***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[elpablo21]

 

[Based Jesus]

Voter registrations among young Americans shot up in the wake of pop megastar Taylor Swift's Instagram post urging her 112 million followers to get out the vote.

Swift's Sunday night missive, in which she also endorsed two Tennessee Democrats, catapulted the generally apolitical singer into the fray ahead of the November midterms. New data from Vote.org show Swift's voice is already making an impact.

The nonprofit group said nearly 65,000 Americans ages 18 to 29 registered to vote in the roughly 24 hours after the singer-songwriter's social media rallying cry.
By noon on Tuesday, that number grew to more than 102,000 — about 70 percent of which came from voters below the age of 25.

Source: Vote.org
That surge in young registrations far exceeded the combined total of every other age group in the roughly 48-hour time period, in which about 64,000 Americans ages 30 and up registered. Vote.org attributed the spike in numbers directly to Swift's Instagram message.

 

[Wargames]

 

[Wargames]

 

[Nike Jordan]

Baeylor Swift got 'em shook.

 

[blastercombo]

Time to eat that no booty like leftover cereal milk

 

[RustyShackleford]

Time to eat that no booty like leftover cereal milk

If TayTay swings my way....

 

[art vandelay]

Hopefully Kanye doesn’t have the same effect on voting.

 

[blastercombo]

If TayTay swings my way....

Like trying to pick up a penny off an ironing board with your teeth.

 

[dwalk31]

I think what’s happening Is a bunch of different issues surrounding the confirmation are being conflated. Although there may have not been enough substantiating evidence of the actual assault, so much of Kav’s statement during the hearing was him talking about the kind of person he is/was. Almost as to say “look Everone, I don’t do this, this, and that so I can’t be the kind of person that would sexually assault someone.” The problem is there were people coming out of the wood work from different parts of his life that directly refuted the way he presented his character and the kind of person he claimed to be. From my understanding, those people were not heard in any kind official manner. This why other than his positions, people don’t like him. His whole defense was “I never got drunk, so I couldn’t drunkenly assault someone”. But tons of people that knew him are essentially saying “bruh, not only did you get drunk, you were belligerent with it”.

It wasn't his burden to prove. Being drunk in college and high school is not disqualifying to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. He admitted, in his testimony, that he drank. And that he drank too many at times.

As it relates to his judicial record, he showed that he was mentally capable of doing the job. That is really the important factor. Drinking in college is largely irrelevant. And, like you alluded, there simply was not enough substantiating evidence of sexual assault.

 

[Belgium]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ware-found-in-u-s-telecom?srnd=premium-europe (article in full is further down below)
New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom
The discovery shows that China continues to sabotage critical technology components bound for America.


And guess who overruled his own administration to remove a ban on a Chinese Telecom company (ZTE) that has admitted to violating US sanctions and has been described by his own appointees as a "national security threat"?

In April 2018, the Trump administration blocked ZTE from importing American materials for 7 years after founding the company had repeatedly violated US sanctions against Iran and North Korea.
Commerce Secretary Wilbus Ross stated that "ZTE did some inappropriate things. They've admitted to that."
The Commerce Dept.'s ZTE ban effectively prevented ZTE from continuing to do business in the US markets.

President Trump however suddenly reversed that stance by his own administration and talked about saving the company and Chinese jobs.

FBI director Wray had previously testified to Congress that ZTE presented a national security threat and that he recommended private citizens not to use them. The Defense Dept. banned the use of Huawei and ZTE phones on May 2, shortly before Trump reversed his administration's stance on ZTE.

Days before Trump's ZTE reversal, China had awarded a number of trademarks to Ivanka Trump. The president has not divested from his company, can access and withdraw from his trust at any time without requiring disclosure and remains involved in the company's operations according to a recent WSJ report. At least when it came to Stormy Daniels. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-...rce-stormy-danielss-hush-agreement-1538478000)

The Ivanka trademarks that were awarded by the Chinese government just days before Trump's ZTE reversal weren't all of China's gifts however. The original trademark applications were made in 2017 but weren't granted until a few days before the ZTE reversal.
2 days prior to Trump's ZTE reversal, the Chinese government invested $500 million in an Indonesian theme park project where the Trump Org is building a hotel and golf course.
To be clear, the $500m was not invested directly into Trump's project. However the Trump Org does stand to benefit from such a large investment in the theme park project where the company is building a hotel and golf course.

