The Case for Pessimism in the Age of Trump

The following article by Steve Chapman was posted on the Creators website December 28, 2017:

Credit: http://www.vectortemplates.com/

If there is any single trait that defines Americans, it is optimism. We read our history as a journey upward, from the arrival of the first European settlers to the present. We operate with a collective sense that progress may sometimes be slow and arduous — but will be achieved.

That intuition endows us with confidence in our destiny. But what if it’s wrong? What if all along, we have not been ascending a peak but been striding toward the abyss? What if our national story is one that ultimately ends in tragic, irreversible failure? Continue reading “The Case for Pessimism in the Age of Trump”

Russian Hacker Claims There’s Proof He Hacked The DNC

The following article by Zachary Fryer-Biggs of Newsweek was posted on the National Memo website December 29, 2017:

A Russian hacker who defied Vladimir Putin by claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee on orders from a high-level Russian security official now says he planted personal details in DNC servers that can prove he was behind the break-in—a detail that, if true, strengthens his claim about the Russians’ meddling in the 2016 election.

Konstantin Kozlovsky, a cyber attacker who had previously claimed he was ordered by a Russian security official to crack the DNC server, told RAIN television that he hid his passport number and visa number for a visit to St. Martin in a data file on the DNC systems so that he could prove his story later,  according to McClatchy. Continue reading “Russian Hacker Claims There’s Proof He Hacked The DNC”

Where’s the California love? Trump is first president in decades to skip a visit in initial year

The following article by Brian Bennett was posted on the Los Angeles Times website December 28, 2017:

President Trump visits Mississippi this month. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

President Trump’s love for all things gold apparently doesn’t extend to the Golden State.

Trump is about to become the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower 64 years ago to skip a visit to California during his first calendar year in office. And he doesn’t appear to have any plans to take Air Force One to the country’s most populous and economically powerful state before he marks his first full year in office Jan. 20.

Even past presidents who, like Trump, didn’t win the state’s electoral votes made it a destination, if only for California’s allure as the Golden State of campaign cash. Continue reading “Where’s the California love? Trump is first president in decades to skip a visit in initial year”

Sen. John Hoffman Update: December 30, 2017

Dear Friends,
I hope you and your families have had a happy and safe holiday celebration. I am thankful we bring in a New Year and new legislative session.  The 2017 Legislative Session kicked off with the announcement that Minnesota had a $1.65 billion surplus. The structural balance of the state budget was something that remained at the top of my mind this session and throughout the days-long special session. Locally, our communities received Local Government Aid for the first time in years, the 610 Corridor is completed, and new businesses have moved to our area bringing well-paying jobs and improving our tax base.

The big problem with Trump’s strategy to attack Michael Flynn’s credibility: His own mouth

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website December 28, 2017:

President Trump has a history of defending his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. (The Washington Post)

The White House has fired a warning shot in Michael Flynn’s direction, with The Washington Post’s Carol D. Leonnig reporting that it plans to label him a liar who can’t be trusted if he makes claims against it.

The strategy isn’t that shocking — Trump seemed to preview it with that fateful tweet, and his lawyers have hinted in this direction too — though it makes it crystal-clear that Trump’s loyalty to his former national security adviser is far from absolute. Continue reading “The big problem with Trump’s strategy to attack Michael Flynn’s credibility: His own mouth”

Trump, the Insurgent Breaks with 70 Years of American Foreign Policy

The following article by Mark Lander was posted on the New York Times website December 28, 2017:

President Trump has transformed the world’s view of the United States from an anchor of the international order into something more inward-looking and unpredictable.

A closer look at how President Trump’s unpredictable approach to foreign policy plays out on the global stage. By CHRIS CIRILLO and ROBIN LINDSAY on Publish Date December 28, 2017. Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — President Trump was already revved up when he emerged from his limousine to visit NATO’s new headquarters in Brussels last May. He had just met France’s recently elected president, Emmanuel Macron, whom he greeted with a white-knuckle handshake and a complaint that Europeans do not pay their fair share of the alliance’s costs. Continue reading “Trump, the Insurgent Breaks with 70 Years of American Foreign Policy”

Despite Trump Administration Fearmongering, 2017 Is Among Safest Years Ever For Police

The following article by Nick Wing was posted on the Huffington Post website December 28, 2017:

A closer look at the data calls into question the effort to politicize attacks on law enforcement.

