265 Comments

And still, Trump stays silent. He's allowed disease to run rampant, opened the door wide to Putin, made money off the presidency... And all the while Republicans in congress allow him to carry on, unchecked. I question the patriotism of anyone supporting Donald Trump at this stage of the game. Clearly, the don't understand the meaning of the word.

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Dec 18, 2020Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

On his watch...

And more deafening, thunderous silence from Congressional Republicans.

Had half, or even a tenth, of these serial scandals occurred under a Hillary Clinton administration, there would multiple, on-going committee investigations, special prosecutors, and impeachment votes.

Russian cyber tentacles at this point are likely so deeply imbedded into the software of US government agencies and business enterprises it will take years to find and remove them. Quite a legacy.

It is apparent to many of us that Trump's intransigence vis-a-vis the election outcome is a result of his expectation that Russian hacking would hand him the election.

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The incompetence of 45 and his administration will, no doubt, go down in history as the US' most detrimental on multiple levels: from our integrity to our safety to our individual and collective well-being (both mental and physical). This one, highly inept, amateurish man playing the role our leader has pulled us down into the throes of instability, near anarchy, and death -- and all the while, the GOP leadership has allowed him to continue.

Very few of us are surprised, despite the extent to which we have been compromised. We have known in our guts that 45 was selling us down the river. Where are the cries of outrage from all Republicans for this breech of security, for the lies, for the incompetence, for the rising numbers of Covid cases and deaths? A solo voice does not outrage make!

The enormity of 45's treacherous ineptitudes, inefficiencies, misconducts, indignities, and blanket inhumanity leave me numb, yet fearful of the next 30 days -- hardened, yet in pain for all the innocents who continue to suffer because of a single, solitary narcissist who has played Russian roulette with our freedoms, our rights, and our lives.

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I would really love to see this so called president (lower case on purpose) held accountable. He has been having secret talks with Putin since he took office.

It would be incredibly sad to see a President brought up on charges of treason.....aiding and abetting the enemy. But, I am thinking that is exactly what needs to happen.

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So much for all the IT "jeany-is-es." The hackers were able to penetrate Solar Winds using the password "solarwinds123." Jesus. H. Christ!!! These people are a *security* company????

Romney was right when he said this is like having Russian bombers flying overhead 50 years ago.

And here we sit with Putin's Bitch at the head of the government.

(bangs head against wall for 10,000th time in the past 48 months - ah, the pain feels so good now)

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Dec 18, 2020Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

Isn't Marco Rubio the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee? Given the gravity and scope of this cyberattack on our government and corporate entities, on what is he focusing his tweets? An interview in Glamour magazine where a female Biden staffer dropped an "F" bomb, that's what. This feigned indignation speaks to the overt hypocrisy that exists in Trump's party, and how curious it is that Marco Rubio is into Glamour magazine.

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Mitt: "to not have the White House aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action is really, really quite extraordinary."

Yeah, one could even say, "treasonous".

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Dec 18, 2020Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

As someone who, over the past four years, has continually felt that the worst thing Trump has done was still yet to be revealed ... we may be getting close to the end game.

Here's a true doomsday take ... Heather lays out the circumstantial case that this president has committed, or facilitated or allowed, the most destructive act of security espionage in the history of the world.

She has populated the game board with factual dots and sufficiently connected a great many of them that start to reveal an image. I'd like to add another dot and suggest it may expand the image that Heather has sketched.

Also in March, the apparent month the hack occurred, the U.S. stock market suffered historic drops in the major stock indexes. From 20 Feb to 20 Mar -- one month -- the DJIA, S&P500, and NASDAQ indexes dropped 35, 32, and 29%. Since 20 Mar through today, those indexes have risen 57%, 60%, and 86%.

This historic bull market was fueled by the U.S. Federal Reserve essentially printing money for banks.

How vulnerable might we be to bad actors with the ultimate insider trading information?

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Dec 18, 2020Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

Russia, if you’re listening, we’d still like to see his tax returns.

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Here in the UK this morning, the Guardian reports: "Two senators on Thursday requested a briefing with the Internal Revenue Service on whether personal taxpayer information has been stolen in the breach." [Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Wyden of Oregon.]

Heather quotes a U.S. official as saying: “This is looking like it’s the worst hacking case in the history of America. They got into everything.” Isn't it interesting that Senators, in this era of principled, disinterested state-craft, seem most concerned about the risk of revelations about tax returns.

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I hoped someone would come to the same conclusion as I did - this explains why Tя☭mp expected to win the election and it was the legitimate mail in votes that turned cost him the win since the malware wasn't able to change those votes! Lock him up!

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As hard as it is, we have to be patient right now. We are uncertain that we have even stopped the bleeding, and are at an even earlier stage in our understanding of exactly what happened, who was involved, how it was done, and what the effects and ramifications are. Many cyber security professionals have long argued security needs would be underfunded and minimized until Cyber Pearl Harbor happened. Could this be that event? Yes, but even that isn’t sure at this point. We have integrated IT into our lives to the point it is impossible to distinguish where IT ends and business begins. That makes cyber a vector that is especially suited to assymetrical attack. The administration’s incredibly naive view of the world — whether of the Russians or other state actors capable of an attack of this nature — may very well have helped land us in this place. However tempting it is, though, we cannot rush to judgment about virtually anything at this point. It is far too important that we get it right. Unfortunately that takes time at a point where the human mind wants the security of answers it can grasp. The one thing we can be certain of at this point is that most if not all of those answers are not yet known. It is vital that our response hit the right targets and that we remediate all of the damage that can be identified. Unfortunately that will take lots of time and treasure.

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I rank this with the British burning of the White House in 1812, the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the WTC destruction on 9/11. However, there has been no reaction from the President this time. Even if all the intelligence agencies blame Russia, Trump will believe Putin's denial.

One can only imagine there was some collusion...yes, it is called treason.

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It's amazing that Trump continues to have millions of followers despite his inability to do the job. Do these people really not see the damage he has caused our country, their country. Of course, in true Republican fashion, they are going to put the blame on Biden. They seem to forget that Obama had to fix the financial crisis created during Bush's term and now Biden will have to fix every aspect of our country from health to the economy and now our security. People cry about socialist policies, but have turned a blind eye to treason. Trump needs to be held accountable for cajoling with his buddy Putin. Trumps intentional actions have put us at risk and for that he must be held accountable.

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Is Tя☭mp so disbelieving of the election results because he was counting on the Russian cyber invasion to give him this election? In any case, Tя☭mp responded to the previous Russian attacks by getting rid of the very government workers who could defend against further attacks. He responded to the pandemic by deliberately spreading the disease and interfering with state efforts to control it. Tя☭mp, at least, has been voted out of office. The miserable cowards and collaborators who enabled him all this time are busy trying to distract everyone, again.

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If this wasn't a deliberate ploy on trump's part to hand the keys to his friend Putin which by itself smacks of treason, then it is dereliction of duty and both charges should be pursued. I am watching to see which one, tweedlepence or tweedletrump skip the country first to someplace that does not have extradition treaties with the US.

We have home-grown terrorists parading in our streets attacking those who disagree with them and still no words from the iDJiT . These are not patriotic "militias" they are in every sense of the word terrorists. Crickets from the WH. The republicans are so afraid of losing the votes from the trump base that they stand complicit with their fearless (?) leader in silence at the least and at the worst they egg them on.

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