the US deposed Sihanouk and then Lon Nol and got Pol Pot, one of the worst despots in all of history.For the US and the world, Hillary is a foreign policy disaster.Obviously she has zero for judgment, conscience, and empathy.National Security Disaster HillaryAlso, as above athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…from FBI Director Comey’s presentation of July 5, 2016 isShe also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States including sending and receiving work related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Also, told that she should not use a wireless device inside the State Department building, to use e-mail she commonly walked to a balcony of the State Department building and wide open to the world and used her wireless Blackberry.But, IIRC, her Blackberry did NOT encrypt its signals. So, any well funded hacker with appropriate off the shelf wireless equipment could have gotten her Blackberry wireless traffic and, thus, for her e-mail, the server domain name, her login in user ID, and her login password and, then, used those from anywhere on the Internet to login to her e-mail as Hillary and download all her e-mail traffic.Thus I would be shocked if any of China, Russia, England, France, Germany, Iran, or the US NSA failed to get all of Hillary’s e-mail.Yes, Hillary for US Commander in Chief:http://media.breitbart.com/…Net, Hillary is a US national security disaster.Hillary’s TricksSo, how does Hillary or how do Bill and Hillary get away with their nonsense, that is, Hillary’s lies and one of them taking in the money and the other passing out corresponding favors?Well, apparently going back to Arkansas, for life in politics apparently Hillary has had a fairly simple technique:First, when she is in public and wants to claim that something is true, she just states that it is true. If the something is false, then she just lies. She counts on not many people being well enough informed to detect the lie right away.E.g., in the last debate she claimed that the US has 33,000 gun deaths a year. To get a number this high, have to do some totally smelly arithmetic. Really, as is easy enough now to check on the Internet, e.g., at a Breitbart collection of fact check articles after the last debate, the 33,000 is just a lie.Besides, back in Arkansas, Hillary looked competent, bright, and articulate.Second, as she makes her claim, she does a good job acting. So, she might look serious and competent. She might smile, look sincere, and look like a woman trying to save the world in line with the norms that women are supposed to want to do that.Indeed, she has insisted that her goal is to help women and children; looking at her actions, her words look like lies.Third, she hopes that people hearing her statement will be pleased or convinced for the moment which for her goals often can be enough.Fourth, she counts on people not remembering what she says. Before the Internet it wasn’t easy for an ordinary citizen to keep track of what she said.Fifth, she hopes that people who know she lied would not get much attention — a fairly good bet, especially before the Internet.Sixth, when occasionally she gets caught in a lie, she might just smile and laugh as if the charge were absurd. She might call the charge “a conspiracy theory”. Or if she believes that she has to say something, she might just lie again.Seventh, in the rare case that she has to address a question directly, she might just give a clever, deceptive answer. E.g., for her e-mail server, she apologized for her use of “private e-mail”.That response is deceptive: There was no claim that she should not use “private e-mail”. The claim was that she used a private e-mail server for all her e-mail, including her State Department e-mail including the, no doubt huge amount of, classified e-mail. Then Hillary hopes that she can get by with such deception.Eighth, recently Hillary also gets a lot of help from the mainstream media, totally in the tank for Hillary, deceptive, fabricating, lying propaganda arm of the Hillary campaign apparently often paid off with lots of ad revenue from Hillary campaign ads. The media will usually (A) not run stories critical of Hillary, (B) distort, fabricate, or lie on her behalf, (C) run other stories, e.g., distorted, fabricated, or lying stories about her opponent, to change the subject, and (D) just decline to do the media’s intended job of informing the citizens.As a lawyer, she understands that often it is not illegal to lie. And she understands that if she is in a high place, e.g., with Bill as Attorney General or Governor of Arkansas, often she can lie where it is illegal and still likely get away with it.But at this point, with all her lying and with the Internet, she stands to have zero credibility; when she is talking, just turn the sound off because there is no direct reason to listen to her lies.SummaryThese eight little devices did help get her elected to the US Senate from NYS and get her the Democrat nomination for POTUS.If these devices put Hillary in the White House, then the voters have only themselves to blame for letting Hillary do very serious harm to the US, say, the economy, the SCOTUS, respect for the US, the US immigration situation, the US health care system, the US energy supplies, US foreign relations, US national security, and the rule of law.

