Thursday, August 11, 2016

Dem's Hack Cartoons





Cyberattack that targeted Democrats reportedly bigger than it appears

Dumb ass?
A cyberattack that targeted members of the Democrats reportedly was more widespread than previously thought and affected the private email accounts of more than 100 officials and groups.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the increasing scope of the hack prompted federal authorities to widen its investigation and that several Democratic officials have been notified that Russians may have tried to breach their accounts.
According to the report, the hack attack appeared to have targeted the personal email accounts of campaign officials for Hillary Clinton and a handful of different party groups.
Sources told Fox News last month that a hack into the House Democrats’ campaign arm bears similarities to the breach of the Democratic National Committee files with early indications pointing to possible Russian involvement. The sources said the malware used in the breach of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is similar to that used in the DNC hack reported in June.
The New York Times reported that the Democratic Governors’ Association may have also been affected by the security breach. Democratic officials said they fear another batch of internal messages may be dumped soon.
The latest releases of emails from the Democratic National Committee cost Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz her job before the convention in Philadelphia. CEO Amy Dacey; chief finance officer Brad Marshall; and communications director Luis Miranda also stepped down last week.
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The FBI and other intelligence officials are taking the matter seriously and have briefed staff members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into the security breach of the DNC, according to The Times.
The paper reported that groups tied to the Democratic Party have been going through files and emails to see what may have been compromised and have also been beefing up cybersecurity defenses.
A DNC member said the threats have been taken “seriously,” but declined to further explain what measures have been taken to ensure that their security was up to par and wouldn’t be breached again.

Clinton accused of aiding Moscow ops with push for 'Russian Silicon Valley'

Was the Clinton Foundation involved with State Department?
A 2010 program headed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to help Moscow develop a “Russian Silicon Valley” may instead have drawn some of America’s biggest tech companies into “industrial espionage” – even advancing the country’s military and spying operations, according to a new report by Clinton critic Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute.
“There are serious national security questions that have been raised,” the report said.
The program was pitched as a partnership involving U.S. and Russian government entities and companies. Major U.S. corporations like Boeing, Google, General Electric, Cisco and Microsoft – also generous donors to the Clinton’s family foundation – were solicited by Clinton to invest more than a billion dollars in the Skolkovo tech park outside Moscow, formally called the Skolkovo Innovation Center. The goal, Clinton said in speeches and to Russian media, was to “break down barriers with Russia,” create “more free flow of people and information” between the two countries, and ultimately strengthen Russia.
“We want to help because we think that it’s in everyone’s interest do so,” Clinton said in a 2010 speech at a U.S.-Russia summit, as she discussed building a technology center “right outside Moscow.”
However, the project may have inadvertently launched some of these companies into risky terrain. The FBI issued an “extraordinary warning” in 2014 to companies doing business with the Skolkovo Foundation that “Skolkovo could draw them unwittingly into industrial espionage,” noting Skolkovo was a crucial part of Dmitry Medvedev’s plan to modernize Russia’s military.
The FBI also said Skolkovo “may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial applications.”
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Jeff Bechdel, communications director for the anti-Clinton America Rising PAC, said the Democratic presidential nominee effectively “put our national security at risk” with the project.
“Leveraging Clinton Foundation donors, Clinton assisted in speeding up the Russians’ weaponized technology sector, and in so doing, demonstrated she lacks the judgment necessary to determine friend from foe on the international stage,” he said in a statement.
The Clinton campaign is pushing back on the latest report from Schweizer’s group. Schweizer also authored the anti-Clinton book “Clinton Cash” and is a longtime adversary of the family.
“This report is just the latest false attack by Republican operative and friend of the Koch brothers, Peter Schweizer, who was widely discredited for making baseless accusations in his debunked Clinton Cash book, that even he admitted was not backed up by any evidence,” campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin said in a statement.
The campaign also rejected the group’s claim that the FBI and Army found the project substantially enhanced Russia’s military tech capabilities, citing a 2014 article in which the FBI acknowledged it did not have hard evidence of such activity.
The partnership itself stemmed from President Obama and the Clinton State Department’s efforts to “reset” relations with Russia early in the Obama administration. This included a plan to “identify areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the Russian and American people.”
The State Department paid for a delegation of 22 private tech entrepreneurs to go to Russia in May 2010, which led to an exclusive arrangement with Russia allowing entrance into what would become an industry tech park accommodating some 30,000 people.
“The State Department actively and aggressively encouraged American firms to participate in Skolkovo,” the Government Accountability Institute report said. “Indeed, many of the Memorandums of Understanding signed by U.S. companies to invest and cooperate in Skolkovo were signed under the auspices of Hillary Clinton’s State Department.”
Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo tech park development had major financial ties to the Clintons, the report said, noting 17 of 28 companies, both Russian and American, made financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton.
“During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars, including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies with deep Clinton ties,” the report said.
Margaret E. Kosal, an associate professor at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, said while the project might have seemed a good opportunity to work in an emerging market, there are challenges working in Russia including dealing with cronyism and government bureaucracy.
But from a national security perspective, Kosal said the biggest concern is the ability of the Russian military to obtain, misuse, or develop nanotechnology for an application that catches the U.S. by surprise.    
Relations with Russia have since become a focal point in the 2016 presidential election, with Clinton criticizing Republican opponent Donald Trump for both his campaign manager’s reported business ties to Russia and supposed lack of knowledge about international affairs. But Bechdel said history shows it is Clinton’s connections and relations that should be scrutinized.
"Clinton may talk a big game against Russia now, but when it mattered most and she had the opportunity to hold Russia accountable as Secretary of State, Clinton’s priority was aiding Russian efforts to accelerate their technology sector, not keeping America safe,” Bechdel said.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to a media inquiry from FoxNews.com.
A spokeswoman for Skolkovo told the Irish-based Independent news that all allegations of Kremlin spying were false, claiming it is "an international project and all our operations are fully transparent for our Russian and international partners".