Credit: kconnors via Moguefile

After a presidential campaign in which Donald Trump and his surrogates regularly claimed law enforcement was under assault from an increasingly lawless public, the first year of Trump’s presidency is shaping up to be among the safest ever for police.

A total of 45 officers have been feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2017, according to unofficial FBI data updated earlier this month. That number tracks closely to other counts from independent sites and marks a significant downturn from 2016, when a total of 66 officers were feloniously killed. Barring a catastrophe in the final days of the year, the annual total will be well below the average seen over the last 20 years.

Continue reading “Despite Trump Administration Fearmongering, 2017 Is Among Safest Years Ever For Police”

Trump plots to undermine Flynn by employing his favorite old trick: Turning on his allies

The following article by Eric Lutz was posted on the mic.com website December 28, 2017:

So far, President Donald Trump has defended or sympathized with Michael Flynn — his short-lived national security adviser, who was brought down earlier in December by Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

But now, worried over the songs he might be singing to the special counsel, Trump and his legal team are preparing to launch an attack on Flynn’s credibility, the Washington Post reported Wednesday — a shift on one of the president’s strongest allies, who was once considered a strong contender to be his running mate. Continue reading “Trump plots to undermine Flynn by employing his favorite old trick: Turning on his allies”

Sen. Steve Cwodzinski (SD48) Update: December 21, 2018

Ending Violence in Our Communities

Community members in Eden Prairie got together earlier this month to discuss the intersections of both racial violence and gun violence. Many of the speakers were young people with powerful stories to share, and seeing their courage did my heart good. Also in attendance with me were Eden Prairie Mayor-elect Ron Case, Representative-elect Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, and Representative Laurie Pryor.



Minnesota Ballet School’s Nutcracker Performance

Last weekend I was given the opportunity to present the opening introduction for the Minnesota Ballet School’s Nutcracker performance. I could not be more proud of everyone involved, including a constituent of mine, Cher Mitchell, who helped organize the event.

My wife Patti and I had a wonderful time talking with the students after the show and congratulating them. Continue reading “Sen. Steve Cwodzinski (SD48) Update: December 21, 2018”

The latest 2018 election-hacking threat: 9-month wait for government help

The following article by Tim Starks was posted on the Politico website December 29, 2017:

Some states might not get an intensive DHS review until weeks before the midterm elections.

The nine-month wait is “not a good metric” for states hoping to boost their security, admitted Christopher Krebs, one of the DHS officials leading election security efforts. ”We are working to prioritize.” | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

States rushing to guard their 2018 elections against hackers may be on a waiting list for up to nine months for the Department of Homeland Security’s most exhaustive security screening, according to government officials familiar with the situation.

That means some states might not get the service until weeks before the November midterms and may remain unaware of flaws that could allow homegrown cyber vandals or foreign intelligence agencies to target voter registration databases and election offices’ computer networks, the officials said. Russian hackers targeted election systems in at least 21 states in 2016, according to DHS.

The scanning, known as a “risk and vulnerability assessment,” is the crème de la crème of security exams: DHS personnel come in person to do an intensive, multiweek probing of the entire system required to run an election. But department officials acknowledge that it’s of limited use if it doesn’t come soon enough for states to correct their flaws before voters go to the polls.

The nine-month wait is “not a good metric” for states hoping to boost their security, admitted Christopher Krebs, one of the DHS officials leading election security efforts. ”We are working to prioritize.”

Few fault the DHS itself for the holdup, but the delay is yet another dramatic example of how the government is struggling to safeguard the upcoming election season as the clock ticks toward Election Day.

Security experts, voting integrity groups and many lawmakers have expressed dismay at the lack of action on Capitol Hill and across the Trump administration to help states protect their election infrastructure. It’s especially critical after Russian hackers raised awareness during the 2016 elections of the creaky computer networks that house voter rolls, the country’s aging voting machines and the often overburdened election officials tasked with protecting the vote.

Congress has yet to pass any bill that specifically addresses election security, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions caused consternation when he admitted in a hearing that “we’re not” doing enough to block hackers from meddling in the 2018 elections. “The matter is so complex that — for most of us — we’re not able to fully grasp the technical dangers that are out there,” he said.

DHS has stepped into this void. In the final weeks of the Obama administration, the agency classified the country’s election systems as “critical infrastructure,” putting them on par with hospitals and power plants, which receive priority status for the department’s cybersecurity assistance.