  13. Chris O'Donnell

    Saw this on Twitter over the weekend.Good online personal security check list. And the length of it is reason 1 why our info will continue to be so at risk.https://github.com/alulsh/p

  14. jason wright

    In addition, I wonder how many people 2FA their Gmail account?

  15. Kevin O'Brien

    As Fred mentioned, this is a pretty public example of an attack that should have been caught; that it wasn’t is indicative of how hard this problem is, even for Google. The hardest part about catching spear phishing is that it is (essentially) a social engineering attack; email happens to be a common attack vector, but the problem has more to do with psychology than it does with technology.What’s interesting is that it IS possible — given a sufficiently large corpus of data and the right framework for using it to identify attempts at this kind of attack — to detect and respond to these kinds of threats. The trick is in doing so in realtime, without interdicting mail or delaying legitimate conversations, and doing so with a high degree of fidelity.Full disclosure: I am the CEO / founder of a company (GreatHorn) that’s spent the last 2 years building this technology stack specifically to address this problem.

  16. jason wright

    quite recently a hacker performed a ddos attack on a blockchain startup’s testnet i’m invested in. he announced himself on the startup’s chat forum and requested payment of one bitcoin to stop it. he tried to justify his behaviour by making a distinction between malicious hacking and his “normal” hacking, hacking he considered to be legitimate and acceptable.when people are caught hacking they should be sentenced to a 1Mbps internet data connection for a year, on the basis that some form of connection has become essential to function in today’s wired world.

    1. Rob Underwood

      …sentenced to a 1Mbps internet data connection for a year AND to listen to nothing but Spin Doctors and Dave Mathews Band. We need to put teeth in these punishments.

      1. jason wright

        that’s harsh. harsher still would be to lock him inside a room with Donald and Hillary for 24 hours.

        1. Rob Underwood

          Hell is an eternity of doing karaoke with Donald Trump in which the only song available is “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” (re-buffering every 30 seconds due to afore mentioned 1Mbps connection).

  17. Rob Underwood

    As serious matter a matter as phishing is, I want to state that it’s regrettable that this form of hacking has become associated with one of the greatest musical acts ever, Phish.I know at least 20% of the USV partnership is with me on this, and out of deference and respect to Phish’s artistic genius, I think we should all take 20 minutes out of our hectic Monday to savor the Phish with this short version of “You Enjoy Myself”:https://www.youtube.com/wat…I’m sure you’ll agree it is no accident that they share a regional home with the greatest football team ever, the Patriots.

  18. JLM

    .The attribution of this hacking to the Russians is very suspect for a number of reasons.First, the Russians are notoriously energetic in mounting false flag operations. They will do wicked things and then purposely leave a trail of bread crumbs to some other actor whose interest makes sense. It is not just a tendency; it is a core operational practice. The finding of TCPIP addresses in St Petersburg appears to be way too pat. Why not Moscow?Second, this entire Fancy Bear effort, apparently, originated when Russia was getting ready to go to war with Georgia. At that time, it was not a secret. This then was redirected against the Ukraine and throughout the Middle East.Third, email is low grade intel product. It does not make sense for someone to distribute intercepted email widely. It loses its intel value when it is widely known. If it were particularly juicy, it would be distributed to a single trusted journalist to make hay with. Wikileaks has a certain vanilla yogurt quality to it. Too much info is no info.Fourth, email systems are used to gain access to a computer for the purpose of stealing files and other more valuable documents. Again, the docs are only useful when the target doesn’t know they were targeted. The malware that is inserted in a computer is not inserted by the phishing operation but by subsequent intrusions after the bad actor has gained access. Bad actors don’t want to steal your lunch money, they want to steal your brokerage account and read your daily journal.Last, while it is possible to see how this has happened, what idiot today resets their password from a link on an email? This is just stupidity but I guess there’s a lot of it going around. Think about that for a second — you get an email which has a link to re-set your password RESET YOUR PASSWORD and you actually do it.At the very least, you should delete the email and maybe look at its metadata while going back to your Google account directly — not through the email password reset link — and reset your password. People in the game are always changing their passwords and it is often counseled to change a password twice in rapid succession.Much has been said of how expensive such an operation would be to mount. When you look at the number of phishing expeditions mounted daily — of which I have no personal knowledge but have read on it — there has to be a lot of scale at work here.There are undoubtedly a lot of freelancers who are casting about to see what they can find. What would someone be willing to pay for all of Mr. X’s emails? Or a quick trip through all of KKR’s files?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  19. creative group