The sudden reversal, despite the company admitting to their wrongdoing and his own Commerce Dept. imposing the ban, resulted in bipartisan backlash in Congress. At least briefly. A bipartisan group of Senators including Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) pushed for an amendment to a major defense bill that would effectively keep ZTE out of the US market by reinstating a ban that would have barred ZTE from doing business with both the US government and the private sector.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/senate-zte-trump.html

The WH under Trump's direction then began pressuring Senators to remove the amendment.
House Republicans proceeded to gut the Senate amendment and changed it from a ban on doing business with the US government and private sector to just a ban on doing business with the US government.
Senate Republicans eventually gave in and went with the House GOP version of the amendment.
Here's how Marco Rubio explained the language change:


The WH however stood firm against both versions of the ZTE amendment. In July the WH ordered the Commerce Dept. to lift its own ZTE ban that they had originally imposed in April.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ware-found-in-u-s-telecom?srnd=premium-europe
New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom
The discovery shows that China continues to sabotage critical technology components bound for America.

A major U.S. telecommunications company discovered manipulated hardware from Super Micro Computer Inc. in its network and removed it in August, fresh evidence of tampering in China of critical technology components bound for the U.S., according to a security expert working for the telecom company.

The security expert, Yossi Appleboum, provided documents, analysis and other evidence of the discovery following the publication of an investigative report in Bloomberg Businessweek that detailed how China’s intelligence services had ordered subcontractors to plant malicious chips in Supermicro server motherboards over a two-year period ending in 2015.

Appleboum previously worked in the technology unit of the Israeli Army Intelligence Corps and is now co-chief executive officer of Sepio Systems in Gaithersburg, Maryland. His firm specializes in hardware security and was hired to scan several large data centers belonging to the telecommunications company. Bloomberg is not identifying the company due to Appleboum’s nondisclosure agreement with the client. Unusual communications from a Supermicro server and a subsequent physical inspection revealed an implant built into the server’s Ethernet connector, a component that's used to attach network cables to the computer, Appleboum said.

The executive said he has seen similar manipulations of different vendors' computer hardware made by contractors in China, not just products from Supermicro. “Supermicro is a victim -- so is everyone else,” he said. Appleboum said his concern is that there are countless points in the supply chain in China where manipulations can be introduced, and deducing them can in many cases be impossible. “That's the problem with the Chinese supply chain,” he said.


Supermicro, based in San Jose, California, gave this statement: “The security of our customers and the integrity of our products are core to our business and our company values. We take care to secure the integrity of our products throughout the manufacturing process, and supply chain security is an important topic of discussion for our industry. We still have no knowledge of any unauthorized components and have not been informed by any customer that such components have been found. We are dismayed that Bloomberg would give us only limited information, no documentation, and half a day to respond to these new allegations.”

Bloomberg News first contacted Supermicro for comment on this story on Monday at 9:23 a.m. Eastern time and gave the company 24 hours to respond.

Supermicro said after the earlier story that it “strongly refutes” reports that servers it sold to customers contained malicious microchips. China's embassy in Washington did not return a request for comment Monday. In response to the earlier Bloomberg Businessweek investigation, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t directly address questions about the manipulation of Supermicro servers but said supply chain security is “an issue of common concern, and China is also a victim.”

Supermicro shares plunged 41 percent last Thursday, the most since it became a public company in 2007, following the Bloomberg Businessweekrevelations about the hacked servers. They fell as much as 27 percent on Tuesday after the latest story.

The more recent manipulation is different from the one described in the Bloomberg Businessweek report last week, but it shares key characteristics: They’re both designed to give attackers invisible access to data on a computer network in which the server is installed; and the alterations were found to have been made at the factory as the motherboard was being produced by a Supermicro subcontractor in China.

Based on his inspection of the device, Appleboum determined that the telecom company's server was modified at the factory where it was manufactured. He said that he was told by Western intelligence contacts that the device was made at a Supermicro subcontractor factory in Guangzhou, a port city in southeastern China. Guangzhou is 90 miles upstream from Shenzhen, dubbed the `Silicon Valley of Hardware,’ and home to giants such as Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

The tampered hardware was found in a facility that had large numbers of Supermicro servers, and the telecommunication company's technicians couldn’t answer what kind of data was pulsing through the infected one, said Appleboum, who accompanied them for a visual inspection of the machine. It's not clear if the telecommunications company contacted the FBI about the discovery. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment on whether it was aware of the finding.