Since then, DHS officials have been navigating choppy waters — persuading states to work with them despite their suspicions about federal overreach, waiting for President Donald Trump to appoint new cybersecurity leaders and shifting money and personnel.

The agency offers states a menu of election security services, ranging from sharing basic information on the latest hacker activity to weekly remote scans of election networks to the soup-to-nuts “risk and vulnerability assessment.”

Marian Schneider got one of the full-scale, in-person assessments last year as deputy secretary for elections and administration at Pennsylvania’s Department of State. It was the only state to do so before the 2016 elections.

“It is actually pretty extensive,” said Schneider, now head of Verified Voting, an election-integrity advocacy group. The state had to fill out a questionnaire. It had to sign a legal agreement that required lawyers some time to process. DHS sent four experts to do the probing.

DHS says the probes take two to three weeks.

“It’s resource-intensive,” Schneider said. “The reason there’s a waitlist is because a lot of states want it done because they do it at no cost. To have that backlog is a problem, but it’s a good thing states are wanting the service.”

“The fact they might have to wait until third quarter of 2018 — it’s not great, but they should get on the waitlist,” she added.

Among the states POLITICO contacted, officials in Vermont, Connecticut, Colorado and New York said DHS told them to expect that any multi-week, in-person assessment would take time to get started — some officials said the estimates ranged from six to eight weeks to nine months. That means even with the low-end estimate, states would not be finished with the assessment until shortly before primary season begins in March.

A DHS official told POLITICO that state by state, “the time frame varies, but we can shift around to address priorities.” The official didn’t have figures on how many states have requested or received the assessments.

Some of the wait depends on the states themselves, said Krebs, who is functioning as head of the DHS main cyber wing, the National Protection and Programs Directorate.

“What we’ve seen more than anything is that when we have availabilities, the nimbleness of a state to say, ‘Yes, we can take that, we’re ready,’” he said. “We had a state a couple weeks ago that was able to do a snap [risk and vulnerability assessment] because we had a cancellation. We turn around to the top of our list, say to this state, ‘Are you ready to go?’ And they said, ‘Yup, we can do it.’”

Krebs said DHS is also moving personnel to accommodate demand.

“What we’re looking at doing is consolidating some of our teams and bringing people into the orbit” of the teams that conduct the assessments, he said. “With more people, I can do more. We are bringing resources in and reprioritizing across internally from a personnel perspective to ensure we’ve got more capabilities.”

Gregory Touhill, a former top DHS official and the federal government’s chief information security officer until January 2017, applauded Krebs’ efforts, but added that “I wouldn’t be satisfied because we’ve got an election that’s in less than a year.”

Touhill, now president of digital security firm Cyxtera’s federal group, suggested DHS could also explore amplifying its election security teams with military cyber personnel or contractors.

Similarly, Congress could approve funding for extra personnel, said Schneider, the former Pennsylvania election official. But the agency might have already hurt its chances of making such an appeal to Capitol Hill. At a March hearing, then-DHS Secretary John Kelly said he didn’t need any additional money to carry out the agency’s duties under the “critical infrastructure” decision, which include the risk and vulnerability assessments.

The stance puzzled some lawmakers.

“Given the secretary’s position, I am concerned about reports of nine-month wait times for states and localities to receive some of the more in-depth cyber services DHS provides,” Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s top Democrat, wrote in an October letter.

In the meantime, DHS has delivered on an array of election security services that are more easily implemented. For example, 31 states receive regular DHS “cyber hygiene” scans that probe election systems remotely and report vulnerabilities to those states.

A DHS official told POLITICO those scans take just a week or two to schedule.

Touhill stumped for the service: “The ongoing cyber hygiene scans with affected parties are really producing really good results and heightening awareness.”

States can also tap other valuable DHS digital defense tools.

The agency offers a cyber resilience review that focuses on helping election officials conduct their own self-assessments. It takes approximately two weeks to schedule and one day to finish, the DHS official said.

And upon request, the agency will also conduct a cyber infrastructure survey — an expert-led assessment accomplished through an informal interview. The survey takes approximately two weeks to schedule, according to the official.

So while the risk and vulnerability assessment is impressive and helpful, Schneider said, “It’s just one tool in the toolbox.”

Cory Bennett and Eric Geller contributed to this report.

View the post here.

Continue reading “The latest 2018 election-hacking threat: 9-month wait for government help”