    fredwilson:We agree with you more than you agree with yourself regarding Google’s lapse in protecting private emails. The concern demonstrates projects that will not see the light of day are a more important focus.The HRC & John Podesta hacked emails really confirm a majority of Politicians are untruthful, power driven and work in their own interests and not the public as a whole. That being said we hire (elect) Politicians to do what we as average people are unwilling or in most cases don’t have the ability to administer.If after reading the summaries of those private emails you were not disturbed then that would be troubling. We realize a two party system is the best way to represent the majority, it isn’t perfect but the democracies that have more than two parties are a mess.America is great and has always been great in its maturity, but not perfect.This troubling time will soon pass as it always does. If people don’t vote they shouldn’t bitch. The options as an Independent is almost impossible but one candidate and the elk that came out of the racist, misogynist, xenophobia, etc. hole will be voted right back in it. As did David Duke, Barry Goldwater and every regressive thinking obstructionist.The current iteration of the non governing obstructionist party will obstruct HRC for her entire term and continue with the Alt-Right conspiracy theories as they were fact. HRC has made it easy for them to frame it.Can remember (will post after the election) a dream prediction of Trump winning the election from a contributor that sounded fantasy when the prediction was posted and even more fantasy now.New Yorkers know Trump. The former Democrat who ran as a Republican to ruin it’s party. The real conspiracy theory is that the Alt-Right and Trump hoodwinked the Republican base.#UnequivocallyUnapologeticallyIndependent#Termlimits#OverturnCitizensUnited

    1. JLM

      .What is the hunting season on the racist, mysogynist, xenophobic ELK? Is there a black powder and a bow season?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  20. JLM

    .I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.This last guy knows shit.The popular theory, as espoused by this guy who knows shit, is that all the emails have been obtained by tapping into backup files and not from active computers or archives held on active computers.He thinks the phishing theory is all wet and is a smokescreen.The primary reason this guy concludes as he has is that he has found some of the emails that do not have the most recent “forward” or communication on them.Meaning, the email was forwarded to someone or someone commented on it and it is not on the email which was WikiLeaked.This makes him think they are slightly “stale” having been backed up and therefore not having the most recent traffic on them.He is certain that backup files are more weakly protected than even desktop files and there is always the possibility for someone to be bought off for access at a storage point.I thought this was an interesting theory.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  21. kevando

    No one else has a hard time believing this version of what happened?

    1. DisentAgain

      Without evidence to suggest otherwise, no.

  22. pointsnfigures

    On a lighter note, look what I sent @aaronklein today for the Riskalyze office https://uploads.disquscdn.c

  23. jason wright

    there’s not a lot of substance in the article.everyone hacks everyone, and on an industrial scale. it’s the new cold war.

  24. creative group

    CONTRIBUTORS:With the empty proclamations of how a person loves this country but not the government it really screams out do they have any idea about the United States Government or simple Naturalization test. Really wonder how many contributors actually can pass the test without Googling the answers.Passing The United States NaturalizationTest is a requirement before becoming a United States citizens. The actual test is oral but this is an example as many can locate onlinehttp://m.washingtontimes.co…

  25. chhhris

    Brings up an interesting question around whether link shorteners have any role to play in identifying phishing attacks.A slippery slope, perhaps, but are there opportunities for collaboration among different parts of the ecosystem (link shorteners, email providers, et al.)?