AT&T Inc. spokesman Fletcher Cook said, “These devices are not part of our network, and we are not affected.” A Verizon Communications Inc. spokesman said “we’re not affected.” T-Mobile U.S. Inc. and Sprint Corp. didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Sepio Systems’ board includes Chairman Tamir Pardo, former director of the Israeli Mossad, the national defense agency of Israel, and its advisory board includes Robert Bigman, former chief information security officer of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

U.S. communications networks are an important target of foreign intelligence agencies, because data from millions of mobile phones, computers, and other devices pass through their systems. Hardware implants are key tools used to create covert openings into those networks, perform reconnaissance and hunt for corporate intellectual property or government secrets.

The manipulation of the Ethernet connector appeared to be similar to a method also used by the U.S. National Security Agency, details of which were leaked in 2013. In e-mails, Appleboum and his team refer to the implant as their “old friend,” because he said they had previously seen several variations in investigations of hardware made by other companies manufacturing in China.

In Bloomberg Businessweek’s report, one official said investigators found that the Chinese infiltration through Supermicro reached almost 30 companies, including Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. Both Amazon and Apple also disputed the findings. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it has “no reason to doubt” the companies’ denials of Bloomberg Businessweek’s reporting.

People familiar with the federal investigation into the 2014-2015 attacks say that it is being led by the FBI's cyber and counterintelligence teams, and that DHS may not have been involved. Counterintelligence investigations are among the FBI's most closely held and few officials and agencies outside of those units are briefed on the existence of those investigations.

Appleboum said that he's consulted with intelligence agencies outside the U.S. that have told him they've been tracking the manipulation of Supermicro hardware, and the hardware of other companies, for some time.

In response to the Bloomberg Businessweek story, the Norwegian National Security Authority said last week that it had been "aware of an issue" connected to Supermicro products since June. It couldn’t confirm the details of Bloomberg's reporting, a statement from the authority said, but it has recently been in dialogue with partners over the issue.

Hardware manipulation is extremely difficult to detect, which is why intelligence agencies invest billions of dollars in such sabotage. The U.S. is known to have extensive programs to seed technology heading to foreign countries with spy implants, based on revelations from former CIA employee Edward Snowden. But China appears to be aggressively deploying its own versions, which take advantage of the grip the country has over global technology manufacturing.

Three security experts who have analyzed foreign hardware implants for the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that the way Sepio's software detected the implant is sound. One of the few ways to identify suspicious hardware is by looking at the lowest levels of network traffic. Those include not only normal network transmissions, but also analog signals -- such as power consumption -- that can indicate the presence of a covert piece of hardware.

In the case of the telecommunications company, Sepio's technology detected that the tampered Supermicro server actually appeared on the network as two devices in one. The legitimate server was communicating one way, and the implant another, but all the traffic appeared to be coming from the same trusted server, which allowed it to pass through security filters.

Appleboum said one key sign of the implant is that the manipulated Ethernet connector has metal sides instead of the usual plastic ones. The metal is necessary to diffuse heat from the chip hidden inside, which acts like a mini computer. "The module looks really innocent, high quality and 'original' but it was added as part of a supply chain attack," he said.

The goal of hardware implants is to establish a covert staging area within sensitive networks, and that's what Appleboum and his team concluded in this case. They decided it represented a serious security breach, along with multiple rogue electronics also detected on the network, and alerted the client's security team in August, which then removed them for analysis. Once the implant was identified and the server removed, Sepio's team was not able to perform further analysis on the chip.

The threat from hardware implants “is very real,” said Sean Kanuck, who until 2016 was the top cyber official inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He's now director of future conflict and cyber security for the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington. Hardware implants can give attackers power that software attacks don’t.

“Manufacturers that overlook this concern are ignoring a potentially serious problem,” Kanuck said. “Capable cyber actors -- like the Chinese intelligence and security services -- can access the IT supply chain at multiple points to create advanced and persistent subversions.”

One of the keys to any successful hardware attack is altering components that have an ample power supply to them, a daunting challenge the deeper into a motherboard you go. That's why peripherals such as keyboards and mice are also perennial favorites for intelligence agencies to target, Appleboum said.

In the wake of Bloomberg's reporting on the attack against Supermicro products, security experts say that teams around the world, from large banks and cloud computing providers to small research labs and startups, are analyzing their servers and other hardware for modifications, a stark change from normal practices. Their findings won't necessarily be made public, since hardware manipulation is typically designed to access government and corporate secrets, rather than consumer data.

National security experts say a key problem is that, in a cybersecurity industry approaching $100 billion in revenue annually, very little of that has been spent on inspecting hardware for tampering. That's allowed intelligence agencies around the world to work relatively unimpeded, with China holding a key advantage.

