Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[digitaldog]

Well, that's easy to say, since he is lying all day long. However, this time he wasn't lying, he was just downplaying the alleged hacking campaign.

He said "It may be China". It isn't. There isn't anyone other than Trump who has suggested this. It could be the RNC, it could be Hugo Chavez from the grave. It isn't.
He said "The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control'.
The cyber experts do not state anything close to it's well under control or any kind of control, only Trump has lied about this. The suspected Russian hacking campaign that has affected than 40 organizations outside the government of which Trump has no idea the degree (some experts suggest it could years to find the full effects).
Yes, he lies all the time, he's lying now as well.

Besides, the alleged attacks took place a long time ago, so let's forget about it.

No, it started long ago (depending on your idea of long), and was just detected. Forget about it? Seriously?

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the threat “poses a grave risk to the federal government.”

[faberryman]

In yet other news, this Don. Jr. story appeared in The Independent today. I don't know what The Independent is. It sort of sounds like a UK publication, but the articles don't really sound that British, not that I even know what that means, but they don't contains words like "snout-troughing" which I learned the other day, so it may just be a sort of generic media site that Google occasionally sends your way. But it could be a UK publication because the author's name, James Crump, sounds like a character out of a Dickens novel. If it is a pseudonym, I'm not sure I want to know what his real name is. So here it is for your entertainment:

Don Jr complains about ‘being cancelled’ and says he’s losing thousands of supporters every day

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-jr-cancelled-instagram-followers-b1776754.html

In my professional opinion, I don't think he is so much being cancelled as he hasn't uttered a complete sentence lately, and if he did you wouldn't be able to tell because he slurs his words so badly he sounds like he is just coming out of anesthesia from a brainectomy, so people are no longer following him because they think maybe he is having a problem with his internet connection like when in the good old days you watched black and white TV and you couldn't see or hear what was going on because of all the snow. That's when you usually got up and went out to the kitchen and got your wife's roll of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil, or for our international audience aluminium foil, and used a whole roll decorating your rabbit ears trying to get better reception. Speaking of snow, some people, I don't know who they are but some people, think the problem may be drug related, but I don't want to start any false rumors, so I won't tell you that. Maybe there is some other reasonable explanation for why he is staying at a Motel 6. I don't usually listen to what he says, especially now that I can't understand what he is saying, but an article may occasionally say "check this out" and I press play, and then start looking around for the rabbit ears and aluminum foil. It also could be that he just needs to spend some time with Professor Higgins. If I were Don Jr., that's the one I'd go with.

[jeremyrh]

In yet other news, this Don. Jr. story appeared in The Independent today. I don't know what The Independent is. It sort of sounds like a UK publication, but the articles don't really sound that British, not that I even know what that means, but they don't contains words like "snout-troughing" which I learned the other day, so it may just be a sort of generic media site that Google occasionally sends your way. But it could be a UK publication because the author's name, James Crump, sounds like a character out of a Dickens novel. If it is a pseudonym, I'm not sure I want to know what his real name is. So here it is for your entertainment:

The Independent is a British newspaper that is mildly left-of-centre by UK standards, which means it's somewhere in the extreme Communist wing by US standards. The news reporting is not so remarkable but they do have excellent columnists, people who actually know what they are talking about, which is a bit of an unusual thing in the media these days.

[faberryman]

He said "It may be China". It isn't. There isn't anyone other than Trump who has suggested this. It could be the RNC, it could be Hugo Chavez from the grave. It isn't.
He said "The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control'.
The cyber experts do not state anything close to it's well under control or any kind of control, only Trump has lied about this. The suspected Russian hacking campaign that has affected than 40 organizations outside the government of which Trump has no idea the degree (some experts suggest it could years to find the full effects).
Yes, he lies all the time, he's lying now as well. No, it started long ago (depending on your idea of long), and was just detected. Forget about it? Seriously?

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the threat “poses a grave risk to the federal government.”

I heard from my usually reliable sources that he is just trying to keep us from panicking.

[faberryman]

The Independent is a British newspaper that is mildly left-of-centre by UK standards, which means it's somewhere in the extreme Communist wing by US standards. The news reporting is not so remarkable but they do have excellent columnists, people who actually know what they are talking about, which is a bit of an unusual thing in the media these days.

What is unusual is someone who can tell the difference these days.

[LesPalenik]

Putin denies that Russia was behind the recent cyber attack, but he praised the SVR spy agency for outstanding work.