Emails raise new questions on ties between Clinton Foundation, State Department


A new batch of emails released Tuesday is raising fresh questions about whether Clinton Foundation donors got preferential treatment from the State Department during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the top.
Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch released 44 new email exchanges which it says were not in the original 30,000 handed over to the State Department, despite the Democratic presidential nominee's claims she turned over all work-related emails amid the now-closed probe into her private server use.
The documents, produced as a result of the group's FOIA lawsuit, appear to challenge Clinton's insistence that there is "no connection" between her family foundation and her work at the department.
Though the campaign is downplaying the emails, Republican opponent Donald Trump, at a campaign stop in Virginia on Wednesday, suggested the emails reveal potentially illegal activity.
“It’s called pay for play,” Trump said.
In one email exchange released by Judicial Watch, Doug Band, an executive at the Clinton Foundation, tried to put billionaire donor Gilbert Chagoury -- a convicted money launderer -- in touch with the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon because of the donor’s interests there.
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In the email, Band notes that Chagoury is a “key guy there [Lebanon] and to us,” and insists Clinton aide Huma Abedin call Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman to connect him with Chagoury.
Chagoury is a close friend of former President Bill Clinton and has appeared on the Clinton Foundation donor list as a $1 million to $5 million contributor. He’s also pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative. Chagoury was convicted in 2000 in Switzerland for money laundering. He cut a deal and agreed to repay $66 million to the Nigerian government.
In another email from April 2009, Band seems to pressure Clinton’s former aides Cheryl Mills and Abedin into hiring a foundation associate.
In the email, Band writes it’s “important to take care of [name redacted].”
Abedin responds, telling Band, “Personnel has been sending him options.”
The latest batch of emails came more than a week after Clinton said, in a "Fox News Sunday" interview, that “there is absolutely no connection between anything that I did as secretary of state and the Clinton Foundation.”
The Republican National Committee seized on the appearance of favor-trading in the latest batch of documents.
“That the Clinton Foundation was calling in favors barely 3 months into Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department is deeply troubling and it is yet another reminder of the conflicts of interest and unethical wheeling and dealing she’d bring to the White House,” spokesman Michael Short said in a statement.
But a Clinton campaign spokesman said: “Neither of these emails involve the Secretary or relate to the Foundation’s work. They are communications between her aides and the President’s personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the Secretary’s former staffers who was not employed by the Foundation.”
The campaign initially was responding to an account in The Wall Street Journal.
The emails are separate from a larger batch of several thousand work-related emails that FBI officials recovered from Clinton's private server.
Clinton's legal team turned over more than 30,000 emails from her server to the State Department last March but only after deleting another 30,000 messages that Clinton's team deemed private and personal. The FBI plans to turn over the reconstructed Clinton emails to the State Department for public release.
The new Clinton emails also include a February 2009 message to her from Stephen Roach, then-chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, saying he planned to testify to Congress that week and was "happy to help in any way I can." Roach later met with Clinton over the summer for 30 minutes, according to Clinton calendars obtained by The Associated Press.
In another email, Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, informed her that National Security Agency and State Department officials discussed an attempt to develop a modified blackberry for Clinton that might be used when she worked in a restricted State Department office that did not allow private phones.
Clinton called the development "good news," but she continued using a private Blackberry tied to her private server.

Trump charges Obama with being 'founder of ISIS'



Donald Trump charged President Barack Obama on Wednesday with being the founder of the Islamic State during a campaign rally in Florida.
"In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama," Trump said during a campaign stop in Fort Lauderdale. "He is the founder of ISIS."
Last week, his campaign tried to draw financial links between the Clinton Foundation and the terror group. Wednesday, he called Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton the groups “co-founder.”
Trump has long accused Obama and Clinton for pursuing Middle East policies that created a power vacuum in Iraq that was exploited by Islamic State. He had criticized Obama for announcing he would yank U.S. troops out of Iraq, which Obama critics believe created the instability in which extremist groups thrive.
The White House had yet to comment on Trump’s remarks.
The Islamic State group began as Iraq's local affiliate of Al Qaeda, the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The group carried out massive attacks against Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, fueling tensions with Al Qaeda’s central leadership. The local group's then-leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in 2006 in a U.S. airstrike but is still seen as the Islamic State group's founder.
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The Trump campaign alleged in a statement last week that the Clinton Foundation ties to a corporation “funding” ISIS.
The campaign detailed financial contributions the Clinton Foundation received from a cement-making company called Lafarge. The same statement cited reporting in French media outlets that the company had entered deals with the Islamic State and other armed groups in Syria to protect its interests there.
“More than any major presidential nominee in modern history, Hillary Clinton is tied to brutal theocratic and Islamist regimes. Now we learn she has accepted money from a company linked to ISIS,” Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said in a statement.
Trump brought up the accusation during his rally in Florida to a raucous crowd.
He railed against the fact that the Orlando shooter's father, Seddique Mateen, was spotted in the crowd behind Clinton during a Monday rally in Florida, adding, "Of course he likes Hillary Clinton."

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