“For China, these efforts are all-encompassing,” said Tony Lawrence, CEO of VOR Technology, a Columbia, Maryland-based contractor to the intelligence community. “There is no way for us to identify the gravity or the size of these exploits -- we don't know until we find some. It could be all over the place -- it could be anything coming out of China. The unknown is what gets you and that's where we are now. We don't know the level of exploits within our own systems.”

 

[dwalk31]

Republicans don't even have a platform anymore. All they're about is suppressing the rights of minorities, more guns, and telling women they can't have abortions. All that fiscal conservative crap went out the window when they decided to run the deficit up to give corporations tax breaks. All of them MFs are clowns and IDC how moderate they appear to be, they need to go because they're complicit with the bull**** that's going on right now.

Considering the confirmation of two conservative justices, tax reform, trade deals, and deregulation, I would submit that you are wrong.

Many actually argue that the issue with the Democrats, currently, is their only platform is "Eff Trump and conservatives." This thread is a good example of that. There is far more anti-x than pro-y.

 

[noskey]

Like trying to pick up a penny of an ironing board with your teeth.

Best copper tasting ironing board ever

 

[RustyShackleford]

Like trying to pick up a penny of an ironing board with your teeth.

Watch me work...

 

[Based Jesus]

If TayTay swings my way....

You already got a scrawny white girl, leave some of them for the rest of us Rusty

 

[frenchbreadbuilds]

It wasn't his burden to prove. Being drunk in college and high school is not disqualifying to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. He admitted, in his testimony, that he drank. And that he drank too many at times.

As it relates to his judicial record, he showed that he was mentally capable of doing the job. That is really the important factor. Drinking in college is largely irrelevant. And, like you alluded, there simply was not enough substantiating evidence of sexual assault.

His drinking itself wasn’t the issue. It’s the fact that he tried to construct a portrait of himself based on behaviors and character traits that would lead people to believe he’s unlikely to comit something as heinous as sexual assault. But that portrait he painted has been contradicted and refuted by people that knew him in his formative years. Which is what casts doubt in a lot of people’s minds about the whole situation.

 

[IATT]

These seem relevant

 

[dwalk31]

His drinking itself wasn’t the issue. It’s the fact that he tried to construct a portrait of himself based on behaviors and character traits that would lead people to believe he’s unlikely to comit something as heinous as sexual assault. But that portrait he painted has been contradicted and refuted by people that knew him in his formative years. Which is what casts doubt in a lot of people’s minds about the whole situation.

I don't think he painted that picture, but we can agree to disagree. In his testimony he said he drank and at times drank too many. That hardly sounds like a denial of excessive drinking to me.

 

[boris]

I don't think he painted that picture, but we can agree to disagree. In his testimony he said he drank and at times drank too many. That hardly sounds like a denial of excessive drinking to me.

Reminder: you weren't able to tell me what he meant by "too many".

 

[IATT]

 

[dwalk31]

Also the lawyer they chose, was just a shield for them because they had the iota of self realization to know they shouldn't be the face questioning her. Basic political Kabuki to give the glimmer of protection as they rammed an attempted rapist onto the Supreme Court.

This is true. Since I understand politics, this is pretty obvious.

I don't agree that it was a failed delay tactic as I take these allegations very seriously.

This shows a misunderstanding of the political process. As you can see, I can concede when politics are at play. That is why a lot of these conversations drift into the absurd. If you can't admit that the week-long investigation was a clear delay tactic then it is difficult to have anything resembling a good-faith discussion.

 

[dwalk31]

Reminder: you weren't able to tell me what he meant by "too many".

He stated the BAC chart, which I posted. For most, that would mean beyond the legal driving limit (.08 ).

No matter the exact number (which is an odd thing to request) he stated he had more than he should have--by his own metric.

 

[Nike Jordan]

Remember when Erick Erickson was #NeverTrump?

 

[boris]

He stated the BAC chart, which I posted. For most, that would mean beyond the legal driving limit (.08 ).

No matter the exact number (which is an odd thing to request) he stated he had more than he should have--by his own metric.

I'll ignore the fact that the first part of your post is a bunch of ********, since I outlined that previously.

"Too many" meaning two beers would be very different than "too many" being eight.

 

[boris]

This is true. Since I understand politics, this is pretty obvious.



This shows a misunderstanding of the political process. As you can see, I can concede when politics are at play. That is why a lot of these conversations drift into the absurd. If you can't admit that the week-long investigation was a clear delay tactic then it is difficult to have anything resembling a good-faith discussion.

I can appreciate the irony in you complaining about difficulty in having a good-faith discussion.