Speaking at an event commemorating 100 years since the founding of the SVR foreign intelligence service, Putin said the agency and other security services were a crucial guarantee of Russia’s “sovereign, democratic, independent development.”
Some international cyber researchers have suggested that Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service may have been behind an unprecedented attack on U.S. government computer systems first reported by Reuters last week. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that Russia was responsible for the attack. The Kremlin has always denied Moscow’s involvement in cyber attacks against the West. It has said that Russia had nothing to do with this latest assault.

https://www.reuters.com/article/russia-politics-putin/keep-up-the-good-work-putin-tells-spy-agency-staff-idUSKBN28U0GI?il=0

[Robert Roaldi]

Maybe the media can't just make up stuff and say it on air after all, https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/fox-news-lou-dobbs-smartmatic-lawsuit-threat_n_5fdec28cc5b60f828856e401?ri18n=true.

I have never watched FOX so I don't know Lou Dobbs. Is he somebody important?

[Robert Roaldi]

Putin denies that Russia was behind the recent cyber attack ...

Well, if Putin's word is good enough for Trump.

Putin likes to murder journalists, I hear, so I can see where Trump might be a fan. Imagine if people in power had to answer to the public for their actions, what kind of a country would that be.

[digitaldog]

I have never watched FOX so I don't know Lou Dobbs. Is he somebody important?

More when he was on CNN. 

[Robert Roaldi]

In yet other news, this Don. Jr. story appeared in The Independent today. I don't know what The Independent is. It sort of sounds like a UK publication, but the articles don't really sound that British, not that I even know what that means, but they don't contains words like "snout-troughing" which I learned the other day, so it may just be a sort of generic media site that Google occasionally sends your way. But it could be a UK publication because the author's name, James Crump, sounds like a character out of a Dickens novel. If it is a pseudonym, I'm not sure I want to know what his real name is. So here it is for your entertainment:

Don Jr complains about ‘being cancelled’ and says he’s losing thousands of supporters every day

What does it mean for a private citizen, not holding political office, to lose supporters? Why does it matter.

[Robert Roaldi]

In yet other news, this Don. Jr. story appeared in The Independent today. I don't know what The Independent is. It sort of sounds like a UK publication, but the articles don't really sound that British, not that I even know what that means, but they don't contains words like "snout-troughing" which I learned the other day, so it may just be a sort of generic media site that Google occasionally sends your way. But it could be a UK publication because the author's name, James Crump, sounds like a character out of a Dickens novel. If it is a pseudonym, I'm not sure I want to know what his real name is. So here it is for your entertainment:

Don Jr complains about ‘being cancelled’ and says he’s losing thousands of supporters every day

Sorry, I just went back and re-read the article more carefully. Turns out losing supporters means losing followers, on social media I have to presume. But he said he's being cancelled twice a day. The cancellations can't be working too well if they have to keep re-doing them.

[faberryman]

I have never watched FOX so I don't know Lou Dobbs. Is he somebody important?

I guess it depends on who you ask. I personally think he is a bigger idiot that Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham combined. I don't watch him, but every once in a while I'll read a Fox News story and they will run a clip of him trying to say something coherent, and my opinion will be confirmed.

[digitaldog]

What does it mean for a private citizen, not holding political office, to lose supporters?

These are the supporters he's probably lost. 

[Robert Roaldi]

I'm shocked you actually read the article. ...

To be honest, not all of it.

[John Camp]

Maybe the media can't just make up stuff and say it on air after all, https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/fox-news-lou-dobbs-smartmatic-lawsuit-threat_n_5fdec28cc5b60f828856e401?ri18n=true.

I have never watched FOX so I don't know Lou Dobbs. Is he somebody important?

He used to be a business reporter, perhaps on CNBC. When I first got interested in the stock market, back in the 90s, I'd se him from time to time, and he was a bullshitter even back then. Of course, most of what you see on CNBC, if not entirely bullshit, is aimed at a very narrow slice of the investing population, but that sometimes makes it difficult to separate the bullshit from plain old stupidity.

[faberryman]

What does it mean for a private citizen, not holding political office, to lose supporters? Why does it matter.

He is just whining. It is a Trump family trait. Ivanka is pretty good at it too. She thinks she got cancelled because some college said that they didn't need her to give a commencement speech over Zoom after they saw Poppy's response to the George Floyd protests. It is not like she would have put in on her resume anyway, so she didn't get cancelled, she got her feelings hurt. Cry me a river. Her text messages whining about it were longer than the commencement speech was to begin with.

[John Camp]

<big snip>

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the threat “poses a grave risk to the federal government.”

