12/19/20: President Trump is the first man to ever try proving he
deserves a second term in office by doing next to nothing, except sulk,
in the last three months of his first. As the extent of the Russian hack of a wide array of government and business entities
becomes clear, the president spends a full week ignoring the issue. The range
of damage may not be known for weeks. We do know the city of Austin, Texas
joins the ranks of those whose computer systems were compromised, as were networks
of three states. So, too, giant Microsoft, Corp.
 |
Trump never thinks the Russians are all that bad. |
____________________
“Everything is well under control.”
President Trump
____________________
According to Bloomberg News, the path opened up when sophisticated hackers installed a “backdoor” on software used by the company SolarWinds, which has tens of thousands of customers. At the highest level, U.S. Department of State computers, systems at the Pentagon, and private systems including nuclear laboratories were hacked. Breaches also occurred at the U.S. Treasury, Department of Commerce, and Department of Homeland Security.
In other words, this was a massive hack.
In an interview Friday, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo had little doubt who was behind the attack. “I think it’s
the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that
engaged in this activity. This was a very significant effort,” and the administration
was, “still unpacking precisely what it is.” The bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Senate Armed Services
committee agreed.
The Russians
were to blame.
Finally, Lame Duck Donald stirred briefly from his post-election funk. It wasn’t Russia, he said. In fact, since the hack occurred while his fat ass was still planted in the White House, he had to insist that, whichever hostile foreign power was responsible, it wasn’t really that big a deal.
Since the Lame Duck has been bunkered up for weeks after getting thumped by voters, he issued his response in the form of two tweets, which allowed him to avoid interacting with live reporters:
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. Russia, Russia, Russia is
the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly
financial reasons, petrified of....
....discussing
the possibility that it may be China (it may!). There could also have been a
hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious
that I won big, making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA.
POSTSCRIPT: In a stunning development, the CDC reports
that on December 18, the United States recorded 403,359 new cases of
coronavirus, almost double the number for the previous worst day.
This blogger has not seen any explanation; and the number
for December 19, was more in the “normal,” dreadful range: 201,490 more cases.
(Likely, some statistical adjustment explains the
staggering total for yesterday.)
The death toll rises apace. Another 2,756 Americans succumb on
December 18. Today another 2,624 were lost.
The toll from December 1-December 19:
46,174.
With an average of 2,430 Americans
dying every day, we are now suffering the equivalent of a Pearl Harbor attack every
24 hours.
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