I'm sticking with my position that this will turn out to be a nothing-burger, and that in a month or two, we'll hear no more about it. I will point out CISA may get a big win out of this. What happens when when the politicians hear about this? They give more money to CISA.

Here's a piece from Time on the situation:

https://time.com/5923056/cyber-attack-us-government/

“When the update came down, it basically was a master key for the Russians to get access to every single one of these systems,” Alperovitch says, calling it a “hack of a decade” and “one of the most significant cyber espionage operations in history,” though it apparently did not penetrate classified systems, he says, citing conversations with industry insiders.

If it only penetrated unclassified systems, does this mean that that the Russians got millions or possibly billions of routine government proceedings? Maybe they could call us up and tell us why the government doesn't work anymore.

[faberryman]

To be honest, not all of it.

My faith in your good judgment is restored.

[TechTalk]

Why Biden won

Today I spent some time comparing changes from 2016 to 2020 in the presidential elections. Both were highly polarized elections, but 2020 was even more so as Trump continuously engaged in highly divisive tweets and rhetoric throughout his entire time in office, constantly attacking his perceived enemies and keeping his base of fans energized. This polarization increased voter turnout among both Trump fans and his opposition. The polarization was also reflected in the reduction in third party voting (5.73% in 2016 vs. 1.84% in 2020). In the end, Biden was the beneficiary of this polarization as the election was in large part a referendum on Trump. So here's my take on why Biden won. It will do nothing to persuade those that are convinced or suspicious that Biden won due to a conspiracy of widespread voter fraud, but may be interesting to others.

First, Trump did little to enlarge his base of support after 2016. The national vote for Trump in 2016 was 46.09% and in 2020 was 46.86%. Trump increased his vote percentages from 2016 to 2020 among Republicans (from 90% to 94%) and conservatives (from 81% to 85%) and Biden increased his support, compared to Clinton in 2016, among Democrats (from 89% to 94%) and liberals (from 84% to 89%). These numbers reflect the hardening of base support for both candidates due to the increase in polarization—but the numbers that were key to Biden's win lie elsewhere.

Voters who identify as Independents:

Independents in 2016: Trump - 47% / Clinton - 41%
Independents in 2020: Trump - 41% / Biden - 54%

Voters who identify as moderates:

Moderates in 2016: Trump - 41% / Clinton - 52%
Moderates in 2020: Trump - 34% / Biden - 64%

Among the increase in voter turnout in 2020 were young voters, many of whom were first time voters. Of course, some first time voters were older voters that were energized to turnout due to the polarized environment in the country.

Voters 18 to 24 years old

18 to 24 years old in 2016: Trump - 35% / Clinton - 56%
18 to 24 years old in 2020: Trump - 31% / Biden - 65%

First time voters

First time voters in 2016: Trump - 40% / Clinton - 56%
First time voters in 2020: Trump - 32% / Biden - 64%

Trump retained his base and turned out even more of them in 2020. But the reduction of support among moderates, independents, young, and first time voters appear to be among the key reasons for his loss this year.

Biden also saw increases from 2016 to 2020 in suburbs (+5%) and rural areas (+8%). The differences in the "issue regarded as most important" to individual voters and how those votes played out in 2016 and 2020 are also worth a look.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics

[faberryman]

I'm sticking with my position that this will turn out to be a nothing-burger, and that in a month or two, we'll hear no more about it. I will point out CISA may get a big win out of this. What happens when when the politicians hear about this? They give more money to CISA.

I am not going to take a position because I still don't know what SolarWinds' software does, despite my ten minute effort to figure it out before giving up because it was hopeless. It was like you asked some guy what he does for a living and he replies he is a consultant. The only thing I have heard so far is that governmental and business networks have been penetrated, which sounds vaguely sexual, yet nobody has said what they, whoever they are, did after they penetrated said networks. I mean if they just looked around and said to themselves they had no idea that things were so screwed up and left, no harm, no foul. Maybe if CISA gave us some alarming examples of the stuff they could have gotten or done, it would raise my anxiety level. (I guess here would be a good time to admit that maybe someone has said all the alarming stuff they could have gotten and done after they penetrated said networks, but since I have only read a couple of articles I haven't gotten that far yet.) And why give CISA more money. Weren't they the guys who were supposed to be on top of this stuff so it didn't happen? I guess their defense is that they were underfunded, and it was Congress's fault for not giving them enough money to do their job right. But that is how it goes I guess; screw up and get more money. I wish I had learned that lesson earlier in life. I wouldn't have been nearly so conscientious.